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Title: The Evolution of the Dragon
Author: Smith, G. Elliot
Language: English
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THE EVOLUTION OF THE DRAGON
BY G. ELLIOT SMITH, M.A., M.D., F.R.S.
PROFESSOR OF ANATOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
_ILLUSTRATED_
Manchester: AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONGMANS, GREEN & COMPANY
London, New York, Chicago, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras
1919
PREFACE.
Some explanation is due to the reader of the form and scope of these
elaborations of the lectures which I have given at the John Rylands
Library during the last three winters.
They deal with a wide range of topics, and the thread which binds them
more or less intimately into one connected story is only imperfectly
expressed in the title "The Evolution of the Dragon".
The book has been written in rare moments of leisure snatched from a
variety of arduous war-time occupations; and it reveals only too plainly
the traces of this disjointed process of composition. On 23 February,
1915, I presented to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society
an essay on the spread of certain customs and beliefs in ancient times
under the title "On the Significance of the Geographical Distribution of
the Practice of Mummification," and in my Rylands Lecture two weeks
later I summed up the general conclusions.[1] In view of the lively
controversies that followed the publication of the former of these
addresses, I devoted my next Rylands Lecture (9 February, 1916) to the
discussion of "The Relationship of the Egyptian Practice of
Mummification to the Development of Civilization". In preparing this
address for publication in the _Bulletin_ some months later so much
stress was laid upon the problems of "Incense and Libations" that I
adopted this more concise title for the elaboration of the lecture which
forms the first chapter of this book. This will explain why so many
matters are discussed in that chapter which have little or no
connexion either with "Incense and Libations" or with "The Evolution
of the Dragon".
The study of the development of the belief in water's life-giving
attributes, and their personification in the gods Osiris, Ea, Soma
[Haoma] and Varuna, prepared the way for the elucidation of the history
of "Dragons and Rain Gods" in my next lecture (Chapter II). What played
a large part in directing my thoughts dragon-wards was the discussion of
certain representations of the Indian Elephant upon Precolumbian
monuments in, and manuscripts from, Central America (_Nature_, 25 Nov.,
1915; 16 Dec., 1915; and 27 Jan., 1916). For in the course of
investigating the meaning of these remarkable designs I discovered that
the Elephant-headed rain-god of America had attributes identical with
those of the Indian Indra (and of Varuna and Soma) and the Chinese
dragon. The investigation of these identities established the fact
that the American rain-god was transmitted across the Pacific from India
via Cambodia.
The intensive study of dragons impressed upon me the importance of the
part played by the Great Mother, especially in her Babylonian _avatar_
as Tiamat, in the evolution of the famous wonder-beast. Under the
stimulus of Dr. Rendel Harris's Rylands Lecture on "The Cult of
Aphrodite," I therefore devoted my next address (14 November, 1917) to
the "Birth of Aphrodite" and a general discussion of the problems of
Olympian obstetrics.
Each of these addresses was delivered as an informal demonstration of
large series of lantern projections; and, as Mr. Guppy insisted upon the
publication of the lectures in the _Bulletin_, it became necessary,
as a rule, many months after the delivery of each address, to rearrange
my material and put into the form of a written narrative the story
which had previously been told mainly by pictures and verbal comments
upon them.
In making these elaborations additional facts were added and new points
of view emerged, so that the printed statements bear little resemblance
to the lectures of which they pretend to be reports. Such
transformations are inevitable when one attempts to make a written
report of what was essentially an ocular demonstration, unless every one
of the numerous pictures is reproduced.
Each of the first two lectures was printed before the succeeding lecture
was set up in type. For these reasons there is a good deal of
repetition, and in successive lectures a wider interpretation of
evidence mentioned in the preceding addresses. Had it been possible to
revise the whole book at one time, and if the pressure of other duties
had permitted me to devote more time to the work, these blemishes might
have been eliminated and a coherent story made out of what is little
more than a collection of data and tags of comment. No one is more
conscious than the writer of the inadequacy of this method of presenting
an argument of such inherent complexity as the dragon story: but my
obligation to the Rylands Library gave me no option in the matter: I had
to attempt the difficult task in spite of all the unpropitious
circumstances. This book must be regarded, then, not as a coherent
argument, but merely as some of the raw material for the study of the
dragon's history. In my lecture (13 November, 1918) on "The Meaning of
Myths," which will be published in the _Bulletin of the John Rylands
Library_, I have expounded the general conclusions that emerge from the
studies embodied in these three lectures; and in my forthcoming book,
"The Story of the Flood," I have submitted the whole mass of evidence to
examination in detail, and attempted to extract from it the real story
of mankind's age-long search for the elixir of life.
In the earliest records from Egypt and Babylonia it is customary to
portray a king's beneficence by representing him initiating irrigation
works. In course of time he came to be regarded, not merely as the giver
of the water which made the desert fertile, but as himself the
personification and the giver of the vital powers of water. The
fertility of the land and the welfare of the people thus came to be
regarded as dependent upon the king's vitality. Hence it was not
illogical to kill him when his virility showed signs of failing and so
imperilled the country's prosperity. But when the view developed that
the dead king acquired a new grant of vitality in the other world he
became the god Osiris, who was able to confer even greater boons of
life-giving to the land and people than was the case before. He was the
Nile, and he fertilized the land. The original dragon was a beneficent
creature, the personification of water, and was identified with kings
and gods.
But the enemy of Osiris became an evil dragon, and was identified with
Set.
The dragon-myth, however, did not really begin to develop until an
ageing king refused to be slain, and called upon the Great Mother, as
the giver of life, to rejuvenate him. Her only elixir was human blood;
and to obtain it she was compelled to make a human sacrifice. Her
murderous act led to her being compared with and ultimately identified
with a man-slaying lioness or a cobra. The story of the slaying of the
dragon is a much distorted rumour of this incident; and in the process
of elaboration the incidents were subjected to every kind of
interpretation and also confusion with the legendary account of the
conflict between Horus and Set.
When a substitute was obtained to replace the blood the slaying of a
human victim was no longer logically necessary: but an explanation had
to be found for the persistence of this incident in the story. Mankind
(no longer a mere individual human sacrifice) had become sinful and
rebellious (the act of rebellion being complaints that the king or god
was growing old) and had to be destroyed as a punishment for this
treason. The Great Mother continued to act as the avenger of the king or
god. But the enemies of the god were also punished by Horus in the
legend of Horus and Set. The two stories hence became confused the one
with the other. The king Horus took the place of the Great Mother as the
avenger of the gods. As she was identified with the moon, he became the
Sun-god, and assumed many of the Great Mother's attributes, and also
became her son. In the further development of the myth, when the Sun-god
had completely usurped his mother's place, the infamy of her deeds of
destruction seems to have led to her being confused with the rebellious
men who were now called the followers of Set, Horus's enemy. Thus an
evil dragon emerged from this blend of the attributes of the Great
Mother and Set. This is the Babylonian Tiamat. From the amazingly
complex jumble of this tissue of confusion all the incidents of the
dragon-myth were derived.
When attributes of the Water-god or his enemy became assimilated with
those of the Great Mother and the Warrior Sun-god, the animals with
which these deities were identified came to be regarded individually and
collectively as concrete expressions of the Water-god's powers. Thus the
cow and the gazelle, the falcon and the eagle, the lion and the serpent,
the fish and the crocodile became symbols of the life-giving and the
life-destroying powers of water, and composite monsters or dragons were
invented by combining parts of these various creatures to express the
different manifestations of the vital powers of water. The process of
elaboration of the attributes of these monsters led to the development
of an amazingly complex myth: but the story became still further
involved when the dragon's life-controlling powers became confused with
man's vital spirit and identified with the good or evil genius which was
regarded as the guest, welcome or unwelcome, of every individual's body,
and the arbiter of his destiny. In my remarks on the _ka_ and the
_fravashi_ I have merely hinted at the vast complexity of these elements
of confusion.
Had I been familiar with [Archbishop] Söderblom's important
monograph,[2] when I was writing Chapters I and III, I might have
attempted to indicate how vital a part the confusion of the individual
_genius_ with the mythical wonder-beast has played in the history of the
myths relating to the latter. For the identification of the dragon with
the vital spirit of the individual explains why the stories of the
former appealed to the selfish interest of every human being. At the
time the lecture on "Incense and Libations" was written, I had no idea
that the problems of the _ka_ and the _fravashi_ had any connexion with
those relating to the dragon. But in the third chapter a quotation from
Professor Langdon's account of "A Ritual of Atonement for a Babylonian
King" indicates that the Babylonian equivalent of the _ka_ and the
_fravashi_, "my god who walks at my side," presents many points of
affinity to a dragon.
When in the lecture on "Incense and Libations" I ventured to make the
daring suggestion that the ideas underlying the Egyptian conception of
the _ka_ were substantially identical with those entertained by the
Iranians in reference to the _fravashi_, I was not aware of the fact
that such a comparison had already been made. In [Archbishop]
Söderblom's monograph, which contains a wealth of information in
corroboration of the views set forth in Chapter I, the following
statement occurs: "L'analyse, faite par M. Brede-Kristensen (_Ægypternes
forestillinger om livet efter döden_, 14 ss. Kristiania, 1896) du _ka_
égyptien, jette une vive lumière sur notre question, par la frappante
analogie qui semble exister entre le sens originaire de ces deux termes
_ka_ et _fravashi_" (p. 58, note 4). "La similitude entre le _ka_ et la
_fravashi_ a été signalée dejà par Nestor Lhote, _Lettres écrites
d'Égypte_, note, selon Maspero, _Études de mythologie et d'archéologie
égyptiennes_, I, 47, note 3."
In support of the view, which I have submitted in Chapter I, that the
original idea of the _fravashi_, like that of the _ka_, was suggested by
the placenta and the fœtal membranes, I might refer to the specific
statement (Farvardin-Yasht, XXIII, 1) that "les fravashis tiennent en
ordre l'enfant dans le sein de sa mère et l'enveloppent de sorte qu'il
ne meurt pas" (_op. cit._, Söderblom, p. 41, note 1). The _fravashi_
"nourishes and protects" (p. 57): it is "the nurse" (p. 58): it is
always feminine (p. 58). It is in fact the placenta, and is also
associated with the functions of the Great Mother. "Nous voyons dans
fravashi une personification de la force vitale, conservée et exercée
aussi après la mort. La fravashi est le principe de vie, la faculté qu'a
l'homme de se soutenir par la nourriture, de manger, d'absorber et ainsi
d'exister et de se développer. Cette étymologie et le rôle attributé à
la fravashi dans le développement de l'embryon, des animaux, des plantes
rappellent en quelque sorte, comme le remarque M. Foucher, l'idée
directrice de Claude Bernard. Seulement la fravashi n'a jamais été une
abstraction. La fravashi est une puissance vivante, un _homunculus in
homine_, un être personnifié comme du reste toutes les sources de vie et
de mouvement que l'homme non civilisé aperçoit dans son organisme.
"Il ne faut pas non plus considérer la fravashi comme un double de
l'homme, elle en est plutôt une partie, un hôte intime qui continue son
existence après la mort aux mêmes conditions qu'avant, et qui oblige
les vivants à lui fournir les aliments nécessaires" (_op. cit._, p. 59).
Thus the _fravashi_ has the same remarkable associations with
nourishment and placental functions as the _ka_. As a further suggestion
of its connexion with the Great Mother as the inaugurator of the year,
and in virtue of her physiological (uterine) functions the
moon-controlled measurer of the month, it is important to note that "Le
19^e jour de chaque mois est également consecré aux fravashis en
général. Le premier mois porte aussi le nom de Farvardîn. Quant aux
formes des fêtes mensuelles, elles semblent conformes à celles que nous
allons rappeler [les fêtes célébrées en l'honneur des mortes]" (_op.
cit._, p. 10).
But the _fravashi_ was not only associated with the Great Mother, but
also with the Water-god or Good Dragon, for it controlled the waters of
irrigation and gave fertility to the soil (_op. cit._, p. 36). The
_fravashi_ was also identified with the third member of the primitive
Trinity, the Warrior Sun-god, not merely in the general sense as the
adversary of the powers of evil, but also in the more definite form of
the Winged Disk (_op. cit._, pp. 67 and 68).
In all these respects the _fravashi_ is brought into close association
with the dragon, so that in addition to being "the divine and immortal
element" (_op. cit._, p. 51), it became the genius or spirit that
possesses a man and shapes his conduct and regulates his behaviour. It
was in fact the expression of a crude attempt on the part of the early
psychologists of Iran to explain the working of the instinct of
self-preservation.
In the text of Chapters I and III I have referred to the Greek,
Babylonian, Chinese, and Melanesian variants of essentially the same
conception. Söderblom refers to an interesting parallel among the
Karens, whose _kelah_ corresponds to the Iranian _fravashi_ (p. 54, Note
2: compare also A. E. Crawley, "The Idea of the Soul," 1909).
In the development of the dragon-myth astronomical factors played a very
obtrusive part: but I have deliberately refrained from entering into a
detailed discussion of them, because they were not primarily the real
causal agents in the origin of the myth. When the conception of a
sky-world or a heaven became drawn into the dragon story it came to
play so prominent a part as to convince most writers that the myth was
primarily and essentially astronomical. But it is clear that originally
the myth was concerned solely with the regulation of irrigation systems
and the search upon earth for an elixir of life.
When I put forward the suggestion that the annual inundation of the Nile
provided the information for the first measurement of the year, I was
not aware of the fact that Sir Norman Lockyer ("The Dawn of Astronomy,"
1894, p. 209), had already made the same claim and substantiated it by
much fuller evidence than I have brought together here.
In preparing these lectures I have received help from so large a number
of correspondents that it is difficult to enumerate all of them. But I
am under a special debt of gratitude to Dr. Alan Gardiner for calling my
attention to the fact that the common rendering of the Egyptian word
_didi_ as "mandrake" was unjustifiable, and to Mr. F. Ll. Griffith for
explaining its true meaning and for lending me the literature relating
to this matter. Miss Winifred M. Crompton, the Assistant Keeper of the
Egyptian Department in the Manchester Museum, gave me very material
assistance by bringing to my attention some very important literature
which otherwise would have been overlooked; and both she and Miss
Dorothy Davison helped me with the drawings that illustrate this volume.
Mr. Wilfrid Jackson gave me much of the information concerning shells
and cephalopods which forms such an essential part of the argument, and
he also collected a good deal of the literature which I have made use
of. Dr. A. C. Haddon, F.R.S., of Cambridge, lent me a number of books
and journals which I was unable to obtain in Manchester; and Mr. Donald
A. Mackenzie, of Edinburgh, has poured in upon me a stream of
information, especially upon the folk-lore of Scotland and India. Nor
must I forget to acknowledge the invaluable help and forbearance of
Mr. Henry Guppy, of the John Rylands Library, and Mr. Charles W. E.
Leigh, of the University Library. To all of these and to the still
larger number of correspondents who have helped me I offer my most
grateful thanks.
During the three years in which these lectures were compiled I have
been associated with Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, F.R.S., and Mr. T. H. Pear in
their psychological work in the military hospitals, and the influence of
this interesting experience is manifest upon every page of this volume.
But perhaps the most potent factor of all in shaping my views and
directing my train of thought has been the stimulating influence of Mr.
W. J. Perry's researches, which are converting ethnology into a real
science and shedding a brilliant light upon the early history of
civilization.
G. ELLIOT SMITH.
9 December, 1918.
[1: "The Influence of Ancient Egyptian Civilisation in the East and in
America," _Bulletin of the John Rylands Library_, January-March, 1916.]
[2: Nathan Söderblom, "Les Fravashis Étude sur les Traces dans le
Mazdéisme d'une Ancienne Conception sur la Survivance des Morts," Paris,
1899.]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. INCENSE AND LIBATIONS 1
CHAPTER II. DRAGONS AND RAIN GODS 76
CHAPTER III. THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE 140
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Fig. 1.--The conventional Egyptian representation of the burning
of incense and the pouring of libations 2
Fig. 2.--Water-colour sketch by Mrs. Cecil Firth, representing a
restoration of the early mummy found at Medûm by Professor
Flinders Petrie, now in the Museum of the Royal College of
Surgeons in London 16
Fig. 3.--A mould taken from a life-mask found in the Pyramid of Teta
by Mr. Quibell 17
Fig. 4.--Portrait statue of an Egyptian lady of the Pyramid Age 18
Fig. 5.--Statue of an Egyptian noble of the Pyramid Age to show the
technical skill in the representation of life-like eyes 52
Fig. 6.--Representation of the ancient Mexican worship of the Sun 70
Fig. 7.--A mediæval picture of a Chinese Dragon upon its cloud
(after the late Professor W. Anderson) 80
Fig. 8.--A Chinese Dragon (after de Groot) 80
Fig. 9.--Dragon from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon 81
Fig. 10.--Babylonian Weather God 81
Fig. 11.--Reproduction of a picture in the Maya Codex Troano
representing the Rain-god _Chac_ treading upon the Serpent's
head, which is interposed between the earth and the rain the
god is pouring out of a bowl. A Rain-goddess stands upon the
Serpent's tail 84
Fig. 12.--Another representation of the elephant-headed Rain-god. He
is holding thunderbolts, conventionalized in a hund-like form.
The serpent is converted into a sac, holding up the
rain-waters. 84
Fig. 13.--A page (the 36th) of the Dresden Maya Codex. 86
Fig. 14.--A. The so-called "sea-goat" of Babylonia, a creature
compounded of the antelope and fish of Ea.--B. The "sea-goat"
as the vehicle of Ea or Marduk.--C to K--a series of varieties
of the _makara_ from the Buddhist Rails at Buddha Gaya and
Mathura, circa 70 B.C.--70 A.D., after Cunningham
("Archæological Survey of India," Vol. III, 1873, Plates IX and
XXIX).--L. The _makara_ as the vehicle of Varuna, after Sir
George Birdwood. It is not difficult to understand how, in the
course of the easterly diffusion of culture, such a picture
should develop into the Chinese Dragon or the American
elephant-headed god 88
Fig. 15.--Photograph of a Chinese embroidery in the Manchester
School of Art representing the Dragon and the Pearl-Moon
Symbol 98
Fig. 16.--The God of Thunder (from a Chinese drawing (? 17th
Century) in the John Rylands Library) 136
Fig. 17.--From Joannes de Turrecremata's "Meditationes seu
Contemplationes". _Rome: Ulrich Han_, 1467 137
Fig. 18.--(a) The Archaic Egyptian slate palette of Narmer showing,
perhaps, the earliest design of Hathor (at the upper corners
of the palette) as a woman with cow's horns and ears (compare
Flinders Petrie "The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty," Part
I, 1900, Plate XXVII, Fig. 71). The pharaoh is wearing a belt
from which are suspended four cow-headed Hathor figures in
place of the cowry-amulets of more primitive peoples. This
affords corroboration of the view that Hathor assumed the
functions originally attributed to the cowry-shell. (b) The
king's _sporran_, where Hathor-heads (H) take the place of the
cowries of the primitive girdle 150
Fig. 19.--The front of Stela B (famous for the realistic
representations of the Indian elephant at its upper corners),
one of the ancient Maya monuments at Copan, Central America
(after Maudslay's photograph and diagram). The girdle of the
chief figure is decorated both with shells (_Oliva_ or
_Conus_) and amulets representing human faces corresponding to
the Hathor-heads on the Narmer palette (Fig. 18) 151
Fig. 20.--Diagrams illustrating the form of cowry-belts worn in
(a) East Africa and (b) Oceania respectively. (c) Ancient
Indian girdle (from the figure of Sirima Devata on the Bharat
Tope), consisting of strings of pearls and precious stones,
and what seem to be (fourth row from the top) models of
cowries. (d) The Copan girdle (from Fig. 19) in which both
shells and heads of deities are represented. The two objects
suspended from the belt between the heads recall Hathor's
sistra 153
Fig. 21.--(a) A slate triad found by Professor G. A. Reisner in the
temple of the Third Pyramid at Giza. It shows the Pharaoh
Mycerinus supported on his right side by the goddess Hathor,
represented as a woman with the moon and the cow's horns upon
her head, and on the left side by a nome goddess, bearing upon
her head the jackal-symbol of her nome. (b) The Ecuador
Aphrodite. Bas-relief from Cerro-Jaboncillo (after Saville,
"Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador," Preliminary Report, 1907,
Plate XXXVIII). A grotesque composite monster intended to
represent a woman (compare Saville's Plates XXXV, XXXVI, and
XXXIX), whose head is a conventionalized Octopus, whose body
is a _Loligo_, and whose limbs are human 164
Fig. 22.--(a) _Sepia officinalis_, after Tryon, "Cephalopoda".
(b) _Loligo vulgaris_, after Tryon. (c) The position usually
adopted by the resting Octopus, after Tryon 168
Fig. 23.--A series of Mycenæan conventionalizations of the Argonaut
and the Octopus (after Tümpel), which provided the basis for
Houssay's theory of the origin of the triskele (a, c, and d)
and swastika (b and e), and Siret's theory to explain the
design of Bes's face (f and g) 172
Fig. 24.--(a) and (b) Two Mycenæan pots (after Schliemann). (a) The
so-called "owl-shaped" vase is really a representation of the
Mother-Pot in the form of a conventionalized Octopus (Houssay).
(b) The other vase represents the Octopus Mother-Pot, with a
jar upon her head and another in her hands--a three-fold
representation of the Great Mother as a pot. (c) A Cretan vase
from Gournia in which the Octopus-motive is represented as a
decoration upon the pot instead of in its form, (d), (e), (f),
(g), and (h) A series of coins from Central Greece (after Head)
showing a series of conventionalizations of the Octopus, with
its pot-like body and palm-tree-like arms (f). (i) _Sepia
officinalis_ (after Tryon). (h) and (l) The so-called "spouting
vases" in the hands of the Babylonian god Ea, from a cylinder
seal of the time of Gudea, Patesi of Tello, after Ward ("Seal
Cylinders, etc.," p. 215) 180
Fig 25.--(a) Winged Disk from the Temple of Thothmes I. (b) Persian
design of Winged Disk above the Tree of Life (Ward, "Seal
Cylinders of Western Asia," Fig. 1109). (c) Assyrian or
Syro-Hittite design of the Winged Disk and Tree of Life in an
extremely conventionalized form (Ward, Fig. 1310).
(d) Assyrian conventionalized Winged Disk and Tree of Life,
from the design upon the dress of Assurnazipal (Ward, Fig.
670). (e) Part of the design from a tablet of the time of
Dungi (Ward, Fig. 663). (f) Design on a Cretan sarcophagus from
Hagia Triada (Blinkenberg, Fig. 9). (g) Double axe from a gold
signet from Acropolis Treasure, Mycenæ (after Sir Arthur Evans,
"Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 10). (h) Assyrian Winged
Disk (Ward, Fig. 608). (i) "Primitive Chaldean Winged Gate"
(Ward, Fig. 349). (k) Persian Winged Disk (Ward, Fig. 1144).
(l) An Assyrian Tree of Life and Winged Disk crudely
conventionalized (Ward, Fig. 691). (m) Assyrian Tree of Life
and Winged Disk in which the god is riding in a crescent
replacing the Disk (Ward, Fig. 695) 184
Fig. 26.--(a) An Egyptian picture of Hathor between the mountains
of the horizon (on which trees are growing) (after Budge,
"Gods of the Egyptians," Vol. II, p. 101). (b) The mountains
of the horizon supporting a cow's head as a surrogate of
Hathor, from a stele found at Teima in Northern Arabia, now in
the Louvre (after Sir Arthur Evans, _op. cit._, p. 39).
(c) The Mesopotamian sun-god Shamash rising between the
Eastern Mountains, the Gates of Dawn (Ward, _op. cit._, p.
373). (d) The familiar Egyptian representation of the sun
rising between the Eastern Mountains (the splitting of the
mountain giving birth to "the ridiculous mouse"--Smintheus).
(e) Part of the design from a Mycenæan vase from Old Salamis
(after Evans, p. 9). (f) Part of the design from a lentoid gem
from the Idæan Cave, now in the Candia Museum (after Evans,
Fig. 25). (g) The Eastern Mountains supporting the pillar-form
of the goddess (after Evans, Fig. 66). (h) Another Mycenæan
design comparable with (e). (i) Design from a signet-ring from
Mycenæ; (after Evans, Fig. 34). (k) The famous sculpture above
the Lion Gate at Mycenæ 188
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.
PAGE
Fig 1.--Early representation of a "Dragon" compounded of the
forepart of an eagle and the hindpart of a lion (from an
Archaic Cylinder-seal from Susa, after Jequier) 79
Fig. 2.--The earliest Babylonian conception of the Dragon Tiamat
(from a Cylinder-seal in the British Museum, after L. W. King) 79
Fig. 3.--Wm. Dennis's drawing of the "Flying Dragon" depicted on the
rocks at Piasa, Illinois 94
Fig. 4.--Two representations of Astarte (Qetesh) 155
Fig. 5.--_Pterocera bryonia_, the Red Sea spider-shell 170
Fig. 6.--(a) Picture of a bowl of water--the hieroglyphic sign
equivalent to _hm_ (the word _hmt_ means "woman"--Griffith,
"Beni Hasan," Part III, Plate VI, Fig. 88 and p. 29). (b) "A
basket of sycamore figs"--Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," Vol.
I, p. 323. (c) and (d) are said by Wilkinson to be hieroglyphic
signs meaning "wife" and are apparently taken from (b). But (c)
is identical with (i), which, according to Griffith (p. 14),
represents a bivalve shell (g, from Plate III, Fig. 3), more
usually placed obliquely (h). The varying conventionalizations
of (a) or (b) are shown in (d), (e), and (f) (Griffith,
"Hieroglyphics," p. 34). (k) The sign for a lotus leaf, which
is a phonetic equivalent of the sign (h), and, according to
Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 26), "is probably derived from
the same root, on account of its shell-like outline". (l) The
hieroglyphic sign for a pot of water in such words as _Nu_ and
_Nut_. (m) A "pomegranate" (replacing a bust of Tanit) upon a
sacred column at Carthage (Arthur J. Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and
Pillar Cult," p. 46). (n) The form of the body of an octopus as
conventionalized on the coins of Central Greece (compare Fig.
24 (d)) 179
Fig. 7.--(a) An Egyptian design representing the sun-god Horus
emerging from a lotus, representing his mother Hathor (Isis).
(b) Papyrus sceptre often carried by goddesses and
animistically identified with them either as an instrument of
life-giving or destruction. (c) Conventionalized lily--the
prototype of the trident and the thunder-weapon. (d) A
water-plant associated with the Nile-gods 180
Fig. 8.--(a) "Ceremonial forked object," or "magic wand," used in
the ceremony of "opening the mouth," possibly connected with
(b) (a bicornuate uterus), according to Griffith
("Hieroglyphics," p. 60). (c) The Egyptian sign for a key.
(d) The double axe of Crete and Egypt 191
Fig. 9.--The Egyptian emblem for gold, the sign _nub_ 222
Chapter I.
INCENSE AND LIBATIONS.[3]
The dragon was primarily a personification of the life-giving and
life-destroying powers of water. This chapter is concerned with the
genesis of this biological theory of water and its relationship to the
other germs of civilisation.
It is commonly assumed that many of the elementary practices of
civilization, such as the erection of rough stone buildings, whether
houses, tombs, or temples, the crafts of the carpenter and the
stonemason, the carving of statues, the customs of pouring out libations
or burning incense, are such simple and obvious procedures that any
people might adopt them without prompting or contact of any kind with
other populations who do the same sort of things. But if such apparently
commonplace acts be investigated they will be found to have a long and
complex history. None of these things that seem so obvious to us was
attempted until a multitude of diverse circumstances became focussed in
some particular community, and constrained some individual to make the
discovery. Nor did the quality of obviousness become apparent even when
the enlightened discoverer had gathered up the threads of his
predecessor's ideas and woven them into the fabric of a new invention.
For he had then to begin the strenuous fight against the opposition of
his fellows before he could induce them to accept his discovery. He had,
in fact, to contend against their preconceived ideas and their lack of
appreciation of the significance of the progress he had made before he
could persuade them of its "obviousness". That is the history of most
inventions since the world began. But it is begging the question to
pretend that because tradition has made such inventions seem simple and
obvious to us it is unnecessary to inquire into their history or to
assume that any people or any individual simply did these things without
any instruction when the spirit moved it or him so to do.
The customs of burning incense and making libations in religious
ceremonies are so widespread and capable of being explained in such
plausible, though infinitely diverse, ways that it has seemed
unnecessary to inquire more deeply into their real origin and
significance. For example, Professor Toy[4] disposes of these questions
in relation to incense in a summary fashion. He claims that "when burnt
before the deity" it is "to be regarded as food, though in course of
time, when the recollection of this primitive character was lost, a
conventional significance was attached to the act of burning. A more
refined period demanded more refined food for the gods, such as ambrosia
and nectar, but these also were finally given up."
This, of course, is a purely gratuitous assumption, or series of
assumptions, for which there is no real evidence. Moreover, even if
there were any really early literature to justify such statements, they
explain nothing. Incense-burning is just as mysterious if Prof. Toy's
claim be granted as it was before.
But a bewildering variety of other explanations, for all of which the
merit of being "simple and obvious" is claimed, have been suggested. The
reader who is curious about these things will find a luxurious crop of
speculations by consulting a series of encyclopædias.[5] I shall content
myself by quoting only one more. "Frankincense and other spices were
indispensable in temples where bloody sacrifices formed part of the
religion. The atmosphere of Solomon's temple must have been that of a
sickening slaughter-house, and the fumes of incense could alone enable
the priests and worshippers to support it. This would apply to thousands
of other temples through Asia, and doubtless the palaces of kings and
nobles suffered from uncleanliness and insanitary arrangements and
required an antidote to evil smells to make them endurable."[6]
It is an altogether delightful anachronism to imagine that religious
ritual in the ancient and aromatic East was inspired by such
squeamishness as a British sanitary inspector of the twentieth century
might experience!
[Illustration: Fig. 1.--The conventional Egyptian representation of the
Burning of Incense and the Pouring of Libations (Period of the New
Empire)--after Lepsius]
But if there are these many diverse and mutually destructive reasons in
explanation of the origin of incense-burning, it follows that the
meaning of the practice cannot be so "simple and obvious". For scholars
in the past have been unable to agree as to the sense in which these
adjectives should be applied.
But no useful purpose would be served by enumerating a collection of
learned fallacies and exposing their contradictions when the true
explanation has been provided in the earliest body of literature that
has come down from antiquity. I refer to the Egyptian "Pyramid Texts".
Before this ancient testimony is examined certain general principles
involved in the discussion of such problems should be considered. In
this connexion it is appropriate to quote the apt remarks made, in
reference to the practice of totemism, by Professor Sollas.[7] "If it is
difficult to conceive how such ideas ... originated at all, it is still
more difficult to understand how they should have arisen repeatedly and
have developed in much the same way among races evolving independently
in different environments. It is at least simpler to suppose that all
[of them] have a common source ... and may have been carried ... to
remote parts of the world."
I do not think that anyone who conscientiously and without bias examines
the evidence relating to incense-burning, the arbitrary details of the
ritual and the peculiar circumstances under which it is practised in
different countries, can refuse to admit that so artificial a custom
must have been dispersed throughout the world from some one centre where
it was devised.
The remarkable fact that emerges from an examination of these so-called
"obvious explanations" of ethnological phenomena is the failure on the
part of those who are responsible for them to show any adequate
appreciation of the nature of the problems to be solved. They know that
incense has been in use for a vast period of time, and that the practice
of burning it is very widespread. They have been so familiarized with
the custom and certain more or less vague excuses for its perpetuation
that they show no realization of how strangely irrational and devoid of
obvious meaning the procedure is. The reasons usually given in
explanation of its use are for the most part merely paraphrases of the
traditional meanings that in the course of history have come to be
attached to the ritual act or the words used to designate it. Neither
the ethnologist nor the priestly apologist will, as a rule, admit that
he does not know why such ritual acts as pouring out water or burning
incense are performed, and that they are wholly inexplicable and
meaningless to him. Nor will they confess that the real inspiration to
perform such rites is the fact of their predecessors having handed them
down as sacred acts of devotion, the meaning of which has been entirely
forgotten during the process of transmission from antiquity. Instead of
this they simply pretend that the significance of such acts is obvious.
Stripped of the glamour which religious emotion and sophistry have woven
around them, such pretended explanations become transparent subterfuges,
none the less real because the apologists are quite innocent of any
conscious intention to deceive either themselves or their disciples. It
should be sufficient for them that such ritual acts have been handed
down by tradition as right and proper things to do. But in response to
the instinctive impulse of all human beings, the mind seeks for reasons
in justification of actions of which the real inspiration is unknown.
It is a common fallacy to suppose that men's actions are inspired mainly
by reason. The most elementary investigation of the psychology of
everyday life is sufficient to reveal the truth that man is not, as a
rule, the pre-eminently rational creature he is commonly supposed to
be.[8] He is impelled to most of his acts by his instincts, the
circumstances of his personal experience, and the conventions of the
society in which he has grown up. But once he has acted or decided upon
a course of procedure he is ready with excuses in explanation and
attempted justification of his motives. In most cases these are not the
real reasons, for few human beings attempt to analyse their motives or
in fact are competent without help to understand their own feelings and
the real significance of their actions. There is implanted in man the
instinct to interpret for his own satisfaction his feelings and
sensations, i.e. the meaning of his experience. But of necessity this is
mostly of the nature of rationalizing, i.e. providing satisfying
interpretations of thoughts and decisions the real meaning of which
is hidden.
Now it must be patent that the nature of this process of rationalization
will depend largely upon the mental make-up of the individual--of the
body of knowledge and traditions with which his mind has become stored
in the course of his personal experience. The influences to which he has
been exposed, daily and hourly, from the time of his birth onward,
provide the specific determinants of most of his beliefs and views.
Consciously and unconsciously he imbibes certain definite ideas, not
merely of religion, morals, and politics, but of what is the correct and
what is the incorrect attitude to assume in most of the circumstances of
his daily life. These form the staple currency of his beliefs and his
conversation. Reason plays a surprisingly small part in this process,
for most human beings acquire from their fellows the traditions of their
society which relieves them of the necessity of undue thought. The very
words in which the accumulated traditions of his community are conveyed
to each individual are themselves charged with the complex symbolism
that has slowly developed during the ages, and tinges the whole of his
thoughts with their subtle and, to most men, vaguely appreciated shades
of meaning.[9] During this process of acquiring the fruits of his
community's beliefs and experiences every individual accepts without
question a vast number of apparently simple customs and ideas. He is apt
to regard them as obvious, and to assume that reason led him to accept
them or be guided by them, although when the specific question is put to
him he is unable to give their real history.
Before leaving these general considerations[10] I want to emphasize
certain elementary facts of psychology which are often ignored by those
who investigate the early history of civilization.
First, the multitude and the complexity of the circumstances that are
necessary to lead men to make even the simplest invention render the
concatenation of all of these conditions wholly independently on a
second occasion in the highest degree improbable. Until very definite
and conclusive evidence is forthcoming in any individual case it can
safely be assumed that no ethnologically significant innovation in
customs or beliefs has ever been made twice.
Those critics who have recently attempted to dispose of this claim by
referring to the work of the Patent Office thereby display a singular
lack of appreciation of the real point at issue. For the ethnological
problem is concerned with different populations who are assumed _not_ to
share any common heritage of acquired knowledge, nor to have had any
contact, direct or indirect, the one with the other. But the inventors
who resort to the Patent Office are all of them persons supplied with
information from the storehouse of our common civilization; and the
inventions which they seek to protect from imitation by others are
merely developments of the heritage of all civilized peoples. Even when
similar inventions are made apparently independently under such
circumstances, in most cases they can be explained by the fact that two
investigators have followed up a line of advance which has been
determined by the development of the common body of knowledge.
This general discussion suggests another factor in the working of the
human mind.
When certain vital needs or the force of circumstances compel a man to
embark upon a certain train of reasoning or invention the results to
which his investigations lead depend upon a great many circumstances.
Obviously the range of his knowledge and experience and the general
ideas he has acquired from his fellows will play a large part in shaping
his inferences. It is quite certain that even in the simplest problem of
primitive physics or biology his attention will be directed only to some
of, and not all, the factors involved, and that the limitations of his
knowledge will permit him to form a wholly inadequate conception even of
the few factors that have obtruded themselves upon his attention. But he
may frame a working hypothesis in explanation of the factors he had
appreciated, which may seem perfectly exhaustive and final, as well as
logical and rational to him, but to those who come after him, with a
wider knowledge of the properties of matter and the nature of living
beings, and a wholly different attitude towards such problems, the
primitive man's solution may seem merely a ludicrous travesty.
But once a tentative explanation of one group of phenomena has been made
it is the method of science no less than the common tendency of the
human mind to buttress this theory with analogies and fancied
homologies. In other words the isolated facts are built up into a
generalisation. It is important to remember that in most cases this
mental process begins very early; so that the analogies play a very
obtrusive part in the building up of theories. As a rule a multitude of
such influences play a part consciously or unconsciously in shaping any
belief. Hence the historian is faced with the difficulty, often quite
insuperable, of ascertaining (among scores of factors that definitely
played some part in the building up of a great generalization) the real
foundation upon which the vast edifice has been erected. I refer to
these elementary matters here for two reasons. First, because they are
so often overlooked by ethnologists; and secondly, because in these
pages I shall have to discuss a series of historical events in which a
bewildering number of factors played their part. In sifting out a
certain number of them, I want to make it clear that I do not pretend to
have discovered more than a small minority of the most conspicuous
threads in the complex texture of the fabric of early human thought.
Another fact that emerges from these elementary psychological
considerations is the vital necessity of guarding against the
misunderstandings necessarily involved in the use of words. In the
course of long ages the originally simple connotation of the words used
to denote many of our ideas has become enormously enriched with a
meaning which in some degree reflects the chequered history of the
expression of human aspirations. Many writers who in discussing ancient
peoples make use of such terms, for example, as "soul," "religion," and
"gods," without stripping them of the accretions of complex symbolism
that have collected around them within more recent times, become
involved in difficulty and misunderstanding.
For example, the use of the terms "soul" or "soul-substance" in much of
the literature relating to early or relatively primitive people is
fruitful of misunderstanding. For it is quite clear from the context
that in many cases such people meant to imply nothing more than "life"
or "vital principle," the absence of which from the body for any
prolonged period means death. But to translate such a word simply as
"life" is inadequate because all of these people had some theoretical
views as to its identity with the "breath" or to its being in the nature
of a material substance or essence. It is naturally impossible to find
any one word or phrase in our own language to express the exact idea,
for among every people there are varying shades of meaning which cannot
adequately express the symbolism distinctive of each place and society.
To meet this insuperable difficulty perhaps the term "vital essence" is
open to least objection.
In my last Rylands lecture[11] I sketched in rough outline a tentative
explanation of the world-wide dispersal of the elements of the
civilization that is now the heritage of the world at large, and
referred to the part played by Ancient Egypt in the development of
certain arts, customs, and beliefs. On the present occasion I propose to
examine certain aspects of this process of development in greater
detail, and to study the far-reaching influence exerted by the Egyptian
practice of mummification, and the ideas that were suggested by it, in
starting new trains of thought, in stimulating the invention of arts
and crafts that were unknown before then, and in shaping the complex
body of customs and beliefs that were the outcome of these potent
intellectual ferments.
In speaking of the relationship of the practice of mummification to the
development of civilization, however, I have in mind not merely the
influence it exerted upon the moulding of culture, but also the part
played by the trend of philosophy in the world at large in determining
the Egyptian's conceptions of the wider significance of embalming, and
the reaction of these effects upon the current doctrines of the meaning
of natural phenomena.
No doubt it will be asked at the outset, what possible connexion can
there be between the practice of so fantastic and gruesome an art as the
embalming of the dead and the building up of civilization? Is it
conceivable that the course of the development of the arts and crafts,
the customs and beliefs, and the social and political organizations--in
fact any of the essential elements of civilization--has been deflected a
hair's breadth to the right or left as the outcome, directly or
indirectly, of such a practice?
In previous essays and lectures[12] I have indicated how intimately this
custom was related, not merely to the invention of the arts and crafts
of the carpenter and stonemason and all that is implied in the building
up of what Professor Lethaby has called the "matrix of civilization,"
but also to the shaping of religious beliefs and ritual practices,
which developed in association with the evolution of the temple and the
conception of a material resurrection. I have also suggested the
far-reaching significance of an indirect influence of the practice of
mummification in the history of civilization. It was mainly responsible
for prompting the earliest great maritime expeditions of which the
history has been preserved.[13] For many centuries the quest of resins
and balsams for embalming and for use in temple ritual, and wood for
coffin-making, continued to provide the chief motives which induced the
Egyptians to undertake sea-trafficking in the Mediterranean and the Red
Sea. The knowledge and experience thus acquired ultimately made it
possible for the Egyptians and their pupils to push their adventures
further afield. It is impossible adequately to estimate the vastness of
the influence of such intercourse, not merely in spreading abroad
throughout the world the germs of our common civilization, but also, by
bringing into close contact peoples of varied histories and traditions,
in stimulating progress. Even if the practice of mummification had
exerted no other noteworthy effect in the history of the world, this
fact alone would have given it a pre-eminent place.
Another aspect of the influence of mummification I have already
discussed, and do not intend to consider further in this lecture. I
refer to the manifold ways in which it affected the history of medicine
and pharmacy. By accustoming the Egyptians, through thirty centuries, to
the idea of cutting the human corpse, it made it possible for Greek
physicians of the Ptolemaic and later ages to initiate in Alexandria the
systematic dissection of the human body which popular prejudice forbade
elsewhere, and especially in Greece itself. Upon this foundation the
knowledge of anatomy and the science of medicine has been built up.[14]
But in many other ways the practice of mummification exerted
far-reaching effects, directly and indirectly, upon the development of
medical and pharmaceutical knowledge and methods.[15]
There is then this _prima-facie_ evidence that the Egyptian practice of
mummification was closely related to the development of architecture,
maritime trafficking, and medicine. But what I am chiefly concerned with
in the present lecture is the discussion of the much vaster part it
played in shaping the innermost beliefs of mankind and directing the
course of the religious aspirations and the scientific opinions, not
merely of the Egyptians themselves, but also of the world at large, for
many centuries afterward.
It had a profound influence upon the history of human thought. The vague
and ill-defined ideas of physiology and psychology, which had probably
been developing since Aurignacian times[16] in Europe, were suddenly
crystallized into a coherent structure and definite form by the musings
of the Egyptian embalmer. But at the same time, if the new philosophy
did not find expression in the invention of the first deities, it gave
them a much more concrete form than they had previously presented, and
played a large part in the establishment of the foundations upon which
all religious ritual was subsequently built up, and in the initiation of
a priesthood to administer the rites which were suggested by the
practice of mummification.
[3: An elaboration of a Lecture on the relationship of the Egyptian
practice of mummification to the development of civilization delivered
in the John Rylands Library, on 9 February, 1916.]
[4: "Introduction to the History of Religions," p. 486.]
[5: He might start upon this journey of adventure by reading the article
on "Incense" in Hastings' _Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_.]
[6: Samuel Laing, "Human Origins," Revised by Edward Clodd, 1903, p.
38.]
[7: "Ancient Hunters," 2nd Edition, pp. 234 and 235.]
[8: On this subject see Elliot Smith and Pear, "Shell Shock and its
Lessons," Manchester University Press, 1917, p. 59.]
[9: An interesting discussion of this matter by the late Professor
William James will be found in his "Principles of Psychology," Vol. I,
pp. 261 _et seq._]
[10: For a fuller discussion of certain phases of this matter see my
address on "Primitive Man," in the _Proceedings of the British Academy_,
1917, especially pp. 23-50.]
[11: "The Influence of Ancient Egyptian Civilization in the East and in
America," _The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library_, Jan.-March, 1916.]
[12: "The Migrations of Early Culture," 1915, Manchester University
Press: "The Evolution of the Rock-cut Tomb and the Dolmen," _Essays and
Studies Presented to William Ridgeway_, Cambridge, 1913, p. 493:
"Oriental Tombs and Temples," _Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and
Oriental Society_, 1914-1915, p. 55.]
[13: "Ships as Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture," Manchester
University Press, 1917, p. 37.]
[14: "Egyptian Mummies," _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. I, Part
III, July, 1914, p. 189.]
[15: Such, for example, as its influence in the acquisition of the means
of preserving the tissues of the body, which has played so large a part
in the development of the sciences of anatomy, pathology, and in fact
biology in general. The practice of mummification was largely
responsible for the attainment of a knowledge of the properties of many
drugs and especially of those which restrain putrefactive changes. But
it was not merely in the acquisition of a knowledge of material facts
that mummification exerted its influence. The humoral theory of
pathology and medicine, which prevailed for so many centuries and the
effects of which are embalmed for all time in our common speech, was
closely related in its inception to the ideas which I shall discuss in
these pages. The Egyptians themselves did not profit to any appreciable
extent from the remarkable opportunities which their practice of
embalming provided for studying human anatomy. The sanctity of these
ritual acts was fatal to the employment of such opportunities to gain
knowledge. Nor was the attitude of mind of the Egyptians such as to
permit the acquisition of a real appreciation of the structure of the
body.]
[16: See my address, "Primitive Man," _Proc. Brit. Academy_, 1917.]
Beginning of Stone-Working.
During the last few years I have repeatedly had occasion to point out
the fundamental fallacy underlying much of the modern speculation in
ethnology, and I have no intention of repeating these strictures
here.[17] But it is a significant fact that, when one leaves the
writings of professed ethnologists and turns to the histories of their
special subjects written by scholars in kindred fields of investigation,
views such as I have been setting forth will often be found to be
accepted without question or comment as the obvious truth.
There is an excellent little book entitled "Architecture," written by
Professor W. R. Lethaby for the Home University Library, that affords an
admirable illustration of this interesting fact. I refer to this
particular work because it gives lucid expression to some of the ideas
that I wish to submit for consideration. "Two arts have changed the
surface of the world, Agriculture and Architecture" (p. 1). "To a large
degree architecture" [which he defines as "the matrix of civilization"]
"is an Egyptian art" (p. 66): for in Egypt "we shall best find the
origins of architecture as a whole" (p. 21).
Nevertheless Professor Lethaby bows the knee to current tradition when
he makes the wholly unwarranted assumption that Egypt probably learnt
its art from Babylonia. He puts forward this remarkable claim in spite
of his frank confession that "little or nothing is known of a primitive
age in Mesopotamia. At a remote time the art of Babylonia was that of a
civilized people. As has been said, there is a great similarity between
this art and that of dynastic times in Egypt. Yet it appears that Egypt
borrowed of Asia, rather than the reverse." [He gives no reasons for
this opinion, for which there is no evidence, except possibly the
invention of bricks for building.] "If the origins of art in Babylonia
were as fully known as those in Egypt, the story of architecture might
have to begin in Asia instead of Egypt" (p. 67).
But later on he speaks in a more convincing manner of the known facts
when he says (p. 82):--
When Greece entered on her period of high-strung life the time of first
invention in the arts was over--the heroes of Craft, like Tubal Cain and
Daedalus, necessarily belong to the infancy of culture. The phenomenon
of Egypt could not occur again; the mission of Greece was rather to
settle down to a task of gathering, interpreting, and bringing to
perfection Egypt's gifts. The arts of civilization were never developed
in watertight compartments, as is shown by the uniformity of custom over
the modern world. Further, if any new nation enters into the circle of
culture it seems that, like Japan, it must 'borrow the capital'. The art
of Greece could hardly have been more self-originated than is the
science of Japan. Ideas of the temple and of the fortified town must
have spread from the East, the square-roomed house, columnar orders,
fine masonry, were all Egyptian.
Elsewhere[18] I have pointed out that it was the importance which the
Egyptian came to attach to the preservation of the dead and to the
making of adequate provision for the deceased's welfare that gradually
led to the aggrandisement of the tomb. In course of time this impelled
him to cut into the rock,[19] and, later still, suggested the
substitution of stone for brick in erecting the chapel of offerings
above ground. The Egyptian burial customs were thus intimately related
to the conceptions that grew up with the invention of embalming. The
evidence in confirmation of this is so precise that every one who
conscientiously examines it must be forced to the conclusion that man
did not instinctively select stone as a suitable material with which to
erect temples and houses, and forthwith begin to quarry and shape it for
such purposes.
There was an intimate connexion between the first use of stone for
building and the practice of mummification. It was probably for this
reason, and not from any abstract sense of "wonder at the magic of art,"
as Professor Lethaby claims, that "ideas of sacredness, of ritual
rightness, of magic stability and correspondence with the universe,
and of perfection of form and proportion" came to be associated with
stone buildings.
At first stone was used only for such sacred purposes, and the pharaoh
alone was entitled to use it for his palaces, in virtue of the fact that
he was divine, the son and incarnation on earth of the sun-god. It was
only when these Egyptian practices were transplanted to other countries,
where these restrictions did not obtain, that the rigid wall of
convention was broken down.
Even in Rome until well into the Christian era "the largest domestic and
civil buildings were of plastered brick". "Wrought masonry seems to have
been demanded only for the great monuments, triumphal arches, theatres,
temples and above all for the Coliseum." (Lethaby, _op. cit._ p. 120).
Nevertheless Rome was mainly responsible for breaking down the hieratic
tradition which forbade the use of stone for civil purposes. "In Roman
architecture the engineering element became paramount. It was this which
broke the moulds of tradition and recast construction into modern form,
and made it free once more" (p. 130).
But Egypt was not only responsible for inaugurating the use of stone for
building. For another forty centuries she continued to be the inventor
of new devices in architecture. From time to time methods of building
which developed in Egypt were adopted by her neighbours and spread far
and wide. The shaft-tombs and _mastabas_ of the Egyptian Pyramid Age
were adopted in various localities in the region of the Eastern
Mediterranean,[20] with certain modifications in each place, and in turn
became the models which were roughly copied in later ages by the
wandering dolmen-builders. The round tombs of Crete and Mycenæ were
clearly only local modifications of their square prototypes, the
Egyptian Pyramids of the Middle Kingdom. "While this Ægean art gathered
from, and perhaps gave to, Egypt, it passed on its ideals to the north
and west of Europe, where the productions of the Bronze Age clearly show
its influence" (Lethaby, p. 78) in the chambered mounds of the Iberian
peninsula and Brittany, of New Grange in Ireland and of Maes Howe in the
Orkneys.[21] In the East the influence of these Ægean modifications may
possibly be seen in the Indian _stupas_ and the _dagabas_ of Ceylon,
just as the stone stepped pyramids there reveal the effects of contact
with the civilizations of Babylonia and Egypt.
Professor Lethaby sees the influence of Egypt in the orientation of
Christian churches (p. 133), as well as in many of their structural
details (p. 142); in the domed roofs, the iconography, the symbolism,
and the decoration of Byzantine architecture (p. 138); and in Mohammedan
buildings wherever they are found.
For it was not only the architecture of Greece, Rome, and Christendom
that received its inspiration from Egypt, but that of Islâm also. These
buildings were not, like the religion itself, in the main Arabic in
origin. "Primitive Arabian art itself is quite negligible. When the new
strength of the followers of the Prophet was consolidated with great
rapidity into a rich and powerful empire, it took over the arts and
artists of the conquered lands, extending from North Africa to Persia"
(p. 158); and it is known how this influence spread as far west as Spain
and as far east as Indonesia. "The Pharos at Alexandria, the great
lighthouse built about 280 B.C., almost appears to have been the parent
of all high and isolated towers.... Even on the coast of Britain, at
Dover, we had a Pharos which was in some degree an imitation of the
Alexandrian one." The Pharos at Boulogne, the round towers of Ravenna,
and the imitations of it elsewhere in Europe, even as far as Ireland,
are other examples of its influence. But in addition the Alexandrian
Pharos had "as great an effect as the prototype of Eastern minarets as
it had for Western towers" (p. 115).
I have quoted so extensively from Professor Lethaby's brilliant little
book to give this independent testimony of the vastness of the influence
exerted by Egypt during a span of nearly forty centuries in creating and
developing the "matrix of civilization". Most of this wider dispersal
abroad was effected by alien peoples, who transformed their gifts from
Egypt before they handed on the composite product to some more distant
peoples. But the fact remains that the great centre of original
inspiration in architecture was Egypt.
The original incentive to the invention of this essentially Egyptian art
was the desire to protect and secure the welfare of the dead. The
importance attached to this aim was intimately associated with the
development of the practice of mummification.
With this tangible and persistent evidence of the general scheme of
spread of the arts of building I can now turn to the consideration of
some of the other, more vital, manifestations of human thought and
aspirations, which also, like the "matrix of civilization" itself, grew
up in intimate association with the practice of embalming the dead.
I have already mentioned Professor Lethaby's reference to architecture
and agriculture as the two arts that have changed the surface of the
world. It is interesting to note that the influence of these two
ingredients of civilization was diffused abroad throughout the world in
intimate association the one with the other. In most parts of the world
the use of stone for building and Egyptian methods of architecture made
their first appearance along with the peculiarly distinctive form of
agriculture and irrigation so intimately associated with early Babylonia
and Egypt.[22]
But agriculture also exerted a most profound influence in shaping the
early Egyptian body of beliefs.
I shall now call attention to certain features of the earliest mummies,
and then discuss how the ideas suggested by the practice of the art of
embalming the dead were affected by the early theories of agriculture
and the mutual influence they exerted one upon the other.
[17: See, however, _op. cit. supra_; also "The Origin of the
Pre-Columbian Civilization of America," _Science_, N.S., Vol. XLV, No.
1158, pp. 241-246, 9 March, 1917.]
[18: _Op. cit. supra_.]
[19: For the earliest evidence of the cutting of stone for architectural
purposes, see my statement in the _Report of the British Association for
1914_, p. 212.]
[20: Especially in Crete, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Southern Russia,
and the North African Littoral.]
[21: For an account of the evidence relating to these monuments, with
full bibliographical references, see Déchelette, "Manuel d'Archéologie
préhistorique Celtique et Gallo-Romaine," T. 1, 1912, pp. 390 _et seq._;
also Sophus Müller, "Urgeschichte Europas," 1905, pp. 74 and 75; and
Louis Siret, "Les Cassitérides et l'Empire Colonial des Phéniciens,"
_L'Anthropologie_, T. 20, 1909, p. 313.]
[22: W. J. Perry, "The Geographical Distribution of Terraced Cultivation
and Irrigation," _Memoirs and Proc. Manch. Lit. and Phil. Soc._, Vol.
60, 1916.]
The Origin of Embalming.
I have already explained[23] how the increased importance that came to
be attached to the corpse as the means of securing a continuance of
existence led to the aggrandizement of the tomb. Special care was taken
to protect the dead and this led to the invention of coffins, and to the
making of a definite tomb, the size of which rapidly increased as more
and more ample supplies of food and other offerings were made. But the
very measures thus taken the more efficiently to protect and tend the
dead defeated the primary object of all this care. For, when buried in
such an elaborate tomb, the body no longer became desiccated and
preserved by the forces of nature, as so often happened when it was
placed in a simple grave directly in the hot dry sand.
It is of fundamental importance in the argument set forth here to
remember that these factors came into operation before the time of the
First Dynasty. They were responsible for impelling the Proto-Egyptians
not only to invent the wooden coffin, the stone sarcophagus, the
rock-cut tomb, and to begin building in stone, but also to devise
measures for the artificial preservation of the body.
But in addition to stimulating the development of the first real
architecture and the art of mummification other equally far-reaching
results in the region of ideas and beliefs grew out of these practices.
From the outset the Egyptian embalmer was clearly inspired by two
ideals: (a) to preserve the actual tissues of the body with a minimum
disturbance of its superficial appearance; and (b) to preserve a
likeness of the deceased as he was in life. At first it was naturally
attempted to make this simulacrum of the body itself if it were
possible, or alternatively, when this ideal was found to be
unattainable, from its wrappings or by means of a portrait statue. It
was soon recognized that it was beyond the powers of the early embalmer
to succeed in mummifying the body itself so as to retain a recognizable
likeness to the man when alive: although from time to time such attempts
were repeatedly made,[24] until the period of the XXI Dynasty, when the
operator clearly was convinced that he had at last achieved what his
predecessors, for perhaps twenty-five centuries, had been trying in vain
to do.
[23: _Op. cit. supra_.]
[24: See my volume on "The Royal Mummies," General Catalogue of the
Cairo Museum.]
Early Mummies.
[Illustration: Fig. 2.--Water-colour sketch by Mrs. Cecil Firth,
representing a restoration of the early mummy found at Medûm by Prof.
Flinders Petrie, now in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in
London]
In the earliest known (Second Dynasty) examples of Egyptian attempts at
mummification[25] the corpse was swathed in a large series of bandages,
which were moulded into shape to represent the form of the body. In a
later (probably Fifth Dynasty) mummy, found in 1892 by Professor
Flinders Petrie at Medûm, the superficial bandages had been impregnated
with a resinous paste, which while still plastic was moulded into the
form of the body, special care being bestowed upon the modelling of the
face[26] and the organs of reproduction, so as to leave no room for
doubt as to the identity and the sex. Professor Junker has described[27]
an interesting series of variations of these practices. In two graves
the bodies were covered with a layer of stucco plaster. First the corpse
was covered with a fine linen cloth: then the plaster was put on, and
modelled into the form of the body (p. 252). But in two other cases it
was not the whole body that was covered with this layer of stucco,
but only the head. Professor Junker claims that this was done
"apparently because the head was regarded as the most important part, as
the organs of taste, sight, smell, and hearing were contained in it".
But surely there was the additional and more obtrusive reason that the
face affords the means of identifying the individual! For this modelling
of the features was intended primarily as a restoration of the form of
the body which had been altered, if not actually destroyed. In other
cases, where no attempt was made to restore the features in such durable
materials as resin or stucco, the linen-enveloped head was modelled, and
a representation of the eyes painted upon it so as to enhance the
life-like appearance of the face.
These facts prove quite conclusively that the earliest attempts to
reproduce the features of the deceased and so preserve his likeness,
were made upon the wrapped mummy itself. Thus the mummy was intended to
be the portrait as well as the actual bodily remains of the dead. In
view of certain differences of opinion as to the original significance
of the funerary ritual, which I shall have occasion to discuss later on
(see p. 20), it is important to keep these facts clearly in mind.
A discovery made by Mr. J. E. Quibell in the course of his excavations
at Sakkara[28] suggests that, as an outcome of these practices a new
procedure may have been devised in the Pyramid Age--the making of a
death-mask. For he discovered what may be the mask taken directly from
the face of the Pharaoh Teta (Fig. 3).
[Illustration: Fig. 3.--A mould taken from a life-mask found in the
Pyramid of Teta by Mr. Quibell]
About this time also the practice originated of making a life-size
portrait statue of the dead man's head and placing it along with the
actual body in the burial chamber. These "reserve heads," as they have
been called, were usually made of fine limestone, but Junker found one
made of Nile mud.[29]
Junker believes that there was an intimate relationship between the
plaster-covered heads and the reserve-heads. They were both expressions
of the same idea, to preserve a simulacrum of the deceased when his
actual body had lost all recognizable likeness to him as he was when
alive. The one method aimed at combining in the same object the actual
body and the likeness; the other at making a more life-like portrait
apart from the corpse, which could take the place of the latter when
it decayed.
Junker states further that "it is no chance that the substitute-heads
... entirely, or at any rate chiefly, are found in the tombs that have
no statue-chamber and probably possessed no statues. The statues [of the
whole body] certainly were made, at any rate partly, with the intention
that they should take the place of the decaying body, although later the
idea was modified. The placing of the substitute-head in [the burial
chamber of] the mastaba therefore became unnecessary at the moment when
the complete figure of the dead [placed in a special hidden chamber, now
commonly called the _serdab_] was introduced." The ancient Egyptians
themselves called the _serdab_ the _pr-twt_ or "statue-house," and the
group of chambers, forming the tomb-chapel in the mastaba, was known to
them as the "_ka_-house".[30]
It is important to remember that, even when the custom of making a
statue of the deceased became fully established, the original idea of
restoring the form of the mummy itself or its wrappings was never
abandoned. The attempts made in the XVIII, and XXI and XXII Dynasties to
pack the body of the mummy itself and by artificial means give it a
life-like appearance afford evidence of this. In the New Empire and in
Roman times the wrapped mummy was sometimes modelled into the form of a
statue. But throughout Egyptian history it was a not uncommon practice
to provide a painted mask for the wrapped mummy, or in early Christian
times simply a portrait of the deceased.
With this custom there also persisted a remembrance of its original
significance. Professor Garstang records the fact that in the XII
Dynasty,[31] when a painted mask was placed upon the wrapped mummy, no
statue or statuette was found in the tomb. The undertakers apparently
realized that the mummy[32] which was provided with a life-like mask was
therefore fulfilling the purposes for which statues were devised. So
also in the New Empire the packing and modelling of the actual mummy so
as to restore its life-like appearance were regarded as obviating the
need for a statue.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Portrait Statue of an Egyptian Lady of the
Pyramid Age]
I must now return to the further consideration of the Old Kingdom
statues. All these varied experiments were inspired by the same desire,
to preserve the likeness of the deceased. But when the sculptors
attained their object, and created those marvellous life-like portraits,
which must ever remain marvels of technical skill and artistic feeling
(Fig. 4), the old ideas that surged through the minds of the Predynastic
Egyptians, as they contemplated the desiccated remains of the dead, were
strongly reinforced. The earlier people's thoughts were turned more
specifically than heretofore to the contemplation of the nature of life
and death by seeing the bodies of their dead preserved whole and
incorruptible; and, if their actions can be regarded as an expression of
their ideas, they began to wonder what was lacking in these physically
complete bodies to prevent them from feeling and acting like living
beings. Such must have been the results of their puzzled contemplation
of the great problems of life and death. Otherwise the impulse to make
more certain the preservation of the body by the invention of
mummification and to retain a life-like representation of the deceased
by means of a sculptured statue remains inexplicable. But when the
corpse had been rendered incorruptible and the deceased's portrait had
been fashioned with realistic perfection the old ideas would recur with
renewed strength. The belief then took more definite shape that if the
missing elements of vitality could be restored to the statue, it might
become animated and the dead man would live again in his vitalized
statue. This prompted a more intense and searching investigation of the
problems concerning the nature of the elements of vitality of which the
corpse was deprived at the time of death. Out of these inquiries in
course of time a highly complex system of philosophy developed.[33]
But in the earlier times with which I am now concerned it found
practical expression in certain ritual procedures, invented to convey to
the statue the breath of life, the vitalising fluids, and the odour and
sweat of the living body. The seat of knowledge and of feeling was
believed to be retained in the body when the heart was left _in situ_:
so that the only thing needed to awaken consciousness, and make it
possible for the dead man to take heed of his friends and to act
voluntarily, was to present offerings of blood to stimulate the
physiological functions of the heart. But the element of vitality which
left the body at death had to be restored to the statue, which
represented the deceased in the _ka_-house.[34]
In my earlier attempts[35] to interpret these problems, I adopted the
view that the making of portrait statues was the direct outcome of the
practice of mummification. But Dr. Alan Gardiner, whose intimate
knowledge of the early literature enables him to look at such problems
from the Egyptian's own point of view, has suggested a modification of
this interpretation. Instead of regarding the custom of making statues
as an outcome of the practice of mummification, he thinks that the two
customs developed simultaneously, in response to the two-fold desire to
preserve both the actual body and a representation of the features of
the dead. But I think this suggestion does not give adequate recognition
to the fact that the earliest attempts at funerary portraiture were made
upon the wrappings of the actual mummies.[36] This fact and the evidence
which I have already quoted from Junker make it quite clear that from
the beginning the embalmer's aim was to preserve the body and to convert
the mummy itself into a simulacrum of the deceased. When he realized
that his technical skill was not adequate to enable him to accomplish
this double aim, he fell back upon the device of making a more perfect
and realistic portrait statue apart from the mummy. But, as I have
already pointed out, he never completely renounced his ambition of
transforming the mummy itself; and in the time of the New Empire he
actually attained the result which he had kept in view for nearly twenty
centuries.
In these remarks I have been referring only to funerary portrait
statues. Centuries before the attempt was made to fashion them modellers
had been making of clay and stone representations of cattle and human
beings, which have been found not only in Predynastic graves in Egypt
but also in so-called "Upper Palæolithic" deposits in Europe.
But the fashioning of realistic and life-size human portrait-statues for
funerary purposes was a new art, which gradually developed in the way I
have tried to depict. No doubt the modellers made use of the skill they
had acquired in the practice of the older art of rough impressionism.
