Herms, Libations, and Branches
(Walter Burkert)
[Editorial Remark: In the
following passage, the Swiss classicist Walter Berkert
adopted an ‘ethological’ approach to understanding
certain rituals of ancient Greek religion and the cultic objects
associated with those rituals. He surmised that the essence of
the liturgical processes whose objects stand out in the
archeological and mythic relicts of ancient Greece may be not only
prehistoric in origin, but conceivably even pre-human. He took
for examples the rituals connected with certain carved stones,
liquids, and parts of living things, namely the severed branches
of trees...]
Let us start with a...memorable case from
the midst of [ancient] Greek religion: the herm. More than
two thousand years have done their best to mutilate extant
herms and to obliterate what would still today be scandalous
in public; but anybody familiar with
vase-paintings
knows
what a classical herm looks like: a rather dignified, usually
bearded head on a four-cornered pillar and, in due place,
an unmistakable, realistically molded, erect phallus.
What is more, the Greeks did not even speak of ‘a herm’ as an
object, but of Hermes, the god. Greek mythology is rather
reticent about this exhibitionist state of an Olympian
god—except for an allusion to barbarian Samothrace in
Herodotus and Callimachus. Modern history of religion has
coined a convenient term to cover this and
related
phenomena,
from Babylonian phallus-shaped boundary
stones to phallus-pictures in doorways at Pompeii: the phallus is
‘apotropaic,’ besides having its obvious fertilizing function. In
the case of Hermes, one might argue which function is prevalent;
but in fact there is not much evidence for the fertilizing power
of the herm: herms are not set up in stables or folds, nor in the
cornfields, and not necessarily in the bedroom. They stand in front
of the house, in the market place, at crossroads, and at the
frontiers. The first four-cornered stone herms were set up by
Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, about 530 B.C., to serve as a kind
of milestone. Thus we are left with the ‘apotropaic’ meaning; but
who is to be kept away by such means, and why? The indecencies
rather catch the sight—and this is why they avert the evil eye,
Plutarch suggested; the Greeks normally found them just ‘laughable.’
In fact I cannot find any real explanation before
ethology observed that there are species of monkeys, living in
groups, of whom the males act as guards: they sit up at the
outposts, facing outside and presenting their erect genital organ.
This is an ‘animal ritual’ in the sense that the basic function
of sexual activity is suspended for the sake of communication; every
individual approaching from the outside will notice that this group
does not consist of helpless wives and children, but enjoys the
full protection of masculinity.
With man, at least in the more civilized areas of
the historical epoch, there is only the artifact left, instead of
real action. Still its symbolism, its signal-function, was
understood even by those who called it ‘apotropaic.’ People
consciously or unconsciously know what this action of display
means: a demonstration which transmits a message of potency in
its double sense. Thus the position of the herms at the entrance
of the house, at crossroads, and at boundaries is explained at
once. Even the herms of Hipparchus, set up midway between the
village and the agora, while exhibiting moral epigrams, marked
the territory of the tyrant. Cimon’s victory at Eion in Thrace
was commemorated by three herms with epigrams at the Athenian
agora, whence the ‘Stoa of the Herms’ drew its name. A contemporary
picture of the Pan painter shows the three as if enjoying their own
indecency. Some decades later, feelings of uneasiness seem to
arise: by-and-by herms cease to be ithyphallic. But in the world
of Cimon this had still been basically the monument, which
draws attention and may commemorate a victory.
It is not only the phallic sign that belongs to
Hermes, but also the pile of stones; in fact his name ‘Hermes’ is
derived from it: herma is just a stone set up, hence
Hermaas or Hermaon. This interrelation is explicable
precisely from the signal-function of both phallus and stone:
piling up stones is an elementary form of leaving marks.
In the Alps there is a pile of stones at the summit
of nearly every mountain, and whoever climbs it feels himself
irresistibly drawn to rebuild or enlarge the pile; thus Greek
wanderers used to add a stone to a Hermes pile. This is erecting a
monument, telling to anyone passing that here is a decisive spot
and somebody has been here before. The ten thousand Greeks with
Xenophon spontaneously began to pile up a huge stone-heap where
they had first caught a glimpse of the sea; Xenophon says nothing
about any god or daemon invoked, though ox hides, sticks, and
shields were set up as votive gifts; such ‘dedications’ too are
demonstration, and the whole monument was to mark the passage from
a desperate past to a hopeful future. The power is neither in the
phallus nor in the stone; they are signs conveying a message of
potency. In mythical terms, Hermes is just the messenger of Zeus.
