Both the human and the vegetable
representative of the goddess are worshipped, and the intention of
the whole ceremony appears to be to ensure a good crop of rice.
4. The Double Personification of the Corn as Mother and Daughter
COMPARED with the Corn-mother of Germany and the Harvest-maiden of
Scotland, the Demeter and Persephone of Greece are late products of
religious growth. Yet as members of the Aryan family the Greeks must
at one time or another have observed harvest customs like those
which are still practised by Celts, Teutons, and Slavs, and which,
far beyond the limits of the Aryan world, have been practised by the
Indians of Peru and many peoples of the East Indies--a sufficient
proof that the ideas on which these customs rest are not confined to
any one race, but naturally suggest themselves to all untutored
peoples engaged in agriculture. It is probable, therefore, that
Demeter and Persephone, those stately and beautiful figures of Greek
mythology, grew out of the same simple beliefs and practices which
still prevail among our modern peasantry, and that they were
represented by rude dolls made out of the yellow sheaves on many a
harvest-field long before their breathing images were wrought in
bronze and marble by the master hands of Phidias and Praxiteles.
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