The true meaning of this part of
the ceremony has been explained by W. Mannhardt. He points out that
the ancients attributed to squills a magical power of averting evil
influences, and that accordingly they hung them up at the doors of
their houses and made use of them in purificatory rites. Hence the
Arcadian custom of whipping the image of Pan with squills at a
festival, or whenever the hunters returned empty-handed, must have
been meant, not to punish the god, but to purify him from the
harmful influences which were impeding him in the exercise of his
divine functions as a god who should supply the hunter with game.
Similarly the object of beating the human scapegoat on the genital
organs with squills and so on, must have been to release his
reproductive energies from any restraint or spell under which they
might be laid by demoniacal or other malignant agency; and as the
Thargelia at which he was annually sacrificed was an early harvest
festival celebrated in May, we must recognise in him a
representative of the creative and fertilising god of vegetation.
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