Once the statue was made a stone-house (the _serdab_) was provided for
it above ground[37]. As the dolmen is a crude copy of the _serdab_[38]
it can be claimed as one of the ultimate results of the practice of
mummification. It is clear that the conception of the possibility of a
life beyond the grave assumed a more concrete form when it was realized
that the body itself could be rendered incorruptible and its distinctive
traits could be kept alive by means of a portrait statue. There are
reasons for supposing that primitive man did not realize or contemplate
the possibility of his own existence coming to an end.[39] Even when he
witnessed the death of his fellows he does not appear to have
appreciated the fact that it was really the end of life and not merely a
kind of sleep from which the dead might awake. But if the corpse were
destroyed or underwent a process of natural disintegration the fact was
brought home to him that death had occurred. If these considerations,
which early Egyptian literature seems to suggest, be borne in mind, the
view that the preservation of the body from corruption implied a
continuation of existence becomes intelligible. At first the
subterranean chambers in which the actual body was housed were developed
into a many-roomed house for the deceased, complete in every detail.[40]
But when the statue took over the function of representing the deceased,
a dwelling was provided for it above ground. This developed into the
temple where the relatives and friends of the dead came and made the
offerings of food which were regarded as essential for the maintenance
of existence.
The evolution of the temple was thus the direct outcome of the ideas
that grew up in connexion with the preservation of the dead. For at
first it was nothing more than the dwelling place of the reanimated
dead. But when, for reasons which I shall explain later (see p. 30), the
dead king became deified, his temple of offerings became the building
where food and drink were presented to the god, not merely to maintain
his existence, but also to restore his consciousness, and so afford an
opportunity for his successor, the actual king, to consult him and
obtain his advice and help. The presentation of offerings and the ritual
procedures for animating and restoring consciousness to the dead king
were at first directed solely to these ends. But in course of time, as
their original purpose became obscured, these services in the temple
altered in character, and their meaning became rationalized into acts
of homage and worship, and of prayer and supplication, and in much later
times, acquired an ethical and moral significance that was wholly absent
from the original conception of the temple services. The earliest idea
of the temple as a place of offering has not been lost sight of. Even in
our times the offertory still finds a place in temple services.
[25: G. Elliot Smith, "The Earliest Evidence of Attempts at
Mummification in Egypt," _Report British Association_, 1912, p. 612:
compare also J. Garstang, "Burial Customs of Ancient Egypt," London,
1907, pp. 29 and 30. Professor Garstang did not recognize that
mummification had been attempted.]
[26: G. Elliot Smith, "The History of Mummification in Egypt," _Proc.
Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow_, 1910: also "Egyptian Mummies,"
_Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. I, Part III, July, 1914, Plate
XXXI.]
[27: "Excavations of the Vienna Imperial Academy of Sciences at the
Pyramids of Gizah, 1914," _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. I, Oct.
1914, p. 250.]
[28: "Excavations at Saqqara," 1907-8, p. 113.]
[29: The great variety of experiments that were being made at the
beginning of the Pyramid Age bears ample testimony to the fact that the
original inventors of these devices were actually at work in Lower Egypt
at that time.]
[30: Aylward M. Blackman, "The _Ka_-House and the Serdab," _Journal of
Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. III, Part IV, Oct., 1916, p. 250. The word
_serdab_ is merely the Arabic word used by the native workmen, which has
been adopted and converted into a technical term by European
archæologists.]
[31: _Op. cit._ p. 171.]
[32: It is a remarkable fact that Professor Garstang, who brought to
light perhaps the best, and certainly the best-preserved, collection of
Middle Kingdom mummies ever discovered, failed to recognize the fact
that they had really been embalmed (_op. cit._ p. 171).]
[33: The reader who wishes for fuller information as to the reality of
these beliefs and how seriously they were held will find them still in
active operation in China. An admirable account of Chinese philosophy
will be found in De Groot's "Religious System of China," especially Vol.
IV, Book II. It represents the fully developed (New Empire) system of
Egyptian belief modified in various ways by Babylonian, Indian and
Central Asiatic influences, as well as by accretions developed locally
in China.]
[34: A. M. Blackman, "The _Ka_-House and the Serdab," _The Journal of
Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. III, Part IV, Oct., 1916, p. 250.]
[35: "Migrations of Early Culture," p. 37.]
[36: Dr. Alan Gardiner (Davies and Gardiner, "The Tomb of Amenemhēt,"
1915, p. 83, footnote) has, I think, overlooked certain statements in my
writings and underestimated the antiquity of the embalmer's art; for he
attributes to me the opinion that "mummification was a custom of
relatively late growth".
The presence in China of the characteristically Egyptian beliefs
concerning the animation of statues (de Groot, _op. cit._ pp. 339-356),
whereas the practice of mummification, though not wholly absent, is not
obtrusive, might perhaps be interpreted by some scholars as evidence in
favour of the development of the custom of making statues independently
of mummification. But such an inference is untenable. Not only is it the
fact that in most parts of the world the practices of making statues and
mummifying the dead are found in association the one with the other, but
also in China the essential beliefs concerning the dead are based upon
the supposition that the body is fully preserved (_see_ de Groot, chap.
XV.). It is quite evident that the Chinese customs have been derived
directly or indirectly from some people who mummified their dead as a
regular practice. There can be no doubt that the ultimate source of
their inspiration to do these things was Egypt.
I need mention only one of many identical peculiarities that makes this
quite certain. De Groot says it is "strange to see Chinese fancy depict
the souls of the viscera as distinct individuals with animal forms" (p.
71). The same custom prevailed in Egypt, where the "souls" or protective
deities were first given animal forms in the Nineteenth Dynasty
(Reisner).]
[37: The Arabic word conveys the idea of being "hidden underground,"
because the house is exposed by excavation.]
[38: _Op. cit. supra_, Ridgeway Essays; also _Man_, 1913, p. 193.]
[39: See Alan H. Gardiner, "Life and Death (Egyptian)," Hastings'
_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_.]
[40: See the quotation from Mr. Quibell's account in my statement in the
_Report of the British Association for 1914_, p. 215.]
The Significance of Libations.
The central idea of this lecture was suggested by Mr. Aylward M.
Blackman's important discovery of the actual meaning of incense and
libations to the Egyptians themselves.[41] The earliest body of
literature preserved from any of the peoples of antiquity is comprised
in the texts inscribed in the subterranean chambers of the Sakkara
Pyramids of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. These documents, written
forty-five centuries ago, were first brought to light in modern times in
1880-81; and since the late Sir Gaston Maspero published the first
translation of them, many scholars have helped in the task of
elucidating their meaning. But it remained for Blackman to discover the
explanation they give of the origin and significance of the act of
pouring out libations. "The general meaning of these passages is quite
clear. The corpse of the deceased is dry and shrivelled. To revivify it
the vital fluids that have exuded from it [in the process of
mummification] must be restored, for not till then will life return and
the heart beat again. This, so the texts show us, was believed to be
accomplished by offering libations to the accompaniment of incantations"
(_op. cit._ p. 70).
In the first three passages quoted by Blackman from the Pyramid Texts
"the libations are said to be the actual fluids that have issued from
the corpse". In the next four quotations "a different notion is
introduced. It is not the deceased's own exudations that are to revive
his shrunken frame but those of a divine body, the [god's fluid][42]
that came from the corpse of Osiris himself, the juices that dissolved
from his decaying flesh, which are communicated to the dead
sacrament-wise under the form of these libations."
This dragging-in of Osiris is especially significant. For the analogy of
the life-giving power of water that is specially associated with Osiris
played a dominant part in suggesting the ritual of libations. Just as
water, when applied to the apparently dead seed, makes it germinate and
come to life, so libations can reanimate the corpse. These general
biological theories of the potency of water were current at the time,
and, as I shall explain later (see p. 28), had possibly received
specific application to man long before the idea of libations developed.
For, in the development of the cult of Osiris[43] the general
fertilizing power of water when applied to the soil found specific
exemplification in the potency of the seminal fluid to fertilize human
beings. Malinowski has pointed out that certain Papuan people, who are
ignorant of the fact that women are fertilized by sexual connexion,
believe that they can be rendered pregnant by rain falling upon them
(_op. cit. infra_). The study of folk-lore and early beliefs makes it
abundantly clear that in the distant past which I am now discussing no
clear distinction was made between fertilization and vitalization,
between bringing new life into being and reanimating the body which had
once been alive. The process of fertilization of the female and
animating a corpse or a statue were regarded as belonging to the same
category of biological processes. The sculptor who carved the
portrait-statues for the Egyptian's tomb was called _sa'nkh_, "he who
causes to live," and "the word 'to fashion' (_ms_) a statue is to all
appearances identical with _ms_, 'to give birth'".[44]
Thus the Egyptians themselves expressed in words the ideas which an
independent study of the ethnological evidence showed many other peoples
to entertain, both in ancient and modern times.[45]
The interpretation of ancient texts and the study of the beliefs of less
cultured modern peoples indicate that our expressions: "to give birth,"
"to give life," "to maintain life," "to ward off death," "to insure good
luck," "to prolong life," "to give life to the dead," "to animate a
corpse or a representation of the dead," "to give fertility," "to
impregnate," "to create," represent a series of specializations of
meaning which were not clearly differentiated the one from the other in
early times or among relatively primitive modern people.
The evidence brought together in Jackson's work clearly suggests that at
a very early period in human history, long before the ideas that found
expression in the Osiris story had materialized, men entertained in all
its literal crudity the belief that the external organ of reproduction
from which the child emerged at birth was the actual creator of the
child, not merely the giver of birth but also the source of life.
The widespread tendency of the human mind to identify similar objects
and attribute to them the powers of the things they mimic led primitive
men to assign to the cowry-shell all these life-giving and birth-giving
virtues. It became an amulet to give fertility, to assist at birth, to
maintain life, to ward off danger, to ensure the life hereafter, to
bring luck of any sort. Now, as the giver of birth, the cowry-shell also
came to be identified with, or regarded as, the mother and creator of
the human family; and in course of time, as this belief became
rationalized, the shell's maternity received visible expression and it
became personified as an actual woman, the Great Mother, at first nameless
and with ill-defined features. But at a later period, when the dead king
Osiris gradually acquired his attributes of divinity, and a god emerged
with the form of a man, the vagueness of the Great Mother who had been
merely the personified cowry-shell soon disappeared and the amulet assumed,
as Hathor, the form of a real woman, or, for reasons to be explained
later, a cow.
The influence of these developments reacted upon the nascent conception
of the water-controlling god, Osiris; and his powers of fertility were
enlarged to include many of the life-giving attributes of Hathor.
[41: "The Significance of Incense and Libations in Funerary and Temple
Ritual," _Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde_, Bd.
50, 1912, p. 69.]
[42: Mr. Blackman here quotes the actual word in hieroglyphics and adds
the translation "god's fluid" and the following explanation in a
footnote: "The Nile was supposed to be the fluid which issued from
Osiris. The expression in the Pyramid texts may refer to this
belief--the dead" [in the Pyramid Age it would have been more accurate
if he had said the dead king, in whose Pyramid the inscriptions were
found] "being usually identified with Osiris--since the water used in
the libations was Nile water."]
[43: The voluminous literature relating to Osiris will be found
summarized in the latest edition of "The Golden Bough" by Sir James
Frazer. But in referring the reader to this remarkable compilation of
evidence it is necessary to call particular attention to the fact that
Sir James Frazer's interpretation is permeated with speculations based
upon the modern ethnological dogma of independent evolution of similar
customs and beliefs without cultural contact between the different
localities where such similarities make their appearance.
The complexities of the motives that inspire and direct human activities
are entirely fatal to such speculations, as I have attempted to indicate
(see above, p. 195). But apart from this general warning, there are
other objections to Sir James Frazer's theories. In his illuminating
article upon Osiris and Horus, Dr. Alan Gardiner (in a criticism of Sir
James Frazer's "The Golden Bough: Adonis, Attis, Osiris; Studies in the
History of Oriental Religion," _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol.
II, 1915, p. 122) insists upon the crucial fact that Osiris was
primarily a king, and that "it is always as a _dead_ king," "the rôle of
the living king being invariably played by Horus, his son and heir".
He states further: "What Egyptologists wish to know about Osiris beyond
anything else is how and by what means he became associated with the
processes of vegetable life". An examination of the literature relating
to Osiris and the large series of homologous deities in other countries
(which exhibit _prima facie_ evidence of a common origin) suggests the
idea that the king who first introduced the practice of systematic
irrigation thereby laid the foundation of his reputation as a beneficent
reformer. When, for reasons which I shall discuss later on (see p. 220),
the dead king became deified, his fame as the controller of water and
the fertilization of the earth became apotheosized also. I venture to
put forward this suggestion only because none of the alternative
hypotheses that have been propounded seem to be in accordance with,
or to offer an adequate explanation of, the body of known facts
concerning Osiris.
It is a remarkable fact that in his lectures on "The Development of
Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," which are based upon his own
studies of the Pyramid Texts, and are an invaluable storehouse of
information, Professor J. H. Breasted should have accepted Sir James
Frazer's views. These seem to me to be altogether at variance with the
renderings of the actual Egyptian texts and to confuse the exposition.]
[44: Dr. Alan Gardiner, quoted in my "Migrations of Early Culture," p.
42: see also the same scholar's remarks in Davies and Gardiner, "The
Tomb of Amenemhēt," 1915, p. 57, and "A new Masterpiece of Egyptian
Sculpture," _The Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. IV, Part I,
Jan., 1917.]
[45: See J. Wilfrid Jackson, "Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of
Early Culture," 1917, Manchester University Press.]
Early Biological Theories.
Before the full significance of these procedures can be appreciated it
is essential to try to get at the back of the Proto-Egyptian's mind and
to understand his general trend of thought. I specially want to make it
clear that the ritual use of water for animating the corpse or the
statue was merely a specific application of the general principles of
biology which were then current. It was no mere childish make-believe or
priestly subterfuge to regard the pouring out of water as a means of
animating a block of stone. It was a conviction for which the
Proto-Egyptians considered there was a substantial scientific basis; and
their faith in the efficacy of water to animate the dead is to be
regarded in the same light as any scientific inference which is made at
the present time to give a specific application of some general theory
considered to be well founded. The Proto-Egyptians clearly believed in
the validity of the general biological theory of the life-giving
properties of water. Many facts, no doubt quite convincing to them,
testified to the soundness of their theory. They accepted the principle
with the same confidence that modern people have adopted Newton's Law of
Gravitation, and Darwin's theory of the Origin of Species, and applied
it to explain many phenomena or to justify certain procedures, which in
the light of fuller knowledge seem to modern people puerile and
ludicrous. But the early people obviously took these procedures
seriously and regarded their actions as rational. The fact that their
early biological theory was inadequate ought not to mislead modern
scholars and encourage them to fall into the error of supposing that the
ritual of libations was not based upon a serious inference. Modern
scientists do not accept the whole of Darwin's teaching, or possibly
even Newton's "Law," but this does not mean that in the past innumerable
inferences have been honestly and confidently made in specific
application of these general principles.
It is important, then, that I should examine more closely the
Proto-Egyptian body of doctrine to elucidate the mutual influence of it
and the ideas suggested by the practice of mummification. It is not
known where agriculture was first practised or the circumstances which
led men to appreciate the fact that plants could be cultivated. In many
parts of the world agriculture can be carried on without artificial
irrigation, and even without any adequate appreciation on the part of
the farmer of the importance of water. But when it came to be practised
under such conditions as prevail in Egypt and Mesopotamia, the
cultivator would soon be forced to realize that water was essential for
the growth of plants, and that it was imperative to devise artificial
means by which the soil might be irrigated. It is not known where or by
whom this cardinal fact first came to be appreciated, whether by the
Sumerians or the Egyptians or by some other people. But it is known that
in the earliest records both of Egypt and Sumer the most significant
manifestations of a ruler's wisdom were the making of irrigation canals
and the controlling of water. Important as these facts are from their
bearing upon the material prospects of the people, they had an
infinitely more profound and far-reaching effect upon the beliefs of
mankind. Groping after some explanation of the natural phenomenon that
the earth became fertile when water was applied to it, and that seed
burst into life under the same influence, the early biologist formulated
the natural and not wholly illogical idea that water was the repository
of life-giving powers. Water was equally necessary for the production of
life and for the maintenance of life.
At an early stage in the development of this biological theory man and
other animals were brought within the scope of the generalization. For
the drinking of water was a condition of existence in animals. The idea
that water played a part in reproduction was co-related with this fact.
Even at the present time many aboriginal peoples in Australia, New
Guinea, and elsewhere, are not aware of the fact that in the process of
animal reproduction the male exercises the physiological rôle of
fertilization.[46]
There are widespread indications throughout the world that the
appreciation of this elementary physiological knowledge was acquired at
a relatively recent period in the history of mankind. It is difficult to
believe that the fundamental facts of the physiology of fertilization in
animals could long have remained unknown when men became breeders of
cattle. The Egyptian hieroglyphs leave no doubt that the knowledge was
fully appreciated at the period when the earliest picture-symbols were
devised, for the verb "to beget" is represented by the male organs of
generation. But, as the domestication of animals may have been earlier
than the invention of agriculture, it is possible that the appreciation
of the fertilizing powers of the male animal may have been definitely
more ancient than the earliest biological theory of the fertilizing
power of water.
I have discussed this question to suggest that the knowledge that
animals could be fertilized by the seminal fluid was certainly brought
within the scope of the wider generalization that water itself was
endowed with fertilizing properties. Just as water fertilized the earth,
so the semen fertilized the female. Water was necessary for the
maintenance of life in plants and was also essential in the form of
drink for animals. As both the earth and women could be fertilized by
water they were homologized one with the other. The earth came to be
regarded as a woman, the Great Mother.[47] When the fertilizing water
came to be personified in the person of Osiris his consort Isis was
identified with the earth which was fertilized by water.[48]
One of the earliest pictures of an Egyptian king represents him using
the hoe to inaugurate the making of an irrigation-canal.[49] This was
the typical act of benevolence on the part of a wise ruler. It is not
unlikely that the earliest organization of a community under a definite
leader may have been due to the need for some systematized control of
irrigation. In any case the earliest rulers of Egypt and Sumer were
essentially the controllers and regulators of the water supply and as
such the givers of fertility and prosperity.
Once men first consciously formulated the belief that death was not the
end of all things,[50] that the body could be re-animated and
consciousness and the will restored, it was natural that a wise ruler
who, when alive, had rendered conspicuous services should after death
continue to be consulted. The fame of such a man would grow with age;
his good deeds and his powers would become apotheosized; he would become
an oracle whose advice might be sought and whose help be obtained in
grave crises. In other words the dead king would be "deified," or at any
rate credited with the ability to confer even greater boons than he was
able to do when alive.
It is no mere coincidence that the first "god" should have been a dead
king, Osiris, nor that he controlled the waters of irrigation and was
specially interested in agriculture. Nor, for the reasons that I have
already suggested, is it surprising that he should have had phallic
attributes, and in himself have personified the virile powers of
fertilization.[51]
In attempting to explain the origin of the ritual procedures of burning
incense and offering libations it is essential to realize that the
creation of the first deities was not primarily an expression of
religious belief, but rather an application of science to national
affairs. It was the logical interpretation of the dominant scientific
theory of the time for the practical benefit of the living; or in other
words, the means devised for securing the advice and the active help of
wise rulers after their death. It was essentially a matter of practical
politics and applied science. It became "religion" only when the
advancement of knowledge superseded these primitive scientific theories
and left them as soothing traditions for the thoughts and aspirations of
mankind to cherish. For by the time the adequacy of these theories of
knowledge began to be questioned they had made an insistent appeal, and
had come to be regarded as an essential prop to lend support to man's
conviction of the reality of a life beyond the grave. A web of moral
precept and the allurement of hope had been so woven around them that
no force was able to strip away this body of consolatory beliefs; and
they have persisted for all time, although the reasoning by which they
were originally built up has been demolished and forgotten several
millennia ago.
It is not known where Osiris was born. In other countries there are
homologous deities, such as Ea, Tammuz, Adonis, and Attis, which are
certainly manifestations of the same idea and sprung from the same
source. Certain recent writers assume that the germ of the
Osiris-conception was introduced into Egypt from abroad. But if so,
nothing is known for certain of its place of origin. In any case there
can be no doubt that the distinctive features of Osiris, his real
personality and character, were developed in Egypt.
For reasons which I have suggested already it is probable that the
significance of water in cultivation was not realized until cereals were
cultivated in some such place as Babylonia or Egypt. But there are very
definite legends of the Babylonian Ea coming from abroad by way of the
Persian Gulf.[52] The early history of Tammuz is veiled in obscurity.
Somewhere in South Western Asia or North Eastern Africa, probably within
a few years of the development of the art of agriculture, some
scientific theorist, interpreting the body of empirical knowledge
acquired by cultivating cereals, propounded the view that water was the
great life-giving element. This view eventually found expression in the
Osiris-group of legends.
This theory found specific application in the invention of libations and
incense. These practices in turn reacted upon the general body of
doctrine and gave it a more sharply defined form. The dead king also
became more real when he was represented by an actual embalmed body and
a life-like statue, sitting in state upon his throne and holding in his
hands the emblems of his high office.
Thus while, in the present state of knowledge, it would be unjustifiable
to claim that the Osiris-group of deities was invented in Egypt, and
certainly erroneous to attribute the general theory of the fertilizing
properties of water to the practice of embalming, it is true that the
latter was responsible for giving Osiris a much more concrete and
clearly-defined shape, of "making a god in the image of man", and for
giving to the water-theory a much richer and fuller significance than it
had before.
The symbolism so created has had a most profound influence upon the
thoughts and aspirations of the human race. For Osiris was the prototype
of all the gods; his ritual was the basis of all religious ceremonial;
his priests who conducted the animating ceremonies were the pioneers of
a long series of ministers who for more than fifty centuries, in spite
of the endless variety of details of their ritual and the character of
their temples, have continued to perform ceremonies that have undergone
remarkably little essential change. Though the chief functions of the
priest as the animator of the god and the restorer of his consciousness
have now fallen into the background in most religions, the ritual acts
(the incense and libations, the offerings of food and blood and the
rest) still persist in many countries: the priest still appeals by
prayer and supplication for those benefits, which the Proto-Egyptian
aimed at securing when he created Osiris as a god to give advice and
help. The prayer for rain is one of the earliest forms of religious
appeal, but the request for a plentiful inundation was earlier still.
I have already said that in using the terms "god" and "religion" with
reference to the earliest form of Osiris and the beliefs that grew up
with reference to him a potent element of confusion is introduced.
During the last fifty centuries the meanings of those two words have
become so complexly enriched with the glamour of a mystic symbolism that
the Proto-Egyptian's conception of Osiris and the Osirian beliefs must
have been vastly different from those implied in the words "god" and
"religion" at the present time. Osiris was regarded as an actual king
who had died and been reanimated. In other words he was a _man_ who
could bestow upon his former subjects the benefits of his advice and
help, but could also display such human weaknesses as malice, envy, and
all uncharitableness. Much modern discussion completely misses the mark
by the failure to recognize that these so-called "gods" were really men,
equally capable of acts of beneficence and of outbursts of hatred, and
as one or the other aspect became accentuated the same deity could
become a Vedic _deva_ or an Avestan _dæva_, a _deus_ or a devil, a god
of kindness or a demon of wickedness.
The acts which the earliest "gods" were supposed to perform were not at
first regarded as supernatural. They were merely the boons which the
mortal ruler was supposed to be able to confer, by controlling the
waters of irrigation and rendering the land fertile. It was only when
his powers became apotheosized with a halo of accumulated glory (and the
growth of knowledge revealed the insecurity of the scientific basis upon
which his fame was built up) that a priesthood reluctant to abandon any
of the attributes which had captured the popular imagination, made it an
obligation of belief to accept these supernatural powers of the gods for
which the student of natural phenomena refused any longer to be a
sponsor. This was the parting of the ways between science and religion;
and thenceforth the attributes of the "gods" became definitely and
admittedly superhuman.
As I have already stated (p. 23) the original object of the offering of
libations was thus clearly for the purpose of animating the statue of
the deceased and so enabling him to continue the existence which had
merely been interrupted by the incident of death. In course of time,
however, as definite gods gradually materialized and came to be
represented by statues, they also had to be vitalized by offerings of
water from time to time. Thus the pouring out of libations came to be an
act of worship of the deity; and in this form it has persisted until our
own times in many civilized countries.
But not only was water regarded as a means of animating the dead, or
statues representing the dead, and an appropriate act of worship, in
that it vitalized an idol and the god dwelling in it was thus able to
hear and answer supplications. Water also became an essential part of
any act of ritual rebirth.[53] As a baptism it also symbolized the
giving of life. The initiate was re-born into a new communion of faith.
In scores of other ways the same conception of the life-giving
properties of water was responsible for as many applications of the use
of libations in inaugurating new enterprises, such as "baptising" ships
and blessing buildings. It is important to remember that, according to
early Egyptian beliefs, the continued existence of the dead was wholly
dependent upon the attentions of the living. Unless this animating
ceremony was performed not merely at the time of the funeral, but also
at stated periods afterwards, and unless the friends of the deceased
periodically supplied food and drink, such a continuation of existence
was impossible.
The development of these beliefs had far-reaching effects in other
directions. The idea that a stone statue could be animated ultimately
became extended to mean that the dead man could enter into and dwell in
a block of stone, which he could leave or return to at will. From this
arose the beliefs, which spread far and wide, that the dead ancestors,
kings, or deified kings, dwelt in stones; and that they could be
consulted as oracles, who gave advice and counsel. The acceptance of
this idea that the dead could be reanimated in a stone statue no doubt
prepared the minds of the people to credit the further belief, which
other circumstances were responsible for creating, that men could be
turned into stone. In the next chapter I shall explain how these
petrifaction stories developed.[54]
All the rich crop of myths concerning men and animals dwelling in stones
which are to be found encircling the globe from Ireland to America, can
be referred back to these early Egyptian attempts to solve the mysteries
of death, and to acquire the means of circumventing fate.[55]
These beliefs at first may have concerned human beings only. But in
course of time, as the duty of revictualling an increasingly large
number of tombs and temples tended to tax the resources of the people,
the practice developed of substituting for the real things models, or
even pictures, of food-animals, vegetables, and other requisites of the
dead. And these objects and pictures were restored to life or reality by
means of a ritual which was essentially identical with that used for
animating the statue or the mummy of the deceased himself.
It is well worth considering whether this may not be one of the basal
factors in explanation of the phenomena which the late Sir Edward Tylor
labelled "animism".
So far from being a phase of culture through which many, if not all,
peoples have passed in the course of their evolution, may it not have
been merely an artificial conception of certain things, which was given
so definite a form in Egypt, for the specific reasons at which I have
just hinted, and from there spread far and wide?
Against this view may be urged the fact that our own children talk in an
animistic fashion. But is not this due in some measure to the
unconscious influence of their elders? Or at most is it not a vague and
ill-defined attitude of anthropomorphism necessarily involved in all
spoken languages, which is vastly different from what the ethnologist
understands by "animism"[56]?
But whether this be so or not, there can be no doubt that the "animism"
of the early Egyptians assumed its precise and clear-cut distinctive
features as the result of the growth of ideas suggested by the attempts
to make mummies and statues of the dead and symbolic offerings of food
and other funerary requisites.
Thus incidentally there grew up the belief in a power of magic by means
of which these make-believe offerings could be transformed into
realities. But it is important to emphasize the fact that originally the
conviction of the genuineness of this transubstantiation was a logical
and not unnatural inference based upon the attempt to interpret natural
phenomena, and then to influence them by imitating what were regarded as
the determining factors.[57]
In China these ideas still retain much of their primitive influence and
directness of expression. Referring to the Chinese "belief in the
identity of pictures or images with the beings they represent" de Groot
states that the _kwan shuh_ or "magic art" is a "main branch of Chinese
witchcraft". It consists essentially of "the infusion of a soul, life,
and activity into likenesses of beings, to thus render them fit to work
in some direction desired ... this infusion is effected by blowing or
breathing, or spurting water over the likeness: indeed breath or _khi_,
or water from the mouth imbued with breath, is identical with _yang_
substance or life."[58]
[46: Baldwin Spencer and Gillen, "The Northern Tribes of Central
Australia"; "Across Australia"; and Spencer's "Native Tribes of the
Northern Territory of Australia". For a very important study of the
whole problem with special reference to New Guinea, see B. Malinowski,
"Baloma: the Spirits of the Dead," etc., _Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute_, 1916, p. 415.]
[47: The idea of the earth's maternal function spread throughout the
greater part of the world.]
[48: With reference to the assimilation of the conceptions of human
fertilization and watering the soil and the widespread idea among the
ancients of regarding the male as "he who irrigates," Canon van
Hoonacker gave M. Louis Siret the following note:--
"In Assyrian the cuneiform sign for water is also used, _inter alia_, to
express the idea of begetting (_banú_). Compare with this the references
from Hebrew and Arabic writings. In Isaiah xlviii. 1, we read 'Hear ye
this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are
come forth out of the waters of Judah'; and in Numbers xxiv. 7, 'Water
shall flow from his buckets and his seed shall be in many waters'.
"The Hebrew verb (_shangal_) which denotes sexual intercourse has, in
Arabic (_sadjala_), the meaning 'to spill water'. In the Koran, Sur. 36,
v. 6, the word _mâ'un_ (water) is used to designate semen" (L. Siret,
"Questions de Chronologie et d'Ethnographie Ibériques," Tome I, 1913, p.
250).]
[49: Quibell, "Hieraconpolis", Vol. I, 260, 4.]
[50: In using this phrase I want to make a clear distinction between the
phase of culture in which it had never occurred to man that, in his
individual case, life would come to an end, and the more enlightened
stage, in which he fully realized that death would inevitably be his
fate, but that in spite of it his real existence would continue.
It is clear that at quite an early stage in his history man appreciated
the fact that he could kill an animal or his fellow-man. But for a long
time he failed to realize that he himself, if he could avoid the process
of mechanical destruction by which he could kill an animal or a
fellow-man, would not continue to exist. The dead are supposed by many
people to be still in existence so long as the body is preserved. Once
the body begins to disintegrate even the most unimaginative of men can
entirely repress the idea of death. But to primitive people the
preservation of the body is equally a token that existence has not come
to an end. The corpse is merely sleeping.]
[51: Breasted, _op. cit._, p. 28.]
[52: The possibility, or even the probability, must be borne in mind
that the legend of Ea arising from the waters may be merely another way
of expressing his primary attribute as the personification of the
fertilizing powers of water.]
[53: This occurred at a later epoch when the attributes of the
water-controlling deity of fertility became confused with those of the
birth-giving mother goddess (_vide infra_, p. 40).]
[54: For a large series of these stories see E. Sidney Hartland's
"Legend of Perseus". But even more instructive, as revealing the
intimate connexion of such ideas with the beliefs regarding the
preservation of the body, see J. J. M. de Groot, "The Religious System
of China," Vol. IV, Book II, 1901.]
[55: In this connexion see de Groot, _op. cit._ pp. 356 and 415.
[Transcriber's Note: the original text contained no marker for this
footnote, so a guess has been made as to what it referred]]
[56: The child certainly resembles primitive man in the readiness with
which it attributes to even the crudest models of animals or human
beings the feelings of living creatures.]
[57: It became "magical" in our sense of the term only when the growth
of knowledge revealed the fact that the measures taken were inadequate
to attain the desired end; while the "magician" continued to make the
pretence that he could attain that end by ultra-physical means.]
[58: De Groot, _op. cit._ p. 356.]
Incense.
So far I have referred in detail only to the offering of libations. But
this was only one of several procedures for animating statues, mummies,
and food-offerings. I have still to consider the ritual procedures of
incense-burning and "opening the mouth".
From Mr. Blackman's translations of the Egyptian texts it is clear that
the burning of incense was intended to restore to the statue (or the
mummy) the odour of the living body, and that this was part of the
procedure considered necessary to animate the statue. He says "the
belief about incense [which is explained by a later document, the
_Ritual of Amon_] apparently does not occur in the Old Kingdom religious
texts that are preserved to us, yet it may quite well be as ancient as
that period. That is certainly Erman's view" (_op. cit._ p. 75).
He gives the following translation of the relevant passage in the
_Ritual of Amon_ (XII, 11): "The god comes with body adorned which he
has fumigated with the eye of his body, the incense of the god which has
issued from his flesh, the sweat of the god which has fallen to the
ground, which he has given to all the gods.... It is the Horus eye. If
it lives, the people live, thy flesh lives, thy members are vigorous"
(_op. cit._ p. 72). In his comments upon this passage Mr. Blackman
states: "In the light of the Pyramid libation-formulæ the expressions in
this text are quite comprehensible. Like the libations the grains of
incense are the exudations of a divinity,[59] the fluid which issued
from his flesh, the god's sweat descending to the ground.... Here
incense is not merely the 'odour of the god,' but the grains of resin
are said to be the god's sweat" (_op. cit._ p. 72). "Both rites, the
pouring of libations and the burning of incense, are performed for the
same purpose--to revivify the body [or the statue] of god and man by
restoring to it its lost moisture" (p. 75).
In attempting to reconstitute the circumstances which led to the
invention of incense-burning as a ritual act, the nature of the problem
to be solved must be recalled. Among the most obtrusive evidences of
death were the coldness of the skin, the lack of perspiration and of the
odour of the living. It is important to realize what the phrase "odour
of the living" would convey to the Proto-Egyptian. From the earliest
Predynastic times in Egypt it had been the custom to make extensive use
of resinous material as an essential ingredient (what a pharmacist would
call the adhesive "vehicle") of cosmetics. One of the results of this
practice in a hot climate must have been the association of a strong
aroma of resin or balsam with a living person.[60] Whether or not it was
the practice to burn incense to give pleasure to the living is not
known. The fact that such a procedure was customary among their
successors may mean that it was really archaic; or on the other hand the
possibility must not be overlooked that it may be merely the later
vulgarization of a practice which originally was devised for purely
ritual purposes. The burning of incense before a corpse or statue was
intended to convey to it the warmth, the sweat, and the odour of life.
When the belief became well established that the burning of incense was
potent as an animating force, and especially a giver of life to the
dead, it naturally came to be regarded as a divine substance in the
sense that it had the power of resurrection. As the grains of incense
consisted of the exudation of trees, or, as the ancient texts express
it, "their sweat," the divine power of animation in course of time
became transferred to the trees. They were no longer merely the source
of the life-giving incense, but were themselves animated by the deity
whose drops of sweat were the means of conveying life to the mummy.
The reason why the deity which dwelt in these trees was usually
identified with the Mother-Goddess will become clear in the course of
the subsequent discussion (p. 38). It is probable that this was due
mainly to the geographical circumstance that the chief source of incense
was Southern Arabia, which was also the home of the primitive goddesses
of fertility. For they were originally nothing more than
personifications of the life-giving cowry amulets from the Red Sea.
Thus Robertson Smith's statement that "the value of the gum of the
acacia as an amulet is connected with the idea that it is a clot of
menstruous blood, i.e., that the tree is a woman"[61] is probably an
inversion of cause and effect. It was the value attached to the gum that
conferred animation upon the tree. The rest of the legend is merely a
rationalization based upon the idea that the tree was identified with
the mother-goddess. The same criticism applies to his further contention
(p. 427) with reference to "the religious value of incense" which he
claims to be due to the fact that "like the gum of the _samora_ (acacia)
tree, ... it was an animate or divine plant".
Many factors played a part in the development of tree-worship but it is
probable the origin of the sacredness of trees must be assigned to the
fact that it was acquired from the incense and the aromatic woods which
were credited with the power of animating the dead. But at a very early
epoch many other considerations helped to confirm and extend the
conception of deification. When Osiris was buried, a sacred sycamore
grew up as "the visible symbol of the imperishable life of Osiris".[62]
But the sap of trees was brought into relationship with life-giving
water and thus constituted another link with Osiris. The sap was also
regarded as the blood of trees and the incense that exuded as the sweat.
Just as the water of libation was regarded as the fluid of the body of
Osiris, so also, by this process of rationalization, the incense came to
possess a similar significance.
For reasons precisely analogous to those already explained in the case
of libations, the custom of burning incense, from being originally a
ritual act for animating the funerary statue, ultimately developed into
an act of homage to the deity.
But it also acquired a special significance when the cult of sky-gods
developed,[63] for the smoke of the burning incense then came to be
regarded as the vehicle which wafted the deceased's soul to the sky or
conveyed there the requests of the dwellers upon earth.[64]
"The soul of a human being is generally conceived [by the Chinese] as
possessing the shape and characteristics of a human being, and
occasionally those of an animal; ... the spirit of an animal is the shape
of this animal or of some being with human attributes and speech. But
plant spirits are never conceived as plant-shaped, nor to have
plant-characters ... whenever forms are given them, they are mostly
represented as a man, a woman, or a child, and often also as an animal,
dwelling in or near the plant, and emerging from it at times to do harm,
or to dispense blessings.... Whether conceptions on the animation of
plants have never developed in Chinese thought and worship before ideas
about human ghosts ... had become predominant in mind and custom, we
cannot say: but the matter seems probable" (De Groot, _op. cit._ pp.
272, 273). Tales of trees that shed blood and that cry out when hurt are
common in Chinese literature (p. 274) [as also in Southern Arabia]; also
of trees that lodge or can change into maidens of transcendent beauty
(p. 276).
It is further significant that amongst the stories of souls of men
taking up their residence in and animating trees and plants, the human
being is usually a woman, accompanied by "a fox, a dog, an old raven or
the like" (p. 276).
Thus in China are found all the elements out of which Dr. Rendel Harris
believes the Aphrodite cult was compounded in Cyprus,[65] the animation
of the anthropoid plant, its human cry, its association with a beautiful
maiden and a dog.[66]
The immemorial custom of planting trees on graves in China is supposed
by De Groot (p. 277) to be due to "the desire to strengthen the soul of
the buried person, thus to save his body from corruption, for which
reason trees such as pines and cypresses, deemed to be bearers of great
vitality for being possessed of more _shen_ than other trees, were used
preferably for such purposes". But may not such beliefs also be an
expression of the idea that a tree growing upon a grave is developed
from and becomes the personification of the deceased? The significance
of the selection of pines and cypresses may be compared to that
associated with the so-called "cedars" in Babylonia, Egypt, and
Phœnicia, and the myrrh- and frankincense-producing trees in Arabia and
East Africa. They have come to be accredited with "soul-substance,"
since their use in mummification and as incense and for making coffins,
has made them the means for attaining a future existence. Hence in
course of time they came to be regarded as charged with the spirit of
vitality, the _shen_ or "soul-substance".
In China also it was because the woods of the pine or fir and the cyprus
were used for making coffins and grave-vaults and that pine-resin was
regarded as a means of attaining immortality (De Groot, _op. cit._ pp.
296 and 297) that such veneration was bestowed upon these trees. "At an
early date, Taoist seekers after immortality transplanted that animation
[of the hardy long-lived fir and cypress[67]] into themselves by
consuming the resin of those trees, which, apparently, they looked upon
as coagulated soul-substance, the counterpart of the blood in men and
animals" (p. 296).
In India the _amrita_, the god's food of immortality, was sometimes
regarded as the sap exuded from the sacred trees of paradise.
Elsewhere in these pages it is explained how the vaguely defined Mother
"Goddess" and the more distinctly anthropoid Water "God," which
originally developed quite independently the one of the other,
ultimately came to exert a profound and mutual influence, so that many
of the attributes which originally belonged to one of them came to be
shared with the other. Many factors played a part in this process of
blending and confusion of sex. As I shall explain later, when the moon
came to be regarded as the dwelling or the impersonation of Hathor, the
supposed influence of the moon over water led to a further assimilation
of her attributes with those of Osiris as the controller of water, which
received definite expression in a lunar form of Osiris.
But the link that is most intimately related to the subject of this
address is provided by the personification of the Mother-Goddess in
incense-trees. For incense thus became the sweat or the tears of the
Great Mother just as the water of libation was regarded as the fluid
of Osiris.
[59: As I shall explain later (see page 38), the idea of the divinity of
the incense-tree was a result of, and not the reason for, the practice
of incense-burning. As one of the means by which the resurrection was
attained incense became a giver of divinity; and by a simple process
of rationalization the tree which produced this divine substance became
a god.
The reference to the "eye of the body" (see p. 55) means the life-giving
god or goddess who is the "eye" of the sky, _i.e._ the god with whom the
dead king is identified.]
[60: It would lead me too far afield to enter into a discussion of the
use of scents and unguents, which is closely related to this question.]
[61: "The Religion of the Semites," p. 133.]
[62: Breasted, p. 28.]
[63: For reasons explained on a subsequent page (56).]
[64: It is also worth considering whether the extension of this idea may
not have been responsible for originating the practice of cremation--as
a device for transferring, not merely the animating incense and the
supplications of the living, but also the body of the deceased to the
sky-world. This, of course, did not happen in Egypt, but in some other
country which adopted the Egyptian practice of incense-burning, but was
not hampered by the religious conservatism that guarded the sacredness
of the corpse.]
[65: "The Ascent of Olympus," 1917.]
[66: For a collection of stories relating to human beings, generally
women, dwelling in trees, see Hartland's "Legend of Perseus".]
[67: The fact that the fir and cypress are "hardy and long-lived" is not
the reason for their being accredited with these life-prolonging
qualities. But once the latter virtues had become attributed to them the
fact that the trees were "hardy and long-lived" may have been used to
bolster up the belief by a process of rationalization.]
The Breath of Life.
Although the pouring of libations and the burning of incense played so
prominent a part in the ritual of animating the statue or the mummy, the
most important incident in the ceremony was the "opening of the mouth,"
which was regarded as giving it the breath of life.
Elsewhere[68] I have suggested that the conception of the heart and
blood as the vehicles of life, feeling, volition, and knowledge may have
been extremely ancient. It is not known when or under what circumstances
the idea of the breath being the "life" was first entertained. The fact
that in certain primitive systems of philosophy the breath was supposed
to have something to do with the heart suggests that these beliefs may
be a constituent element of the ancient heart-theory. In some of the
rock-pictures in America, Australia, and elsewhere the air-passages are
represented leading to the heart. But there can be little doubt that the
practice of mummification gave greater definiteness to the ideas
regarding the "heart" and "breath," which eventually led to a
differentiation between their supposed functions.[69] As the heart and
the blood were obviously present in the dead body they could no longer
be regarded as the "life". The breath was clearly the "element" the lack
of which rendered the body inanimate. It was therefore regarded as
necessary to set the heart working. The heart then came to be looked
upon as the seat of knowledge, the organ that feels and wills during
waking life. All the pulsating motions of the body seem to have been
regarded, like the act of respiration, as expressions of the vital
principle or "life," which Dutch ethnological writers refer to as "soul
substance". The neighbourhood of certain joints where the pulse can be
felt most readily, and the top of the head, where pulsation can be felt
in the infant's fontanelle, were therefore regarded by some Asiatic
peoples as the places where the substance of life could leave or enter
the body.
It is possible that in ancient times this belief was more widespread
than it is now. It affords an explanation of the motive for trephining
the skull among ancient peoples, to afford a more ready passage for the
"vital essence" to and from the skull.
In his lecture on "The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul,"[70] Professor
John Burnet has expounded the meaning of early Greek conceptions of the
soul with rare insight and lucidity. Originally, the word [Greek:
psychê] meant "breath," but, by historical times, it had already been
specialized in two distinct ways. It had come to mean _courage_ in the
first place, and secondly the _breath of life_, the presence or absence
of which is the most obvious distinction between the animate and the
inanimate, the "ghost" which a man "gives up" at death. But it may also
quit the body temporarily, which explains the phenomenon of swooning
([Greek: lipopsychia]). It seemed natural to suppose it was also the
thing that can roam at large when the body is asleep, and even appear to
another sleeping person in his dream. Moreover, since we can dream of
the dead, what then appears to us must be just what leaves the body at
the moment of death. These considerations explain the world-wide belief
in the "soul" as a sort of double of the real bodily man, the Egyptian
_ka_,[71] the Italian _genius_, and the Greek [Greek: psychê].
Now this double is not identical with whatever it is in us that feels
and wills during our waking life. That is generally supposed to be blood
and not breath.
What we feel and perceive have their seat in the heart: they belong to
the body and perish with it.
* * * * *
It is only when the shades have been allowed to drink blood that
consciousness returns to them for a while.
At one time the [Greek: psychê] was supposed to dwell with the body in
the grave, where it had to be supported by the offerings of the
survivors, especially by libations ([Greek: choai]).
An Egyptian psychologist has carried the story back long before the
times of which Professor Burnet writes. He has explained "his conception
of the functions of the 'heart (mind) and tongue'. 'When the eyes see,
the ears hear, and the nose breathes, they transmit to the heart. It is
he (the heart) who brings forth every issue and it is the tongue which
repeats the thought of the heart.'"[72]
"There came the saying that Atum, who created the gods, stated
concerning Ptah-Tatenen: 'He is the fashioner of the gods.... He made
likenesses of their bodies to the satisfaction of their hearts. Then the
gods entered into their bodies of every wood and every stone and every
metal.'"[73]
That these ideas are really ancient is shown by the fact that in the
Pyramid Texts Isis is represented conveying the breath of life to Osiris
by "causing a wind with her wings".[74] The ceremony of "opening the
mouth" which aimed at achieving this restoration of the breath of life
was the principal part of the ritual procedure before the statue or
mummy. As I have already mentioned (p. 25), the sculptor who modelled
the portrait statue was called "he who causes to live," and the word "to
fashion" a statue is identical with that which means "to give birth".
The god Ptah created man by modelling his form in clay. Similarly the
life-giving sculptor made the portrait which was to be the means of
securing a perpetuation of existence, when it was animated by the
"opening of the mouth," by libations and incense.
As the outcome of this process of rationalization in Egypt a vast crop
of creation-legends came into existence, which have persisted with
remarkable completeness until the present day in India, Indonesia,
China, America, and elsewhere. A statue of stone, wood, or clay is
fashioned, and the ceremony of animation is performed to convey to it
the breath of life, which in many places is supposed to be brought down
from the sky.[75]
In the Egyptian beliefs, as well as in most of the world-wide legends
that were derived from them, the idea assumed a definite form that the
vital principle (often referred to as the "soul," "soul-substance," or
"double") could exist apart from the body. Whatever the explanation, it
is clear that the possibility of the existence of the vital principle
apart from the body was entertained. It was supposed that it could
return to the body and temporarily reanimate it. It could enter into and
dwell within the stone representation of the deceased. Sometimes this
so-called "soul" was identified[76] with the breath of life, which
could enter into the statue as the result of the ceremony of "opening
the mouth".
It has been commonly assumed by Sir Edward Tyler and those who accept
his theory of animism that the idea of the "soul" was based upon the
attempts to interpret the phenomena of dreams and shadows, to which
Burnet has referred in the passage quoted above. The fact that when a
person is sleeping he may dream of seeing absent people and of having a
variety of adventures is explained by many peoples by the hypothesis
that these are real experiences which befell the "soul" when it wandered
abroad during its owner's sleep. A man's shadow or his reflection in
water or a mirror has been interpreted as his double. But what these
speculations leave out of account is the fact that these dream- and
shadow-phenomena were probably merely the predisposing circumstances
which helped in the development of (or the corroborative details which
were added to and, by rationalization, incorporated in) the
"soul-theory," which other circumstances were responsible for
creating.[77]
I have already called attention (p. 5) to the fact that in many of the
psychological speculations in ethnology too little account is taken of
the enormous complexity of the factors which determine even the simplest
and apparently most obvious and rational actions of men. I must again
remind the reader that a vast multitude of influences, many of them of a
subconscious and emotional nature, affect men's decisions and opinions.
But once some definite state of feeling inclines a man to a certain
conclusion, he will call up a host of other circumstances to buttress
his decision, and weave them into a complex net of rationalization. Some
such process undoubtedly took place in the development of "animism"; and
though it is not possible yet to reconstruct the whole history of the
growth of the idea, there can be no question that these early strivings
after an understanding of the nature of life and death, and the attempts
to put the theories into practice to reanimate the dead, provided the
foundations upon which has been built up during the last fifty centuries
a vast and complex theory of the soul. In the creation of this edifice
the thoughts and the aspirations of countless millions of peoples have
played a part: but the foundation was laid down when the Egyptian king
or priest claimed that he could restore to the dead the "breath of life"
and, by means of the wand which he called "the great magician,"[78]
could enable the dead to be born again. The wand is supposed by some
scholars[79] to be a conventionalized representation of the uterus, so
that its power of giving birth is expressed with literal directness.
Such beliefs and stories of the "magic wand" are found to-day in
scattered localities from the Scottish Highlands to Indonesia and
America.
In this sketch I have referred merely to one or two aspects of a
conception of vast complexity. But it must be remembered that, once the
mind of man began to play with the idea of a vital essence capable of
existing apart from the body and to identify it with the breath of life,
an illimitable field was opened up for speculation. The vital principle
could manifest itself in all the varied expressions of human
personality, as well as in all the physiological indications of life.
Experience of dreams led men to believe that the "soul" could also leave
the body temporarily and enjoy varied experiences. But the
concrete-minded Egyptian demanded some physical evidence to buttress
these intangible ideas of the wandering abroad of his vital essence. He
made a statue for it to dwell in after his death, because he was not
able to make an adequately life-like reproduction of the dead man's
features upon the mummy itself or its wrappings. Then he gradually
persuaded himself that the life-substance could exist apart from the
body as a "double" or "twin" which animated the statue.
Searching for material evidence to support his faith primitive man not
unnaturally turned to the contemplation of the circumstances of his
birth. All his beliefs concerning the nature of life can ultimately be
referred back to the story of his own origin, his birth or creation.
When an infant is born it is accompanied by the after-birth or placenta
to which it is linked by the umbilical cord. The full comprehension of
the significance of these structures is an achievement of modern
science. To primitive man they were an incomprehensible marvel. But once
he began to play with the idea that he had a double, a vital essence in
his own shape which could leave the sleeping body and lead a separate
existence, the placenta obviously provided tangible evidence of its
reality. The considerations set forth by Blackman,[80] supplementing
those of Moret, Murray and Seligman and others, have been claimed as
linking the placenta with the _ka_.
Much controversy has waged around the interpretation of the Egyptian
word _ka_, especially during recent years. An excellent summary of the
arguments brought forward by the various disputants up to 1912 will be
found in Morel's "Mystères Égyptiens". Since then more or less
contradictory views have been put forward by Alan Gardiner, Breasted,
and Blackman. It is not my intention to intervene in a dispute as to the
meaning of certain phrases in ancient literature; but there are certain
aspects of the problems at issue which are so intimately related to my
main theme as to make some reference to them unavoidable.
The development of the custom of making statues of the dead necessarily
raised for solution the problem of explaining the deceased's two bodies,
his actual mummy and his portrait statue. During life on earth his vital
principle dwelt in the former, except on those occasions when the man
was asleep. His actual body also gave expression to all the varied
attributes of his personality. But after death the statue became the
dwelling place of these manifestations of the spirit of vitality.
Whether or not the conception arose out of the necessities unavoidably
created by the making of statues, it seems clear that this custom must
have given more concrete shape to the belief that all of those elements
of the dead man's individuality which left his body at the time of death
could shift as a shadowy double into his statue.
At the birth of a king he is accompanied by a comrade or twin exactly
reproducing all his features. This double or _ka_ is intimately
associated throughout life and in the life to come with the king's
welfare. In fact Breasted claims that the _ka_ "was a kind of superior
genius intended to guide the fortunes of the individual _in the
hereafter_" ... there "he had his abode and awaited the coming of his
earthly companion".[81] At death the deceased "goes to his _ka_, to the
sky". The _ka_ controls and protects the deceased: he brings him food
which they eat together.
It is important clearly to keep in mind the different factors involved
in the conception of the _ka_:--
(a) The statue of the deceased is animated by restoring to it the breath
of life and all the other vital attributes of which the early Egyptian
physiologist took cognisance.
(b) At the time of birth there came into being along with the child a
"twin" whose destinies were closely linked with the child's.
(c) As the result of animating the statue the deceased also has restored
to him his character, "the sum of his attributes," his individuality,
later raised to the position of a protecting genius or god, a Providence
who watches over his well-being.[82]
The _ka_ is not simply identical with the breath of life or _animus_, as
Burnet supposes (_op. cit. supra_), but has a wider significance. The
adoption of the conception of the _ka_ as a sort of guardian angel which
finds its appropriate habitation in a statue that has been animated does
not necessarily conflict with the view so concretely and unmistakably
represented in the tomb-pictures that the _ka_ is also a double who is
born along with the individual.
This material conception of the _ka_ as a double who is born with and
closely linked to the individual is, as Blackman has emphasized,[83]
very suggestive of Baganda beliefs and rites connected with the
placenta. At death the circumstances of the act of birth are
reconstituted, and for this rebirth the placenta which played an
essential part in the original process is restored to the deceased. May
not the original meaning of the expression "he goes to his _ka_" be a
literal description of this reunion with his placenta? The
identification of the _ka_ with the moon, the guardian of the dead man's
welfare, may have enriched the symbolism.
Blackman makes the suggestion that "on the analogy of the beliefs
entertained by the Hamitic ruling caste in Uganda," according to Roscoe,
"the placenta,[84] or rather its ghost, would have been supposed by the
Ancient Egyptians to be closely connected with the individual's
personality, as" he maintains was also the case with the god or
protecting genius of the Babylonians.[85] "Unless united with his twin's
[i.e. his placenta's] ghost the dead king was an imperfect deity, i.e.
his directing intelligence was impaired or lacking," presumably because
the placenta was composed of blood, which was regarded as the material
of consciousness and intelligence.
In China, as the quotations from de Groot (see footnote) show, the
placenta when placed under felicitous circumstances is able to ensure
the child a long life and to control his mental and physical welfare.
In view of the claims put forward by Blackman to associate the placenta
with the _ka_, it is of interest to note Moret's suggestion concerning
the fourteen forms of the _ka_, to which von Bissing assigns the
general significance "nourishment or offerings". He puts the question
whether they do not "personify the elements of material and intellectual
prosperity, all that is necessary for the health of body and spirit"
(_op. cit._, p. 209).
The placenta is credited with all the varieties of life-giving potency
that are attributed to the Mother-Goddess. It therefore controls the
welfare of the individual and, like all maternal amulets (_vide supra_),
ensures his good fortune. But, probably by virtue of its supposed
derivation from and intimate association with blood, it also ministered
to his mental welfare.
In my last Rylands Lecture I referred to the probability that the
essential elements of Chinese civilization were derived from the West. I
had hoped that, before the present statement went to the printer, I
would have found time to set forth in detail the evidence in
substantiation of the reality of that diffusion of culture.
Briefly the chain of proof is composed of the following links: (a) the
intimate cultural contact between Egypt, Southern Arabia, Sumer, and
Elam from a period at least as early as the First Egyptian Dynasty; (b)
the diffusion of Sumerian and Elamite culture in very early times at
least as far north as Russian Turkestan and as far east as Baluchistan;
(c) at some later period the quest of gold, copper, turquoise, and jade
led the Babylonians (and their neighbours) as far north as the Altai and
as far east as Khotan and the Tarim Valley, where their pathways were
blazed with the distinctive methods of cultivation and irrigation; (d)
at some subsequent period there was an easterly diffusion of culture
from Turkestan into the Shensi Province of China proper; and (e) at
least as early as the seventh century B.C. there was also a spread of
Western culture to China by sea.[86]
I have already referred to some of the distinctively Egyptian traits in
Chinese beliefs concerning the dead. Mingled with them are other equally
definitely Babylonian ideas concerning the liver.
It must be apparent that in the course of the spread of a complex system
of religious beliefs to so great a distance, only certain of their
features would survive the journey. Handed on from people to people,
each of whom would unavoidably transform them to some extent, the
tenets of the Western beliefs would become shorn of many of their
details and have many excrescences added to them before the Chinese
received them. In the crucible of the local philosophy they would be
assimilated with Chinese ideas until the resulting compound assumed a
Chinese appearance. When these inevitable circumstances are recalled the
value of any positive evidence of Western influence is of special
significance.
According to the ancient Chinese, man has two souls, the _kwei_ and the
_shen_. The former, which according to de Groot is definitely the more
ancient of the two (p. 8), is the material, substantial soul, which
emanates from the terrestrial part of the universe, and is formed of
_yin_ substance. In living man it operates under the name of _p'oh_,
and on his death it returns to the earth and abides with the deceased
in his grave.
The _shen_ or immaterial soul emanates from the ethereal celestial part
of the cosmos and consists of _yang_ substance. When operating actively
in the living human body, it is called _khi_ or "breath," and _hwun_;
when separated from it after death it lives forth as a refulgent spirit,
styled _ming_.[87]
But the _shen_ also, in spite of its sky-affinities, hovers about the
grave and may dwell in the inscribed grave-stone (p. 6). There may be a
multitude of _shen_ in one body and many "soul-tablets" may be provided
for them (p. 74).
Just as in Egypt the _ka_ is said to "symbolize the force of life which
resides in nourishment" (Moret, p. 212), so the Chinese refer to the
ethereal part of the food as its _khi_, i.e. the "breath" of its _shen_.
The careful study of the mass of detailed evidence so lucidly set forth
by de Groot in his great monograph reveals the fact that, in spite of
many superficial differences and apparent contradictions, the early
Chinese conceptions of the soul and its functions are essentially
identical with the Egyptian, and must have been derived from the
same source.
From the quotations which I have already given in the foregoing pages,
it appears that the Chinese entertain views regarding the functions of
the placenta which are identical with those of the Baganda, and a
conception of the souls of man which presents unmistakable analogies
with Egyptian beliefs. Yet these Chinese references do not shed any
clearer light than Egyptian literature does upon the problem of the
possible relationship between the _ka_ and the _placenta_.
In the Iranian domain, however, right on the overland route from the
Persian Gulf to China, there seems to be a ray of light. According to
the late Professor Moulton, "The later Parsi books tell us that the
Fravashi is a part of a good man's identity, living in heaven and
reuniting with the soul at death. It is not exactly a guardian angel,
for it shares in the development or deterioration of the rest of the
man."[88]
In fact the Fravashi is not unlike the Egyptian _ka_ on the one side and
the Chinese _shen_ on the other. "They are the _Manes_, 'the good folk'"
(p. 144): they are connected with the stars in their capacity as spirits
of the dead (p. 143), and they "showed their paths to the sun, the moon,
the sun, and the endless lights," just as the _kas_ guide the dead in
the hereafter.
The Fravashis play a part in the annual All Soul's feast (p. 144), for
which Breasted has provided an almost exact parallel in Egypt during the
Middle Kingdom.[89] All the circumstances of the two ceremonies are
essentially identical.
Now Professor Moulton suggests that the word Fravashi may be derived
from the Avestan root _var_, "to impregnate," and _fravaši_ mean
"birth-promotion" (p. 142). As he associates this with childbirth the
possibility suggests itself whether the "birth-promoter" may not be
simply the placenta.
Loret (quoted by Moret, p. 202), however, derives the word _ka_ from a
root signifying "to beget," so that the Fravashi may be nothing more
than the Iranian homologue of the Egyptian _ka_.
The connecting link between the Iranian and Egyptian conceptions may be
the Sumerian instances given to Blackman[90] by Dr. Langdon.
The whole idea seems to have originated out of the belief that the sum
of the individual attributes or vital expressions of a man's personality
could exist apart from the physical body. The contemplation of the
phenomena of sleep and death provided the evidence in corroboration
of this.
At birth the newcomer came into the world physically connected with the
placenta, which was accredited with the attributes of the life-giving
and birth-promoting Great Mother and intimately related to the moon and
the earliest totem. It was obviously, also, closely concerned in the
nutrition of the embryo, for was it not the stalk upon which the latter
was growing like some fruit on its stem? It was a not unnatural
inference to suppose that, as the elements of the personality were not
indissolubly connected with the body, they were brought into existence
at the time of birth and that the placenta was their vehicle.
The Egyptians' own terms of reference to the sculptor of a statue show
that the ideas of birth were uppermost in their minds when the custom of
statue-making was first devised. Moret has brought together (_op. cit.
supra_) a good deal of evidence to suggest the far-reaching significance
of the conception of ritual rebirth in early Egyptian religious
ceremonial. With these ideas in his mind the Egyptian would naturally
attach great importance to the placenta in any attempt to reconstruct
the act of rebirth, which would be regarded in a literal sense. The
placenta which played an essential part in the original act would have
an equally important rôle in the ritual of rebirth. [For a further
comment upon the problem discussed in the preceding ten pages, see
Appendix A, p. 73.]
[68: "Primitive Man," _Proceedings of the British Academy_, 1917, p. 41.
It is important to remember that the real meaning of respiration was
quite unknown until modern science revealed the part played by oxygen.]
[69: The enormous complexity and intricacy of the interrelation between
the functions of the "heart," and the "breath" is revealed in Chinese
philosophy (see de Groot, _op. cit._ Chapter VII. _inter alia_).]
[70: Second Annual Philosophical Lecture, Henriette Hertz Trust,
_Proceedings of the British Academy_, Vol. VII, 26 Jan., 1916.]
[71: The Egyptian _ka_, however, was a more complex entity than this
comparison suggests.]
[72: Breasted, _op. cit._ pp. 44 and 45.]
[73: _Op. cit._ pp. 45 and 46.]
[74: _Ibid._ p. 28.]
[75: W. J. Perry has collected the evidence preserved in a remarkable
series of Indonesian legends in his recent book, "The Megalithic Culture
of Indonesia". But the fullest exposition of the whole subject is
provided in the Chinese literature summarized by de Groot (_op. cit._).]
[76: See, however, the reservations in the subsequent pages.]
[77: The thorough analysis of the beliefs of any people makes this
abundantly clear. De Groot's monograph is an admirable illustration of
this (_op. cit._ Chapter VII.). Both in Egypt and China the conceptions
of the significance of the shadow are later and altogether subsidiary.]
[78: Alan H. Gardiner, Davies and Gardiner, _op. cit._ p. 59.]
[79: F. Ll. Griffith, "A Collection of Hieroglyphs," 1898, p. 60.]
[80: Aylward M. Blackman, "Some Remarks on an Emblem upon the Head of an
Ancient Egyptian Birth-Goddess," _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol.
III, Part III, July, 1916, p. 199; and "The Pharaoh's Placenta and the
Moon-God Khons," _ibid._ Part IV, Oct., 1916, p. 235.]
[81: "Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p. 52. Breasted denies
that the _ka_ was an element of the personality.]
[82: For an abstruse discussion of this problem see Alan H. Gardiner,
"Personification (Egyptian)," Hastings' _Encyclopædia of Religion and
Ethics_, pp. 790 and 792.]
[83: _Op. cit. supra_.]
[84: Mr. Blackman is puzzled to explain what "possible connexion there
could be between the Pharaoh's placenta and the moon beyond the fact
that it is the custom in Uganda to expose the king's placenta each new
moon and anoint it with butter."
To those readers who follow my argument in the later pages of this
discussion the reasoning at the back of this association should be plain
enough. The moon was regarded as the controller of menstruation. The
placenta (and also the child) was considered to be formed of menstrual
blood. The welfare of the placenta was therefore considered to be under
the control of the moon.
The anointing with butter is an interesting illustration of the close
connexion of these lunar and maternal phenomena with the cow.
The placenta was associated with the moon also in China, as the
following quotation shows.
According to de Groot (_op. cit._ p. 396), "in the _Siao 'rh fang_ or
Medicament for Babies, by the hand of Ts'ui Hing-kung [died 674 A.D.],
it is said: 'The placenta should be stored away in a felicitous spot
under the salutary influences of the sky or the moon ... in order that
the child may be ensured a long life'". He then goes on to explain how
any interference with the placenta will entail mental or physical
trouble to the child.
The placenta also is used as the ingredient of pills to increase
fertility, facilitate parturition, to bring back life to people on the
brink of death and it is the main ingredient "in medicines for lunacy,
convulsions, epilepsy, etc." (p. 397). "It gives rest to the heart,
nourishes the blood, increases the breath, and strengthens the _tsing_"
(p. 396).
These attributes of the placenta indicate that the beliefs of the
Baganda are not merely local eccentricities, but widespread and sharply
defined interpretations of the natural phenomena of birth.]
[85: _Op. cit._ p. 241.]
[86: See "The Origin of Early Siberian Civilization," now being
published in the _Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and
Philosophical Society_.]
[87: De Groot, p. 5.]
[88: _Early Religious Poetry of Persia_, p. 145.]
[89: _Op. cit._ p. 264.]
[90: _Ibid._ p. 240.]
The Power of the Eye.
