The Evolution of the Dragon Part 16

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 G.o.ds--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 G.o.ddess becomes so maddened with the zest of killing that the G.o.d becomes alarmed and asks her to desist and spare some representatives of the race. But she is deaf to entreaties. Hence the G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.ddess 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.ds 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 altagyptische Zauberpflanze," _Zeit.

f. aegypt. Sprache_, Bd. 29, 1891, pp. 31-3; and Henri Gauthier, "Le nom hieroglyphique de l'argile rouge d'elephantine," _Revue egyptologique_, 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 a.s.syria"

and "Myths of Crete and Pre-h.e.l.lenic 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. x.x.xvi., 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' Archeologie Americaine," Paris, 1912; T. A.

Joyce, "Mexican Archaeology," and especially the memoir by Seler on the "Codex Vatica.n.u.s" and his articles in the _Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie_ and elsewhere.]

[188: I.e. the offspring of the Great Mother of G.o.ds 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 subst.i.tute 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 G.o.ds," _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 G.o.d," 1911, who quotes from Dr. Seligman the following account of the d.i.n.ka "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 G.o.d, who obviously is the h.o.m.ologue 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 t.i.tle 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: "G.o.ds of the Egyptians," vol. i., p. 392.]

[196: "The eye of the sun-G.o.d, which was subsequently called the eye of Horus and identified with the Uraeus-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 G.o.ddess, Uto or Buto by name" (Alan Gardiner, Article "Magic (Egyptian)" in Hastings'

_Encyclopaedia 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 G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ddess, the "Eye of Re". When the Sun, as the other "Eye," a.s.sumed the chief role, 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 nave 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 G.o.d 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 h.o.m.ologue 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 uraeus-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 G.o.d 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 aegean 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 Mataricvan.

This parallelism is even expressly stated in the Rig Veda, verse 6 of hymn 1 to Agni and Soma. Mataricvan 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-G.o.d 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 a.s.sociated with the eagle: in other words, the G.o.d Soma is the h.o.m.ologue 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.