Thus the person who plucks
the first fruit from the tree and thereby receives the name of "the
great _mondard_" must be regarded as a representative of the
tree-spirit. Primitive peoples are usually reluctant to taste the
annual first-fruits of any crop, until some ceremony has been
performed which makes it safe and pious for them to do so. The
reason of this reluctance appears to be a belief that the
first-fruits either belong to or actually contain a divinity.
Therefore when a man or animal is seen boldly to appropriate the
sacred first-fruits, he or it is naturally regarded as the divinity
himself in human or animal form taking possession of his own. The
time of the Athenian sacrifice, which fell about the close of the
threshing, suggests that the wheat and barley laid upon the altar
were a harvest offering; and the sacramental character of the
subsequent repast--all partaking of the flesh of the divine
animal--would make it parallel to the harvest-suppers of modern
Europe, in which, as we have seen, the flesh of the animal which
stands for the corn-spirit is eaten by the harvesters.
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