In attempting to understand the peculiar functions attributed to the eye
it is essential that the inquirer should endeavour to look at the
problem from the early Egyptian's point of view. After moulding into
shape the wrappings of the mummy so as to restore as far as possible the
form of the deceased the embalmer then painted eyes upon the face. So
also when the sculptor had learned to make finished models in stone or
wood, and by the addition of paint had enhanced the life-like
appearance, the statue was still merely a dead thing. What were needed
above all to enliven it, literally and actually, in other words, to
animate it, were the eyes; and the Egyptian artist set to work and with
truly marvellous skill reproduced the appearance of living eyes (Fig.
5). How ample was the justification for this belief will be appreciated
by anyone who glances at the remarkable photographs recently published
by Dr. Alan H. Gardiner.[91] The wonderful eyes will be seen to make the
statue sparkle and live. To the concrete mind of the Egyptian this
triumph of art was regarded not as a mere technical success or
æsthetic achievement. The artist was considered to have made the statue
really live; in fact, literally and actually converted it into a "living
image". The eyes themselves were regarded as one of the chief sources of
the vitality which had been conferred upon the statue.
[Illustration: Fig. 5--Statue of an Egyptian Noble of the Pyramid Age to
show the technical skill in the representation of life-like eyes]
This is the explanation of all the elaborate care and skill bestowed
upon the making of artificial eyes. No doubt also it was largely
responsible for giving definition to the remarkable belief in the
animating power of the eye. But so many other factors of most diverse
kinds played a part in building up the complex theory of the eye's
fertilizing potency that all the stages in the process of
rationalization cannot yet be arranged in orderly sequence.
I refer to the question here and suggest certain aspects of it that seem
worthy of investigation merely for the purpose of stimulating some
student of early Egyptian literature to look into the matter
further.[92]
As death was regarded as a kind of sleep and the closing of the eyes was
the distinctive sign of the latter condition the open eyes were not
unnaturally regarded as clear evidence of wakefulness and life. In fact,
to a matter-of-fact people the restoration of the eyes to the mummy or
statue was equivalent to an awakening to life.
At a time when a reflection in a mirror or in a sheet of water was
supposed to afford quite positive evidence of the reality of each
individual's "double," and when the "soul," or more concretely, "life,"
was imagined to be a minute image or homunculus, it is quite likely that
the reflection in the eye may have been interpreted as the "soul"
dwelling within it. The eye was certainly regarded as peculiarly rich in
"soul substance". It was not until Osiris received from Horus the eye
which had been wrenched out in the latter's combat with Set that he
"became a soul".[93]
It is a remarkable fact that this belief in the animating power of the
eye spread as far east as Polynesia and America, and as far west as the
British Islands.
Of course the obvious physiological functions of the eyes as means of
communication between their possessor and the world around him; the
powerful influence of the eyes for expressing feeling and emotion
without speech; the analogy between the closing and opening of the eyes
and the changes of day and night, are all hinted at in Egyptian
literature.
But there were certain specific factors that seem to have helped to give
definiteness to these general ideas of the physiology of the eyes. The
tears, like all the body moisture, came to share the life-giving
attributes of water in general. And when it is recalled that at funeral
ceremonies emotion found natural expression in the shedding of tears, it
is not unlikely that this came to be assimilated with all the other
water-symbolism of the funerary ritual. The early literature of Egypt,
in fact, refers to the part played by Isis and Nephthys in the
reanimation of Osiris, when the tears they shed as mourners brought
life back to the god. But the fertilizing tears of Isis were life-giving
in the wider sense. They were said to cause the inundation which
fertilized the soil of Egypt, meaning presumably that the "Eye of Re"
sent the rain.
There is the further possibility that the beliefs associated with the
cowry may have played some part, if not in originating, at any rate in
emphasizing the conception of the fertilizing powers of the eye. I have
already mentioned the outstanding features of the symbolism of the
cowry. In many places in Africa and elsewhere the similarity of this
shell to the half-closed eyelids led to its use as an artificial "eye"
in mummies. The use of the same objects to symbolize the female
reproductive organs and the eyes may have played some part in
transferring to the latter the fertility of the former. The gods were
born of the eyes of Ptah. Might not the confusion of the eye with the
genitalia have given a meaning to this statement? There is evidence of
this double symbolism of these shells. Cowry shells have also been
employed, both in the Persian Gulf and the Pacific, to decorate the bows
of boats, probably for the dual purpose of representing eyes and
conferring vitality upon the vessel. These facts suggest that the belief
in the fertilizing power of the eyes may to some extent be due to this
cowry-association. Even if it be admitted that all the known cases of
the use of cowries as eyes of mummies are relatively late, and that it
is not known to have been employed for such a purpose in Egypt, the mere
fact that the likeness to the eyelids so readily suggests itself may
have linked together the attributes of the cowry and the eye even in
Predynastic times, when cowries were placed with the dead in the grave.
Hathor's identification with the "Eye of Re" may possibly have been an
expression of the same idea. But the rôle of the "Eye of Re" was due
primarily to her association with the moon (_vide infra_, p. 56).
The apparently hopeless tangle of contradictions involved in these
conceptions of Hathor will have to be unravelled. For "no eye is to be
feared more than thine (Re's) when it attacketh in the form of Hathor"
(Maspero, _op. cit._ p. 165). If it was the beneficent life-giving
aspect of the eye which led to its identification with Hathor, in course
of time, when the reason for this connexion was lost sight of, it became
associated with the malevolent, death-dealing _avatar_ of the goddess,
and became the expression of the god's anger and hatred toward his
enemies. It is not unlikely that such a confusion may have been
responsible for giving concrete expression to the general psychological
fact that the eyes are obviously among the chief means for expressing
hatred for and intimidating and "brow-beating" one's fellows. [In my
lecture on "The Birth of Aphrodite" I shall explain the explicit
circumstances that gave rise to these contradictions.]
It is significant that, in addition to the widespread belief in the
"evil eye"--which in itself embodies the same confusion, the expression
of admiration that works evil--in a multitude of legends it is the eye
that produces petrifaction. The "stony stare" causes death and the dead
become transformed into statues, which, however, usually lack their
original attribute of animation. These stories have been collected by
Mr. E. S. Hartland in his "Legend of Perseus".
There is another possible link in the chain of associations between the
eye and the idea of fertility. I have already referred to the
development of the belief that incense, which plays so prominent a part
in the ritual for conferring vitality upon the dead, is itself replete
with animating properties. "Glaser has already shown the _anti_ incense
of the Egyptian Punt Reliefs to be an Arabian word, _a-a-netc_,
'tree-eyes' (_Punt und die Südarabischen Reiche_, p. 7), and to refer to
the large lumps ... as distinguished from the small round drops, which
are supposed to be tree-tears or the tree-blood."[94]
[91: "A New Masterpiece of Egyptian Sculpture," _The Journal of Egyptian
Archæology_, Vol. IV, Part I, Jan., 1917.]
[92: In all probability the main factor that was responsible for
conferring such definite life-giving powers upon the eye was the
identification of the moon with the Great Mother. The moon was the Eye
of Re, the sky-god.]
[93: Breasted, "Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p. 59. The
meaning of the phrase rendered "a soul" here would be more accurately
given by the word "reanimated".]
[94: Wilfred H. Schoff, "The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea," 1912, p.
164.]
The Moon and the Sky-World.
There are reasons for believing that the chief episodes in Aphrodite's
past point to the Red Sea for their inspiration, though many other
factors, due partly to local circumstances and partly to contact with
other civilizations, contributed to the determination of the traits of
the Mediterranean goddess of love. In Babylonia and India there are very
definite signs of borrowing from the same source. It is important,
therefore, to look for further evidence to Arabia as the obvious bond of
union both with Phœnicia and Babylonia.
The claim made in Roscher's _Lexicon der Mythologie_ that the Assyrian
Ishtar, the Phœnician Ashtoreth (Astarte), the Syrian Atargatis
(Derketo), the Babylonian Belit (Mylitta) and the Arabian Ilat (Al-ilat)
were all moon-goddesses has given rise to much rather aimless
discussion, for there can be no question of their essential homology
with Hathor and Aphrodite. Moreover, from the beginning, all
goddesses--and especially this most primitive stratum of fertility
deities--were for obvious reasons intimately associated with the
moon.[95] But the cyclical periodicity of the moon which suggested the
analogy with the similar physiological periodicity of women merely
explains the association of the moon with women. The influence of the
moon upon dew and the tides, perhaps, suggested its controlling power
over water and emphasized the life-giving function which its association
with women had already suggested. For reasons which have been explained
already, water was associated more especially with fertilization by the
male. Hence the symbolism of the moon came to include the control of
both the male and the female processes of reproduction.[96]
The literature relating to the development of these ideas with
reference to the moon has been summarized by Professor Hutton
Webster.[97] He shows that "there is good reason for believing that
among many primitive peoples the moon, rather than the sun, the planets
or any of the constellations, first excited the imagination and aroused
feelings of superstitious awe or of religious veneration".
Special attention was first devoted to the moon when agricultural
pursuits compelled men to measure time and determine the seasons. The
influence of the moon on water, both the tides and dew, brought it
within the scope of the then current biological theory of fertilization.
This conception was powerfully corroborated by the parallelism of the
moon's cycles and those of womankind, which was interpreted by regarding
the moon as the controlling power of the female reproductive functions.
Thus all of the earliest goddesses who were personifications of the
powers of fertility came to be associated, and in some cases identified,
with the moon.
In this way the animation and deification of the moon was brought about:
and the first sky deity assumed not only all the attributes of the
cowry, i.e. the female reproductive functions, but also, as the
controller of water, many of those which afterwards were associated with
Osiris. The confusion of the male fertilizing powers of Osiris with the
female reproductive functions of Hathor and Isis may explain how in some
places the moon became a masculine deity, who, however, still retained
his control over womankind, and caused the phenomena of menstruation by
the exercise of his virile powers.[98] But the moon-god was also a
measurer of time and in this aspect was specially personified in Thoth.
The assimilation of the moon with these earth-deities was probably
responsible for the creation of the first sky-deity. For once the
conception developed of identifying a deity with the moon, and the
Osirian beliefs associated with the deification of a dead king grew up,
the moon became the impersonation of the spirit of womankind, some
mortal woman who by death had acquired divinity.
After the idea had developed of regarding the moon as the spirit of a
dead person, it was only natural that, in course of time, the sun and
stars should be brought within the scope of the same train of thought,
and be regarded as the deified dead. When this happened the sun not
unnaturally soon leapt into a position of pre-eminence. As the moon
represented the deified female principle the sun became the dominant
male deity Re. The stars also became the spirits of the dead.
Once this new conception of a sky-world was adumbrated a luxuriant crop
of beliefs grew up to assimilate the new beliefs with the old, and to
buttress the confused mixture of incompatible ideas with a complex
scaffolding of rationalization.
The sun-god Horus was already the son of Osiris. Osiris controlled not
only the river and the irrigation canals, but also the rain-clouds. The
fumes of incense conveyed to the sky-gods the supplications of the
worshippers on earth. Incense was not only "the perfume that deities,"
but also the means by which the deities and the dead could pass to their
doubles in the newly invented sky-heaven. The sun-god Re was represented
in his temple not by an anthropoid statue, but by an obelisk,[99] the
gilded apex of which pointed to heaven and "drew down" the dazzling rays
of the sun, reflected from its polished surface, so that all the
worshippers could see the manifestations of the god in his temple.
These events are important, not only for creating the sky-gods and the
sky-heaven, but possibly also for suggesting the idea that even a mere
pillar of stone, whether carved or uncarved, upon which no attempt had
been made to model the human form, could represent the deity, or rather
could become the "body" to be animated by the god.[100] For once it was
admitted, even in the home of these ancient ideas concerning the
animation of statues, that it was not essential for the idol to be
shaped into human form, the way was opened for less cultured peoples,
who had not acquired the technical skill to carve statues, simply to
erect stone pillars or unshaped masses of stone or wood for their gods
to enter, when the appropriate ritual of animation was performed.[101]
This conception of the possibility of gods, men, or animals dwelling in
stones spread in course of time throughout the world, but in every place
where it is found certain arbitrary details of the methods of animating
the stone reveal the fact that all these legends must have been derived
from the same source.
The complementary belief in the possibility of the petrifaction of men
and animals has a similarly extensive geographical distribution. The
history of this remarkable incident I shall explain in the lecture on
"Dragons and Rain Gods" (Chapter II.).[102]
[95: I am not concerned here with the explanation of the means by which
their home became transferred to the planet Venus.]
[96: In his discussion of the functions of the Fravashis in the Iranian
Yasht, the late Professor Moulton suggested the derivation of the word
from the Avestan root _var_, "to impregnate," so that _fravaši_ might
mean "birth-promotion". But he was puzzled by a reference to water.
"Less easy to understand is their intimate connexion with the Waters"
("Early Religious Poetry of Persia," pp. 142 and 143). But the Waters
were regarded as fertilizing agents. This is seen in the Avestan
Anahita, who was "the presiding genie of Fertility and more especially
of the Waters" (W. J. Phythian-Adams, "Mithraism," 1915, p. 13).]
[97: "Rest Days," New York, 1916, pp. 124 _et seq._]
[98: Wherever these deities of fertility are found, whether in Egypt,
Babylonia, the Mediterranean Area, Eastern Asia, and America,
illustrations of this confusion of sex are found. The explanation which
Dr. Rendel Harris offers of this confusion in the case of Aphrodite
seems to me not to give due recognition to its great antiquity and
almost world-wide distribution.]
[99: L. Borchardt, "Das Re-heiligtum des Königs Ne-woser-re". For a good
exposition of this matter see A. Moret, "Sanctuaires de l'ancien Empire
Égyptien,"; _Annales du Musée Guimet_, 1912, p. 265.]
[100: It is possible that the ceremony of erecting the _dad_ columns may
have played some part in the development of these beliefs. (On this see
A. Moret, "Mystères Égyptiens," 1913, pp. 13-17.)]
[101: Many other factors played a part in the development of the stories
of the birth of ancestors from stones. I have already referred to the
origin of the idea of the cowry (or some other shell) as the parent of
mankind. The place of the shell was often taken by roughly carved
stones, which of course were accredited with the same power of being
able to produce men, or of being a sort of egg from which human beings
could be hatched. It is unlikely that the finding of fossilized animals
played any leading rôle in the development of these beliefs, beyond
affording corroborative evidence in support of them after other
circumstances had been responsible for originating the stories. The more
circumstantial Oriental stories of the splitting of stones giving birth
to heroes and gods may have been suggested by the finding in pebbles of
fossilized shells--themselves regarded already as the parents of
mankind. But such interpretations were only possible because all the
predisposing circumstances had already prepared the way for the
acceptance of these specific illustrations of a general theory.
These beliefs may have developed before and quite independently of the
ideas concerning the animation of statues; but if so the latter event
would have strengthened and in some places become merged with the other
story.]
[102: For an extensive collection of these remarkable petrifaction
legends in almost every part of the world, see E. Sidney Hartland's "The
Legend of Perseus," especially Volumes I and III. These distinctive
stories will be found to be complexly interwoven with all the matters
discussed in this address.]
The Worship of the Cow.
Intimately linked with the subjects I have been discussing is the
worship of the cow. It would lead me too far afield to enter into the
details of the process by which the earliest Mother-Goddesses became so
closely associated or even identified with the cow, and why the cow's
horns became associated with the moon among the emblems of Hathor.
But it is essential that reference should be made to certain aspects of
the subject.
I do not think there is any evidence to justify the common theory that
the likeness of the crescent moon to a cow's horns was the reason for
the association. On the other hand, it is clear that both the moon and
the cow became identified with the Mother-Goddess quite independently
the one of the other, and at a very remote period.
It is probable that the fundamental factor in the development of this
association of the cow and the Mother-Goddess was the fact of the use of
milk as food for human beings. For if the cow could assume this maternal
function she was in fact a sort of foster-mother of mankind; and in
course of time she came to be regarded as the actual mother of the human
race and to be identified with the Great Mother.
Many other considerations helped in this process of assimilation. The
use of cattle not merely as meat for the sustenance of the living but as
the usual and most characteristic life-giving food for the dead
naturally played a part in conferring divinity upon the cow, just as an
analogous relationship made incense a holy substance and was responsible
for the personification of the incense-tree as a goddess. This influence
was still further emphasized in the case of cattle because they also
supplied the blood which was used for the ritual purpose of bestowing
consciousness upon the dead, and in course of time upon the gods also,
so that they might hear and attend to the prayers of supplicants.
Other circumstances emphasize the significance attached to the cow: but
it is difficult to decide whether they contributed in any way to the
development of these beliefs or were merely some of the practices which
were the result of the divination of the cow. The custom of placing
butter in the mouths of the dead, in Egypt, Uganda, and India, the
various ritual uses of milk, the employment of a cow's hide as a
wrapping for the dead in the grave, and also in certain mysterious
ceremonies,[103] all indicate the intimate connexion between the cow and
the means of attaining a rebirth in the life to come.
I think there are definite reasons for believing that once the cow
became identified with the Mother-Goddess as the parent of mankind the
first step was taken in the development of the curious system of ideas
now known as "totemism".
This, however, is a complex problem which I cannot stay to discuss here.
When the cow became identified with the Great Mother and the moon was
regarded as the dwelling or the personification of the same goddess, the
Divine Cow by a process of confused syncretism came to be regarded as
the sky or the heavens, to which the dead were raised up on the cow's
back. When Re became the dominant deity, he was identified with the sky,
and the sun and moon were then regarded as his eyes. Thus the moon, as
the Great Mother as well as the Eye of Re, was the bond of
identification of the Great Mother with an eye. This was probably how
the eye acquired the animating powers of the Giver of Life.
A whole volume might be written upon the almost world-wide diffusion of
these beliefs regarding the cow, as far as Scotland and Ireland in the
west, and in their easterly migration probably as far as America, to the
confusion alike of its ancient artists and its modern ethnologists.[104]
As an illustration of the identification of the cow's attributes with
those of the life-giving Great Mother, I might refer to the late
Professor Moulton's commentary[105] on the ancient Iranian Gâthâs, where
cow's flesh is given to mortals by Yima to make them immortal. "May we
connect it with another legend whereby at the Regeneration Mithra is to
make men immortal by giving them to eat the fat of the ... primeval Cow
from whose slain body, according to the Aryan legends adopted by
Mithraism, mankind was first created?"[106]
[103: See A. Moret, _op. cit._ p. 81, _inter alia_.]
[104: See the Copan sculptured monuments described by Maudslay in Godman
and Salvin's "Biologia Centrali-Americana," Archæology, Plate 46,
representing "Stela D," with two serpents in the places occupied by the
Indian elephants in Stela B--concerning which see _Nature_, November 25,
1915. To one of these intertwined serpents is attached a cow-headed
human dæmon. Compare also the Chiriqui figure depicted by MacCurdy,
"A Study of Chiriquian Antiquities," Yale University Press, 1911, fig.
361, p. 209.]
[105: "Early Religious Poetry of Persia," pp. 42 and 43.]
[106: _Op. cit._ p. 43. But I think these legends accredited to the
Aryans owe their parentage to the same source as the Egyptian beliefs
concerning the cow, and especially the remarkable mysteries upon which
Moret has been endeavouring to throw some light--"Mystères Égyptiens,"
p. 43.]
The Diffusion of Culture.
In these pages I have made no attempt to deal with the far-reaching and
intricate problems of the diffusion abroad of the practices and beliefs
which I have been discussing. But the thoughts and the aspirations of
every cultured people are permeated through and through with their
influence.
It is important to remember that in almost every stage of the
development of these complex customs and ideas not merely the "finished
product" but also the ingredients out of which it was built up were
being scattered abroad.
* * * * *
I shall briefly refer to certain evidence from Asia and America in
illustration of this fact and in substantiation of the reality of the
diffusion to the East of some of the beliefs I have been discussing.
The unity of Egyptian and Babylonian ideas is nowhere more strikingly
demonstrated than in the essential identity of the attributes of Osiris
and Ea. It affords the most positive proof of the derivation of the
beliefs from some common source, and reveals the fact that Egyptian and
Sumerian civilizations must have been in intimate cultural contact at
the beginning of their developmental history. "In Babylonia, as in
Egypt, there were differences of opinion regarding the origin of life
and the particular natural element which represented the vital
principle." "One section of the people, who were represented by the
worshippers of Ea, appear to have believed that the essence of life was
contained in water. The god of Eridu was the source of the 'water of
life'."[107]
"Offerings of water and food were made to the dead," not primarily so
that they might be "prevented from troubling the living,"[108] but to
supply them with the means of sustenance and to reanimate them to help
the suppliants. It is a common belief that these and other procedures
were inspired by fear of the dead. But such a statement does not
accurately represent the attitude of mind of the people who devised
these funerary ceremonies. For it is not the enemies of the dead or
those against whom he had a grudge that run a risk at funerals, but
rather his friends; and the more deeply he was attached to a particular
person the greater the danger for the latter. For among many people
the belief obtains that when a man dies he will endeavour to steal
the "soul-substance" of those who are dearest to him so that they
may accompany him to the other world. But as stealing the
"soul-substance"[109] means death, it is easy to misunderstand such a
display of affection. Hence most people who long for life and hate death
do their utmost to evade such embarrassing tokens of love; and most
ethnologists, misjudging such actions, write about "appeasing the dead".
It was those whom the gods _loved_ who died young.
Ea was not only the god of the deep, but also "lord of life," king of
the river and god of creation. Like Osiris "he fertilized parched and
sunburnt wastes through rivers and irrigating canals, and conferred upon
man the sustaining 'food of life'.... The goddess of the dead commanded
her servant to 'sprinkle the Lady Ishtar with the water of life'" (_op.
cit._, p. 44).
In Chapter III. of Mr. Mackenzie's book, from which I have just quoted,
there is an interesting collection of quotations clearly showing that
the conception of the vitalizing properties of the body moisture of gods
is not restricted to Egypt, but is found also in Babylonia and India, in
Western Asia and Greece, and also in Western Europe.
It has been suggested that the name Ishtar has been derived from Semitic
roots implying "she who waters," "she who makes fruitful".[110]
Barton claims that: "The beginnings of Semitic religion as they were
conceived by the Semites themselves go back to sexual relations ... the
Semitic conception of deity ... embodies the truth--grossly indeed, but
nevertheless embodies it--that 'God is love'" (_op. cit._ p. 107). [This
statement, however, is very misleading--see Appendix C, p. 75.]
Throughout the countries where Semitic[111] influence spread the
primitive Mother-Goddesses or some of their specialized variants are
found. But in every case the goddess is associated with many distinctive
traits which reveal her identity with her homologues in Cyprus,
Babylonia, and Egypt.
Among the Sumerians "life comes on earth through the introduction of
water and irrigation".[112] "Man also results from a union between the
water-gods."
The Akkadians held views which were almost the direct antithesis of
these. To them "the watery deep is disorder, and the cosmos, the order
of the world, is due to the victory of a god of light and spring over
the monster of winter and water; man is directly made by the gods".[113]
"The Sumerian account of Beginnings centres around the production by the
gods of water, Enki and his consort Nin-ella (or Dangal), of a great
number of canals bringing rain to the desolate fields of a dry
continent. Life both of vegetables and animals follows the profusion of
the vivifying waters.... In the process of life's production besides
Enki, the personality of his consort is very conspicuous. She is called
_Nin-Ella_, 'the pure Lady,' _Damgal-Nunna_, the 'great Lady of the
Waters,' _Nin-Tu_, 'the Lady of Birth'" (p. 301). The child of Enki and
Nin-ella was the ancestor of mankind.[114]
"In later traditions, the personality of that Great Lady seems to have
been overshadowed by that of Ishtar, who absorbed several of her
functions" (p. 301).
Professor Carnoy fully demonstrates the derivation of certain early
so-called "Aryan" beliefs from Chaldea. In the Iranian account of the
creation "the great spring Ardvī Sūra Anāhita is the
life-increasing, the herd-increasing, the fold-increasing who makes
prosperity for all countries (Yt. 5, 1) ... that precious spring is
worshipped as a goddess ... and is personified as a handsome and stately
woman. She is a fair maid, most strong, tall of form, high-girded. Her
arms are white and thick as a horse's shoulder or still thicker. She is
full of gracefulness" (Yt. 5, 7, 64, 78). "Professor Cumont thinks that
Anāhita is Ishtar ... she is a goddess of fecundation and birth.
Moreover in Achæmenian inscriptions Anāhita is associated with Ahura
Mazdāh and Mithra, a triad corresponding to the Chaldean triad:
Sin-Shamash-Ishtar. [Greek: Anaitis] in Strabo and other Greek writers
is treated as [Greek: Aphroditê]" (p. 302).
But in Mesopotamia also the same views were entertained as in Egypt of
the functions of statues.
"The statues hidden in the recesses of the temples or erected on the
summits of the 'Ziggurats' became imbued, by virtue of their
consecration, with the actual body of the god whom they represented."
Thus Marduk is said to "inhabit his image" (Maspero, _op. cit._ p. 64).
This is precisely the idea which the Egyptians had. Even at the present
day it survives among the Dravidian peoples of India.[115] They make
images of their village deities, which may be permanent or only
temporary, but in any case they are regarded not as actual deities but
as the "bodies" so to speak into which these deities can enter. They are
sacred only when they are so animated by the goddess. The ritual of
animation is essentially identical with that found in Ancient Egypt.
Libations are poured out; incense is burnt; the bleeding right fore-leg
of a buffalo constitutes the blood-offering.[116] When the deity is
reanimated by these procedures and its consciousness restored by the
blood-offering it can hear appeals and speak.
The same attitude towards their idols was adopted by the Polynesians.
"The priest usually addressed the image, into which it was imagined the
god entered when anyone came to inquire his will."[117]
But there are certain other aspects of these Indian customs that are of
peculiar interest. In my Ridgeway essay (_op. cit. supra_) I referred to
the means by which in Nubia the degradation of the oblong Egyptian
_mastaba_ gave rise to the simple stone circle. This type spread to the
west along the North African littoral, and also to the Eastern desert
and Palestine. At some subsequent time mariners from the Red Sea
introduced this practice into India.
[It is important to bear in mind that two other classes of stone circles
were invented. One of them was derived, not from the _mastaba_ itself,
but from the enclosing wall surrounding it (see my Ridgeway essay, Fig.
13, p. 531, and compare with Figs. 3 and 4, p. 510, for illustrations of
the transformed _mastaba_-type). This type of circle (enclosing a
dolmen) is found both in the Caucasus-Caspian area as well as in India.
A highly developed form of this encircling type of structure is seen in
the famous rails surrounding the Buddhist _stupas_ and _dagabas_. A
third and later form of circle, of which Stonehenge is an example, was
developed out of the much later New Empire Egyptian conception of
a temple.]
But at the same time, as in Nubia, and possibly in Libya, the _mastaba_
was being degraded into the first of the three main varieties of stone
circle, other, though less drastic, forms of simplification of the
_mastaba_ were taking place, possibly in Egypt itself, but certainly
upon the neighbouring Mediterranean coasts. In some respects the least
altered copies of the _mastaba_ are found in the so-called "giant's
graves" of Sardinia and the "horned cairns" of the British Isles. But
the real features of the Egyptian _serdab_, which was the essential
part, the nucleus so to speak, of the _mastaba_, are best preserved in
the so-called "holed dolmens" of the Levant, the Caucasus, and India.
[They also occur sporadically in the West, as in France and Britain.]
Such dolmens and more simplified forms are scattered in Palestine,[118]
but are seen to best advantage upon the Eastern Littoral of the Black
Sea, the Caucasus, and the neighbourhood of the Caspian. They are found
only in scattered localities between the Black and Caspian Seas. As de
Morgan has pointed out,[119] their distribution is explained by their
association with ancient gold and copper mines. They were the tombs of
immigrant mining colonies who had settled in these definite localities
to exploit these minerals.
Now the same types of dolmens, also associated with ancient mines,[120]
are found in India. There is some evidence to suggest that these
degraded types of Egyptian _mastabas_ were introduced into India at some
time after the adoption of the other, the Nubian modification of the
_mastaba_ which is represented by the first variety of stone
circle.[121]
I have referred to these Indian dolmens for the specific purpose of
illustrating the complexities of the processes of diffusion of culture.
For not only have several variously specialized degradation-products of
the same original type of Egyptian _mastaba_ reached India, possibly by
different routes and at different times, but also many of the ideas
that developed out of the funerary ritual in Egypt--of which the
_mastaba_ was merely one of the manifestations--made their way to India
at various times and became secondarily blended with other expressions
of the same or associated ideas there. I have already referred to the
essential elements of the Egyptian funerary ritual--the statues,
incense, libations, and the rest--as still persisting among the
Dravidian peoples.
But in the Madras Presidency dolmens are found converted into Siva
temples.[122] Now in the inner chamber of the shrine--which represents
the homologue of the _serdab_--in place of the statue or bas-relief of
the deceased or of the deity, which is found in some of them (see Plate
I), there is the stone _linga-yoni_ emblem in the position corresponding
to that in which, in the later temple in the same locality (Kambaduru),
there is an image of Parvati, the consort of Siva.
The earliest deities in Egypt, both Osiris and Hathor, were really
expressions of the creative principle. In the case of Hathor, the
goddess was, in fact, the personification of the female organs of
reproduction.[123] In these early Siva temples in India these principles
of creation were given their literal interpretation, and represented
frankly as the organs of reproduction of the two sexes. The gods of
creation were symbolized by models in stone of the creating organs.
Further illustrations of the same principle are witnessed in the
Indonesian megalithic monuments which Perry calls "dissoliths".[124]
The later Indian temples, both Buddhist and Hindu, were developed from
these early dolmens, as Mr. Longhurst's reports so clearly demonstrate.
But from time to time there was an influx of new ideas from the West
which found expression in a series of modifications of the architecture.
Thus India provides an admirable illustration of this principle of
culture contact. A series of waves of megalithic culture introduced
purely Western ideas. These were developed by the local people in their
own way, constantly intermingling a variety of cultural influences to
weave them into a distinctive fabric, which was compounded partly of
imported, partly of local threads, woven locally into a truly Indian
pattern. In this process of development one can detect the effects of
Mycenæan accretions (see for example Longhurst's Plate XIII), probably
modified during its indirect transmission by Phœnician and later
influences; and also the more intimate part played by Babylonian,
Egyptian, and, later, Greek and Persian art and architecture in
directing the course of development of Indian culture.
Incidentally, in the course of the discussions in the foregoing pages, I
have referred to the profound influence of Egyptian, Babylonian and
Indian ideas in Eastern Asia. Perry's important book (_op. cit. supra_)
reveals their efforts in Indonesia. Thence they spread across the
Pacific to America.
In the "Migrations of Early Culture" (p. 114) I called attention to the
fact that among the Aztecs water was poured upon the head of the mummy.
This ritual procedure was inspired by the Egyptian idea of libations,
for, according to Brasseur de Bourbourg, the pouring out of the water
was accompanied by the remark "C'est cette eau que tu as reçue en venant
an monde".
But incense-burning and blood-offering were also practised in America.
In an interesting memoir[125] on the practice of blood-letting by
piercing the ears and tongue, Mrs. Zelia Nuttall reproduces a remarkable
picture from a "partly unpublished MS. of Sahagun's work preserved in
Florence". "The image of the sun is held up by a man whose body is
partly hidden, and two men, seated opposite to each other in the
foreground, are in the act of piercing the helices or external borders
of their ears." But in addition to these blood-offerings to the sun, two
priests are burning incense in remarkably Egyptian-like censers, and
another pair are blowing conch-shell trumpets.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Representation of the ancient Mexican Worship of
the Sun.
The image of the sun is held up by a man in front of his face; two men
blow conch-shell trumpets; another pair burn incense; and a third pair
make blood-offerings by piercing their ears--after Zelia Nuttall.]
But it was not merely the use of incense and libations and the
identities in the wholly arbitrary attributes of the American pantheon
that reveal the sources of their derivation in the Old World. When the
Spaniards first visited Yucatan they found traces of a Maya baptismal
rite which the natives called _zihil_, signifying "to be born again". At
the ceremony also incense was burnt.[126]
The forehead, the face, the fingers and toes were moistened. "After they
had been thus sprinkled with water, the priest arose and removed the
cloths from the heads of the children, and then cut off with a stone
knife a certain bead that was attached to the head from childhood."[127]
[The custom of wearing such a bead during childhood is found in Egypt at
the present day.]
In the case of the girls, their mothers "divested them of a cord which
was worn during their childhood, fastened round the loins, having a
small shell that hung in front ('una conchuela asida que les venia a dar
encima de la parte honesta'--Landa). The removal of this signified that
they could marry."[128]
This use of shells is found in the Soudan and East Africa at the present
day.[129] The girdle upon which the shells were hung is the prototype of
the cestus of Hathor, Ishtar, Aphrodite, Kali and all the goddesses of
fertility in the Old World. It is an admirable illustration of the fact
that not only were the finished products, the goddesses and their
fantastic repertory of attributes, transmitted to the New World, but
also the earliest and most primitive ingredients out of which the
complexities of their traits were compounded.
In Chapter III ("The Birth of Aphrodite") I shall explain what an
important part the invention of this girdle played in the development of
the material side of civilization and the even vaster influence it
exerted upon beliefs and ethics. It represents the first stage in the
evolution of clothing; and it was responsible for originating the belief
in love-philtres and in the possibility of foretelling the future.
It would lead me too far from my main purpose in this book to discuss
the widespread geographical distribution and historical associations of
the customs of baptism and pouring libations among different peoples. I
may, however, refer the reader to an article by Mr. Elsdon Best,
entitled "Ceremonial Performances Pertaining to Birth, as Performed by
the Maori of New Zealand in Past Times" (_Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute_, Vol. XLIV, 1914, p. 127), which sheds a
clear light upon the general problem.
The whole subject of baptismal ceremonies is well worth detailed study
as a remarkable demonstration of the spread of culture in early times.
[107: Donald A. Mackenzie, "Myths of Babylonia and Assyria," p. 44 _et
seq._]
[108: Dr. Alan Gardiner has protested against the assertions of "some
Egyptologists, influenced more by anthropological theorists than by the
unambiguous evidence of the Egyptian texts," to the effect that "the
funerary rites and practices of the Egyptians were in the main
precautionary measures serving to protect the living against the dead"
(Article "Life and Death (Egyptian)," Hastings' _Encyclopædia of
Religion and Ethics_). I should like to emphasize the fact that the
"anthropological theorists," who so frequently put forward these claims
have little more justification for them than "some Egyptologists".
Careful study of the best evidence from Babylonia, India, Indonesia, and
Japan, reveals the fact that anthropologists who make such claims have
in many cases misinterpreted the facts. In an article on "Ancestor
Worship" by Professor Nobushige Hozumi in A. Stead's "Japan by the
Japanese" (1904) the true point of view is put very clearly: "The origin
of ancestor-worship is ascribed by many eminent writers to the _dread of
ghosts_ and the sacrifices made to the souls of ancestors for the
purpose of _propitiating_ them. It appears to me more correct to
attribute the origin of ancestor-worship to a contrary cause. It was the
_love_ of ancestors, not the _dread_ of them" [Here he quotes the
Chinese philosophers Shiu-ki and Confucius in corroboration] that
impelled men to worship. "We celebrate the anniversary of our ancestors,
pay visits to their graves, offer flowers, food and drink, burn incense
and bow before their tombs, entirely from a feeling of love and respect
for their memory, and no question of 'dread' enters our minds in doing
so" (pp. 281 and 282). [See, however, Appendix B, p. 74.]]
[109: For, as I have already explained, the idea so commonly and
mistakenly conveyed by the term "soul-substance" by writers on
Indonesian and Chinese beliefs would be much more accurately rendered
simply by the word "life," so that the stealing of it necessarily means
death.]
[110: Barton, _op. cit._ p. 105.]
[111: The evidence set forth in these pages makes it clear that such
ideas are not restricted to the Semites: nor is there any reason to
suppose that they originated amongst them.]
[112: Albert J. Carnoy, "Iranian Views of Origins in Connexion with
Similar Babylonian Beliefs," _Journal of the American Oriental Society_,
Vol. XXXVI, 1916, pp. 300-20.]
[113: This is Professor Carnoy's summary of Professor Jastrow's views as
expressed in his article "Sumerian and Akkadian Views of Beginnings".]
[114: Jastrow's interpretation of a recently-discovered tablet published
by Langdon under the title _The Sumerian Epic of Paradise, the Flood and
the Fall of Man_.]
[115: I have already (p. 43) mentioned the fact that it is still
preserved in China also.]
[116: Henry Whitehead (Bishop of Madras), "The Village Deities of
Southern India," Madras Government Museum, Bull., Vol. V, No. 3, 1907;
Wilber Theodore Elmore, "Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism: A Study of
the Local and Village Deities of Southern India," University Studies:
University of Nebraska, Vol. XV, No. 1, Jan., 1915. Compare the
sacrifice of the fore-leg of a living calf in Egypt--A. E. P. B.
Weigall, "An Ancient Egyptian Funeral Ceremony," _Journal of Egyptian
Archæology_, Vol. II, 1915, p. 10. Early literary references from
Babylonia suggest that a similar method of offering blood was practised
there.]
[117: William Ellis, "Polynesian Researches," 2nd edition, 1832, Vol. I,
p. 373.]
[118: See H. Vincent, "Canaan d'après l'exploration récente," Paris,
1907, p. 395.]
[119: "Les Premières Civilizations," Paris, 1909, p. 404: Mémoires de la
Délégation en Perse, Tome VIII, archéol.; and Mission Scientifique au
Caucase, Tome I.]
[120: W. J. Perry, "The Relationship between the Geographical
Distribution of Megalithic Monuments and Ancient Mines," _Memoirs and
Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society_, Vol.
60, Part I, 24th Nov., 1915.]
[121: The evidence for this is being prepared for publication by Captain
Leonard Munn, R.E., who has personally collected the data in Hyderabad.]
[122: Annual Report of the Archæological Department, Southern Circle,
Madras, for the year 1915-1916. See for example Mr. A. H. Longhurst's
photographs and plans (Plates I-IV) and especially that of the old Siva
temple at Kambaduru, Plate IV (b).]
[123: As I shall show in "The Birth of Aphrodite" (Chapter III).]
[124: W. J. Perry, "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia".]
[125: "A Penitential Rite of the Ancient Mexicans," Archæological and
Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. I,
No. 7, 1904.]
[126: Bancroft, _op. cit._ Vol. II, pp. 682 and 683.]
[127: _Op. cit._ p. 684.]
[128: _Ibid._]
[129: See J. Wilfrid Jackson, _op. cit. supra_.]
Summary.
In these pages I have ranged over a very wide field of speculation,
groping in the dim shadows of the early history of civilization. I have
been attempting to pick up a few of the threads which ultimately became
woven into the texture of human beliefs and aspirations, and to suggest
that the practice of mummification was the woof around which the web of
civilization was intimately intertwined.
I have already explained how closely that practice was related to the
origin and development of architecture, which Professor Lethaby has
called the "matrix of civilization," and how nearly the ideas that grew
up in explanation and in justification of the ritual of embalming were
affected by the practice of agriculture, the second great pillar of
support for the edifice of civilization. It has also been shown how
far-reaching was the influence exerted by the needs of the embalmer,
which impelled men, probably for the first time in history, to plan and
carry out great expeditions by sea and land to obtain the necessary
resins and the balsams, the wood and the spices. Incidentally also in
course of time the practice of mummification came to exert a profound
effect upon the means for the acquisition of a knowledge of medicine and
all the sciences ancillary to it.
But I have devoted chief attention to the bearing of the ideas which
developed out of the practice and ritual of embalming upon the spirit of
man. It gave shape and substance to the belief in a future life; it was
perhaps the most important factor in the development of a definite
conception of the gods: it laid the foundation of the ideas which
subsequently were built up into a theory of the soul: in fact, it was
intimately connected with the birth of all those ideals and aspirations
which are now included in the conception of religious belief and ritual.
A multitude of other trains of thought were started amidst the
intellectual ferment of the formulation of the earliest concrete system
of biological theory. The idea of the properties and functions of water
which had previously sprung up in connexion with the development of
agriculture became crystallized into a more definite form as the result
of the development of mummification, and this has played an obtrusive
part in religion, in philosophy and in medicine ever since. Moreover its
influence has become embalmed for all time in many languages and in the
ritual of every religion.
But it was a factor in the development not merely of religious beliefs,
temples and ritual, but it was also very closely related to the origin
of much of the paraphernalia of the gods and of current popular beliefs.
The swastika and the thunderbolt, dragons and demons, totemism and the
sky-world are all of them conceptions that were more or less closely
connected with the matters I have been discussing.
The ideas which grew up in association with the practice of
mummification were responsible for the development of the temple and its
ritual and for a definite formulation of the conception of deities. But
they were also responsible for originating a priesthood. For the
resuscitation of the dead king, Osiris, and for the maintenance of his
existence it was necessary for his successor, the reigning king, to
perform the ritual of animation and the provision of food and drink. The
king, therefore, was the first priest, and his functions were not
primarily acts of worship but merely the necessary preliminaries for
restoring life and consciousness to the dead seer so that he could
consult him and secure his advice and help.
It was only when the number of temples became so great and their ritual
so complex and elaborate as to make it a physical impossibility for the
king to act in this capacity in all of them and on every occasion that
he was compelled to delegate some of his priestly functions to others,
either members of the royal family or high officials. In course of time
certain individuals devoted themselves exclusively to these duties and
became professional priests; but it is important to remember that at
first it was the exclusive privilege of Horus, the reigning king, to
intercede with Osiris, the dead king, on behalf of men, and that the
earliest priesthood consisted of those individuals to whom he had
delegated some of these duties.
In conclusion I should like to express in words what must be only too
apparent to every reader of this statement. It claims to be nothing more
than a contribution to the study of some of the most difficult problems
in the history of human thought. For one so ill-equipped for a task of
such a nature as I am to attempt it calls for a word of explanation. The
clear light that recent research has shed upon the earliest literature
in the world has done much to destroy the foundations upon which the
theories propounded by scholars have been built up. It seemed to be
worth while to attempt to read afresh the voluminous mass of old
documents with the illumination of this new information.
The other reason for making such an attempt is that almost every modern
scholar who has discussed the matters at issue has assumed that the
fashionable doctrine of the independent development of human beliefs and
practices was a safe basis upon which to construct his theories. At best
it is an unproven and reckless speculation. I am convinced it is utterly
false. Holding such views I have attempted to read the evidence afresh.
APPENDIX A.
On re-reading the discussion of the significance of the _ka_ I realize
that, in striving after brevity and conciseness--to keep the size of my
statement within the limits of the _Bulletin of the John Rylands
Library_, generously elastic though it is--I have left the argument in a
rather nebulous form.
It must not be imagined that a concrete-minded people like the ancient
Egyptians entertained highly abstract and ethereal ideas about "the
soul". They recognized that all the expressions of consciousness and
personality could cease during sleep; and at the same time the phenomena
of dreams seemed to afford evidence that these absent elements of the
individual's being were enjoying real experiences elsewhere. Thus there
was an _alter ego_, identified by this matter-of-fact people with the
twin (placenta) which was born with the child and was clearly concerned
with its physical and intellectual nourishment--for it was obviously
connected by its stalk to the embryo like a tree to its roots, and it
seemed to be composed of blood, which was regarded as the vehicle of
mind. But this intellectual "twin" kept pace in its growth with the
physical body. When a statue was made to represent the latter the _ka_
could dwell in the real body or the statue.
The identification of the placenta with the moon helped the growth of
the conception that this "birth-promoter" could not only bring about a
re-birth in the life to come, but also facilitate a transference to the
sky-world. The placenta had already been superintending the deceased's
welfare upon earth and would continue to do so when he rejoined his _ka_
in the sky world.
The complexity of the conception is due to the fact that the simple
early belief in "a double" was gradually elaborated, as one new idea
after another became added to it, and rationalized to blend with the
former complex in an increasingly involved synthesis. It was only when
the elaborate scaffolding of material factors was cleared away that a
more ethereal conception of "the soul" was sublimated.
APPENDIX B.
I should like to emphasize the fact that my protest (on p. 63) was
directed against the claim that the custom of offering food and drink to
the dead was inspired _primarily_ to prevent them from troubling the
living. Its original purpose was to sustain and reanimate the dead; but,
of course, when its real meaning was forgotten, it was explained in a
great variety of ways by the people who made a practice of presenting
offerings to the dead without really knowing why they did so.
Dr. Alan Gardiner himself has made a statement which casual readers
(i.e., those who do not discriminate between the motive for the
invention of a procedure and the reasons subsequently given for its
continuance) might regard as a contradiction of my quotation from his
writings on p. 62. Thus he says: "Any god could doubtless attack human
beings, but savage and malicious deities, like Seth [Set], the murderer
of Osiris, or Sakhmet, [Sekhet], the 'lady of pestilence' (_nb-t 'idw_),
were doubtless most to be feared." [This attitude of the malignant
goddesses is revealed in a most obtrusive form in the village deities of
the Dravidians of Southern India.] "The dead were specially to be
feared; nor was it only those dead who were unhappy or unburied that
might torment the living, for the magician sometimes warns them that
their tombs are endangered" (Article "Magic (Egyptian)," _Hastings'
Encycl. Ethics and Religion_, p. 264).
But it is important to bear in mind, as the same scholar has explained
elsewhere ["Life and Death (Egyptian)," _Hastings' Encycl._, p. 23]:
"Nothing could be farther from the truth [than the statement that 'the
funerary rites and practices of the Egyptians were in the main
precautionary measures serving to protect the living against the dead'];
it is of fundamental importance to realize that the vast stores of
wealth and thought expended by the Egyptians on their tombs--that wealth
and that thought which created not only the pyramids, but also the
practice of mummification and a very extensive funerary literature--were
due to the anxiety of each member of the community with regard to his
own individual future welfare, and not to feelings of respect, or fear,
or duty felt towards the other dead."
It was only in response to certain binding obligations that the living
observed all those costly and troublesome rules which were believed to
insure the welfare of the deceased. But this recognition of the primary
and real purpose of the food offerings as sustenance for the dead or the
gods must not be allowed to blind us to the fact that there is
widespread throughout the world a real fear of the dead and ghosts, and
that in many places food-offerings are made for the specific purpose "of
appeasing the fairies".
Mr. Donald Mackenzie tells me that offerings of milk and porridge are
made at the stone monuments in Scotland, and children carry meal in
their pockets to protect themselves from the fairies. For the dead went
to Fairyland.
Beliefs of a similar kind can be collected from most parts of the world:
but the point I specially want to emphasize is that they are _secondary_
rationalizations of a custom which originally had an utterly different
significance.
APPENDIX C.
Prof. Barton's statement (_supra_, p. 64) is typical of a widespread
misapprehension, resulting from the confusion between sexual relations
and the giving of life. At first primitive people did not realize that
the manifestations of the sex instinct had anything whatever to do with
reproduction. They were aware of the fact that women gave birth to
children; and the organ concerned in this process was regarded as the
giver of life, the creator. The apotheosis of these powers led to the
conception of the first deity. But it was only secondarily that these
life-giving attributes were brought into association with the sexual act
and the masculine powers of fertilization. Much confusion has been
created by those writers who see manifestations of the sexual factor and
phallic ideas in every aspect of primitive religion, where in most cases
only the power of life-giving plays a part.
Chapter II.
DRAGONS AND RAIN GODS.[130]
An adequate account of the development of the dragon-legend would
represent the history of the expression of mankind's aspirations and
fears during the past fifty centuries and more. For the dragon was
evolved along with civilization itself. The search for the elixir of
life, to turn back the years from old age and confer the boon of
immortality, has been the great driving force that compelled men to
build up the material and the intellectual fabric of civilization. The
dragon-legend is the history of that search which has been preserved by
popular tradition: it has grown up and kept pace with the constant
struggle to grasp the unattainable goal of men's desires; and the story
has been constantly growing in complexity, as new incidents were drawn
within its scope and confused with old incidents whose real meaning was
forgotten or distorted. It has passed through all the phases with which
the study of the spreading of rumours or the development of dreams has
familiarized students of psychology. The simple original stories, which
become blended and confused, their meaning distorted and reinterpreted
by the rationalizing of incoherent incidents, are given the dramatic
form with which the human mind invests all stories that make a strong
appeal to its emotions, and then secondarily elaborated with a wealth of
circumstantial detail. This is the history of popular legends and the
development of rumours. But these phenomena are displayed in their most
emphatic form in dreams.[131] In his waking state man restrains his
roving fancies and exercises what Freud has called a "censorship" over
the stream of his thoughts: but when he falls asleep, the "censor" dozes
also; and free rein is given to his unrestrained fancies to make a
hotch-potch of the most varied and unrelated incidents, and to create a
fantastic mosaic built up from fragments of his actual experience, bound
together by the cement of his aspirations and fears. The myth resembles
the dream because it has developed without any consistent and effective
censorship. The individual who tells one particular phase of the story
may exert the controlling influence of his mind over the version he
narrates: but as it is handed on from man to man and generation to
generation the "censorship" also is constantly changing. This lack of
unity of control implies that the development of the myth is not unlike
the building-up of a dream-story. But the dragon-myth is vastly more
complex than any dream, because mankind as a whole has taken a hand in
the process of shaping it; and the number of centuries devoted to this
work of elaboration has been far greater than the years spent by the
average individual in accumulating the stuff of which most of his dreams
have been made. But though the myth is enormously complex, so vast a
mass of detailed evidence concerning every phase and every detail of its
history has been preserved, both in the literature and the folk-lore of
the world, that we are able to submit it to psychological analysis and
determine the course of its development and the significance of every
incident in its tortuous rambling.
In instituting these comparisons between the development of myths and
dreams, I should like to emphasize the fact that the interpretation of
the _myth_ proposed in these pages is almost diametrically opposed to
that suggested by Freud, and pushed to a _reductio ad absurdum_ by his
more reckless followers, and especially by Yung.
The dragon has been described as "the most venerable symbol employed in
ornamental art and the favourite and most highly decorative motif in
artistic design". It has been the inspiration of much, if not most, of
the world's great literature in every age and clime, and the nucleus
around which a wealth of ethical symbolism has accumulated throughout
the ages. The dragon-myth represents also the earliest doctrine or
systematic theory of astronomy and meteorology.
In the course of its romantic and chequered history the dragon has been
identified with all of the gods and all of the demons of every religion.
But it is most intimately associated with the earliest stratum of
divinities, for it has been homologized with each of the members of the
earliest Trinity, the Great Mother, the Water God, and the Warrior Sun
God, both individually and collectively. To add to the complexities of
the story, the dragon-slayer is also represented by the same deities,
either individually or collectively; and the weapon with which the hero
slays the dragon is also homologous both with him and his victim, for it
is animated by him who wields it, and its powers of destruction make it
a symbol of the same power of evil which it itself destroys.
Such a fantastic paradox of contradictions has supplied the materials
with which the fancies of men of every race and land, and every stage of
knowledge and ignorance, have been playing for all these centuries. It
is not surprising, therefore, that an endless series of variations of
the story has been evolved, each decked out with topical allusions and
distinctive embellishments. But throughout the complex tissue of this
highly embroidered fabric the essential threads of the web and woof of
its foundation can be detected with surprising constancy and regularity.
Within the limits of such an account as this it is obvious that I can
deal only with the main threads of the argument and leave the
interesting details of the local embellishments until some other time.
The fundamental element in the dragon's powers is the control of water.
Both in its beneficent and destructive aspects water was regarded as
animated by the dragon, who thus assumed the rôle of Osiris or his enemy
Set. But when the attributes of the Water God became confused with those
of the Great Mother, and her evil avatar, the lioness (Sekhet) form of
Hathor in Egypt, or in Babylonia the destructive Tiamat, became the
symbol of disorder and chaos, the dragon became identified with
her also.
Similarly the third member of the Earliest Trinity also became the
dragon. As the son and successor of the dead king Osiris the living king
Horus became assimilated with him. When the belief became more and more
insistent that the dead king had acquired the boon of immortality and
was really alive, the distinction between him and the actually living
king Horus became correspondingly minimized. This process of
assimilation was advanced a further stage when the king became a god and
was thus more closely identified with his father and predecessor. Hence
Horus assumed many of the functions of Osiris; and amongst them those
which in foreign lands contributed to making a dragon of the Water God.
But if the distinction between Horus and Osiris became more and more
attenuated with the lapse of time, the identification with his mother
Hathor (Isis) was more complete still. For he took her place and assumed
many of her attributes in the later versions of the great saga which is
the nucleus of all the literature of mythology--I refer to the story of
"The Destruction Of Mankind".
The attributes of these three members of the Trinity, Hathor, Osiris,
and Horus, thus became intimately linked the one with the other; and in
Susa, where the earliest pictorial representation of a real dragon
developed, it received concrete form (Fig. 1) as a monster compounded of
the lioness of Hathor (Sekhet) with the falcon (or eagle) of Horus, but
with the human attributes and water-controlling powers which originally
belonged to Osiris. In some parts of Africa the earliest "dragon" was
nothing more than Hathor's cow or the gazelle or antelope of Horus
(Osiris) or of Set.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Early Representation of a "Dragon" Compounded of
the Forepart of an Eagle and the Hindpart of a Lion--(from an Archaic
Cylinder-seal from Susa, after Jequier).]
[Illustration: Fig. 2.--The Earliest Babylonian Conception of the Dragon
Tiamat--(from a Cylinder-seal in the British Museum, after L. W. King).]
But if the dragon was compounded of all three deities, who was the
slayer of the evil dragon?
The story of the dragon-conflict is really a recital of Horus's vendetta
against Set, intimately blended and confused with different versions of
"The Destruction of Mankind".[132] The commonplace incidents of the
originally prosaic stories were distorted into an almost unrecognizable
form, then secondarily elaborated without any attention to their
original meaning, but with a wealth of circumstantial embellishment, in
accordance with the usual methods of the human mind that I have already
mentioned. The history of the legend is in fact the most complete,
because it is the oldest and the most widespread, illustration of those
instinctive tendencies of the human spirit to bridge the gaps in its
disjointed experience, and to link together in a kind of mental mosaic
the otherwise isolated incidents in the facts of daily life and the
rumours and traditions that have been handed down from the
story-teller's predecessors.
In the "Destruction of Mankind," which I shall discuss more fully in the
following pages (p. 109 _et seq._), Hathor does the slaying: in the
later stories Horus takes his mother's place and earns his spurs as the
Warrior Sun-god:[133] hence confusion was inevitably introduced between
the enemies of Re, the original victims in the legend, and Horus's
traditional enemies, the followers of Set. Against the latter it was
Osiris himself who fought originally; and in many of the non-Egyptian
variants of the legend it is the rain-god himself who is the warrior.
Hence all three members of the Trinity were identified, not only with
the dragon, but also with the hero who was the dragon-slayer.
But the weapon used by the latter was also animated by the same Trinity,
and in fact identified with them. In the Saga of the Winged Disk, Horus
assumed the form of the sun equipped with the wings of his own falcon
and the fire-spitting uræus serpents. Flying down from heaven in this
form he was at the same time the god and the god's weapon. As a fiery
bolt from heaven he slew the enemies of Re, who were now identified with
his own personal foes, the followers of Set. But in the earlier versions
of the myth (i.e. the "Destruction of Mankind"), it was Hathor who was
the "Eye of Re" and descended from heaven to destroy mankind with fire;
she also was the vulture (Mut); and in the earliest version she did the
slaughter with a knife or an axe with which she was animistically
identified.
But Osiris also was the weapon of destruction, both in the form of the
flood (for he was the personification of the river) and the rain-storms
from heaven. But he was also an instrument for vanquishing the demon,
when the intoxicating beer or the sedative drink (the potency of which
was due to the indwelling spirit of the god) was the chosen means of
overcoming the dragon.
This, in brief, is the framework of the dragon-story. The early Trinity
as the hero, armed with the Trinity as weapon, slays the dragon,
which again is the same Trinity. With its illimitable possibilities for
dramatic development and fantastic embellishment with incident and
ethical symbolism, this theme has provided countless thousands of
story-tellers with the skeleton which they clothed with the living flesh
of their stories, representing not merely the earliest theories of
astronomy and meteorology, but all the emotional conflicts of daily
life, the struggle between light and darkness, heat and cold, right and
wrong, justice and injustice, prosperity and adversity, wealth and
poverty. The whole gamut of human strivings and emotions was drawn
into the legend until it became the great epic of the human spirit and
the main theme that has appealed to the interest of all mankind in
every age.
An ancient Chinese philosopher, Wang Fu, writing in the time of the Han
Dynasty, enumerates the "nine resemblances" of the dragon. "His horns
resemble those of a stag, his head that of a camel, his eyes those of a
demon, his neck that of a snake, his belly that of a clam, his scales
those of a carp, his claws those of an eagle, his soles those of a
tiger, his ears those of a cow."[134] But this list includes only a
small minority of the menagerie of diverse creatures which at one time
or another have contributed their quota to this truly astounding
hotch-potch.
This composite wonder-beast ranges from Western Europe to the Far East
of Asia, and as we shall see, also even across the Pacific to America.
Although in the different localities a great number of most varied
ingredients enter into its composition, in most places where the dragon
occurs the substratum of its anatomy consists of a serpent or a
crocodile, usually with the scales of a fish for covering, and the feet
and wings, and sometimes also the head, of an eagle, falcon, or hawk,
and the forelimbs and sometimes the head of a lion. An association of
anatomical features of so unnatural and arbitrary a nature can only mean
that all dragons are the progeny of the same ultimate ancestors.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.--A Mediæval Picture of a Chinese Dragon upon its
cloud (After the late Professor W. Anderson)]
[Illustration: Fig. 8.--A Chinese Dragon (After de Groot)]
[Illustration: Fig. 9.--Dragon from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon]
[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Babylonian Weather God]
But it is not merely a case of structural or anatomical similarity, but
also of physiological identity, that clinches the proof of the
derivation of this fantastic brood from the same parents. Wherever the
dragon is found, it displays a special partiality for water. It controls
the rivers or seas, dwells in pools or wells, or in the clouds on the
tops of mountains, regulates the tides, the flow of streams, or the
rainfall, and is associated with thunder and lightning. Its home is a
mansion at the bottom of the sea, where it guards vast treasures,
usually pearls, but also gold and precious stones. In other instances
the dwelling is upon the top of a high mountain; and the dragon's breath
forms the rain-clouds. It emits thunder and lightning. Eating the
dragon's heart enables the diner to acquire the knowledge stored in this
"organ of the mind" so that he can understand the language of birds,
and in fact of all the creatures that have contributed to the making
of a dragon.
It should not be necessary to rebut the numerous attempts that have been
made to explain the dragon-myth as a story relating to extinct monsters.
Such fantastic claims can be made only by writers devoid of any
knowledge of palæontology or of the distinctive features of the dragon
and its history. But when the Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian
Antiquities in the British Museum, in a book that is not intended to be
humorous,[135] seriously claims Dr. Andrews' discovery of a gigantic
fossil snake as "proof" of the former existence of "the great
serpent-devil Āpep," it is time to protest.
Those who attempt to derive the dragon from such living creatures as
lizards like _Draco volans_ or _Moloch horridus_[136] ignore the
evidence of the composite and unnatural features of the monsters.
"Whatever be the origin of the Northern dragon, the myths, when they
first became articulate for us, show him to be in all essentials the
same as that of the South and East. He is a power of evil, guardian of
hoards, the greedy withholder of good things from men; and the slaying
of a dragon is the crowning achievement of heroes--of Siegmund, of
Beowulf, of Sigurd, of Arthur, of Tristam--even of Lancelot, the _beau
ideal_ of mediæval chivalry" (_Encyclopædia Britannica_, vol. viii., p.
467). But if in the West the dragon is usually a "power of evil," in the
far East he is equally emphatically a symbol of beneficence. He is
identified with emperors and kings; he is the son of heaven the bestower
of all bounties, not merely to mankind directly, but also to the earth
as well.
Even in our country his symbolism is not always wholly malevolent,
otherwise--if for the moment we shut our eyes to the history of the
development of heraldic ornament--dragons would hardly figure as the
supporters of the arms of the City of London, and as the symbol of many
of our aristocratic families, among which the Royal House of Tudor is
included. It is only a few years since the Red Dragon of Cadwallader was
added as an additional badge to the achievement of the Prince of Wales.
But, "though a common ensign in war, both in the East and the West, as
an ecclesiastical emblem his opposite qualities have remained
consistently until the present day. Whenever the dragon is represented,
it symbolizes the power of evil, the devil and his works. Hell in
mediæval art is a dragon with gaping jaws, belching fire."
And in the East the dragon's reputation is not always blameless. For it
figures in some disreputable incidents and does not escape the sort of
punishment that tradition metes out to his European cousins.
[130: An elaboration of a Lecture delivered in the John Rylands Library
on 8 November, 1916.]
[131: In his lecture, "Dreams and Primitive Culture," delivered at the
John Rylands Library on 10 April, 1918, Dr. Rivers has expounded the
principles of dream-development.]
[132: _Vide infra_, p. 109 _et seq._]
[133: Hence soldiers killed in battle and women dying in childbirth
receive special consideration in the exclusive heaven of (Osiris's)
Horus's Indian and American representatives, Indra and Tlaloc.]
[134: M. W. de Visser, "The Dragon in China and Japan," _Verhandelingen
der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam_, Afdeeling
Letterkunde, Deel XIII, No. 2, 1913, p. 70.]
[135: E. A. Wallis Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," 1904, vol. i,
p. 11]
[136: Gould's "Mythical Monsters," 1886.]
The Dragon in America and Eastern Asia.
In the early centuries of the Christian era, and probably also even for
two or three hundred years earlier still, the leaven of the ancient
civilizations of the Old World was at work in Mexico, Central America
and Peru. The most obtrusive influences that were brought to bear,
especially in the area from Yucatan to Mexico, were inspired by the
Cambodian and Indonesian modifications of Indian beliefs and practices.
The god who was most often depicted upon the ancient Maya and Aztec
codices was the Indian rain-god Indra, who in America was provided with
the head of the Indian elephant[137] (i.e. seems to have been confused
with the Indian Ganesa) and given other attributes more suggestive of
the Dravidian Nâga than his enemy, the Aryan deity. In other words the
character of the American god, known as _Chac_ by the Maya people and as
_Tlaloc_ by the Aztecs, is an interesting illustration of the effects of
such a mixture of cultures as Dr. Rivers has studied in Melanesia.[138]
Not only does the elephant-headed god in America represent a blend of
the two great Indian rain-gods which in the Old World are mortal
enemies, the one of the other (partly for the political reason that the
Dravidians and Aryans were rival and hostile peoples), but all the
traits of each deity, even those depicting the old Aryan conception of
their deadly combat, are reproduced in America under circumstances which
reveal an ignorance on the part of the artists of the significance of
the paradoxical contradictions they are representing. But even many
incidents in the early history of the Vedic gods, which were due to
arbitrary circumstances in the growth of the legends, reappear in
America. To cite one instance (out of scores which might be quoted), in
the Vedic story Indra assumed many of the attributes of the god Soma. In
America the name of the god of rain and thunder, the Mexican Indra, is
_Tlaloc_, which is generally translated "pulque of the earth," from
_tlal[l]i_, "earth," and _oc[tli]_, "pulque, a fermented drink (like the
Indian drink _soma_) made from the juice of the agave".[139]
The so-called "long-nosed god" (the elephant-headed rain-god) has been
given the non-committal designation "god B," by Schellhas.[140]
[Illustration: Fig. 11.--Reproduction of a Picture in the Maya Codex
Troano representing the Rain-god _Chac_ treading upon the Serpent's
head, which is interposed between the earth and the rain the god is
pouring out of a bowl. A Rain-goddess stands upon the Serpent's tail.]
I reproduce here a remarkable drawing (Fig. 11) from the Codex Troano,
in which this god, whom the Maya people called _Chac_, is shown pouring
the rain out of a water-jar (just as the deities of Babylonia and India
are often represented), and putting his foot upon the head of a serpent,
who is preventing the rain from reaching the earth. Here we find
depicted with childlike simplicity and directness the Vedic conception
of Indra overcoming the demon Vritra. Stempell describes this scene as
"the elephant-headed god B standing upon the head of a serpent";[141]
while Seler, who claims that god B is a tortoise, explains it as the
serpent forming a footstool for the rain-god.[142] In the
Codex Cortes the same theme is depicted in another way, which is truer
to the Indian conception of Vritra, as "the restrainer"[143] (Fig. 12).
[Illustration: Fig. 12.--Another representation of the Elephant-headed
Rain god. He is holding thunderbolts, conventionalised in a hand-like
form. The Serpent is converted into a sac, holding up the rain-waters.]
The serpent (the American rattlesnake) restrains the water by coiling
itself into a sac to hold up the rain and so prevent it from reaching
the earth. In the various American codices this episode is depicted in
as great a variety of forms as the Vedic poets of India described when
they sang of the exploits of Indra. The Maya Chac is, in fact, Indra
transferred to the other side of the Pacific and there only thinly
disguised by a veneer of American stylistic design.
