carrieth the chaff about the sacred threshing-floors when men are winnowing, what time golden Demeter, in rush of wind, maketh division of grain and chaff." . . . Now the name of the "god of wind, and weather, rain, harvest, and vegetation in general" in the Tongan Islands is Álo-Álo, literally "to fan."[1] One is reminded of Joachim Des Bellay's poem, "To the Winnowers of Corn." Thus from all these widely diffused examples it is manifest that the idea of a divinity of earth, considered as the mother of fruits, and as powerful for good or harm in harvest-time, is anything but peculiar to Greece or to Aryan peoples. In her character as potent over this department of agriculture, the Greek goddess was named "she of the rich threshing-floors," "of the corn heaps," "of the corn in the ear," "of the harvest-home," "of the sheaves," "of the fair fruits," "of the goodly gifts," and so forth.[2]
In popular Greek religion, then, Demeter was chiefly regarded as the divinity of earth at seed-time and harvest. Perhaps none of the gods was worshipped in so many different cities and villages, or possessed so large a number of shrines and rustic chapels. There is a pleasant picture of such a chapel, with its rural disorder, in the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Psyche, in her search for Cupid, "came to the temple and went in, whereas behold she espied sheaves of corn lying on a heap, blades with withered garlands, and reeds of
- ↑ Mariner's Tonga Islands, 1827, ii. 107. The Attic Eireicone may be studied in Mannhardt, Wald und Feld Cultus, ii. 212, and Aztec and Peruvian harvest rites of a similar character in Custom and Myth, pp. 17–20. See also Prim. Cult., ii. 306, for other examples.
- ↑ Welcker, ii. 468–470, a collection of such titles.
