THE NATURAL GENESIS
NOTES TO SECTION 8
[1] [See his Das Mutterecht (Mother-Right),
in which he asserts that the mother of the tribe was first and therefore
primary, and that the mother-line was used to trace ancestry before being
usurped by the father, or patriarchy.]
[2] [Clement Alexander, Stromateis, bk. 5. Unable
to trace.
Proclus,
Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato, bk. 1. 'Of this province,
the greatest city is Sais, from which also king Amasis derived his origin. The
city has a presiding divinity, whose name is, in the Egyptian tongue, Neith, but
in the Greek Athena, or Minerva.' Taylor's tr., vol. 1, p. 80.
See also Plutarch, Of Isis and Osiris, ch.
9.]
[3] [Rit. ch. 165, sup. 'Glory to thee, thou art
stronger than the Gods! Adoration to thee! the forms of the living souls who are
in their places give glory to the terrors of thee their mother; thou art their
origin, giving them a of rest in the Secret Gate.'
Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[4] [Hahn, Tsuni-Goam, p. 145. 'Thus we have the
Nama-s, |Amas, ||Khaus, !Gami‡nus, ‡Khaχas, never
Nama-b, etc., in the masculine form as a tribal appellation.']
[5] [Ross,
History of Corea, Ancient and Modern, p. 121. 'The history of
the "Three Kingdoms" of China in the third century, A.C., states that 1,000
li
north of Huentoo, and 1,400 li north-east of Liaotung city, (the present
Liaoyang,) was the kingdom of FOOYU. To its north again was the kingdom of Gaoli,
in times so ancient, that even Chinese writers mention it with a degree of
scepticism. Tradition said that the first king of this northern Gaoli, had a
maid slave who was found to be with child. The king desired the death of the boy
who was born, but the mother said that she had conceived him by an influence
which came upon her, and which she felt to be like air (chi), as if of the form
of a hen's egg. The king, at once afraid to kill, and fearing to keep alive a
prodigy like this, which boded him no good, had the child cast into the
pig-yard, whereinto refuse and filth of all kinds were thrown. But the swine
breathed into the boy's nostrils, and thus kept him in life. As the child still
lived when he should have died, he was next banished into the stables; but the
horses followed the example of the swine, and sustained him with their breath.
Because he was not thus got rid of, the king ordered the mother to have him into
the palace to be nourished, for the fates evidently determined to keep him in
life.']
[6] [Daily News, Sept. 2, 1882.]
[6a] [The Times. No author, date given. Source.]
[7] [Tsuni-Goam, p. 19. 'The root da or
ta means to conquer, to rule, to master, and the suffix ra expresses
a custom or an intrinsic peculiarity.']
[8] [Ibid., p. 19. 'Taras is also a woman of
rank, a lady. In every Khoikhoi's house the woman or taras, is the
supreme ruler; the husband has nothing at all to say ... If a man ever should
try to do it, his nearest female relations will put a fine on him, consisting in
cows and sheep, which is to be added to the stock of the wife.']
[9] [Revillout,
Chrestomathie Demotique.]
[10] [Sayce, 'Table of Ancient Accadian Laws,' RP, 3,
21. See pp. 23-4.]
[11] [Dugmore, in Maclean's A Compendium of Kafir
Laws and Customs,
p. 61.]
[12] [Wilson, Rig Veda,
vol. 3, p. 84. 'Indra: sit down, Indra, on the sacred grass (prepared by) the
institutor of the rite; and may our commendations be most acceptable to Indra.
A man's wife, Maghavan, is his dwelling; verily she is his place of birth:
thither let thy horses, harnessed (to thy car), convey thee: we prepare the Soma
juice at the fit season: may Agni come as our messenger before thee.']
[13] [Source.]
[14] [Metamorphosis. I am unable to trace any
exact phrasing, but see below.
The trans. notes, 'The MEGALESIAN GAMES begin and last for eight days, eight
being the first Cubic Number, and therefore appropriate to the Cybeleian, or the
Cubic Goddess; for Cybele was the Divinity who presided over square or cubic
stone building. The story of Cybele, and the whole pomp or processional shew of
the Megalesian Games, had reference to the constellations ARGO, or the SHIP,
Cancer, in Greek, called SKIRROS or the CUBE, Leo or the Lions, by which her Car
was said to be drawn, Corona Borealis the Drum or Tambourine, Libra the Balance
the SCALES or Cymbals, and the SERPENT. These constellations form a
configuration of attendants preceding and following the constellation VIRGO. ...
The Pagan story of ATYS and CYBELE, the Goddess of Cities, has its counterpart
in the Legend of Saint URBICUS (the City Saint) and his Wife, whose Festival
falls in the Roman Catholic Calendar on the third day of April. In the Pagan
story the Man is the delinquent, in the other it is the Woman.
The Goddess whom the Romans brought with such ceremony from
so great a distance, (for according to Ovid they must have gone as far as the
Euxine Sea,) was simply a dark black Stone, of an irregular shape, with
projecting points, which had been long worshipped at Pessinus in Galatia, the
City of the Cube, Pessos being Greek for a Cube.' P. 214 of 1839 ed.]
[15] [NG 1:304.]
[16] [Laveleye, Primitive Property, ch. 14,
'Family Communities among the Southern Slavs.' 'In
certain districts the women take the management alternately, each for eight
days, of the different household duties, consisting of cooking and baking,
milking the cows, making the butter, and feeding the poultry. The manager for
the time being is called redusa,
which signifies "she whose turn has come."'
See also his book, Balkan Peninsula, pp. 57-8,
where he also describes the zadrugas: 'These agricultural
associations—the word zadruga means association—are patriarchal families,
living upon a common and indivisible domain. The zadruga, like a foundation,
represents a civil person. It has a perpetual duration. It can act in a court of
law. Its associated members have no right to ask for the division of the
patrimony, nor to sell or mortgage their share in the land and house. The right
of succession no more exists amidst these family communities than in religious
ones. On the death of the father or mother, the children inherit nothing but
some articles of furniture; they continue to take their share of the products of
the collective domain, but only in virtue of their individual right, and as
members of the perpetual family. Formerly nothing could destroy the zadruga but
the death of all those who formed part of it. The daughter who was married
received a dowry, but she could claim no share of the common property. He who
left without the intention of returning, lost his rights. Both internal and
external administration were vested solely in an elected chief, who was
generally the oldest or most able man. He was called gospodar, lord, or
starechina, the ancient. The housekeeping was managed by a matron,
invested with despotic authority in this respect; she was called the
domatchika. The starechina directed the agricultural labours, sold
and bought; his post was the same as that of a director of a joint stock
company, or rather that of a corporate society, for the zadrugas are in all
respects agricultural corporate societies, bound together by secular custom and
family affection, instead of by pecuniary interest.
Family communities have existed throughout the world in
primitive times. It is the ![[ggr]](images/ggr.gif)
![[eacugr]](images/eacugr.gif)
![[ngr]](images/ngr.gif)
![[ogr]](images/ogr.gif)
![[sfgr]](images/sfgr.gif)
of the Greeks, the Roman gens, the cognatio of the Germans,
mentioned by Cæsar. It is also the lignage of the communes of the
Middle Ages. It was zadrugas which built in America those colossal structures,
divided in cells, that are called pueblos, and which are like the cells
of honeycomb. In the middle of France, family communities existed until the
Revolution, having a character and government identical with those which we find
to-day amongst the Southern Slavs. In the French zadrugas, the starechina
was called the mayor, the master of the community, or the chief of the "chanteau,"
that is, bread.']
[17] [Source.]
[18] [Primitive Principles. 'But the Babylonians, like the rest of the Barbarians,
pass over in silence the One principle of the universe, and they constitute two, Tauthe and Apason, making Apason the husband of Tauthe, and denominating her the
"mother of the gods." And from these proceeds an only-begotten son, Moymis,
which, I conceive, is no other than the intelligible world proceeding from the
two principles. From them, also, another progeny is derived, Dache and Dachus;
and again a third, Kissare and Assorus, from which last three others proceed,
Anus and Illinus, and Aus. And of Aus and Davke is born a son called Belus, who,
they say, is the fabricator of the world—the
Demiurgus.' In Cory, Ancient Fragments, p.
92.
See also NG 2:25 and 19th C. p. 172. This whole passage has
been preserved in Photius' Bibliotheca, cod. 279, and is also quoted in
Lenormant's Chaldean Magic, p. 202, footnote 3, which Massey also
consulted.]
[19] [Chikhachev,
Voyage
Scientifique dans l'Altai Oriental et les Parties Adjacentes de la Frontière
de Chine,
p. 45. 'The Ugric and Altaic tribes have their Shamans; the Mongols, with their
Buddhists Lamas, keep the priests of magic from their ancestor worship, which
they call abysses.' From Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, p. 211.]
[20] [Essays on the Sacred Language Writings and Religion of
the Parsis, p. 161. 'All ye, who have come from near and far, should now
listen and hearken to what I shall proclaim. Now the wise have manifested this
universe as a duality.']
[21] [From Guigniaut, Religions de l'Antiquité,
atlas, planche 19, no. 103.
See Scott, Phallic Worship, fig. 30, who describes it as 'the symbolical
representation of Shakti, the female creative power, depicted in the act of
emitting, as a result of self-applied pressure to her breasts, the nutritive
juice upon which living organisms depend for life and sustenance.'
See also
Didron, Christian Iconography, fig.
12.]
[22] [Chips From A German Workshop, vol. 1, p. 137. 'The
principal difficulty in this paragraph consists in the word which Dr. Haug
translated by "duality," namely, "dum," and which he identifies with Sanskrit "dvam,"
i.e. dvandvam, pair. Such a word, as far as we are aware, does not occur
again in the Zend-Avesta, and hence it is not likely that the uncertainty
attaching to its meaning will ever be removed.']
[23] [Hieroglyphica, bk. 1. 11. 'To denote a mother, or
vision, or boundary, or foreknowledge, or a year, or heaven, or one that is
compassionate, or Athena [Neith], or Hera [Saté], or two
drachmas, they delineate it a mother, because in this race of
creatures there is no male. Gignuntur autem hunc in modum. Cum amore concipiendi
vultur exarserit, vulvam ad Boream aperiens, ab eo velut comprimitur per dies
quinque, during which time she partakes neither of food nor drink, being intent
upon procreation. There are also other kinds of birds which conceive by the
wind, but their eggs are of use only for food, and not for procreation; but the
eggs of the vultures that are impregnated by the wind possess a vital principle.
The vulture is used also as a symbol of vision, because it sees more keenly than
all other creatures; and by looking towards the west when the sun is in the
east, and towards the east when the god is in the west, it procures its
necessary food from afar. And it signifies a boundary [landmark?]
because, when a battle is to be fought, it points out the spot on which it will
take place, by betaking itself thither seven days beforehand:—and
foreknowledge, both from the circumstance last mentioned, and because it
looks towards that army which is about to have the greater number killed, and be
defeated, reckoning on its food from their slain: and on this account the
ancient kings were accustomed to send forth observers to ascertain towards which
part of the battle the vultures were looking, to be thereby apprized which army
was to be overcome. And it symbolizes a year, because the 365 days of the
year, in which the annual period is completed, are exactly apportioned by the
habits of this creature; for it remains pregnant 120 days, and during an equal
number it brings up its young, and during the remaining 120 it gives its
attention to itself, neither conceiving nor bringing up its young, but preparing
itself for another conception; and the remaining five days of the year, as I
have said before, it devotes to another impregnation by the wind. It symbolises
also a compassionate person, which appears to some to be the furthest
from its nature, inasmuch as it is a creature that preys upon all things; but
they were induced to use it as a symbol for this, because in the 120 days,
during which it brings up its offspring, it flies to no great distance, but is
solely engaged about its young and their sustenance; and if during this period
it should be without food to give its young, it opens its own thigh, and suffers
its offspring to partake of the blood, that they may not perish from want of
nourishment:—and Athena [Neith], and Hera [Saté],
because among the Egyptians Athena [Neith] is regarded as presiding over the
upper hemisphere, and Hera [Saté] over the lower; whence also they think
it absurd to designate the heaven in the masculine,
τόν ουρανον, but
represent it in the feminine,
την ουρανον,
inasmuch as the generation of the sun and moon and the rest of the stars, is
perfected in it, which is the peculiar property of a female. And the race of
vultures, as I said before, is a race of females alone, and on this account the
Egyptians over any female hieroglyph place the vulture as a mark of royalty
[maternity?]. And hence, not to prolong my discourse by mentioning each
individually, when the Egyptians would designate any goddess who is a mother,
they delineate a vulture, for it is the mother of a female progeny. And they
denote by it (οραναν) heaven, (for it does not suit them to say τν
ορανν, as I said before,) because its generation is from thence [by the
wind]:—and two drachmas, because among the Egyptians the unit [of money]
is the two drachmas, and the unit is the origin of every number, therefore when
they would denote two drachmas, they with good reason depict a vulture, inasmuch
as like unity it seems to be mother and generation.'
See also BB 1:142 for another ref. to this chapter.]
[24] [Herodotus, Histories, bk. 2. 54. 'The following tale is commonly told in Egypt concerning
the oracle of Dodôna in Greece, and that of Ammon in Libya. My informants on the
point were the priests of Jupiter at Thebes. They said "that two of the sacred
women were once carried off from Thebes by the Phoenicians, and that the story
went that one of them was sold into Libya, and the other into Greece, and these
women were the first founders of the oracles in the two countries." On my
inquiring how they came to know so exactly what became of the women, they
answered,
"that diligent search had been made after them at the time, but that it had not
been found possible to discover where they were; afterwards, however, they
received the information which they had given me."' Tr., Rawlinson.
'As regards the Oracles both that among the Hellenes and that in Libya,
the Egyptians tell the following tale. The priests of the Theban Zeus told me
that two women in the service of the temple had been carried away from Thebes by
Phoenicians, and that they had heard that one of them had been sold to go into
Libya and the other to the Hellenes; and these women, they said, were they who
first founded the prophetic seats among the nations which have been named: and
when I inquired whence they knew so perfectly of this tale which they told, they
said in reply that a great search had been made by the priests after these
women, and that they had not been able to find them, but they had heard
afterwards this tale about them which they were telling.' Tr., Macauley.]
[25] [Kenealy, Book of God, p. 13. 'Upon the table lies
a Silver Rose, called Tamara Pua, which contains the images of two Women as
bright and fair as a pearl; but these two are only One, though appearing as if
distinct according to the medium, celestial or terrestrial, through which they
are viewed, In the first aspect she is called Briga-Siri, the Lady of the Mouth:
in the other Tara-Siri. the Lady of the Tongue—or the Spirit of Tongues, In the
centre of this Silver Rose, God, has his permanent residence.']
[26] [Chalmers, The Origin of the Chinese,
p. 14. 'Practical Dualism. The antithesis of "Father Heaven" and
"Mother Earth,'' or more generally of Yang and Yin (originally light and
shadow) no doubt appears very early in Chinese literature; though it is
less distinct in the Poetry than in the History. In the former we do not find
the dual expressions T'ien-ti, Heaven and Earth,—Shin-khi,
celestial and terrestrial spirits,—Kwei-shin,
ghosts and spirits,—Yin and Yang, &c., which
abound in the latter; and it is in the latter only that we are told that Heaven
and Earth are the father and mother of all things (Shoo-king, V. I. Pt. i.
3).']
[27] [Muir,
Original Sanskrit Texts,
vol. 4, p. 114. 'In the hymns of the Yeda the Adityas, or sons of Aditi, are
alluded to as being seven or eight in number; but only six deities, of whom Yishnu is not one, are specified by name as belonging to this class.'
Ibid., p. 265. 'This, I suppose, refers to the Adityas being in the Veda
spoken of as only seven in number.'
