The Origins of Religion, and Other Essays (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Origins of Religion, and Other EssaysWith regard to the essay on Apollo and the Mouse, it is to be remembered that animals acquire sacredness in religion in many ways besides what they may inherit from totemism. The works of Mr. J. G. Frazer show that, among agricultural peoples, the Corn Spirit is recognised in a vast number of animal forms, which are prominent in agricultural magic and religion. Thus a sacred animal associated with a god, say the Pig with Demeter, is not necessarily a survival. Of a totem. That the indo-european peoples were once totemic cannot be certainly proved, though many facts point in that direction. When we first meet them in history they have reached a point in civilisation at which we could not expect to discover more than faint and dubious totemic traces.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.