But the Aztec god Tlaloc is merely the Chac of the Maya people
transferred to Mexico. Schellhas declares that the "god B," the "most
common figure in the codices," is a "universal deity to whom the most
varied elements, natural phenomena, and activities are subject". "Many
authorities consider God B to represent Kukulkan, the Feathered Serpent,
whose Aztec equivalent is Quetzalcoatl. Others identify him with
Itzamna, the Serpent God of the East, or with Chac, the Rain God of the
four quarters and the equivalent of Tlaloc of the Mexicans."[144]
From the point of view of its Indian analogies these confusions are
peculiarly significant, for the same phenomena are found in India. The
snake and the dragon can be either the rain-god of the East or the enemy
of the rain-god; either the dragon-slayer or the evil dragon who has to
be slain. The Indian word _Nâga_, which is applied to the beneficent god
or king identified with the cobra, can also mean "elephant," and this
double significance probably played a part in the confusion of the
deities in America.
In the Dresden Codex the elephant-headed god is represented in one place
grasping a serpent, in another issuing from a serpent's mouth, and again
as an actual serpent (Fig. 13). Turning next to the attributes of these
American gods we find that they reproduce with amazing precision those
of Indra. Not only were they the divinities who controlled rain,
thunder, lightning, and vegetation, but they also carried axes and
thunderbolts (Fig. 13) like their homologues in the Old World. Like
Indra, Tlaloc was intimately associated with the East and with the tops
of mountains, where he had a special heaven, reserved for warriors who
fell in battle and women who died in childbirth. As a water-god also he
presided over the souls of the drowned and those who in life suffered
from dropsical affections. Indra also specialized in the same branch
of medicine.
In fact, if one compares the account of Tlaloc's attributes and
achievements, such as is given in Mr. Joyce's "Mexican Archæology" or
Professor Seler's monograph on the "Codex Vaticanus," with Professor
Hopkins's summary of Indra's character ("Religions of India") the
identity is so exact, even in the most arbitrary traits and confusions
with other deities' peculiarities, that it becomes impossible for any
serious investigator to refuse to admit that Tlaloc and Chac are merely
American forms of Indra. Even so fantastic a practice as the
representation of the American rain-god's face as composed of contorted
snakes[145] finds its analogy in Siam, where in relatively recent times
this curious device was still being used by artists.[146]
"As the god of fertility maize belonged to him [Tlaloc], though not
altogether by right, for according to one legend he stole it after it
had been discovered by other gods concealed in the heart of a
mountain."[147] Indra also obtained soma from the mountain by similar
means.[148]
In the ancient civilization of America one of the most prominent deities
was called the "Feathered Serpent," in the Maya language, Kukulkan,
Quiché Gukumatz, Aztec Quetzalcoatl, the Pueblo "Mother of Waters".
Throughout a very extensive part of America the snake, like the Indian
Nâga, is the emblem of rain, clouds, thunder and lightning. But it is
essentially and pre-eminently the symbol of rain; and the god who
controls the rain, Chac of the Mayas, Tlaloc of the Aztecs, carried the
axe and the thunderbolt like his homologues and prototypes in the Old
World. In America also we find reproduced in full, not only the legends
of the antagonism between the thunder-bird and the serpent, but also
the identification of these two rivals in one composite monster, which,
as I have already mentioned, is seen in the winged disks, both in the
Old World and the New.[149] Hardly any incident in the history of the
Egyptian falcon or the thunder-birds of Babylonia, Greece or India,
fails to reappear in America and find pictorial expression in the Maya
and Aztec codices.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.
A photographic reproduction of the 36th page of the Dresden Maya Codex.
Of the three pictures in the top row one represents the elephant-headed
god _Chac_ with a snake's body. He is pouring out rain. The central
picture represents the lightning animal carrying fire down from heaven
to earth. On the right _Chac_ is shown in human guise carrying
thunder-weapons in the form of burning torches.
In the second row a goddess sits in the rain: her head is prolonged into
that of a bird, holding a fish in its beak. The central picture shows
_Chac_ in his boat ferrying a woman across the water from the East. The
third illustration depicts the familiar conflict between the vulture and
serpent.
In the third row _Chac_ is seen with his axe: in the central picture he
is standing in the water looking up towards a rain-cloud; and on the
right he is shown sitting in a hut resting from his labours.]
What makes America such a rich storehouse of historical data is the fact
that it is stretched across the world almost from pole to pole; and for
many centuries the jetsam and flotsam swept on to this vast strand has
made it a museum of the cultural history of the Old World, much of which
would have been lost for ever if America had not saved it. But a record
preserved in this manner is necessarily in a highly confused state. For
essentially the same materials reached America in manifold forms. The
original immigrants into America brought from North-Eastern Asia such
cultural equipment as had reached the area east of the Yenesei at the
time when Europe was in the Neolithic phase of culture. Then when
ancient mariners began to coast along the Eastern Asiatic littoral and
make their way to America by the Aleutian route there was a further
infiltration of new ideas. But when more venturesome sailors began to
navigate the open seas and exploit Polynesia, for centuries[150] there
was a more or less constant influx of customs and beliefs, which were
drawn from Egypt and Babylonia, from the Mediterranean and East Africa,
from India and Indonesia, China and Japan, Cambodia and Oceania. One and
the same fundamental idea, such as the attributes of the serpent as a
water-god, reached America in an infinite variety of guises, Egyptian,
Babylonian, Indian, Indonesian, Chinese and Japanese, and from this
amazing jumble of confusion the local priesthood of Central America
built up a system of beliefs which is distinctively American, though
most of the ingredients and the principles of synthetic composition were
borrowed from the Old World.
Every possible phase of the early history of the dragon-story and all
the ingredients which in the Old World went to the making of it have
been preserved in American pictures and legends in a bewildering variety
of forms and with an amazing luxuriance of complicated symbolism and
picturesque ingenuity. In America, as in India and Eastern Asia, the
power controlling water was identified both with a serpent (which in the
New World, as in the Old, was often equipped with such inappropriate and
arbitrary appendages, as wings, horns and crests) and a god, who was
either associated or confused with an elephant. Now many of the
attributes of these gods, as personifications of the life-giving powers
of water, are identical with those of the Babylonian god Ea and the
Egyptian Osiris, and their reputations as warriors with the respective
sons and representatives, Marduk and Horus. The composite animal of
Ea-Marduk, the "sea-goat" (the Capricornus of the Zodiac), was also the
vehicle of Varuna in India whose relationship to Indra was in some
respects analogous to that of Ea to Marduk in Babylonia.[151] The Indian
"sea-goat" or _Makara_ was in fact intimately associated both with
Varuna and with Indra. This monster assumed a great variety of forms,
such as the crocodile, the dolphin, the sea-serpent or dragon, or
combinations of the heads of different animals with a fish's body (Fig.
14). Amongst these we find an elephant-headed form of the _makara_,
which was adopted as far east as Indonesia and as far west as Scotland.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.
A. The so-called "sea-goat" of Babylonia, a creature compounded of the
antelope and fish of Ea.
B. The "sea-goat" as the vehicle of Ea or Marduk.
C to K--a series of varieties of the _makara_ from the Buddhist Rails at
Buddha Gaya and Mathura, circa 70 B.C.-70 A.D., after Cunningham
("Archæological Survey of India," Vol. III, 1873, Plates IX and XXIX).
L. The _makara_ as the vehicle of Varuna, after Sir George Birdwood. It
is not difficult to understand how, in the course of the easterly
diffusion of culture, such a picture should develop into the Chinese
Dragon or the American Elephant-headed God.]
I have already called attention[152] to the part played by the _makara_
in determining the development of the form of the elephant-headed god in
America. Another form of the _makara_ is described in the following
American legend, which is interesting also as a mutilated version of the
original dragon-story of the Old World.
In 1912 Hernández translated and published a Maya manuscript[153] which
had been written out in Spanish characters in the early days of the
conquest of the Americas, but had been overlooked until six years ago.
It is an account of the creation, and includes the following passages:
"All at once came the water [? rain] after the dragon was carried away.
The heaven was broken up; it fell upon the earth; and they say that
_Cantul-ti-ku_ (four gods), the four Baccab, were those who destroyed
it.... 'The whole world', said _Ah-uuc-chek-nale_ (he who seven times
makes fruitful), 'proceeded from the seven bosoms of the earth.' And he
descended to make fruitful _Itzam-kab-uin_ (the female whale with
alligator-feet), when he came down from the central angle of the
heavenly region" (p. 171).
Hernández adds that "the old fishermen of Yucatan still call the whale
_Itzam_: this explains the name of _Itzaes_, by which the Mayas were
known before the founding of Mayapan".
The close analogy to the Indra-story is suggested by the phrase
describing the coming of the water "after the dragon was carried away".
Moreover, the Indian sea-elephant _makara_, which was confused in the
Old World with the dolphin of Aphrodite, and was sometimes also regarded
as a crocodile, naturally suggests that the "female whale with the
alligator-feet" was only an American version of the old Indian legend.
All this serves, not only to corroborate the inferences drawn from the
other sources of information which I have already indicated, but also to
suggest that, in addition to borrowing the chief divinities of their
pantheon from India, the Maya people's original name was derived from
the same mythology.[154]
It is of considerable interest and importance to note that in the
earliest dated example of Maya workmanship (from Tuxtla, in the Vera
Cruz State of Mexico), for which Spinden assigns a tentative date of 235
B.C., an unmistakable elephant figures among the four hieroglyphs which
Spinden reproduces (_op. cit._, p. 171). A similar hieroglyphic sign is
found in the Chinese records of the Early Chow Dynasty (John Ross, "The
Origin of the Chinese People," 1916, P. 152).
The use of the numerals four and seven in the narrative translated by
Hernández, as in so many other American documents, is itself, as Mrs.
Zelia Nuttall has so conclusively demonstrated,[155] a most striking and
conclusive demonstration of the link with the Old World.
Indra was not the only Indian god who was transferred to America, for
all the associated deities, with the characteristic stories of their
exploits,[156] are also found depicted with childlike directness of
incident, but amazingly luxuriant artistic phantasy, in the Maya and
Aztec codices.
We find scattered throughout the islands of the Pacific the familiar
stories of the dragon. One mentioned by the Bishop of Wellington refers
to a New Zealand dragon with jaws like a crocodile's, which spouted
water like a whale. It lived in a fresh-water lake.[157] In the same
number of the same _Journal_ Sir George Grey gives extracts from a Maori
legend of the dragon, which he compares with corresponding passages from
Spenser's "Faery Queen". "Their strict verbal and poetical conformity
with the New Zealand legends are such as at first to lead to the
impression either that Spenser must have stolen his images and language
from the New Zealand poets, or that they must have acted unfairly by the
English bard" (p. 362). The Maori legend describes the dragon as "in
size large as a monstrous whale, in shape like a hideous lizard; for in
its huge head, its limbs, its tail, its scales, its tough skin, its
sharp spines, yes, in all these it resembled a lizard" (p. 364).
Now the attributes of the Chinese and Japanese dragon as the controller
of rain, thunder and lightning are identical with those of the American
elephant-headed god. It also is associated with the East and with the
tops of mountains. It is identified with the Indian Nâga, but the
conflict involved in this identification is less obtrusive than it is
either in America or in India. In Dravidian India the rulers and the
gods are identified with the serpent: but among the Aryans, who were
hostile to the Dravidians, the rain-god is the enemy of the Nâga. In
America the confusion becomes more pronounced because Tlaloc (Chac)
represents both Indra and his enemy the serpent. The representation in
the codices of his conflict with the serpent is merely a tradition
which the Maya and Aztec scribes followed, apparently without
understanding its meaning.
In China and Japan the Indra-episode plays a much less prominent part,
for the dragon is, like the Indian Nâga, a beneficent creature, which
approximates more nearly to the Babylonian Ea or the Egyptian Osiris. It
is not only the controller of water, but the impersonation of water and
its life-giving powers: it is identified with the emperor, with his
standard, with the sky, and with all the powers that give, maintain, and
prolong life and guard against all kinds of danger to life. In other
words, it is the bringer of good luck, the rejuvenator of mankind, the
giver of immortality.
But if the physiological functions of the dragon of the Far East can
thus be assimilated to those of the Indian Nâga and the Babylonian and
Egyptian Water God, who is also the king, anatomically he is usually
represented in a form which can only be regarded as the Babylonian
composite monster, as a rule stripped of his wings, though not of his
avian feet.
In America we find preserved in the legends of the Indians an accurate
and unmistakable description of the Japanese dragon (which is mainly
Chinese in origin). Even Spinden, who "does not care to dignify by
refutation the numerous empty theories of ethnic connections between
Central America" [and in fact America as a whole] "and the Old World,"
makes the following statement (in the course of a discussion of the
myths relating to horned snakes in California): "a similar monster,
possessing antlers, and sometimes wings, is also very common in Algonkin
and Iroquois legends, although rare in art. As a rule the horned serpent
is a water spirit and an enemy of the thunder bird. Among the Pueblo
Indians the horned snake seems to have considerable prestige in
religious belief.... It lives in the water or in the sky and is
connected with rain or lightning."[158]
Thus we find stories of a dragon equipped with those distinctive tokens
of Chinese origin, the deer's antlers; and along with it a snake with
less specialized horns suggesting the Cerastes of Egypt and Babylonia. A
horned viper distantly akin to the Cerastes of the Old World does occur
in California; but its "horns" are so insignificant as to make it highly
improbable that they could have been in any way responsible for the
obtrusive rôle played by horns in these widespread American stories.
But the proof of the foreign origin of these stories is established by
the horned serpent's achievements.
It "lives in the water or the sky" like its homologue in the Old World,
and it is "a water spirit". Now neither the Cobra nor the Cerastes is
actually a water serpent. Their achievements in the myths therefore have
no possible relationship with the natural habits of the real snakes.
They are purely arbitrary attributes which they have acquired as the
result of a peculiar and fortuitous series of historical incidents.
It is therefore utterly inconceivable and in the highest degree
improbable that this long chain of chance circumstances should have
happened a second time in America, and have been responsible for the
creation of the same bizarre story in reference to one of the rarer
American snakes of a localized distribution, whose horns are mere
vestiges, which no one but a trained morphologist is likely to have
noticed or recognized as such.
But the American horned serpent, like its Babylonian and Indian
homologues, is also the enemy of the thunder bird. Here is a further
corroboration of the transmission to America of ideas which were the
chance result of certain historical events in the Old World, which I
have mentioned in this lecture.
In the figure on page 94 I reproduce a remarkable drawing of an American
dragon. If the Algonkin Indians had not preserved legends of a winged
serpent equipped with deer's antlers, no value could be assigned to this
sketch: but as we know that this particular tribe retains the legend of
just such a wonder-beast, we are justified in treating this drawing as
something more than a jest.
"Petroglyphs are reported by Mr. John Criley as occurring near Ava,
Jackson County, Illinois. The outlines of the characters observed by him
were drawn from memory and submitted to Mr. Charles S. Mason, of Toledo,
Ohio, through whom they were furnished to the Bureau of Ethnology.
Little reliance can be placed upon the accuracy of such drawing, but
from the general appearance of the sketches the originals of which they
are copies were probably made by one of the middle Algonquin tribes of
Indians.[159]
"The 'Piasa' rock, as it is generally designated, was referred to by the
missionary explorer Marquette in 1675. Its situation was immediately
above the city of Alton, Illinois."
Marquette's remarks are translated by Dr. Francis Parkman as follows:--
"On the flat face of a high rock were painted, in red, black, and green,
a pair of monsters, each 'as large as a calf, with horns like a deer,
red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression of
countenance. The face is something like that of a man, the body covered
with scales; and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the
body, over the head, and between the legs, ending like that of a fish.'"
Another version, by Davidson and Struve, of the discovery of the
petroglyph is as follows:--
"Again they (Joliet and Marquette) were floating on the broad bosom of
the unknown stream. Passing the mouth of the Illinois, they soon fell
into the shadow of a tall promontory, and with great astonishment beheld
the representation of two monsters painted on its lofty limestone front.
According to Marquette, each of these frightful figures had the face of
a man, the horns of a deer, the beard of a tiger, and the tail of a fish
so long that it passed around the body, over the head, and between the
legs. It was an object of Indian worship and greatly impressed the mind
of the pious missionary with the necessity of substituting for this
monstrous idolatry the worship of the true God."
A footnote connected with the foregoing quotation gives the following
description of the same rock:--
"Near the mouth of the Piasa creek, on the bluff, there is a smooth rock
in a cavernous cleft, under an overhanging cliff, on whose face 50 feet
from the base, are painted some ancient pictures or hieroglyphics, of
great interest to the curious. They are placed in a horizontal line from
east to west, representing men, plants and animals. The paintings,
though protected from dampness and storms, are in great part destroyed,
marred by portions of the rock becoming detached and falling down."
Mr. McAdams, of Alton, Illinois, says, "The name Piasa is Indian and
signifies, in the Illini, the bird which devours men". He furnishes a
spirited pen-and-ink sketch, 12 by 15 inches in size and purporting to
represent the ancient painting described by Marquette. On the picture
is inscribed the following in ink: "Made by Wm. Dennis, April 3rd,
1825". The date is in both letters and figures. On the top of the
picture in large letters are the two words, "FLYING DRAGON". This
picture, which has been kept in the old Gilham family of Madison county
and bears the evidence of its age, is reproduced as Fig. 3.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Wm. Dennis's Drawing of the "Flying Dragon"
Depicted on the Rocks at Piasa, Illinois.]
He also publishes another representation with the following remarks:--
"One of the most satisfactory pictures of the Piasa we have ever seen is
in an old German publication entitled 'The Valley of the Mississippi
Illustrated. Eighty illustrations from Nature, by H. Lewis, from the
Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico,' published about the year
1839 by Arenz & Co., Dusseldorf, Germany. One of the large full-page
plates in this work gives a fine view of the bluff at Alton, with the
figure of the Piasa on the face of the rock. It is represented to have
been taken on the spot by artists from Germany.... In the German picture
there is shown just behind the rather dim outlines of the second face a
ragged crevice, as though of a fracture. Part of the bluff's face might
have fallen and thus nearly destroyed one of the monsters, for in later
years writers speak of but one figure. The whole face of the bluff was
quarried away in 1846-47."
The close agreement of this account with that of the Chinese and
Japanese dragon at once arrests attention. The anatomical peculiarities
are so extraordinary that if Père Marquette's account is trustworthy
there is no longer any room for doubt of the Chinese or Japanese
derivation of this composite creature. If the account is not accepted we
will be driven, not only to attribute to the pious seventeenth-century
missionary serious dishonesty or culpable gullibility, but also to
credit him with a remarkably precise knowledge of Mongolian archæology.
When Algonkin legends are recalled, however, I think we are bound to
accept the missionary's account as substantially accurate.
Minns claims that representations of the dragon are unknown in China
before the Han dynasty. But the legend of the dragon is much more
ancient. The evidence has been given in full by de Visser.[160]
He tells us that the earliest reference is found in the _Yih King_, and
shows that the dragon was "a water animal akin to the snake, which
[used] to sleep in pools during winter and arises in the spring." "It is
the god of thunder, who brings good crops when he appears in the rice
fields (as rain) or in the sky (as dark and yellow clouds), in other
words when he makes the rain fertilize the ground" (p. 38).
In the _Shu King_ there is a reference to the dragon as one of the
symbolic figures painted on the upper garment of the emperor Hwang Ti
(who according to the Chinese legends, which of course are not above
reproach, reigned in the twenty-seventh century B.C.). In this ancient
literature there are numerous references to the dragon, and not merely
to the legends, _but also to representations_ of the benign monster on
garments, banners and metal tablets.[161] "The ancient texts ... are
short, but sufficient to give us the main conceptions of Old China with
regard to the dragon. In those early days [just as at present] he was
the god of water, thunder, clouds, and rain, the harbinger of blessings,
and the symbol of holy men. As the emperors are the holy beings on
earth, the idea of the dragon being the symbol of Imperial power is
based upon this ancient conception" (_op. cit._, p. 42).
In the fifth appendix to the _Yih King_, which has been ascribed to
Confucius, (i.e. three centuries earlier than the Han dynasty mentioned
by Mr. Minns), it is stated that "_K'ien_ (Heaven) is a horse, _Kw'un_
(Earth) is a cow, _Chen (Thunder) is a dragon_." (_op. cit._, p.
37).[162]
The philosopher Hwai Nan Tsze (who died 122 B.C.) declared that the
dragon is the origin of all creatures, winged, hairy, scaly, and
mailed; and he propounded a scheme of evolution (de Visser, p. 65). He
seems to have tried to explain away the fact that he had never actually
witnessed the dragon performing some of the remarkable feats attributed
to it: "Mankind cannot see the dragons rise: wind and rain assist them
to ascend to a great height" (_op. cit._, p. 65). Confucius also is
credited with the frankness of a similar confession: "As to the dragon,
we cannot understand his riding on the wind and clouds and his ascending
to the sky. To-day I saw Lao Tsze; is he not like the dragon?" (p. 65).
This does not necessarily mean that these learned men were sceptical of
the beliefs which tradition had forged in their minds, but that the
dragon had the power of hiding itself in a cloak of invisibility, just
as clouds (in which the Chinese saw dragons) could be dissipated in the
sky. The belief in these powers of the dragon was as sincere as that of
learned men of other countries in the beneficent attributes which
tradition had taught them to assign to their particular deities. In the
passages I have quoted the Chinese scholars were presumably attempting
to bridge the gap between the ideas inculcated by faith and the evidence
of their senses, in much the same sort of spirit as, for instance,
actuated Dean Buckland last century, when he claimed that the glacial
deposits of this country afforded evidence in confirmation of the Deluge
described in the Book of Genesis.
The tiger and the dragon, the gods of wind and water, are the keystones
of the doctrine called _fung shui_, which Professor de Groot has
described in detail.[163]
He describes it "as a quasi-scientific system, supposed to teach men
where and how to build graves, temples, and dwellings, in order that the
dead, the gods, and the living may be located therein exclusively, or as
far as possible, under the auspicious influences of Nature". The dragon
plays a most important part in this system, being "the chief spirit of
water and rain, and at the same time representing one of the four
quarters of heaven (i.e. the East, called the Azure Dragon, and the
first of the seasons, spring)." The word Dragon comprises the high
grounds in general, and the water streams which have their sources
therein or wind their way through them.[164]
The attributes thus assigned to the Blue Dragon, his control of water
and streams, his dwelling on high mountains whence they spring, and his
association with the East, will be seen to reveal his identity with the
so-called "god B" of American archæologists, the elephant-headed god
_Tlaloc_ of the Aztecs, _Chac_ of the Mayas, whose more direct parent
was Indra.
It is of interest to note that, according to Gerini,[165] the word
_Nâga_ denotes not only a snake but also an elephant. Both the Chinese
dragon and the Mexican elephant-god are thus linked with the Nâga, who
is identified both with Indra himself and Indra's enemy Vritra. This is
another instance of those remarkable contradictions that one meets at
every step in pursuing the dragon. In the confusion resulting from the
blending of hostile tribes and diverse cultures the Aryan deity who,
both for religious and political reasons, is the enemy of the Nâgas
becomes himself identified with a Nâga!
I have already called attention (_Nature_, Jan. 27, 1916) to the fact
that the graphic form of representation of the American elephant-headed
god was derived from Indonesian pictures of the _makara_. In India
itself the _makara_ (see Fig. 14) is represented in a great variety of
forms, most of which are prototypes of different kinds of dragons. Hence
the homology of the elephant-headed god with the other dragons is
further established and shown to be genetically related to the evolution
of the protean manifestations of the dragon's form.
The dragon in China is "the heavenly giver of fertilizing rain" (_op.
cit._, p. 36). In the _Shu King_ "the emblematic figures of the ancients
are given as the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountain, the _dragon_,
and the variegated animals (pheasants) which are depicted on the upper
sacrificial garment of the Emperor" (p. 39). In the _Li Ki_ the unicorn,
the phoenix, the tortoise, and the dragon are called the four _ling_
(p. 39), which de Visser translates "spiritual beings," creatures with
enormously strong vital spirit. The dragon possesses the most _ling_ of
all creatures (p. 64). The tiger is the deadly enemy of the dragon
(p. 42).
The dragon sheds a brilliant light at night (p. 44), usually from his
glittering eyes. He is the giver of omens (p. 45), good and bad, rains
and floods. The dragon-horse is a vital spirit of Heaven and Earth (p.
58) and also of river water: it has the tail of a huge serpent.
The ecclesiastical vestments of the Wu-ist priests are endowed with
magical properties which are considered to enable the wearer to control
the order of the world, to avert unseasonable and calamitous events,
such as drought, untimely and superabundant rainfall, and eclipses.
These powers are conferred by the decoration upon the dress. Upon the
back of the chief vestment the representation of a range of mountains is
embroidered as a symbol of the world: on each side (the right and left)
of it a large dragon arises above the billows to represent the
fertilizing rain. They are surrounded by gold-thread figures
representing clouds and spirals typifying rolling thunder.[166]
A ball, sometimes with a spiral decoration, is commonly represented in
front of the Chinese dragon. The Chinese writer Koh Hung tells us that
"a spiral denotes the rolling of thunder from which issues a flash of
lightning".[167] De Visser discusses this question at some length and
refers to Hirth's claim that the Chinese triquetrum, i.e., the
well-known three-comma shaped figure, the Japanese _mitsu-tomoe_, the
ancient spiral, represents thunder also.[168] Before discussing this
question, which involves the consideration of the almost world-wide
belief in a thunder-weapon and its relationship to the spiral ornament,
the octopus, the pearl, the swastika and triskele, let us examine
further the problem of the dragon's ball (see Fig. 15).
[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Photograph of a Chinese Embroidery in the
Manchester School of Art representing the Dragon and the Pearl-Moon
Symbol.]
De Groot regards the dragon as a thunder-god and therefore, like Hirth,
assumes that the supposed thunder-ball is being _belched forth_ and not
being _swallowed_ by the dragon. But de Visser, as the result of a
conversation with Mr. Kramp and the study of a Chinese picture in
Blacker's "Chats on Oriental China" (1908, p. 54), puts forward the
suggestion that the ball is the moon or the pearl-moon which the dragon
is swallowing, thereby causing the fertilizing rain. The Chinese
themselves refer to the ball as the "precious pearl," which, under the
influence of Buddhism in China, was identified with "the pearl that
grants all desires" and is under the special protection of the Nâga,
i.e., the dragon. Arising out of this de Visser puts the conundrum: "Was
the ball originally also a pearl, not of Buddhism but of Taoism?"
In reply to this question I may call attention to the fact that the
germs of civilization were first planted in China by people strongly
imbued with the belief that the pearl was the quintessence of
life-giving and prosperity-conferring powers:[169] it was not only
identified with the moon, but also was itself a particle of
moon-substance which fell as dew into the gaping oyster. It was the very
people who held such views about pearls and gold who, when searching for
alluvial gold and fresh-water pearls in Turkestan, were responsible for
transferring these same life-giving properties to jade; and the magical
value thus attached to jade was the nucleus, so to speak, around which
the earliest civilization of China was crystallized.
As we shall see, in the discussion of the thunder-weapon (p. 121), the
luminous pearl, which was believed to have fallen from the sky, was
homologized with the thunderbolt, with the functions of which its own
magical properties were assimilated.
Kramp called de Visser's attention to the fact that the Chinese
hieroglyphic character for the dragon's ball is compounded of the signs
for _jewel_ and _moon_, which is also given in a Japanese lexicon as
_divine pearl_, the pearl of the bright moon.
"When the clouds approached and covered the moon, the ancient Chinese
may have thought that the dragons had seized and swallowed this pearl,
more brilliant than all the pearls of the sea" (de Visser, p. 108).
The difficulty de Visser finds in regarding his own theory as wholly
satisfactory is, first, the red colour of the ball, and secondly, the
spiral pattern upon it. He explains the colour as possibly an attempt to
represent the pearl's lustre. But de Visser seems to have overlooked the
fact that red and rose-coloured pearls obtained from the conch-shell
were used in China and Japan.[170]
"The spiral is much used in delineating the sacred pearls of Buddhism,
so that it might have served also to design those of Taoism; although I
must acknowledge that the spiral of the Buddhist pearl goes upward,
while the spiral of the dragon is flat" (p. 103).
De Visser sums up the whole argument in these words:--
"These are, however, all mere suppositions. The only facts we know are:
the eager attitude of the dragons, ready to grasp and swallow the ball;
the ideas of the Chinese themselves as to the ball being the moon or a
pearl; the existence of a kind of sacred "moon-pearl"; the red colour of
the ball, its emitting flames and its spiral-like form. As the three
last facts are in favour of the thunder theory, I should be inclined to
prefer the latter. Yet I am convinced that the dragons do not _belch
out_ the thunder. If their trying to _grasp_ or _swallow_ the thunder
could be explained, I should immediately accept the theory concerning
the thunder-spiral, especially on account of the flames it emits. But I
do not see the reason why the god of thunder should persecute thunder
itself. Therefore, after having given the above facts that the reader
may take them into consideration, I feel obliged to say: 'non liquet'"
(p. 108).
It does not seem to have occurred to the distinguished Dutch scholar,
who has so lucidly put the issue before us, that his demonstration of
the fact of the ball being the pearl-moon about to be swallowed by the
dragon does not preclude it being also confused with the thunder.
Elsewhere in this volume I have referred to the origin of the spiral
symbolism and have shown that it became associated with the pearl
_before_ it became the symbol of thunder. The pearl-association in fact
was one of the links in the chain of events which made the pearl and
the spirally-coiled arm of the octopus the sign of thunder.[171]
It seems quite clear to me that de Visser's pearl-moon theory is the
true interpretation. But when the pearl-ball was provided with the
spiral, painted red, and given flames to represent its power of emitting
light and shining by night, the fact of the spiral ornamentation and of
the pearl being one of the surrogates of the thunder-weapon was
rationalized into an identification of the ball with thunder and the
light it was emitting as lightning. It is, of course, quite irrational
for a thunder-god to swallow his own thunder: but popular
interpretations of subtle symbolism, the true explanation of which is
deeply buried in the history of the distant past, are rarely logical and
almost invariably irrelevant.
In his account of the state of Brahmanism in India after the times of
the two earlier Vedas, Professor Hopkins[172] throws light upon the real
significance of the ball in the dragon-symbolism. "Old legends are
varied. The victory over Vritra is now expounded thus: Indra, who slays
Vritra, is the sun. Vritra is the moon, who swims into the sun's mouth
on the night of the new moon. The sun rises after swallowing him, and
the moon is invisible because he is swallowed. The sun vomits out the
moon, and the latter is then seen in the west, and increases again, to
serve the sun as food. In another passage it is said that when the moon
is invisible he is hiding in plants and waters."
This seems to clear away any doubt as to the significance of the ball.
It is the pearl-moon, which is both swallowed and vomited by the dragon.
The snake takes a more obtrusive part in the Japanese than in the
Chinese dragon and it frequently manifests itself as a god of the sea.
The old Japanese sea-gods were often female water-snakes. The cultural
influences which reached Japan from the south by way of Indonesia--many
centuries before the coming of Buddhism--naturally emphasized the
serpent form of the dragon and its connexion with the ocean.
But the river-gods, or "water-fathers," were real four-footed dragons
identified with the dragon-kings of Chinese myth, but at the same time
were strictly homologous with the Nâga Rajas or cobra-kings of India.
The Japanese "Sea Lord" or "Sea Snake" was also called
"Abundant-Pearl-Prince," who had a magnificent palace at the bottom of
the sea. His daughter ("Abundant-Pearl-Princess") married a youth whom
she observed, reflected in the well, sitting on a cassia tree near the
castle gate. Ashamed at his presence at her lying-in she was changed
into a _wani_ or crocodile (de Visser, p. 139), elsewhere described as a
dragon (_makara_). De Visser gives it as his opinion that the _wani_ is
"an old Japanese dragon, or serpent-shaped sea-god, and the legend is an
ancient Japanese tale, dressed in an Indian garb by later generations"
(p. 140). He is arguing that the Japanese dragon existed long before
Japan came under Indian influence. But he ignores the fact that at a
very early date both India and China were diversely influenced by
Babylonia, the great breeding place of dragons; and, secondly, that
Japan was influenced by Indonesia, and through it by the West, for many
centuries before the arrival of such later Indian legends as those
relating to the palace under the sea, the castle gate and the cassia
tree. As Aston (quoted by de Visser) remarks, all these incidents and
also the well that serves as a mirror, "form a combination not unknown
to European folk-lore".
After de Visser had given his own views, he modified them (on p. 141)
when he learned that essentially the same dragon-stories had been
recorded in the Kei Islands and Minahassa (Celebes). In the light of
this new information he frankly admits that "the resemblance of several
features of this myth with the Japanese one is so striking, that we may
be sure that the latter is of Indonesian origin." He goes further when
he recognizes that "probably the foreign invaders, who in prehistoric
times conquered Japan, came from Indonesia, and brought the myth with
them" (p. 141). The evidence recently brought together by W. J. Perry in
his book "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia" makes it certain that the
people of Indonesia in turn got it from the West.
An old painting reproduced by F. W. K. Müller,[173] who called de
Visser's attention to these interesting stories, shows Hohodemi (the
youth on the cassia tree who married the princess) returning home
mounted on the back of a crocodile, like the Indian Varuna upon the
_makara_ in a drawing reproduced by the late Sir George Birdwood.[174]
The _wani_ or crocodile thus introduced from India, _via_ Indonesia, is
really the Chinese and Japanese dragon, as Aston has claimed. Aston
refers to Japanese pictures in which the Abundant-Pearl-Prince and his
daughter are represented with dragon's heads appearing over their human
ones, but in the old Indonesian version they maintain their forms as
_wani_ or crocodiles.
The dragon's head appearing over a human one is quite an Indian motive,
transferred to China and from there to Korea and Japan (de Visser, p.
142), and, I may add, also to America.
[Since the foregoing paragraphs have been printed, the Curator of the
Liverpool Museum has kindly called my attention to a remarkable series
of Maya remains in the collection under his care, which were obtained in
the course of excavations made by Mr. T. W. F. Gann, M.R.C.S., an
officer in the Medical Service of British Honduras (see his account of
the excavations in Part II. of the 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution of Washington). Among them is a
pottery figure of a _wani_ or _makara_ in the form of an alligator,
equipped with diminutive deer's horns (like the dragon of Eastern Asia);
and its skin is studded with circular elevations, presumably meant to
represent the spots upon the star-spangled "Celestial Stag" of the
Aryans (p. 130). As in the Japanese pictures mentioned by Aston, a human
head is seen emerging from the creature's throat. It affords a most
definite and convincing demonstration of the sources of American
culture.]
The jewels of flood and ebb in the Japanese legends consist of the
pearls of flood and ebb obtained from the dragon's palace at the bottom
of the sea. By their aid storms and floods could be created to destroy
enemies or calm to secure safety for friends. Such stories are the
logical result of the identification of pearls with the moon, the
influence of which upon the tides was probably one of the circumstances
which was responsible for bringing the moon into the circle of the great
scientific theory of the life-giving powers of water. This in turn
played a great, if not decisive, part in originating the earliest belief
in a sky world, or heaven.
[137: "Precolumbian Representations of the Elephant in America,"
_Nature_, Nov. 25, 1915, p. 340; Dec. 16, 1915, p. 425; and Jan. 27,
1916, p. 593.]
[138: "History of Melanesian Society," Cambridge, 1914.]
[139: H. Beuchat, "Manuel d' Archéologie Américaine," 1912, p. 319.]
[140: "Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts," _Papers of
the Peabody Museum_, vol. iv., 1904.]
[141: _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. 40, 1908, p. 716.]
[142: "Die Tierbilder der mexikanischen und der Maya-Handschriften,"
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. 42, 1910, pp. 75 and 77. In the
remarkable series of drawings from Maya and Aztec sources reproduced by
Seler in his articles in the _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, the _Peabody
Museum Papers_, and his monograph on the _Codex Vaticanus_, not only is
practically every episode of the dragon-myth of the Old World
graphically depicted, but also every phase and incident of the legends
from India (and Babylonia, Egypt and the Ægean) that contributed to the
building-up of the myth.]
[143: Compare Hopkins, "Religions of India," p. 94.]
[144: Herbert J. Spinden, "Maya Art," p. 62.]
[145: Seler, "Codex Vaticanus," Figs. 299-304.]
[146: See, for example, F. W. K. Müller, "Nang," _Int. Arch. f.
Ethnolog._, 1894, Suppl. zu Bd. vii., Taf. vii., where the mask of
_Ravana_ (a late surrogate of Indra in the _Ramayana_) reveals a
survival of the prototype of the Mexican designs.]
[147: Joyce, _op. cit._, p. 37.]
[148: For the incident of the stealing of the soma by Garuda, who in
this legend is the representative of Indra, see Hopkins, "Religions of
India," pp. 360-61.]
[149: "The Influence of Ancient Egyptian Civilization in the East and in
America," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 1916, Fig. 4, "The
Serpent-Bird".]
[150: Probably from about 300 B.C. to 700 A.D.]
[151: For information concerning Ea's "Goat-Fish," which can truly be
called the "Father of Dragons," as well as the prototype of the Indian
_makara_, the mermaid, the "sea-serpent," the "dolphin of Aphrodite,"
and of most composite sea-monsters, see W. H. Ward's "Seal Cylinders of
Western Asia," pp. 382 _et seq._ and 399 _et seq._; and especially the
detailed reports in de Morgan's _Mémoires_ (Délégation en Perse).]
[152: _Nature, op. cit., supra_.]
[153: Juan Martinez Hernández, "La Creación del Mundo segun los Mayas,"
Páginas Inéditas del MS. De Chumayel, _International Congress of
Americanists, Proceedings of the XVIII. Session_, London, 1912, p. 164.]
[154: From the folk-lore of America I have collected many interesting
variants of the Indra story and other legends (and artistic designs) of
the elephant. I hope to publish these in the near future.]
[155: _Peabody Museum Papers_, 1901.]
[156: See, for example, Wilfrid Jackson's "Shells as Evidence of the
Migration of Early Culture," pp. 50-66.]
[157: "Notes on the Maoris, etc.," _Journal of the Ethnological
Society_, vol. i., 1869, p. 368.]
[158: _Op. cit._, p. 231.]
[159: I quote this and the following paragraphs verbatim from Garrick
Mallery, "Picture Writing of the American Indians," _10th Annual Report,
1888-89, Bureau of Ethnology (Smithsonian Institute)_. p. 78.]
[160: _Op. cit._, pp. 35 _et seq._]
[161: See de Visser, p. 41.]
[162: There can be no doubt that the Chinese dragon is the descendant of
the early Babylonian monster, and that the inspiration to create it
probably reached Shensi during the third millennium B.C. by the route
indicated in my "Incense and Libations" (_Bull. John Rylands Library_,
vol. iv., No. 2, p. 239). Some centuries later the Indian dragon reached
the Far East via Indonesia and mingled with his Babylonian cousin in
Japan and China.]
[163: "Religious System of China," vol. iii., chap, xii., pp. 936-1056.]
[164: This paragraph is taken almost verbatim from de Visser, _op. cit._
pp. 59 and 60.]
[165: G. E. Gerini, "Researches on Ptolemy's Geography of Eastern Asia,"
_Asiatic Society's Monographs_, No. 1, 1909, p. 146.]
[166: De Visser, p. 102, and de Groot, vi., p. 1265, Plate XVIII. The
reference to "a range of mountains ... as a symbol of the world" recalls
the Egyptian representation of the eastern horizon as two hills between
which Hathor or her son arises (see Budge, "Gods of the Egyptians," vol.
ii., p. 101; and compare Griffith's "Hieroglyphs," p. 30): the same
conception was adopted in Mesopotamia (see Ward, "Seal Cylinders of
Western Asia," fig. 412, p. 156) and in the Mediterranean (see Evans,
"Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," pp. 37 _et seq._). It is a remarkable
fact that Sir Arthur Evans, who, upon p. 64 of his memoir, reproduces
two drawings of the Egyptian "horizon" supporting the sun's disk, should
have failed to recognize in it the prototype of what he calls "the horns
of consecration". Even if the confusion of the "horizon" with a cow's
horns was very ancient (for the horns of the Divine Cow supporting the
moon made this inevitable), this rationalization should not blind us as
to the real origin of the idea, which is preserved in the ancient
Egyptian, Babylonian, Cretan and Chinese pictures (see Fig. 26, facing
p. 188).]
[167: De Visser, p. 103.]
[168: P. 104. The Chinese triquetrum has a circle in the centre and five
or eight commas.]
[169: See on this my paper "The Origin of Early Siberian Civilization,"
now being published in the _Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester
Literary and Philosophical Society_.]
[170: Wilfrid Jackson, "Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of Early
Culture," p. 106.]
[171: I shall discuss this more fully in "The Birth of Aphrodite".]
[172: "Religions of India," p. 197.]
[173: "Mythe der Kei-Insulaner und Verwandtes," _Zeitsch. f.
Ethnologie_, vol. xxv., 1893, pp. 533 _et seq._]
[174: See Fig. 14.]
The Evolution of the Dragon.
The American and Indonesian dragons can be referred back primarily to
India, the Chinese and Japanese varieties to India and Babylonia. The
dragons of Europe can be traced through Greek channels to the same
ultimate source. But the cruder dragons of Africa are derived either
from Egypt, from the Ægean, or from India. All dragons that strictly
conform to the conventional idea of what such a wonder-beast should be
can be shown to be sprung from the fertile imagination of ancient Sumer,
the "great breeding place of monsters" (Minns).
But the history of the dragon's evolution and transmission to other
countries is full of complexities; and the dragon-myth is made up of
many episodes, some of which were not derived from Babylonia.
In Egypt we do not find the characteristic dragon and dragon-story. Yet
all of the ingredients out of which both the monster and the legends are
compounded have been preserved in Egypt, and in perhaps a more primitive
and less altered form than elsewhere. Hence, if Egypt does not provide
dragons for us to dissect, it does supply us with the evidence without
which the dragon's evolution would be quite unintelligible.
Egyptian literature affords a clearer insight into the development of
the Great Mother, the Water God, and the Warrior Sun God than we can
obtain from any other writings of the origin of this fundamental stratum
of deities. And in the three legends: The Destruction of Mankind, The
Story of the Winged Disk, and The Conflict between Horus and Set, it has
preserved the germs of the great Dragon Saga. Babylonian literature has
shown us how this raw material was worked up into the definite and
familiar story, as well as how the features of a variety of animals were
blended to form the composite monster. India and Greece, as well as more
distant parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia, and even America have
preserved many details that have been lost in the real home of the
monster.
In the earliest literature that has come down to us from antiquity a
clear account is given of the original attributes of Osiris. "Horus
comes, he recognizes his father in thee [Osiris], youthful in thy name
of 'Fresh Water'." "Thou art indeed the Nile, great on the fields at the
beginning of the seasons; gods and men live by the moisture that is in
thee." He is also identified with the inundation of the river. "It is
Unis [the dead king identified with Osiris] who inundates the land." He
also brings the wind and guides it. It is the breath of life which
raises the king from the dead as an Osiris. The wine-press god comes to
Osiris bearing wine-juice and the great god becomes "Lord of the
overflowing wine": he is also identified with barley and with the beer
made from it. Certain trees also are personifications of the god.
But Osiris was regarded not only as the waters upon earth, the rivers
and streams, the moisture in the soil and in the bodies of animals and
plants, but also as "the waters of life that are in the sky".
"As Osiris was identified with the waters of earth and sky, he may even
become the sea and the ocean itself. We find him addressed thus: 'Thou
art great, thou art green, in thy name of Great Green (Sea); lo, thou
art round as the Great Circle (Okeanos); lo, thou art turned about, thou
art round as the circle that encircles the Haunebu (Ægeans)."
This series of interesting extracts from Professor Breasted's "Religion
and Thought in Ancient Egypt" (pp. 18-26) gives the earliest Egyptians'
own ideas of the attributes of Osiris. The Babylonians regarded Ea in
almost precisely the same light and endowed him with identical powers.
But there is an important and significant difference between Osiris and
Ea. The former was usually represented as a man, that is, as a dead
king, whereas Ea was represented as a man wearing a fish-skin, as a
fish, or as the composite monster with a fish's body and tail, which was
the prototype of the Indian _makara_ and "the father of dragons".
In attempting to understand the creation of the dragon it is important
to remember that, although Osiris and Ea were regarded primarily as
personifications of the beneficent life-giving powers of water, as the
bringers of fertility to the soil and the givers of life and immortality
to living creatures, they were also identified with the destructive
forces of water, by which men were drowned or their welfare affected in
various ways by storms of sea and wind.
Thus Osiris or the fish-god Ea could destroy mankind. In other words the
fish-dragon, or the composite monster formed of a fish and an antelope,
could represent the destructive forces of wind and water. Thus even the
malignant dragon can be the homologue of the usually beneficent gods
Osiris and Ea, and their Aryan surrogates Mazdah and Varuna.
By a somewhat analogous process of archaic rationalization the sons
respectively of Osiris and Ea, the sun-gods Horus and Marduk, acquired a
similarly confused reputation. Although their outstanding achievements
were the overcoming of the powers of evil, and, as the givers of light,
conquering darkness, their character as warriors made them also powers
of destruction. The falcon of Horus thus became also a symbol of chaos,
and as the thunder-bird became the most obtrusive feature in the weird
anatomy of the composite Mesopotamian dragon and his more modern
bird-footed brood, which ranges from Western Europe to the Far East of
Asia and America.
That the sun-god derived his functions directly or indirectly from
Osiris and Hathor is shown by his most primitive attributes, for in "the
earliest sun-temples at Abusir, he appears as the source of life and
increase". "Men said of him: 'Thou hast driven away the storm, and hast
expelled the rain, and hast broken up the clouds'." Horus was in fact
the son of Osiris and Hathor, from whom he derived his attributes. The
invention of the sun-god was not, as most scholars pretend, an attempt
to give direct expression to the fact that the sun is the source of
fertility. That is a discovery of modern science. The sun-god acquired
his attributes secondarily (and for definite historical reasons) from
his parents, who were responsible for his birth.
The quotation from the Pyramid Texts is of special interest as an
illustration of one of the results of the assimilation of the idea of
Osiris as the controller of water with that of a sky-heaven and a
sun-god. The sun-god's powers are rationalized so as to bring them
into conformity with the earliest conception of a god as a power
controlling water.
Breasted attempts to interpret the statements concerning the storm and
rain-clouds as references to the enemies of the sun, who steal the
sky-god's eye, i.e., obscure the sun or moon.[175] The incident of
Horus's loss of an eye, which looms so large in Egyptian legends, is
possibly more closely related to the earliest attempts at explaining
eclipses of the sun and moon, the "eyes" of the sky. The obscuring of
the sun and moon by clouds is a matter of little significance to the
Egyptian: but the modern Egyptian _fellah_, and no doubt his
predecessors also, regard eclipses with much concern. Such events
excite great alarm, for the peasants consider them as actual combats
between the powers of good and evil.
In other countries where rain is a blessing and not, as in Egypt, merely
an unwelcome inconvenience, the clouds play a much more prominent part
in the popular beliefs. In the Rig-Veda the power that holds up the
clouds is evil: as an elaboration of the ancient Egyptian conception of
the sky as a Divine Cow, the Great Mother, the Aryan Indians regarded
the clouds as a herd of cattle which the Vedic warrior-god Indra (who in
this respect is the homologue of the Egyptian warrior Horus) stole from
the powers of evil and bestowed upon mankind. In other words, like
Horus, he broke up the clouds and brought rain.
The antithesis between the two aspects of the character of these ancient
deities is most pronounced in the case of the other member of this most
primitive Trinity, the Great Mother. She was the great beneficent giver
of life, but also the controller of life, which implies that she was the
death-dealer. But this evil aspect of her character developed only under
the stress of a peculiar dilemma in which she was placed. On a famous
occasion in the very remote past the great Giver of Life was summoned to
rejuvenate the ageing king. The only elixir of life that was known to
the pharmacopœia of the times was human blood: but to obtain this
life-blood the Giver of Life was compelled to slaughter mankind. She
thus became the destroyer of mankind in her lioness _avatar_ as Sekhet.
The earliest known pictorial representation of the dragon (Fig. 1)
consists of the forepart of the sun-god's falcon or eagle united with
the hindpart of the mother-goddess's lioness. The student of modern
heraldry would not regard this as a dragon at all, but merely a gryphon
or griffin. A recent writer on heraldry has complained that, "in spite
of frequent corrections, this creature is persistently confused in the
popular mind with the _dragon_, which is even more purely
imaginary."[176] But the investigator of the early history of these
wonder-beasts is compelled, even at the risk of incurring the herald's
censure, to regard the gryphon as one of the earliest known tentative
efforts at dragon-making. But though the fish, the falcon or eagle, and
the composite eagle-lion monster are early known pictorial
representations of the dragon, good or bad, the serpent is probably more
ancient still (Fig. 2).
The earliest form assumed by the power of evil was the serpent: but it
is important to remember that, as each of the primary deities can be a
power of either good or evil, any of the animals representing them can
symbolize either aspect. Though Hathor in her cow manifestation is
usually benevolent and as a lioness a power of destruction, the cow may
become a demon in certain cases and the lioness a kindly creature. The
falcon of Horus (or its representatives, eagle, hawk, woodpecker, dove,
redbreast, etc) may be either good or bad: so also the gazelle (antelope
or deer), the crocodile, the fish, or any of the menagerie of creatures
that enter into the composition of good or bad demons.
"The Nâgas are semi-divine serpents which very often assume human shapes
and whose kings live with their retinues in the utmost luxury in their
magnificent abodes at the bottom of the sea or in rivers or lakes. When
leaving the Nâga world they are in constant danger of being grasped and
killed by the gigantic semi-divine birds, the Garudas, which also change
themselves into men" (de Visser, p. 7).
"The Nâgas are depicted in three forms: common snakes, guarding jewels;
human beings with four snakes in their necks; and winged sea-dragons,
the upper part of the body human, but with a horned, ox-like head, the
lower part of the body that of a coiling-dragon. Here we find a link
between the snake of ancient India and the four-legged Chinese dragon"
(p. 6), hidden in the clouds, which the dragon himself emitted, like a
modern battleship, for the purpose of rendering himself invisible. In
other words, the rain clouds were the dragon's breath. The fertilizing
rain was thus in fact the vital essence of the dragon, being both water
and the breath of life.
"We find the Nâga king not only in the possession of numberless jewels
and beautiful girls, but also of mighty charms, bestowing supernatural
vision and hearing. The palaces of the Nâga kings are always described
as extremely splendid, abounding with gold and silver and precious
stones, and the Nâga women, when appearing in human shape, were
beautiful beyond description" (p. 9).
De Visser records the story of an evil Nâga protecting a big tree that
grew in a pond, who failed to emit clouds and thunder when the tree was
cut down, because he was neither despised nor wounded: for his body
became the support of the stūpa and the tree became a beam of the
stūpa (p. 16). This aspect of the Nâga as a tree-demon is rare in
India, but common in China and Japan. It seems to be identical with the
Mediterranean conception of the pillar of wood or stone, which is both a
representative of the Great Mother and the chief support of a
temple.[177]
In the magnificent city that king Yaçaḥketu saw, when he dived into
the sea, "wishing trees that granted every desire" were among the
objects that met his vision. There were also palaces of precious stones
and gardens and tanks, and, of course, beautiful maidens (de Visser, p.
20).
In the Far Eastern stories it is interesting to note the antagonism of
the dragon to the tiger, when we recall that the lioness-form of Hathor
was the prototype of the earliest malevolent dragon.
There are five sorts of dragons: serpent-dragons; lizard-dragons;
fish-dragons; elephant-dragons; and toad-dragons (de Visser, p. 23).
"According to de Groot, the blue colour is chosen in China because this
is the colour of the East, from where the rain must come; this quarter
is represented by the Azure Dragon, the highest in rank among all the
dragons. We have seen, however, that the original sūtra already
prescribed to use the blue colour and to face the East.... Indra, the
rain-god, is the patron of the East, and Indra-colour is _nila_, dark
blue or rather blue-black, the regular epithet of the rain clouds. If
the priest had not to face the East but the West, this would agree with
the fact that the Nâgas were said to live in the western quarter and
that in India the West corresponds with the blue colour. Facing the
East, however, seems to point to an old rain ceremony in which Indra was
invoked to raise the blue-black clouds" (de Visser, pp. 30 and 31).
[175: Breasted, _op. cit._, p. 11.]
[176: G. W. Eve, "Decorative Heraldry," 1897, p. 35.]
[177: Arthur J. Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," pp. 88 _et
seq._]
The Dragon Myth.
The most important and fundamental legend in the whole history of
mythology is the story of the "Destruction of Mankind". "It was
discovered, translated, and commented upon by Naville ("La Destruction
des hommes par les Dieux," in the _Transactions of the Society of
Biblical Archæology_, vol. iv., pp. 1-19, reproducing Hay's copies made
at the beginning of [the nineteenth] century; and "L'Inscription de la
Destruction des hommes dans le tombeau de Ramsés III," in the
_Transactions_, vol. viii., pp. 412-20); afterwards published anew by
Herr von Bergmann (_Hieroglyphische Inscriften_, pls. lxxv.-lxxxii., and
pp. 55, 56); completely translated by Brugsch (_Die neue Weltordnung
nach Vernichtung des sündigen Menschengeschlechts nach einer
Altägyptischen Ueberlieferung_, 1881); and partly translated by Lauth
(_Aus Ægyptens Vorzeit_, pp. 70-81) and by Lefèbure ("Une chapitre de la
chronique solaire," in the _Zeitschrift für Ægyptische Sprache_, 1883,
pp 32, 33)".[178]
Important commentaries upon this story have been published also by
Brugsch and Gauthier.[179]
As the really important features of the story consist of the incoherent
and contradictory details, and it would take up too much space to
reproduce the whole legend here, I must refer the reader to Maspero's
account of it (_op. cit._), or to the versions given by Erman in his
"Life in Ancient Egypt" (p. 267, from which I quote) or Budge in "The
Gods of the Egyptians," vol. i., p. 388.
Although the story as we know it was not written down until the time of
Seti I (_circa_ 1300 B.C.), it is very old and had been circulating as a
popular legend for more than twenty centuries before that time. The
narrative itself tells its own story because it is composed of many
contradictory interpretations of the same incidents flung together in a
highly confused and incoherent form.
The other legends to which I shall have constantly to refer are "The
Saga of the Winged Disk," "The Feud between Horus and Set," "The
Stealing of Re's Name by Isis," and a series of later variants and
confusions of these stories.[180]
The Egyptian legends cannot be fully appreciated unless they are in
conjunction with those of Babylonia and Assyria,[181] the mythology of
Greece,[182] Persia,[183] India,[184] China,[185] Indonesia,[186] and
America.[187]
For it will be found that essentially the same stream of legends was
flowing in all these countries, and that the scribes and painters have
caught and preserved certain definite phases of this verbal currency.
The legends which have thus been preserved are not to be regarded as
having been directly derived the one from the other but as collateral
phases of a variety of waves of story spreading out from one centre.
Thus the comparison of the whole range of homologous legends is
peculiarly instructive and useful; because the gaps in the Egyptian
series, for example, can be filled in by necessary phases which are
missing in Egypt itself, but are preserved in Babylonia or Greece,
Persia or India, China or Britain, or even Oceania and America.
The incidents in the Destruction of Mankind may be briefly summarized:
As Re grows old "the men who were begotten of his eye"[188] show signs
of rebellion. Re calls a council of the gods and they advise him to
"shoot forth his Eye[189] that it may slay the evil conspirators.... Let
the goddess Hathor descend [from heaven] and slay the men on the
mountains [to which they had fled in fear]." As the goddess complied she
remarked: "it will be good for me when I subject mankind," and Re
replied, "I shall subject them and slay them". Hence the goddess
received the additional name of _Sekhmet_ from the word "to subject".
The destructive Sekhmet[190] _avatar_ of Hathor is represented as a
fierce lion-headed goddess of war wading in blood. For the goddess set
to work slaughtering mankind and the land was flooded with blood[191].
Re became alarmed and determined to save at least some remnant of
mankind. For this purpose he sent messengers to Elephantine to obtain a
substance called _d'd'_ in the Egyptian text, which he gave to the god
Sektet of Heliopolis to grind up in a mortar. When the slaves had
crushed barley to make beer the powdered _d'd'_ was mixed with it so as
to make it red like human blood. Enough of this blood-coloured beer was
made to fill 7000 jars. At nighttime this was poured out upon the
fields, so that when the goddess came to resume her task of destruction
in the morning she found the fields inundated and her face was mirrored
in the fluid. She drank of the fluid and became intoxicated so that she
no longer recognized mankind.[192]
Thus Re saved a remnant of mankind from the bloodthirsty, terrible
Hathor. But the god was weary of life on earth and withdrew to heaven
upon the back of the Divine Cow.
There can be no doubt as to the meaning of this legend, highly confused
as it is. The king who was responsible for introducing irrigation came
to be himself identified with the life-giving power of water. He was the
river: his own vitality was the source of all fertility and prosperity.
Hence when he showed signs that his vital powers were failing it became
a logical necessity that he should be killed to safeguard the welfare of
his country and people.[193]
The time came when a king, rich in power and the enjoyment of life,
refused to comply with this custom. When he realized that his virility
was failing he consulted the Great Mother, as the source and giver of
life, to obtain an elixir which would rejuvenate him and obviate the
necessity of being killed. The only medicine in the pharmacopœia of
those times that was believed to be useful in minimizing danger to life
was human blood. Wounds that gave rise to severe hæmorrhage were known
to produce unconsciousness and death. If the escape of the blood of
life could produce these results it was not altogether illogical to
assume that the exhibition of human blood could also add to the vitality
of living men and so "turn back the years from their old age," as the
Pyramid Texts express it.
Thus the Great Mother, the giver of life to all mankind, was faced with
the dilemma that, to provide the king with the elixir to restore his
youth, she had to slay mankind, to take the life she herself had given
to her own children. Thus she acquired an evil reputation which was to
stick to her throughout her career. She was not only the beneficent
creator of all things and the bestower of all blessings: but she was
also a demon of destruction who did not hesitate to slaughter even her
own children.
In course of time the practice of human sacrifice was abandoned and
substitutes were adopted in place of the blood of mankind. Either the
blood of cattle,[194] who by means of appropriate ceremonies could be
transformed into human beings (for the Great Mother herself was the
Divine Cow and her offspring cattle), was employed in its stead; or red
ochre was used to colour a liquid which was used ritually to replace the
blood of sacrifice. When this phase of culture was reached the goddess
provided for the king an elixir of life consisting of beer stained red
by means of red ochre, so as to simulate human blood.
But such a mixture was doubly potent, for the barley from which the beer
was made and the drink itself was supposed to be imbued with the
life-giving powers of Osiris, and the blood-colour reinforced its
therapeutic usefulness. The legend now begins to become involved and
confused. For the goddess is making the rejuvenator for the king, who in
the meantime has died and become deified as Osiris; and the beer, which
is the vehicle of the life-giving powers of Osiris, is now being used to
rejuvenate his son and successor, the living king Horus, who in the
version that has come down to us is replaced by the sun-god Re.
It is Re who is king and is growing old: he asks Hathor, the Great
Mother, to provide him with the elixir of life. But comparison with some
of the legends of other countries suggests that Re has usurped the place
previously occupied by Horus and originally by Osiris, who as the real
personification of the life-giving power of water is obviously the
appropriate person to be slain when his virility begins to fail. Dr.
C. G. Seligman's account of the Dinka rain-maker Lerpiu, which I have
already quoted (p. 113) from Sir James Frazer's "Dying God," suggests
that the slain king or god was originally Osiris.
The introduction of Re into the story marks the beginning of the belief
in the sky-world or heaven. Hathor was originally nothing more than an
amulet to enhance fertility and vitality. Then she was personified as a
woman and identified with a cow. But when the view developed that the
moon controlled the powers of life-giving in women and exercised a
direct influence upon their life-blood, the Great Mother was identified
with the moon. But how was such a conception to be brought into harmony
with the view that she was also a cow? The human mind displays an
irresistible tendency to unify its experience and to bridge the gaps
that necessarily exist in its broken series of scraps of knowledge and
ideas. No break is too great to be bridged by this instinctive impulse
to rationalize the products of diverse experience. Hence, early man,
having identified the Great Mother both with a cow and the moon, had no
compunction in making "the cow jump over the moon" to become the sky.
The moon then became the "Eye" of the sky and the sun necessarily became
its other "Eye". But, as the sun was clearly the more important "Eye,"
seeing that it determined the day and gave warmth and light for man's
daily work, it was the more important deity. Therefore Re, at first the
Brother-Eye of Hathor, and afterwards her husband, became the supreme
sky-deity, and Hathor merely one of his Eyes.
When this stage of theological evolution was reached, the story of the
"Destruction of Mankind" was re-edited, and Hathor was called the "Eye
of Re". In the earlier versions she was called into consultation solely
as the giver of life and, to obtain the life-blood, she cut men's
throats with a knife.
But as the Eye of Re she was identified with the fire-spitting
uræus-serpent which the king or god wore on his forehead. She was both
the moon and the fiery bolt which shot down from the sky to slay the
enemies of Re. For the men who were originally slaughtered to provide
the blood for an elixir now became the enemies of Re. The reason for
this was that, human sacrifice having been abandoned and substitutes
provided to replace the human blood, the story-teller was at a loss to
know why the goddess killed mankind. A reason had to be found--and the
rationalization adopted was that men had rebelled against the gods and
had to be killed. This interpretation was probably the result of a
confusion with the old legend of the fight between Horus and Set, the
rulers of the two kingdoms of Egypt. The possibility also suggests
itself that a pun made by some priestly jester may have been the real
factor that led to this mingling of two originally separate stories. In
the "Destruction of Mankind" the story runs, according to Budge,[195]
that Re, referring to his enemies, said: _mā-ten set uār er set_,
"Behold ye them (_set_) fleeing into the mountain (_set_)". The enemies
were thus identified with the mountain or stone and with Set, the enemy
of the gods.[196]
In Egyptian hieroglyphics the symbol for stone is used as the
determinative for Set. When the "Eye of Re" destroyed mankind and the
rebels were thus identified with the followers of Set, they were
regarded as creatures of "stone". In other words the Medusa-eye
petrified the enemies. From this feeble pun on the part of some ancient
Egyptian scribe has arisen the world-wide stories of the influence of
the "Evil Eye" and the petrification of the enemies of the gods.[197] As
the name for Isis in Egyptian is "_Set_" it is possible that the
confusion of the Power of Evil with the Great Mother may also have been
facilitated by an extension of the same pun.
It is important to recognize that the legend of Hathor descending from
the moon or the sky in the form of destroying fire had nothing whatever
to do, in the first instance, with the phenomena of lightning and
meteorites. It was the result of verbal quibbling after the destructive
goddess came to be identified with the moon, the sky and the "Eye of
Re". But once the evolution of the story on these lines prepared the
way, it was inevitable that in later times the powers of destruction
exerted by the fire from the sky should have been identified with the
lightning and meteorites.
When the destructive force of the heavens was attributed to the "Eye of
Re" and the god's enemies were identified with the followers of Set, it
was natural that the traditional enemy of Set who was also the more
potent other "Eye of Re" should assume his mother's rôle of punishing
rebellious mankind. That Horus did in fact take the place at first
occupied by Hathor in the story is revealed by the series of trivial
episodes from the "Destruction of Mankind" that reappear in the "Saga of
the Winged Disk". The king of Lower Egypt (Horus) was identified with a
falcon, as Hathor was with the vulture (Mut): like her, he entered the
sun-god's boat[198] and sailed up the river with him: he then mounted up
to heaven as a winged disk, i.e. the sun of Re equipped with his own
falcon's wings. The destructive force displayed by Hathor as the Eye of
Re was symbolized by her identification with Tefnut, the fire-spitting
uræus-snake. When Horus assumed the form of the winged disk he added to
his insignia two fire-spitting serpents to destroy Re's enemies. The
winged disk was at once the instrument of destruction and the god
himself. It swooped (or flew) down from heaven like a bolt of destroying
fire and killed the enemies of Re. By a confusion with Horus's other
fight against the followers of Set, the enemies of Re become identified
with Set's army and they are transformed into crocodiles, hippopotami
and all the other kinds of creatures whose shapes the enemies of Osiris
assume.
In the course of the development of these legends a multitude of other
factors played a part and gave rise to transformations of the meaning of
the incidents.
