The Evolution of the Dragon Part 28

[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 a.s.sumed 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 a.s.suming 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, "Sh.e.l.ls, 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 Archaeology_, March, 1918, p. 64.]

[357: _Op. cit._, p. 60.]

[358: "Archaeol. Survey of Egypt," 5th Memoir, 1896, p. 31.]

[359: See especially _op. cit._, p. 35, the G.o.ddess of streams and marshes, who was also herself "the mother plant," like the mother of Horus.]

[360: Whose cultural a.s.sociations with the Great Mother in the Eastern Mediterranean littoral has been discussed by Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenaean 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 G.o.ds of the Egyptians," Vol. I, pp. 436 and 437.]

[364: Alan Gardiner, "Life and Death (Egyptian)," Hastings'

_Encyclopaedia 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 sh.e.l.l.

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 G.o.ddess: then the other properties of "the food of the G.o.ds," 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 G.o.ddess herself in her role 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'Elephantine broye" 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 "haemat.i.te".[368]

The relevant pa.s.sage 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 a.n.a.logy with the Coptic [jiji (janja iota janja iota)], _fructus autumnalis_, _pomus_, the Greek [Greek: opora]; and he proposed to identify the supposed fruit, then transliterated _doudou_, with the Hebrew _doudam_, 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 _duda'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. aegypt. 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 G.o.ddess; 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 G.o.ds" (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 role 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 G.o.d 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 h.o.m.ology of the mandrake with red clay or haemat.i.te._

The transference to the mandrake of the properties of the cowry (and the G.o.ddesses who were personifications of the sh.e.l.l) and blood (and its surrogates) was facilitated by the manifold h.o.m.ologies of the Great Mother with plants. We have already seen that the G.o.ddess 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 sh.e.l.l-h.o.m.ologues, 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 G.o.ddess, (ii) the significance of the Hebrew word _duda-im_, and (iii) the origin of the Greek word _mandragora_.