Ibid., vol. 5, p. 39 (note) and 147 (note). 'We invoke the divine Adityas,
Aditi, those (gods) who are terrestrial, celestial, who (exist) in the aerial
waters." The word "waters" seems to be used in the sense of air, in ii. 38, 11,
and x. 45, 1. Compare also vii. 35, 11, where the gods are classed as difya,
parthiva, and apya (celestial, earthly, and aerial, apsu antarikshe bhavah:
ayana), v. 14 of the same hymn where they are divided into divya, parthiva,
(celestial, earthly), and gojata; and vi. 50, 11, where they are distinguished
as divya, parthiva, gojata, ad apya (celestial, earthly,
gojata, and aerial).
Sayana on R.V. vii. 35, 14, explains gojata as Prisner jatah "born of Pris'ni."
On vi. 50, 11, he characterizes Pris'ni as madhyamika veik, "the Vach of the
middle region."'
See also A.V. xiii. 1, 3, where the same smaller number is given:
trishaptaso
marutah svadusammudah. Sayana interprets the words of R.V. viii. 28, 5,
saptanam
sapta rishtayaii. "The seven have seven spears," by saying that it refers to an
ancient story of Indra severing the embryo of Adit into seven parts, from which
sprang the Maruts according to the Vedic text: "The Maruts are divided into
seven troops." The same story is told at greater length by Sayana on R.V. i.
114, 6, where, however, it is said to be Diti, mother of the Asuras, whose
embryo Indra severed first into seven portions, each of which he then subdivided
into seven.']
[28] [Ibid., p. 37. 'Professor Muller says that "Aditi, an ancient god or goddess, is
in reality the earliest name invented to express the Infinite; not the Infinite
as the result of a long process of abstract reasoning, but the visible Infinite,
visible by the naked eye, the endless expanse, beyond the earth, beyond the
clouds, beyond the sky." And in the next page he goes on to remark that if we
keep this original conception (the conception which he has explained in these
two pages) of Aditi clearly before us, the various forms which Aditi assumes,
even in the hymns of the Veda, will not seem incoherent.']
[29] [Ibid., p. 44. 'Professor Benfey remarks "The
conception of this goddess is still dark."']
[30] [Ibid., p. 39. 'Roth, in his Lexicon, understands
the word Aditi in this passage to mean "infinity," the boundlessness of heaven
as opposed to the limitation of earth.']
[31] [Source.]
[32] [Commentary on Timaeus, bk. 3. 'For every where
that which is older, is the symbol of a more intellectual, total and monadic
life; but that which is younger, of a life which is partible, proceeds to
secondary nature, and is multiplied. Hence of vivific Goddesses, they call one
older, but the other younger. And of the demiurgic Gods, they denominate one
prior, but the other junior, whom likewise they call recent.' Taylor's tr., vol.
2, p. 12.]
[33] [Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific, pp. 1-7. 'We advance now to the interior of the
supposed cocoa-nut shell. In the lowest depth of Avaiki, where the sides of the
imaginary shell nearly meet, lives a woman a demon, of flesh and blood named
Vari-ma-te-takere, or The-very-beginning. Such is the narrowness of her
territory that her knees and chin touch, no other position being possible. Vari-ma-te-takere was very anxious for progeny. One day she plucked off a bit of
her right side, and it became a human being the first man Avatea, or Vatea (the
elision of the a in Avatea is compensated by the elongation of the second
vowel).
Now Vatea, the father of gods and men, was half man and half fish, the division
being like the two halves of the human body. The species of fish to which this
great divinity was allied being the taairangi (Cetacca), or great sea monsters,
i.e. porpoises, whose sides are covered with pure fat, and whose home is the
boundless ocean. Thus one eye of Vatea was human, the other a fish-eye. His
right side was furnished with an arm; the left with a fin. He had one proper
foot, and half a fish-tail.
But there is another, and probably far more ancient, account of Vatea, or Avatea,
which means noon in all the dialects of Eastern Polynesia. Vatea is a man
possessed of two magnificent eyes, rarely visible at the same time. In general,
whilst one, called by mortals the sun, is seen here in this upper world, the
other eye, called by men the moon, shines in Avaiki. (A contradictory myth
represents the sun and moon as living beings.)
Compare with, this a remarkable picture of a fish-god, from Layard, in Smith
Dictionary of the Bible, p. 381 (central picture).
The land assigned by the Great Mother to Vatea was Te-papa-rairai, or
The-thin-land. Another designation for his home was Te enua marama o Vatea, or
The-bright-hind-of-Vati implying the perfect contrast between the brightness of
mantoy, or Avatea, and the utter gloom of Po, or night which is equivalent to
Avaiki.
On another occasion Vari-ma-te-takere tore off a second bit from that same right
side, and it became Tinirati, or innumerable, who, like his brother, had a
second and fishy form.
The sort of fish which composed his half fish body was of the sprat-kind. The
Great Mother gave him the land of Motu Tapu, or Sacred Isle as his own domain.
There were his celebrated ponds full of all kinds of fish. Tinirau was lord of
the finny inhabitants of the sea, from the shark downwards.
Another day Vari-ma-te-takere took a bit off her left side, and it became Tango,
or Support, who went to live at Enua-Kura, or The-land-of-red-parrot-feathers.
A fourth child was produced from a bit of the same left side, and was named
Tumuteanaoa, or Echo, whose home was Te-parai-tea, or The-hollow-grey-rocks.
Echo is represented as a female.
A fifth child originated from a bit of that same left side of the Great Mother,
and was designated Raka, or Trouble, who presides, like Aeolus, over the winds.
Raka found a congenial home in Moana-Irakau, or Deep-ocean. Raka received from
Vari-ma-te-takere a great basket in which the winds were hidden; also the
knowledge of many useful inventions. The children of Raka are the numerous winds
and storms which distress mankind. To each child is allotted a hole at the edge
of the horizon, through which he blows at pleasure.
Van, or The-very-beginning, finding that her left side had been more injured
than her right, resolved to make both sides alike by taking a third bit from the
right side, and named this, her last child, Tu-metua, Stick-by4he-parenL Now,
this sixth and most beloved child, as the name implies, lives with the Great
Mother in that narrow strip of territory constituting the very bottom of Avaiki,
and which is designated Te-enua-te-ki, or The-mute-land. Do what you may to the
attached mother and daughter, you cannot provoke an angry reply; for the only
language known in The-mute-land is that of signs such as nods, elevated
eye-brows, grimaces, and smiles.
It is to The-mute-land that Potiki, temporal lord of Mangaia, circa 1790,
referred in a song:
E enua parere i Avaiki In Avaiki is a land of strange utterance,
E enua mu matangi e! Like the sighs of the passing breeze;
Kua le Tautiti nei Where the dance is performed in silence,
Aore e kite i te tara e! And the gift of speech is unknown.
Tu-metua is usually shortened into ... a principal god in most of the Polynesian
mythologies, to whom the fourteenth night in every "moon" was sacred. On Cook's
second visit to Tahiti, he found the king to be Otoo, ancestor of the present
Pomare. Otoo should be written Tu, the being a mere prefix to all proper names.
This mythological name was adopted in order to secure for its owner the
superstitious reverence due to the gods which are unseen by mortals. Tu was the
tutelar goddess of Moorea. On Mangaia Tu was invariably linked with her nephew
Tangaroa; but was little regarded. The second islet of Hervey's Island is known
as "the kingdom of Tu" (au-o-Tu).
At Raiatea Tu-papa = Tu-of-the-lowest-depths (the same as Tu-metua) becomes the
wife of Ra, the Sun-god, whose too frequent visits to her home required to be
checked by Maui.
It was deemed by Vari very unseemly that Vatea's land, which originally was
immediately above her own, should be underneath, and so to speak invaded by, his
younger brothers. The-very-beginning, therefore, altered the relative position
of The-thin-land, placing it directly under the opening from this upper world;
so that the law of primogeniture was established, the lands of all the younger
brothers thus lying underneath the territory of Noon-day.
Vatea in his dreams several times saw a beautiful woman. On one happy occasion
he succeeded in clutching her in his sleep, and thus detained the fair sprite as
his wife in his home in Te-papa-rairai. Another account asserts that on Vatea's
waking from sleep he could discover no trace of the fair one. He searched in all
directions for her but in vain. At length it occurred to him that her home might
be in some dark cavern communicating with a land lower than his own, from which
the fair one was in the habit of ascending to The-thin-land to pay him nocturnal
visits. To test the correctness of this supposition, Vatea scraped a quantity of
cocoa-nuts and scattered handfuls down all the chasms in his territory. Some
time afterwards he found that from the bottom of one cave, named Taeva-rangi, or
celestial-aperture, the rich white food had entirely disappeared. A fresh lot of
the same dainty food was now thrown down, whilst Vatea from behind a projecting
crag cautiously peered down. It was not long before a slender hand, very unlike
his own, was slowly extended towards the coveted morsels. Vatea at once
concluded that this must belong to the woman he had seen in his dreams. With a
favouring current of wind, he descended to the bottom, and caught the fair
thief. His visions were realized; this lovely one confessed that she had again
and again ascended to his house above in The-thin-land in order to win him as
her future husband. She correctly guessed that Vatea, would never rest until he
had discovered the whereabouts of the fair coquette, and made her his wife. She
informed her lover that she was Papa, or Foundation, the daughter of Timatekore,
or Ming-more, and his wife Tamaiti-ngava-ringavari, or Soft-bodied. The famed
Papa thus became the cherished wife of Vatea; both ascended by another eddy of
wind through the chasm to The-bright-land-of-Vatea!' See full
text.]
[34] [Ruth 4:11. 'And all the people that were in the
gate, and the elders, said, We are witnesses. The LORD make the woman that is
come into thine house like Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house
of Israel: and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be famous in Bethlehem.']
[35] [Burton,
A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome, vol. 2,
app. 4. Unable to trace.]
[36] [Theal, Kaffir Folklore,
intro, p. 6.]
[37] [BB 1:1.]
[38] [Smyth,
The Aborigines of Victoria,
vol. 1, p. 107. 'If the death of a black occur after sunset, when there
is not time to use all the proper ceremonials in the light of day, the body is
left in the place where the spirit fled; and the nearest of kin—male
and female—sit by the side of it during the
long hours of night. Two fires are made, one at the east side of the corpse, and
one at the west; and the male watches the east fire, and the female the west.
Not until the glare of the morning light has turned the green tree-tops to gold
does the camp move or the ceremonials begin.']
[39] [Syrian
Goddess.]
[40] [De Errore, ch. 4. 'The Assyrians and part of the
Africans ascribe the primacy among the elements to the air, and worship it in a
shape which is the product of their imagination. For exactly this, the air,
which is what they have consecrated under the name of Juno or Venus the Virgin—if
virginity ever suited the fancy of Venus!' Forbes' tr.]
[41] [Theology of Plato, bk. 6, ch. 22, vol. 2,
p. 76. 'Juno imports the generation of soul.' From Hislop, The Two Babylons,
p. 80.
Cf. 'Moreover, of the vivific triad, Ceres, is the chief, entirely generating
all mundane life, viz., the intellectual, the psychical, and that which
is inseparable from body. But Juno contains the middle of the triad, and imparts
the generation of soul.' Taylor's tr., as it appears in The Thomas Taylor
Series, vol. 8, p. 455. The fact that the original has 'imparts' and Hislop
has 'imports,' the same as in Massey, proves that he borrowed it from Hislop.]
[42] [Description of Greece, bk. 3, 15. 8. 'Not far from
the theatre is a sanctuary of Poseidon God of Kin, and there are hero-shrines of
Cleodaeus, son of Hyllus, and of Oebalus. The most famous of their sanctuaries
of Asclepius has been built near Booneta, and on the left is the hero-shrine of
Teleclus. I shall mention him again later in my history of Messenia. A little
farther on is a small hill, on which is an ancient temple with a wooden image of
Aphrodite armed. This is the only temple I know that has an upper storey built
upon it.
It is a sanctuary of Morpho, a surname of Aphrodite, who sits wearing a veil and
with fetters on her feet. The story is that the fetters were put on her by
Tyndareus, who symbolized by the bonds the faithfulness of wives to their
husbands. The other account, that Tyndareus punished the goddess with fetters
because he thought that from Aphrodite had come the shame of his daughters, I
will not admit for a moment. For it were surely altogether silly to expect to
punish the goddess by making a cedar figure and naming it Aphrodite.' Frazer's
tr.]
[43] [Ibid., as above note.]
[44] [Mahabharata, ch. 3.27.]
[45] [Bundahish, ch.
1:3.]
[46] [Pierret,
Le Pantheon Égyptien,
p. 49. 'Associé
à Horus sous la figure d'un dieu
à double téte
d'épervier et d'animal typhonien, et sous le
nom de "le ayant deux faces," Set se substitue à
l'allégorie du double Horus et du double
Mentou dont une face regarde le sud et l'autre le nord. C'est un dédoublement
du dieu solaire. Set et Horus ainsi ráunis
sont appelés les deux lions et les deux
Rehous; on les assimile à Shou et Tefnout
ainsi qu'aux deux déesses protectrices
personnifiant les deux yeux: "les deux Rehous, les deux sœurs,
les deux yeux-déesses." Une légende
mythologique fut constituée pour eux
racontant qu'ils se combattirent pour la succession de leur père
Osiris et que Thot, le dieu pondérateur,
intervint comme juge pour leur assigner à
chacun son domaine, à l'un le sud,
à l'autre le nord: "Je suis Thot, j'ai jugé
les deux Rehous."—Le pays du sud et du nord
résultent du partage d'Horus et de Set "Hatasou,
aprés avoir dit qu'elle coiffe la couronne
blanche et la couronne rouge, ajoute: "les deux Horus ont réuni
pour moi leurs domaines; je gouverne cette terre comme Horus et j'ai la force de
Set." C'est le pendant de cette autre phrase: "Dieu a fait, dit Aménophis
II, que toute terre me fut soumise, il m'a donné
la part des deux Horus.'
Rit. ch. 123. Cf.
Renouf's.
Plutarch, Of Isis and Osiris, ch.
78.]
[47] [BB 2:365.]
[48] [Chabas, 'The Magic Papyrus,' RP, 10,
135. See p. 142.
See also BB
2:295.]
[49] [Birch, 'Inscription of Darius at El-Khargeh,' RP, 8,
135. See p. 142, line 42.]
[50] [Source.]
[51] [Schoolcraft,
vol. 1, p. 310. Unable to trace in Algic Researches, nor in
Archives.]
[52] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch.
22.]
[53] [Birch, 'Tablet of 400 years,'
RP, 4, 33. See p. 36.]
[54] [Unable to trace.]
[55] [Bleek, A Brief Account of Bushman Folklore and
Other Texts, p. 18. 'Bushmen doings and prayers when Canopus and his
grandmother Sirius come out.']
[56] [Bochartus,
Hierozoicon,
bk.
1, ch. 3, vol. l. cols. 19, 20.]
[57] [Schoolcraft,
Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge,
vol. 4, p. 496. 'Plate
41 is another example of
Indian superstition, representing the contest between the gods of the north and
south, for warm and cold weather. Fig. 1 represents the world. Fig. 2 is the God
of the North, represented in a snow-storm. He is called Wa-ze-at-tah We-chas-tah.
Fig. 14 is the God of the South, and called Eto-kah We-chas-tah. He is
represented in a rain-storm. Figs. 3 and 4, representing wolves, are the
soldiers of the northern god, who fight his battles. When he wants cold weather,
he sends forth these soldiers to battle with the southern god. The latter is
assisted by the crow and plover, Figs. 15 and 16. When the battle commences, the
wolves are aided with a snow-storm. A terrible conflict ensues; the southern god
is discomfited, cold weather prevails, snow and frost appear, and the world is
frozen up.']
[58] [Cervantes,
Don Quixote, bk. 2, ch. 4. Unable to trace in any trans. by Jarvis.]
