Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/176

 144 Bull-baiting, B7ill-7'aciug, Bull- fights.

contend that the violent capture or treatment of such an animal disproves its sanctity. Sir James Frazer has shown that the Corn Spirit is often conceived to take animal form, and such animals, like the boar, which is sacred to the Rajputs, are killed at an annual ceremonial hunt.^^ The buffalo is the sacred animal of the Todas, and yet Dr. Rivers remarks that the sport which is practised by the tribe with the greatest zest is the catching of buffaloes, which are intended to be sacrificed at the funeral rites. In the olden days he supposes that this observance must have been largely of a sportive character. " Even now it is evident that the catching of the buffaloes is much enjoyed by all in spite of the sad event which has led to its taking place. The Todas have, however, pure games, though it is doubtful whether some of them have not acquired to a certain degree a ceremonial character." ^^

Conscious of the difficulty of treating the Minoan treatment of the bull as merely a form of sport, Dr. F. Marx, with reference to the Catana coin already described, contends that the bull must be a river god, and the man who chases it is probably one of the Sileni, who, as personifications of streams and springs, often appear in the train of river deities. Dr. Schuchhardt, however, thinks that recent discoveries have led us back to the original belief that the man is merely an acrobat.^* I am not aware of any good evidence which suggests that the Minoan sport or religious- magical performance was connected with the worship of river deities.

Dr. Reichel,^^ again, supporting the view that the scene represents an acrobatic performance, assumes that the primitive custom of bull-baiting passed through three stages of evolution : first, the earliest form, the capture of a bull by one or more unarmed men, who cling tenaciously

^- The Golden Bough, part v. vol. i. 270 ct seqq.

'^ The Todas, 596. ^■' Of. cit. 120 et seq.

1^ Quoted by .\. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 497 et seq.