There is still another form of setting marks:
libation. Libation, ceremoniously pouring out liquids, plays an
overwhelming role throughout Near Eastern and Mediterranean
religion; it has even been suggested that the word ‘god’ is
to be traced to this act. Usually libation is, without any
question, taken to be some ‘offering,’ some gift presented
to a divine or daemonic power. Still, there are serious
difficulties in this view. Libation is quite a peculiar
way of ‘giving’: you pour out wine on the soil, and there
it stays: How are the gods in heaven to get any of it?
Mycenaeans and Greeks tried to evade this problem by putting a
libation bowl into the hand of the god, or by pouring libations
into the fire on the altar; but this is secondary, as especially
Hittite evidence shows; and the Greek god with the libation bowl
in his hand, as if pouring offerings to himself, becomes a new
problem of interpretation.
There are ritual texts of the Hittites with long
series of libations: once for the hearth, once for the shields,
once for the window, once for the window bolt, once beside
the window, and so on. There is no mention of gods or spirits.
The crucial limits of the palace are marked and, as it were,
sealed, in a ritual averting, for example, a thunderstorm.
Furthermore, there are libations of oil, which is not usually
a drink for anthropomorphic beings. In fact oil is poured
on special stones: there is Nestor’s stone in front of
the palace at Pylos, where he sits during sacrifice; there
is the ‘omphalos’ at Delphi near the altar; there are stones
shining with oil at the crossroads." Stones for libation,
huushi, are prominent in Hittite ritual.
In other civilizations, stones are smeared with
butter or grease. One might say that oil libation is a ceremony
of anointing, performed on stones imagined as gods by primitive
man. But anthropomorphic gods are not anointed in Greece.
Ancient texts are ambiguous: Jacob sleeps at night in the
desert where he dreams his dream about the ladder reaching up
to heaven, with angels descending and ascending, whereupon
in the morning he sets up a stone, pours oil on it, and says:
This is the house of God, Beth-el. God dwelling in heaven,
or in the stone, or being identical with the stone—Jacob
is not at all obliged to decide amongst these mutually
exclusive theologems; what he does do is set up a mark, a monument
which is to become a cultic center forever. It is a fact that
stains of oil on a stone remain visible for quite a long time. In
Greece, libations are especially common in the cult of the dead;
this may be explained by the idea that the dead are ‘thirsty,’
though the Greeks preferred to speak about a ‘bath.’ But there is
no explicit explanation for the oil libations at the tombs to which
the funeral lekythoi [oil pitchers] bear impressive
testimony. Still, libations do leave marks at the tomb, and it
is by these marks that people see whether a tomb is tended by
relatives or not. The grave cult is a signal communicating
the message that the family of the dead person is still alive
and flourishing.
Doubtless libation ceremonies have had a long
evolution, from even before the Bronze Age, and different
actions may have become conflated. The element of giving
away what cannot be taken back must not be underrated;
but the communicative function of leaving marks,
establishing centers or borders, especially in the case of
pouring oil on stones, is not negligible either. And once we adopt
the biological perspective, we cannot overlook the fact that
marking a territory by pouring out liquids is a ‘ritual’ behavior
quite common in mammals, especially predators; we are all familiar
with the dog’s behavior at the stone. To connect this with libation
seems to be an outrageous joke—which, incidentally, occurs in
ancient literature. Once on the track, however, one may find that
beneath the level of highly developed civilization even in
twentieth-century folk customs there is ‘ritual behavior’ at
frontiers or boundary stones quite similar to what the dog does. If
we are told that such behavior in mammals is directed toward
‘familiar, conspicuous objects’ as well as ‘novel objects,’ if it
is explained as deriving from "autonomic responses to the unknown"
and functioning to "maintain the animal’s familiarity with its
environment," the similarity to libation ceremonies, from Hattusa
to Delphi, seems to be more than superficial. In fact divers
species of mammals have evolved special glands for scent marking;
cultural evolution has supplied man with utensils for similar
functions.
