On the whole, then, we are perhaps entitled to infer that
bulls were originally, as cows were always, esteemed sacred by the
Egyptians, and that the slain bull upon whose head they laid the
misfortunes of the people was once a divine scapegoat. It seems not
improbable that the lamb annually slain by the Madis of Central
Africa is a divine scapegoat, and the same supposition may partly
explain the Zuni sacrifice of the turtle.
Lastly, the scapegoat may be a divine man. Thus, in November the
Gonds of India worship Ghansyam Deo, the protector of the crops, and
at the festival the god himself is said to descend on the head of
one of the worshippers, who is suddenly seized with a kind of fit
and, after staggering about, rushes off into the jungle, where it is
believed that, if left to himself, he would die mad. However, they
bring him back, but he does not recover his senses for one or two
days. The people think that one man is thus singled out as a
scapegoat for the sins of the rest of the village. In the temple of
the Moon the Albanians of the Eastern Caucasus kept a number of
sacred slaves, of whom many were inspired and prophesied.
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