[59] [Life of Aratus. 'For Aratus himself had the
command every other year, as has been said. Lydiades, however, succeeded so well
in his pretensions, that he was thrice chosen general, governing alternately, as
did Aratus; but at last, declaring himself his professed enemy, and accusing him
frequently to the Achaeans, he was rejected, and fell into contempt, people now
seeing that it was a contest between a counterfeit and a true, unadulterated
virtue, and, as Aesop tells us that the cuckoo once, asking the little birds why
they flew away from her, was answered, because they feared she would one day
prove a hawk, so Lydiades’s former tyranny still cast a doubt upon the reality
of his change.' Dryden's tr.]
[60] [Birch, 'Inscription of Darius at El-Khargeh,' RP,
8, 135. See p. 139.]
[61] [Shakespeare, The
Tempest. See any ed.]
[62] [Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 227. 'Burton
spoke to the Eastern negroes about the Deity, they eagerly asked where he was to
be found, in order that they might kill him; for they said, "Who but he lays
waste our homes, and kills our wives and cattle?"' No source given.]
[63] [Tsuni-Goam, p. 86. 'It is, therefore, not strange
that ||Gaunab, the evil-spirit, is also invoked. They promised him offerings so
as not to provoke his anger, as is the case among the
‡Auni-Nama, in the Walefish Bay territory. I am
almost certain that, before the Khoikhoi tribes separated, this bad Being, ||Gaunab,
was generally worshipped and is of much older date than Tsûi||goab and
Heitsi-eibib.']
[64] [Ibid., p. 86. 'It is strange that the !Gabe-Bushmen,
the !Ai-Bushmen, the |Nunin, and especially among these the Hei‡guin
(or wooden noses), all know ||Gauna, whom they fear as an evil-doer, while we
find no trace of the name Tsûi||goab or Heitsi-eibib.']
[65] [Ibid., p. 61. 'An old ||Habobe-Nama, by the name
of ‡Kχarab, who had great-grand-children, and told
me that he had big grown-up children, and told me that he had big grown-up
children when the Mission Station, Warmbad, was destroyed in 1811, by Jager
Afrikaner |Hōa|arab, said to me: "Tsûi||goab was a great powerful chief of the
Khoikhoi; in fact, he was the first Khoikhoib, from whom all the Khoikhoi tribes
took their origin. But Tsûi||goab was not his original name. This Tsûi||goab
went to war with another chief, ||Gaunab, because the latter always killed great
numbers of Tsûi||goab's people. In this fight, however, Tsûi||goab was
repeatedly overpowered by ||Gaunab, but in every battle the former grew
stronger; and at last he was so strong and big that he easily destroyed ||Gaunab,
by giving him one big blow behind the ear."']
[66] [Reynard the Fox, ch. 37, p.
77.]
[67] [Ibid., as above note, and ch. 38, p.
78.]
[68] [Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria,
vol. 1, p. 86. 'Mr. Bulmer says—"The
blacks of the Murray are divided into two classes, the Mak-quarra or eagle, and
the Kil-parra or crow. If the man be Mak-qnarra, the woman must be Kil-parra. A
Mak-quarra could not marry a Mak-quarra
nor a Kil-parra a Kil-parra. The children take their caste from the mother,
and not from the father. The Murray blacks never deviate from this rule. A
man would as soon marry his sister as a woman of the caste to which he
belongs. He calls a woman of the same caste Wurtoa (sister)." Thirty
years ago this custom was investigated by Grey in South Australia. "The
natives," he says, "are divided into certain great families, all the members of
which bear the same names, as a family or second name. The principal branches
of these families, so far as I have been able to ascertain, are the Ballaroke,
Idondarup, Ngotak, Nagarnook, Nogonyuk, Mongalung, Narrangur."']
[69] [Eusebius, Praeparatio
Evangelica, bk.1. ch.1. 'Of these men, he says, were begotten (through
intercourse), with their mothers, Memrumus and Hypsuranius; the women of
those times without shame having intercourse with any man they might chance to
meet. Then, says he, Hypsuranius dwelt in Tyre, and he invented huts constructed
of reeds and rushes, and (found out the use of) papyrus. And he fell into enmity
with his brother Usous, who first invented a covering for the body, of the skins
of wild beasts which he could catch.' In Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 6.
See also
AE 2:595.]
[70] [Egede,
Nachrichten von Grönland,
p. 157.]
[71] [Gill,
Myths and Songs from the South Pacific, p. 12. 'Nearly all
sorts of food, too, fell to the share of the younger twin-god. The division was
made on this principle: all the RED on earth or in the ocean became Tangaroa's;
the rest, the great bulk, was Rongo's. Thus of the numerous varieties of taro,
only one a reddish sort (kaka kura) was Tangaroa's; the rest being sacred
to Rongo. Amongst the multitudinous varieties of "meikas," only the plantain
was the property of Tangaroa's, on account of the redness and uprightness of its
fruit The very name, "the upright-fruit" (uatu), testifying to the
dignity of the eldest of the gods. Bananas of all sorts belonged to Rongo. The
plantain, being the kokira, or head, of the great "meika" family, does not bend
its head; just as Tangaroa is the kokira, or the first in the family of the
gods.
Of three kinds of chestnuts, but one, the red-leafed, is sacred to Tangaroa. Of
the two sorts of the indigenous yam, the red is Tangaroa's. Of the double
variety of cocoa-nuts, one belongs to Tangaroa. All bread-fruit was sacred to
Rongo.
In regard to the wealth of the ocean, Rongo was decidedly the gainer. But four
sorts of fish all scarlet, besides lobsters, fell to Tangaroa. The silvery,
striped, spotted, and black were all Rongo's.
Thus Rongo became very rich; Tangaroa comparatively poor. The twin gods made a
grand feast, each collecting only his own food, to which Vatea and Papa were
invited. Tangaroa made one great pile of red taro, yams, chestnuts, cocoa-nuts;
the top garnished with red land-crabs and all the red fish he could find in the
sea, etc.
Rongo's pile was immensely greater. The treasures of earth and ocean were there.
The parents declared that Tangaroa carried the palm for beauty; whilst Rongo
excelled in abundance.']
[72] [Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 1, ch.
31, 1. 'Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above,
and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are
related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the
Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of
carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They declare that
Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he
alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the
betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into
confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the
Gospel of Judas.' ANCL, 5, 113.]
[73] [Stanley, Sinai and
Palestine, p. 405. 'Following the course of the Barada up through the
mountains of Anti-Libanus, the pathway at last reaches a narrow defile, through
which the river rushes in a roaring torrent. This pass is called the "Shukh
Barada," or ''El Goosh,"—"Cleft of the
Barada," or of the "Old Woman." It is crossed by a single arch, called the
Bridge of "Souk," or "Shukh." High up in the rocks, on the left bank, are tombs
and broken columns in front. On the right bank rises a lofty hill, on whose
summit, as you approach from the south-east, is seen a line of tall black trees.
They are seven "Sindians," or Syrian oaks; and the following is the story told
us concerning them by a native of Zebdani, a village, situated two or three
hours to the north-west of the pass, where we encamped that night. "Habid (Cain)
and Habil (Abel) were the two sons of Adam. The whole world was divided between
them; and this was the cause of their quarrel. Habil moved his boundary stones
too far; Habid threw them at him; and Habil fell. His brother in great grief
carried the body on his back for 500 years, not knowing what to do with it. At
last, on the top of this hill, he saw two birds fighting,—the
one killed the other, washed him, and buried him in the ground. Habid did the
like for his brother's body, and planted his staff to mark the spot, and from
this staff the seven trees grew up."
At the top of the hill, under the trees, is said to be a large tomb of "Nebi-Habil."
At the entrance of the pass stood, in ancient times, the city of Abila, the
capital of Abilene, It is difficult to say whether the name originated the
legend, or the legend the name; probably the former, as the word "Abil"
(meadow), would be a natural designation of a tomb at the exit of the Barada
through the green vale at the foot of the defile, and the same transposition of
"Abel" into "Abila," under like circumstances, occurs in the town of Abel-Shittim.
The pass was the scene of a great battle in the time of the Mussulman conquest
of Syria.']
[74] [Eisenmenger,
Entdecktes Judenthum,
vol. 1, p. 646.]
[75] [Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, bk. 1:6. 'When
they would signify God, or height, or lowness, or
excellence, or blood, or victory, (or Ares, or
Aphrodite,) [Hor or Hathor], they delineate a HAWK. They symbolize by it
God, because the bird is prolific and long-lived, or perhaps rather because
it seems to be an image of the sun, being capable of looking more intently
towards his rays than all other winged creatures: and hence physicians for the
cure of the eyes use the herb hawkweed: hence also it is, that under the form of
a HAWK, they sometimes depict the sun as lord of vision. And they use it
to denote height, because other birds, when they would soar on high, move
themselves from side to side, being incapable of ascending vertically; but the
hawk alone soars directly upwards. And they use it as a symbol of lowness,
because other animals move not in a vertical line, but descend obliquely; the
hawk, however, stoops directly down upon any thing beneath it. And they use it
to denote excellence, because it appears to excel all birds—and for
blood, because they say that this animal does not drink water, but blood—and
for victory, because it shews itself capable of overcoming every winged
creature; for when pressed by some more powerful bird, it directly turns itself
in the air upon its back, and fights with its claws extended upwards, and its
wings and back below; and its opponent being unable to do the like, is
overcome.']
[76] [Bancroft,
The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3,
p. 70. 'Following our usual
custom, I give the following legend belonging to the Miztecs just as they them
selves were accustomed to depict and to interpret it in their primitive scrolls:
In the year and in the day of obscurity and dark ness, yea, even before the days
or the years were, when the world was in a great darkness and chaos, when the
earth was covered with water, and there was nothing but mud and slime on all the
face of the earth behold a god became visible, and his name was the Deer, and
his surname was the Lion-Snake. There appeared also a very beautiful goddess
called the Deer, and surnamed the Tiger-Snake. These two gods were the origin
and beginning of all the gods.
Now, when these two gods became visible in the world, they made, in their
knowledge and omnipotence, a great rock, upon which they built a very sumptuous
palace, a masterpiece of skill, in which they made their abode upon earth. On
the highest part of this building there was an axe of copper, the edge being
uppermost, and on this axe the heavens rested.
This rock and the palace of the gods were on a mountain in the neighborhood of
the town of Apoala in the province of Mizteca Alta. The rock was called The
Place of Heaven; there the gods first abode on earth, living many years in
great rest and content, as in a happy and delicious land, though the world still
lay in obscurity and darkness.
The father and mother of all the gods being here in their place, two sons were
born to them, very hand some and very learned in all wisdom and arts. The first
was called the Wind of Nine Snakes, after the name of the day on which he was
born; and the second was called, in like manner, the Wind of Nine Caves. Very
daintily indeed were these youths brought up. When the elder wished to amuse
himself, he took the form of an eagle, flying thus far and wide; the younger
turned himself into a small beast of a serpent shape, having wings that he used
with such agility and sleight that he became invisible, and flew through rocks
and walls even as through the air. As they went, the din and clamor of these
brethren was heard by those over whom they passed. They took these figures to
manifest the power that was in them, both in transforming themselves and in
resuming again their original shape. And they abode in great peace in the
mansion of their parents, so they agreed to make a sacrifice and an offering to
these gods, to their father and to their mother. Then they took each a censer of
clay, and put fire therein, and poured in ground beleno for incense; and this
offering was the first that had ever been made in the world. Next the brothers
made to themselves a garden, in which they put many trees, and fruit-trees, and
flowers, and roses, and odorous herbs of different kinds. Joined to this garden
they laid out a very beautiful meadow, which they fitted up with all things
necessary for offering sacrifice to the gods. In this manner the two brethren
left their parents house, and fixed themselves in this garden to dress it and to
keep it, watering the trees and the plants and the odorous herbs, multiplying
them, and burning incense of powder of beleno in censers of clay to the gods,
their father and mother. They made also vows to these gods, and promises,
praying that it might seem good to them to shape the firmament and lighten the
darkness of the world, and to establish the foundation of the earth, or rather
to gather the waters together so that the earth might appear as they had no
place to rest in save only one little garden. And to make their prayers more
obligatory upon the gods, they pierced their ears and tongues with flakes of
flint, sprinkling the blood that dropped from the wounds over the trees and
plants of the garden with a willow branch, as a sacred and blessed thing. After
this sort they employed them selves, postponing pleasure till the time of the
granting of their desire, remaining always in subjection to the gods, their
father and mother, and attributing to them more power and divinity than they
really possessed.']
[77] [Haug,
Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis,
p. 14. 'Eznik, who wrote a book against heretical opinions, and from Elisaes,
who compiled a history of Vartan, and the wars waged by the Armenians against
the Persians. Eznik says, in his refutation of heresies (in the second book),
containing a ''refutation of the false doctrine of the Persians:" Before
anything, heaven or earth, or creature of any kind whatever therein, was
existing, Zeruan existed, whose name means fortune or glory. He offered
sacrifices for a thousand years in the hope of obtaining a son, Ormizt by name,
who was to create heaven, earth, and everything therein. After having spent a
thousand years in sacrificing, he began to deliberate: Are these sacrifices of
mine to produce any effect, and will a son, Ormizt by name, be born to me? While
he was thus deliberating, Ormizt and Arhmen were conceived in the womb of their
mother, Ormizt as the fruit of his sacrifices, Arhmen as that of his doubts.
When Zeruan was aware of this event he said: Two sons are in the womb; he who
will first come to me is to be made king. Ormizt, having perceived his father's
thoughts, revealed them to Arhmen, saying: Zeruan, our father, intends to make
him king who shall be born first. Having heard these words, Arhmen perforated
the womb, and appeared before his father. But Zeruan, when he saw him, did not
know who he was, and asked him: Who art thou? He told him: I am thy son. Zeruan
answered him: My son is well-scented and shining, but thou art dark and
ill-scented. While they were thus talking, Ormizt, shining and well-scented,
appeared before Zeruan, who, seeing him, perceived him at once to be his son
Ormizt on account of whom he was sacrificing. He took the rod which he had used
in sacrificing, and gave it to Ormizt, saying: Hitherto this has been used by
myself in offering sacrifices for thy sake; henceforth thou mayst sacrifice for
my sake. When Zeruan handed over his rod to Ormizt, and blessed him, Arhmen
approached him, saying: Hast thou not vowed to make that one of thy two sons
king who should first come to thee? Zeruan, in order to avoid breaking his vow,
replied to Arhmen: Oh thou liar and' evil-doer! the empire is to be ceded to
thee for nine thousand years; but I place Ormizt over thee as chief, and after
nine thousand years, he will reign and do what he likes. Then Ormizt and Arhmen
began the work of creation; everything produced by Ormizt was good and right,
and everything wrought by Arhmen was bad and perverse.']
[78] [Haug, ibid., as above note.]
[79] [Gen. 27:27. 'And he came near, and kissed him: and
he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell
of my son is as the smell of a field which the LORD hath blessed.']
[80] [Written by Johann Goethe in 1808.]
[81] [Chabas, 'Inscription in the Reign of Shabaka,' in
Melanges, col. 16. Goodwin.
See also Read and Bryant, 'A
Mythological Text from Memphis,' TSBA, 23, 170.]
[82] [Source.]
[83] [Cullimore,
Oriental Cylinders,
nos.
65, 75, 94.
Lajard,
Recherches su le
Culte Public et les Mystères de Mithras en Orient et en Occident, pl. 26,
figs. 1 and 8.]
[84] [Sayce, 'Ancient Babylonian Legend of the Creation,' RP, 11,
107. See p. 109.]
[85] [Goodwin, 'Hymn to Amen-Ra,' RP, 2,
127. See p. 131.]
[86] [Sayce, 'An Accadian Liturgy,' RP, 3,
125. See p. 128.]
[87] [Turner,
The History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. 1, p. 217. 'That
the Saxons had many idols, appears from several authors. Gregory, in the eighth
century addressing the old Saxons, exhorts them to abandon their idols, whether
of gold, silver, brass, stone, or any other kind. Hama, Flinnus, Siba, and
Zernebogus, or the black, malevolent, ill-omened deity, are said to have
occupied part of their superstitions, but we cannot be answerable for more than
their names. A Saxon Venus has been also mentioned; she is exhibited as standing
naked in a car, with myrtle round her head, a lighted torch in her breast, and
the figure of the world in her right hand. But this description implies too much
refinement in its allusions, and the authority is not decisive.' Or vol.