The goddess originally slaughtered mankind, or perhaps it would be truer
to say, made _a_ human sacrifice, to obtain blood to rejuvenate the
king. But, as we have seen already, when the sacrifice was no longer a
necessary part of the programme, the incident of the slaughter was not
dropped out of the story, but a new explanation of it was framed.
Instead of simply making a human sacrifice, mankind as a whole was
destroyed for rebelling against the gods, the act of rebellion being
murmuring about the king's old age and loss of virility. The elixir soon
became something more than a rejuvenator: it was transformed into the
food of the gods, the ambrosia that gave them their immortality, and
distinguished them from mere mortals. Now when the development of the
story led to the replacement of the single victim by the whole of
mankind, the blood produced by the wholesale slaughter was so abundant
that the fields were flooded by the life-giving elixir. By the sacrifice
of men the soil was renewed and refertilized. When the blood-coloured
beer was substituted for the actual blood the conception was brought
into still closer harmony with Egyptian ideas, because the beer was
animated with the life-giving powers of Osiris. But Osiris was the Nile.
The blood-coloured fertilizing fluid was then identified with the annual
inundation of the red-coloured waters of the Nile. Now the Nile waters
were supposed to come from the First Cataract at Elephantine. Hence by a
familiar psychological process the previous phase of the legend was
recast, and by confusion the red ochre (which was used to colour the
beer red) was said to have come from Elephantine.[199]
Thus we have arrived at the stage where, by a distortion of a series of
phases, the new incident emerges that by means of a human sacrifice the
Nile flood can be produced. By a further confusion the goddess, who
originally did the slaughter, becomes the victim. Hence the story
assumed the form that by means of the sacrifice of a beautiful and
attractive maiden the annual inundation can be produced. As the most
potent symbol of life-giving it is essential that the victim should be
sexually attractive, i.e. that she should be a virgin and the most
beautiful and desirable in the land. When the practice of human
sacrifice was abandoned a figure or an animal was substituted for the
maiden in ritual practice, and in legends the hero rescued the maiden,
as Andromeda was saved from the dragon.[200] The dragon is the
personification of the monsters that dwell in the waters as well as the
destructive forces of the flood itself. But the monsters were no other
than the followers of Set; they were the victims of the slaughter who
became identified with the god's other traditional enemies, the
followers of Set. Thus the monster from whom Andromeda is rescued is
merely another representative of herself!
But the destructive forces of the flood now enter into the programme.
In the phases we have so far discussed it was the slaughter of
mankind which caused the inundation: but in the next phase it is
the flood itself which causes the destruction, as in the later Egyptian
and the borrowed Sumerian, Babylonian, Hebrew--and in fact the
world-wide--versions. Re's boat becomes the ark; the winged disk which
was despatched by Re from the boat becomes the dove and the other birds
sent out to spy the land, as the winged Horus spied the enemies of Re.
Thus the new weapon of the gods--we have already noted Hathor's knife
and Horus's winged disk, which is the fire from heaven, the lightning
and the thunderbolt--is the flood. Like the others it can be either a
beneficent giver of life or a force of destruction.
But the flood also becomes a weapon of another kind. One of the earlier
incidents of the story represents Hathor in opposition to Re. The
goddess becomes so maddened with the zest of killing that the god
becomes alarmed and asks her to desist and spare some representatives of
the race. But she is deaf to entreaties. Hence the god is said to have
sent to Elephantine for the red ochre to make a sedative draught to
overcome her destructive zeal. We have already seen that this incident
had an entirely different meaning--it was merely intended to explain the
obtaining of the colouring matter wherewith to redden the sacred beer so
as to make it resemble blood as an elixir for the god. It was brought
from Elephantine, because the red waters of inundation of the Nile were
supposed by the Egyptians to come from Elephantine.
But according to the story inscribed in Seti Ist's tomb, the red ochre
was an essential ingredient of the sedative mixture (prepared under the
direction of Re by the Sekti[201] of Heliopolis) to calm Hathor's
murderous spirit.
It has been claimed that the story simply means that the goddess became
intoxicated with beer and that she became genially inoffensive solely as
the effect of such inebriation. But the incident in the Egyptian story
closely resembles the legends of other countries in which some herb is
used specifically as a sedative. In most books on Egyptian mythology the
word (_d'd'_) for the substance put into the drink to colour it is
translated "mandragora," from its resemblance to the Hebrew word
_dudaim_ in the Old Testament, which is often translated "mandrakes" or
"love-apples". But Gauthier has clearly demonstrated that the Egyptian
word does not refer to a vegetable but to a mineral substance, which he
translates "red clay".[202] Mr. F. Ll. Griffith tells me, however, that
it is "red ochre". In any case, mandrake is not found at Elephantine
(which, however, for the reasons I have already given, is a point of no
importance so far as the identification of the substance is concerned),
nor in fact anywhere in Egypt.
But if some foreign story of the action of a sedative drug had become
blended with and incorporated in the highly complex and composite
Egyptian legend the narrative would be more intelligible. The mandrake
is such a sedative as might have been employed to calm the murderous
frenzy of a maniacal woman. In fact it is closely allied to hyoscyamus,
whose active principle, hyoscin, is used in modern medicine precisely
for such purposes. I venture to suggest that a folk-tale describing the
effect of opium or some other "drowsy syrup" has been absorbed into the
legend of the Destruction of Mankind, and has provided the starting
point of all those incidents in the dragon-story in which poison or
some sleep-producing drug plays a part. For when Hathor defies Re and
continues the destruction, she is playing the part of her Babylonian
representative Tiamat, and is a dragon who has to be vanquished by the
drink which the god provides.
The red earth which was pounded in the mortar to make the elixir of life
and the fertilizer of the soil also came to be regarded as the material
out of which the new race of men was made to replace those who were
destroyed.
The god fashioned mankind of this earth and, instead of the red ochre
being merely the material to give the blood-colour to the draught of
immortality, the story became confused: actual blood was presented to
the clay images to give them life and consciousness.
In a later elaboration the remains of the former race of mankind were
ground up to provide the material out of which their successors were
created. This version is a favourite story in Northern Europe, and has
obviously been influenced by an intermediate variant which finds
expression in the Indian legend of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk.
Instead of the material for the elixir of the gods being pounded by the
Sekti of Heliopolis and incidentally becoming a sedative for Hathor, it
is the milk of the Divine Cow herself which is churned to provide the
_amrita_.
[178: G. Maspero, "The Dawn of Civilization," p. 164.]
[179: H. Brugsch, "Die Alraune als altägyptische Zauberpflanze," _Zeit.
f. Ægypt. Sprache_, Bd. 29, 1891, pp. 31-3; and Henri Gauthier, "Le nom
hiéroglyphique de l'argile rouge d'Éléphantine," _Revue Égyptologique_,
t. xi^e, Nos. i.-ii., 1904, p. 1.]
[180: These legends will be found in the works by Maspero, Erman and
Budge, to which I have already referred. A very useful digest will be
found in Donald A. Mackenzie's "Egyptian Myth and Legend". Mr. Mackenzie
does not claim to have any first-hand knowledge of the subject, but his
exceptionally wide and intimate knowledge of Scottish folk-lore, which
has preserved a surprisingly large part of the same legends, has enabled
him to present the Egyptian stories with exceptional clearness and
sympathetic insight. But I refer to his book specially because he is one
of the few modern writers who has made the attempt to compare the
legends of Egypt, Babylonia, Crete, India and Western Europe. Hence the
reader who is not familiar with the mythology of these countries will
find his books particularly useful as works of reference in following
the story I have to unfold: "Teutonic Myth and Legend," "Egyptian Myth
and Legend," "Indian Myth and Legend," "Myths of Babylonia and Assyria"
and "Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe".]
[181: See Leonard W. King, "Babylonian Religion," 1899.]
[182: For a useful collection of data see A. B. Cook, "Zeus".]
[183: Albert J. Carnoy, "Iranian Views of Origins in connexion with
Similar Babylonian Beliefs," _Journal of the American Oriental Society_,
vol. xxxvi., 1916, pp. 300-20; and "The Moral Deities of Iran and India
and their Origins," _The American Journal of Theology_, vol. xxi., No.
i., January, 1917.]
[184: Hopkins, "Religions of India".]
[185: De Groot, "The Religious System of China".]
[186: Perry, "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia," Manchester, 1918.]
[187: H. Beuchat, "Manuel d' Archéologie Américaine," Paris, 1912; T. A.
Joyce, "Mexican Archæology," and especially the memoir by Seler on the
"Codex Vaticanus" and his articles in the _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_
and elsewhere.]
[188: I.e. the offspring of the Great Mother of gods and men, Hathor,
the "Eye of Re".]
[189: That is, Hathor, who as the moon is the "Eye of Re".]
[190: Elsewhere in these pages I have used the more generally adopted
spelling "_Sekhet_".]
[191: Mr. F. Ll. Griffith tells me that the translation "flooding the
land" is erroneous and misleading. Comparison of the whole series of
stories, however, suggests that the amount of blood shed rapidly
increased in the development of the narrative: at first the blood of a
single victim; then the blood of mankind; then 7000 jars of a substitute
for blood; then the red inundation of the Nile.]
[192: This version I have quoted mainly from Erman, _op. cit._, pp.
267-9, but with certain alterations which I shall mention later. In
another version of the legend wine replaces the beer and is made out of
"the blood of those who formerly fought against the gods," _cf._
Plutarch, De Iside (ed. Parthey) 6.]
[193: It is still the custom in many places, and among them especially
the regions near the headwaters of the Nile itself, to regard the king
or rain-maker as the impersonation of the life-giving properties of
water and the source of all fertility. When his own vitality shows signs
of failing he is killed, so as not to endanger the fruitfulness of the
community by allowing one who is weak in life-giving powers to control
its destinies. Much of the evidence relating to these matters has been
collected by Sir James Frazer in "The Dying God," 1911, who quotes from
Dr. Seligman the following account of the Dinka "Osiris":
"While the mighty spirit Lerpiu is supposed to be embodied in the
rain-maker, it is also thought to inhabit a certain hut which serves as
a shrine. In front of the hut stands a post to which are fastened the
horns of many bullocks that have been sacrificed to Lerpiu; and in the
hut is kept a very sacred spear which bears the name of Lerpiu and is
said to have fallen from heaven six generations ago. As fallen stars are
also called Lerpiu, we may suspect that an intimate connexion is
supposed to exist between meteorites and the spirit which animates the
rain-maker" (Frazer, _op. cit._, p. 32). Here then we have a house of
the dead inhabited by Lerpiu, who can also enter the body of the
rain-maker and animate him, as well as the ancient spear and the falling
stars, which are also animate forms of the same god, who obviously is
the homologue of Osiris, and is identified with the spear and the
falling stars.
In spring when the April moon is a few days old bullocks are sacrificed
to Lerpiu. "Two bullocks are led twice round the shrine and afterwards
tied by the rain-maker to the post in front of it. Then the drums beat
and the people, old and young, men and women, dance round the shrine and
sing, while the beasts are being sacrificed, 'Lerpiu, our ancestor, we
have brought you a sacrifice. Be pleased to cause rain to fall.' The
blood of the bullocks is collected in a gourd, boiled in a pot on the
fire, and eaten by the old and important people of the clan. The horns
of the animals are attached to the post in front of the shrine" (pp. 32
and 33).]
[194: In Northern Nigeria an official who bore the title of Killer of
the Elephant throttled the king "as soon as he showed signs of failing
health or growing infirmity". The king-elect was afterwards conducted to
the centre of the town, called Head of the Elephant, where he was made
to lie down on a bed. Then a black ox was slaughtered and its blood
allowed to pour all over his body. Next the ox was flayed, and the
remains of the dead king, which had been disembowelled and smoked for
seven days over a slow fire, were wrapped up in the hide and dragged
along to the place of burial, where they were interred in a circular
pit. (Frazer, _op. cit._, p. 35).]
[195: "Gods of the Egyptians," vol. i., p. 392.]
[196: "The eye of the sun-god, which was subsequently called the eye of
Horus and identified with the Uræus-snake on the forehead of Re and of
the Pharaohs, the earthly representatives of Re, finally becoming
synonymous with the crown of Lower Egypt, was a mighty goddess, Uto or
Buto by name" (Alan Gardiner, Article "Magic (Egyptian)" in Hastings'
_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_, p. 268, quoting Sethe.)]
[197: For an account of the distribution of this story see E. Sidney
Hartland, "The Legend of Perseus"; also W. J. Perry, "The Megalithic
Culture of Indonesia".]
[198: The original "boat of the sky" was the crescent moon, which, from
its likeness to the earliest form of Nile boat, was regarded as the
vessel in which the moon (seen as a faint object upon the crescent), or
the goddess who was supposed to be personified in the moon, travelled
across the waters of the heavens. But as this "boat" was obviously part
of the moon itself, it also was regarded as an animate form of the
goddess, the "Eye of Re". When the Sun, as the other "Eye," assumed the
chief rôle, Re was supposed to traverse the heavens in his own "boat,"
which was also brought into relationship with the actual boat used in
the Osirian burial ritual.
The custom of employing the name "dragon" in reference to a boat is
found in places as far apart as Scandinavia and China. It is the direct
outcome of these identifications of the sun and moon with a boat
animated by the respective deities. In India the _Makara_, the prototype
of the dragon, was sometimes represented as a boat which was looked upon
as the fish-_avatar_ of Vishnu, Buddha or some other deity.]
[199: This is an instance of the well-known tendency of the human mind
to blend numbers of different incidents into one story. An episode of
one experience, having been transferred to an earlier one, becomes
rationalized in adaptation to its different environment. This process of
psychological transference is the explanation of the reference to
Elephantine as the source of the _d'd'_, and has no relation to
actuality. The naïve efforts of Brugsch and Gauthier to study the
natural products of Elephantine for the purpose of identifying _d'd'_
were therefore wholly misplaced.]
[200: In Hartland's "Legend of Perseus" a collection of variants of this
story will be found.]
[201: In the version I have quoted from Erman he refers to "the god
Sektet".]
[202: _Op. cit. supra_.]
The Thunder-Weapon.[203]
In the development of the dragon-story we have seen that the instruments
of destruction were of a most varied kind. Each of the three primary
deities, Hathor, Osiris and Horus can be a destructive power as well as
a giver of life and of all kinds of boons. Every homologue or surrogate
of these three deities can become a weapon for dragon-destroying, such
as the moon or the lotus of Hathor, the water or the beer of Osiris,
the sun or the falcon of Horus. Originally Hathor used a flint knife or
axe: then she did the execution as "the Eye of Re," the moon, the fiery
bolt from heaven: Osiris sent the destroying flood and the intoxicating
beer, each of which, like the knife, axe and moon of Hathor, were
animated by the deity. Then Horus came as the winged disk, the falcon,
the sun, the lightning and the thunderbolt. As the dragon-story was
spread abroad in the world any one of these "weapons" was confused with
any of (or all) the rest. The Eye of Re was the fire-spitting
uræus-serpent; and foreign people, like the Greeks, Indians and others,
gave the Egyptian verbal simile literal expression and converted it into
an actual Cyclopean eye planted in the forehead, which shot out the
destroying fire.
The warrior god of Babylonia is called the bright one,[204] the sword or
lightning of Ishtar, who was herself called both the sword or lightning
of heaven.
In the Ægean area also the sons of Zeus and the progeny of heaven may be
axes, stone implements, meteoric stones and thunderbolts. In a Swahili
tale the hero's weapon is "a sword like a flash of lightning".
According to Bergaigne,[205] the myth of the celestial drink _soma_,
brought down from heaven by a bird ordinarily called _cyena_, "eagle,"
is parallel to that of Agni, the celestial fire brought by Mâtariçvan.
This parallelism is even expressly stated in the Rig Veda, verse 6 of
hymn 1 to Agni and Soma. Mâtariçvan brought the one from heaven, the
eagle brought the other from the celestial mountain.
Kuhn admits that the eagle represents Indra; and Lehmann regards the
eagle who takes the fire as Agni himself. It is patent that both Indra
and Agni are in fact merely specialized forms of Horus of the Winged
Disk Saga, in one of which the warrior sun-god is represented, in the
other the living fire. The elixir of life of the Egyptian story is
represented by the _soma_, which by confusion is associated with the
eagle: in other words, the god Soma is the homologue not only of Osiris,
but also of Horus.
Other incidents in the same original version are confused in the Greek
story of Prometheus. He stole the fire from heaven and brought it to
earth: but, in place of the episode of the elixir, which is adopted in
the Indian story just mentioned, the creation of men from clay is
accredited by the Greeks to the "flaming one," the "fire eagle"
Prometheus.
The double axe was the homologue of the winged disk which fell, or
rather flew, from heaven as the tangible form of the god. This fire from
heaven inevitably came to be identified with the lightning. According to
Blinkenberg (_op. cit._, p. 19) "many points go to prove that the
double-axe is a representation of the lightning (see Usener, p. 20)". He
refers to the design on the famous gold ring from Mycenæ where "the sun,
the moon, a double curved line presumably representing the rainbow, and
the double-axe, i.e. the lightning": but "the latter is placed lower
than the others, probably because it descends from heaven to earth,"
like Horus when he assumed the form of the winged disk and flew down to
earth as a fiery bolt to destroy the enemies of Re.
The recognition of the homology of the winged disk with the double axe
solves a host of problems which have puzzled classical scholars within
recent years. The form of the double axe on the Mycenæan ring[206] and
the painted sarcophagus from Hagia Triada in Crete (and especially the
oblique markings upon the axe) is probably a suggestion of the double
series of feathers and the outlines of the individual feathers
respectively on the wings. The position of the axe upon a symbolic tree
is not intended, as Blinkenberg claims (_op. cit._, p. 21), as "a ritual
representation of the trees struck by lightning": but is the familiar
scene of Mesopotamian culture-area, the tree of life surmounted by the
winged disk.[207]
The bird poised upon the axe in the Cretan picture is the homologue of
the falcon of Horus: it is in fact a second representation of the winged
disk itself. This interpretation is not affected by the consideration
that the falcon may be replaced by the eagle, pigeon, woodpecker or
raven, for these substitutions were repeatedly made by the ancient
priesthoods in flagrant defiance of the properties of ornithological
homologies. The same phenomenon is displayed even more obtrusively in
Central America and Mexico, where the ancient sculptors and painters
represented the bird perched upon the tree of life as a falcon, an
eagle, a vulture, a macaw or even a turkey.[208]
The incident of the winged disk descending to effect the sun-god's
purposes upon earth probably represents the earliest record of the
recognition of thunder and lightning and the phenomena of rain as
manifestations of the god's powers. All gods of thunder, lightning, rain
and clouds derive their attributes, and the arbitrary graphic
representation of them, from the legend which the Egyptian scribe has
preserved for us in the Saga of the Winged Disk.
The sacred axe of Crete is represented elsewhere as a sword which became
the visible impersonation of the deity.[209] There is a Hittite story of
a sword-handle coming to life. Hose and McDougall refer to the same
incident in certain Sarawak legends; and the story is true to the
original in the fact that the sword fell from the sun.[210]
Sir Arthur Evans describes as "the aniconic image of the god" a stone
pillar on which crude pictures of a double axe have been scratched.
These representations of the axe in fact serve the same purpose as the
winged disk in Egypt, and, as we shall see subsequently, there was an
actual confusion between the Egyptian symbol and the Cretan axe.
The obelisk at Abusir was the aniconic representative of the sun-god Re,
or rather, the support of the pyramidal apex, the gilded surface of
which reflected the sun's rays and so made manifest the god's presence
in the stone.
The Hittites seem to have substituted the winged disk as a
representation of the sun: for in a design copied from a seal[211] we
find the Egyptian symbol borne upon the apex of a cone.
The transition from this to the great double axe from Hagia Triada in
the Candia Museum[212] is a relatively easy one, which was materially
helped, as we shall see, by the fact that the winged disk was actually
homologized with an axe or knife as alternative weapons used by the
sun-god for the destruction of mankind.
In Dr. Seligman's account of the Dinka rain-maker (_supra_, p. 113) we
have already seen that the Soudanese Osiris was identified with a spear
and falling stars.
According to Dr. Budge[213] the Egyptian hieroglyph used as the
determinative of the word _neter_, meaning god or spirit, is the axe
with a handle. Mr. Griffith, however, interprets it as a roll of yellow
cloth ("Hieroglyphics," p. 46). On Hittite seals the axe sometimes takes
the place of the god Teshub.[214]
Sir Arthur Evans endeavours to explain these conceptions by a vague
appeal to certain natural phenomena (_op. cit._, pp. 20 and 21); but the
identical traditions of widespread peoples are much too arbitrary and
specific to be interpreted by any such speculations.
Sanchoniathon's story of Baetylos being the son of Ouranos is merely a
poetical way of saying that the sun-god fell to earth in the form of a
stone or a weapon, as a Zeus Kappôtas or a Horus in the form of a winged
disk, flying down from heaven to destroy the enemies of Re.
"The idea of their [the weapons] flying through the air or falling from
heaven, and their supposed power of burning with inner fire or shining
in the nighttime," was not primarily suggested, as Sir Arthur Evans
claims (_op. cit._, p. 21), "by the phenomena associated with meteoric
stones," but was a rationalization of the events described in the early
Egyptian and Babylonian stories.
They "shine at night" because the original weapon of destruction was the
moon as the Eye of Re. They "burn with inward fire," like the Babylonian
Marduk, when in the fight with the dragon Tiamat "he filled his body
with burning flame" (King, _op. cit._, p. 71), because they _were_ fire,
the fire of the sun and of lightning, the fire spat out by the Eye
of Re.
Further evidence in corroboration of these views is provided by the fact
that in the Ægean area the double-axe replaces the moon between the
cow's horns (Evans, _op. cit._, Fig. 3, p. 9).
In King's "Babylonian Religion" (pp. 70 and 71) we are told how the gods
provided Marduk with an invincible weapon in preparation for the combat
with the dragon: and the ancient scribe himself sets forth a series of
its homologues:--
He made ready his bow ... He slung a spear ... The bow and quiver ... He
set the lightning in front of him, With burning flame he filled his
body.
An ancient Egyptian writer has put on record further identifications of
weapons. In the 95th Chapter of the Book of the Dead, the deceased is
reported to have said: "I am he who sendeth forth terror into the powers
of rain and thunder.... I have made to flourish my knife which is in the
hand of Thoth in the powers of rain and thunder" (Budge, "Gods of the
Egyptians," vol. i., p. 414).
The identification of the winged disk with the thunderbolt which emerges
so definitely from these homologies is not altogether new, for it was
suggested some years ago by Count d'Alviella[215] in these words:--
"On seeing some representations of the Thunderbolt which recall in a
remarkable manner the outlines of the Winged Globe, it may be asked if
it was not owing to this latter symbol that the Greeks transformed into
a winged spindle the Double Trident derived from Assyria. At any rate
the transition, or, if it be preferred, the combination of the two
symbols is met with in those coins from Northern Africa where Greek art
was most deeply impregnated with Phœnician types. Thus on coins of
Bocchus II, King of Mauretania, figures are found which M. Lajard
connected with the Winged Globe, and M. L. Müller calls Thunderbolts,
but which are really the result of crossing between these two emblems".
The thunderbolt, however, is not always, or even commonly, the direct
representative of the winged disk. It is more often derived from
lightning or some floral design.[216]
According to Count d'Alviella[217] "the Trident of Siva at times
exhibits the form of a lotus calyx depicted in the Egyptian manner".
"Perhaps other transformations of the _trisula_ might still be found at
Boro-Budur [in Java].... The same Disk which, when transformed into a
most complicated ornament, is sometimes crowned by a Trident, is also
met with between two serpents--which brings us back to the origin of the
Winged Circle--the Globe of Egypt with the uræi" (see d'Alviella's Fig.
158). "Moreover this ornament, between which and certain forms of the
_trisula_ the transition is easily traced, commonly surmounts the
entrance to the pagodas depicted in the bas-reliefs--in exactly the same
manner as the Winged Globe adorns the lintel of the temples in Egypt and
Phœnicia."
Thus we find traces of a blending of the two homologous designs, derived
independently from the lotus and the winged disk, which acquired the
same symbolic significance.
The weapon of Poseidon, the so-called "Trident of Neptune," is
"sometimes crowned with a trilobate lotus flower, or with three lotus
buds; in other cases it is depicted in a shape that may well represent a
fishing spear" (Blinkenberg, _op. cit._, pp. 53 and 54).
"Even if Jacobsthal's interpretation of the flower as a common Greek
symbol for fire be not accepted, the conventionalization of the trident
as a lotus blossom is quite analogous to the change, on Greek soil, of
the Assyrian thunderweapon to two flowers pointing in opposite
directions" (p. 54).
But the conception of a flower as a symbol of fire cannot thus summarily
be dismissed. For Sir Arthur Evans has collected all the stages in the
transformation of Egyptian palmette pillars into the rayed pillars of
Cyprus, in which the leaflets of the palmette become converted (in the
Cypro-Mycenæan derivatives) into the rays which he calls "the natural
concomitant of divinities of light".[218]
The underlying motive which makes such a transference easy is the
Egyptian conception of Hathor as a sacred lotus from which the sun-god
Horus is born. The god of light is identified with the water-plant,
whether lotus, iris or lily; and the lotus form of Horus can be
correlated with its Hellenic surrogate, Apollo Hyakinthos. "The
fleur-de-lys type now takes its place beside the sacred lotus" (_op.
cit._, p. 50). The trident and the fleur-de-lys are thunderweapons
because they represent forms of Horus or his mother.
The classical keraunos is still preserved in Tibet as the _dorje_, which
is identified with Indra's thunderbolt, the _vajra_.[219] This word is
also applied to the diamond, the "king of stones," which in turn
acquired many of the attributes of the pearl, another of the Great
Mother's surrogates, which is reputed to have fallen from heaven like
the thunderbolt.[220]
The Tibetan _dorje_, like its Greek original, is obviously a
conventionalized flower, the leaf-design about the base of the corona
being quite clearly defined.
The influence of the Winged-Disk Saga is clearly revealed in such Greek
myths as that relating to Ixion. "Euripides is represented by
Aristophanes as declaring that _Aithér_ at the creation devised
The eye to mimic the wheel of the sun."[221]
When we read of Zeus in anger binding Ixion to a winged wheel made of
fire, and sending him spinning through the air, we are merely dealing
with a Greek variant of the Egyptian myth in which Re despatched Horus
as a winged disk to slay his enemies. In the Hellenic version the
sky-god is angry with the father of the centaurs for his ill-treatment
of his father-in-law and his behaviour towards Hera and her
cloud-manifestation: but though distorted all the incidents reveal their
original inspiration in the Egyptian story and its early Aryan variants.
It is remarkable that Mr. A. B. Cook, who compared the wheel of Ixion
with the Egyptian winged disk (pp. 205-10), did not look deeper for a
common origin of the two myths, especially when he got so far as to
identify Ixion with the sun-god (p. 211).
Blinkenberg sums up the development of the thunder-weapon thus: "From
the old Babylonian representation of the lightning, i.e. two or three
zigzag lines representing flames, a tripartite thunder-weapon was
evolved and earned east and west from the ancient seat of civilization.
Together with the axe (in Western Asia Minor the double-edged, and
towards the centre of Asia the single-edged, axe) it became a regular
attribute of the Asiatic thunder-gods.... The Indian trisula and the
Greek triaina are both its descendants" (p. 57).
Discussing the relationship of the sun-god to thunder, Dr. Rendel Harris
refers to the fact that Apollo's "arrows are said to be lightnings," and
he quotes Pausanias, Apollodorus and Mr. A. B. Cook in substantiation of
his statements.[222] Both sons of Zeus, Dionysus and Apollo, are
"concerned with the production of fire".
According to Hyginus, Typhon was the son of Tartarus and the Earth: he
made war against Jupiter for dominion, and, being struck by lightning,
was thrown flaming to the earth, where Mount Ætna was placed upon
him.[223]
In this curious variant of the story of the winged disk, the conflict of
Horus with Set is merged with the Destruction, for the son of Tartarus
[Osiris] and the Earth [Isis] here is not Horus but his hostile brother
Set. Instead of fighting for Jupiter (Re) as Horus did, he is against
him. The lightning (which is Horus in the form of the winged disk)
strikes Typhon and throws him flaming to earth. The episode of Mount
Ætna is the antithesis of the incident in the Indian legend of the
churning of the ocean: Mount Meru is placed in the sea upon the tortoise
_avatar_ of Vishnu and is used to churn the food of immortality for the
gods. In the Egyptian story the red ochre brought from Elephantine is
pounded with the barley.
The story told by Hyginus leads up to the vision in Revelations (xii., 7
_et seq._): "There was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon; and the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed
not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great
dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the Devil and Satan, which
deceiveth the whole world: he was cast into the earth, and his angels
were cast out with him."
In the later variants the original significance of the Destruction of
Mankind seems to have been lost sight of. The life-giving Great Mother
tends to drop out of the story and her son Horus takes her place. He
becomes the warrior-god, but he not only assumes his mother's rôle but
he also adopts her tactics. Just as she attacked Re's enemies in the
capacity of the sky-god's "Eye," so Horus as the other "Eye," the sun,
to which he gave his own falcon's wings, attacked in the form of the
winged disk. The winged disk, like the other "Eye of Re," was not merely
the sky weapon which shot down to destroy mankind, but also was the god
Horus himself. This early conception involved the belief that the
thunderbolt and lightning represented not merely the fiery weapon but
the actual god.
The winged disk thus exhibits the same confusion of attributes as we
have already noticed in Osiris and Hathor. It is the commonest symbol of
life-giving and beneficent protective power: yet it is the weapon used
to slaughter mankind. It is in fact the healing caduceus as well as the
baneful thunder-weapon.
[203: The history of the thunder-weapon cannot wholly be ignored in
discussing the dragon-myth because it forms an integral part of the
story. It was animated both by the dragon and the dragon-slayer. But an
adequate account of the weapon would be so highly involved and complex
as to be unintelligible without a very large series of illustrations.
Hence I am referring here only to certain aspects of the subject.
Pending the preparation of a monograph upon the thunder-weapon, I may
refer the reader to the works of Blinkenberg, d'Alviella, Ward, Evans
and A. B. Cook (to which frequent reference is made in these pages) for
material, especially in the form of illustrations, to supplement my
brief and unavoidably involved summary.]
[204: As in Egypt Osiris is described as "a ray of light" which issued
from the moon (Hathor), _i.e._ was born of the Great Mother.]
[205: "Religion védique," i., p. 173, quoted by S. Reinach, "Ætos
Prometheus," _Revue archéologique_, 4^ie série, tome x., 1917, p. 72.]
[206: Evans, _op. cit._, Fig. 4, p. 10.]
[207: William Hayes Ward, "The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," chapter
xxxviii.]
[208: Seler, "Codex Vaticanus, No. 3773," vol. i., p. 77 _et seq._]
[209: Evans, _op. cit._, p. 8.]
[210: "The Pagan Tribes of Borneo," 1912, vol. ii., p. 137.]
[211: Evans, _op. cit._, Fig. 8, _c_, p. 17.]
[212: There is an excellent photograph of this in Donald McKenzie's
"Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe," facing p. 160.]
[213: "The Gods of the Egyptians," vol. i., pp. 63 _et seq_.]
[214: See, for example, Ward, _op. cit._, p. 411.]
[215: "The Migration of Symbols," pp. 220 and 221.]
[216: Blinkenberg, _op. cit._, p. 53.]
[217: _Op. cit._, p. 256.]
[218: "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," pp. 51 and 52.]
[219: See Blinkenberg, _op. cit._, pp. 45-8.]
[220: I must defer consideration of the part played by certain of the
Great Mother's surrogates in the development of the thunder-weapon's
symbolism and the associated folk-lore. I have in mind especially the
influence of the octopus and the cow. The former was responsible in part
for the use of the spiral as a thunder-symbol; and the latter for the
beliefs in the special protective power of thunder-stones over cows (see
Blinkenberg, _op. cit._). The thunder-stone was placed over the lintel
of the cow-shed for the same purpose as the winged disk over the door of
an Egyptian temple. Until the relations of the octopus to the dragon
have been set forth it is impossible adequately to discuss the question
of the seven-headed dragon, which ranges from Scotland to Japan and from
Scandinavia to the Zambesi. In "The Birth of Aphrodite" I shall call
attention to the basal factors in its evolution.]
[221: A. B. Cook, "Zeus," vol. i., p. 198.]
[222: "The Ascent of Olympus," p. 32.]
[223: "Tartarus ex Terra procreavit Typhonem, immani magnitudine,
specieque portentosa, cui centum capita draconum ex humeris enata erant.
Hic Jovem provocavit, si vellet secum de regno centare. Jovis fulmine
ardenti pectus ejus percussit. Cui cum flagraret, montem Ætnam, qui est
in Siciliâ, super eum imposuit; qui ex eo adhuc ardere dicitur"
(Hyginus, fab. 152).]
The Deer.
One of the most surprising features of the dragon in China, Japan and
America, is the equipment of deer's horns.
In Babylonia both Ea and Marduk are intimately associated with the
antelope or gazelle, and the combination of the head of the antelope (or
in other cases the goat) with the body of a fish is the most
characteristic manifestation of either god. In Egypt both Osiris and
Horus are at times brought into relationship with the gazelle or
antelope, but more often it represents their enemy Set. Hence, in some
parts of Africa, especially in the west, the antelope plays the part of
the dragon in Asiatic stories.[224] The cow[225] of Hathor (Tiamat) may
represent the dragon also. In East Africa the antelope assumes the rôle
of the hero,[226] and is the representative of Horus. In the Ægean area,
Asia Minor and Europe the antelope, gazelle or the deer, may be
associated with the Great Mother.[227]
In India the god Soma's chariot is drawn by an antelope. I have already
suggested that Soma is only a specialized form of the Babylonian Ea,
whose evil _avatar_ is the dragon: there is thus suggested another link
between the antelope and the latter. The Ea-element explains the
fish-scales and the antelope provides the horns. I shall return to the
discussion of this point later.
Vayu or Pavana, the Indian god of the winds, who afterwards became
merged with Indra, rides upon an antelope like the Egyptian Horus.
Soma's attributes also were in large measure taken over by Indra. Hence
in this complex tissue of contradictions we once more find the
dragon-slayer acquiring the insignia, in this case the antelope, of his
mortal enemy.
I have already referred to the fact that the early Babylonian deities
could also be demons. Tiamat, the dragon whom Marduk fought, was merely
the malevolent _avatar_ of the Great Mother. The dragon acquired his
covering of fish-scales from an evil form of Ea.
In his Hibbert Lectures Professor Sayce claimed that the name of Ea was
expressed by an ideograph which signifies literally "the antelope" (p.
280). "Ea was called 'the antelope of the deep,' 'the antelope the
creator,' 'the lusty antelope'. We should have expected the animal of Ea
to have been the fish: the fact that it is not so points to the
conclusion that the culture-god of Southern Babylonia was an
amalgamation of two earlier deities, one the divine antelope and the
other the divine fish." Ea was "originally the god of the river and was
also associated with the snake". Nina was also both the fish-goddess and
the divinity whose name is interchanged with that of the deep. Professor
Sayce then refers to "the curious process of development which
transformed the old serpent-goddess, 'the lady Nina,' into the
embodiment of all that was hostile to the powers of heaven; but after
all, Nina had sprung from the fish-god of the deep [who also was both
antelope and serpent as well, see p. 282], and Tiamat is herself 'the
deep' in Semitic dress" (p. 283).
"At times Ea was regarded as a gazelle rather than as an antelope." The
position of the name in the list of animals shows what species of animal
must be meant. _Lulim_, "a stag," seems to be a re-duplicated form of
the same word. Both _lulim_ and _elim_ are said to be equivalent to
_sarru_, king (p. 284).
Certain Assyriologists, from whom I asked for enlightenment upon these
philological matters, express some doubt as to the antiquity or to the
reality of the association of the names of Ea and the word for an
antelope, gazelle or stag. But whatever the value of the linguistic
evidence, the archæological, at any rate as early as the time of
Nebuchadnezzar I, brings both Ea and Marduk into close association with
a strange creature equipped with the horns of an antelope or gazelle.
The association with the antelope of the homologous deities in India and
Egypt leaves the reality of the connexion in no doubt. I had hoped that
Professor Sayce's evidence would have provided some explanation of the
strange association of the antelope. But whether or not the philological
data justify the inferences which Professor Sayce drew from them, there
can be no doubt concerning the correctness of his statement that Ea was
represented both by fish and antelope, for in the course of his
excavations at Susa M. J. de Morgan brought to light representations of
Ea's animal consisting of an antelope's head on the body of a fish.[228]
He also makes the statement that the ideogram of Ea, _turahu-apsu_,
means "antelope of the sea". I have already (p. 88) referred to the fact
that this "antelope of the sea," the so-called "goat-fish," is identical
with the prototype of the dragon.
If his claim that the names of Ea meant both a "fish" and an "antelope"
were well founded, the pun would have solved this problem, as it has
done in the case of many other puzzles in the history of early
civilization. But if this is not the case, the question is still open
for solution. As Set was held to be personified in all the desert
animals, the gazelle was identified with the demon of evil for this
reason. In her important treatise on "The Asiatic Dionysos" Miss Gladys
Davis tells us that "in his aspect of Moon 'the lord of stars' Soma has
in this character the antelope as his symbol. In fact, one of the names
given to the moon by the early Indians was 'mṛiga-piplu' or marked
like an antelope" (p. 202). Further she adds: "The Sanskrit name for the
lunar mansion over which Soma presides is 'mṛiga-śiras' or the
deer-headed." If it be admitted that Soma is merely the Aryan
specialization of Ea and Osiris, as I have claimed, Sayce's association
of Ea with the antelope is corroborated, even if it is not explained.
In China the dragon was sometimes called "the celestial stag" (de Groot,
_op. cit._, p. 1143). In Mexico the deer has the same intimate celestial
relations as it has in the Old World (see Seler, _Zeit. f. Ethnologie_,
Bd. 41, p. 414). I have already referred to the remarkable Maya
deer-crocodile _makara_ in the Liverpool Museum (p. 103).
The systematic zoology of the ancients was lacking in the precision of
modern times; and there are reasons for supposing that the antelope and
gazelle could exchange places the one with the other in their divine
rôles; the deer and the rabbit were also their surrogates. In India a
spotted rabbit can take the place of the antelope in playing the part of
what we call "the man in the moon". This interpretation is common, not
only in India, but also in China, and is repeatedly found in the ancient
Mexican codices (Seler, _op. cit._). In the spread of the ideas we have
just been considering from Babylonia towards the north we find that the
deer takes the place of the antelope.
In view of the close resemblance between the Indian god Soma and the
Phrygian Dionysus, which has been demonstrated by Miss Gladys Davis, it
is of interest to note that in the service of the Greek god a man was
disguised as a stag, slain and eaten.[229]
Artemis also, one of the many _avatars_ of the Great Mother, who was
also related to the moon, was closely associated with the deer.
I have already referred to the fact that in Africa the dragon rôle of
the female antelope may be assumed by the cow or buffalo. In the case of
the gods Soma and Dionysus their association with the antelope or deer
may be extended to the bull. Miss Davis (_op. cit._) states that in the
Homa Yasht the deer-headed lunar mansion over which the god presides is
spoken of as "leading the Paurvas," i.e. Pleiades: "Mazda brought to
thee (Homa) the star-studded spirit-fashioned girdle (the belt of Orion)
leading the Paurvas. Now the Bull-Dionysus was especially associated
with the Pleiades on ancient gems and in classical mythology--which form
part of the sign Taurus." The bull is a sign of Haoma (Homa) or Soma.
The belt of the thunder-god Thor corroborates the fact of the diffusion
of these Babylonian ideas as far as Northern Europe.
[224: Frobenius, "The Voice of Africa," vol. ii., p. 467 _inter alia_.]
[225: _Op. cit._, p. 468.]
[226: J. F. Campbell, "The Celtic Dragon Myth," with the "Geste of
Fraoch and the Dragon," translated with Introduction by George
Henderson, Edinburgh, 1911, p. 136.]
[227: For example the red deer occupies the place usually taken by the
goddess's lions upon a Cretan gem (Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar
Cult," Fig. 32, p. 56): on the bronze plate from Heddemheim (A. B. Cook,
"Zeus," vol. i., pl. xxxiv., and p. 620) Isis is represented standing on
a hind: Artemis, another _avatar_ of the same Great Mother, was
intimately associated with deer.]
[228: J. de Morgan, article on "Koudourrous," _Mem. Del. en Perse_, t.
7, 1905. Figures on p. 143 and p. 148: see also an earlier article on
the same subject in tome i. of the same series.]
[229: A. B. Cook, "Zeus," vol. i., p. 674.]
The Ram.
The close association of the ram with the thunder-god is probably
related with the fact that the sun-god Amon in Egypt was represented by
the ram with a distinctive spiral horn. This spiral became a distinctive
feature of the god of thunder throughout the Hellenic and Phœnician
worlds and in those parts of Africa which were affected by their
influence or directly by Egypt.
An account of the widespread influence of the ram-headed god of thunder
in the Soudan and West Africa has been given by Frobenius.[230]
But the ram also became associated with Agni, the Indian fire-god, and
the spiral as a head-appendage became the symbol of thunder throughout
China and Japan, and from Asia spread to America where such deities as
Tlaloc still retain this distinctive token of their origin from the
Old World.
In Europe this association of the ram and its spiral horn played an even
more obtrusive part.
The octopus as a surrogate of the Great Mother was primarily responsible
for the development of the life-giving attributes of the spiral motif.
But the close connexion of the Great Mother with the dragon and the
thunder-weapon prepared the way for the special association of the
spiral with thunder, which was confirmed when the ram with its spiral
horn became the God of Thunder.
[230: _Op. cit._, vol. i., pp. 212-27.]
The Pig.
The relationship of the pig to the dragon is on the whole analogous to
that of the cow and the stag, for it can play either a beneficent or a
malevolent part. But the nature of the special circumstances which gave
the pig a peculiar notoriety as an unclean animal are so intimately
associated with the "Birth of Aphrodite" that I shall defer the
discussion of them for my lecture on the history of the goddess.
Certain Incidents in the Dragon Myth.
Throughout the greater part of the area which tradition has peopled with
dragons, iron is regarded as peculiarly lethal to the monsters. This
seems to be due to the part played by the "smiths" who forged iron
weapons with which Horus overcame Set and his followers,[231] or in the
earlier versions of the legend the metal weapons by means of which the
people of Upper Egypt secured their historic victory over the Lower
Egyptians. But the association of meteoric iron with the thunderbolt,
the traditional weapon for destroying dragons, gave added force to the
ancient legend and made it peculiarly apt as an incident in the story.
But though the dragon is afraid of iron, he likes precious gems and
_k'ung-ts'ing_ ("The Stone of Darkness") and is fond of roasted
swallows.
The partiality of dragons for swallows was due to the transmission of a
very ancient story of the Great Mother, who in the form of Isis was
identified with the swallow. In China, so ravenous is the monster for
this delicacy, that anyone who has eaten of swallows should avoid
crossing the water, lest the dragon whose home is in the deep should
devour the traveller to secure the dainty morsel of swallow. But those
who pray for rain use swallows to attract the beneficent deity. Even in
England swallows flying low are believed to be omens of coming rain--a
tale which is about as reliable as the Chinese variant of the same
ancient legend.
"The beautiful gems remind us of the Indian dragons; the pearls of the
sea were, of course, in India as well as China and Japan, considered to
be in the special possession of the dragon-shaped sea-gods" (de Visser,
p. 69). The cultural drift from West to East along the southern coast of
India was effected mainly by sailors who were searching for pearls.
Sharks constituted the special dangers the divers had to incur in
exploiting pearl-beds to obtain the precious "giver of life". But at the
time these great enterprises were first undertaken in the Indian Ocean
the people dwelling in the neighbourhood of the chief pearl-beds
regarded the sea as the great source of all life-giving virtues and the
god who exercised these powers was incarnated in a fish. The sharks
therefore had to be brought into harmony with this scheme, and they
were rationalized as the guardians of the storehouse of life-giving
pearls at the bottom of the sea.
I do not propose to discuss at present the diffusion to the East of the
beliefs concerning the shark and the modifications which they underwent
in the course of these migrations in Melanesia and elsewhere; but in my
lecture upon "the Birth of Aphrodite" I shall have occasion to refer to
its spread to the West and explain how the shark's rôle was transferred
to the dog-fish in the Mediterranean. The dog-fish then assumed a
terrestrial form and became simply the dog who plays such a strange part
in the magical ceremony of digging up the mandrake.
At present we are concerned merely with the shark as the guardian of the
stores of pearls at the bottom of the sea. He became identified with the
Nâga and the dragon, and the store of pearls became a vast
treasure-house which it became one of the chief functions of the dragon
to guard. This episode in the wonder-beast's varied career has a place
in most of the legends ranging from Western Europe to Farthest Asia.
Sometimes the dragon carries a pearl under his tongue or in his chin as
a reserve of life-giving substance.
Mr. Donald Mackenzie has called attention[232] to the remarkable
influence upon the development of the Dragon Myth of the familiar
Egyptian representation of the child Horus with a finger touching his
lips. On some pretence or other, many of the European dragon-slaying
heroes, such as Sigurd and the Highland Finn, place their fingers in
their mouths. This action is usually rationalized by the statement that
the hero burnt his fingers while cooking the slain monster.
[231: Budge, "Gods of the Egyptians," vol. i., p. 476.]
[232: "Egyptian Myth and Legend," pp. 340 _et seq._]
The Ethical Aspect.
So far in this discussion I have been dealing mainly with the problems
of the dragon's evolution, the attainment of his or her distinctive
anatomical features and physiological attributes. But during this
process of development a moral and ethical aspect of the dragon's
character was also emerging.
Now that we have realized the fact of the dragon's homology with the
moon-god it is important to remember that one of the primary functions
of this deity, which later became specialized in the Egyptian god
Thoth, was the measuring of time and the keeping of records. The moon,
in fact, was the controller of accuracy, of truth, and order, and
therefore the enemy of falsehood and chaos. The identification of the
moon with Osiris, who from a dead king eventually developed into a king
of the dead, conferred upon the great Father of Waters the power to
exact from men respect for truth and order. For even if at first these
ideas were only vaguely adumbrated and not expressed in set phrases, it
must have been an incentive to good discipline when men remembered that
the record-keeper and the guardian of law and order was also the deity
upon whose tender mercies they would have to rely in the life after
death. Set, the enemy of Osiris, who is the real prototype of the evil
dragon, was the antithesis of the god of justice: he was the father of
falsehood and the symbol of chaos. He was the prototype of Satan, as
Osiris was the first definite representative of the Deity of which any
record has been preserved.
The history of the evil dragon is not merely the evolution of the devil,
but it also affords the explanation of his traditional peculiarities,
his bird-like features, his horns, his red colour, his wings and cloven
hoofs, and his tail. They are all of them the dragon's distinctive
features; and from time to time in the history of past ages we catch
glimpses of the reality of these identifications. In one of the earliest
woodcuts (Fig. 17) found in a printed book Satan is depicted as a monk
with the bird's feet of the dragon. A most interesting intermediate
phase is seen in a Chinese water-colour in the John Rylands Library, in
which the thunder-dragon is represented in a form almost exactly
reproducing that of the devil of European tradition (Fig. 16).
[Illustration: Fig. 16.--The God Of Thunder.
(From a Chinese drawing (? 17th Century) in the John Rylands Library)]
[Illustration: Fig. 17.--From Joannes de Turrecremata's "Meditationes
seu Contemplationes". _Romæ: Ulrich Hau_. 1467]
Early in the Christian era, when ancient beliefs in Egypt became
disguised under a thin veneer of Christianity, the story of the conflict
between Horus and Set was converted into a conflict between Christ and
Satan. M. Clermont-Ganneau has described an interesting bas-relief in
the Louvre in which a hawk-headed St. George, clad in Roman military
uniform and mounted on a horse, is slaying a dragon which is represented
by Set's crocodile.[233] But the Biblical references to Satan leave no
doubt as to his identity with the dragon, who is specifically mentioned
in the Book of Revelations as "the old serpent which is the Devil and
Satan" (xx. 2).
The devil Set was symbolic of disorder and darkness, while the god
Osiris was the maintainer of order and the giver of light. Although the
moon-god, in the form of Osiris, Thoth and other deities, thus came to
acquire the moral attributes of a just judge, who regulated the
movements of the celestial bodies, controlled the waters upon the earth,
and was responsible for the maintenance of order in the Universe, the
ethical aspect of his functions was in large measure disguised by the
material importance of his duties. In Babylonia similar views were held
with respect to the beneficent water-god Ea, who was the giver of
civilization, order and justice, and Sin, the moon-god, who "had
attained a high position in the Babylonian pantheon," as "the guide of
the stars and the planets, the overseer of the world at night". "From
that conception a god of high moral character soon developed." "He is an
extremely beneficent deity, he is a king, he is the ruler of men, he
produces order and stability, like Shamash and like the Indian Varuṇa
and Mitra, but besides that, he is also a judge, he loosens the bonds of
the imprisoned, like Varuṇa. His light, like that of Varuṇa, is
the symbol of righteousness.... Like the Indian Varuṇa and the
Iranian Mazdâh, he is a god of wisdom."
When these Egyptian and Babylonian ideas were borrowed by the Aryans,
and the Iranian Mazdâh and the Indian Varuṇa assumed the rôle of the
beneficent deity of the former more ancient civilizations, the material
aspect of the functions of the moon-god became less obtrusive; and there
gradually emerged the conception, to which Zarathushtra first gave
concrete expression, of the beneficent god Ahura Mazdâh as "an
omniscient protector of morality and creator of marvellous power and
knowledge". "He is the most-knowing one, and the most-seeing one. No one
can deceive him. He watches with radiant eyes everything that is done in
open or in secret." "Although he has a strong personality he has no
anthropomorphic features." He has shed the material aspects which loomed
so large in his Egyptian, Babylonian and earlier Aryan prototypes, and a
more ethereal conception of a God of the highest ethical qualities
has emerged.
The whole of this process of transformation has been described with deep
insight and lucid exposition by Professor Cumont, from whose important
and convincing memoir I have quoted so freely in the foregoing
paragraphs.[234]
The creation of a beneficent Deity of such moral grandeur inevitably
emphasized the baseness and the malevolence of the "Power of Evil". No
longer are the gods merely glorified human beings who can work good or
evil as they will; but there is now an all-powerful God controlling the
morals of the universe, and in opposition to Him "the dragon, the old
serpent, which is the Devil and Satan".
[233: "Horus et St. George d'après un bas-relief inedit du Louvre,"
_Revue Archéologique_, Nouvelle Série, t. xxxii., 1876, p. 196, pl.
xviii. It is right to explain that M. Clermont-Ganneau's interpretation
of this relief has not been accepted by all scholars.]
[234: Albert J. Carnoy, "The Moral Deities of Iran and India and their
Origins," _The American Journal of Theology_, vol. xxi., No. 1, Jan.
1917, p. 58.]
Chapter III.
THE BIRTH OF APHRODITE.[235]
It may seem ungallant to discuss the birth of Aphrodite as part of the
story of the evolution of the dragon. But the other chapters of this
book, in which frequent references have been made to the early history
of the Great Mother, have revealed how vital a part she played in the
development of the dragon. The earliest real dragon was Tiamat, one of
the forms assumed by the Great Mother; and an even earlier prototype was
the lioness (Sekhet) manifestation of Hathor.
Thus it becomes necessary to enquire more fully (than has been done in
the other chapters) into the circumstances of the Great Mother's birth
and development, and to investigate certain aspects of her ontogeny to
which only scant attention has been paid in the preceding pages.
Several reasons have led me to select Aphrodite from the vast legion of
Great Mothers for special consideration. In spite of her high
specialization in certain directions the Greek goddess of love retains
in greater measure than any of her sisters some of the most primitive
associations of her original parent. Like vestigial structures in
biology, these traits afford invaluable evidence, not only of
Aphrodite's own ancestry and early history, but also of that of the
whole family of goddesses of which she is only a specialized type. For
Aphrodite's connexion with shells is a survival of the circumstances
which called into existence the first Great Mother and made her not only
the Creator of mankind and the universe, but also the parent of all
deities, as she was historically the first to be created by human
inventiveness. In this lecture I propose to deal with the more general
aspects of the evolution of all these daughters of the Great Mother:
but I have used Aphrodite's name in the title because her
shell-associations can be demonstrated more clearly and definitely than
those of any of her sisters.
In the past a vast array of learning has been brought to bear upon the
problems of Aphrodite's origin; but this effort has, for the most part,
been characterized by a narrowness of vision and a lack of adequate
appreciation of the more vital factors in her embryological history. In
the search for the deep human motives that found specific expression in
the great goddess of love, too little attention has been paid to
primitive man's psychology, and his persistent striving for an elixir of
life to avert the risk of death, to renew youth and secure a continuance
of existence after death. On the other hand, the possibility of
obtaining any real explanation has been dashed aside by most scholars,
who have been content simply to juggle with certain stereotyped
catchphrases and baseless assumptions, simply because the traditions of
classical scholarship have made these devices the pawns in a rather
aimless game.
It is unnecessary to cite specific illustrations in support of this
statement. Reference to any of the standard works on classical
archæology, such as Roscher's "Lexikon," will testify to the truth of my
accusation. In her "Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion" Miss
Jane Harrison devotes a chapter (VI) to "The Making of a Goddess," and
discusses "The Birth of Aphrodite". But she strictly observes the
traditions of the classical method; and assumes that the meaning of the
myth of Aphrodite's birth from the sea--the germs of which are at least
fifty centuries old--can be decided by the omission of any
representation of the sea in the decoration of a pot made in the fifth
century B.C.!
But apart from this general criticism, the lack of resourcefulness and
open mindedness, certain more specific factors have deflected classical
scholars from the true path. In the search for the ancestry of
Aphrodite, they have concentrated their attention too exclusively upon
the Mediterranean area and Western Asia, and so ignored the most ancient
of the historic Great Mothers, the African Hathor, with whom (as Sir
Arthur Evans[236] clearly demonstrated more than fifteen years ago) the
Cypriote goddess has much closer affinities than with any of her
Asiatic sisters. Yet no scholar, either on the Greek or Egyptian side,
has seriously attempted to follow up this clue and really investigate
the nature of the connexions between Aphrodite and Hathor, and the
history of the development of their respective specializations of
functions.[237]
But some explanation must be given for my temerity in venturing to
invade the intensively cultivated domains of Aphrodite "with a mind
undebauched by classical learning". I have already explained how the
study of Libations and Dragons brought me face to face with the problems
of the Great Mother's attributes. At that stage of the enquiry two
circumstances directed my attention specifically to Aphrodite. Mr.
Wilfrid Jackson was collecting the data relating to the cultural uses of
shells, which he has since incorporated in a book.[238] As the results
of his search accumulated, the fact soon emerged that the original
Great Mother was nothing more than a cowry-shell used as a life-giving
amulet; and that Aphrodite's shell-associations were a survival of the
earliest phase in the Great Mother's history. At this psychological
moment Dr. Rendel Harris[239] claimed that Aphrodite was a
personification of the mandrake. But the magical attributes of the
mandrake, which he claimed to have been responsible for converting the
amulet into a goddess, were identical with those which Jackson's
investigations had previously led me to regard as the reasons for
deriving Aphrodite from the cowry. The mandrake was clearly a surrogate
of the shell or vice versa.[240] The problem to be solved was to decide
which amulet was responsible for suggesting the process of life-giving.
The goddess Aphrodite was closely related to Cyprus; the mandrake was a
magical plant there; and the cowry is so intimately associated with the
island as to be called _Cypræa_. So far as is known, however, the
shell-amulet is vastly more ancient than the magical reputation of the
plant. Moreover, we know why the cowry was regarded as feminine and
accredited with life-giving attributes. There are no such reasons for
assigning life-giving powers or the female sex to the mandrake. The
claim that its magical properties are due to the fancied resemblance of
its root to a human being is wholly untenable.[241] The roots of many
plants are at least as manlike; and, even if this character was the
exclusive property of the mandrake, how does it help to explain the
remarkable repetory of quite arbitrary and fantastic properties and the
female sex assigned to the plant? Sir James Frazer's claim[242] that
"such beliefs and practices illustrate the primitive tendency to
personify nature" is a gratuitous and quite irrelevant assumption, which
offers no explanation whatsoever of the specific and arbitrary nature of
the form assumed by the personification. But when we investigate the
historical development of the peculiar attributes of the cowry-shell,
and appreciate why and how they were acquired, any doubt as to the
source from which the mandrake obtained its "magic" is removed; and
with it the fallacy of Sir James Frazer's wholly unwarranted claims is
also exposed.
If we ignore Sir James Frazer's naïve speculations we can make use of
the compilations of evidence which he makes with such remarkable
assiduity. But it is more profitable to turn to the study of the
remarkable lectures which Dr. Rendel Harris has been delivering in this
room[243] during the last few years. Our genial friend has been
cultivating his garden on the slopes of Olympus,[244] and has been
plucking the rich fruits of his ripe scholarship and nimble wit. At the
same time, with rougher implements and cruder methods, I have been
burrowing in the depths of the earth, trying to recover information
concerning the habits and thoughts of mankind many centuries before
Dionysus and Apollo, and Artemis and Aphrodite, were dreamt of.
In the course of these subterranean gropings no one was more surprised
than I was to discover that I was getting entangled in the roots of the
same plants whose golden fruit Dr. Rendel Harris was gathering from his
Olympian heights. But the contrast in our respective points of view was
perhaps responsible for the different appearance the growths assumed.
To drop the metaphor, while he was searching for the origins of the
deities a few centuries before the Christian era began, I was finding
their more or less larval forms flourishing more than twenty centuries
before the commencement of his story. For the gods and goddesses of his
narrative were only the thinly disguised representatives of much more
ancient deities decked out in the sumptuous habiliments of Greek
culture.
In his lecture on Aphrodite, Dr. Rendel Harris claimed that the goddess
was a personification of the mandrake; and I think he made out a good
prima facie case in support of his thesis. But other scholars have set
forth equally valid reasons for associating Aphrodite with the argonaut,
the octopus, the purpura, and a variety of other shells, both univalves
and bivalves.[245]
The goddess has also been regarded as a personification of water, the
ocean, or its foam.[246] Then again she is closely linked with pigs,
cows, lions, deer, goats, rams, dolphins, and a host of other creatures,
not forgetting the dove, the swallow, the partridge, the sparling, the
goose, and the swan.[247]
The mandrake theory does not explain, or give adequate recognition to,
any of these facts. Nor does Dr. Rendel Harris suggest why it is so
dangerous an operation to dig up the mandrake which he identifies with
the goddess, or why it is essential to secure the assistance of a
dog[248] in the process. The explanation of this fantastic fable gives
an important clue to Aphrodite's antecedents.
[235: An elaboration of a lecture delivered at the John Rylands Library,
on 14 November, 1917.]
[236: "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 52. Compare also A. E. W.
Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," Vol. I, p. 435.]
[237: With a strange disregard of Sir Arthur Evans's "Mycenæan Tree and
Pillar Cult," Mr. H. R. Hall makes the following remarks in his "Ægean
Archæology" (p. 150): "The origin of the goddess Aphrodite has long been
taken for granted. It has been regarded as a settled fact that she was
Semitic, and came to Greece from Phœnicia or Cyprus. But the new
discoveries have thrown this, like other received ideas, into the
melting-pot, for the Minoans undoubtedly worshipped an Aphrodite. We see
her, naked and with her doves, on gold plaques from one of the Mycenæan
shaft-graves (Schuchhardt, _Schliemann_, Figs. 180, 181), which must be
as old as the First Late Minoan period (_c._ 1600-1500 B.C.), and--not
rising from the foam, but sailing over it--in a boat, naked, on the lost
gold ring from Mochlos. It is evident now that she was not only a
Canaanitish-Syrian goddess, but was common to all the people of the
Levant. She is Aphrodite-Paphia in Cyprus, Ashtaroth-Astarte in Canaan,
Atargatis in Syria, Derketo in Philistria, Hathor in Egypt; what the
Minoans called her we do not know, unless she was Britomartis. She must
take her place by the side of Rhea-Diktynna in the Minoan pantheon."
It is not without interest to note that on the Mochlos ring the goddess
is sailing in a papyrus float of Egyptian type, like the moon-goddess in
her crescent moon.
The association of this early representative of Aphrodite with doves is
of special interest in view of Highnard's attempt ("Le Mythe de Venus,"
_Annales du Musée Guimet_, T. 1, 1880, p. 23) to derive the name of "la
déesse à la colombe" from the Chaldean and Phœnician _phrit_ or _phrut_
meaning "a dove".
Mr. Hall might have extended his list of homologues to Mesopotamia,
Iran, and India, to Europe and Further Asia, to America, and, in fact,
every part of the world that harbours goddesses.]
[238: "Shells as Evidence of the Migration of Early Culture."]
[239: "The Ascent of Olympus."]
[240: A striking confirmation of the fact that the mandrake is really a
surrogate of the cowry is afforded by the practice in modern Greece of
using the mandrake carried in a leather bag in the same way (and for the
same magical purpose as a love philtre) as the Baganda of East Africa
use the cowry (in a leather bag) at the present time.]
[241: Old Gerade was frank enough to admit that he "never could perceive
shape of man or woman" (quoted by Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p. 110).]
[242: "Jacob and the Mandrakes," _Proceedings of the British Academy_,
Vol. VIII, p. 22.]
[243: The John Rylands Library.]
[244: "The Ascent of Olympus."]
[245: See the memoirs by Tümpel, Jahn, Houssay, and Jackson, to which
reference is made elsewhere in these pages.]
[246: The well-known circumstantial story told in Hesiod's theogony.]
[247: See the article "Aphrodite" in Roscher's "Lexikon".]
[248: Sir James Frazer's claim that the incident of the ass in a late
Jewish story of Jacob and the mandrakes (_op. cit._, p. 20) "helps us to
understand the function of the dog," is quite unsupported. The learned
guardian of the Golden Bough does not explain _how_ it helps us to
understand.]
The Search for the Elixir of Life. Blood as Life.
In delving into the remotely distant history of our species we cannot
fail to be impressed with the persistence with which, throughout the
whole of his career, man (of the species _sapiens_) has been
seeking[249] for an elixir of life, to give added "vitality" to the dead
(whose existence was not consciously regarded as ended), to prolong the
days of active life to the living, to restore youth, and to protect his
own life from all assaults, not merely of time, but also of
circumstance. In other words, the elixir he sought was something that
would bring "good luck" in all the events of his life and its
continuation. Most of the amulets, even of modern times, the lucky
trinkets, the averters of the "Evil Eye," the practices and devices for
securing good luck in love and sport, in curing bodily ills or mental
distress, in attaining material prosperity, or a continuation of
existence after death, are survivals of this ancient and persistent
striving after those objects which our earliest forefathers called
collectively the "givers of life".
From statements in the earliest literature[250] that has come down to us
from antiquity, no less than from the views that still prevail among
the relatively more primitive peoples of the present day, it is clear
that originally man did not consciously formulate a belief in
immortality.
It was rather the result of a defect of thinking, or as the modern
psychologist would express it, an instinctive repression of the
unpleasant idea that death would come to him personally, that primitive
man refused to contemplate or to entertain the possibility of life
coming to an end. So intense was his instinctive love of life and dread
of such physical damage as would destroy his body that man unconsciously
avoided thinking of the chance of his own death: hence his belief in the
continuance of life cannot be regarded as the outcome of an active
process of constructive thought.
This may seem altogether paradoxical and incredible.
How, it may be asked, can man be said to repress the idea of death, if
he instinctively refused to admit its possibility? How did he escape the
inevitable process of applying to himself the analogy he might have been
supposed to make from other men's experience and recognize that he
must die?
Man appreciated the fact that he could kill an animal or another man by
inflicting certain physical injuries on him. But at first he seems to
have believed that if he could avoid such direct assaults upon himself,
his life would flow on unchecked. When death does occur and the
onlookers recognize the reality, it is still the practice among certain
relatively primitive people to search for the man who has inflicted
death on his fellow.
It would, of course, be absurd to pretend that any people could fail to
recognize the reality of death in the great majority of cases. The mere
fact of burial is an indication of this. But the point of difference
between the views of these early men and ourselves, was the tacit
assumption on the part of the former, that in spite of the obvious
changes in his body (which made inhumation or some other procedure
necessary) the deceased was still continuing an existence not unlike
that which he enjoyed previously, only somewhat duller, less eventful
and more precarious. He still needed food and drink, as he did before,
and all the paraphernalia of his mortal life, but he was dependent upon
his relatives for the maintenance of his existence.
