The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Part 35

and upon referring to the list of months, we learn that the 2d, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 12th months are favorable for such an undertaking, but the others are 'not.' Again, the 1st, 3d, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th are 'favorable' for "the entrance of any army upon foreign soil," but the remainder 'not.' The other specifications refer likewise to the movements of the armies. Such a calendar was evidently drawn up on the basis of omens, for a specific purpose, and, we may add, for some specific expedition to serve as a guide to the military commander. In the same way, calendars were drawn up devoted to indications regarding crops and for other purposes of public interest. To a more limited extent, private affairs are also touched upon.

To enter upon a further discussion of details is unnecessary at this point, and would carry us too far from the main purpose of this chapter, which is to point out the diverse ways in which the belief in omens is ill.u.s.trated by the religious literature of the Babylonians.

It is sufficient to have made clear that the oracles and dreams, the lists of omens derived from eclipses, the works on the planets and stars and the calendars, all have the same origin due to observation of coincidences, to past experience, and to a variety of combinations, some logical and some fanciful, of supposed relationships between cause and effect; and not only the same origin, but the lists and calendars served also the same main purpose of guides for the priests in replying to the questions put to them by their royal masters and in forwarding instructions to the ruler for the regulation of his own conduct so that he and his people might enjoy the protection and good will of the G.o.ds.

But the observation of the phenomena of the heavens, while playing perhaps the most prominent part in the derivation of omens, was not the only resource at the command of the priests for prognosticating the future. Almost daily, strange signs might be observed among men and animals, and whatever was strange was of necessity fraught with some meaning. It was the business of the priest to discover that meaning.

Omens From Terrestrial Phenomena.

Monstrosities, human and animal, and all species of malformations aroused attention. The rarer their occurrence, the greater the significance attached to them. In addition to this, the movements of animals, the flight of birds, the appearance of snakes at certain places, of locusts, lions, the actions of dogs, the direction of the winds, the state of rivers, and all possible accidents and experiences that men may encounter in their house, in the street, in crossing streams, and in sleep were observed. Everything in any way unusual was important, and even common occurrences were of some significance. The extensive omen literature that was produced in Babylonia is an indication of the extent to which men's lives were hedged in by the belief in portents. Several thousand tablets in the portion of Ashurbanabal's library that has been rescued from oblivion through modern excavations, deal with omens of this general cla.s.s. Several distinct series, some embracing over one hundred tablets, have already been distinguished. One of these series deals with all kinds of peculiarities that occur in human infants and in the young of animals; another with the things that may happen to a man; a third with the movements of various animals, and more the like. As yet but a small portion of these tablets have been published,[624] but thanks to the indications given by Dr. Bezold in his great catalogue of the Kouyunjik Collection, a fair idea of the general character of the Babylonian omen literature may be formed. On what principle the omens were derived, it is again difficult to determine in detail, but that some logical principles controlled the interpretations cannot be doubted.

Jevons has shown[625] that in "sympathetic magic,"--of which the interpretation of omens is an offshoot,--the same logical methods are followed as in modern science. The famous 'Chaldean wisdom,' which is to be looked for in this widespread omen literature, would not have created so deep an impression on the ancient world, if the theologians of the Euphrates Valley, in incorporating primitive magic in the official religion, had not been successful in giving to their interpretations of occurrences in nature and in the animal world, the appearance, at least, of a consistent science.

Taking up as our first ill.u.s.tration the series devoted to birth portents, it is interesting to observe the system followed in presenting the various phases of the general subject. A broad distinction is drawn between significant phenomena in the case of human infants and in the case of the young of animals.

About a dozen tablets are taken up with an enumeration of omens connected with new-born children, and one gains the impression from the vast number of portents included in the lists that originally every birth portended something. The fact that births were of daily occurrence did not remove the sense of mystery aroused by this sudden appearance of a new life. Every part of the body was embraced in the omens: the ears, eyes, mouth, nose, lips, arms, hands, feet, fingers, toes, breast, generatory organs. Attention was directed to the shapes of these various members and organs. The ears of a child might suggest the ears of a dog or of a lion or of a swine, and similarly the nose, mouth, lips, hands, or feet might present a peculiar appearance. A single member or the features in general might be small or abnormally large. All these peculiarities meant something; and since few if any children are born without presenting some peculiarities in some part of the body, it would seem as though the intention of the compilers of the series was to provide a complete handbook for the interpretation of signs connected with the birth of children. Naturally the total absence of some member of the body in case of the new-born or any malformation was a sign of especial significance. Hence we are told what was portended by a child born without hands or feet or ears or lips, or with only one of these members, or with only one eye, or with no mouth or no tongue, or with six fingers on one or on both hands, or six toes on one or on both feet, or without generatory organs.[626]

The rarer the phenomenon, the greater the significance is, as we have seen, a general principle in the science of augury. The birth of twins accordingly plays an important role in the series. In fact, the opening tablet is devoted in part to this phase of the subject. We are told, for example, that[627]

If a woman gives birth to twins, one male and one female, it is an unfavorable omen. The land is in favor[628], but that house (wherein the child was born) will be reduced.

And again,

If a woman gives birth to twins, and both are brought out alive(?),[629] but the right hand of one is lacking, the ruler (?) will be killed by force, the land will be diminished....

If a woman gives birth to twins, and both are brought out alive (?), but neither of them have right hands, the produce of the country will be consumed by the enemy.