1, p. 338 of 1820 ed.]
[88] [Scott,
Ivanhoe,
A Romance, ch. 30. 'Farewell, Front-de-Boeuf!
May Mista, Skogula, and Zernebock, gods of the ancient Saxons fiends, as the
priests now call them supply the place of comforters at your dying bed, which
Ulrica now relinquishes! But know, if it will give thee comfort to know it, that
Ulrica is bound to the same dark coast with thyself, the companion of thy
punishment as the companion of thy guilt. And now, parricide, farewell for
ever!' Or p. 110 of 1893 ed.]
[89] [Rig Veda, 7. 41-2, in
Haug,
Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis, p. 274. 'That the
Vedic god Bhaga (compare the adjective bagho-bakhta, "ordained by fate,"
which is to be found in both the Veda and the Zend-Avesta) was believed to be a
deity, presiding over the destiny and fortune of men, may be clearly seen from
some passages in the Rigveda, of which Rv. vii. 41, 2, is here quoted: 'Let us
invoke the victor in the morning (i.e., the sunlight which has defeated the
darkness of night), the strong Bhaga, the son of Aditi (imperishableness,
eternity), who disposes all things (for during the night all seemed to be lost).
The poor and the sick, as well as the king, pray to him, full of trust, saying:
Give us our portion.'']
[90] [Muller, Lectures on the Science of Language, vol.
2, p. 490. 'Yaska seems to assign to the one the overcoming of light by
darkness, to the other the overcoming of darkness by light. Yaska then quotes
sundry verses to prove that the two Asvins belong together (though one lives in
the sky, the other in the air, says the commentator), that they are invoked
together, and that they receive the same offerings. You walk along during the
night like two black goats.' Or vol. 2, p. 536, 9th ed.]
[91] [Pierret,
Le Pantheon Égyptien, p. 48,
plate.]
[92] [Browne, 'Superstitions and Traditions of Australia,' CJ, 1, 509. 'Another
account of the mode in which fire was first procured by the
Aborigines of Australia is thus given by Mr. James Browne:—"A long,
long time ago a little bandicoot was the sole owner of a fire-brand, which he
cherished with the greatest jealousy, carrying it about with him wherever he
went, and never allowing it out of his own special care; so selfish was he in
the use of his prize, that he obstinately refused to share it with the other
animals his neighbours; and so they held a general council, where it was
decided that the fire must be obtained from the bandicoot either by force or
strategy. The hawk and pigeon were deputed to carry out this resolution;
and after vainly trying to induce the fire-owner to share its blessings with its
neighbours, the pigeon, seizing as he thought an unguarded moment, made a
dash to obtain the prize. The bandicoot saw that affairs had come to a crisis,
and in desperation threw the fire towards the water, there to quench it for
ever.
But, fortunately for the black man, the sharp-eyed hawk was hovering near the
river, and seeing the fire falling into the water, he made a dart towards it,
and
with a stroke of his wing knocked the brand far over the stream into the
long
dry grass of the opposite bank, which immediately ignited, and the flames
spread over the face of the country. The black man then felt the fire, and said
it was good."' Quoted in Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, vol. 1, p. 460.]
[93] [Smyth, ibid., as above note.]
[94] [Moor, Hindu Pantheon, p.
300. '"It appears to me," continues Mr WILFORD, "that AURVA is VULCAN, or the
god of fire, who reigned, according to the Egyptian priests, after the
Sun; though some have pretended, says DIODORUS, that he had existed before that
luminary; as the Hindus allege that AGNI, or Fire, had existence, in an
elementary state, before the formation of the Sun, but could not be said to have
dominion till its force was concentrated."—WILFORD.
As. Res. Vol. III. p. 380.']
[95] [Tsuni-Goam. p. 56. 'At first they were two (Heitsi-eibib
and ‡Gama-‡Gorib).']
[96] [Younger Eddas of Sturleson. '"There was formerly a
man," replied Har, "named Mundilfari, who had two children so lovely and
graceful that he called the male, Mani (moon), and the female, Sol (sun), who
espoused the man named Glenur. But the gods being incensed at Mundilfari's
presumption, took his children and placed them in the heavens, and let Sol drive
the horses that draw the car of the sun, which the gods had made to give light
to the world out of the sparks that flew from Muspellheim. These horses are
called Arvak and Alsvid, and under their withers the gods placed two skins
filled with air to cool and refresh them, or, according to some ancient
traditions, a refrigerant substance called isarnkul. Mani was set to
guide the moon in his course, and regulate his increasing and waning aspect. One
day he carried off from the earth two children, named Bil and Hjuki, as they
were returning from the spring called Byrgir, carrying between them the bucket
called Saegr, on the pole Simul. Vidfinn was the father of these children, who
always follow Mani (the moon), as we may easily observe even from the earth."']
[97] [Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 2,
pp. 320-2. 'Now Dualism, as prevailing among the lower races, will be seen in a
considerable degree to assert its originality by satisfying one or more of these
conditions.
There have been recorded among the Indians of North America a group of mythic
beliefs, which display the fundamental idea of dualism in the very act of
germinating in savage religion. Yet the examination of these myths leads us
first to destructive criticism of a picturesque but not ancient member of the
series. An ethnologist, asked to point out the most striking savage dualistic
legend of the world, would be likely to name the celebrated Iroquois myth of the
Twin Brethren. The current version of this legend is that set down in 1825 by
the Christian chief of the Tuscaroras, David Cusick, as the belief of his
people. Among the ancients, he relates, there were two worlds, the lower world
in darkness and possessed by monsters, the upper world inhabited by mankind. A
woman near her travail sank from this upper region to the dark world below. She
alighted on a Tortoise, prepared to receive her with a little earth on his back,
which Tortoise became an island. The celestial mother bore twin sons into the
dark world, and
died. The tortoise increased to a great island, and the twins grew up. One was
of gentle disposition, and was called Enigorio, the Good Mind, the other was of
insolent character, and was named Enigonhahetgea, the Bad Mind.
The Good Mind, not contented to remain in darkness, wished to create a great
light; the Bad Mind desired that the world should remain in its natural state.
The Good Mind took his dead mother's head and made it the sun, and of a remnant
of her body he made the moon. These were to give light to the day and to the
night. Also he created many spots of light, now stars: these were to regulate
the days, nights, seasons, years. Where the light came upon the dark world, the
monsters were displeased, and hid themselves in the depths, lest man should find
them. The Good Mind continued the creation, formed many creeks and rivers on the
Great Island, created small and great beasts to inhabit the forests, and fishes
to inhabit the waters. When he had made the universe, he doubted concerning
beings to possess the Great Island. He formed two images of the dust of the
ground in his own likeness, male and female, and by breathing into their
nostrils gave them living souls, and named them Ea-gwe-howe, that is 'real
people;' and he gave the Great Island all the animals of game for their
maintenance; he appointed thunder to water the earth by frequent rains; the
island became fruitful, and vegetation afforded to the animals subsistence. The
Bad Mind went throughout the island and made high mountains and waterfalls and
great steeps, and created reptiles injurious to mankind; but the Good Mind
restored the island to its former condition. The Bad Mind made two clay images
in the form of man, but while he was giving them existence they became apes; and
so on. The Good Mind accomplished the works of creation, notwithstanding the
imaginations of the Bad Mind were continually evil; thus he attempted to
enclose all the animals of game in the earth away from mankind, but his brother
set them free, and traces of them were made on the rocks near the cave where
they were shut in. At last the brethren came to single combat for the mastery of
the universe. The Good Mind falsely persuaded the Bad Mind that whipping with
flags would destroy his own life, but he himself used the deer-horns, the
instrument of death. After a two days' fight, the Good Mind slew his brother and
crushed him in the earth; and the last words of the Bad Mind were that he would
have equal power over men's souls after death, then he sank down to eternal doom
and became the Evil Spirit. The Good Mind visited the people, and then retired
from the earth.']
[98] [Schoolcraft,
Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge,
pt. 1, p. 316; pt. 6, p. 166.
See also the full text of Cusick.
Brinton,
Myths of the New World, p. 63. 'Perhaps no myth, has been so often quoted in its confirmation as that of the
ancient Iroquois, which narrates the conflict between the first two brothers of
our race. It is of undoubted native origin and venerable antiquity. The version
given by the Tuscarora chief Cusic in 1825, relates that in the beginning of
things there were two brothers, Enigorio and Enigohahetgea, names literally
meaning the Good Mind: and the Bad Mind. The former went about the world
furnishing it with gentle streams, fertile plains, and plenteous fruits, while
the latter maliciously followed him creating rapids, thorns, and deserts. At
length the Good Mind turned upon his brother in anger, and crushed him into the
earth. He sank out of sight in its depths, but not to perish, for in the dark
realms of the underworld he still lives, receiving the souls of the dead and
being the author of all evil.']
[99] [Bancroft,
The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3,
pp. 99-102. 'A certain Thlinkeet, we are further informed, had a wife and a sister. Of the wife he was
devouringly jealous, and when employed in the woods at his trade of building
canoes, he had her constantly watched by eight red birds of the kind called Joun.
To make assurance surer, he even used to coop her up in a kind of box every time
he left home. All this while his sister, a widow it would appear, was bringing
up certain sons she had, fine tall fellows, rapidly approaching manhood. The
jealous uncle could not endure the thought of their being in the neighborhood of
his wife. So he inveigled them one by one, time after time, out to sea with him,
on pretence of fishing, and drowned them there. The poor mother was left
desolate, she went to the sea shore to weep for her children. A dolphin some say
a whale saw her there, and pitied her; the beast told her to swallow a small
pebble and drink some sea-water. She did so, and in eight months was delivered
of a child. That child was Yehl, who thus took upon himself a human shape, and
grew up a mighty hunter and notable archer. One day a large bird appeared to
him, having a long tail like a magpie, and a long glittering bill as of metal;
the name of the bird was Kutzghatushl, that is, Crane, that can soar to heaven.
Yehl shot the bird, skinned it, and when ever he wished to fly used to clothe
himself in its skin.
Now, Yehl had grown to manhood, and he deter mined to avenge himself upon his
uncle for the death of his brothers; so he opened the box in which the
well-guarded wife was shut up. Instantly the eight faithful birds flew off and
told the husband, who set out for his home in a murderous mood. Most cunning,
however, in his patience, he greeted Yehl with composure, and invited him into
his canoe for a short trip to sea. Having paddled out some way, he flung him
self on the young man and forced him overboard. Then he put his canoe about and
made leisurely for the land, rid as he thought of another enemy. But Yehl swam
in quietly another way, and stood up in his uncle s house. The baffled murderer
was beside himself with fury, he imprecated with a potent curse a deluge upon
all the earth, well content to perish him self so he involved his rival in the
common destruction, for jealousy is cruel as the grave. The flood came, the
waters rose and rose; but Yehl clothed himself in his bird-skin, and soared up
to heaven, where he struck his beak into a cloud, and remained till the waters
were assuaged.
After this affair Yehl had many other adventures, so many that "one man cannot
know them all," as the Thlinkeets say. One of the most useful things he did was
to supply light to mankind with whom, as appears, the earth had been again
peopled after the deluge. Now, all the light in the world was stored away in
three boxes, among the riches of a certain mysterious old Chief, who guarded his
treasure closely. Yehl set his wits to work to secure the boxes; he determined
to be born into the chief s family. The old fellow had one daughter upon whom he
doted, and Yehl transforming himself into a blade of grass, got into the girl's
drinking-cup and was swallowed by her. In due time she gave birth to a son, who
was Yehl, thus a second time born of a woman into the world. Very proud was the
old chief of his grandson, loving him even as he loved his daughter, so that
Yehl came to be a decidedly spoiled child. He fell a-crying one day, working
himself almost into a fit; he kicked and scratched and howled, and turned the
family hut into a pandemonium as only an infant plague can. He screamed for one
of the three boxes; he would have a box; nothing but a box should ever appease
him! The indulgent grandfather gave him one of the boxes; he clutched it,
stopped crying, and crawled off into the yard to play. Playing, he contrived to
wrench the lid off, and lo! the beautiful heaven was thick with stars, and the
box empty. The old man wept for the loss of his stars, but he did not scold his
grandson, he loved him too blindly for that. Yehl had succeeded in getting the
stars into the firmament, and he proceeded to repeat his successful trick, to do
the like by the moon and sun. As may be imagined, the difficulty was much
increased; still he gained his end. He first let the moon out into the sky, and
some time afterward, getting possession of the box that held the sun, he changed
himself into a raven and flew away with his greatest prize of all. When he set
up the blazing light in heaven, the people that saw it were at first afraid.
Many hid themselves in the mountains, and in the forests, and even in the water,
and were changed into the various kinds of animals that frequent these places.
There are still other feats of Yehl's replete with the happiest consequences to
mankind. There was a time, for instance, when all the fire in the world was hid
away in an island of the ocean. Thither flew the indefatigable deity, fetching
back a brand in his mouth. The distance, however, was so great that most of the
wood was burned away and a part of his beak, before he reached the Thlinkeet
shore. Arrived there, he dropped the embers at once, and the sparks flew about
in all directions among various sticks and stones; therefore it is that by
striking these stones and by friction on this wood, fire is always to be
obtained. Light they now had, and fire; but one thing was still wanting to men:
they had no fresh water. A personage called Khanukh kept all the fresh water in
his well, in an island to the east of Sitka, and over the mouth of the well, for
its better custody, he had built his hut. Yehl set out to the island in his
boat, to secure the water, and on his way he met Khanukh himself paddling along
in another boat. Khanukh spoke first: How long hast thou been living in the
world? Proudly Yehl answered: Before the world stood in its place, I was there.
Yehl in his turn questioned Khanukh: But how long hast thou lived in the world?
To which Khanukh replied: Ever since the time that the liver came out from
below. Then said Yehl: Thou art older than I. Upon this Khan ukh, to show that
his power was as great as his age, took off his hat, and there rose a dense fog,
so that the one could no longer see the other. Yehl then be came afraid, and
cried out to Khanukh; but Khanukh answered nothing, At last when Yehl found
himself
completely helpless in the darkness, he began to weep and howl; upon which the
old sorcerer put on his hat again, and the fog vanished. Khanukh then invited
Yehl to his house, and entertained him handsomely with many luxuries, among
which was fresh water. The meal over, host and guest sat down, and the latter
began a long relation of his many exploits and adventures. Khanukh listened as
attentively as he could, but the story was really so interminable that he as
last fell asleep across the cover of his well. This frustrated Yehl's intention
of stealing the water while its owner slept, so he resorted to another
stratagem: he put some filth under the sleeper, then waking him up, made him
believe he had betrayed himself. Khanukh, whose own nose abhorred him, at once
hurried off to the sea to wash, and his deceiver as quickly set about securing
the precious water. Just as All-father Odin, the Raven-god, stole Suttung's
mead, drinking it up and escaping in the form of a bird, so Yehl drank what
fresh water he could, filling himself to the very beak, then took the form of a
raven and attempted to fly off through the chimney of the hut. He stuck in the
flue, however, and Khanukh returning at that instant recognized his guest in the
struggling bird. The old man comprehended the situation, and quietly piling up a
roaring fire, he sat down comfortably to watch the choking and scorching of his
crafty guest. The raven had always been a white bird, but so thoroughly was he
smoked in the chimney on this occasion that he has ever since remained the
sootiest of fowls. At last Khanukh, watching the fire, became drowsy and fell
asleep; so Yehl escaped from the island with the water. He flew back to the
continent, where he scattered it in every direction; and whenever small drops
fell there are now springs and creeks, while the large drops have produced lakes
and rivers. This is the end of the exploits of Yehl; having thus done everything
necessary to the happiness of mankind, he returned to his habitation, which is
in the east, and into which no other spirit, nor any man, can possibly enter.