Another, less embarrassing ritual is the carrying
of branches in procession. This is quite common in Greek religion;
we know of it in the procession of mystai at Eleusis, and
especially of the members of the Bacchic thiasos—the
thyrsos is the stylized form of it; but the custom was
nearly ubiquitous in cult. Often the worshiper, approaching an
altar or a statue of a god, takes up a branch, or a bundle of
branches, while praying; so do the magi; and the Babylonian seer
used to wield a cedar staff at sacrifice. Now the pragmatic
function of using a twig is obvious: it is one of the simplest
tools enlarging the force of the arm and its radius of action;
it may be used for aggression or at least for keeping other
people away, as we see maenads using their thyrsos against
greedy satyrs. The Roman flamen Dialis carried branches to keep
people off while going to sacrifice. Thus carrying a branch is a
general and evident sign of status and power. Still it is
remarkable that male chimpanzees in imposing display swing
branches and even break them from a tree and draw them along,
stamping and howling. A Dionysiac thiasos moving through
town, dancing, shouting, and swinging branches—isn’t this too
a display of energy, demonstrating the power of the god?
But this is not the whole story about carrying
branches. A branch is ceremoniously carried by somebody pleading
for peace or pardon, a hiketes; his twig is called
hiketeria. It is taken from an olive tree and is draped with
some wool. Tragedies gladly used this requisite, but it played its
role in real life as well. Servius, commenting on Virgil, explains
the symbolism: oil and wool, both soft and mild, mean peace. But
why, then, the twig? One might refer to the twig as status symbol,
giving even a minimum of practical safety. But the hiketeria is
presented and handed over to the lord who accepts the
hiketes. It may seem to be a joke again to point out that
ethology knows of appeasement rituals which consist exactly in
handing over twigs, wool, and the like: material for building
nests, notably with birds. Yet in fact there is an important,
though primitive construction in human civilization for resting and
feeling comfortable, made up of branches: the stibas, as the
Greeks say, a bolster of fresh flexible branches to sit or lie on
more comfortably than on the bare ground, a structure evidently
older than the invention of chairs and beds. There are quite a
number of Greek cults where the attendants have to make a
stibas to rest on for the sacrificial feast, in the open air
or in primitive huts constructed for the occasion, without houses
and house furniture. Examples are the Thesmophoria, the Hyacinthia,
the Hera festival at Samos, or the Dionysia. The gods, too, when
invited, get their stibas; this is especially developed in
Indo-Iranian religion; the Iranian magos approaches the
altar with the bundle of twigs in his hand and then performs his
ceremony ‘in front of the branches spread out,’ and still more
familiar is this sacrificial bed of twigs or grass in India. We
find a similar ritual described in the Oedipus at Colonus,
for appeasing the Eumenides: the sacrificer has to come with
twenty-seven olive branches, he has to crown the mixing bowl with
wool, then pour out the libation and lay down his twigs at the
spot, while praying silently.
To sum up: we have, on a practical level, the action
of preparing a stibas, which is older than the Bronze Age
thronos, and still preserved in Greek cult; and we have,
transformed into communication, the deposition of branches for
gods on the one side, and the symbolism of the hiketeria
on the other. He who rests on a stibas gives up all
tension and aggressiveness. Stretching out the suppliant’s branch
then means: “Lord, let me prepare the bed for you on which you may
rest.” Sitting or lying down to rest is also the meaning of an
ancient appeasement ritual which is quite common, but hardly
commented upon: touching the knees—more exactly, the hollow of
the knee—of the threatening partner. This again means: “Sit
down, please, and relax.”
Prisoners in Bangladesh pleading for their
lives in a news photograph from the
London Daily Express, 20 December, 1971.
Priapos, in Greece,
where he arrives rather late, is an obscene little deity,
a daimon of fertility, represented as a more or less
grotesquely misshapen man, with a huge and erect phallos.
He is the guardian of gardens, part scarecrow, part
warning to human thieves, part luck-bringer; and in his
capacity of luck-bringer he is often found at the door
of houses. He can hardly be said to have any mythology;
a number of obscure authors say he was the son of Aphrodite
(the father is variously given), and that it as through
Hera’s ill-will that he came into the world so misshapen.
Also, the stars known as the Asses, in the
constellation Cancer, are sometimes connected with him.
Dionysos had a favourite ass, which had carried him well
once, when Hera had maddened him and he was journeying
to Dodona to ask advice about his cure; Priapos and it fell
into an argument (the ass had been granted human speech by
Dionysos), and Priapos, getting the better of the discussion,
killed the poor beast; Dionysos then made it into a
constellation. But in his native Lampsakos, and in many
towns of Asia Minor, Priapos was an important god of
fertility.
*
Return to List of Myths
Return to Main Menu