If a woman gives birth to twins, and both are brought out alive (?), but the right foot of one is missing, an enemy will for one year disturb the fixed order of the country.[630]

It will be observed that these omens bear on public as well as private affairs. The part played by public matters in them varies, but that the king and the country are so frequently introduced is an indication again of the official character given to these omen tablets. Only priests whose chief concern was with the court and the general welfare would have been impelled to mingle in this curious way the fate of the individual with that of the country at large. The birth of twins in itself is an omen for the house where the event occurs; but twins that are monstrosities, with a foot or a hand lacking, portend something of import to the general welfare.

The tablet proceeds, after finishing one phase of the subject, with omens to be derived from infants whose features resemble those of certain animals. In this case again we will see that the mind of the compiler is now directed towards the fate of the individual and again toward the ruler or the country. In the 2d tablet of the series we read that

If a woman gives birth to a child with a lion's head,[631] a strong king will rule in the land.

If a woman gives birth to a child with a dog's head, the city in his district[632] will be in distress, and evil will be in the country.

If a woman gives birth to a child with a swine's head, offspring and possession (?) will increase in that house.

If a woman gives birth to a child with a bird's head, that land will be destroyed.

If a woman gives birth to a child with a serpent's head, for thirty days (?) Nin-Gishzida[633] will bring a famine in the land, and Gilgamesh[634] will rule as king in the land.

In the same tablet[635] such monstrosities are taken up as children born with two heads, with a double pair of eyes, or with the eyes misplaced, with two mouths or more than two lips. The two heads, strange enough, generally portend good fortune, though not invariably. Thus an infant with two heads is an omen of strength for the country; and again

If a woman gives birth to a child with two heads, two mouths, but the regular number of eyes, hands, and feet[636], it is an omen of vigorous life [for the country, but the son] will seize the king his father and kill him.

But

If a woman gives birth to a child with two heads and two mouths, and the two hands and two feet are between them[637], disease will settle upon that city (where the monstrosity was born).

If the deformity consists in the misplacement of certain organs, the omen is invariably bad.

If a woman gives birth to a child with two eyes on the left side, it is a sign that the G.o.ds are angry against the land, and the land will be destroyed.

And again,

If a woman gives birth to a child with three eyes on the left side and one on the right, the G.o.ds will fill the land with corpses.

The third tablet proceeds with other parts of the body. It begins with a list of peculiarities observed in regard to the ears. The resemblance of certain features in children to the corresponding features of animals is an observation made by many nations. In modern times Lavater, it will be recalled, based his study of human physiognomy in part upon the resemblance of the nose, eyes, mouth, and ears, and general shape of the head to the features of such animals as the lion, jacka.s.s, dog, and swine. We may well believe, therefore, that when the Babylonians refer to a child with a lion's or a dog's ear, they had in mind merely a resemblance, but did not mean that the child actually had the ear of a lion or dog or the like.

At times the connection between the omen and its interpretation is quite obvious. In a portion of this same series we are told that[638]

If a woman gives birth to a child with a lion-like ear, a mighty king will arise in the land.

It will be recalled that a 'lion head' portends the same, and it is evident that in both cases the lion suggests strength. We are in the presence of the same order of ideas that controls the belief in 'sympathetic magic.' The corollary to 'like produces like' is 'like means like.' In other cases, the logic underlying the interpretation of the omen must be sought for in views connected with some accompanying feature.

If a woman gives birth to a child with the right ear missing, the days of the ruler will be long.

If a woman gives birth to a child with the left ear missing, distress will enter the land and weaken it.

While in general the absence of any part of the body is a sign of distress for the country and individual by a perfectly natural a.s.sociation of ideas, yet this general principle is modified by the further consideration that 'right' is a good omen and 'left' a bad one.

But this consideration which makes the absence of the 'right' ear a good omen may again be offset by the entrance of a third factor. So we are told that

If a woman gives birth to a child with a small[639] right ear, the house of the man[640] will be destroyed.

The omen of misfortune in this case is the deformity in the organ, and the fact that the more important right ear is deformed, so far from mitigating the force of the omen, accentuates its consequences.

If a deformed right ear is disastrous, we are prepared to learn that

If a woman gives birth to a child with both ears short, the house of the man will be utterly rooted out.

No less than eleven varieties of deformed ears are enumerated. It must not be supposed, however, that the factors involved in this omen science are always or even generally so simple. In most cases the connection between the sign and the conclusion drawn, is not clear to us because of the multiplicity of factors involved. Further publication and study of omen texts will no doubt make some points clear which are now obscure, but we cannot expect ever to find out all the factors that were taken into account by the populace and the schoolmen, in proposing and accepting certain interpretations of certain omens, any more than we can fathom the reasons for the similar superst.i.tion found among other nations[641] of antiquity and modern times. Recognizing certain principles in some of the omens, we are justified in concluding that whatever else determined the interpretation of omens, caprice did not enter into consideration, but rather an a.s.sociation of ideas that escapes us, simply because our logic differs from the logic of primitive peoples in certain important particulars.

The list of peculiarities occurring in the case of babes continues as follows:

If a woman gives birth to a child whose mouth is shaped like a bird's, the country will be stirred up.

If a woman gives birth to a child without any mouth, the mistress of the house will die.

If a woman gives birth to a child with the right nostril lacking, misfortune is portending.

If a woman gives birth to a child with both nostrils lacking, the land will witness distress, and disease will destroy the house of the man.

If a woman gives birth to a child whose jaw is lacking, the days of the ruler will be long, but the house of the man will be destroyed.