The existing difference in language between the Thlinkeets and other people is
one of the consequences of a great flood perhaps that flood already described as
having been brought on through the jealousy of the canoe-builder. Many persons
escaped drowning by taking refuge in a great floating building. When the waters
fell, this vessel grounded upon a rock, and was broken into two pieces; in the
one fragment were left those whose descendants speak the Thlinkeet language, in
the other remained all whose descendants employ a different idiom.']
[100] [Holmberg,
Ethnographie Sizzen über die Völker des Russischen Amerika, p.
61. 'Seit der Zeit, entgegnete Khanukh, als von unten die Leber herauskam.' What
is meant by the term 'die Leber,' literally the particular gland of the body
called in English 'the liver,' I cannot say; neither Holmberg nor any one else,
as far as my knowledge goes, attempting any explanation.' From Bancroft,
The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol.
3, p. 102.]
[101] [Bancroft,
The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, as
note 99 above.]
[102] [Wilson, Vishnu Purana, bk. 5, ch. 9. 'When
the demon in the form of an ass, and all his tribe, had been destroyed, the
grove of palms became the favourite resort of the Gopas and their wives, and the
sons of Vasudeva, greatly pleased, repaired to the Bháńd́íra fig tree. They
continued to wander about, shouting and singing, and gathering fruits and
flowers from the trees; now driving the cows afar to pasture; now calling them
by their names; now carrying the foot-ropes of the kine upon their shoulders;
now ornamenting themselves with garlands of forest flowers, they looked like two
young bulls when the horns first appear. Attired the one in yellow, and the
other in sable garments, they looked like two clouds, one white, and one black,
surmounted by the bow of Indra. Sporting mutually with frolics beneficial to the
world, they roamed about like two monarchs over all the collected sovereigns of
the earth. Assuming human duties, and maintaining the human character, they
strayed through the thickets, amusing themselves with sports suited to their
mortal species and condition, in swinging on the boughs of trees, or in boxing
and wrestling and hurling stones.
Having observed the two lads thus playing about, the Asura
Pralamba, seeking to devour them, came amongst the cowherd boys in the shape of
one of themselves, and mixed, without being suspected, in their pastimes; for he
thought, that, thus disguised, it would not be difficult to find an opportunity
to kill, first Krishńa, and afterwards the son of Rohińí. The boys commenced
playing at the game of leaping like deer, two and two together. Govinda was
matched with Sridáman, and Balaráma with Pralamba: the other boys were coupled
with one another, and went leaping away. Govinda beat his companion, and
Balaráma his; and the boys who were on Krishńa's side were also victorious.
Carrying one another, they reached the Bháńd́íra fig; and from thence those who
were victors were conveyed back to the starting-ground by those who were
vanquished. It being Pralamba's duty to carry Sankarshana, the latter mounted
upon his shoulders, like the moon riding above a dark cloud; and the demon ran
off with him, but did not stop: finding himself, however, unable to bear the
weight of Balaráma, he enlarged his bulk, and looked like a black cloud in the
rainy season, Balaráma beholding him like a scorched mountain, his head crowned
with a diadem, and his neck hung round with garlands, having eyes as large as
cart wheels, a fearful form, and shaking the earth with his tread, called out,
as he was carried away, to his brother, "Krishńa, Krishńa, I am carried off by
some demon, disguised as a cowherd, and huge as a mountain! What shall I do?
Tell me, Madhusúdana: the villain runs away with speed!" Krishńa opened his
mouth, smiling, for he well knew the might of the son of Rohińí, and replied,
"Why this subtle pretext of merely mortal nature? thou who art the soul of all
the most subtile of subtile things. Remember yourself, the radical cause of the
whole world; born before all cause, and all that is alone when the world is
destroyed. Dost thou not know that you and I are alike the origin of the world,
who have come down to lighten its load? The heavens are thy head; the waters are
thy body; earth is thy feet; thy mouth is eternal fire; the moon is thy mind;
the wind thy breath; thy arms and hands are the four regions of space. Thou
hast, O mighty lord, a thousand heads, a thousand hands and feet and bodies; a
thousand Brahmás spring from thee, who art before all, and whom the sages praise
in myriads of forms. No one but I knoweth thy divine person. Thy incarnate
person is glorified by all the gods. Knowest thou not, that, at the end of all,
the universe disappears in thee? that, upheld by thee, this earth sustains
living and inanimate things? and that, in the character of uncreated time, with
its divisions of ages, developed from an instant, thou devourest the world? As
the waters of the sea, when swallowed up by submarine flame, are recovered by
the winds, and thrown, in the form of snow, upon the Himáchala, where coming
into contact with the rays of the sun, they reassume their watery nature; so the
world, being devoured by thee at the period of dissolution, becomes of
necessity, at the end of every Kalpa, the world again, through thy creative
efforts. Thou and I, soul of the universe, are but one and the same cause of the
creation of the earth, although, for its protection, we exist in distinct
individuals. Calling to memory who thou art, O being of illimitable might,
destroy of thyself the demon. Suspending a while your mortal character, do what
is right."
Thus reminded by the magnanimous Krishńa, the powerful
Baladeva laughed, and squeezed Pralamba with his knees, striking him at the same
time on the head and face with his fists, so as to beat out both his eyes. The
demon, vomiting blood from his mouth, and having his brain forced through the
skull, fell upon the ground, and expired. The Gopas, beholding Pralamba slain,
were astonished, and rejoiced, and cried out, "Well done," and praised Balaráma:
and thus commended by his playfellows, and accompanied by Krishńa, Bala, after
the death of the daitya Pralamba, returned to Gokula.']
[103] ['The Manners of the Babylonians.' "In the reign of Artaeus, the King of the Medes, and one of the successors of Sardanapalus, King
of the Assyrians, there was amongst the Medes, one Parsondes, a man renowned for
his courage and strength, and greatly esteemed by the King, on account of his
good sense, and the beauty of his person. He particularly excelled in the chase,
and in battle, whether he fought on foot, from his chariot, or on horseback. Now
this Parsondes observed, that Nanarus, (the governor or tributary king), of
Babylon, was very careful in his personal attire, and wore ear-rings, and shaved
himself carefully, and was effeminate, and unwarlike, and he disliked him
exceedingly; so he asked Artaeus, the King, to deprive Nanarus of his
government, and to bestow it on himself. But Artaeus, having bound himself by
the compact entered into by Arbaces, was loth to act unjustly towards the
Babylonian, and gave no answer to Parsondes. The matter, however, reached the
ears of Nanarus, who promised great rewards to any one of his sutlers who would
catch his enemy. It happened one day that Parsondes, when hunting, went far from
the King, to a plain near Babylon. Sending his servants into a neighbouring
wood, that they might drive out, by their shoutings, the wild beasts, he
remained outside, to take the game. Whilst chasing a wild ass he separated
himself from his attendants, and came to a part of the Babylonian territories,
where the sutlers were preparing markets for Nanarus. Being thirsty, he asked of
them to drink; and they, delighted to have this opportunity of seizing him, gave
him that which he required, took charge of his horse, and bade him refresh
himself. They then placed a sumptuous feast before him, served him with very
sweet wine, mixed with a certain intoxicating drug, and brought beautiful women
to keep him company; so that, at length, overcome by the wine, he fell fast
asleep. The sutlers then took him, and brought him bound to Nanarus. When
Parsondes had recovered from the effects of the wine, Nanarus upbraided him for
his conduct. 'Why' said he, 'did you, who have never suffered any wrong at my
hands, call me a man-woman (androgyne), and ask my government of Artaeus, as if
I were of no account, although of noble birth? Many thanks to him that he did
not grant your request.'
Parsondes, nothing abashed, replied, 'Because I thought myself more worthy of
the honour; for I am more manly, and more useful to the king than you, who are
shaven, and have your eyes underlined with stibium, and your face painted with
white-lead.' 'Are you not ashamed, then,' said Nanarus, 'being such as you
describe yourself to be, to have been so overcome by your stomach and passions,
that you should have fallen into the hands of one so greatly inferior to
yourself? But I will quickly make you softer and fairer than any woman.' And he
swore by Belus, and by Mylitta for such is the name which the Babylonians give
to their Venus; then beckoning to a eunuch, 'Lead off' cried he, 'this fellow.
Shave, and rub with a pumice-stone, the
whole of his body, except his head. Bathe him twice a day, and anoint him. Let
him underline his eyes, and plait his hair as women do. Let him learn to sing,
to play on the harp, and to accompany it with his voice, that he may be amongst
the female musicians; with whom he shall pass his time, having a smooth skin,
and wearing the same garments as they do. The eunuch did as he was commanded,
and kept Parsondes in the shade, washing him twice every day, and polishing him
with a pumice stone, and making him pass his time in the same way as the women,
so that he became, very shortly, fair, tender, and woman-like; singing and
playing even better than any of the female musicians. The King, Artaeus, having
offered a reward, and searched in vain for his favourite, at last concluded,
that he had been devoured by wild beasts whilst hunting.
Parsondes, having passed seven years in this mode of life at Babylon, induced a
eunuch, who had been severely flogged, and insultingly treated by Nanarus, to
run away, and inform Artaeus of what had happened to him. Artaeus immediately
sent an envoy, to demand the liberation of his former favourite. But Nanarus,
frightened, declared that he had never seen Parsondes since he had disappeared.
Artaeus, however, sent a second ambassador, much greater in rank, and more
powerful than the former one, and threatened by letter, to put to death the
Babylonian, unless he delivered up his captive.
Nanarus, being now greatly alarmed, promised to give up the man, and, moreover,
apologised to the ambassador, declaring, that he was sure the King
would see, that he had justly treated one who had endeavoured to ruin him in the
King's favour. He then entertained the ambassador with a great feast,
during which entered, to the number of 150, the female players, amongst whom was
Parsondes. Some sang, and others played on the flute; but the Mede excelled them
all, both in skill and beauty, so that, when the feast was over, and Nanarus
asked the ambassador, which of the women he thought
superior to the rest in beauty, and accomplishments, he pointed, without
hesitation, to Parsondes. Nanarus, clapping his hands, laughed a long time, and
then said, 'Do you wish to take her with you'? 'Certainly,' replied the
ambassador. 'But I will not give her to you,' said Nanarus. 'Why then did you
ask me?' exclaimed the ambassador. 'This,' said Nanarus, after a little
hesitation, 'is Parsondes, for whom you have come'; and, the ambassador
disbelieving him, he swore to the truth of what he had said. On the following
day, the Babylonian placed Parsondes in a wagon, and sent him away, with the
ambassador, to Artaeus, who was at Susa. But the King did not recognise him, and
was a long time before he would believe that so valiant a man could become a
woman.
Parsondes exacted a promise from Artaeus that he would revenge him upon Nanarus.
And when the King came to Babylon, he gave Nanarus ten days to do what was
right; but the Babylonian, alarmed, fled to Mitraphernes, the chief of the
eunuchs, and promised him, for himself, ten talents of gold and ten gold cups,
and 200 of silver, and 100 talents of silver money, and several suits of
clothes; and for the King, 100 talents of gold, and 100 gold cups, and 300 of
silver, and 1,000 talents of silver money, and numerous dresses, and other fine
gifts, if he would save his life, and keep him in the government of Babylon. The
eunuch, who was held in great estimation by the King, succeeded; but Parsondes
waited his opportunity, and afterwards, finding an occasion, took his revenge
both on Nanarus and the eunuch." Quoted in Layard's Nineveh and its Remains,
vol. ii., pp. 329-333, as translated by DR. BIRCH, from the Prodromus
Hellenikes Bibliothekes, 8vo. Paris, 1805, p. 229.' In Cory, Ancient Fragments,
pp. 194-9.]
[104] [The Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 55.
'But Ubapa said, "No! she now begins to speak at cross purposes. She did not
say this to the Missionary yesterday. She said Unkulunkulu was from beneath. But
now she says he was from above." And she said "Yes, yes! he went up to
heaven afterwards." She left the first account, and began to say, "Truly
Unkulunkulu is he who is in heaven. And the whitemen, they are the lords who
made all things."']
[105] [Geoffrey, History of the Kings of Britain,
bk. 3, chs. 1-5, pp. 57-63. 'After Dunwallo's death, his two sons, Belinus, to wit, and
Brennius, both desirous of succeeding him in the kingdom, clashed the one upon
the other with a mighty shock. For the contention between them was which of the
twain should wear the diadem of the realm. But after they had fought may battles
thereanent betwixt themselves, the friends of both did intervene between them
and restored them to concord, covenanting that the kingdom should be shared
between them on this condition, that Belinus should have the crown of the island
along with Loegria, Kambria, and Cornwall to boot, forasmuch as he was the elder
born, and Trojan custom did demand that the dignity of the inheritance should
fall unto him, while Brennius, for that he was the younger, should be subject to
his brother, and should hold Northumbria from the Humber as far as Caithness.
These covenants being duly confirmed by treaty, they governed the country for a
space of five years in peace and justice. But, for that discord doth ever seek
to intermeddle with prosperity, certain forgers of falsehoods were not lacking
that found access to Brennius, saying unto him: 'What sluggard sloth hath thus
beset thee to hold thee in subjection unto Belinus, when the same father and
mother and fareth the same nobility have made thee his peer? Add to this,
moreover, how in many a hard-fought battle thou hast over and over again shown
how thou couldst withstand Cheulf, Duke of the Morini, and put him to flight
when he would have made good his landing upon the shores of our province. Break,
therefore, this covenant that is a disgrace unto thee, and take to wife the
daughter of the King of Norway, and by his help recover the dignity thou hast
lost.' After that they had corrupted the youth's mind with these and other like
conceits, he at last assented unto their counsel, sailed away to Norway, and
married the King's daughter, even as he had been advised by these glozing
sycophants.
Meanwhile, when this was reported to his brother, he took it in dudgeon that
without asking leave or licence he had thus acted against him. He therefore
marched into Northumbria and took the cities of them of that province,
garrisoning them with his own men. Whereupon Brennius, hearing a rumour that
notified him of his brother's doings, fitted out a fleet and returned to
Britain, bringing with him a strong force of Norwegians. But whilst that he was
cleaving the level fields of the sea with a fair wind and without misgiving,
Guichtlac, King of the Danes, who had followed him, fell upon him suddenly, he
himself being desperately enamoured of the damsel that had married. Aggrieved,
therefore, beyond measure at his loss of her, he had fitted forth his ships and
men and started in pursuit of him full sail. In the battle at sea that followed
it so happened that he came alongside the ship wherein was the foresaid damsel,
and making the vessel fast to his own with grappling hooks, fetched the damsel
out of the one aboard the other and set her down in the midst of his own
shipmates. But whilst the barks were thus grappled together and were swaying
about hither and thither in the deep sea, foul winds rise of a sudden, and in
the squall the ships are parted, and driven by stress of weather upon different
coasts. The King of Denmark, after drifting for five days out of his course
before the tempest in continual terror, made land at last with the damsel on the
coast of Northumbria, knowing not upon what shores he had been cast by this
unlooked-for disaster. And when the men of the country learned what had fallen
out, they took and brought them to Belinus, who was awaiting his brother's
arrival in the parts by the sea. There were also along with Guichtlac's ships
three other ships, whereof one was of them that Brennius had fitted out. Glad
enough was the King when he heard who they were, but yet more exceeding glad
that this had befallen him just at the very moment he was most desirous of being
revenged upon his brother.