Such views were difficult of acceptance by a thoughtful people, once
they appreciated the fact of the disintegration of the corpse in the
grave; and in course of time it was regarded as essential for continued
existence that the body should be preserved. The idea developed, that so
long as the body of the deceased was preserved and there were restored
to it all the elements of vitality which it had lost at death, the
continuance of existence was theoretically possible and worthy of
acceptance as an article of faith.
Let us consider for a moment what were considered to be elements of
vitality by the earliest members of our species.[251]
From the remotest times man seems to have been aware of the fact that he
could kill animals or his fellow men by means of certain physical
injuries. He associated these results with the effusion of blood. The
loss of blood could cause unconsciousness and death. Blood, therefore,
must be the vehicle of consciousness and life, the material whose escape
from the body could bring life to an end.[252]
The first pictures painted by man, with which we are at present
acquainted, are found upon the walls and roofs of certain caves in
Southern France and Spain. They were the work of the earliest known
representatives of our own species, _Homo sapiens_, in the phase of
culture now distinguished by the name "Aurignacian".
The animals man was in the habit of hunting for food are depicted.[253]
In some of them arrows are shown implanted in the animal's flank near
the region of the heart; and in others the heart itself is represented.
This implies that at this distant time in the history of our species, it
was already realized how vital a spot in the animal's anatomy the heart
was. But even long before man began to speculate about the functions of
the heart, he must have learned to associate the loss of blood on the
part of man or animals with death, and to regard the pouring out of
blood as the escape of its vitality. Many factors must have contributed
to the new advance in physiology which made the heart the centre or the
chief habitation of vitality, volition, feeling, and knowledge.
Not merely the empirical fact, acquired by experience in hunting, of the
peculiarly vulnerable nature of the heart, but perhaps also the
knowledge that the heart contained life-giving blood, helped in
developing the ideas about its functions as the bestower of life and
consciousness.
The palpitation of the heart after severe exertion or under the
influence of intense emotion would impress the early physiologist with
the relationship of the heart to the feelings, and afford confirmation
of his earlier ideas of its functions.
But whatever the explanation, it is known from the folk-lore of even the
most unsophisticated peoples that the heart was originally regarded as
the seat of life, feeling, volition, and knowledge, and that the blood
was the life-stream. The Aurignacian pictures in the caves of Western
Europe suggest that these beliefs were extremely ancient.
The evidence at our disposal seems to indicate that not only were such
ideas of physiology current in Aurignacian times, but also certain
cultural applications of them had been inaugurated even then. The
remarkable method of blood-letting by chopping off part of a finger
seems to have been practised even in Aurignacian times.[254]
If it is legitimate to attempt to guess at the meaning these early
people attached to so singular a procedure, we may be guided by the
ideas associated with this act in outlying corners of the world at the
present time. On these grounds we may surmise that the motive underlying
this, and other later methods of blood-letting, such as circumcision,
piercing the ears, lips, and tongue, gashing the limbs and body, et
cetera, was the offering of the life-giving fluid.
Once it was recognized that the state of unconsciousness or death was
due to the loss of blood it was a not illogical or irrational procedure
to imagine that offerings of blood might restore consciousness and life
to the dead.[255] If the blood was seriously believed to be the vehicle
of feeling and knowledge, the exchange of blood or the offering of blood
to the community was a reasonable method for initiating anyone into the
wider knowledge of and sympathy with his fellow-men.
Blood-letting, therefore, played a part in a great variety of
ceremonies, of burial and of initiation, and also those of a
therapeutic[256] and, later, of a religious significance.
But from Aurignacian times onwards, it seems to have been admitted that
substitutes for blood might be endowed with a similar potency.
The extensive use of red ochre or other red materials for packing around
the bodies of the dead was presumably inspired by the idea that
materials simulating blood-stained earth, were endowed with the same
life-giving properties as actual blood poured out upon the ground in
similar vitalizing ceremonies.
As the shedding of blood produced unconsciousness, the offering of blood
or red ochre was, therefore, a logical and practical means of restoring
consciousness and reinforcing the element of vitality which was
diminished or lost in the corpse.
The common statement that primitive man was a fantastically irrational
child is based upon a fallacy. He was probably as well endowed mentally
as his modern successors; and was as logical and rational as they are;
but many of his premises were wrong, and he hadn't the necessary body of
accumulated wisdom to help him to correct his false assumptions.
If primitive man regarded the dead as still existing, but with a reduced
vitality, it was a not irrational procedure on the part of the people of
the Reindeer Epoch in Europe to pack the dead in red ochre (which they
regarded as a surrogate of the life-giving fluid) to make good the lack
of vitality in the corpse.
If blood was the vehicle of consciousness and knowledge, the exchange of
blood was clearly a logical procedure for establishing communion of
thought and feeling and so enabling an initiate to assimilate the
traditions of his people.
If red carnelian was a surrogate of blood the wearing of bracelets or
necklaces of this life-giving material was a proper means of warding off
danger to life and of securing good luck.
If red paint or the colour red brought these magical results, it was
clearly justifiable to resort to its use.
All these procedures are logical. It is only the premises that were
erroneous.
The persistence of such customs in Ancient Egypt makes it possible for
us to obtain literary evidence to support the inferences drawn from
archæological data of a more remote age. For instance, the red jasper
amulet sometimes called the "girdle-tie of Isis," was supposed to
represent the blood of the goddess and was applied to the mummy "to
stimulate the functions of his blood";[257] or perhaps it would be more
accurate to say that it was intended to add to the vital substance which
was so obviously lacking in the corpse.
[249: In response to the prompting of the most fundamental of all
instincts, that of the preservation of life.]
[250: See Alan Gardiner, _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. IV,
Parts II-III, April-July, 1917, p. 205. Compare also the Babylonian
story of Gilgamesh.]
[251: Some of these have been discussed in Chapter 1 ("Incense and
Libations") and will not be further considered here.]
[252: "The life which is the blood thereof" (Gen. ix. 4).]
[253: See, for example, Sollas, "Ancient Hunters," 2nd Edition, 1915,
pp. 326 (fig. 163), 333 (fig. 171), and 36 (fig. 189).]
[254: Sollas, _op. cit._, pp. 347 _et seq._]
[255: The "redeeming blood," [Greek: Pharmakon athanasias].]
[256: The practice of blood-letting for therapeutic purposes was
probably first suggested by a confused rationalization. The act of
blood-letting was a means of healing; and the victim himself supplied
the vitalizing fluid!]
[257: Davies and Gardiner, "The Tomb of Amenemhet," p. 112.]
The Cowry as a Giver of Life.
Blood and its substitutes, however, were not the only materials that had
acquired a reputation for vitalizing qualities in the Reindeer Epoch.
For there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that shells also were
regarded, even in that remote time, as life-giving amulets.
If the loss of blood was at first the only recognized cause of death,
the act of birth was clearly the only process of life-giving. The portal
by which a child entered the world was regarded, therefore, not only as
the channel of birth, but also as the actual giver of life.[258] The
large Red Sea cowry-shell, which closely simulates this "giver of life,"
then came to be endowed by popular imagination with the same powers.
Hence the shell was used in the same way as red ochre or carnelian: it
was placed in the grave to confer vitality on the dead, and worn on
bracelets and necklaces to secure good luck by using the "giver of life"
to avert the risk of danger to life. Thus the general life-giving
properties of blood, blood substitutes, and shells, came to be
assimilated the one with the other.[259]
At first it was probably its more general power of averting death or
giving vitality to the dead that played the more obtrusive part in the
magical use of the shell. But the circumstances which led to the
development of the shell's symbolism naturally and inevitably conferred
upon the cowry special power over women. It was the surrogate of the
life-giving organ. It became an amulet to increase the fertility of
women and to help them in childbirth. It was, therefore, worn by girls
suspended from a girdle, so as to be as near as possible to the organ it
was supposed to simulate and whose potency it was believed to be able to
reinforce and intensify. Just as bracelets and necklaces of carnelian
were used to confer on either sex the vitalizing virtues of blood, which
it was supposed to simulate, so also cowries, or imitations of them made
of metal or stone, were worn as bracelets, necklaces, or hair-ornaments,
to confer health and good luck in both sexes. But these ideas received a
much further extension.
As the giver of life, the cowry came to have attributed to it by some
people definite powers of creation. It was not merely an amulet to
increase fertility: it was itself the actual parent of mankind, the
creator of all living things; and the next step was to give these
maternal functions material expression, and personify the cowry as an
actual woman in the form of a statuette with the distinctly feminine
characters grossly exaggerated;[260] and in the domain of belief to
create the image of a Great Mother, who was the parent of the universe.
[Illustration: Fig. 18 (a) The Archaic Egyptian slate palette of Narmer
showing, perhaps, the earliest design of Hathor (at the upper corners of
the palette) as a woman with cow's horns and ears (compare Flinders
Petrie, "The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty," Part I, 1900, Plate
XXVII, Fig. 71). The pharaoh is wearing a belt from which are suspended
four cow-headed Hathor figures in place of the cowry-amulets of more
primitive peoples. This affords corroboration of the view that Hathor
assumed the functions originally attributed to the cowry-shell.
(b) The king's _sporran_, where Hathor-heads (H) take the place of the
cowries of the primitive girdle.]
[Illustration: Fig. 19.--The front of Stela B (famous for the realistic
representations of the Indian elephant at its upper corners), one of the
ancient Maya monuments at Copan, Central America (after Maudslay's
photograph and diagram).
The girdle of the chief figure is decorated both with shells (_Oliva_ or
_Conus_) and amulets representing human faces corresponding to the
Hathor-heads on the Narmer palette (Fig. 18).]
Thus gradually there developed out of the cowry-amulet the conception of
a creator, the giver of life, health, and good luck. This Great Mother,
at first with only vaguely defined traits, was probably the first deity
that the wit of man devised to console him with her watchful care over
his welfare in this life and to give him assurance as to his fate in
the future.
At this stage I should like to emphasize the fact that these beliefs had
taken shape long before any definite ideas had been formulated as to the
physiology of animal reproduction and before agriculture was practised.
Man had not yet come to appreciate the importance of vegetable
fertility, nor had he yet begun to frame theories of the fertilizing
powers of water, or give specific expression to them by creating the god
Osiris in his own image.
Nor had he begun to take anything more than the most casual interest in
the sun, the moon, and the stars. He had not yet devised a sky-world nor
created a heaven. When, for reasons that I have already discussed,[261]
the theory of the fertilizing and the animating power of water was
formulated, the beliefs concerning this element were assimilated with
those which many ages previously had grown up in explanation of the
potency of blood and shells. In addition to fertilizing the earth, water
could also animate the dead. The rivers and the seas were in fact a vast
reservoir of this animating substance. The powers of the cowry, as a
product of the sea, were rationalized into an expression of the great
creative force of the water.
A bowl of water became the symbol of the fruitfulness of woman. Such
symbolism implied that woman, or her uterus, was a receptacle into which
the seminal fluid was poured and from which a new being emerged in a
flood of amniotic fluid.
The burial of shells with the dead is an extremely ancient practice, for
cowries have been found upon human skeletons of the so-called "Upper
Palæolithic Age" of Southern Europe.
At Laugerie-Basse (Dordogne) Mediterranean cowries were found arranged
in pairs upon the body; two pairs on the forehead, one near each arm,
four in the region of the thighs and knees, and two upon each foot.
Others were found in the Mentone caves, and are peculiarly important,
because, upon the same stratum as the skeleton with which they were
associated, was found part of a _Cassis rufa_, a shell whose habitat
does not extend any nearer than the Indian Ocean.[262]
[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Diagrams illustrating the form of cowry-belts
worn in (a) East Africa and (b) Oceania respectively.
(c) Ancient Indian girdle (from the figure of Sirima Devata on the
Bharat Tope), consisting of strings of pearls and precious stones, and
what seem to be (fourth row from the top) models of cowries.
(d) The Copan girdle (from Fig. 19) in which both shells and heads of
deities are represented. The two objects suspended from the belt between
the heads recall Hathor's sistra.]
These facts are very important. In the first place they reveal the great
antiquity of the practice of burying shells with the dead, presumably
for the purpose of "life-giving". Secondly, they suggest the possibility
that their magical value as givers of life may be more ancient than
their specific use as intensifiers of the fertility of women. Thirdly,
the association of these practices with the use of the shell _Cassis
rufa_ indicates a very early cultural contact between the people living
upon the North-Western shores of the Mediterranean in the Reindeer Age
and the dwellers on the coasts of the Indian Ocean; and the
probability that these special uses of shells by the former were
inspired by the latter.
This hint assumes a special significance when we first get a clear view
of the more fully-developed shell-cults of the Eastern Mediterranean
many centuries later.[263] For then we find definite indications that
the cultural uses of shells were obviously borrowed from the Erythræan
area.
Long before the shell-amulet became personified as a woman the
Mediterranean people had definitely adopted the belief in the cowry's
ability to give life and birth.
[258: As it is still called in the Semitic languages. In the Egyptian
Pyramid Texts there is a reference to a new being formed "by the vulva
of Tefnut" (Breasted).]
[259: Many customs and beliefs of primitive peoples suggest that this
correlation of the attributes of blood and shells went much deeper than
the similarity of their use in burial ceremonies and for making
necklaces and bracelets. The fact that the monthly effusion of blood in
women ceased during pregnancy seems to have given rise to the theory,
that the new life of the child was actually formed from the blood thus
retained. The beliefs that grew up in explanation of the placenta form
part of the system of interpretation of these phenomena: for the
placenta was regarded as a mass of clotted blood (intimately related to
the child which was supposed to be derived from part of the same
material) which harboured certain elements of the child's mentality
(because blood was the substance of consciousness).]
[260: See S. Reinach, "Les Déesses Nues dans l'Art Oriental et dans
l'Art Grec," _Revue Archéol._, T. XXVI, 1895, p. 367. Compare also the
figurines of the so-called Upper Palæolithic Period in Europe.]
[261: Chapter I.]
[262: The literature relating to these important discoveries has been
summarized by Wilfrid Jackson in his "Shells as Evidence of the
Migrations of Early Culture," pp. 135-7.]
[263: Cowries were obtained in Neolithic sites at Hissarlik and Spain
(Siret, _op. cit._, p. 18).]
The Origin of Clothing.
The cowry and its surrogates were supposed to be potent to confer
fertility on maidens; and it became the practice for growing girls to
wear a girdle on which to suspend the shells as near as possible to the
organ their magic was supposed to stimulate. Among many peoples[264]
this girdle was discarded as soon as the girls reached maturity.
This practice probably represents the beginning of the history of
clothing; but it had other far-reaching effects in the domain of belief.
It has often been claimed that the feeling of modesty was not the reason
for the invention of clothing, but that the clothes begat modesty.[265]
This doctrine contains a certain element of truth, but is by no means
the whole explanation. For true modesty is displayed by people who have
never worn clothes.
Before mankind could appreciate the psychological fact that the wearing
of clothing might add to an individual's allurement and enhance her
sexual attractiveness, some other circumstances must have been
responsible for suggesting the experiments out of which this empirical
knowledge emerged. The use of a girdle (a) as a protection against
danger to life, and (b) as a means of conferring fecundity on
girls[266] provided the circumstances which enabled men to discover that
the sexual attractiveness of maidens, which in a state of nature was
originally associated with modesty and coyness, was profoundly
intensified by the artifices of clothing and adornment.
Among people (such as those of East Africa and Southern Arabia) in which
it was customary for unmarried girls to adorn themselves with a girdle,
it is easy to understand how the meaning of the practice underwent a
change, and developed into a device for enhancing their charms and
stimulating the imaginations of their suitors.
Out of such experience developed the idea of the magical girdle as an
allurement and a love-provoking charm or philtre. Thus Aphrodite's
girdle acquired the reputation of being able to _compel_ love. When
Ishtar removed her girdle in the under-world reproduction ceased in the
world. The Teutonic Brunhild's great strength lay in her girdle. In fact
magic virtues were conferred upon most goddesses in every part of the
world by means of a cestus of some sort.[267] But the outstanding
feature of Aphrodite's character as a goddess of love is intimately
bound up with these conceptions which developed from the wearing of a
girdle of cowries.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Two representations of Astarte (Qetesh).
(a) The mother-goddess standing upon a lioness (which is her Sekhet
form): she is wearing her girdle, and upon her head is the moon and the
cow's horns, conventionalized so as to simulate the crescent moon. Her
hair is represented in the conventional form which is sometimes used as
Hathor's symbol. In her hands are the serpent and the lotus, which again
are merely forms of the goddess herself.
(b) Another picture of Astarte (from Roscher's "Lexikon") holding the
papyrus sceptre which at times is regarded as an animate form of the
mother-goddess herself and as such a thunder weapon.]
In the Biblical narrative, after Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden
fruit, "the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were
naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons,"
or, as the Revised Version expresses it, "girdles". The girdle of
fig-leaves, however, was originally a surrogate of the girdle of
cowries: it was an amulet to give fertility. The consciousness of
nakedness was part of the knowledge acquired as _the result_ of the
wearing of such girdles (and the clothing into which they developed),
and was not originally the motive that impelled our remote ancestors to
clothe themselves.
The use of fig-leaves for the girdle in Palestine is an interesting
connecting link between the employment of the cowry and the mandrake for
similar purposes in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea and in Cyprus and
Syria respectively (_vide infra_).
In Greece and Italy, the sweet basil has a reputation for magical
properties analogous to those of the cowry. Maidens collect the plant
and wear bunches of it upon their body or upon their girdles; while
married women fix basil upon their heads.[268] It is believed that the
odour of the plant will attract admirers: hence in Italy it is called
_Bacia-nicola_. "Kiss me, Nicholas".[269]
In Crete it is a sign of mourning presumably because its life-prolonging
attributes, as a means of conferring continued existence to the dead,
have been so rationalized in explanation of its use at funerals.
On New Year's day in Athens boys carry a boat and people remark, "St.
Basil is come from Cæsarea".
[264: See Jackson, _op. cit._, pp. 139 _et seq._]
[265: For a discussion of this subject see the chapter on "The
Psychology of Modesty and Clothing," in William I. Thomas's "Sex and
Society," Chicago, 1907; also S. Reinach, "Cults, Myths, and Religions,"
p. 177; and Paton, "The Pharmakoi and the Story of the Fall," _Revue
Archéol._, Serie IV. T. IX, 1907, p. 51.]
[266: It is important to remember that shell-girdles were used by both
sexes for general life-giving and luck-bringing purposes, in the
funerary ritual of both sexes, in animating the dead or statues of the
dead, to attain success in hunting, fishing, and head-hunting, as well
as in games. Thus men also at times wore shells upon their belts or
aprons, and upon their implements and fishing nets, and adorned their
trophies of war and the chase with them. Such customs are found in all
the continents of the Old World and also in America, as, for example, in
the girdles of _Conus_- and _Oliva_-shells worn by the figures
sculptured upon the Copan stelæ. See, for example, Maudslay's pictures
of stele N, Plate 82 (Biologia Centrali-Americana; Archæology) _inter
alia_. But they were much more widely used by women, not merely by
maidens, but also by brides and married women, to heighten their
fertility and cure sterility, and by pregnant women to ensure safe
delivery in childbirth. It was their wider employment by women that
gives these shells their peculiar cultural significance.]
[267: Witness the importance of the girdle in early Indian and American
sculptures: in the literature of Egypt, Babylonia, Western Europe, and
the Mediterranean area. For important Indian analogies and Egyptian
parallels see Moret, "Mystères Égyptiens," p. 91, especially note 3. The
magic girdle assumed a great variety of forms as the number of
surrogates of the cowry increased. The mugwort (Artemisia) of Artemis
was worn in the girdle on St. John's Eve (Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p.
91): the people of Zante use vervain in the same way; the people of
France (Creuse et Corrères) rye-stalks; Eve's fig-leaves; in Vedic India
the initiate wore the "cincture of Munga's herbs"; and Kali had her
girdle of hands. Breasted, ("Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p.
29) says: "In the oldest fragments we hear of Isis the great, who
_fastened on the girdle_ in Khemmis, when she brought her [censer] and
burned incense before her son Horus."]
[268: This distinction between the significance of the amulet when worn
on the girdle and on the head (in the hair), or as a necklace or
bracelet, is very widespread. On the girdle it _usually_ has the
significance of stimulating the individual's fertility: worn elsewhere
it was intended to ward off danger to life, _i.e._ to give good luck. An
interesting surrogate of Hathor's distinctive emblem is the necklace of
golden apples worn by a priestess of Apollo (Rendel Harris, _op. cit._,
p. 42).]
[269: De Gubernatis, "Mythologie des Plantes," Vol. II, p. 35.]
Pearls.
During the chequered history of the Great Mother the attributes of the
original shell-amulet from which the goddess was sprung were also
changing and being elaborated to fit into a more complex scheme. The
magical properties of the cowry came to be acquired by other Red Sea
shells, such as _Pterocera_, the pearl oyster, conch shells, and others.
Each of these became intimately associated with the moon.[270] The
pearls found in the oysters were supposed to be little moons, drops of
the moon-substance (or dew) which fell from the sky into the gaping
oyster. Hence pearls acquired the reputation of "shining by night," like
the moon from which they were believed to have come: and every surrogate
of the Great Mother, whether plant, animal, mineral or mythical
instrument, came to be endowed with the power of "shining by night". But
pearls were also regarded as the quintessence of the shell's life-giving
properties, which were considered to be all the more potent because they
were sky-given emanations of the moon-goddess herself. Hence pearls
acquired the reputation of being the "givers of life" _par excellence_,
an idea which found literal expression in the ancient Persian word
_margan_ (from _mar_, "giver" and _gan_, "life"). This word has been
borrowed in all the Turanian languages (ranging from Hungary to
Kamskatckha), but also in the non-Turanian speech of Western Asia,
thence through Greek and Latin (_margarita_) to European languages.[271]
The same life-giving attributes were also acquired by the other
pearl-bearing shells; and at some subsequent period, when it was
discovered that some of these shells could be used as trumpets, the
sound produced was also believed to be life-giving or the voice of the
great Giver of Life. The blast of the trumpet was also supposed to be
able to animate the deity and restore his consciousness, so that he
could attend to the appeals of supplicants. In other words the noise
woke up the god from his sleep. Hence the shell-trumpet attained an
important significance in early religious ceremonials for the ritual
purpose of summoning the deity, especially in Crete and India, and
ultimately in widely distant parts of the world.[272] Long before these
shells are known to have been used as trumpets, they were employed like
the other Red Sea shells as "givers of life" to the dead in Egypt. Their
use as trumpets was secondary.
And when it was discovered that purple dye could be obtained from
certain of the trumpet-shells, the colouring-matter acquired the same
life-giving powers as had already been conferred upon the trumpet and
the pearls: thus it became regarded as a divine substance and as the
exclusive property of gods and kings.
Long before, the colour red had acquired magic potency as a surrogate of
life-giving blood; and this colour-symbolism undoubtedly helped in the
development of the similar beliefs concerning purple.
[270: For the details see Jackson, _op. cit._, pp. 57-69. Both the
shells and the moon were identified with the Great Mother. Hence they
were homologized the one with the other.]
[271: Dr. Mingana has given me the following note: "It is very probable
that the Græco-Latin _margarita_, the Aramæo-Syriac _margarita_, the
Arabic _margan_, and the Turanian _margan_ are derived from the Persian
_mar-gân_, meaning both 'pearl' and 'life,' or etymologically 'giver,
owner, or possessor, of life'. The word _gān_, in Zend _yān_, is
thoroughly Persian and is undoubtedly the original form of this
expression."]
[272: See Chapter II of Jackson's book, _op. cit._]
Sharks and Dragons.
When the life-giving attributes of water were confused with the same
properties with which shells had independently been credited long
before, the shell's reputation was rationalized as an expression of the
vital powers of the ocean in which the mollusc was born. But the same
explanation was also extended to include fishes, and other denizens of
the water, as manifestations of similar divine powers. In the lecture on
"Dragons and Rain Gods" I referred to the identification of Ea, the
Babylonian Osiris, with a fish (p. 105). When the value of the pearl as
the giver of life impelled men to incur any risks to obtain so precious
an amulet, the chief dangers that threatened pearl-fishers were due to
sharks. These came to be regarded as demons guarding the treasure-houses
at the bottom of the sea. Out of these crude materials the imaginations
of the early pearl-fishers created the picture of wonderful submarine
palaces of Nâga kings in which vast wealth, not merely of pearls, but
also of gold, precious stones, and beautiful maidens (all of them
"givers of life," _vide infra_, p. 224), were placed under the
protection of shark-dragons.[273] The conception of the pearl (which is
a surrogate of the life-giving Great Mother) guarded by dragons is
linked by many bonds of affinity with early Erythræan and Mediterranean
beliefs. The more usual form of the story, both in Southern Arabian
legend and in Minoan and Mycenæan art, represents the Mother Goddess
incarnate in a sacred tree or pillar with its protecting dragons in the
form of serpents or lions, or a variety of dragon-surrogates, either
real animals, such as deer or cattle, or composite monsters (Fig.
26).[274]
There are reasons for believing that these stories were first invented
somewhere on the shores of the Erythræan Sea, probably in Southern
Arabia. The animation of the incense-tree by the Great Mother, for the
reasons which I have already expounded,[275] formed the link of her
identification with the pearl, which probably acquired its magical
reputation in the same region.
"In the Persian myth, the white Haoma is a divine tree, growing in the
lake Vourukasha: the fish Khar-mâhi circles protectingly around it and
defends it against the toad Ahriman. It gives eternal life, children to
women, husbands to girls, and horses to men. In the Minôkhired the tree
is called 'the preparer of the corpse'" (Spiegel, "Eran. Altertumskunde,"
II, 115--quoted by Jung, "Psychology of the Unconscious," p. 532). The
idea of guarding the divine tree[276] by dragons was probably the result
of the transference to that particular surrogate of the Great Mother of
the shark-stories which originated from the experiences of the seekers
after pearls, her other representatives.
There are many other bits of corroborative evidence to suggest that
these shell-cults and the legends derived from them were actually
transmitted from the Red Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean. Nor is it
surprising that this should have happened, when it is recalled that
Egyptian sailors were trafficking in both seas long before the Pyramid
Age, and no doubt carried the beliefs and the legends of one region to
the other. I have already referred to the adoption in the Mediterranean
area of the idea of the dragon-protectors of the tree- and pillar-forms
of the Great Mother, and suggested that this was merely a garbled
version of the pearl-fisher's experience of the dangers of attacks by
sharks. But the same legends also reached the Levant in a less modified
form, and then underwent another kind of transformation (and confusion
with the tree-version) in Cyprus or Syria.
As the shark would be a not wholly appropriate actor in the
Mediterranean, its rôle is taken by its smaller Selachian relative, the
dog-fish. In the notes on Pliny's Natural History, Dr. Bostock and Mr.
H. T. Riley[277] refer to the habits of dog-fishes ("Canes marini"), and
quote from Procopius ("De Bell. Pers." B. I, c. 4) the following
"wonderful story in relation to this subject": "Sea-dogs are wonderful
admirers of the pearl-fish, and follow them out to sea.... A certain
fisherman, having watched for the moment when the shell-fish was
deprived of the attention of its attendant sea-dog, ... seized the
shell-fish and made for the shore. The sea-dog, however, was soon aware
of the theft, and making straight for the fisherman, seized him. Finding
himself thus caught, he made a last effort, and threw the pearl-fish on
shore, immediately on which he was torn to pieces by its
protector."[278]
Though the written record of this story is relatively modern the
incident thus described probably goes back to much more ancient times.
It is only a very slightly modified version of an ancient narrative of a
shark's attack upon a pearl-diver.
For reasons which I shall discuss in the following pages, the rôle of
the cowry and pearl as representatives of the Great Mother was in the
Levant assumed by the mandrake, just as we have already seen the
Southern Arabian conception of her as a tree adopted in Mycenæan lands.
Having replaced the sea-shell by a land plant it became necessary, in
adapting the legend, to substitute for the "sea-dog" some land animal.
Not unnaturally it became a dog. Thus the story of the dangers incurred
in the process of digging up a mandrake assumed the well-known
form.[279] The attempt to dig up the mandrake was said to be fraught
with great danger. The traditional means of circumventing these risks
has been described by many writers, ancient and modern, and preserved in
the folk-lore of most European and western Asiatic countries. The story
as told by Josephus is as follows: "They dig a trench round it till the
hidden part of the root is very small, then they tie a dog to it, and
when the dog tries hard to follow him that tied him, this root is easily
plucked up, but the dog dies immediately, as it were, instead of the man
that would take the plant away."[280] Thus the dog takes the place of
the dog-fish when the mandrake becomes the pearl's surrogate. The only
discrepancy between the two stories is the point to which Josephus calls
specific attention. For instead of the dog killing the thief, as the
shark (dog-fish) kills the stealer of pearls, the dog becomes the victim
as a substitute for the man. As Josephus remarks, "the dog dies
immediately, as it were, instead of the man that would take the plant
away". This distortion of the story is true to the traditions of
legend-making. The dog-incident is so twisted as to be transformed into
a device for plucking the dangerous plant without risk.
It is quite possible that earlier associations of the dog with the Great
Mother may have played some part in this transference of meaning, if
only by creating confusion which made such rationalization necessary. I
refer to the part played by Anubis in helping Isis to collect the
fragments of Osiris; and the rôle played by Anubis, and his Greek
_avatar_ Cerberus, in the world of the dead. Whether the association of
the dog-star Sirius with Hathor had anything to do with the confusion is
uncertain.[281]
There was an intimate association of the dog with the goddess of the
under-world (Hecate) and the ritual of rebirth of the dead.[282] Perhaps
the development of the story of the underworld-goddess Aphrodite's dog
and the mandrake may have been helped by this survival of the
association of Isis with Anubis, even if there is not a more definite
causal relationship between the dog-incidents in the various legends.
The divine dog Anubis is frequently represented in connexion with the
ritual of rebirth,[283] where it is shown upon a standard in association
with the placenta. The hieroglyphic sign for the Egyptian word _mes_,
"to give birth," consists of the skins of three dogs (or jackals, or
foxes). The three-headed dog Cerberus that guarded the portal of Hades
may possibly be a distorted survival of this ancient symbolism of the
three-fold dog-skin as the graphic sign for the act of emergence from
the portal of birth. Elsewhere (p. 223) in this lecture I have referred
to Charon's _obolus_ as a surrogate of the life-giving pearl or cowry
placed in the mouth of the dead to provide "vital substance". Rohde[284]
regards Charon as the second Cerberus, corresponding to the Egyptian
dog-faced god Anubis: just as Charon received his _obolus_, so in Attic
custom the dead were provided with [Greek: melitoutia] the object of
which is usually said to be to pacify the dog of hell.
What seems to link all these fantastic beliefs and customs with the
story of the dog and the mandrake is the fact that they are closely
bound up with the conception of the dog as the guardian of hidden
treasure.
The mandrake story may have arisen out of a mingling of these two
streams of legend--the shark (dog-fish) protecting the treasures at the
bottom of the sea, and the ancient Egyptian beliefs concerning the
dog-headed god who presides at the embalmer's operations and
superintends the process of rebirth.
The dog of the story is a representative of the dragon guarding the
goddess in the form of the mandrake, just as the lions over the gate at
Mycenæ heraldically support her pillar-form, or the serpents in Southern
Arabia protect her as an incense tree. Dog, Lion, and Serpent in these
legends are all representatives of the goddess herself, i.e. merely her
own _avatars_ (Fig. 26).
At one time I imagined that the rôle of Anubis as a god of embalming and
the restorer of the dead was merely an ingenuous device on the part of
the early Egyptians to console themselves for the depredations of
jackals in their cemeteries. For if the jackal were converted into a
life-giving god it would be a comforting thought to believe that the
dead man, even though devoured, was "in the bosom of his god" and
thereby had attained a rebirth in the hereafter. In ancient Persia
corpses were thrown out for the dogs to devour. There was also the
custom of leading a dog to the bed of a dying man who presented him with
food, just as Cerberus was given honey-cakes by Hercules in his journey
to hell. But I have not been able to obtain any corroboration of this
supposition. It is a remarkable coincidence that the Great Mother has
been identified with the necrophilic vulture as Mut; and it has been
claimed by some writers[285] that, just as the jackal was regarded as a
symbol of rebirth in Egypt and the dead were exposed for dogs to devour
in Persia, so the vulture's corpse-devouring habits may have been
primarily responsible for suggesting its identification with the Great
Mother and for the motive behind the Indian practice of leaving the
corpses of the dead for the vultures to dispose of.[286] It is not
uncommon to find, even in English cathedrals, recumbent statues of
bishops with dogs as footstools. Petronius ("Sat.," c. 71) makes the
following statement: "valde te rogo, ut secundum pedes statuae meae
catellam pingas--ut mihi contingat tuo beneficio post mortem
vivere".[287] The belief in the dog's service as a guide to the dead
ranges from Western Europe to Peru.
To return to the story of the dog and the mandrake: no doubt the demand
will be made for further evidence that the mandrake actually assumed the
rôle of the pearl in these stories. If the remarkable repertory of
magical properties assigned to the mandrake[288] be compared with those
which developed in connexion with the cowry and the pearl,[289] it will
be found that the two series are identical. The mandrake also is the
giver of life, of fertility to women, of safety in childbirth; and like
the cowry and the pearl it exerts these magical influences only if it be
worn in contact with the wearer's skin.[290] But the most definite
indication of the mandrake's homology with the pearl is provided by the
legend that "it shines by night". Some scholars,[291] both ancient and
modern, have attempted to rationalize this tradition by interpreting it
as a reference to the glow-worms that settle on the plant! But it is
only one of many attributes borrowed by the mandrake from the pearl,
which was credited with this remarkable reputation only when early
scientists conceived the hypothesis that the gem was a bit of moon
substance.
As the memory of the real history of these beliefs grew dim, confusion
was rapidly introduced into the stories. I have already explained how
the diving for pearls started the story of the great palace of treasures
under the waters which was guarded by dragons. As the pearl had the
reputation of shining by night, it is not surprising that it or some of
its surrogates should in course of time come to be credited with the
power of "revealing hidden treasures," the treasures which in the
original story were the pearls themselves. Thus the magic fern-seed and
other treasure-disclosing vegetables[292] are surrogates of the
mandrake, and like it derive their magical properties directly or
indirectly from the pearl.
The fantastic story of the dog and the mandrake provides the most
definite evidence of the derivation of the mandrake-beliefs from the
shell-cults of the Erythræan Sea. There are many other scraps of
evidence to corroborate this. I shall refer here only to one of these.
"The discovery of the art of purple-dyeing has been attributed to the
Tyrian tutelary deity Melkart, who is identified with Baal by many
writers. According to Julius Pollux ('Onomasticon,' I, iv.) and Nonnus
('Dionys.,' XL, 306) Hercules (Melkart) was walking on the seashore
accompanied by his dog and a Tyrian nymph, of whom he was enamoured. The
dog having found a _Murex_ with its head protruding from its shell,
devoured it, and thus its mouth became stained with purple. The nymph,
on seeing the beautiful colour, bargained with Hercules to provide her
with a robe of like splendour."[293] This seems to be another variant of
the same story.
[273: In Eastern Asia (see, for example, Shinji Nishimura, "The
Hisago-Bune," Tokio, 1918, published by the Tokio Society of Naval
Architects, p. 18, where the dragon is identified with the _wani_, which
can be either a crocodile or a shark); in Oceania (L. Frobenius, "Das
Zeitalter des Sonnengottes," Bd. I., 1904, and C. E. Fox and F. H. Drew,
"Beliefs and Tales of San Cristoval," _Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute_, Vol. XLV, 1915, p. 140); and in America (see
Thomas Gann, "Mounds in Northern Honduras," _Nineteenth Annual Report of
the Bureau of American Ethnology_, 1897-8, Part II, p. 661) the dragon
assumes the form of a shark, a crocodile, or a variety of other
animals.]
[274: Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," _op. cit.
supra_: W. Hayes Ward, "The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," _op. cit._:
and Robertson Smith, "The Religion of the Semites," p. 133: "In
Hadramant it is still dangerous to touch the sensitive mimosa, because
the spirit that resides in the plant will avenge the injury". When men
interfere with the incense trees it is reported: "the demons of the
place flew away with doleful cries in the shape of white serpents, and
the intruders died soon afterwards".]
[275: _Vide supra_, p. 38.]
[276: In Western mythology the dragon guarding the fruit-bearing tree of
life is also identified with the Mother of Mankind (Campbell, "Celtic
Dragon Myth," pp. xli and 18). Thus the tree and its defender are both
surrogates of the Great Mother. When Eve ate the apple from the tree of
Paradise she was committing an act of cannibalism, for the plant was
only another form of herself. Her "sin" consisted in aspiring to attain
the immortality which was the exclusive privilege of the gods. This
incident is analogous to that found in the Indian tales where mortals
steal the _amrita_. By Eve's sin "death came into the world" for the
paradoxical reason that she had eaten the food of the gods which gives
immortality. The punishment meted out to her by the Almighty seems to
have been to inhibit the life-giving and birth-facilitating action of
the fruit of immortality, so that she and all her progeny were doomed to
be mortal and to suffer the pangs of child-bearing.
There was a widespread belief among the ancients that ceremonies in
connexion with the gods must (to be efficacious) be done in the reverse
of the usual human way (Hopkins, "Religions of India," p. 201). So also
an act which gives immortality to the gods, brings death to man.
The full realization of the fact that man was mortal imposed upon the
early theologians the necessity of explaining the immortality of the
gods. The elixir of life was the food of the gods that conferred eternal
life upon them. By one of those paradoxes so dear to the maker of myths
this same elixir brought death to man.]
[277: Bohn's Edition, 1855, Vol. II, p. 433.]
[278: A Cretan scene depicts a man attacking a dog-headed sea-monster
(Mackenzie, _op. cit._, "Myths of Crete," p. 139).]
[279: A number of versions of this widespread fable have been collected
by Dr. Rendel Harris (_op. cit._) and Sir James Frazer (_op. cit._). I
quote here from the former (p. 118).]
[280: Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," VII, 6, 3, quoted by Rendel Harris, _op.
cit._, p. 118.]
[281: The dog-star became associated with Hathor for reasons which are
explained on p. 209. It was "the opener of the Way" for the birth of the
sun and the New Year.]
[282: When Artemis acquired the reputation as a huntress and her deer
became her quarry the dog was rationalized into the new scheme.]
[283: See, for example, Moret's "Mystères Égyptiens," pp. 77-80.]
[284: "Psyche," p. 244.]
[285: See, for example, Jung, _op. cit._, p. 268.]
[286: Nekhebit, the Egyptian Vulture goddess, was identified by the
Greeks with Eileithyia, the goddess of birth (Wiedemann, "Religion of
the Ancient Egyptians," p. 141). She was usually represented as a
vulture hovering over the king. Her place can be taken by the falcon of
Horus or in the Babylonian story of Etana by the eagle. In the Indian
Mahábhárata the Garuda is described as "the bird of life ... destroyer
of all, creator of all".]
[287: Quoted by Jung, _op. cit._, p. 530.]
[288: See Rendel Harris (_op. cit._) and Sir James Frazer (_op. cit._).]
[289: Jackson, _op. cit._]
[290: An interesting rationalization (of which Mr. T. H. Pear has kindly
reminded me) of this ancient Oriental belief is still alive amongst
British women. It is maintained that pearls "lose their lustre" unless
they are worn in contact with the skin. This of course is a pure myth,
but also an illuminating survival.]
[291: See Frazer, _op. cit._, p. 16, especially the references to the
"devil's candle" and "the lamp of the elves".]
[292: Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p. 113: Other factors played a part in
the development of this legend of opening up treasure-houses. Both
Artemis and Hecate are associated with a magical plant capable of
opening locks and helping the process of birth. Artemis is a goddess of
the portal and her life-giving symbol in a multitude of varied forms is
found appropriately placed above the lintel of doors.]
[293: Jackson, _op. cit._, p. 195.]
The Octopus.
Aphrodite was associated not only with the cowry, the pearl, and the
mandrake, but also with the octopus, the argonaut, and other
cephalopods. Tümpel seems to imagine that the identification of the
goddess with the argonaut and the octopus necessarily excludes her
association with molluscs; and Dr. Rendel Harris attributes an equally
exclusive importance to the mandrake. But in such methods of argument
due recognition is not given to the outstanding fact in the history of
primitive beliefs. The early philosophers built up their great
generalizations in the same way as their modern successors. They were
searching for some explanation of, or a working hypothesis to include,
most diverse natural phenomena within a concise scheme. The very essence
of such attempts was the institution of a series of homologies and
fancied analogies between dissimilar objects. Aphrodite was at one and
the same time the personification of the cowry, the conch shell, the
purple shell, the pearl, the lotus, and the lily, the mandrake and the
bryony, the incense tree and the cedar, the octopus and the argonaut,
the pig, and the cow.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.--(a) A slate triad found by Professor G. A.
Reisner in the temple of the Third Pyramid at Giza. It shows the Pharaoh
Mycerinus supported on his right side by the goddess Hathor, represented
as a woman with the moon and the cow's horns upon her head, and on the
left side by a nome goddess, bearing upon her head the jackal-symbol of
her nome.
(b) The Ecuador Aphrodite. Bas-relief from Cerro Jaboncillo (after
Saville, "Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador," Preliminary Report, 1907,
Plate XXXVIII).
A grotesque composite monster intended to represent a woman (compare
Saville's Plates XXXV, XXXVI, and XXXIX), whose head is a
conventionalized Octopus, whose body is a _Loligo_, and whose limbs
are human.]
Every one of these identifications is the result of a long and chequered
history, in which fancied resemblances and confusion of meaning play a
very large part. But I cannot too strongly repudiate the claim made by
Sir James Frazer that such events are merely so many evidences of the
innate human tendency to personify nature. The history of the arbitrary
circumstances that were responsible for the development of each one of
these homologies is entirely fatal to this wholly unwarranted
speculation.[294] Tümpel claims[295] the Aphrodite was associated more
especially with "a species of _Sepia_". He refers to the attempts to
associate the goddess of love with amulets of univalvular shells "in
virtue of a certain peculiar and obscene symbolism".[296] Naturalists,
however, designate with the term _Venus Cytherea_ certain gaping
bivalve molluscs.
But, according to Tümpel (p. 386), neither univalvular nor bivalve
shells can be regarded as a real part of the goddess's cultural
equipment. There is no representation of Aphrodite coming in a shell
from across the sea.[297] The truly sacred Aphrodite-shell was entirely
different, so Tümpel believes: it was obviously difficult to preserve,
but for that reason more worthy of notice, for the small [Greek:
choirinai] (pectines), virginalia marina (Apuleius de mag. 34, 35, and
in reference thereto, Isidor. origg. 9, 5, 24) or spuria ([Greek:
sporia]) were only the commoner and more readily obtained surrogates:
the univalvular shells.
([Greek: monothyra] of Aristotle), such as those just mentioned, and the
other [Greek: ostrea] of Aphrodite, the Nerites (periwinkles, etc.), the
purple shell and the Echineïs were also real Veneriae conchae. Among the
Nerites Aelian enumerates (N.A. 14, 28): [Greek: Aphroditên de
syndiaitômenên en tê thalattê hêsthênai te tô Nêritê tôde kai echein
auton philon]. On account of their supposed medicinal value in cases of
abortion and especially as a prophylactic for pregnant women the [Greek:
Echenêis] (pure Latin re[mi]mora) was called [Greek: ôdinolytê][298]
(Pliny, 32, 1, 5: pisciculus!). According to Mutianus (Pliny, 9, 25
(41), 79 f.), it was a species of purple shell, but larger than the true
_Murex purpura_. From this the sanctity of the Echineïs to the Cnidian
Aphrodite is demonstrated: "quibus (conchis) inhaerentibus plenam ventis
stetisse navem portantem Periandro, ut castrarentur nobilis pueros,
conchasque, quae id praestiterint, apud Cnidiorum Venerem coli" (Pliny).
Tümpel then (p. 387) accuses Stephani of being mistaken in his
interpretation of Martial's Cytheriacae (Epign. II, 47, 1 = purple
shells) as the amulets of Aphrodite, and claims that Jahn has given the
correct solution of the following passages from Pliny (N.H., 9, 33 [52],
103, compare 32, 11 [53]): "navigant ex his (conchis) veneriae,
praebentesque concavam sui partem et aurae opponentes per summa aequorum
velificant"; and further (9, 30[49], 94): "in Propontide concham esse
acatii modo carinatam inflexa puppe, prora rostrata, in hac condi
nauplium animal saepiae simile ludendi societate sola, duobus hoc fieri
generibus: tranquillum enim vectorem demissis palmulis ferire ut remis;
si vero flatus invitet, easdem in usu gubernaculi porrigi pandique
buccarum sinus aurae".
Tümpel claims (pp. 387 and 388) that this quotation settles the
question. Aphrodite's "shell," according to him, is the _Nauplius_
(depicted as a shell-fish, with its sail-like palmulæ spread out to the
wind, but with the same sails flattened into plate-like arms for
steering), clearly "a species of _Sepia_," wholly like Aphrodite
herself, a ship-like shell-fish sailing over the surface of the water,
the concha veneria. [The analogy to a ship bearing the Great Mother is
extremely ancient and originally referred to the crescent moon carrying
the moon-goddess across the heavenly ocean.]
Elsewhere (p. 399) he discusses the reasons for the connexion of
Aphrodite with the "nautilus," by which is meant the argonaut of
zoologists.
But if Jahn and Tümpel have thus clearly established the proof of the
intimate association of Aphrodite with certain cephalopods, they are
wholly unjustified in the assumption that their quotations from
relatively modern authors disprove the reality of the equally close
(though more ancient) relationship of the goddess to the cowry, the
pearl-shell, the trumpet-shell, and the purple-shell.
It must not be forgotten that, as we have already seen, the primitive
shell-cults of the Erythræan Sea had been diffused throughout the
Mediterranean area long before Aphrodite was born upon the shores of the
Levant, and possibly before Hathor came into existence in the south. The
use of the cowry and gold models of the cowry goes back to an early time
in Ægean history.[299] And the influence of Aphrodite's early
associations had become blurred and confused by the development of new
links with other shells and their surrogates.
But the connexion of Aphrodite with the octopus and its kindred played a
very obtrusive part in Minoan and Mycenæan art; and its influence was
spread abroad as far as Western Europe[300] and towards the East as far
as America. In many ways it was a factor in the development of such
artistic designs as the spiral and the volute, and not improbably also
of the swastika.
[Illustration: Fig. 22.--(a) _Sepia officinalis_, after Tryon,
"Cephalopoda".
(b) _Loligo vulgaris_, after Tryon.
(c) The position usually adopted by the resting Octopus, after Tryon.]
Starting from the researches of Tümpel, a distinguished French
zoologist, Dr. Frédéric Houssay,[301] sought to demonstrate that the
cult of Aphrodite was "based upon a pre-existing zoological philosophy".
The argument in support of his claim that Aphrodite was a
personification of the octopus must be sharply differentiated into two
parts: first, the reality of the association of the octopus with the
goddess, of which there can be no doubt; and secondly, his explanation
of it, which (however popular it may be with classical writers and
modern scholars)[302] is not only a gratuitous assumption, but also,
even if it were based upon more valid evidence than the speculations
of such recent writers as Pliny, would not really carry the explanation
very far.
I refer to his claim that "les premiers conquérants de la mer furent
induits en vénération du poulpe nageur (octopus) parce qu'ils crurent
que quelque-uns de ces céphalopodes, les poulpes sacrés (argonauta)
avaient, comme eux et avant eux, inventé la navigation" (_op. cit._, p.
15). Idle fancies of this sort do not help us to understand the
arbitrary beliefs concerning the magical powers of the octopus.
The real problem we have to solve is to discover why, among all the
multitude of bizarre creatures to be found in the Mediterranean Sea, the
octopus and its allies should thus have been singled out for distinctive
appreciation, and also acquired the same remarkable attributes as the
cowry.
I believe that the Red Sea "Spider shell," _Pterocera_,[303] was the
link between the cowry and the octopus. This shell was used, like the
cowry, for funerary purposes in Egypt and as a trumpet in India.[304]
But it was also depicted upon a series of remarkable primitive statues
of the god Min, which were found at Coptos during the winter 1893-4 by
Professor Flinders Petrie.[305] Some of these objects are now in the
Cairo Museum and the others in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. They are
supposed to be late predynastic representations of the god Min. If this
supposition is correct they are the earliest idols (apart from mere
amulets) that have been preserved from antiquity.
Upon these statues, representations of the Red Sea shell _Pterocera
bryonia_ are sculptured in low relief. Mr. F. Ll. Griffith is
disinclined to accept my suggestion that the object of these pictures of
the shell was to animate the statues. But whether this was their purpose
or not, it is probably not without some significance that these
life-giving shells were associated with so obtrusively phallic a deity
as Min. In any case they afford concrete evidence of cultural contact
between Coptos and the Red Sea, and indicate that these particular
shells were chosen as symbols of that sea or its coast.
[Illustration: Fig. 5--Pterocera Bryonia. the Red Sea Spider-shell.
_Col._--the columella 1-7--the "claws".]
The distinctive feature of the _Pterocera_ is that the mantle in the
adult expands into a series of long finger-like processes each of which
secretes a calcareous process or "claw". There are seven[306] of these
claws as well as the long columella (Fig. 5). Hence, when the
shell-cults were diffused from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean (where
the _Pterocera_ is not found), it is quite likely that the people of the
Levant may have confused with the octopus some sailor's account of the
eight-rayed shell (or perhaps representations of it on some amulet or
statue). Whether this is the explanation of the confusion or not, it is
certain that the beliefs associated with the cowry and the octopus in
the Ægean area are identical with those linked up with the cowry and the
_Pterocera_ in the Red Sea.
I have already mentioned that the mandrake is believed to possess the
same magical powers. Sir James Frazer has called attention to the fact
that in Armenia the bryony (_Bryonia alba_) is a surrogate of the
mandrake and is credited with the same attributes.[307] Lovell Reeve
("Conchologia Iconica," VI, 1851) refers to the Red Sea _Pterocera_ as
the "Wild Vine Root" species, previously known as _Strombus radix
bryoniae_; and Chemnitz ("Conch. Cab.," 1788, Vol. X, p. 227) says the
French call it "Racine de brione femelle imparfaite," and refer to it as
"the maiden". Here then is further evidence that this shell (a) was
associated in some way with a surrogate of the mandrake (Aphrodite), and
(b) was regarded as a maiden. Thus clearly it has a place in the
chequered history of Aphrodite. I have suggested the possibility of its
confusion with the octopus, which may have led to the inclusion of the
latter within the scope of the marine creatures in Aphrodite's cultural
equipment. According to Matthioli (Lib. 2, p. 135), another of
Aphrodite's creatures, the purple shell-fish, was also known as "the
maiden". By Pliny it is called Pelogia, in Greek [Greek: porphyra]; and
[Greek: porphyrômata] was the term applied to the flesh of swine that
had been sacrificed to Ceres and Proserpine (Hesych.). In fact, the
purple-shell was "the maiden" and also "the sow": in other words it was
Aphrodite. The use of the term "maiden" for the _Pterocera_ suggests a
similar identification. To complete this web of proof it may be noted
that an old writer has called the mandrake the plant of Circe, the
sorceress who turned men into swine by a magic draught.[308] Thus we
have a series of shells, plants, and marine creatures accredited with
identical magical properties, and each of them known in popular
tradition as "the maiden". They are all culturally associated with
Aphrodite.
I shall have occasion (_infra_, p. 177) to refer to M. Siret's account
of the discovery of the Ægean octopus-motif upon Æneolithic objects in
Spain, and of the widespread use in Western Europe of certain
conventional designs derived from the octopus. M. Siret also (see the
table, Fig. 6, on p. 34 of his book) makes the remarkable claim that the
conventional form of the Egyptian Bes, which, according to Quibell,[309]
is the god whose function it is to preside over sexual intercourse in
its purely physical aspect, is derived from the octopus. If this is
true--and I am bound to admit that it is far from being proved--it
suggests that the Red Sea littoral may have been the place of origin of
the cultural use of the octopus and an association with Hathor, for Bes
and Hathor are said to have been introduced into Egypt from there.[310]
That the octopus was actually identified with the Great Mother and also
with the dragon is revealed by the fact of the latter assuming an
octopus-form in Eastern Asia and Oceania, and by the occurrence of
octopus-motifs in the representation of the goddess in America. One of
the most remarkable series of pictures depicting the Great Mother is
found sculptured in low relief upon a number of stone slabs from Manabi
in Central America,[311] one of which I reproduce here (Fig. 21_b_).
The head of the goddess is a conventionalized octopus; to that was added
a body consisting of a _Loligo_; and, to give greater definiteness to
this remarkable process of building up the form of the goddess,
conventional representations of her arms and legs (and in some of the
sculptures also the _pudendum muliebre_) were added. Thus there can
be no doubt of the identification of this American Aphrodite and
the octopus.
In the Polynesian Rata-myth there is a very instructive series of
manifestations of the dragon.[312] The first form assumed by the monster
in this story was a gaping shell-fish of enormous size; then it appeared
as a mighty octopus; and lastly, as a whale, into whose jaws the hero
Nganaoa sprang, as his representatives are said to have done elsewhere
throughout the world (Frobenius, _op. cit._, pp. 59-219).
Houssay (_op. cit. infra_) calls attention to the fact that at times
Astarte was shown carrying an octopus as her emblem,[313] and has
suggested that it was mistaken for a hand, just as in America the
thunderbolt of Chac was given a hand-like form in the Dresden Codex
(_vide supra_. Fig. 13), and elsewhere (_e.g._ Fig. 12).
If this suggestion should prove to be well founded it would provide a
more convincing explanation of the girdle of hands worn by the Indian
goddess Kali[314] than that usually given. If the "hands" really
represent surrogates of the cowry, the wearing of such a girdle brings
the Indian goddess into line, not only with Astarte and Aphrodite, but
also with the East African maidens who still wear the girdle of cowries.
Kali's exploits were in many respects identical with those of the
bloodthirsty Sekhet-manifestation of the Egyptian goddess Hathor. Just
as Sekhet had to be restrained by Re for her excess of zeal in murdering
his foes, so Siva had to intervene with Kali upon the battlefield
flooded with gore (as also in the Egyptian story) to spare the remnant
of his enemies.[315]
[294: Sir James Frazer, "Jacob and the Mandrakes," _Proc. Brit.
Academy_.]
[295: K. Tümpel, "Die 'Muschel der Aphrodite,'" _Philologus, Zeitschrift
für das Classische Alterthum_, Bd. 51, 1892, p. 385: compare also, with
reference to the "Muschel der Aphrodite," O. Jahn, _SB. d. k. Sächs. G.
d. W._, VII, 1853, p. 16 ff.; also IX, 1855, p. 80; and Stephani,
_Compte rendu pour l'an 1870-71_, p. 17 ff.]
[296: See Jahn, _op. cit._, 1855, T. V, 6, and T. IV, 8: figures of the
so-called [Greek: Choirinai] (from [Greek: Choiros] in the double sense
as "pig" and "the female pudendum"): Aristophanes, Eq. 1147; Vesp. 332;
Pollux, 8, 16; Hesch. s.v.]
[297: The fact that no graphic representation of this event has been
found is surely a wholly inadequate reason for refusing to credit the
story. Very few episodes in the sacred history of the gods received
concrete expression in pictures or sculptures until relatively late. A
Hellenistic representation of the goddess emerging from a bivalve was
found in Southern Russia (Minns, "Scythians and Greeks," p. 345).
Tümpel cites the following statements: "te (Venus) ex concha natam esse
autumant: cave tu harum conchas spernas!" Tibull. 3, 3, 24: "et faveas
concha, Cypria, vecta tua"; Statius Silv. 1, 2, 117: Venus to
Violentilla, "haec et caeruleïs mecum consurgere digna fluctibus et
nostra potuit considere concha"; Fulgent. myth. 2, 4 "concha etiam
marina pingitur (Venus) portari (I. HS:--am portare)"; Paulus Diacon. p.
52, "M. Cytherea Venus ab urbe Cythera, in quam primum devecta esse
dicitur concha, cum in mari esset concepta cet".]
[298: From [Greek: ôdino]--"to have the pains of childbirth".]
[299: See Schliemann, "Ilios," p. 455; and Siret, _op. cit_.]
[300: Siret, _op. cit. supra_, p. 59.]
[301: "Les Théories de la Genèse à Mycènes et le sens zoologique de
certains symboles du culte d'Aphrodite," _Revue Archéologique_, 3^ie
série, T. XXVI, 1895, p. 13.]
[302: It was adduced also by Tümpel and others before him.]
[303: or _Pteroceras_.]
[304: Jackson, _op. cit._, p. 38.]
[305: "Koptos," pp. 7-9, Pls. III. and IV.: for a discussion of the
significance of these statues see Jean Capart, "Les Débuts de l'Art en
Égypte," Brussels, 1904, p. 216 _et seq._]
[306: This may help to explain the peculiar sanctity of the shell.]
[307: Frazer, _op. cit._, 4.]
[308: Just as Hathor (or her surrogate Horus) turned men into the
creatures of Set, _i.e._ pigs, crocodiles, _et cetera_.]
[309: "Excavations at Saqqara," 1905-1906, p. 14.]
[310: Maspero, "The Dawn of Civilization," p. 34.]
[311: Saville, "Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador," 1907.]
[312: A detailed summary of the literature relating to the world-wide
distribution of certain phases of the dragon-myth is given by Frobenius,
"Das Zeitalter des Sonnesgottes," Berlin, 1904: on pp. 63-5 he gives the
Rata-myth.]
[313: Which can also be compared with the conventional form of the
thunderbolt.]
[314: Of course the hands had the additional significance as trophies of
her murderous zeal. But I think this is a secondary rationalization of
their meaning. An excellent photograph of a bronze statue (in the
Calcutta Art Gallery), representing Kali with her girdle of hands, is
given by Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie, "Indian Myth and Legend," p. xl.]
[315: F. T. Elworthy has summarized the extensive literature relating to
hand-amulets ("The Evil Eye," 1895; and "Horns of Honour," 1900). Many
of these hands have the definite reputation as fertility charms which
one would expect if Houssay's hypothesis of their derivation from the
octopus is well founded.]
The Swastika.
Houssay (_op. cit. supra_) has made the interesting suggestion that the
swastika may have been derived from such conventionalized
representations of the octopus as are shown in Fig. 23. This series of
sketches is taken from Tümpel's memoir, which provided the foundation
for Houssay's hypothesis.
[Illustration: Fig. 23.--A series of Mycenæan conventionalizations of
the Argonaut and the Octopus (after Tümpel), which provided the basis
for Houssay's theory of the origin of the triskele (_a_, _c_, and _d_)
and swastika (b and e), and Siret's theory to explain the design of
Bes's face (f and g)]
A vast amount of attention has been devoted to this lucky symbol,[316]
which still enjoys a widespread vogue at the present day, after a
history of several thousand years. Although so much has been written in
attempted explanation of the swastika since Houssay made his suggestion,
so far as I am aware no one has paid the slightest attention to his
hypothesis or made even a passing reference to his memoir.[317]
Fantastic and far-fetched though it may seem at first sight (though
surely not more so than the strictly orthodox solar theory advocated by
Mr. Cook or Mrs. Nuttall's astral speculations) Houssay's suggestion
offers an explanation of some of the salient attributes of the swastika
on which the alternative hypotheses shed little or no light.
Among the earliest known examples of the symbol are those engraved upon
the so-called "owl-shaped" (but, as Houssay has conclusively
demonstrated, really octopus-shaped) vases and a metal figurine found by
Schliemann in his excavations of the hill at Hissarlik.[318] The
swastika is represented upon the _mons Veneris_ of these figures, which
represent the Great Mother in her form as a woman or as a pot, which is
an anthropomorphized octopus, one of the avatars of the Great Mother.
The symbol seems to have been intended as a fertility amulet like the
cowry, either suspended from a girdle or depicted upon a pubic shield or
conventionalized fig-leaf.
Wherever it is found the swastika is supposed to be an amulet to confer
"good luck" and long life. Both this reputation and the association with
the female organs of reproduction link up the symbol with the cowry, the
_Pterocera_, and the octopus. It is clear then that the swastika has the
same reputation for magic and the same attributes and associations as
the octopus; and it may be a conventionalized representation of it, as
Houssay has suggested.
It must not be assumed that the identification of the swastika with the
Great Mother and her powers of giving life and resurrection
_necessarily_ invalidates the solar and astral theories recently
championed by Mr. Cook and Mrs. Nuttall respectively. I have already
called attention to the fact that the Sun-god derived his existence and
all his attributes from his mother. The whole symbolism of the Winged
Disk and the Wheel of the Sun and their reputation for life-giving and
destruction were adopted from the Great Mother. These well-established
facts should prepare us to recognize that the admission of the truth of
Houssay's suggestion would not necessarily invalidate the more widely
accepted solar significance of the swastika.
Tümpel called attention to the fact that, when they set about
conventionalizing the octopus, the Mycenæan artists often resorted to
the practice of representing pairs of "arms" as units and so making
four-limbed and three-limbed forms (Fig. 23), which Houssay regards as
the prototypes of the swastika and the triskele respectively. That such
a process may have played a part in the development of the symbol is
further suggested by the form of a Transcaucasian swastika found by
Rössler,[319] who assigns it to the Late Bronze or Early Iron Age. Each
of the four limbs is bifurcated at its extremity. Moreover they exhibit
the series of spots, so often found upon or alongside the limbs of the
symbol, which suggest the conventional way of representing the suckers
of the octopus in the Mycenæan designs (Fig. 23).
Another remarkable picture of a swastika-like emblem has been found in
America.[320] The elephant-headed god sits in the centre and four pairs
of arms radiate from him, each of them equipped with definite suckers.
Another possible way in which the design of a four-limbed swastika may
have been derived from an octopus is suggested by the gypsum weight
found in 1901 by Sir Arthur Evans[321] in the West Magazine of the
palace at Knossos (_circa_ 1500 B.C.). Upon the surface of this weight
the form of an octopus has been depicted, four of the arms of which
stand out in much stronger relief than the others.
The number four has a peculiar mystical significance (_vide infra_, p.
206) and is especially associated with the Sun-god Horus. This fact may
have played some part in the process of reduction of the number of limbs
of the octopus to four; or alternatively it may have helped to emphasize
the solar associations of the symbol, which other considerations were
responsible for suggesting. The designs upon the pots from Hissarlik
show that at a relatively early epoch the swastika was confused with the
sun's disc represented as a wheel with four spokes.[322] But the solar
attributes of the swastika are secondary to those of life-giving and
luck-bringing, with which it was originally endowed as a form of the
Great Mother.
The only serious fact which arouses some doubt as to the validity of
Houssay's theory is the discovery of an early painted vase at Susa
decorated with an unmistakable swastika. Edmond Pottier, who has
described the ceramic ware from Susa,[323] regards this pot as
Proto-Elamite of the earliest period. If Pottier's claim is justified we
have in this isolated specimen from Susa the earliest example of the
swastika. Moreover, it comes from a region in which the symbol was
supposed to be wholly absent.
This raises a difficult problem for solution. Is the Proto-Elamite
swastika the prototype of the symbol whose world-wide migrations have
been studied by Wilson (_op. cit. supra_)? Or is it an instance of
independent evolution? If it falls within the first category and is
really the parent of the early Anatolian swastikas, how is it to be
explained? Was the conventionalization of the octopus design much more
ancient than the earliest Trojan examples of the symbol? Or was the
Susian design adopted in the West and given a symbolic meaning which it
did not have before then?
These are questions which we are unable to answer at present because the
necessary information is lacking. I have enumerated them merely to
suggest that any hasty inferences regarding the bearing of the Susian
design upon the general problem are apt to be misleading. Vincent[324]
claims that the fact of the swastika having been in use by ceramic
artists in Crete and Susiana many centuries before the appearance of
Mycenæan art is fatal to Houssay's hypothesis. But I think it is too
soon to make such an assumption. The swastika was already a rigidly
conventionalized symbol when we first know it both in the Mediterranean
and in Susiana. It may therefore have a long history behind it. The
octopus may possibly have begun to play a part in the development of
this symbolism before the Egyptian Bes (_vide supra_, p. 171) was
evolved, perhaps even before the time of the Coptos statues of Min
(_supra_, p. 169), or in the early days of Sumerian history when the
conventional form of the water-pot was being determined (_infra_, p.
179). These are mere conjectures, which I mention merely for the purpose
of suggesting that the time is not yet ripe for using such arguments as
Vincent's finally to dispose of Houssay's octopus-theory.
