The Evolution of the Dragon Part 8

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 a.s.similate the new beliefs with the old, and to b.u.t.tress the confused mixture of incompatible ideas with a complex scaffolding of rationalization.

The sun-G.o.d Horus was already the son of Osiris. Osiris controlled not only the river and the irrigation ca.n.a.ls, but also the rain-clouds. The fumes of incense conveyed to the sky-G.o.ds 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 pa.s.s to their doubles in the newly invented sky-heaven. The sun-G.o.d 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 G.o.d in his temple.

These events are important, not only for creating the sky-G.o.ds 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 G.o.d.[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 ma.s.ses of stone or wood for their G.o.ds to enter, when the appropriate ritual of animation was performed.[101]

This conception of the possibility of G.o.ds, 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 G.o.ds" (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 _fravai_ 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, ill.u.s.trations of this confusion of s.e.x 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 Konigs Ne-woser-re". For a good exposition of this matter see A. Moret, "Sanctuaires de l'ancien Empire egyptien,"; _Annales du Musee 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, "Mysteres egyptiens," 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 sh.e.l.l) as the parent of mankind. The place of the sh.e.l.l 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 role in the development of these beliefs, beyond affording corroborative evidence in support of them after other circ.u.mstances had been responsible for originating the stories. The more circ.u.mstantial Oriental stories of the splitting of stones giving birth to heroes and G.o.ds may have been suggested by the finding in pebbles of fossilized sh.e.l.ls--themselves regarded already as the parents of mankind. But such interpretations were only possible because all the predisposing circ.u.mstances had already prepared the way for the acceptance of these specific ill.u.s.trations 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-G.o.ddesses became so closely a.s.sociated or even identified with the cow, and why the cow's horns became a.s.sociated 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 a.s.sociation. On the other hand, it is clear that both the moon and the cow became identified with the Mother-G.o.ddess 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 a.s.sociation of the cow and the Mother-G.o.ddess was the fact of the use of milk as food for human beings. For if the cow could a.s.sume 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 a.s.similation. 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 a.n.a.logous relationship made incense a holy substance and was responsible for the personification of the incense-tree as a G.o.ddess. 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 G.o.ds also, so that they might hear and attend to the prayers of supplicants.

Other circ.u.mstances 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 b.u.t.ter 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-G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ddess, 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 Gathas, 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 G.o.dman and Salvin's "Biologia Centrali-Americana," Archaeology, 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 daemon. 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--"Mysteres egyptiens,"

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 ill.u.s.tration 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 ident.i.ty 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 G.o.d 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 att.i.tude 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 embarra.s.sing tokens of love; and most ethnologists, misjudging such actions, write about "appeasing the dead".

It was those whom the G.o.ds _loved_ who died young.

Ea was not only the G.o.d of the deep, but also "lord of life," king of the river and G.o.d of creation. Like Osiris "he fertilized parched and sunburnt wastes through rivers and irrigating ca.n.a.ls, and conferred upon man the sustaining 'food of life'.... The G.o.ddess 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 G.o.ds 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 s.e.xual relations ... the Semitic conception of deity ... embodies the truth--grossly indeed, but nevertheless embodies it--that 'G.o.d 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-G.o.ddesses or some of their specialized variants are found. But in every case the G.o.ddess is a.s.sociated with many distinctive traits which reveal her ident.i.ty with her h.o.m.ologues 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-G.o.ds."

The Akkadians held views which were almost the direct ant.i.thesis of these. To them "the watery deep is disorder, and the cosmos, the order of the world, is due to the victory of a G.o.d of light and spring over the monster of winter and water; man is directly made by the G.o.ds".[113]