After a space of some days, Brennius had got his ships together again, and, lo
and behold ye, landeth on the coast of Albany. Forthwith, as soon as he heareth
how his bride and they that were with her have been taken captive, and that in
his absence his brother hath wrested from him the kingdom of Northumbria, he
sendeth messengers unto him, demanding that his kingdom and his bride shall be
at once restored unto him, otherwise he will lay the whole island waste from sea
to sea, and slay his brother whensoever and wheresoever he may meet him withal.
Which when Belinus understood, be flatly refused his demand, and summoning all
the host of the island marcheth into Albany to do battle with him. But Brennius,
when he knew that he had only asked to be denied, and that his brother was thus
coming against him, went to meet him in the forest that is called Calaterium,
there to meet and do battle with him. Both, accordingly, took up a position on
the same field, each dividing his fellows into companies, and advancing the one
upon the other, began the engagement at close quarters. Great part of the day
was spent in fighting, for they of greater prowess on both sides met hand to
hand. Great was the bloodshed on the one side and on the other, for sore deadly
were the wounds they dealt with their brandished weapons, and the wounded fell
before the onset of the companies as they had been corn before the reaper's
sickle. At last the Britons prevail, and the Norwegians flee with their maimed
and mangled companies to their ships. Belinus pursueth them as they flee, making
slaughter without pity. In that battle fell 15,000 men, nor of the residue was
there a single thousand that escaped unharmed. Brennius, just making shift to
reach one ship that fortune threw in his way, betook him to the coast of Gaul.
But the rest who had come with him could only skulk away to the best
hiding-place they could find as chance might guide them.
When Belinus had achieved the victory, he summoned all the nobles of the realm
to meet him at York, to take counsel with him as to what he should do with the
King of the Danes. For the King had sent him word from his prison that he would
submit himself and the kingdom of Denmark unto him, and pay him yearly tribute,
so he were allowed to depart freely along with his mistress. He sent word
further that he would confirm the covenant by solemn oath, and give hostages for
its fulfilment. When this offer was laid before the assembled nobles, all of
them signified their willingness that Belinus should grant Guichtlac's petition
on these terms. He himself also agreed, and Guichtlac, released from prison,
returned to Denmark with his mistress.
Belinus, moreover, finding none in the kingdom of Britain that was minded to
withstand him, and that he was undisputed master of the island from sea to sea,
confirmed the laws which his father had ordained, and commanded that even and
steadfast justice should be done throughout the realm. Especially careful was he
to proclaim that the cities and the highways that led unto the city should have
the same peace that Dunwallo has established therein. But a dissension arose as
concerning the highways, for that none knew the line whereby their boundaries
were determined. The King therefore, being minded to leave no loophole for
quibbles in the law, called together all the workmen of the whole island, and
commanded a highway to be builded of stone and mortar that should cut through
the entire length of the island from the Cornish sea to the coast of Caithness,
and should run in a straight line from one city unto another the whole of the
way along. A second also he bade be made across the width of the kingdom, which,
stretching from the city of Menevia on the sea of Demetia as far as Hamo's port,
should show clear guidance to the cities along the line. Two others also he made
be laid out slantwise athwart the island so as to afford access unto the other
cities. Then he dedicated them with all honour and dignity, and proclaimed it as
of his common law, that condign punishment should be inflicted on any that shall
do violence to other thereupon.']
[106] [Drummond, Œdipus Judaicus, pl. 13.]
[106a] ['Two
Gold Children.'
See
also AE 1:267.]
[107] [Household Tales, 'The
Two Brothers.']
[108] [Schlegel,
Lectures on the Philosophy of History,
p. 95. 'It is worthy of remark that, among one of these nations, the Ishudes,
who inhabit a metallic mountain, we find, if we may so speak, an inverted
history of Cain; mention is made of the enmity between the first two brothers of
mankind, but all the circumstances are set forth in a party-spirit favourable to
Cain. It is said that the elder brother acquired wealth by gold and silver
mines, but that the younger, becoming envious, drove him away, and forced him to
take refuge in the East.' Quoting Ritter's Geography.]
[109] [BB 2:291.]
[110] [Rev. 3:7. 'And to the angel of the church in
Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that
hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and
no man openeth.']
[111] [Dasent,
Popular Tales from the Norse,
intro., p. 80. 'How is it that the wandering Bechuanas got their story of "The
Two Brothers," the groundwork of which is the same as "The Machandelboom" and
"The Milk-white Doo," and where the incidents and even the words are almost the
same? How is it that in some of its traits that Bechuana story embodies those of
that earliest of all popular tales, recently published from an Egyptian Papyrus,
coeval with the abode of the Israelites in Egypt? and how is it that that same
Egyptian tale has other traits which remind us of the Dun Bull in "Katie
Woodencloak," as well as incidents which are the germ of stories long since
reduced to writing in Norse Sagas of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries?']
[112] [Powell, 'On the Evolution of Language. Sketch of
the Mythology of the North American Indians,' ARBAE, 1,
47-51.]
[113] [Avesta; The Religious Books of the Parsees,
p. 86. '"Twins," this description agrees with that contained in the
Armeniun writers, Esnik, for example, where they are both considered as ''the
Sons of Time." The ''wise" and the "imprudent" are generally distinguished from
each other (as well as the "good" and the ''bad"), because while Ahura-Mazda
works with perfect foresight of the result, Anra-mainyus always works without
forethought and only becomes aware of his mistakes when too lute to rectify
them.']
[114] [Yasna, 19:9. 'Before the birth of the
pure man, the two-legged.'
Ibid., 57:2. 'Which is united with purity, united with wisdom.'
There is no trace of 'masters' or 'creators' in Bleeck's tr., but see note 116
below.]
[115] [Essays on the Sacred Language of the Parsis,
p. 309. 'In consequence of this entire separation of the two parts of Ahuramazda,
and the substitution of two independent rulers governing the universe, the unity
of the Supreme Being was lost, and Monotheism was superseded by Dualism. But
this deviation from, and entire change of, the prophet's doctrine could not
satisfy the minds of all the divines and philosophers in ancient Persia.']
[116] [Ibid., p. 303. 'This great thinker of remote
antiquity solved this difficult question philosophically by the supposition of
two primeval causes, which, though different, were united, and produced the
world of material things, as well as that of the spirit; which doctrine may best
be learned from Yas. xxx. The one, who produced the "reality" (gaya),
is called vohu-mano, "the good mind," the other, through whom the
"non-reality" (ajyaiti) originated, bears the name akem mano, "the
evil mind." All good, true, and perfect things, which fall under the category of
"reality," are the productions of the "good mind;" while all that is bad and
delusive, belongs to the sphere of "non-reality," and is traced to the "evil
mind." They are the two moving causes in the universe, united from the beginning,
and therefore called "twins " (yema, Sans, yamau). They are
present everywhere; in Ahuramazda as well as in men.
These two primeval principles, if supposed to be united in Ahuramazda himself,
are not called vohu-mano and akem mano, but spento maimyush,
"the beneficent spirit," and angro mainyush, "the hurtful spirit." That
Angromainyush is no separate being, opposed to Ahuramazda, is to be gathered
unmistakeably from Yas. xix. 9 (see p. 187), where Ahuramazda is
mentioning his "two spirits," who are inherent in his own nature, and are in
other passages (Yas. Ivii. 2, see p. 189) distinctly called the "two
creators" and "the two masters" (payu). And, indeed, we never find
Angro-mainyush mentioned as a constant opponent of Ahuramazda in the Gathas, as
is the case in later writings. The evil against which Ahuramazda and all good
men are fighting is called drukhsh, "destruction, or lie," which is
nothing but a personification of the Devas.']
[117] [Source.]
[118] [Against Heresies, bk. 1. ch. 11.1. 'The first
of them, Valentinus, who adapted the principles of the heresy called "Gnostic"
to the peculiar character of his own school, taught as follows: He maintained
that there is a certain Dyad (twofold being), who is inexpressible by any name,
of whom one part should be called Arrhetus (unspeakable), and the other Sige
(silence). But of this Dyad a second was produced, one part of whom he names
Pater, and the other Aletheia. From this Tetrad, again, arose Logos and Zoe,
Anthropos and Ecclesia. These constitute the primary Ogdoad. He next states that
from Logos and Zoe ten powers were produced, as we have before mentioned. But
from Anthropos and Ecclesia proceeded twelve, one of which separating from the
rest, and falling from its original condition, produced the rest of the
universe. He also supposed two beings of the name of Horos, the one of whom has
his place between Bythus and the rest of the Pleroma, and divides the created
Æons from the uncreated Father, while the
other separates their mother from the Pleroma. Christ also was not produced from
the Æons within the Pleroma, but was brought
forth by the mother who had been excluded from it, in virtue of her remembrance
of better things, but not without a kind of shadow. He, indeed, as being
masculine, having severed the shadow from himself, returned to the Pleroma; but
his mother being left with the shadow, and deprived of her spiritual substance,
brought forth another son, namely, the Demiurge, whom he also styles the supreme
ruler of all those things which are subject to him. He also asserts that, along
with the Demiurge, there was produced a left-hand power, in which particular he
agrees with those falsely called Gnostics, of whom we have yet to speak.'
ANCL, 5, p. 20.]
[119] [Ibid., bk. 1. ch. 3. 5. 'And they state that it
was clearly on this account that Paul said, "And He Himself is all things;" and
again, "All things are to Him, and of Him are all things;" and further, "In Him
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead;" and yet again, "All things are
gathered together by God in Christ." Thus do they interpret these and any like
passages to be found in Scripture.
They show, further, that that Horos of theirs, whom they call by a variety of
names, has two faculties,—the one of supporting, and the other of separating;
and in so far as he supports and sustains, he is Stauros, while in so far as he
divides and separates, he is Horos. They then represent the Saviour as having
indicated this twofold faculty: first, the sustaining power, when He said,
"Whosoever doth not bear his cross (Stauros), and follow after me, cannot be my
disciple;" and again, "Taking up the cross, follow me;" but the separating power
when He said, "I came not to send peace, but a sword." They also maintain that
John indicated the same thing when he said, "The fan is in His hand, and He will
thoroughly purge the floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner; but the
chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable." By this declaration He set forth the
faculty of Horos.' ANCL, 5, 15.]
[120] [Didron,
Christian Iconography, p. 239. 'It is necessary however to say, that he was almost constantly
represented at that period, under the figure of a beautiful and adorable youth
of about fifteen or eighteen years of age, beardless, with a sweet expression of
countenance, and long and abundant hair flowing in curls over his shoulders: his
brow is sometimes encircled by a diadem or a bandeau, like a young priest of the
pagan gods; this is, in fact, a very favourite figure, and has been frequently
treated by the art with partial affection. At a very different period of time,
namely, in the fifteenth century, when the idea of God was disfigured in
artistic representation, and degraded to the condition of a pope, worn out with
old age and decrepitude, Jesus still preserved all his beauty, his radiance and
dignity. Italian art has ever been precocious, and one, or perhaps two hundred
years in advance of ours, and the portrait of God the Father was consequently,
conceived and executed in Italy one or two centuries earlier than in France.']
[121] [Bosio,
Roma Sotteranea,
pp. 49, 65, 85, 91, 253, 363.]
[122] [Monumental Christianity,
p. 237. 'The only explanation which seems to be possible of this contradiction
is the mere record of the fact then and ever since recognized by Christians,
that Christ had two natures, a Divine and a human; and that the old, sad, and
bearded man is meant to show Christ's human nature, and the young, joyous, and
beardless figure is meant to set forth His Divine nature.']
[123] [Symposium, 178. 'Many things were said by
Phaedrus about Love in which I agree with him; but I cannot agree that he is
older than Iapetus and Kronos:—not so; I
maintain him to be the youngest of the gods, and youthful ever.' Jowett's
tr.]
[124] [Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus,
vol. 2, p. 112, bk. 3. 'The same however, and the triple, in a greater degree in
the circle of the same, but the different, and the duple, in the circle of the
different. All the ratios likewise, are everywhere, but alter a different manner
in first and secondary natures; in the former indeed, intellectually, totally,
and unitedly; but in the latter, doxastically, distributively, and partially.'
Taylor's tr.]
[125] [Clementine Homilies, 18:12. 'Simon's opinions
expounded by Peter, "We, Simon, do not assert that from the great power, which
is also called the dominant power, two angels were sent forth, the one to create
the world, the other to give the law; nor that each one when he came proclaimed
himself, on account of what he had done, as the sole creator; nor that there is
one who stands, will stand, and is opposed. Learn how you disbelieve even in
respect to this subject. If you say that there is an unrevealed power, that
power is full of ignorance."' ANCL, 17, 282.]
[126] [Birch, Gallery of Antiquities. Unable to trace.]
[127] [Didron,
Christian Iconography, fig.
119.]
[128] [Luke 1:36. 'And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth,
she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with
her, who was called barren.']
[129] [Chabas, 'Magic Papyrus,' RP, 10,
135. See p. 142.]
[130] [John 3:30-31. 'He must increase, but I must
decrease.
He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and
speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all.']
[131] [Golden Ass. 'After him ensued another
young man all naked, saving that his left shoulder was covered with a rich
cloake, and his head shining with glistering haires, and hanging downe, through
which you might perceive two little wings, whereby you might conjecture that he
was Mercury, with his rod called Caduceus, he bare in his right hand an Apple of
gold, and with a seemely gate went towards him that represented Paris, and after
hee had delivered him the Apple, he made a signe, signifying that Jupiter had
commanded him so to doe: when he had done his message he departed away. And by
and by, there approached a faire and comely mayden, not much unlike to Juno, for
she had a Diademe of gold upon her head, and in her hand she bare a regall
scepter: then followed another resembling Pallas, for she had on her head a
shining sallet, whereon was bound a garland of Olive branches, having in one
hand a target or shield: and in the other a speare as though she would fight:
then came another which passed the other in beauty, and presented the Goddesse
Venus, with the color of Ambrosia, when she was a maiden, and to the end she
would shew her perfect beauty, shee appeared all naked, saving that her fine and
dainty skin was covered with a thin smocke, which the wind blew hither and
thither to testifie the youth and flowre of the age of the dame. Her colour was
of two sorts, for her body was white as descended from heaven, and her smocke
was blewish, as arrived from the sea: After every one of the Virgins which
seemed goddesses, followed certaine waiting servants, Castor and Pollus went
behind Juno, having on their heads helmets covered with starres. This Virgin
Juno sounded a Flute, which shee bare in her hand, and mooved her selfe towards
the shepheard Paris, shewing by honest signes and tokens, and promising that hee
should be Lord of all Asia, if hee would judge her the fairest of the three, and
to give her the apple of gold: the other maiden which seemed by her armour to be
Pallas, was accompanied with two young men armed, and brandishing their naked
swords in their hands, whereof one named Terror, and the other Feare; behind
them approached one sounding his trumpet to provoke and stirre men to battell;
this maiden began to dance and shake her head, throwing her fierce and terrible
eyes upon Paris and promising that if it pleased him to give her the victory of
beauty, shee would make him the most strong and victorious man alive. Then came
Venus and presented her selfe in the middle of the Theater, with much favour of
all the people, for shee was accompanied with a great many of youth, whereby you
would have judged them all to be Cupidoes, either to have flowne from heaven or
else from the river of the sea, for they had wings, arrowes, and the residue of
their habit according in each point, and they bare in their hands torches
lighted, as though it had beene a day of marriage.' Adlington's tr.
Cf. Taylor's tr., bk.1.1. 'In the next place, without delay, the images of the
Gods [carried by the priests of Isis] proceeded, not disdaining to walk with the
feet of men; this terrifically raising a canine head; but that being the
messenger of the supernal Gods, and of those in the realms beneath, with an
erect face, partly black, and partly of a golden colour, bearing in his left
hand a caduceus, and shaking in his right hand branches of the flourishing palm
tree; whose footsteps, a cow, in an erect position, immediately followed. This
cow was the prolific resemblance of the all-parent Goddess, and was carried on
the shoulders of one of the blessed servants of this divinity, and who acted the
part of a mimic as he walked.' The Thomas Taylor Series, vol. 14, p. 207.