There can be no doubt that the symbolism of the Mycenæan spiral and the
volute is closely related to the octopus. In fact, the evidence provided
by Minoan paintings and Mycenæan decorative art demonstrates that the
spiral as a symbol of life-giving was definitely derived from the
octopus. The use of the volute on Egyptian scarabs[325] and also in the
decoration of an early Thracian statuette of a nude goddess[326]
indicate that it was employed like the spiral and octopus as a
life-symbol.
In Spanish graves of the Early and Middle Neolithic types M. Siret found
cowry-shells in association with a series of flint implements, crude
idols, and pottery almost precisely reproducing the forms of similar
objects found with cowries and pecten shells at Hissarlik.[327] But when
the Æneolithic phase of culture dawned in Spain, and the Ægean
octopus-motif made its appearance there, the culture as a whole reveals
unmistakable evidence of a predominantly Egyptian inspiration.
M. Siret claims, however, that, even in the Neolithic phase in Spain,
the crude idols represent forms derived from the octopus in the Eastern
Mediterranean (p. 59 _et seq._). He regards the octopus as "a
conventional symbol of the ocean, or, more precisely, of the fertilizing
watery principle" (p. 19). He elucidates a very interesting feature of
the Æneolithic representation of the octopus in Spain. The spiral-motif
of the Ægean gives place to an angular design, which he claims to be due
to the influence of the conventional Egyptian way of representing water
(p. 40). If this interpretation is correct--and, in spite of the
slenderness of the evidence, I am inclined to accept it--it affords a
remarkable illustration of the effects of culture-contact in the
conventionalization of designs, to which Dr. Rivers has called
attention.[328] Whatever explanation may be provided of this method of
representing the arms of the octopus with its angularly bent
extremities, it seems to have an important bearing on Houssay's
hypothesis of the swastika's origin. For it would reveal the means by
which the spiral or volute shape of the limbs of the swastika became
transformed into the angular form, which is so characteristic of the
conventional symbol.[329]
The significance of the spiral as a form of the Great Mother inevitably
led to its identification with the thunder weapon, like all her other
surrogates. I have already referred (Chapter II, p. 98) to the
association of the spiral with thunder and lightning in Eastern Asia.
But other factors played a significant part in determining this
specialization. In Egypt the god Amen was identified with the ram; and
this creature's spirally curved horn became the symbol of the
thunder-god throughout the Mediterranean area,[330] and then further
afield in Europe, Africa, and Asia, where, for instance, we see Agni's
ram with the characteristic horn. This blending of the influence of the
octopus- and the ram's-horn-motifs made the spiral a conventional
representation of thunder. This is displayed in its most definite form
in China, Japan, Indonesia, and America, where we find the separate
spiral used as a thunder-symbol, and the spiral appendage on the side of
the head as a token of the god of thunder.[331]
[316: Thomas Wilson ("The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and its
Migrations; with Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in
Prehistoric Times," _Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1894_,
Washington, 1896) has given a full and well-illustrated summary of most
of the literature: further information is provided by Count d'Alviella
(_op. cit. supra_), "The Migration of Symbols"; by Zelia Nuttall ("The
Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations,"
_Archæological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum_,
Cambridge, Mass., 1901); and Arthur Bernard Cook ("Zeus, A Study in
Ancient Religion," Vol. I, Cambridge, 1914, pp. 472 _et seq._).]
[317: Since this has been printed Mr. W. J. Perry has called my
attention to a short article by René Croste ("Le Svastika," _Bull.
Trimestriel de la Société Bayonnaise d'Études Regionales_, 1918), in
which Houssay's hypothesis is mentioned as having been adopted by
Guilleminot ("Les Nouveaux Horizons de la Science").]
[318: Wilson (_op. cit._, pp. 829-33 and Figs. 125, 128, and 129) has
collected the relevant passages and illustrations from Schliemann's
writings.]
[319: _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. 37, p. 148.]
[320: Seler, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd., 41, p. 409.]
[321: _Corolla Numismatica_, 1906, p. 342.]
[322: A. B. Cook, "Zeus," pp. 198 _et seq_.]
[323: "Etude Historique et Chronologique sur les Vases Peints de
l'Acropole de Suse," _Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse_, T. XIII,
_Rech. Archéol._, 5^e série, 1912, Plate XLI, Fig. 3.]
[324: "Canaan," p. 340, footnote.]
[325: Alice Grenfell, _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. II, 1915,
p. 217: and _Ancient Egypt_, 1916, Part I, p. 23.]
[326: S. Reinach, _Revue Archéol._, T. XXVI, 1895, p. 369.]
[327: L. Siret, "Questions de Chronologie et d'Ethnographie Ibériques,"
1913, p. 18, Fig. 3.]
[328: Rivers, "History of Melanesian Society," Vol. II, p. 374; also
_Report Brit. Association_, 1912, p. 599.]
[329: M. Siret assigns the date of the appearance in Spain of the highly
conventionalized angular form of octopus to the time between the
fifteenth and the twelfth centuries B.C.; and he attributes it to
Phœnician influence (p. 63).]
[330: Cook, "Zeus," p. 346 _et seq._]
[331: This is well shown upon the Copan representations (Fig. 19) of the
elephant-headed god--see _Nature_, November, 25, 1915, p. 340.]
The Mother Pot.
In the lecture on "Incense and Libations" (Chapter I) I referred to the
enrichment of the conception of water's life-giving properties which the
inclusion of the idea of human fertilization by water involved. When
this event happened a new view developed in explanation of the part
played by woman in reproduction. She was no longer regarded as the real
parent of mankind, but as the matrix in which the seed was planted and
nurtured during the course of its growth and development. Hence in the
earliest Egyptian hieroglyphic writing the picture of a pot of water was
taken as the symbol of womanhood, the "vessel" which received the seed.
A globular water-pot, the common phonetic value of which is _Nw_ or
_Nu_, was the symbol of the cosmic waters, the god _Nw (Nu)_, whose
female counterpart was the goddess _Nut_.
In his report, "A Collection of Hieroglyphs,"[332] Mr. F. Ll. Griffith
discusses the bowl of water (a) and says that it stands for the female
principle in the words for _vulva_ and woman. When it is recalled that
the cowry (and other shells) had the same double significance, the
possibility suggests itself whether at times confusion may not have
arisen between the not very dissimilar hieroglyphic signs for "a shell"
(h) and "the bowl of water" (woman) (f).[333]
[Illustration: Fig. 6.
(a) Picture of a bowl of water--the hieroglyphic sign equivalent to _hm_
(the word _hmt_ means "woman")--Griffith, "Beni Hasan," Part III, Plate
VI, Fig. 88 and p. 29.
(b) "A basket of sycamore figs"--Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," Vol.
I, p. 323.
(c) and (d) are said by Wilkinson to be hieroglyphic signs meaning
"wife" and are apparently taken from (b). But (c) is identical with (i),
which, according to Griffith (p. 14), represents a bivalve shell (g,
from Plate III, Fig. 3), more usually placed obliquely (h). The varying
conventionalizations of (a) or (b) are shown in (d), (e), and (f)
(Griffith, "Hieroglyphics," p. 34).
(k) The sign for a lotus leaf, which is a phonetic equivalent of the
sign (h), and, according to Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 26), "is
probably derived from the same root, on account of its shell-like
outline".
(l) The hieroglyphic sign for a pot of water in such words as _Nu_
and _Nut_.
(m) A "pomegranate" (replacing a bust of Tanit) upon a sacred column at
Carthage (Arthur J. Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 46).
(n) The form of the body of an octopus as conventionalized on the coins
of Central Greece (compare Fig. 24 (d)). Its similarity to the Egyptian
pot-sign (l) (which also has the significance of mother-goddess) is
worthy of note.]
Referring to the sign (g and h) for "a shell," Mr. Griffith says (p.
25): "It is regularly found at all periods in the word _ḫaw·t_ =
altar,[334] and perhaps only in this word: but it is a peculiarity of
the Pyramid Texts that the sign shown in the text-figures _c_, _h_,
and _i_ is in them used very commonly, not as a word-sign, but also
as a phonetic equivalent to the sign labelled _k_ (in the text-figure)
for _ḫ'_ (_kha_), or apparently for _ḫ_ alone in many words.
"The name of the lotus leaf is probably derived from the same root, on
account of its shell-like outline or _vice versa_."
[Illustration: Fig. 7.
(a) An Egyptian design representing the sun-god Horus emerging from a
lotus, representing his mother Hathor (Isis).
(b) Papyrus sceptre often carried by goddesses and animistically
identified with them either as an instrument of life-giving or
destruction.
(c) Conventionalized lily--the prototype of the trident and the
thunder-weapon.
(d) A water-plant associated with the Nile-gods.]
The familiar representation of Horus (and his homologues in India and
elsewhere) being born from the lotus suggests that the flower represents
his mother Hathor. But as the argument in these pages has led us towards
the inference that the original form of Hathor was a shell-amulet,[335]
it seems not unlikely that her identification with the lotus may have
arisen from the confusion between the latter and the cowry, which no
doubt was also in part due to the belief that both the shell and the
plant were expressions of the vital powers of the water in which they
developed.
The identification of the Great Mother with a pot was one of the factors
that played a part in the assimilation of her attributes with those of
the Water God, who in early Sumerian pictures was usually represented
pouring the life-giving waters from his pot (Fig. 24, _h_ and _l_).
[Illustration:
Fig. 24.
(a) and (b) Two Mycenæan pots (after Schliemann).
(a) The so-called "owl-shaped" vase is really a representation of the
Mother-Pot in the form of a conventionalized Octopus (Houssay).
(b) The other vase represents the Octopus Mother-Pot, with a jar upon
her head and another in her hands--a three-fold representation of the
Great Mother as a pot.
(c) A Cretan vase from Gournia in which the Octopus-motive is
represented as a decoration upon the pot instead of in its form.
(d), (e), (f), (g), and (h) A series of coins from Central Greece (after
Head) showing a series of conventionalizations of the Octopus, with its
pot-like body and palm-tree-like arms (f).
(i) _Sepia officinalis_ (after Tryon).
(k) and (l) The so-called "spouting vases" in the hands of the
Babylonian god Ea, from a cylinder seal of the time of Gudea, Patesi of
Tello, after Ward ("Seal Cylinders, etc.," p. 215).
The "spouting vases" have been placed in conjunction with the Sepia to
suggest the possibility of confusion with a conventionalized drawing of
the latter in the blending of the symbolism of the water-jar and
cephalopods in Western Asia and the Mediterranean.]
This idea of the Mother Pot is found not only in Babylonia, Egypt,
India,[336] and the Eastern Mediterranean, but wherever the influence of
these ancient civilizations made itself felt. It is widespread among the
Celtic-speaking peoples. In Wales the pot's life-giving powers are
enhanced by making its rim of pearls. But as the idea spread, its
meaning also became extended. At first it was merely a jug of water or a
basket of figs, but elsewhere it became also a witch's cauldron, the
magic cup, the Holy Grail, the font in which a child is reborn into the
faith, the vessel of water here being interpreted in the earliest sense
as the uterus or the organ of birth. The Celtic pot, so Mr. Donald
Mackenzie tells me, is closely associated with cows, serpents, frogs,
dragons, birds, pearls, and "nine maidens that blow the fire under the
cauldron"; and, if the nature of these relationships be examined, each
of them will be found to be a link between the pot and the Great Mother.
The witch's cauldron and the maidens who assist in the preparation of
the witch's medicine seem to be the descendants respectively of Hathor's
pots (in the story of the Destruction of Mankind) and the Sekti who
churn up the _didi_ and the barley with which to make the elixir of
immortality and the sedative draught for the destructive goddess
herself.
Mr. Donald Mackenzie has given me a number of additional references from
Celtic and Indian literature in corroboration of these widespread
associations of the pot with the Great Mother; and he reminds me that in
Oceania the coco-nut has the same reputation as the pot in the Indian
_Mahābhārata_. It is the source of food and anything else that is
wanted, and its supply can never be exhausted. [On some future occasion
I hope to make use of the wonderful legends of the pot's life-giving
powers, to which Mr. Mackenzie has directed my attention. At present,
however, I must content myself with the statement that the pot's
identity with the Great Mother is deeply rooted in ancient belief
throughout the greater part of the world.[337]]
The diverse conceptions of the Great Mother as a pot and as an octopus
seem to have been blended in Mycenæan lands, where the so-called
"owl-shaped" pots were clearly intended to represent the goddess in both
these aspects united in one symbol. When the diffusion of these ideas
into more remote parts of the world took place syntheses with other
motives produced a great variety of most complex forms. In Honduras
pottery vessels have been found[338] which give tangible expression to
the blending of the ideas of the Mother Pot, the crocodile-like
_Makara_, star-spangled like Hathor's cow, Aphrodite's pig, and Soma's
deer, and provided with the deer's antlers of the Eastern Asiatic dragon
(see Chapter II, p. 103).
The New Testament sets forth the ancient conception of birth and
rebirth. When Nicodemus asks: "How can a man be born again when he is
old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" he
is told: "Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh:
and that which is born of the spirit is spirit" (John iii. 4, 5, and 6).
The phrase "born of water" refers to the birth "of the flesh"; and the
mother's womb is the vessel containing "the water" from which the new
life emerges. Plutarch states, with reference to the birth of Isis:
"[Greek: tetartê de tên Isin en panygrois genesthai]". The great waters
which produced all living things, the Egyptian god Nun and the goddess
Nut, were expressed in hieroglyphic as pots of water. The goddess was
identified with Hathor's celestial star-spangled cow, the original
mother of the sun-god; and the word "Nun" was a symbol of all that was
new, young, and fresh, and the fertilizing and life-giving waters of the
annual inundation of the Nile. Hathor was the daughter of these waters,
as Aphrodite was sprung from the sea-foam.
[332: _Archæol. Survey of Egypt_, 1898, p. 3.]
[333: Compare the two-fold meaning of the Latin _testa_ as "shell" and
"bowl".]
[334: Compare the association of shells with altars in Minoan Crete and
the widespread use of large shells as bowls for "holy water" in
Christian churches.]
[335: Miss Winifred M. Crompton, Assistant Keeper of the Egyptian
Department of the Manchester Museum, has called my attention to a
remarkable piece of evidence which affords additional corroboration of
the view that Hathor was a development of the cowry-amulet. Upon the
famous archaic palette of Narmer (Fig. 18), a sporran, composed of four
representations of Hathor's head, takes the place of the original
cowries that were suspended from more primitive girdles.
The cowries of the head ornament of primitive peoples of Africa and Asia
(and of the Mediterranean area in early times--Schliemann's "Ilios,"
Fig. 685) are often replaced in Egypt by lotus flowers (W. D. Spanton,
"Water Lilies of Egypt," _Ancient Egypt_, 1917, Part I, Figs. 19, 20,
and 21). Upon the head-band of the statue of Nefert, which I have
reproduced in Chapter I (Fig. 4), a conventional lotus design is found
(see Spanton's Fig. 19), which is almost identical with the classical
thunder-weapon.]
[336: Among the Dravidian people at the present day the seven goddesses
(corresponding to the seven Hathors) are often represented by seven
pots.]
[337: The luxuriant crop of stories of the Holy Grail was not inspired
originally by mere literary invention. A tradition sprung from the
fountain-head of all mythology, the parent-story of the Destruction of
Mankind, provided the materials which a series of writers elaborated
into the varied assortment of legends of the Mother Pot. The true
meaning of the Quest of the Holy Grail can be understood only by reading
the fabled accounts of it in the light of the ancient search for the
elixir of life and the historical development of the narrative
describing that search.
A concise summary of the Grail literature will be found in Jessie L.
Weston's "The Quest of the Holy Grail" (1913). Her theory will be found,
after some slight modifications, to fall into line with the general
argument of this book.
Mr. F. Ll. Griffith tells me that the Egyptian hieroglyphic for the verb
"coire cum" gives frank expression to the real meaning of the symbolism
of the pot as the matrix which receives the seed. The same idea provides
the material for the incident of the birth of Drona (the pot-born) in
the Adi Parva (Sections CXXXI, CXXXIX, and CLXVIII, in Roy's
translation) of the Mahabharata, to which Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie has
kindly called my attention. Drona was conceived in a pot from the seed
of a Rishi. A widespread variant of the same story is the conception of
a child from a drop of blood in a pot (see, for example, Hartland,
"Legend of Perseus," Vol. I, pp. 98 and 144). If the pot can thus create
a human being, it is easy to understand how it acquired its reputation
of being also able to multiply food and provide an inexhaustible supply.
Similarly, all substances, such as barley, rice, gold, pearls, and jade,
to which the possession of a special vital essence or "soul substance"
was attributed, were believed to be able to reproduce themselves and so
increase in quantity of their own activities. As "givers of life" they
were also able to add to their own life-substance, in other words to
grow like any other living being.]
[338: "An American Dragon," _Man_, November, 1918.]
Artemis and the Guardian of the Portal.
Sir Gardner Wilkinson states (see text-figure, p. 179, _b_) that "a
basket of sycamore figs" was originally the hieroglyphic sign for a
woman, a goddess, or a mother. Later on (p. 199) I shall refer to the
possible bearing of this Egyptian idea upon the origin of the Hebrew
word for mandrakes and the allusion to "a basket of figs" in the Book
of Jeremiah.
The life-giving powers attributed to "love-apples" and the association
of these ideas with the fig-tree may have facilitated the transference
of these attributes of "apples" to those actually growing upon a tree.
We know that Aphrodite was intimately associated, not only with
"love-apples," but also with real apples. The sun-god Apollo's connexion
with the apple-tree, which Dr. Rendel Harris, with great daring, wants
to convert into an identity of name, was probably only one of the
results of that long series of confusions between the Great Mother
(Hathor) and the Sun-god (Horus), to which I have referred in my
discussion of the dragon-story.
But when Apollo's form emerges more clearly he is associated not with
Aphrodite but with Artemis, whom Dr. Rendel Harris has shown to be
identified with the mugwort, _Artemisia_. The association of the goddess
with this plant is probably related to the identification of Sekhet with
the marsh-plants of the Egyptian Delta and of Hathor and Isis with the
lotus and other water plants. Any doubt as to the reality of these
associations and Egyptian connexions is banished by the evidence of
Artemis's male counterpart Apollo Hyakinthos and his relations to the
sacred lily and other water plants.[339] Artemis was a gynæcological
specialist: for she assisted women not only in childbirth and the
expulsion of the placenta, but also in cases of amenorrhœa and
affections of the uterus. She was regarded as the goddess of the portal,
not merely of birth,[340] but also of gold and treasure, of which she
possessed the key, and of the year (January).
This brings us back to the guardianship of gold and treasures which
plays so vital a part in the evolution of the Mediterranean goddesses.
For, like the story of the dog and the mandrake, it emphasizes the
conchological ancestry of these deities and their connexion with the
guardians of the subterranean palaces where pearls are found. But
Artemis was not only the opener of the treasure-houses, but she also
possessed the secret of the philosopher's stone: she could transmute
base substances into gold,[341] for was she not the offspring of the
Golden Hathor? To open the portal either of birth or wealth she used her
magic wand or key. As _Nūb_, the lady of gold, the Great Mother could
not only change other substances into gold, but she was also the
guardian of the treasure house of gold, pearls, and precious stones.
Hence she could grant riches. Elsewhere in this chapter (p. 221) I shall
explain how the goddess came to be identified with gold.
Just as Hathor, the Eye of Re, descended to provide the elixir of youth
for the king who was the sun-god, so Artemis is described as
travelling through the air in a car drawn by two serpents[342] seeking
the most pious of kings in order that she might establish her cult with
him and bless him with renewed youth.[343]
Artemis was a moon-goddess closely related to Britomartis and Diktynna,
the Cretan prototype of Aphrodite. These goddesses afforded help to
women in childbirth and were regarded as guardians of the portal. The
goddess of streams and marshes was identified with the mugwort
(_Artemisia_), which was hung above the door in the place occupied at
other times by the winged disk, the thunder-stone, or a crocodile
(dragon). As the guardian of portals Artemis's magic plant could open
locks and doors. As the giver of life she could also withhold the vital
essence and so cause disease or death; but she possessed the means of
curing the ills she inflicted. Artemis, in fact, like all the other
goddesses, was a witch.
In former lectures[344] I have often discussed the remarkable feature of
Egyptian architecture, which is displayed in the tendency to exaggerate
the door-posts and lintels, until in the New Empire the great temples
become transformed into little more than monstrously overgrown doorways
or pylons. I need not emphasize again the profound influence exerted by
this line of development upon the Dravidian temples of India and the
symbolic gateways of China and Japan.
[Illustration: Fig. 25.
(a) Winged Disk from the Temple of Thothmes I.
(b) Persian design of Winged Disk above the Tree of Life (Ward, "Seal
Cylinders of Western Asia," Fig. 1109).
(c) Assyrian or Syro-Hittite design of the Winged Disk and Tree of Life
in an extremely conventionalized form (Ward, Fig. 1310).
(d) Assyrian conventionalized Winged Disk and Tree of Life, from the
design upon the dress of Assurnazipal (Ward, Fig. 670).
(e) Part of the design from a tablet of the time of Dungi (Ward, Fig.
663). The Tree of Life (or the Great Mother) between the two mountains:
alongside the tree is the heraldic eagle.
(f) Design on a Cretan sarcophagus from Hagia Triada (Blinkenberg, Fig.
9). The Tree of Life has now become the handle of the Double Axe, into
which the Winged Disk has been transformed. But the bird which was the
prototype of the Winged Disk has been added.
(g) Double axe from a gold signet from Acropolis Treasure, Mycenæ (after
Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 10).
(h) Assyrian Winged Disk (Ward, Fig. 608) showing reduplication of the
wing-pattern, possibly suggesting the doubling of each axe-blade in _g_.
(i) "Primitive Chaldean Winged Gate" (Ward, Fig. 349). The Gate as the
Goddess of the Portal.
(k) Persian Winged Disk (Ward, Fig. 1144) above a fire-altar in the form
suggestive of the mountains of dawn (compare Fig. 26, _c_).
(l) An Assyrian Tree of Life and Winged Disk crudely conventionalized
(Ward, Fig. 695).
(m) Assyrian Tree of Life and "Winged Disk" in which the god is riding
in a crescent replacing the Disk (Ward, Fig. 695).]
This significance of gates was no doubt suggested by the idea that they
represented the means of communication between the living and the dead,
and, symbolically, the portal by which the dead acquired a rebirth into
a new form of existence. It was presumably for this reason that the
winged disk as a symbol of life-giving, was placed above the lintels of
these doors, not merely in Egypt, Phœnicia, the Mediterranean Area, and
Western Asia, but also in America,[345] and in modified forms in India,
Indonesia, Melanesia, Cambodia, China, and Japan.
The discussion (Chapter II) of the means by which the winged disk came
to acquire the power of life-giving, "the healing in its wings," will
have made it clear that the sun became accredited with these virtues
only when it assumed the place of the other "Eye of Re," the Great
Mother. In fact, it was a not uncommon practice in Egypt to represent
the eyes of Re or of Horus himself in place of the more usual winged
disk. In the Ægean area the original practice of representing the Great
Mother was retained long after it was superseded in Egypt by the use of
the winged disk (the sun-god).
Over the lintel of the famous "Lion Gate" at Mycenæ, instead of the
winged disk, we find a vertical pillar to represent the Mother Goddess,
flanked by two lions which are nothing more than other representatives
of herself (Fig. 26). [Illustration: Fig. 26.
(a) An Egyptian picture of Hathor between the mountains of the horizon
(on which trees are growing) (after Budge, "Gods of the Egyptians," Vol.
II, p. 101). [This is a part only of a scene in which the goddess Nut is
giving birth to the sun, whose rays illuminate Hathor on the horizon, as
Sothis, the "Opener of the Way" for the sun.]
(b) The mountains of the horizon supporting a cow's head as a surrogate
of Hathor, from a stele found at Teima in Northern Arabia, now in the
Louvre (after Sir Arthur Evans, _op. cit._, p. 39). This indicates the
identity of what Evans calls "the horns of consecration" and the
"mountains of the horizon," and also suggests how confusion may have
arisen between the mountains and the cow's horns.
(c) The Mesopotamian sun-god Shamash rising between the Eastern
Mountains, the Gates of Dawn (Ward, _op. cit._, p. 373).
(d) The familiar Egyptian representation of the sun rising between the
Eastern Mountains (the splitting of the mountain giving birth to "the
ridiculous mouse"--Smintheus). The _ankh_ (life-sign) below the sun is
the determinative of the act of giving birth or life. The design is
heraldically supported by the Great Mother's lionesses.
(e) Part of the design from a Mycenæan vase from Old Salamis (after
Evans, p. 9). The cow's head and the Eastern Mountains are shown
alongside one another, each of them supporting the Double Axe
representing the god.
(f) Part of the design from a lentoid gem from the Idæan Cave, now in
the Candia Museum (after Evans, Fig. 25). If this design be compared
with the Egyptian picture (a), it will be seen that Hathor's place is
taken by the tree-form of the Great Mother, and the trees which in the
former (a) are growing upon the Eastern Mountains are now placed
alongside the "horns". In the complete design (_vide_ Evans, _op. cit._,
p. 44) a votary is represented blowing a conch-shell trumpet to animate
the deity in the sacred tree.
(g) The Eastern Mountains supporting the pillar-form of the goddess
(after Evans, Fig. 66).
(h) Another Mycenæan design comparable with (e).
(i) Design from a signet-ring from Mycenæ (after Evans, Fig. 34). If
this be compared with the Egyptian picture (a) it will be noted that the
Great Mother is now replaced by a tree: the Eastern Mountains by bulls,
from whose backs the trees of the Eastern Mountains are sprouting. This
design affords interesting corroboration of the suggestion that the
Eastern Mountains may be confused with the cow's head (see _b_ and _c_)
or with the cow itself. Newberry (_Annals of Archæology and
Anthropology_, Liverpool, Vol. I, p. 28) has called attention to the
intimate association (in Protodynastic Egypt) of the Eastern Mountains,
the Bull and the Double Axe--a certain token of cultural contact
with Crete.
(k) The famous sculpture above the Lion Gate at Mycenæ. The pillar form
of the Great Mother heraldically supported by her lioness-avatars, which
correspond to the cattle of the design (i) and the Eastern Mountains of
(a). The use of this design above the lintel of the gate brings it into
homology with the Winged Disk. The Pillar represents the Goddess, as the
Disk represents her Egyptian _locum tenens_, Horus; her destructive
representatives (the lionesses) correspond to the two uræi of the Winged
Disk design.]
In his "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," Sir Arthur Evans has shown that
all possible transitional forms can be found (in Crete and the Ægean
area) between the representation of the actual goddess and her
pillar-and tree-manifestations, until the stage is reached where the sun
itself appears above the pillar between the lions.[346] In the large
series of seals from Mesopotamia and Western Asia which have been
described in Mr. William Hayes Ward's monograph,[347] we find manifold
links between both the Egyptian and the Minoan cults.
The tree-form of the Great Mother there becomes transformed into the
"tree of life" and the winged disk is perched upon its summit. Thus we
have a duplication of the life-giving deities. The "tree of life" of the
Great Mother surmounted by the winged disk which is really her surrogate
or that of the sun-god, who took over from her the power of life-giving
(Figs. 25 and 26).
In an interesting Cretan sarcophagus from Hagia Triada[348] the
life-giving power is _tripled_. There is not only the tree representing
the Great Mother herself; but also the double axe (the winged-disk
homologue of the sun-god); and the more direct representation of him as
a bird perched upon the axe (Fig. 25, _f_).
The identification of the Great Mother with the tree or pillar seems
also to have led to her confusion with the pestle with which the
materials for her draught of immortality was pounded. She was also the
bowl or mortar in which the pestle worked.[349]
As the Great Mother became confused with the pestle, so, "the
Soma-plant, whose stalks are crushed by the priests to make the
Soma-libation, becomes in the _Vedas_ itself the Crusher or Smiter, by a
very characteristic and frequent Oriental conceit in accordance with
which the agent and the person or thing acted on are identified".[350]
"The pressing-stones by means of which Soma is crushed typify
thunderbolts." "In the _Rig-Veda_, we read of him [Soma] as
_jyotihrathah_, _i.e._ 'mounted on a car of light' (IX, 5, 86, verse
43); or again: 'Like a hero he holds weapons in his hand ... mounted on
a chariot' (IX, 4, 76, verse 2)"--(p. 171).
"Soma was the giver of power, of riches and treasures, flocks and herds,
but above all, the giver of immortality" (p. 140).
Sir Arthur Evans is of opinion "that in the case of the Cypriote
cylinders the attendant monsters and, to a certain extent, the symbolic
column itself, are taken from an Egyptian solar cycle, and the inference
has been drawn that the aniconic pillars among the Mycenæans of Cyprus
were identified with divinities having some points in common with the
sun-gods Ra, or Horus, and Hathor, the Great Mother" (_op. cit._, pp. 63
and 64).
In attempting to find some explanation of how the tree or pillar of the
goddess came to be replaced in the Indian legend by Mount Meru, the
possibility suggests itself whether the aniconic form of the Great
Mother placed between two relatively diminutive hills may not have
helped, by confusion, to convert the cone itself into a yet bigger hill,
which was identified with Mount Meru, the summit of which in other
legends produced the _amrita_ of the gods, either in the form of the
soma plant that grew upon its heights, or the rain clouds which
collected there. But, as the subsequent argument will make clear, the
real reason for the identification of the Great Mother with a mountain
was the belief that the sun was born from the splitting of the eastern
mountain, which thus assumed the function of the sun-god's mother.
Possibly the association of the tops of mountains with cloud- and
rain-phenomena and the gods that controlled them played some part in
the development of the symbolism of mountains. [When I referred (in
Chapter II, p. 98) to the fact that what Sir Arthur Evans calls "the
horns of consecration" was primarily the split mountain of the dawn, I
was not aware that Professor Newberry ("Two Cults of the Old Kingdom,"
_Annals of Archæology and Anthropology_, Liverpool, Vol. I, 1908, p. 28)
had already suggested this identification.]
In the Egyptian story the god Re instructed the Sekti of Heliopolis to
pound the materials for the food of immortality. In the Indian version,
the gods, aware of their mortality, desired to discover some elixir
which would make them immortal. To this end, Mount Meru [the Great
Mother] was cast into the sea [of milk]. Vishnu, in his second avatar as
a tortoise[351] supported the mountain on his back; and the Nâga serpent
Vasuki was then twisted around the mountain, the gods seizing its head
and the demons his tail twirled the mountain until they had churned the
amrita or water of life. Wilfrid Jackson has called attention to the
fact that this scene has been depicted, not only in India and Japan, but
also in the Precolumbian _Codex Cortes_ drawn by some Maya artist in
Central America.[352]
The horizon is the birthplace of the gods; and the birth of the deity is
depicted with literal crudity as an emergence from the portal between
its two mountains. The mountain splits to give birth to the sun-god,
just as in the later fable the parturient mountain produced the
"ridiculous mouse" (Apollo Smintheus). The Great Mother is described as
giving birth--"the gates of the firmament are undone for Teti himself at
break of day" [that is when the sun-god is born on the horizon]. "He
comes forth from the Field of Earu" (Egyptian Pyramid Texts--Breasted's
translation).
In the domain of Olympian obstetrics the analogy between birth and the
emergence from the door of a house or the gateway of a temple is a
common theme of veiled reference. Artemis, for instance, is a goddess of
the portal, and is not only a helper in childbirth, but also grows in
her garden a magical herb which is capable of opening locks. This
reputation, however, was acquired not merely by reason of her skill in
midwifery, but also as an outcome of the legend[353] of the
treasure-house of pearls which was under the guardianship of the great
"giver of life" and of which she kept the magic key. She was in fact
the feminine form of Janus, the doorkeeper who presided over all
beginnings, whether of birth, or of any kind of enterprise or new
venture, or the commencement of the year (like Hathor). Janus was the
guardian of the door of Olympus itself, the gate of rebirth into the
immortality of the gods.
The ideas underlying these conceptions found expression in an endless
variety of forms, material, intellectual, and moral, wherever the
influence of civilization made itself felt. I shall refer only to one
group of these expressions that is directly relevant to the
subject-matter of this book. I mean the custom of suspending or
representing the life-giving symbol above the portal of temples and
houses. Thus the plant peculiar to Artemis herself, the mugwort or
Artemisia, was hung above the door,[354] just as the winged disk was
sculptured upon the lintel, or the thunder-stone was placed above the
door of the cowhouse[355] to afford the protection of the Great Mother's
powers of life-giving to her own cattle.
In the Pyramid Texts the rebirth of a dead pharaoh is described with
vivid realism and directness. "The waters of life which are in the sky
come. The waters of life which are in the earth come. The sky burns for
thee, the earth trembles for thee, before the birth of the god. The two
hills are divided, the god comes into being, the god takes possession of
his body. The two hills are divided, this Neferkere comes into being,
this Neferkere takes possession of his body. Behold this Neferkere--his
feet are kissed by the pure waters which are from Atum, which the
phallus of Shu made, which the vulva of Tefnut brought into being. They
have come, they have brought for thee the pure waters from their
father."[356]
The Egyptians entertained the belief[357] that the sun-god was born of
the celestial cow Mehetwēret, a name which means "Great Flood," and
is the equivalent of the primeval ocean Nun. In other words the
celestial cow Hathor, the embodiment of the life-giving waters of heaven
and earth, is the mother of Horus. So also Aphrodite was born of the
"Great Flood" which is the ocean.
In his report upon the hieroglyphs of Beni Hasan,[358] Mr. Griffith
refers to the picture of "a woman of the marshes," which is read
_sekht_, and is "used to denote the goddess Sekhet, the goddess of the
marshes, who presided over the occupations of the dwellers there. Chief
among these occupations must have been the capture of fish and fowl and
the culture and gathering of water-plants, especially the papyrus and
the lotus". Sekhet was in fact a rude prototype of Artemis in the
character depicted by Dr. Rendel Harris.[359]
It is perhaps not without significance that the root of a marsh plant,
the _Iris pseudacorus_[360] is regarded in Germany as a luck-bringer
which can take the place of the mandrake.[361]
The Great Mother wields a magic wand which the ancient Egyptian scribes
called the "Great Magician". It was endowed with the two-fold powers of
life-giving and opening, which from the beginning were intimately
associated the one with the other from the analogy of the act of birth,
which was both an opening and a giving of life. Hence the "magic wand"
was a key or "opener of the ways," wherewith, at the ceremonies of
resurrection, the mouth was opened for speech and the taking of food, as
well as for the passage of the breath of life, the eyes were opened for
sight, and the ears for hearing. Both the physical act of opening (the
"key" aspect) as well as the vital aspect of life-giving (which we may
call the "uterine" aspect) were implied in this symbolism. Mr. Griffith
suggests that the form of the magic wand may have been derived from that
of a conventionalized picture of the uterus,[362] in its aspect as a
giver of life. But it is possible also that its other significance as an
"opener of the ways" may have helped in the confusion of the
hieroglyphic uterus-symbol with the key-symbol, and possibly also with
double-axe symbol which the vaguely defined early Cretan Mother-Goddess
wielded. For, as we have already seen (_supra_, p. 122), the axe also
was a life-giving divinity and a magic wand (Fig. 8).
[Illustration: Fig. 8.
(a) "Ceremonial forked object," or "magic wand," used in the ceremony of
"opening the mouth," possibly connected with (b) (a bicornuate uterus),
according to Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 60).
(c) The Egyptian sign for a key.
(d) The double axe of Crete and Egypt.]
In his chapter on "the Origin of the Cult of Artemis," Dr. Rendel Harris
refers to the reputation of Artemis as the patron of travellers, and to
Parkinson's statement: "It is said of Pliny that if a traveller binde
some of the hearbe [Artemisia] with him, he shall feele no weariness at
all in his journey" (p. 72). Hence the high Dutch name _Beifuss_ is
applied to it.
The left foot of the dead was called "the staff of Hathor" by the
Egyptians; and the goddess was said "to make the deceased's legs to
walk".[363]
It was a common practice to tie flowers to a mummy's feet, as I
discovered in unwrapping the royal mummies. According to Moret (_op.
cit._) the flowers of Upper and Lower Egypt were tied under the king's
feet at the celebration of the Sed festival.
Mr. Battiscombe Gunn (quoted by Dr. Alan Gardiner) states that the
familiar symbol of life known as the _ankh_ represents the string of a
sandal.[364]
It seems to be worth considering whether the symbolism of the
sandal-string may not have been derived from the life-girdle, which in
ancient Indian medical treatises was linked in name with the female
organs of reproduction and the pubic bones. According to Moret (_op.
cit._, p. 91) a girdle furnished with a tail was used as a sign of
consecration or attainment of the divine life after death. Jung (_op.
cit._, p. 270), who, however, tries to find a phallic meaning in all
symbolism, claims that reference to the foot has such a significance.
[339: Evans, _op. cit._, p. 50.]
[340: Her Latin representative, Diana, had a male counterpart and
conjugate, Dianus, _i.e._ Janus, of whom it was said: "Ipse primum Janus
cum puerperium concipitur ... aditum aperit recipiendo semini". For
other quotations see Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p. 88 and the article
"Janus" in Roscher's "Lexikon".]
[341: Rendel Harris, p. 73.]
[342: No doubt the two uræi of the Saga of the Winged Disk.]
[343: A. B. Cook, "Zeus," Vol. I, p. 244.]
[344: _Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society_, 1916.]
[345: "The Influence of Egyptian Civilization in the East and in
America," _Bulletin of the John Rylands Library_, 1916.]
[346: Evans's, Fig. 41, p. 63.]
[347: "The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," 1910.]
[348: Paribeni, "Monumenti antichi dell'accademia dei Lincei," XIX,
punt. 1, pll. 1-3; and V. Duhn, "Arch. f. Religionswissensch.," XII, p.
161, pll. 2-4; quoted by Blinkenberg, "The Thunder Weapon," pp. 20 and
21, Fig. 9.]
[349: Without just reason, many writers have assumed that the pestle,
which was identified with the handle used in the churning of the ocean
(see de Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," Vol II, p. 361), was a
phallic emblem. This meaning may have been given to the handle of the
churn at a later period, when the churn itself was regarded as the
Mother Pot or uterus; but we are not justified in assuming that this was
its primary significance.]
[350: Gladys M. N. Davis, "The Asiatic Dionysos," p. 172.]
[351: The tortoise was the vehicle of Aphrodite also and her
representatives in Central America.]
[352: Jackson, "Shells, etc.," pp. 57 _et seq._]
[353: _Vide supra_, p. 158.]
[354: Rendel Harris, "The Ascent of Olympus," p. 80. In the building up
of the idea of rebirth the ancients kept constantly before their minds a
very concrete picture of the actual process of parturition and of the
anatomy of the organs concerned in this physiological process. This is
not the place to enter into a discussion of the anatomical facts
represented in the symbolism of the "giver of life" presiding over the
portal and the "two hills" which are divided at the birth of the deity:
but the real significance of the primitive imagery cannot be wholly
ignored if we want to understand the meaning of the phraseology used by
the ancient writers.]
[355: Blinkenberg, "The Thunder-weapon," p. 72.]
[356: Aylward M. Blackman, "Sacramental Ideas and Usages in Ancient
Egypt," _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, March,
1918, p. 64.]
[357: _Op. cit._, p. 60.]
[358: "Archæol. Survey of Egypt," 5th Memoir, 1896, p. 31.]
[359: See especially _op. cit._, p. 35, the goddess of streams and
marshes, who was also herself "the mother plant," like the mother of
Horus.]
[360: Whose cultural associations with the Great Mother in the Eastern
Mediterranean littoral has been discussed by Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan
Tree and Pillar Cult," pp. 49 _et seq._ Compare also _Apollo hyakinthos_
as further evidence of the link with Artemis.]
[361: P. J. Veth, "Internat. Arch. f. Ethnol.," Bd. 7, pp. 203 and 204.]
[362: "Hieroglyphics," p. 60.]
[363: Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," Vol. I, pp. 436 and 437.]
[364: Alan Gardiner, "Life and Death (Egyptian)," Hastings'
_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_.]
The Mandrake.
We have now given reasons for believing that the personification of the
mandrake was in some way brought about by the transference to the plant
of the magical virtues that originally belonged to the cowry shell.
The problem that still awaits solution is the nature of the process by
which the transference was effected.
When I began this investigation the story of the Destruction of Mankind
(see Chapter II) seemed to offer an explanation of the confusion.
Brugsch, Naville, Maspero, Erman, and in fact most Egyptologists, seemed
to be agreed that the magical substance from which the Egyptian elixir
of life was made was the mandrake. As there was no hint[365] in the
Egyptian story of the derivation of its reputation from the fancied
likeness to the human form, its identification with Hathor seemed to be
merely another instance of those confusions with which the pathway of
mythology is so thickly strewn. In other words, the plant seemed to have
been used merely to soothe the excited goddess: then the other
properties of "the food of the gods," of which it was an ingredient,
became transferred to the mandrake, so that it acquired the reputation
of being a "giver of life" as well as a sedative. If this had been true
it would have been a simple process to identify this "giver of life"
with the goddess herself in her rôle as the "giver of life," and her
cowry-ancestor which was credited with the same reputation.
But this hypothesis is no longer tenable, because the word _d'd'_
(variously transliterated _doudou_ or _didi_), which Brugsch[366] and
his followers interpreted as "mandragora," is now believed to have
another meaning.
In a closely reasoned memoir, Henri Gauthier[367] has completely
demolished Brugsch's interpretation of this word. He says there are
numerous instances of the use of _d'd'_ (which he transliterates
_doudouiou_) in the medical papyri. In the Ebers papyrus "_doudou_
d'Eléphantine broyé" is prescribed as a remedy for external application
in diseases of the heart, and as an astringent and emollient dressing
for ulcers. He says the substance was brought to Elephantine from the
interior of Africa and the coasts of Arabia.
Mr. F. Ll. Griffith informs me that Gauthier's criticism of the
translation "mandrakes" is undoubtedly just: but that the substance
referred to was most probably "red ochre" or "hæmatite".[368]
The relevant passage in the Story of the Destruction of Mankind (in Seti
I's tomb) will then read as follows: "When they had brought the red
ochre, the Sekti of Heliopolis pounded it, and the priestesses mixed the
pulverized substance with the beer, so that the mixture resembled human
blood".
I would call special attention to Gauthier's comment that the
blood-coloured beer "had _some magical and marvellous property which is
unknown to us_".[369]
In his dictionary Brugsch considered the determinative [Symbol: circle
over three vertical lines] to refer to the fruits of a tree which he
called "apple tree," on the supposed analogy with the Coptic [jiji
(janja iota janja iota)], _fructus autumnalis_, _pomus_, the Greek
[Greek: opôra]; and he proposed to identify the supposed fruit, then
transliterated _doudou_, with the Hebrew _doudaïm_, and translate it
_poma amatoria_, mandragora, or in German, _Alraune_. This
interpretation was adopted by most scholars until Gauthier raised
objections to it.
As Loret and Schweinfurth have pointed out, the mandrake is not found in
Egypt, nor in fact in any part of the Nile Valley.[370]
But what is more significant, the Greeks translated the Hebrew
_dūdā'im_ by [Greek: mandragoras] and the Copts did not use the
word [Coptic: jiji] in their translations, but either the Greek word or
a term referring to its sedative and soporific properties. Steindorff
has shown (_Zeitsch. f. Ægypt. Sprache_, Bd. XXVII, 1890, p. 60) that
the word in dispute would be more correctly transliterated "_didi_"
instead of "_doudou_".
Finally, in a letter Mr. Griffith tells me the identification of _didi_
with the Coptic [Coptic: jiji], "apple (?)" is philologically
impossible.
Although this red colouring matter is thus definitely proved not to be
the fruit of a plant, there are reasons to suggest that when the story
of the Destruction of Mankind spread abroad--and the whole argument of
this book establishes the fact that it did spread abroad--the substance
_didi_ was actually confused in the Levant with the mandrake. We have
already seen that in the Delta a prototype of Artemis was already
identified with certain plants.
In all probability _didi_ was originally brought into the Egyptian
legend merely as a surrogate of the life-blood, and the mixture of which
it was an ingredient was simply a restorer of youth to the king. But the
determinative (in the tomb of Seti I)--a little yellow disc with a red
border, which misled Naville into believing the substance to be yellow
berries--may also have created confusion in the minds of ancient
Levantine visitors to Egypt, and led them to believe that reference was
being made to their own yellow-berried drug, the mandrake. Such an
incident might have had a two-fold effect. It would explain the
introduction into the Egyptian story of the sedative effects of _didi_,
which would easily be rationalized as a means of soothing the maniacal
goddess; and in the Levant it would have added to the real properties of
mandrake[371] the magical virtues which originally belonged to _didi_
(and blood, the cowry, and water).
In my lecture on "Dragons and Rain Gods" (Chapter II) I explained that
the Egyptian story of the Destruction of Mankind is merely one version
of a saga of almost world-wide currency. In many of the non-Egyptian
versions[372] the rôle of _didi_ in the Egyptian story is taken by some
_vegetable_ product of a _red_ colour; and many of these versions reveal
a definite confusion between the red fruit and the red clay, thus
proving that the confusion of _didi_ with the mandrake is no mere
hypothetical device to evade a difficulty on my part, but did actually
occur.
In the course of the development of the Egyptian story the red clay from
Elephantine became the colouring matter of the Nile flood, and this in
turn was rationalized as the blood or red clay into which the bodies of
the slaughtered enemies of Re were transformed,[373] and the material
out of which the new race of mankind was created.[374] In other words,
the new race was formed of _didi_. There is a widespread legend that the
mandrake also is formed from the substance of dead bodies[375] often
represented as innocent or chaste men wrongly killed, just as the red
clay was the substance of mankind killed to appease Re's wrath, "the
blood of the slaughtered saints".[376]
But the original belief is found in a more definite form in the ancient
story that "the mandrake was fashioned out of the same earth whereof God
formed Adam".[377] In other words the mandrake was part of the same
substance as the earth _didi_.[378]
Further corroboration of this confusion is afforded by a story from
Little Russia, quoted by de Gubernatis.[379] If bryony (a widely
recognized surrogate of mandrake) be suspended from the girdle all the
dead Cossacks (who, like the enemies of Re in the Egyptian story, had
been killed and broken to pieces in the earth) will come to life again.
_Thus we have positive evidence of the homology of the mandrake with red
clay or hæmatite._
The transference to the mandrake of the properties of the cowry (and the
goddesses who were personifications of the shell) and blood (and its
surrogates) was facilitated by the manifold homologies of the Great
Mother with plants. We have already seen that the goddess was identified
with: (a) incense-trees and other trees, such as the sycamore, which
played some definite part in the burial ceremonies, either by providing
the divine incense, the materials for preserving the body, or for making
coffins to ensure the protection of the dead, and so make it possible
for them to continue their existence; and (b) the lotus, the lily, the
iris, and other marsh plants,[380] for reasons that I have already
mentioned (p. 184).
The Babylonian poem of Gilgamesh represents one of the innumerable
versions of the great theme which has engaged the attention of writers
in every age and country attempting to express the deepest longings of
the human spirit. It is the search for the elixir of life. The object of
Gilgamesh's search is a magic _plant_ to prolong life and restore youth.
The hero of the story went on a voyage by water in order to obtain what
appears to have been a marsh plant called _dittu_.[381] The question
naturally arises whether this Babylonian story and the name of the plant
played any part in Palestine in blending the Egyptian and Babylonian
stories and confusing the Egyptian elixir of life, the red earth _didi_,
with the Babylonian elixir, the plant _dittu_?
In the Babylonian story a serpent-demon steals the magic plant, just as
in India _soma_, the food of immortality, is stolen. In Egypt Isis
steals Re's name,[382] and in Babylonia the Zu bird steals the tablets
of destiny, the _logos_. In Greek legend apples are stolen from the
garden of Hesperides. Apples are surrogates of the mandrake and _didi_.
We have now seen that the mandrake is definitely a surrogate (a) of the
cowry and a series of its shell-homologues, and (b) of the red substance
in the Story of the Destruction of Mankind.
There still remain to be determined (i) the means by which the mandrake
became identified with the goddess, (ii) the significance of the Hebrew
word _dūdā-īm_, and (iii) the origin of the Greek word
_mandragora_.
The answer to the first of these three queries should now be obvious
enough. As the result of the confusion of the life-giving magical
substance _didi_ with the sedative drug, mandrake, the latter acquired
the reputation of being a "giver of life" and became identified with
_the_ "giver of life," the Great Mother, the story of whose exploits was
responsible for the confusion.
The erroneous identification of _didi_ with the mandrake was originally
suggested by Brugsch from the likeness of the word (then transliterated
_doudou_) with the Hebrew word _dūdā-īm_ in Genesis, usually
translated "mandrakes". I have already quoted the opinion of Gauthier
and Griffith as to the error of such identification. But the evidence
now at our disposal seems to me to leave no doubt as to the reality of
the confusion of the Egyptian red substance with the mandrake. This
naturally suggests the possibility that the similarity of the sounds of
the words _may_ have played some part in creating the confusion: but it
is impossible to admit this as a factor in the development of the story,
because the Hebrew word probably arose out of the identification of the
mandrake with the Great Mother and not by any confusion of names. In
other words the similarity of the names of these homologous substances
is a mere coincidence.
Dr. Rendel Harris claims (and Sir James Frazer seems to approve of the
suggestion) that the Hebrew word _dūdā-īm_ was derived from
_dōdīm_, "love"; and, on the strength of this derivation, he soars
into a lofty flight of philological conjecture to transmute
_dōdīm_, into _Aphrodite_, "love" into the "goddess of love". It
would be an impertinence on my part to attempt to follow these
excursions into unknown heights of cloudland.
But my colleagues Professor Canney and Principal Bennett tell me that
the derivation of _dūdā-īm_ from _dōdīm_ is improbable;
and the former authority suggests that _dūdā-īm_ may be merely
the plural of _dūd_, a "pot".[383] Now I have already explained how a
pot came to symbolize a woman or a goddess, not merely in Egypt, but
also in Southern India, and in Mycenæan Greece, and, in fact, the
Mediterranean generally.[384] Hence the use of the term _dūd_ for the
mandrake implies either (a) an identification of the plant with the
goddess who is the giver of life, or (b) an analogy between the form of
the mandrake-fruit and a pot, which in turn led to it being called a
pot, and from that being identified with the goddess.[385]
I should explain that when Professor Canney gave me this statement he
was not aware of the fact that I had already arrived at the conclusion
that the Great Mother was identified with a pot and also with the
mandrake; but in ignorance of the meaning of the Hebrew words I had
hesitated to equate the pot with the mandrake. As soon as I received his
note, and especially when I read his reference to the second meaning,
"basket of figs," in Jeremiah, I recalled Mr. Griffith's discussion of
the Egyptian hieroglyphic ("a pot of water") for woman, wife, or
goddess, and the claim made by Sir Gardner Wilkinson that this manner of
representing the word for "wife" was apparently taken from a
conventionalized picture of "a basket of sycamore figs".[386] The
interpretation has now clearly emerged that the mandrake was called
_dūdā'īm_ by the Hebrews because it was identified with the
Mother Pot. The symbolism involved in the use of the Hebrew word also
suggests that the inspiration may have come from Egypt, where a woman
was called "a pot of water" or "a basket of figs".
When the mandrake acquired the definite significance as a symbol of the
Great Mother and the power of life-giving, its fruit, "the love apple,"
became the quintessence of vitality and fertility. The apple and the
pomegranate became surrogates of the "love apple," and were graphically
represented in forms hardly distinguishable from pots, occupying places
which mark them out clearly as homologues of the Great Mother
herself.[387]
But once the mandrake was identified with the Great Mother in the Levant
the attributes of the plant were naturally acquired from her local
reputation there. This explains the pre-eminently conchological aspect
of the magical properties of the mandrake and the bryony.
I shall not attempt to refer in detail to the innumerable stories of red
and brown apples, of rowan berries, and a variety of other red fruits
that play a part in the folk-lore of so many peoples, such as _didi_
played in the Egyptian myth. These fruits can be either elixirs of life
and food of the gods, or weapons for overcoming the dragon as Hathor
(Sekhet) was conquered by her sedative draught.[388]
In his account of the peony, Pliny ("Nat. Hist.," Book XXVIII, Chap. LX)
says it has "a stem two cubits in length, accompanied by two or three
others, and of a reddish colour, with a bark like that of the laurel ...
the seed is enclosed in capsules, _some being red_ and some black ... it
has an _astringent taste_. The leaves of the female plant _smell like
myrrh_". Bostock and Riley, from whose translation I have made this
quotation, add that in reality the plant is destitute of smell. In the
Ebers papyrus _didi_ was mixed with incense in one of the
prescriptions;[389] and in the Berlin medical papyrus it was one of the
ingredients of a fumigation used for treating heart disease. If my
contention is justified, it may provide the explanation of how the
confusion arose by which the peony came to have attributed to it a
"smell like myrrh".
Pliny proceeds: "Both plants [_i.e._ male and female] grow in the woods,
and they should always be taken up at night, it is said; as it would be
dangerous to do so in the day-time, the woodpecker of Mars being sure to
attack the person so engaged.[390] It is stated also that the person,
while taking up the root, runs great risk of being attacked with
[prolapsus ani].... Both plants are used[391] for various purposes: the
red seed, taken in red wine, about fifteen in number, arrest
menstruation; while the black seed, taken in the same proportion, in
either raisin or other wine, are curative of diseases of the uterus." I
refer to these red-coloured beverages and their therapeutic use in
women's complaints to suggest the analogy with that other red drink
administered to the Great Mother, Hathor.
In his essay, "Jacob and the Mandrakes,"[392] Sir James Frazer has
called attention to the homologies between the attributes of the peony
and the mandrake and to the reasons for regarding the former as Aelian's
_aglaophotis_.
Pliny states ("Nat. Hist.," Book XXIV, Chap. CII) that the
_aglaophotis_ "is found growing among the marble quarries of Arabia, on
the side of Persia," just as the Egyptian _didi_ was obtained near the
granite quarries at Aswan. "By means of this plant [aglaophotis],
according to Democritus, the Magi can summon the deities into their
presence when they please, "just as the users of the conch-shell trumpet
believed they could do with this instrument. I have already (p. 196)
emphasized the fact that all of these plants, mandrake, bryony, peony,
and the rest, were really surrogates of the cowry, the pearl, and the
conch-shell. The first is the ultimate source of their influence on
womankind, the second the origin of their attribute of _aglaophotis_,
and the third of their supposed power of summoning the deity. The
attributes of some of the plants which Pliny discusses along with the
peony are suggestive. Pieces of the root of the _achaemenis_ (? perhaps
_Euphorbia antiquorum_ or else a night-shade) taken in wine, torment the
guilty to such an extent in their dreams as to extort from them a
confession of their crimes. He gives it the name also of "hippophobas,"
it being an especial object of terror to mares. The complementary story
is told of the mandrake in mediæval Europe. The decomposing tissues of
the body of an innocent victim on the gallows when they fall upon the
earth can become reincarnated in a mandrake--the _main de gloire_ of old
French writers.
Then there is the plant _adamantis_, grown in Armenia and
Cappadocia, which when _presented to a lion makes the beast fall upon
its back_, and drop its jaws. Is this a distorted reminiscence of the
lion-manifestation of Hathor who was calmed by the substance _didi_? A
more direct link with the story of the destruction of mankind is
suggested by the account of the _ophiusa_, "which is found in
Elephantine, an island of Ethiopia". This plant is of a livid colour,
and hideous to the sight. Taken by a person in drink, it inspires such a
horror of serpents, which his imagination continually represents as
menacing him that he commits suicide at last: hence it is that persons
guilty of sacrilege are compelled to drink an infusion of it (Pliny,
"Nat. Hist.," XXIV, 102). I am inclined to regard this as a variant of
the myth of the Destruction of Mankind in which the "snake-plant" from
Elephantine takes the place of the uræi of the Winged Disk Saga, and
punishes the act of sacrilege by driving the delinquent into a state of
delirium tremens.
The next problem to be considered is the derivation of the word
_mandragora_. Dr. Mingana tells me it is a great puzzle to discover any
adequate meaning. The attempt to explain it through the Sanskrit _mand_,
"joy," "intoxication," or _mantasana_, "sleep," "life," or _mandra_,
"pleasure," or _mantara_, "paradise tree," and _agru_, "unmarried,
violently passionate," is hazardous and possibly far-fetched.
The Persian is _mardumgiah_, "man-like plant".
The Syro-Arabic word for it is _Yabrouh_, Aramaic _Yahb-kouh_, "giver of
life". This is possibly the source of the Chinese _Yah-puh-lu_ (Syriac
_ya-bru-ha_) and _Yah-puh-lu-Yak_. The termination _Yak_ is merely the
Turanian termination meaning "diminutive".
The interest of the Levantine terms for the mandrake lies in the fact
that they have the same significance as the word for pearl, _i.e._
"giver of life". This adds another argument (to those which I have
already given) for regarding the mandrake as a surrogate of the pearl.
But they also reveal the essential fact that led to the identification
of the plant with the Mother-Goddess, which I have already discussed.
In Arabic the mandrake is called _abou ruhr_, "father of life," _i.e._
"giver of life".[393]
In Arabic _margan_ means "coral" as well as "pearl". In the
Mediterranean area coral is explained as a new and marvellous plant
sprung from the petrified blood-stained branches on which Perseus hung
the bleeding head of Medusa. Eustathius ("Comment. ad Dionys. Perieget."
1097) derives [Greek: koralion] from [Greek: korê], personifying the
monstrous virgin: but Chæroboscos claims that it comes from [Greek:
korê] and [Greek: alion], because it is a maritime product used to make
ornaments for maidens. In any case coral is a "giver of life" and as
such identified with a maiden,[394] as the most potential embodiment of
life-giving force. But this specific application of the word for "giver
of life" was due to the fact that in all the Semitic languages, as well
as in literary references in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts, this phrase was
understood as a reference to the female organs of reproduction. The
same _double entendre_ is implied in the use of the Greek word for "pig"
and "cowry," these two surrogates of the Great Mother, each of which can
be taken to mean the "giver of life" or the "pudendum muliebre".
Perhaps the most plausible suggestion that has been made as to the
derivation of the word "mandragora" is Delâtre's claim[395] that it is
compounded of the words _mandros_, "sleep," and _agora_, "object or
substance," and that mandragora means "the sleep-producing substance".
This derivation is in harmony with my suggestion as to the means by
which the plant acquired its magical properties. The sedative substance
that, in the Egyptian hieroglyphs (of the Story of the Destruction of
Mankind), was represented by yellow spheres with a red covering was
confused in Western Asia with the yellow-berried plant which was known
to have sedative properties. Hence the plant was confused with the
mineral and so acquired all the magical properties of the Great Mother's
elixir. But the Indian name is descriptive of the actual properties of
the plant and is possibly the origin of the Greek word.
Another suggestion that has been made deserves some notice. It has been
claimed that the first syllable of the name is derived from the Sanskrit
_mandara_, one of the trees in the Indian paradise, and the instrument
with which the churning of the ocean was accomplished.[396] The mandrake
has been claimed to be the tree of the Hebrew paradise; and a connexion
has thus been instituted between it and the _mandara_. This hypothesis,
however, does not offer any explanation of how either the mandrake or
the _mandara_ acquired its magical attributes. The Indian tree of life
was supposed to "sweat" _amrita_ just as the incense trees of Arabia
produce the divine life-giving incense.
But there are reasons[397] for the belief that the Indian story of the
churning of the sea of milk is a much modified version of the old
Egyptian story of the pounding of the materials for the elixir of life.
The _mandara_ churn-stick, which is often supposed to represent the
phallus,[398] was originally the tree of life, the tree or pillar which
was animated by the Great Mother herself.[399] So that the _mandara_ is
homologous with the _mandragora_. But so far as I am aware, there is no
adequate reason for deriving the latter word from the former.
The derivation from the Sanskrit words _mandros_ and _agora_ seems to
fit naturally into the scheme of explanation which I have been
formulating.
In the Egyptian story the Sekti of Heliopolis pounded the _didi_ in a
mortar to make "the giver of life," which by a simple confusion might be
identified with the goddess herself in her capacity as "the giver of
life". This seems to have occurred in the Indian legend. Lakshmi, or
Sri, was born at the churning of the ocean. Like Aphrodite, who was born
from the sea-foam churned from the ocean, Lakshmi was the goddess of
beauty, love, and prosperity.
Before leaving the problems of mandrake and the homologous plants and
substances, it is important that I should emphasize the rôle of blood
and blood-substitutes, red-stained beer, red wine, red earth, and red
berries in the various legends. These life-giving and death-dealing
substances were all associated with the colour red, and the destructive
demons Sekhet and Set were given red forms, which in turn were
transmitted to the dragon, and to that specialized form of the dragon
which has become the conventional way of representing Satan.
[The whole of the mandrake legend spread to China and became attached to
the plants _ginseng_ and _shang-luh_--see de Groot, Vol. II, p. 316 _et
seq._; also Kumagusu Minakata, _Nature_, Vol. LI, April 25, 1895, p.
608, and Vol. LIV, Aug. 13, 1896, p. 343. The fact that the Chinese
make use of the Syriac word _yabruha_ (_vide supra_) suggests the source
of these Chinese legends.]
[365: As Maspero has specifically mentioned ("Dawn of Civilization," p.
166).]
[366: "Die Alraune als altägyptische Zauberpflanze," _Zeitsch. f. Ægypt.
Sprache_, Bd. XXIX, 1891, pp. 31-3.]
[367: "Le nom hiéroglyphique de l'argile rouge d'Eléphantine," _Revue
Égyptologique_, XI^e Vol., Nos. i.-ii., 1904, p. 1.]
[368: It is quite possible that the use of the name "hæmatite" for this
ancient substitute for blood may itself be the result of the survival of
the old tradition.]
[369: It is very important to keep in mind the two distinct properties
of _didi_: (a) its magical life-giving powers, and (b) its sedative
influence.]
[370: In Chapter II, p. 118, I have given other reasons of a
psychological nature for minimizing the significance of the geographical
question.]
[371: For the therapeutic effects of mandrake see the _British Medical
Journal_, 15 March, 1890, p. 620.]
[372: Even in Egypt itself _didi_ may be replaced by fruit in the more
specialized variants of the Destruction of Mankind. Thus, in the Saga of
the Winged Disk, Re is reported to have said to Horus: "Thou didst put
grapes in the water which cometh forth from Edfu". Wiedemann ("Religion
of the Ancient Egyptians," p. 70) interprets this as meaning: "thou
didst cause the red blood of the enemy to flow into it". But by analogy
with the original version, as modified by Gauthier's translation of
_didi_, it should read: "thou didst make the water blood-red with
grape-juice"; or perhaps be merely a confused jumble of the two
meanings.]
[373: In the Babylonian story of the Deluge "Ishtar cried aloud like a
woman in travail, the Lady of the gods lamented with a loud voice
(saying): The old race of man hath been turned back into clay, because I
assented to an evil thing in the council of the gods, and agreed to a
storm which hath destroyed my people that which I brought forth" (King,
"Babylonian Religion," p. 134).
The Nile god, Knum, Lord of Elephantine, was reputed to have formed the
world of alluvial soil. The coming of the waters from Elephantine
brought life to the earth.]
[374: In the Babylonian story, Bēl "bade one of the gods cut off his
head and mix the earth with the blood that flowed from him, and from the
mixture he directed him to fashion men and animals" (King, "Babylonian
Religion," p. 56). Bēl (Marduk) represents the Egyptian Horus who
assumes his mother's rôle as the Creator. The red earth as a surrogate
of blood in the Egyptian story is here replaced by earth _and_ blood.
But Marduk created not only men and animals but heaven and earth also.
To do this he split asunder the carcase of the dragon which he had
slain, the Great Mother Tiamat, the evil _avatar_ of the Mother-Goddess
whose mantle had fallen upon his own shoulders. In other words, he
created the world out of the substance of the "giver of life" who was
identified with the red earth, which was the elixir of life in the
Egyptian story. This is only one more instance of the way in which the
same fundamental idea was twisted and distorted in every conceivable
manner in the process of rationalization. In one version of the Osirian
myth Horus cut off the head of his mother Isis and the moon-god Thoth
replaced it with a cow's head, just as in the Indian myth Ganesa's head
was replaced by an elephant's.]
[375: See Frazer, _op. cit._, p. 9.]
[376: Compare with this the story of Picus the giant who fled to Kirke's
isle and there was slain by Helios, the plant [Greek: môly] springing
from his blood (A. B. Cook, "Zeus," p. 241, footnote 15). For a
discussion of _moly_ see Andrew Lang's "Custom and Myth".]
[377: Frazer, p. 6.]
