Henderson the Rain King

I'll use this quote again, but with more meaning this time......

"The man-god must be killed as soon as he shows symptoms that his powers are beginning to fail, and his soul must be transferred to a vigorous successor before it has been seriously impaired by the threatened decay." Frazer, The Golden Bough pg. 309

I finally finished this book. I don't want to be the negative nelly in the group, but what? I do not understand the draw it has for people. I just didn't like it. It is that simple. I suppose I finally grew weary of lines such as "I am the type of guy who couldn't survive without disfigurement. Life has worked me over. It wasn't just the war, either...I got a bad wound, you know. But the shots of life..." I gave myself a bang on the breast. "Right here! You know what I mean, King?" etc. and he goes on to talk about himself for about 150 more pages. Plus, I felt that every time he said "king", a person could easily replace it with "dude" and get the same effect. Henderson is a self-centered meat head, in my opinion, who reminds me painfully of Steven Seagal. I can understand, though the importance of this book in relation to mythology. It is littered with ceremonies and rituals that have been practiced by the Wariri and the Arnewi from the beginning (in illo tempore).

I also think that the concept dealing with the transmigration of kings' souls into lions is a definite focus in this book. This actually lead me to read more about lions in mythology and I immediately came upon the story of the sphinx. I have heard of these mythological creatures, but have never taken the time to learn about them, so when I read the story little light bulbs abounded. The sphinx is a being with the head of a human and the body of a lion. This hybrid, in Greek mythology, is a riddler who has positioned itself by a rock that evidently must be passed. Upon answering the riddle incorrectly, the solver is STRANGLED. In Henderson the Rain King, if you have not read it, the king is to be strangled when he loses his youthful power. It seems that people, in the book and in mythology in general, are obsessed with the idea of lion-humans. It also seems that people are put to death by strangulation very often. Maybe the idea of loss of breath bears more significance than physical death. (I didn't even mean to rhyme) Also, as has been mentioned in class, the central theme of the Golden Bough is the ritualistic killing of the king. Although this is very barbaric, not matter the context, it seems that the killing has nothing to do with physical harm. The king is strangled, which would undoubtedly be terrifying and painful, but the people doing it are not killing him because they want to harm him. In fact, it seems to be just the opposite. In order to preserve him in his youthful state, they feel the need to preserve his soul. This can only be done by not allowing him to age. When his soul is transmigrated to a lion, the lion is only a cub.

Later, after releasing the cub back in to the wild, the new king is supposed to capture him and keep him at the palace. This is so important because it brings about the idea of closeness among family members but not in the physical sense. The kings don't lose their fathers, they just release them into the wild for a period, then bring them back into their homes when the time is right. I think it is now important to try to think past the conventional view of family and fatherly companionship. To these people the most important part of their king was his soul; just as the most important part of the prince's father, to him, was his soul. Mere physical presence was not required in order to be "with" the king or father. So when they killed him, they didn't actually kill him at all. He was there, in the forest, as a lion and his soul lived on in the most divine form; the form that that particular tribe worshipped. It's as if he finally became, not to sound cheesy, "one with the lion". It was basically a honor to be killed, then.

Giving lions human attributes is central to this culture and the reverse is also essential: the human must attain lion characteristics. The lion-human significance is in the soul. The soul of the human is altered when they become like the lion and the lion's soul is altered when the transmigration occurs. The alteration of the soul is sought because people are always seeking the state of perfection. I do not know whether this is attainable or not, but obviously people have sought to accomplish it forever. It is still being done, just in less barbaric ways.