See
also
Fellows, Exposition of the Mysteries, (1835), p. 186, who strangely reads
'crow' instead of 'cow'. '"In the next place, the images of the gods, carried by
the priests of Isis, proceeded, not disdaining to walk with the feet of men;
this terrifically raising a canine head; but that being the messenger of the
infernal gods, and of those in the realms beneath, with an erect face, partly
black, and partly of a golden colour, bearing in his left hand a caduceus and
shaking in his right hand branches of the flourishing palm tree; whose
footsteps, a crow, in an erect position, immediately followed. This crow was the
prolific resemblance of the all-parent goddess, and was carried on the shoulders
of one of the blessed servants of this divinity and who acted the part of a
mimic as he walked."'
The black and gold colouring immediately identifies the priest with Anubis as
messenger of the gods, i.e. Mercury.]
[132] [Smyth,
The Aborigines of Victoria,
vol. 1, pp. 423-4. 'Pund-jel or Bun-jil created all things, but he made
no women. Pund-jel has a wife named Boi-boi, whose face he has never seen. Yet
he has a son whose name is Bin-heal, and a brother named Fal-hj-yan. Though
Pund-jel was the creator of all things, he had help from Bin-heal and Pal-hj-yan.
Pund-jel always carries a large knife or sword (Bul-li-to kul-pen-kul-pen gye-up)
and when he made the earth (Beek) he went all over it, cutting it in many
places, and thereby formed creeks and rivers, and mountains and valleys. All
these things are believed by the Boo-noo-rong or Coast tribe.
The Aborigines of the Yarra (the Wa-woo-rong tribe) say that Bun-jil made the
earth (Beek-warreen) and all things besides. He had two wives, and he gave one
of them to his brother Boo-err-go-en. He had two sons, Ta-Jerr and Tarrn-nin,
and these he sent very frequently to destroy bad men and bad women—wicked
men and women who had killed and eaten blacks.
Boo-err-go-en, the brother of Bun-jil, was very wild, and though he had had
given to him one wife, he was not satisfied. Bun-jil had a sword or knife
(Warra-goop), and also an instrument named Ber-rang, with which he could open
any place or any thing, and in such a way as to make it impossible for any one
to know how or whether or not it had been opened. No one could see the opening
he made.
The Aborigines of the northern parts of Victoria say that the world was created
by beings whom they call Nooralie—beings
that existed a very long time ago. They name a man who is very old
Mooralpilg. They believe that the beings who created all things had
severally the form of the Crow and the Eagle. There was continual war between
these two beings, but peace was made at length. They agreed that the Murray
blacks should be divided into two classes—the
Mak-quarra or Eaglehawk, and the Ki;-parra or Crow. The conflict that was waged
between the rival powers is thus preserved in song:—
Thuj-arrd balkee mako;
Knee strike Crow;
Nato-panda Kambe-ar tona;
Spear father of him.
The meaning of which is: "Strike the Crow on the knee; I will spear his killer."
The war was maintained with great vigour for a length of time. The Crow took
every possible advantage of his nobler foe, the Eagle; but the latter generally
had ample revenge for injuries and insults. Out of their enmities and final
agreement arose the two classes, and thence a law governing marriages amongst
these classes.
The Melbourne blacks say that Pund-jel made of clay two males. This was in long,
long ages past; and the two first breathed in a country towards the north-west (Oodi-yul-yul
mootiinno per-reen Njervein). Pund-jel made of clay two male blacks, in the
following manner:—With his big knife he cut
three large sheets of bark. On one of these he placed a quantity of clay, and
worked it into a proper consistence with his knife. When the clay was soft, he
carried a portion to one of the other pieces of bark, and he commenced to form
the clay into a man, beginning at the feet; then he made the legs, then he
formed the trunk and the arms and the head. He made a man on each of the two
pieces of bark. He was well pleased with his work, and he looked at the men a
long time, and he danced round about them. He next took stringy bark from a tree
(Eucalyptus ohliqua), made hair of it, and placed it on their heads—on one straight hair and on the other curled hair. Pund-jel
again looked at his work, much pleased (Bul-li-to monomeetli), and once more he danced round about
them. To each he gave a name: the man with the straight hair he called
Ber-rook-hoorn; the man with the curled hair, Koo-kin Ber-rook. After again
smoothing with his hands their bodies, from the feet upwards to their heads, he
lay upon each of them, and blew his breath into their mouths, into their noses,
and into their navels; and breathing very hard, they stirred. He danced round
about them a third time. He then made them speak, and caused them to get up, and
they rose up, and appeared as full-grown young men—not
like children.']
[133] [Morgan, Ancient Society, pp. 88-92. 'The phratry is a brotherhood, as the term imports, and
a natural growth from the organization into gentes. It is an organic union or
association of two or more gentes of the same tribe for certain common objects.
These gentes were usually such as had been formed by the segmentation of an
original gens.
Among the Grecian tribes, where the phratric organization was nearly as constant
as the gens, it became a very conspicuous institution. Each of the four tribes
of the Athenians was organized in three phratries, each composed of thirty
gentes, making a total of twelve phratries and three hundred and sixty
gentes.
Such precise numerical uniformity in the composition of each phratry and tribe
could not have resulted from the sub-division of gentes through natural
processes. It must have been produced, as Mr. Grote suggests, by legislative
procurement in the interests of a symmetrical organization. All the gentes of a
tribe, as a rule, were of common descent and bore a common tribal name,
consequently it would not require severe constraint to unite the specified
number in each phratry, and to form the specified number of phratries in each
tribe. But the phratric organization had a natural foundation in the immediate
kinship of certain gentes as subdivisions of an original gens, which undoubtedly
was the basis on which the Grecian phratry was originally formed. The
incorporation of alien gentes, and transfers by consent or constraint, would
explain the numerical adjustment of the gentes and phratries in the Athenian
tribes.
The Roman curia was the analogue of the Grecian phratry. It is constantly
mentioned by Dionysius as a phratry. There were ten gentes in each curia, and
ten curiae in each of the three Roman tribes, making thirty curiae and three
hundred gentes of the Romans. The functions of the Roman curia are much better
known than those of the Grecian phratry, and were higher in degree because the
curia entered directly into the functions of government. The assembly of the
gentes (comitia curiata) voted by curiae, each having one collective
vote. This assembly was the sovereign power of the Roman People down to the time
of Servius Tullius.
Among the functions of the Grecian phratry was the observance of special
religious rites, the condonation or revenge of the murder of a phrator, and the
purification of a murderer after he had escaped the penalty of his crime
preparatory to his restoration to society. At a later period among the Athenians
for the phratry at Athens survived the institution of political society under
Cleisthenes it looked after the registration of citizens, thus becoming the
guardian of descents and of the evidence of citizenship. The wife upon her
marriage was enrolled in the phratry of her husband, and the children of the
marriage were enrolled in the gens and phratry of
their father. It was also the duty of this organization to prosecute the
murderer of a phrator in the courts of justice. These are among its known
objects and functions in the earlier and later periods. Were all the particulars
fully ascertained, the phratry would probably manifest itself in connection with
the common tables,
the public games, the funerals of distinguished men, the earliest army
organization, and the proceedings of councils, as well as in the observance of
religious rites and in the guardianship of social privileges.
The phratry existed in a large number of the tribes of the American aborigines,
where it is seen to arise by natural growth, and to stand as the second member
of the organic series, as among the Grecian and Latin tribes.
It did not possess original governmental functions, as the gens, tribe and
confederacy possessed them; but it was endowed with certain useful powers in the
social system, from the necessity for some organization larger than a gens and
smaller than a tribe, and especially when the tribe was large. The same
institution in essential
features and in character, it presents the organization in its archaic form and
with its archaic functions. A knowledge of the Indian phratry is necessary to an
intelligent understanding of the Grecian and the Roman.
The eight gentes of the Seneca-Iroquois tribe were reintegrated in two phratries
as follows:
First Phratry.
Gentes—1. Bear. 2. Wolf. 3. Beaver.
4. Turtle.
Second Phratry.
Gentes—5. Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Heron.
8. Hawk.
Each phratry (De-a-non-da'-yoh) is a brotherhood as this term also
imports. The gentes in the same phratry are brother gentes to each other, and
cousin gentes to those of the other phratry. They are equal in grade, character
and privileges. It is a common practice of the Senecas to call the gentes of
their own phratry brother gentes, and those of the other phratry their cousin
gentes, when they mention them in their relation to the phratries. Originally
marriage was not allowed between the members of the same phratry; but the
members' of either could marry into any gens of the other. This prohibition
tends to show that gentes of each phratry were sub-divisions of an original gens,
and therefore the prohibition against marrying into a person's own gens had followed
to its subdivisions. This restriction, however, was long since removed, except
with respect to the gens of the individual. A tradition of the Senecas affirms
that the Bear and the Deer were the original gentes, of
which the others were subdivisions. It is thus seen that the phratry had a
natural foundation in the kinship of the gentes of which it was composed. After
their sub-division from increase of numbers there was a natural tendency to
their reunion in a higher organization for objects common to them all. The same
gentes are not constant in a phratry indefinitely, as will appear when the
composition of the phratries in the remaining Iroquois tribes is considered.
Transfers of particular gentes from one phratry to the other must have occurred
when the equilibrium in their respective numbers was disturbed. It is important
to know the simple manner in which this organization springs up, and the
facility with which it is managed, as a part of the social system of ancient
society. With the increase of numbers in a gens, followed by local separation of
its members, segmentation occurred, and the seceding portion adopted a new
gentile name. But a tradition of their former unity would remain, and become the
basis of their reorganization in a phratry.
In like manner the Cayuga-Iroquois have eight gentes in two phratries; but these
gentes are not divided equally between them. They are the following:
First Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Bear. 2. Wolf. 3. Turtle.
4. Snipe. 5. Eel.
Second Phratry.
Gentes.—6. Deer. 7. Beaver. 8. Hawk.
Seven of these gentes are the same as those of the Senecas; but the Heron gens
has disappeared, and the Eel takes its place, but transferred to the opposite
phratry. The Beaver and. the Turtle gentes also have exchanged phratries. The
Cayugas style the gentes of the same phratry brother gentes to each other, and
those of the opposite phratry their cousin gentes.
The Onondaga-Iroquois have the same number of gentes, but two of them differ in
name from those of the Senecas. They are organized in two phratries as follows:
First Phratry.
Gentes.—1. Wolf. 2. Turtle. 3. Snipe.
4. Beaver.
5. Ball.
Second Phratry.
Gentes.—6. Deer. 7. Eel. 8. Bear.
Here again the composition of the phratries is different from that of the
Senecas. Three of the gentes in the first phratry are the same in each; but the
Bear gens has been transferred to the opposite phratry and is now found with the
Deer. The division of gentes is also unequal, as among the Cayugas. The
gentes
in the same phratry are called brother gentes to each other, and those in the
other their cousin gentes. While the Onondagas have no Hawk, the Senecas have no
Eel gens; but the members of the two fraternize when they meet, claiming that
there is a connection between them.
The Mohawks and Oneidas have but three gentes, the Bear, the Wolf, and the
Turtle, and no phratries. When the confederacy was formed, seven of the eight
Seneca gentes existed in the several tribes as is shown by the establishment of
sachemships in them; but the Mohawks and Oneidas then had only the three named.
It shows that they had then lost an entire phratry, and one gens of that
remaining, if it is assumed that the original tribes were once composed of the
same gentes. When a tribe organized in gentes and phratries subdivides, it might
occur on the line of the phratric organization. Although the members' of a tribe
are intermingled throughout by marriage, each gens in a phratry is composed of
females with their children and descendants, through females, who formed the
body of the phratry. They would incline at least to remain locally together, and
thus might become detached in a body. The male members of the gens married to
women of other gentes and remaining with their wives would not affect the gens
since the children of the males do not belong to its connection. If the minute
history of the Indian tribes is ever recovered it must be sought through the
gentes and phratries, which can be followed from tribe to tribe. In such an
investigation it will deserve attention whether tribes ever disintegrated by
phratries. It is at least improbable.']
[134] [Burton,
A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome, vol. 2, ch. 16. 'One of
the Dahoman monarch's peculiarities is, that he is double; not merely binonymous,
nor dual, like the spiritual Mikado and the temporal Tycoon of Japan, but two in
done. Gelele, for instance, is King of the city, Addo-kpon of the "bush"; that
is to say, of the farmer folk and the country as opposed to the city.']
[135] [Lepsius,
Aelteste Texte des
Todenbuchs nach Sarkophagen des Altägyptischen Reichs im Berliner Museum,
85, 89.]
[136] [Tablet at Boulak.]
[137] [Source.]
[138] [Renouf, 'Inscription of Queen Hatasti on base of
Great Obelisk of Karnak,' RP,
12, 127. See p. 134, north side, line 5.]
[139] [Wilkinson,
Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians,
2nd ser., vol. 1, p. 267. 'At Dakkeh, the manner in which it is mentioned
over one of the doors is remarkable; the Ethiopian King Ergamun being styled, on
one side, "Son of Neph, born of Sate, nursed by Anouke," and on the other, "Son
of Osiris, born of Isis, nursed by Nephthys."'
Birch, Gallery of Antiquities.]
[140] [Rit. ch. 17. '[He is] conceived by Isis, engendered
by Nephthys.' Birch's tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[141] [Rit. ch. 66. 'I know that I was begotten [said] by
Pasht, brought forth [said] by Neith.' Birch's tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[142] [Laws, bk. 2. 'These they fixed and
consecrated in their temples; and no artist or musician is allowed to deviate
from them. They are literally the same which they were ten thousand years ago.
And this practice of theirs suggests the reflection that legislation about music
is not an impossible thing. But the particular enactments must be the work of
God or of some God-inspired man, as in Egypt their ancient chants are said to be
the composition of the goddess Isis.']
[143] [See note below.]
[144] [Horrack, 'Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys,' RP, 2,
117. See p. 119.]
[145] [Horrack, ibid. See p. 120.]
[146] [Readers familiar with the works of
Aleister Crowley will recall Goodwin as being the man responsible for the
translation of a small Greco-Roman fragment upon which Crowley based his
invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel in Liber Samekh.]
[147] [Goodwin, 'On Four Songs
Contained in an Egyptian Papyrus in the British Museum,' TSBA, 3, 383-5.
See full text.]
[148] [As above note.]
[149] [Can. 6:2-3. 'My beloved is gone down into his
garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.
I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among
the lilies,'
Can. 8:2. 'I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who
would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my
pomegranate.']
[150] [Can. 1:6. 'Look not upon me, because I am black,
because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me;
they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not
kept.'
Can. 5:6. 'I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself,
and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find
him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.']
[151] [Can. 8:8. 'We have a little sister, and she hath
no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken
for?']
[152] [Can. 4.4. 'Thy neck is like the tower of David
builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of
mighty men.']
[153]
[Hebräisches und Chaldäisches Handwörtenbuch über das Alte Testament?]
[154] [Shepherd of Hermas,
vision 2.]
[155] [Lundy,
Monumental Christianity,
fig. 81 and
149.]
[156] [Rit. ch. 18. '[He is] conceived by Isis, engendered
by Nephthys.' Birch's tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[157] [Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus,
bk. 2, sect. 124. 'Hence also, Ippa is said to have received Dionysius when he
was brought forth from Jupiter. Fur as Plato before observed, it is impossible
for intellect to accede to any thing without soul. But this is similar to what
is asserted by Orpheus; by whom also Dionysus is called the sweet of Jupiter.
This however, is the mundane intellect, which proceeds into light conformably to
the intellect that abides in Jupiter. Thus too, the divinely-delivered theology
[of the Chaldeans] says, that the world derives its conception from these three
things [viz. from intellect, soul and body].' Taylor's tr.]