[378: In Socotra a tree (dracæna) has been identified with the dragon,
and its exudation, "dragon's blood," was called cinnabar, and confused
with the mineral (red sulphide of mercury), or simply with red ochre. In
the Socotran dragon-myth the elephant takes the hero's rôle, as in the
American stories of Chac and Tlaloc (see Chapter II). The word
_kinnabari_ was applied to the thick matter that issues from the dragon
when crushed beneath the weight of the dying elephant during these
combats (Pliny, XXXIII, 28 and VIII, 12). The dragon had a passion for
elephant's blood. Any thick red earth attributed to such combats was
called _kinnabari_ (Schoff, _op. cit._, p. 137). This is another
illustration of the ancient belief in the identification of blood and
red ochre.]
[379: "Mythologie des Plantes," Vol. II, p. 101.]
[380: In an interesting article on "The Water Lilies of Ancient Egypt"
(_Ancient Egypt_, 1917, Part I, p. 1) Mr. W. D. Spanton has collected a
series of illustrations of the symbolic use of these plants. In view of
the fact that the papyrus- and lotus-sceptres and the lotus-designs
played so prominent a part in the evolution of the Greek thunder-weapon,
it is peculiarly interesting to find (in the remote times of the Pyramid
Age) lotus designs built up into the form of the double-axe (Spanton's
Figs. 28 and 29) and the classical _keraunos_ (his Fig. 19).]
[381: The Babylonian magic plant to prolong life and renew youth, like
the red mineral _didi_ of the Egyptian story. It was also "the plant of
birth" and "the plant of life".]
[382: Müller, Quibell, Maspero, and Sethe regard the "round cartouche,"
which the divine falcon often carries in place of the _ankh_-symbol of
life, as a representation of the royal name (R. Weill, "Les Origines de
l'Egypte pharaonique," _Annales du Musée Guimet_, 1908, p. 111). The
analogous Babylonian sign known as "the rod and ring" is described by
Ward (_op. cit._, p. 413) as "the emblem of the sun-god's supremacy," a
"symbol of majesty and power, like the tablets of destiny".
As it was believed in Egypt and Babylonia that the possession of a name
"was equivalent to being in existence," we can regard the object carried
by the hawk or vulture as a token of the giving of life and the
controlling of destiny. It can probably be equated with the "tablets of
destiny" so often mentioned in the Babylonian stories, which the bird
god _Zu_ stole from Bēl and was compelled by the sun-god to restore
again. Marduk was given the power to destroy or to create, _to speak the
word of command_ and to control fate, to wield the invincible weapon and
to be able to render objects invisible. This form of the weapon, "the
word" or _logos_, like all the other varieties of the thunder-weapon,
could "become flesh," in other words, be an animate form of the god.
In Egyptian art it is usually the hawk of Horus (the homologue of
Marduk) which carries the "round cartouche," which is the _logos_, the
tablets of destiny.]
[383: I quote Professor Canney's notes on the word _dūdā'im_
(Genesis xxx. 14) verbatim: "The _Encyclopædia Biblica_ says (s.v.
'Mandrakes'): 'The Hebrew name, _dūdā'im_, was no doubt popularly
associated with _dōdīm_, [Hebrew: dodim], "love"; but its real
etymology (like that of [Greek: mandragoras]) is obscure".
* * * * *
"The same word is translated 'mandrakes' in Song of Songs vii. 13.
"_Dūdā'īm_ occurs also in Jeremiah xxiv, 1, where it is usually
translated 'baskets' ('baskets of figs'). Here it is the plural of a
word _dūd_, which means sometimes a 'pot' or 'kettle,' sometimes a
'basket'. The etymology is again doubtful.
"I should imagine that the words in Jeremiah and Genesis have somehow or
other the same etymology, and that _dūdā-īm_ in Genesis has no
real connexion with _dōdīm_ 'love'.
"The meaning 'pot' (_dūd_, plur. _dūdā-īm_) is probably more
original than 'basket'. Does _dūdā-īm_ in Genesis and Song of
Songs denote some kind of pot or caldron-shaped flower or fruit?"]
[384: The Mother Pot is really a fundamental conception of all religious
beliefs and is almost world-wide in its distribution.]
[385: The fruit of the lotus (which is a form of Hathor) assumes a form
(Spanton, _op. cit._, Fig. 51) that is identical with a common
Mediterranean symbol of the Great Mother, called "pomegranate" by Sir
Arthur Evans (see my text-fig. 6, p. 179, _m_), which is a surrogate of
the apple and mandrake. The likeness to the Egyptian hieroglyph for a
jar of water (text-fig. 6, _l_) and the goddess _Nu_ of the fruit of the
poppy (which was closely associated with the mandrake by reason of its
soporific properties) may have assisted in the transference of their
attributes. The design of the water-plant (text-fig. 7, _d_) associated
with the Nile god may have helped such a confusion and exchange.]
[386: "A Popular Account of the Ancient Egyptians," revised and
abridged, 1890, Vol. I, p. 323.]
[387: See, for example, Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar
Worship," Fig. 27, p. 46.]
[388: In a Japanese dragon-story the dragon drinks "sake" from pots set
out on the shore (as Hathor drank the _didi_ mixture from pots
associated with the river); and the intoxicated monster was then slain.
From its tail the hero extracted a sword (as in the case of the Western
dragons), which is now said to be the Mikado's state sword.]
[389: See Gauthier, _op. cit._, pp. 2 and 3.]
[390: Compare the dog-incident in the mandrake story.]
[391: Bostock and Riley add the comment that "the peony has no medicinal
virtues whatever".]
[392: _Proceedings of the British Academy_, Vol. VIII, 1917, p. 16 (in
the reprint).]
[393: I am indebted to Dr. Alphonse Mingana for this information. But
the philological question is discussed in a learned memoir by the late
Professor P. J. Veth, "De Leer der Signatuur," _Internationales Archiv
für Ethnographie_, Leiden, Bd. VII, 1894, pp. 75 and 105, and especially
the appendix, p. 199 _et seq._, "De Mandragora, Naschrift op het tweede
Hoofdstuk der Verhandeling over de Leer der Signatuur".]
[394: Like the _Purpura_ and the _Pterocera_, the bryony and other
shells and plants.]
[395: Larousse, Article "Mandragore".]
[396: I have already referred to another version of the churning of the
ocean in which Mount Meru was used as a churn-stick and identified with
the Great Mother, of whom the _mandara_ was also an avatar.]
[397: Which I shall discuss in my forthcoming book on "The Story of the
Flood".]
[398: The phallic interpretation is certainly a secondary
rationalization of an incident which had no such implication
originally.]
[399: The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis ii. 17)
produced fruit the eating of which opened the eyes of Adam and Eve, so
that they realized their nakedness: they became conscious of sex and
made girdles of fig-leaves (_vide supra_, p. 155). In other words, the
tree of life had the power of love-provoking like the mandrake. In
Henderson's "Celtic Dragon Myth" (p. xl) we read: "The berries for which
she [Medb] craved were from the Tree of Life, the food of the gods, the
eating of which by mortals brings death," and further: "The berries of
the rowan tree are the berries of the gods" (p. xliii). I have already
suggested the homology between these red berries, the mandrake, and the
red ochre of Hathor's elixir. Thus we have another suggestion of the
identity of the tree of paradise and the mandrake.]
The Measurement of Time.
It was the similarity of the periodic phases of the moon and of
womankind that originally suggested the identification of the Great
Mother with the moon, and originated the belief that the moon was the
regulator of human beings.[400] This was the starting-point of the
system of astrology and the belief in Fates. The goddess of birth and
death controlled and measured the lives of mankind.
But incidentally the moon determined the earliest subdivision of time
into months; and the moon-goddess lent the sanctity of her divine
attributes to the number twenty-eight.
The sun was obviously the determiner of day and night, and its rising
and setting directed men's attention to the east and the west as
cardinal points intimately associated with the daily birth and death of
the sun. We have no certain clue as to the factors which first brought
the north and the south into prominence. But it seems probable that the
direction of the river Nile,[401] which was the guide to the orientation
of the corpse in its grave, may have been responsible for giving special
sanctity to these other cardinal points. The association of the
direction of the deceased's head with the position of the original
homeland and the eventual home of the dead would have made the south a
"divine" region in Predynastic times. For similar reasons the north may
have acquired special significance in the Early Dynastic period.[402]
When the north and the south were added to the other two cardinal points
the intimate association of the east and the west with the measurement
of time would be extended to include all the four cardinal points.[403]
Four became a sacred number associated with time-measurement, and
especially with the sun.[404]
Many other factors played a part in the establishment of the sanctity
of the number four. Professor Lethaby has suggested[405] that the
four-sided building was determined by certain practical factors, such as
the desirability of fashioning a room to accommodate a woven mat, which
was necessarily of a square or oblong form. But the study of the
evolution of the early Egyptian grave and tomb-superstructures suggests
that the early use of slabs of stone, wooden boards, and mud-bricks
helped in the process of determining the four-sided form of house and
room.
When, out of these rude beginnings, the vast four-sided pyramid was
developed, the direction of its sides was brought into relationship with
the four cardinal points; and there was a corresponding development and
enrichment of the symbolism of the number four. The form of the divine
house of the dead king, who was the god, was thus assimilated to the
form of the universe, which was conceived as an oblong area at the four
corners of which pillars supported the sky, as the four legs supported
the Celestial Cow.
Having invested the numbers four and twenty-eight with special sanctity
and brought them into association with the measurement of time, it was a
not unnatural proceeding to subdivide the month into four parts and so
bring the number seven into the sacred scheme. Once this was done the
moon's phases were used to justify and rationalize this procedure, and
the length of the week was incidentally brought into association with
the moon-goddess, who had seven _avatars_, perhaps originally one for
each day of the week. At a later period the number seven was arbitrarily
brought into relationship with the Pleiades.
The seven Hathors were not only mothers but fates also. Aphrodite was
chief of the fates.
The number seven is associated with the pots used by Hathor's
priestesses at the celebration inaugurating the new year; and it plays a
prominent part in the Story of the Flood. In Babylonia the sanctity of
the number received special recognition. When the goddess became the
destroyer of mankind, the device seems to have been adopted of
intensifying her powers of destruction by representing her at times as
seven demons.[406]
But the Great Mother was associated not only with the week and month but
also with the year. The evidence at our disposal seems to suggest that
the earliest year-count was determined by the annual inundation of the
river. The annual recurrence of the alternation of winter and summer
would naturally suggest in a vague way such a subdivision of time as the
year; but the exact measurement of that period and the fixing of an
arbitrary commencement, a New Year's day, were due to other reasons. In
the Story of the Destruction of Mankind it is recorded that the incident
of the soothing of Hathor by means of the blood-coloured beer (which, as
I have explained elsewhere,[407] is a reference to the annual Nile
flood) was celebrated annually on New Year's day.
Hathor was regarded in tradition as the cause of the inundation. She
slaughtered mankind and so caused the original "flood": in the next
phase she was associated with the 7000 jars of red beer; and in the
ultimate version with the red-coloured river flood, which in another
story was reputed to be "the tears of Isis".
Hathor's day was in fact the date of the commencement of the inundation
and of the year; and the former event marked the beginning of the year
and enabled men for the first time to measure its duration. Thus
Hathor[408] was the measurer of the year, the month, and the week; while
her son Horus (Chronus) was the day-measurer.
In Tylor's "Early History of Mankind" (pp. 352 _et seq._) there is a
concise summary of some of the widespread stories of the Fountain of
Youth which restores youthfulness to the aged who drank of it or bathed
in it. He cites instances from India, Ethiopia, Europe, Indonesia,
Polynesia, and America. "The Moslem geographer, Ibn-el-Wardi, places the
Fountain of Life in the dark south-western regions of the earth"
(p. 353).
The star Sothis rose heliacally on the first day of the Egyptian New
Year.[409] Hence it became "the second sun in heaven," and was
identified with the goddess of the New Year's Day. The identification of
Hathor with this "second sun"[410] may explain why the goddess is said
to have entered Re's boat. She took her place as a crown upon his
forehead, which afterwards was assumed by her surrogate, the
fire-spitting uræus-serpent. When Horus took his mother's place in the
myth, he also entered the sun-god's boat, and became the prototype of
Noah seeking refuge from the Flood in the ship the Almighty instructed
him to make.
In memory of the beer-drinking episode in the Destruction of Mankind,
New Year's Day was celebrated by Hathor's priestesses in wild orgies of
beer drinking.
This event was necessarily the earliest celebration of an anniversary,
and the prototype of all the incidents associated with some special day
in the year which have been so many milestones in the historical
progress of civilization.
The first measurement of the year also naturally forms the
starting-point in the framing of a calendar.
Similar celebrations took place to inaugurate the commencement of the
year in all countries which came, either directly or indirectly, under
Egyptian influence.
The month [Greek: Aphrodisia] (so-called from the festival of the
goddess) began the calendar of Bithynia, Cyprus, and Iasos, just as
Hathor's feast was a New Year's celebration in Egypt.
In the celebration of these anniversaries the priestesses of Aphrodite
worked themselves up in a wild state of frenzy; and the term [Greek:
hystêria][411] became identified with the state of emotional derangement
associated with such orgies. The common belief that the term "hysteria"
is derived directly from the Greek word for uterus is certainly
erroneous. The word [Greek: hystêria] was used in the same sense as
[Greek: Aphrodisia], that is as a synonym for the festivals of the
goddess. The "hysteria" was the name for the orgy in celebration of the
goddess on New Year's day: then it was applied to the condition produced
by these excesses; and ultimately it was adopted in medicine to apply to
similar emotional disturbances. Thus both the terms "hysteria" and
"lunacy"[412] are intimately associated with the earliest phases in the
moon-goddess's history; and their survival in modern medicine is a
striking tribute to the strong hold of effete superstition in this
branch of the diagnosis and treatment of disease.[413]
I have already referred to the association of Artemis with the portal of
birth and rebirth. As the guardian of the door her Roman representative
Diana and her masculine _avatar_ Dianus or Janus gave the name to the
commencement of the year. The Great Mother not only initiated the
measurement of the year, but she (or her representative) lent her name
to the opening of the year in various countries.
But the story of the Destruction of Mankind has preserved the record not
only of the circumstances which were responsible for originating the
measurement of the year and the making of a calendar, but also of the
materials out of which were formed the mythical epochs preserved in the
legends of Greece and India and many other countries further removed
from the original centre of civilization. When the elaboration of the
early story involved the destruction of mankind, it became necessary to
provide some explanation of the continued existence of man upon the
earth. This difficulty was got rid of by creating a new race of men from
the fragments of the old or from the clay into which they had been
transformed (_supra_, p. 196). In course of time this _secondary_
creation became the basis of the familiar story of the _original_
creation of mankind. But the story also became transformed in other
ways. Different versions of the process of destruction were blended into
one narrative, and made into a series of catastrophes and a succession
of acts of creation. I shall quote (from Mr. T. A. Joyce's "Mexican
Archæology," p. 50) one example of these series of mythical epochs or
world ages to illustrate the method of synthesis:--
When all was dark Tezcatlipoca transformed himself into the sun to give
light to men.
1. This sun terminated in the destruction of mankind, including a race
of giants, by _jaguars_.
2. The second sun was Quetzalcoatl, and his age terminated in a terrible
_hurricane_, during which mankind was transformed into monkeys.
3. The third sun was Tlaloc, and the destruction came by a _rain of
fire_.
4. The fourth was Chalchintlicue, and mankind was finally destroyed by a
_deluge_, during which they became fishes.
The first episode is clearly based upon the story of the lioness-form of
Hathor destroying mankind: the second is the Babylonian story of Tiamat,
modified by such Indian influences as are revealed in the _Ramayana_:
the third is inspired by the Saga of the Winged Disk; and the fourth by
the story of the Deluge.
Similar stories of world ages have been preserved in the mythologies of
Eastern Asia, India, Western Asia, and Greece, and no doubt were derived
from the same original source.
[400: The Greek Chronus was the son of Selene.]
[401: Or possibly the situations of Upper and Lower Egypt.]
[402: See G. Elliot Smith, "The Ancient Egyptians".]
[403: The association of north and south with the primary subdivision of
the state probably led to the inclusion of the other two cardinal points
to make the subdivision four-fold.]
[404: The number four was associated with the sun-god. There were four
"children of Horus" and four spokes to the wheel of the sun.]
[405: "Architecture," p. 24.]
[406: See the chapter on "Magic" in Jevons, "Comparative Religion". In
his article "Magic (Egyptian)," in Hastings' _Encyclopædia of Religion
and Ethics_ (p. 266), Dr. Alan Gardiner makes the following statement:
"The mystical potency attaching to certain _numbers_ doubtless
originated in associations of thought that to us are obscure. The number
seven, in Egyptian magic, was regarded as particularly efficacious. Thus
we find references to the seven Hathors: _cf._ [Greek: ai hepta Tychai
tou ouranou] (A. Dieterich, _Eine Mithrasliturgie_, Leipzig, 1910, p.
71): 'the seven daughters of Re,' who 'stand and weep and make seven
knots in their seven tunics'; and similarly 'the seven hawks who are in
front of the barque of Re'."
Are the seven daughters of Re the seven days of the week, or the
representatives of Hathor corresponding to the seven days?]
[407: Chapter II, p. 118.]
[408: We have already seen that the primitive aspect of life-giving that
played an essential part in the development of the story we are
considering was the search for the means by which youth could be
restored. It is significant that Hathor's reputed ability to restore
youth is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts in association with her
functions as the measurer of years: for she is said "to turn back the
years from King Teti," so that they pass over him without increasing his
age (Breasted, "Thought and Religion in Ancient Egypt," p. 124).]
[409: Breasted ("Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p. 22) states
that as the inundation began at the rising of Sothis, the star of Isis,
sister of Osiris, they said to him [_i.e._ Osiris]: "The beloved
daughter, Sothis, makes thy fruits (rnpwt) in her name of 'Year'
(rnpt)".]
[410: The Great Mother was identified with the moon, but when she became
specialized, her representative adopted Sothis or Venus as her star.]
[411: "At Argos the principal fête of Aphrodite was called [Greek:
hystêria] because they offered sacrifices of pigs ("Athen." III, 49, 96;
"Clem. Alex. Protr." 33)"--Article "Aphrodisia," _Dict. des Antiquités_,
p. 308. The Greek word for pig had the double significance of "pig" and
"female organs of reproduction".]
[412: Aphrodite sends Aphrodisiac "mania" (see Tümpel, _op. cit._, pp.
394 and 395).]
[413: There is still widely prevalent the belief in the possibility of
being "moonstruck," and many people, even medical men who ought to know
better, solemnly expound to their students the influence of the moon in
producing "lunacy". If it were not invidious one could cite instances of
this from the writings of certain teachers of psychological medicine in
this country within the last few months. The persistence of these kinds
of traditions is one of the factors that make it so difficult to effect
any real reform in the treatment of mental disease in this country.]
The Seven-headed Dragon.
I have already referred to the magical significance attached to the
number seven and the widespread references to the seven Hathors, the
seven winds to destroy Tiamat, the seven demons, and the seven fates.
In the story of the Flood there is a similar insistence on the
seven-fold nature of many incidents of good and ill meaning in the
narrative. But the dragon with this seven-fold power of wreaking
vengeance came to be symbolized by a creature with seven heads.
A Japanese story told in Henderson's notes to Campbell's "Celtic Dragon
Myth"[414] will serve as an introduction to the seven-headed monster:--
"A man came to a house where all were weeping, and learned that the last
daughter of the house was to be given to a dragon with _seven or
eight_[415] heads who came to the sea-shore yearly to claim a victim. He
went with her, enticed the dragon to drink _sake_ from pots set out on
the shore, and then he slew the monster. From the end of his tail he
took out a sword, which is supposed to be the Mikado's state sword. He
married the maiden, and with her got a jewel or talisman which is
preserved with the regalia. A third thing of price so preserved is a
mirror."
The seven-headed dragon is found also in the Scottish dragon-myth, and
the legends of Cambodia, India, Persia, Western Asia, East Africa, and
the Mediterranean area.
The seven-headed dragon probably originated from the seven Hathors. In
Southern India the Dravidian people seem to have borrowed the Egyptian
idea of the seven Hathors. "There are seven Mari deities, all sisters,
who are worshipped in Mysore. All the seven sisters are regarded vaguely
as wives or sisters of Siva."[416] At one village in the Trichinopoly
district Bishop Whitehead found that the goddess Kālīamma was
represented by seven brass pots, and adds: "It is possible that the
seven brass pots represent seven sisters or the seven virgins sometimes
found in Tamil shrines" (p. 36). But the goddess who animates seven
pots, who is also the seven Hathors, is probably well on the way to
becoming a dragon with seven heads.
There is a close analogy between the Swahili and the Gaelic stories that
reveals their ultimate derivation from Babylonia. In the Scottish story
the seven-headed dragon comes in a storm of wind and spray. The East
African serpent comes in a storm of wind and dust.[417] In the
Babylonian story seven winds destroy Tiamat.
"The famous legend of the seven devils current in antiquity was of
Babylonian origin, and belief in these evil spirits, who fought against
the gods for the possession of the souls and bodies of men, was
widespread throughout the lands of the Mediterranean basin. Here is one
of the descriptions of the seven demons:--
"Of the seven the first is the south wind....
"The second is a dragon whose open mouth....
"The third is a panther whose mouth spares not.
"The fourth is a frightful python....
"The fifth is a wrathful ... who knows no turning back.
"The sixth is an on-rushing ... who against god and king [attacks].
"The seventh is a hurricane, an evil wind which [has no mercy].
"The Babylonians were inconsistent in their description of the seven
devils, describing them in various passages in different ways. In fact
they actually conceived of a very large number of these demons, and
their visions of the other evil spirits are innumerable. According to
the incantation of Shamash-shum-ukin fifteen evil spirits had come into
his body and
"'My God who walks at my side they drove away.'
"The king calls himself 'the son of his God'. We have here the most
fundamental doctrines of Babylonian theology, borrowed originally from
the religious beliefs of the Sumerians. For them man in his natural
condition, at peace with the gods and in a state of atonement, is
protected by a divine spirit whom they conceived of as dwelling in their
bodies along with their souls or 'the breath of life'. In many ways the
Egyptians held the same doctrine, in their belief concerning the
_ka_[418] or the soul's double. According to the beliefs of the
Sumerians and Babylonians these devils, evil spirits, and all evil
powers stand for ever waiting to attach (_sic_) (? attack) the divine
genius with each man. By means of insinuating snares they entrap mankind
in the meshes of their magic. They secure possession of his soul and
body by leading him into sin, or bringing him into contact with tabooed
things, or by overcoming his divine protector with sympathetic
magic.... These adversaries of humanity thus expel a man's god, or
genius, or occupy his body. These rituals of atonement have as their
primary object the ejection of the demons and the restoration of the
divine protector. Many of the prayers end with the petition, 'Into the
kind hands of his god and goddess restore him'.
"Representations of the seven devils are somewhat rare.... The Brit.
Mus. figurine represents the demon of the winds with body of a dog,
scorpion tail, bird legs and feet" (S. Langdon, "A Ritual of Atonement
for a Babylonian King," _The Museum Journal_ [University of
Pennsylvania], Vol. VIII, No. 1, March, 1917, pp. 39-44).
But the Babylonians not only adopted the Egyptian conception of the
power of evil as being seven demons, but they also seem to have fused
these seven into one, or rather given the real dragon seven-fold
attributes.[419]
In "The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia"[420] (British Museum),
Marduk's weapon is compared to "the fish with seven wings".
The god himself is represented as addressing it in these words: "The
tempest of battle, my weapon of fifty heads, which like the great
serpent of seven heads is yoked with seven heads, which like the strong
serpent of the sea (sweeps away) the foe".
In the Japanese story which I have quoted, the number of the dragon's
heads is given as _seven_ or _eight_; and de Visser is at a loss to know
why "the number eight should be stereotyped in these stories of
[Japanese] dragons".[421]
I have already emphasized the world-wide association of the
seven-headed dragon with storms. The Argonaut (usually called
"Nautilus" by classical scholars) was the prophet of ill-luck and the
storm-bringer: but, true to the paradox that runs through the whole
tissue of mythology, this form of the Great Mother is also a benevolent
warner against storms. This seems to be another link between the
seven-headed dragon and these cephalopoda.
I would suggest, merely as a tentative working hypothesis, that the
process of blending the seven _avatars_ of the dragon into a
seven-headed dragon may have been facilitated by its identification with
the _Pterocera_ and the octopus. We know that the octopus and the
shell-fish were forms assumed by the dragon (see p. 172): the confusion
between the numbers seven and eight is such as might have been created
during the transference of the _Pterocera's_ attributes to the octopus
(_vide supra_, p. 170); and the Babylonian reference to "the fish with
seven wings," which was afterwards rationalized into "a great serpent
with seven heads," seems to provide the clue which explains the origin
of the seven-headed dragon. If Hathor was a seven-fold goddess and at
the same time was identified with the seven-spiked spider-shell
(_Pterocera_), the process of converting the shell-fish's seven "wings"
into seven heads would be a very simple one for an ancient story-teller.
If this hypothesis has any basis in fact, the circumstance that the
beliefs concerning the _Pterocera_ must (from the habitat of the
shell-fish) have come into existence upon the shores of Southern Arabia
would explain the appearance of the derived myth of the seven-headed
dragon in Babylonia.
My attention was first called to the possibility of the octopus being
the parent of the seven-headed dragon, and one of the forms assumed by
the thunderbolt, by the design upon a krater from Apulia.[422] The
weapon seemed to be a conventionalization of the octopus. Though further
research has led me to distrust this interpretation, it has convinced me
of the intimate association of the octopus and the derived spiral
ornament with thunder and the dragon, and has suggested that the process
of blending the seven demons into a seven-headed demon has been assisted
by the symbolism of the octopus and the _Pterocera_.
[414: "The Celtic Dragon Myth," by J. F. Campbell, with the "Geste of
Fraoch and the Dragon," translated with introduction by George
Henderson, Edinburgh, 1911, p. 134.]
[415: My italics.]
[416: Henry Whitehead (Bishop of Madras), "The Village Gods of South
India," Oxford, 1916, p. 24.]
[417: "The Celtic Dragon Myth," p. 136.]
[418: See Chapter I, p. 47.]
[419: I do not propose to discuss here the interesting problems raised
by this identification of the dragon with a man's good or evil spirit.
But it is worthy of note that while the Babylonian might be possessed by
seven evil spirits, the Egyptian could have as many as fourteen good
spirits or _kas_. In a form somewhat modified by the Indian and
Indonesian channels, through which they must have passed, these beliefs
still persist in Melanesia; and the illuminating account of them given
by C. E. Fox and F. W. Drew ("Beliefs and Tales of San Cristoval,"
_Journ. Roy. Anthropol. Inst._, Vol. XLV, 1915, p. 161), makes it easier
to us to form some conception of their original meaning in ancient
Babylonia and Egypt. The _ataro_ which possesses a man (and there may be
as many as a hundred of these "ghosts") leaves his body at death and
usually enters a shark (or in other cases an octopus, skate, turtle,
crocodile, hawk, kingfisher, tree, or stone).]
[420: Vol. II, 19, 11-18, and 65, quoted by Sayce, _Hibbert Lectures_,
p. 282.]
[421: _Op. cit._, p. 150.]
[422: A. B. Cook, "Zeus," Vol. I, p. 337, in which (Fig. 269) the rider
in the car is _welcoming_ the thunderbolt as a divine gift from heaven,
_i.e._ as a life-amulet, a giver of fertility and good luck. For a
design representing the octopus as a weapon of the god Eros see the
title-page of Usener's "Die Sintfluthsagen," 1899.]
The Pig.
I have already referred to the circumstances that were responsible for
the identification of the cow with the Great Mother, the sky, and the
moon. Once this had happened, the process seems to have been extended to
include other animals which were used as food, such as the sheep, goat,
pig, and antelope (or gazelle and deer). In Egypt the cow continued to
occupy the pre-eminent place as a divine animal; and the cow-cult
extended from the Mediterreanean to equatorial Africa, to Western
Europe, and as far East as India. But in the Mediterranean area the pig
played a more prominent part than it did in Egypt.[423] In the latter
country Osiris, Isis, and especially Set, were identified with the pig;
and in Syria the place of Set as the enemy of Osiris (Adonis) was taken
by an actual pig. But throughout the Eastern Mediterranean the pig was
also identified with the Great Mother and associated with lunar and sky
phenomena. In fact at Troy the pig was represented[424] with the
star-shaped decorations with which Hathor's divine cow (in her rôle as a
sky-goddess) was embellished in Egypt. To complete the identification
with the cow-mother Cretan fable represents a sow suckling the infant
Minos or the youthful Zeus-Dionysus as his Egyptian prototype was
suckled by the divine cow.
Now the cowry-shell was called [Greek: choiros] by the Greeks. The pig,
in fact, was identified both with the Great Mother and the shell; and it
is clear from what has been said already in these pages that the reason
for this strange homology was the fact that originally the Great Mother
was nothing more than the cowry-shell.
But it was not only with the shell itself that the pig was identified
but also with what the shell symbolized. Thus the term [Greek: choiros]
had an obscene significance in addition to its usual meaning "pig" and
its acquired meaning "cowry". This fact seems to have played some part
in fixing upon the pig the notoriety of being "an unclean animal".[425]
But it was mainly for other reasons of a very different kind that the
eating of swine-flesh was forbidden. The tabu seems to have arisen
originally because the pig was a sacred animal identified with the Great
Mother and the Water God, and especially associated with both these
deities in their lunar aspects.
According to a Cretan legend the youthful god Zeus-Dionysus was suckled
by a sow. For this reason "the Cretans consider this animal sacred, and
will not taste of its flesh; and the men of Præsos perform sacred rites
with the sow, making her the first offering at the sacrifice".[426]
But when the pig also assumed the rôle of Set, as the enemy of Osiris,
and became the prototype of the devil, an active aversion took the place
of the sacred tabu, and inspired the belief in the unwholesomeness of
pig flesh. To this was added the unpleasant reputation as a dirty animal
which the pig itself acquired, for the reasons which I have already
stated.
I have already referred to the irrelevance of Miss Jane Harrison's
denial of the birth of Aphrodite from the sea (p. 141). Miss Harrison
does not seem to have realized that in her book[427] she has collected
evidence which is much more relevant to the point at issue. For, in the
interesting account of the Eleusinian Mysteries (pp. 150 _et seq._), she
has called attention to the important rite upon the day "called in
popular parlance '[Greek: halade mystai],' 'to the sea ye mystics'" (p.
152), which, I think, has a direct bearing upon the myth of Aphrodite's
birth from the sea.
The Mysteries were celebrated at full moon; and each of the candidates
for admission "took with him his own pharmakos,[428] a young pig".
"Arrived at the sea, each man bathed with his pig" (p. 152). On one
occasion, so it is said, "when a mystic was bathing his pig, a
sea-monster ate off the lower part of his body" (p. 153). So important
was the pig in this ritual "that when Eleusis was permitted (B.C.
350-327) to issue her autonomous coinage it is the pig she chooses as
the sign and symbol of her mysteries" (p. 153).
"On the final day of the Mysteries, according to Athenæus, two vessels
called _plemochoæ_ are emptied, one towards the East and the other
towards the West, and at the moment of outpouring a mystic formulary
was pronounced.... What the mystic formulary was we cannot certainly
say, but it is tempting to connect the libation of the _plemochoæ_ with
a formulary recorded by Proclos. He says 'In the Eleusinian mysteries,
looking up to the sky they cried aloud "Rain," and looking down to earth
they cried "Be fruitful"'" (p. 161).
In these latter incidents we see, perhaps, a distant echo of Hathor's
pots of blood-coloured beer that were poured out upon the soil, which in
a later version of the story became the symbol of the inundation of the
river and the token of the earth's fruitfulness. The personification in
the Great Mother of these life-giving powers of the river occurred at
about the same time; and this was rationalized by the myth that she was
born of the sea. She was also identified with the moon and a sow. Hence
these Mysteries were celebrated, both in Egypt and in the Mediterranean,
at full moon, and the pig played a prominent part in them. The
candidates washed the sacrificial pig in the sea, not primarily as a
rite of purification,[429] as is commonly claimed, but because the
sacrificial animal was merely a surrogate of the cowry, which lived in
the sea, and of the Great Mother,[430] who was sprung from the cowry and
hence born of the sea. In the story of the man carrying the pig being
attacked by a sea-monster, perhaps we have an incident of that
widespread story of the shark guarding the pearls. We have already seen
how it was distorted into the fantastic legend of the dog's rôle in the
digging up of mandrakes. In the version we are now considering the
pearl's place is taken by the pig, both of them surrogates of the cowry.
The object of the ceremony of carrying the pig into the sea was not the
cleansing of "the unclean animal," nor was it _primarily_ a rite of
purification in any sense of the term: it was simply a ritual procedure
for identifying the sacrifice with the goddess by putting it in her own
medium, and so transforming the surrogate of the sea-shell, the
prototype of the sea-born goddess, into the actual Great Mother.
The question naturally arises: what was the real purpose of the
sacrifice of the pig?
In the story of the Destruction of Mankind we have seen that originally
a human victim was slain for the purpose of obtaining the life-giving
human blood to rejuvenate the ageing king. Two circumstances were
responsible for the modification of this procedure. In the first place,
there was the abandonment of human sacrifice and the substitution of
either beer coloured red with ochre to resemble blood (or in other cases
red wine) or the actual blood of an animal sacrifice in place of the
human blood. Secondly, the blood of the Great Mother herself
(personified in the special _avatar_ that was recognized in a particular
locality, the cow in one place, the pig in another, and so on) was
regarded as more potent as a life-giving force than that of a mere
mortal human being. It is possible, perhaps even probable, that this was
the real reason for the abandoning of human sacrifice and the
substitution of an animal for a human being. For it is unlikely that, in
the rude state of society which had become familiarized with and
brutalized by the practice of these bloody rites of homicide, ethical
motives alone would have prompted the abolition of the custom of human
sacrifice, to which such deep significance was attached. The
substitution of the animal was prompted rather by the idea of obtaining
a more potent elixir from the life-blood of the Great Mother herself in
her cow- or sow-forms.
In the transitional stage of the process of substitution of an animal
for a human being some confusion seems to have arisen as to the ritual
meaning of the new procedure. If Moret's account of the Egyptian
Mysteries[431] is correct--and without a knowledge of Egyptian philology
I am not competent to express an opinion upon this matter--the attempt
was made to identify the animal victim of sacrifice with the human being
whose place it had taken. In the procession a human being wore the skin
of an animal; and, according to Moret, there was a ceremony of passing a
human being through the skin as a ritual procedure for transforming the
mock victim into the animal which was to be sacrificed in his place. If
there is any truth in this interpretation, such a ceremony must have
been prompted by a misunderstanding of the meaning of the sacrifice,
unless the identification of the sacrificial animal with the goddess was
merely a secondary rationalization of the substitution which had been
made for ethical or some other reasons.
We know that the dead were often buried in the skins of sacrificial
animals, and so identified with the life-giving deities and given
rebirth. We know also that in certain ceremonies the appropriate skins
were worn by those who were impersonating particular gods or goddesses.
The wearing of these skins of divine animals seems to have been prompted
not so much by the idea of a reincarnation in animal form as by the
desire for identification and communion with the particular deity which
the animal represented. The whole question, however, is one of great
complexity, which can only be settled by a critical study of the texts
by some scholar who keeps clearly before his mind the real issues, and
refuses to take refuge in the stereotyped evasions of conventional
methods of interpretation.
The sacrifice of the sow to Demeter is merely a late variant of Hathor's
sacrifice of a human being to rejuvenate the king Re. How the real
meaning of the story became distorted I have already explained in
Chapter II ("Dragons and Rain Gods"). The killing of the sow to obtain a
good harvest is homologous with the sacrifice of a maiden to obtain a
good inundation of the river. The sow is the surrogate of the beautiful
princess of the fairy tale. Instead of the maiden being slain, in one
case, as Andromeda, she is rescued by the hero, in the other her place
is taken by a sow. These late rationalizations are merely glosses of the
deep motives which more than fifty centuries ago seem to have prompted
early pharmacologists to obtain a more potent elixir than human blood by
stealing from the heights of Olympus the divine blood of the life-giving
deities themselves.
The pig was identified not only with the Great Mother, but with Osiris
and Set also. With the pig's lunar and astral associations I do not
propose to deal in these pages, as the astronomical aspects of the
problems are so vast as to need much more space than the limits imposed
in this statement. But it is important to note that the identification
of Set with a pig was perhaps the main factor in riveting upon this
creature the fetters of a reputation for evil. The evil dragon was the
representative of both Set and the Great Mother (Sekhet or Tiamat); and
both of them were identified with the pig. Just as Set killed Osiris, so
the pig gave Adonis his mortal injury.[432] When these earthly incidents
were embellished with a celestial significance, the conflict of Horus
with Set was interpreted as the struggle between the forces of light and
order and the powers of darkness and chaos. When worshipped as a
tempest-god the Mesopotamian Rimmon was known as "the pig"[433] and, as
"the wild boar of the desert," was a form of Set.
I have discussed the pig at this length because the use of the words
[Greek: choiros] by the Greeks, and _porcus_ and _porculus_ by the
Romans, reveals the fact that the terms had the double significance of
"pig" and "cowry-shell". As it is manifestly impossible to derive the
word "cowry" from the Greek word for "pig," the only explanation that
will stand examination is that the two meanings must have been acquired
from the identification of both the cowry and the pig with the Great
Mother and the female reproductive organs. In other words, the
pig-associations of Aphrodite afford clear evidence that the goddess was
originally a personification of the cowry.[434]
The fundamental nature of the identification of the cowry, the pig, and
the Great Mother, the one with the other, is revealed not merely in the
archæology of the Ægean, but also in the modern customs and ancient
pictures of the most distant peoples. For example, in New Guinea the
place of the sacrificial pig may be taken by the cowry-shell;[435] and
upon the chief façade of the east wing of the ancient American monument,
known as the Casa de las Monjas at Chichen Itza, the hieroglyph of the
planet Venus is placed in conjunction with a picture of a wild pig.[436]
[423: And also, in a misunderstood form, even as far as America.]
[424: Schliemann, "Ilios," Fig. 1450, p. 616.]
[425: This is seen in the case of the Persian word _khor_, which means
both "pig" and "harlot" or "filthy woman". The possibility of the
derivation of the old English word "[w]hore" from the same source is
worth considering.]
[426: L. R. Farnell, "Cults of the Greek States," Vol. I, p. 37.]
[427: "Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion."]
[428: Which, in fact, was intended as the equivalent of [Greek:
pharmakon athanasias], "the redeeming blood".]
[429: Blackman ("Sacramental Ideas and Usages in Ancient Egypt,"
_Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, March, 1918, p. 57;
and May, 1918, p. 85) has shown that the idea of purification was
certainly entertained.]
[430: In some places an image of the goddess was washed in the sea.]
[431: "Mystères Égyptiens."]
[432: Mr. Donald Mackenzie has collected a good deal of folk-lore
concerning the pig ("Myths of Egypt," pp. 66 _et seq._; also his books
on Babylonian, Indian, and Cretan myths, _op. cit. supra_).]
[433: According to Sayce, "Hibbert Lectures," p. 153, note 6.]
[434: In Egypt not only was the sow identified with Isis, but "lucky
pigs" were worn on necklaces just like the earlier cowry-amulets (Budge,
"Guide to the Egyptian Collections" (British Museum), p. 96).]
[435: Malinowski, _Trans. and Proc. Royal Society, South Australia_,
XXXIX, 1915, p. 587 _et. seq._]
[436: Seler, "Die Tierbilder der mexikanischen und der
Maya-Handschriften," _Zeitsch. f. Ethnologie_, Bd. 41, 1909, p. 405, and
Fig. 242 in Maudslay, "Biologia Centrali-Americana," Vol. III, Pl. 13.]
Gold and the Golden Aphrodite.
The evidence which has been collected by Mr. Wilfrid Jackson seems to
suggest that the shell-cults originated in the neighbourhood of the
Red Sea.
With the introduction of the practice of wearing shells on girdles and
necklaces and as hair ornaments the time arrived when people living some
distance from the sea experienced difficulty in obtaining these amulets
in quantities sufficient to meet their demands. Hence they resorted to
the manufacture of imitations of these shells in clay and stone. But at
an early period in their history the inhabitants of the deserts between
the Nile and the Red Sea (Hathor's special province) discovered that
they could make more durable and attractive models of cowries and other
shells by using the plastic yellow metal which was lying about in these
deserts unused and unappreciated. This practice first gave to the metal
gold an arbitrary value which it did not possess before. For the
peculiar life-giving attributes of the shells modelled in the yellow
metal came to be transferred to the gold itself. No doubt the lightness
and especially the beauty of such gold models appealed to the early
Egyptians, and were in large measure responsible for the hold gold
acquired over mankind. But this was an outcome of the empirical
knowledge gained from a practice that originally was inspired purely by
cultural and not æsthetic motives. The earliest Egyptian hieroglyphic
sign for gold was a picture of a necklace of such amulets; and this
emblem became the determinative of the Great Mother Hathor, not only
because she was originally the personification of the life-giving
shells, but also because she was the guardian deity both of the Eastern
wadys where the gold was found and of the Red Sea coasts where the
cowries were obtained. Hence she became the "Golden Hathor," the
prototype of the "Golden Aphrodite".
[Illustration: Fig. 9.--The Egyptian emblem for gold, the sign _nub_. It
represents a collar from which golden amulets, probably representing
cowries, are suspended.]
It is a significant token of the influence of these Egyptian incidents
upon the history of the Ægean that among the earliest gold ornaments
found by Schliemann at Troy were a series of crude representations of
cowries worn as pendants to a hair ornament.[437]
It is hardly necessary to insist upon the vast influence upon the
history of civilization which this arbitrary value of gold has been
responsible for exerting. For more than fifty centuries men have been
searching for the precious metal, and have been spreading abroad
throughout the world the elements of our civilization. It has been not
only the chief factor in bringing about the contact of peoples[438] and
incidentally in building up our culture, but it has been the cause,
directly or indirectly, of most of the warfare which has afflicted
mankind. Yet these mighty forces were let loose upon the world as the
result of the circumstance that early searchers for an elixir of life
used the valueless metal to make imitations of their shell amulets!
The identification of gold with cowries may not have been the primary
reason for the invention of gold currency. In fact, Professor Ridgeway
has called attention to certain historical events which in his opinion
forced men to convert their jewellery into coinage. But the fact that
cowries were the earliest form of currency may have prepared the way for
the recognition of the use of gold for a similar purpose. Moreover, we
know that long before a real gold currency came into being rings of gold
were in Egypt a form of tribute and a sign of wealth. Cowries acquired
their significance as currency as the result of incidents in some
respects analogous to those which impelled the early Egyptians to make
gold models of the shells. In places in Africa far removed from the sea
where the practice has grown up of offering vast numbers of cowries to
brides on the occasion of their marriage (as fertility amulets) or of
putting the shells in the grave (to secure for the dead fresh vital
energy), the people offered their most treasured possessions, such as
their cattle, in exchange for the amulets which were believed to confer
such priceless social and religious boons. Cattle were therefore given
in exchange for cowries, or the shells were used for the purchase of
wives. When the new significance as currency developed a remarkable
confusion occurred. In many places cowries were placed in the mouth of
the dead to confer the breath of life: but when the cowries acquired the
new meaning as currency, the people who had lost all knowledge of the
original significance of this practice explained the cowries as money
with which to pay Charon's fare to the other world. Then, in many
places, the cowry was replaced by an actual metallic coin. Most scholars
fall into the same error as these ancient rationalists, and accept
their explanation of the _obolus_ as though it were the real meaning of
the act.
Another result of the use of gold models of shells as life-giving
amulets was that the metal also acquired the reputation of being a giver
of life,[439] which originally belonged merely to the shell or the
imitation of its form, whatever the substance used for making the model.
Thus gold came to share the same magical reputation as the cowry and the
pearl. It was also put to the same use: it was buried with the dead to
confer a continuation of existence.
Not only was Hathor called _Nūb_, _i.e._ "gold" or the golden Hathor:
but the place where the funerary statue was made ("born") in Egypt was
called the "House of Gold" and personified as a goddess who gave rebirth
to the dead (Alan Gardiner, "The Tomb of Amenemhēt," p. 95; and A. M.
Blackman, _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. IV, p. 127).
When ancient prospectors from the South exploited the rivers of
Turkestan for alluvial gold and fresh water pearls, incidentally they
also collected pebbles of jade for the purpose of making seals. The
local inhabitants confused the properties of the stone with the magical
reputation of the gold and the pearls. One outcome of this jade-fishing
in Turkestan was the transference of the credit of life-giving to jade.
Prospectors searching for these precious materials gradually made their
way east past Lob Nor, and eventually discovered the deposits of gold
and jade in the Shensi province. Thus jade became the nucleus around
which the distinctive civilization of China became crystallized. It
played an obtrusive part not only in attracting men from the West and in
determining the locality where the germs of Western civilization were
planted in China, but also in giving Chinese culture its distinctive
shape.
"The ancient Chinese, wishing to facilitate the resurrection of the
dead, surrounded them with jade, gold, pearls, timber, and other things
imbued with influences emitted from the heavens, or, in other words,
with such objects as are pervaded with vital energy derived from the
_Yang_ matter of which the heavens are the principal depository." (De
Groot, _op. cit._, p. 316).
By a similar process diamonds acquired the same reputation in India when
searchers after gold discovered the precious metal in Hyderabad, and
the diamonds of Golconda came to be accredited with life-giving
powers.[440]
According to the beliefs of the Indians "the Nâga owns riches, the water
of life, and a jewel that restores the dead to life".
Thus gold, pearls, jade, and diamonds in course of time acquired the
reputation of elixirs of life, but the hold they established upon
mankind was due to the fact (a) that the amulets made of these materials
made a strong appeal to the æsthetic sense, and (b) the arbitrary value
assigned to them made them desirable objects to search for.
In his "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult" (1901) Sir Arthur Evans gives
cogent reasons for the view that at the time when Mycenæan influence was
powerful in Cyprus "the 'golden Aphroditê' of the Egyptians seems to
play a much more important part than any form of Astarte or Mylitta"
(p. 52). "The Cypriote parallels will be found to have a fundamental
importance as demonstrating in detail that these ['a simple form of the
palmette pillar, approaching a fleur-de-lys in outline,' in association
with its guardian monsters] are in fact taken over from the cult of
Mentu-Ra, the Warrior Sun-god of Egypt, of Hathor, and of Horus"
(p. 52).
[437: So far as I am aware the fact that these objects were intended to
represent cowries does not appear to have been recognized hitherto. I am
indebted to Mr. Wilfrid Jackson for calling my attention to the figures
685 and 832 in Schliemann's "Ilios" (1880), and for identifying the
objects.]
[438: See Perry, "Megalithic Monuments and Ancient Mines," _Proceedings
and Memorials of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society_,
1916; also "War and Civilization," _Bulletin of the John Rylands
Library_, 1918.]
[439: "Danæ pregnant with immortal gold."]
[440: See Laufer, "The Diamond," also Munn, "The Ancient Gold Mines of
Hyderabad," paper now being published in the _Proceedings of the
Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society_.]
Aphrodite as the Thunder-stone.
As a surrogate of the Great Mother, the Eye of Re, the thunder-weapon
was also identified with any of her varied manifestations.
The thunderbolt is one of the manifestations of the life-giving and
death-dealing Divine Cow, and therefore is able specially to protect
mundane cows.[441]
There are numerous hints in the ancient literature of other countries in
confirmation of the association of the Great Mother with "falling
stars". "In a fragment of Sanchoniathon, Astarte, travelling about the
habitable world, is said to have found a star falling through the air,
which she took up and consecrated."[442]
Aphrodite also was looked upon as a meteoric stone that fell from the
moon. In the "Iliad," Zeus is said to have sent Athena as a meteorite
from heaven to earth.[443]
The association of Aphrodite with meteoric stones and the ancient belief
that they fell from the moon serve to confirm the identification of
these life-giving and death-dealing objects with the pearl and the
thunderbolt. In Southern India the goddesses may be represented either
by small stones or by pots of water, usually seven in number. During the
ceremony around the stone-form of the goddess the _kappukaran_ runs
thrice around the stone, as the mandrake-digger does around the plant.
The _pujari_ who represents the goddess is painted like a leopard
(Hathor's lioness) and kills the sacrificial sheep. The goddess (like
Hathor) is supposed to drink the blood of the sacrificial victims
(Whitehead, _op. cit._, pp. 164-8).
Many factors played a part in the development of the beliefs about the
origin of mankind from stones, with which the identification of the
thunderbolt with the winged disk plays a part.
The idea that the cowry was the giver of life and the parent of men was
also transferred to crude stone imitations of the shell. Perhaps the
belief in such stones as creators of human beings may have been
reinforced by finding actual fossilized shells within pebbles.[444]
A further corroboration of this theory was provided when the pearl came
to be regarded as the quintessence of the life-giving substance of
shells and as a little particle of moon-substance which fell as a drop
of dew into the gaping oyster. Perry (_op. cit._, p. 78) refers to an
Indonesian belief among the Tsalisen that their ancestors came out of
the moon; and the chief of this people has a spherical stone which is
said to represent the moon.
This association of the moon with round stones may be connected with the
identification of the sun (as the winged disk) with a stone axe, when
they came to be regarded as alternative weapons for the destruction or
the creation of men. Perry records a story of a rock being lowered down
from the sun, from which it was born, and out of a cleft in it man and
woman emerged, as they were believed to have been born from the cleft in
the cowry.
Then there are the Egyptian beliefs concerning stone statues, obelisks,
or even unshaped blocks of stone which could be animated by human beings
or gods.[445]
The cycle of these stories was completed when the "Eye of Re"
slaughtered the enemies of the god and they became identified with the
followers of Set, "creatures of stone". Thus the evil eye petrified
rebellious men: and so was launched upon its course the peculiar group
of legends which in time encircled the world.
It is particularly significant that in Indonesia, in association with
these ideas about stone-origins and petrifaction, Perry (p. 133) found
also the clear-cut belief that the thunder-weapon was a stone, or the
tooth of a cloud-dragon in the sky.
In Indonesia also petrifaction, thunder-stones, rain, floods, lightning,
and an arrow shot to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning were the
punishments traditionally assigned for certain offences, such as incest
and laughing at animals.
The same people who introduced into the Malay Archipelago these
characteristic fragments of the dragon-myth also believed that certain
animals were impersonations of their gods: they also brought stories of
incestuous unions on the part of their deities and rulers. To laugh at
their sacred animals, or to imitate privileged customs permitted to
their deities, but not to ordinary mortals, merited the same sort of
punishments as were meted out to those other rebels against the ruling
class and the gods in the home of these beliefs.[446]
To laugh at the divine animals, or to commit incest, which was a divine
prerogative, was analogous to "the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,"
which in the New Testament is proclaimed an unpardonable offence, and in
pagan legend was punished by the divine wrath, thunder, lightning, rain,
floods, or petrifaction being the avenging instruments. Oedipus put out
his own eyes to forestall the traditional wrath of the gods.
[441: Blinkenberg, _op. cit._, p. 70 _et seq._]
[442: Quoted by Layard, "Nineveh and its Remains," Vol. II, p. 457.]
[443: Cook, "Zeus," I, p. 760.]
[444: Striking examples of these stories about birth from split stones
have been given by Perry, "Megalithic Culture of Indonesia," Chapter X,
and de Groot's "Religious System of China". It is possible that the
double meaning of the Egyptian word _set_, as "stone" and "mountain"
played a part in originating these stories. I have already quoted from
the Pyramid Texts the account of the daily birth of the sun-god by a
splitting of the "mountain" of the dawn. By a pun on this word the god's
origin might have been interpreted as having taken place from a split
"stone". The fact that the Great Mother was identified with a "mountain"
(_set_) may also have facilitated the homology with the other meaning of
_set_, _i.e._ "a stone".]
[445: "Incense and Libations".]
[446: As the character and attributes of the early goddesses became more
complex, and contradictory traits were more sharply contrasted, the
inevitable tendency developed to differentiate the goddesses themselves,
and provide distinctive names for the new personalities thus split off
from the common parent. We see this in Egypt in the case of Hathor and
Sekhet, and in Babylonia in Ishtar and Tiamat. But the process of
specialization and differentiation might even involve a change of sex.
There can be no doubt that the _god_ Horus was originally a
differentiation of certain of the aspects of the sky-goddess Hathor, at
first as a brother "Eye". But as the _king_ Horus was the son of Osiris
(as the dead king), when the confusion of the attributes of Osiris and
Hathor--the actual father and the divine mother of Horus--made their
marriage inevitable, the maternal relationship of the goddess to her
"brother" was emphasized. But as the Great Mother, Hathor was the parent
of the universe, and the mother not only of Horus but also of his father
Osiris. This complicated rationalization made Hathor the sister, mother,
and grandmother of Horus, and was responsible for originating the belief
in the incestuous practices of the divine family. When the royal family
assumed the rôle of gods and goddesses they were bound by these
traditions (which had their origin purely in theological sophistry) and
were driven to indulge in actual incest, as we know from the records of
the Egyptian royal family and their imitators in other countries. But
incest became a royal and divine prerogative which was sternly forbidden
to mere mortals and regarded as a peculiarly detestable sin.]
The Serpent and the Lioness.
When the development of the story of the Destruction of Mankind
necessitated the finding of a human sacrifice and drove the Great Mother
to homicide, this side of her character was symbolized by identifying
her with a man-slaying lion and the venomous uræus-serpent.
She had previously been represented by such beneficent food-providing
and life-sustaining creatures as the cow, the sow, and the gazelle
(antelope or deer): but when she developed into a malevolent creature
and became the destroyer of mankind it was appropriate that she should
assume the form of such man-destroyers as the lion and the cobra.
Once the reason for such identifications grew dim, the uræus-form of the
Great Mother became her symbol in either of her aspects, good or bad,
although the legend of her poison-spitting, man-destroying powers
persisted.[447] The identification of the destroying-goddess with the
moon, "the Eye of the Sun-god," prepared the way for the rationalization
of her character as a uræus-serpent spitting venom and the sun's Eye
spitting fire at the Sun-god's enemies. Such was the goddess of Buto in
Lower Egypt, whose uræus-symbol was worn on the king's forehead, and was
misinterpreted by the Greeks as not merely a symbolic "eye," but an
actual median eye upon the king's or the god's forehead.
It is not without special significance that in the ancient legend (see
Sethe, _op. cit._) the lioness-goddess Tefnut was reputed to have come
from Elephantine (or at any rate the region of Sehêl and Biga, which has
the same significance), which serves to demonstrate her connexion with
the story of the Destruction of Mankind and to corroborate the inference
as to its remote antiquity. She was identified with Hathor, Sekhet,
Bast, and other goddesses.
But the uræus was not merely the goddess who destroyed the king's
enemies and the emblem of his kingship: in course of time the cobra
became identified with the ruler himself and the dead king, who was the
god Osiris. When this happened the snake acquired the god's reputation
of being the controller of water.
The fashionable speculation of modern scholars that the movements of the
snake naturally suggest rippling water[448] and provide "the obvious
reason" which led many people quite independently the one of the other
to associate the snake with water, is thus shown to have no foundation
in fact.
One would have imagined that, if any natural association between snakes
and water was the reason for this association, a water-snake would have
been chosen to express the symbolism; or, if it was the mere rippling
motion of the reptile, that all snakes or any snake would have been
drawn into the analogy. But primarily only one kind of snake, a cobra,
was selected[449]; and it is not a water snake, and cannot live in or
under water. It was selected _because it was venomous_ and the
appropriate symbol of man-slaying.
The circumstances which led to the identification of this particular
serpent with water were the result of a process of legend-making of so
arbitrary and eccentric a nature as to make it impossible seriously to
pretend that so tortuous a ratiocination should have been exactly
followed to the same unexpected destination also in Crete and Western
Europe, in Babylonia and India, in Eastern Asia, and in America, without
prompting the one of the other. No serious investigator who is capable
of estimating the value of evidence can honestly deny that the belief in
the serpent's control over water was diffused abroad from one centre
where a concatenation of peculiar circumstances and beliefs led to the
identification of the ruler with the cobra and the control of water.
We are surely on safe ground in assuming the improbability of such a
wholly fortuitous set of events happening a second time and producing
the same result elsewhere. Thus when we find in India the Nâga rajas
identified with the cobra, and credited with the ability to control the
waters, we can confidently assume that in some way the influence of
these early Egyptian events made itself felt in India. As we compare the
details of the Nâga worship in India[450] with early Egyptian beliefs,
all doubt as to their common origin disappears.
The Nâga rulers were closely associated with springs, streams, and
lakes. "To this day the rulers of the Hindu Kush states, Hunza and
Nagar, though now Mohammedans, are believed, by their subjects, to be
able to command the elements."
Oldham adds: "This power is still ascribed to the serpent-gods of the
sun-worshipping countries of China, Manchuria, and Korea, and was so,
until the introduction of Christianity, in Mexico and Peru". This is put
forward in support of his argument that the Nâga kings' "supposed
ability to control the elements, and especially the waters," arose "from
their connexion with the sun". But this is not so.[451] The belief in
the Egyptian king's power over water was certainly older than
sun-worship, which did not begin until Osirian beliefs and the
personification of the moon as the Great Mother brought the sky-deities
and the control of water into correlation the one with the other. The
association of the sun and the serpent in the royal insignia was a later
development.
The early Egyptian goddess was identified with the uræus-serpent in that
vitally important nodal point of primitive civilization, Buto, in Lower
Egypt. The earliest deity in Crete and the Eastern Mediterranean seems
to have been a goddess who was also closely associated with the serpent.
According to Langdon "the ophidian nature of the earliest Sumerian
mother-goddess _Innini_ is unmistakable.... She carries the caduceus in
her hand, two serpents twining about a staff."[452]
The earliest Indian deities also were goddesses, and the first rulers of
whom any record has been preserved were regarded as divine cobras, to
whom was attributed the power of controlling water. These Nâgas, whether
kings or queens, gods or goddesses, were the prototypes of the Eastern
Asiatic dragon, whose origin is discussed in Chapter II.
In Japan the earliest sun-deity was a goddess who was identified with a
snake. Elsewhere in this volume (Chapter II) I have referred to the
completeness of the transference to America of these Old World ideas of
the serpent. Right on the route taken by the main stream of cultural
diffusion across the Pacific we still find in their fully-developed form
the old beliefs concerning the good Mother Serpent of the ancient
civilizations (C. E. Fox and F. H. Drew, _op. cit. supra_, p. 139). She
could be re-incarnated as a coconut: she controlled crops; she was
associated with the coming of death into the world, with the
introduction of agriculture and the discovery of fire. Like her
predecessors in the West she was also a Mother Pot or Basket that
never emptied.
All the _hiona_ or _figona_ (_i.e._ spirits) of San Cristoval have a
serpent incarnation from Agunua the creator, worshipped by every one, to
Oharimae and others, only known to particular persons. Other spirits,
called _ataro_, might be incarnate in almost any animal. Agunua, who
took the form of a serpent, was good, not evil (p. 134). Very many
pools, rocks, water-falls, or large trees were thought to be the abode
of _figona_. These serpent spirits could take the form of a stone, or
retire within a stone, and sacred stones seem to be connected with
_figona_ rather than with _ataro_ (p. 135). Almost all the local
_figona_ are represented as female snakes, but Agunua is a male snake
(p. 137).
As the real significance of the snake's symbolism originated from its
identification with the Great Mother in her destructive aspect, it is
not surprising that the snake is the most primitive form of the evil
dragon. The Babylonian Tiamat was originally represented as a huge
serpent,[453] and throughout the world the serpent is pre-eminently a
symbol of the evil dragon and the powers of evil.
The serpent that tempted Eve was the homologue both of the mother of
mankind herself and also of the tree of paradise. It was the
representative of the dragon-protector of pearls and of other kinds of
treasure: it was also the goddess who animated the sacred tree as well
as the protector who attacked all who approached it. It was the evil
dragon that tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit which brought
her mortality.
The identification of the Great Mother with the lioness (and the
secondary association of her husband and son with the lion) was
responsible for a widespread relationship of these creatures with the
gods and goddesses in Egypt and the Mediterranean, in Western Asia, in
Babylonia and India, in Eastern Asia [tiger] and America [ocelot, and
forms borrowed from the conventionalized lions and tigers of the Old
World].
The account of the Great Mother's attributes and associations throws
into clear relief certain aspects of the evolution of the dragon which
were left in a somewhat nebulous state in Chapter II. The earliest form
assumed by the power of evil was the serpent or the lion, because these
death-dealing creatures were adopted as symbols of the Great Mother in
her rôle as the Destroyer of Mankind. When Horus was differentiated from
the Great Mother and became her _locum tenens_, his falcon (or eagle)
was blended with Hathor's lioness to make the composite monster which is
represented on Elamite and Babylonian monuments (see p. 79). But when
the rôle of water as the instrument of destruction became prominent,
Ea's antelope and fish were blended to make a monster, usually known as
the "goat-fish," which in India and elsewhere assumed a great variety of
forms. Some of the varieties of _makara_ were sufficiently like a
crocodile to be confused or identified with this representative of the
followers of Set.
The real dragon was created when all three larval types--serpent,
eagle-lion, and antelope-fish--were blended to form a monster with
bird's feet and wings, a lion's forelimbs and head, the fish's scales,
the antelope's horns, and a more or less serpentine form of trunk and
tail, and sometimes also of head. Repeated substitution of parts of
other animals, such as the spiral horn of Amen's ram, a deer's antlers,
and the elephant's head, led to endless variation in the dragon's
traits.
The essential unity of the motives and incidents of the myths of all
peoples and of every age is a token, not of independent origin or the
result of "the similarity of the working of the human mind," but of
their derivation from the same ultimate source.
The question naturally arises: what is a myth? The dragon-myth of the
West is the religion of China. The literature of every religion is
saturated with the influence of the myth. In what respect does religion
differ from myth? In Chapter I, I attempted to explain how originally
science and religion were not differentiated. Both were the outcome of
man's attempt to peer into the meaning of natural phenomena, and to
extract from such knowledge practical measures for circumventing fate.
His ever-insistent aim was to combat danger to life.
Religion was differentiated from science when the measures for
controlling fate became invested with the assurance of supernatural
help, for which the growth of a knowledge of natural phenomena made it
impossible for the mere scientist to be the sponsor. It became a
question of faith rather than knowledge; and man's instinctive struggle
against the risk of extinction impelled him to cling to this larger hope
of salvation, and to embellish it with an ethical and moral significance
which at first was lacking in the eternal search for the elixir of life.
If religion can be regarded as archaic science enriched with the belief
in supernatural control, the myth can be regarded as effete religion
which has been superseded by the growth of a loftier ethical purpose.
The myth is to religion what alchemy is to chemistry or astrology is to
astronomy. Like these sciences, religion retains much of the material of
the cruder phase of thought that is displayed in myth, alchemy, and
astrology, but it has been refined and elaborated. The dross has been to
a large extent eliminated, and the pure metal has been moulded into a
more beautiful and attractive form. In searching for the elixir of life,
the makers of religion have discovered the philosopher's stone, and with
its aid have transmuted the base materials of myth into the gold of
religion.
If we seek for the deep motives which have prompted men in all ages so
persistently to search for the elixir of life, for some means of
averting the dangers to which their existence is exposed, it will be
found in the instinct of self-preservation, which is the fundamental
factor in the behaviour of all living beings, the means of preservation
of the life which is their distinctive attribute and the very essence of
their being.
The dragon was originally a concrete expression of the divine powers of
life-giving; but with the development of a higher conception of
religious ideals it became relegated to a baser rôle, and eventually
became the symbol of the powers of evil.
[447: Sethe, "Zur altägyptische Sage von Sonnenaugen das im Fremde war,"
_Untersuchungen zur Geschichte und Altertumskunde Ægyptens_, V, p. 23.
[Transcriber's note: the title of the paper has been misprinted. It
should read "...vom Sonnenauge, das..."]]
[448: See especially the claims put forward by Brinton, which have been
accepted by Spinden, Joyce, and many other recent writers.]
[449: Possibly also the Cerastes. At a relatively late period other
snakes were adopted as surrogates of the cobra and Cerastes.]
[450: See Oldham, "Sun and Serpent," p. 51 _inter alia_.]
[451: Blackman, however, has recently advanced this claim in reference
to Egypt (_op. cit._, _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archæology_, 1918, p. 57), as
Breasted and others have done before.]
[452: S. Langdon, "A Seal of Nidaba, the Goddess of Vegetation,"
_Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, Vol. XXXVI, 1914,
p. 281.]
[453: L. W. King, "Babylonian Religion," p. 58.]
[Transcriber's note: Numerous obvious printing errors have been corrected.
However, inconsistent hyphenation in the original has been retained.]
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