[158] [Ellis,
Polynesian Researches, vol. 1 (2nd ed.), p. 330. 'Next in number and
importance to the gods of the sea, were those of the aerial regions, sometimes
worshipped under the figure of a bird. The chief of these were Veromatautaru and
Tairibuy brother and sister to the children of Taaroa, their dwelling was near
the great rock, which was the foundation of the world. Hurricanes, tempests, and
all destructive winds, were supposed to be confined within them, and were
employed by them to punish such as neglected the worship of the gods. In stormy
weather their compassion was sought by the tempest-driven manner at sea, or the
friends of such on shore.']
[159] [Bancroft,
The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3,
pp. 161-2. 'Father Geronimo Boscana gives us the following relation of the faith and
worship of the Acagchernem nations, in the valley and neighborhood of San Juan
Capistrano, California. Part of it would fall naturally into that part of this
work allotted to origin; but the whole is so intimately mixed with so much
concerning the life, deeds, and worship of various supernatural personages, that
it has seemed better to fit its present position than any other. Of the first
part of the tradition there are two versions if indeed they be versions of the
same tradition. We give first that version held by the serranos, or Highlanders,
of the interior country, three or four leagues inland from the said San Juan
Capistrano.
Before the material world at all existed, there lived two beings, brother and
sister, of a nature that can not be explained; the brother living above, and his
name meaning the Heavens, the sister living below, and her name signifying
Earth. From the union of these two, there sprang a numerous offspring. Earth and
sand were the first fruits of this marriage; then were born rocks and stones;
then trees both great and small; then grass and herbs; then animals; lastly was
born a great personage called Ouiot, who was a grand captain. By some unknown
mother many children of a medicine race were born to this Ouiot. All these
things happened in the north; and afterward when men were created, they were
created in the north; but as the people multiplied they moved toward the south,
the earth growing larger also and extending itself in the same direction.
In process of time, Ouiot becoming old, his children plotted to kill him,
alleging that the infirmities of age made him unfit any longer to govern them or
attend to their welfare. So they put a strong poison in his drink, and when he
drank of it a sore sickness came upon him; he rose up and left his home in the
mountains and went down to what is now the sea shore, though at that time there
was no sea there. His mother, whose name is the Earth, mixed him an antidote in
a large shell, and set the potion out in the sun to brew; but the fragrance of
it attracted the attention of the Coyote, who came and overset the shell. So
Ouiot sickened to death, and though he told his children that he would shortly
return and be with them again, he has never been seen since. All the people made
a great pile of wood and burned his body there, and just as the ceremony began,
the Coyote leaped upon the body, saying that he would burn with it; but he only
tore a piece of flesh from the stomach and ate it and escaped. After that the
title of the Coyote was changed from Eyacque, which means Sub-captain, to Eno,
that is to say, Thief and Cannibal. When now the funeral rites were over, a
general council was held, and arrangements made for collecting animal and
vegetable food; for up to this time the children and descendants of Ouiot had
nothing to eat but a kind of white clay. And while they consulted together,
behold a marvellous thing appeared before them, and they spoke to it, saying:
Art thou our captain, Ouiot? But the spectre said: Nay, for I am greater than
Ouiot; my habitation is above, and my name is Chinigchinich. Then he spoke
further, having been told for what they were come together: I create all things,
and I go now to make man, another people like unto you; as for you, I give you
power, each after his kind, to produce all good and pleasant things. One of you
shall bring rain, and another dew, and another make the acorn grow, and others
other seeds, and yet others shall cause all kinds of game to abound in the land; and your children shall have this power forever, and they shall be sorcerers
to the men I go to create, and shall receive gifts of them, that the game fail
not and the harvests be sure. Then Chinigchinich made man; out of the clay of
the lake he formed him, male and female; and the present Californians are the
descendants of the one or more pairs there and thus created.
Father Boscana, one of the earliest missionaries to
Upper California, left behind him the short manuscript history from which the
tradition following in the text has been taken through the medium of a now rare
translation by Mr Robinson. Filled with the prejudices of its age and of the
profession of its author, it is yet marvellously truthlike; though a painstaking
care has evidently been used with regard to its most apparently insignificant
details, there are none of those too visible wrenchings after consistency, and
fillings up of lacunas which so surely betray the hand of the sophisticator in
so many monkish manuscripts on like and kindred subjects. There are found on the
other hand frank confessions of ignorance on doubtful points, and many naive and
puzzled comments on the whole. It is apparently the longest and the most
valuable notice in existence on the religion of a nation of the native
Californians, as existing at the time of the Spanish Conquest, and more worthy
of confidence than the general run of such documents of any date whatever. The
father procured his information as follows: He says: God assigned to me three
aged Indians, the youngest of whom was over seventy years of age. They knew all
the secrets, for two of them were capitanes, and the other apul, who were well
instructed in the mysteries. By gifts, endearments, and kindness, I elicited
from them their secrets, with their explanations; and by witnessing the
ceremonies which they performed, I learned, by degrees, their mysteries. Thus,
by devoting a portion of the nights to profound meditation, and comparing their
actions with their disclosures, I was enabled after a long time to acquire a
knowledge of their religion. (Boscana, in Robinson's Life in California, p.
236.)']
[160] [Picart,
Religious Ceremonies and Customs of Every Nation of the World,
p. 298.]
[161] [Gen. 38:27. 'And it came to pass in the time of
her travail, that, behold, twins were in her womb.']
[162] [Of Isis and Osiris.
Unable to trace in this work.]
[163] [Gen. 49:9. 'Judah is a lion's whelp: from the
prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an
old lion; who shall rouse him up?']
[164] [Hahn, Tsuni-Goam, p. 73. 'Thou son of the
short-eared one,
Thou yellow child of the Liontail,
Why didst thou not listen
to what thy mother told thee?'
Ibid., p. 72: 'Thou son of a red she-Bull (i.e., of a
heroine)!
Thou who drankest my milk!'
See also NG 1:139.]
[165] [Ausonius, Epigrams on Various Matters,
48. 'The sons of Ogyges call me Bacchus, Egyptians think me Osiris, Mysians name
me Phanaces, Indians regard me as Dionysus, Roman rites make me Liber, the Arab
race thinks me Adoneus, Lucaniacus the Universal God.' White's tr.]
[166] [Rit. ch. 69. 'Oh Osiris, the constellation! thou
traversest the earth, he who conducts his disk amongst the meadows or the Gods
of heaven [is said] by his mother Nu. She conceived him as the Osiris, the Good
Being, the justified, her beloved: all birth is received through her.'
Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[167] [Rit. ch. 77. 'He sits among the Great Gods, the
eldest-born of Nu.' Birch's tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[168] [Rit. ch. 86. 'It is Seth, the son of Nu, undoing all
he has done.' Birch's tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[169] [Rit. ch. 108. 'I am the Serpent, the son of Nu.'
Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[170] [Rit. ch. 17. 'I am the Great God creating himself. It
is Water, or Nu, who is the father of the Gods. Let him explain it. The Sun is
the creator of his body, the engenderer of the Gods who are the successors of
the Sun.' Birch's tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[171] [Title unknown, p. 55.]
[172] [HL, p. 111. 'There is indeed a passage (Duemichen,
Hist. Inschr. II. 44e) in which Seb seems to be called the mother of
Osiris. But as the words are immediately followed by "whom Nut brought forth," I
suspect an error in the text.']
[173] [Birch, 'The Praise of Learning,' RP,
8, 145. See p. 156.]
[174] [Ibid., footnote 4.]
[175] [Orphic Hymn?
Taylor?]
[176] [Wilkinson, pl. 57.]
[177] [Schlottman,
Die Inschrift Eschmunazars,
p. 4. 'Diese, die Konigin, wie sie ausdrücklich
genannt wird, war (nach VI, 4) zugleich Oberpriesterin der Astarte, zu welcher
hohen Würde sie vermuthlich schon frühzeitig
durch die Beilegung des Namens Em-Astarte (d, h. Mutter ist Astarte) bestimut
worden war. Denn ein solches Oberpriesterthum der Landesgottheit gewahrte in
den Phönizischen Städten
die höchste Stellung nächst
dem Königthum), ja eine Art von
Mitregentschaft.']
[178] [Hos. 2:8. 'For she did not know that I gave her
corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared
for Baal.'
Zeph. 1:4. 'I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the
inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this
place, and the name of the Chemarims with the priests.']
[179] [Rom. 11:4. 'But what saith the answer of God
unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the
knee to the image of Baal.']
[180] [Sayce, 'Accadian Hymn to Istar,' RP, 5,
155. See p. 158.]
[181] [Sayce, 'The Astronomy and Astrology of the
Babylonians, with Translations of the Tablets relating to these Subjects,'
TSBA, 3, 196-7. 'In the month Adar on the third day (Venus) rises and in
Nisan ....
30. Venus is a female at sunset.
31. Venus is a male at sunrise.
32. The spark Venus at sunrise (is) the Sun-god; thus a male (zi-car sacnu)
and the offspring of ...
33. The spark Venus at sunset (is) the god Adar; thus an androgyne and the
offspring of ...
34. The spark Venus at sunrise (is) Istar of Agane by name.
35. The spark Venus at sunset (is) Istar of Erech byname.
36. The spark Venus at sunrise (is) Istar among the stars (by name).
37. The spark Venus at sunset (is) Billat Hi (Queen of the gods) (by name).']
[182] [Rit. ch. 108. 'They are Tum, Sebak, Lord of Bat,
Athor, at evening called Isis.' Birch's tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[183] [Prescott,
History of the Conquest of Peru, p.
40, 1867 ed. 'Besides the Sun, the Incas acknowledged various objects
of worship in some way or other connected with this principal deity. Such was
the Moon, his sister-wife; the Stars, revered as part of her heavenly train,
though the fairest of them, Venus, known to the Peruvians by the name of
Chasca, or the "youth with the long and curling locks," was adored as the
page of the Sun, whom he attends so closely in his rising and in his setting.'
Or vol. 1, p. 92, New York, 1848, ed.]
[184] [Bancroft,
The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. 3, p. 545. 'The
following myths, for which I am indebted to the kindness and industrious
investigation of Mr Powers, having come to hand too late for insertion in their
proper places, I avail myself of the opportunity to give them here: There
dwells, say the Neeshenams, upon the hills and in the forests, a ghost named
Bohem Culleh, which is at once man and woman. It is a bad spirit, but
nevertheless a useful one to those who seek its aid, and these are mostly bad
people. Sometimes in the night its weird eldritch cry is heard in the forest,
and then some woman about to be over taken in dishonest childbirth goes out into
the woods alone, with her shame and her pangs upon her, and having brought
forth, presently returns, crying and lamenting that the wicked ghost met and
overcame her, and that she has conceived of the spirit. Or perhaps it is a man
who has wrought an evil thing who makes this bad spirit responsible for his
wickedness. Either a man or a woman wandering alone in the forest is exposed to
the enticements of the ghost Bohem Culleh, to commit fornication with it.']
[185] [Unable to trace.]
[186] [Hieroglyphica, bk. 1:10. 'To denote an only
begotten, or generation, or a father, or the world, or a man, they delineate a
SCARABÆUS. And they symbolise by this an only begotten, because the
scarabæus is a creature self-produced, being unconceived by a female; for the
propagation of it is unique after this manner:—when the male is desirous of
procreating, he takes dung of an ox, and shapes it into a spherical form like
the world; he then rolls it from the hinder parts from east to west, looking
himself towards the east, that he may impart to it the figure of the world, (for
that is borne from east to west, while the course of the stars is from west to
east): then, having dug a hole, the scarabæus deposits this ball in the earth
for the space of twenty-eight days, (for in so many days the moon passes through
the twelve signs of the zodiac). By thus remaining under the moon, the race of
scarabæi is endued with life; and upon the nine and twentieth day after having
opened the ball, it casts it into water, for it is aware that upon that day the
conjunction of the moon and sun takes place, as well as the generation of the
world. From the ball thus opened in the water, the animals, that is the scarabæi,
issue forth. The scarabæus also symbolizes generation, for the reason
before mentioned—and a father, because the scarabæus is engendered by a
father only—and the world, because in its generation it is fashioned
in the form of the world—and a man, because there is no female race among
them. Moreover there are three species of scarabæi, the first like a cat, and
irradiated, which species they have consecrated to the sun from this similarity:
for they say that the male cat changes the shape of the pupils of his eyes
according to the course of the sun: for in the morning at the rising of the god,
they are dilated, and in the middle of the day become round, and about sunset
appear less brilliant: whence, also, the statue of the god in the city of the
sun is of the form of a cat. Every scarabæus also has thirty toes, corresponding
with the thirty days duration of the month, during which the rising sun [moon?]
performs his course. The second species is the two horned and bull formed, which
is consecrated to the moon; whence the children of the Egyptians say, that the
bull in the heavens is the exaltation of this goddess. The third species is the
one horned and Ibis formed, which they regard as consecrated to Hermes [Thoth],
in like manner as the bird Ibis.'
See also BB 1:6 for another ref. to this chapter.]
[187] [Rit. ch. 53. 'I am a Bull sharpening the horns,
traversing the heaven, Lord rising from the heaven, the Great Illuminator coming
out of the light of the Lions, I have caused the light to go.' Birch's tr.
Cf. Renouf's.]
[188] [Champollion,
Panthéon Égyptien.]
[189] [Birch, Gallery of Antiquities, plate
24.]
[190] [Aenid, bk. 2, line 632. 'I get me down, and,
Goddess-led, speed on 'twixt fire and foe.' Morris' tr.]
[191] [Saturnalia,
bk. 3, vol. 2, p. 24.]
[192] [Herbert, Nimrod. vol. 1, p. 479.]
[193] [Latin author unidentified.]
[194] [Quoted in Herbert?]
[195] [Source.]
[196] [Matt. 18:3. 'And said, Verily I say unto you,
Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into
the kingdom of heaven.']
[197] [Adversus Gentes, bk. 3:8. 'For the Deity is not
male, but his name is of the masculine gender: but in your ceremonies you cannot
say the same; for in your prayers you have been wont to say whether thou art
god or goddess? and this uncertain description shows, even by their opposition,
that you attribute sex to the gods. We cannot, then, be prevailed on to believe
that the divine is embodied; for bodies must needs be distinguished by
difference of sex, if they are male and female.' Trs., Campbell and Bryce.]
[198] [Jer. 1:2. 'To whom the word of the LORD came in
the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his
reign.']
[199] [Is. 46:1-2. 'Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth,
their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy
loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast.
They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but
themselves are gone into captivity.']
[200] [Dumichen, 'Inscriptions of Queen Hatasu,' RP, 10,
11. See p. 15.]
[201] [Source.]
[202] [Source.]
[203] [See BB 2:37.]
[204] [Syncellus,
Chronology, Eusebius, Chronicon. 'The person who was supposed to have presided over
them, was a woman named Omoroca; which in the Chaldee language is Thalatth;
which in Greek is interpreted Thalassa, the sea; but, according to the most true
computation, it is equivalent to Selene, the moon. All things being in this
situation, Belus came, and cut the woman asunder; and out of one half of her, he
formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens; and at the same time he
destroyed the animals in the abyss ... The other deity (Belus), above mentioned,
cut off his own head; upon which the other gods mixed the blood as it gushed
out, from the earth; and from thence men were formed.' In Cory's Ancient Fragments,
p. 59.]
[205] [Not in Birch's tr., nor in Renouf.]
[206] [Source.]
[207] [Source.]
[208] [Commentary on the Timaeus, vol. 1, p. 362. 'For
from it the fountains of divine, natures, and all the most total genera proceed.
Hence also, the theologist represents it as a most total animal; surrounds it
with the heads of a ram, a bull, a lion, and a dragon; and ascribes to it
primarily the female and the male, as to the first animal.
Female and father, strong and mighty God,
Ericapaeus,
says the theologist.' Taylor's tr.]
[209] [Moor, Hindu Pantheon, 'Krishna,' p. 211.
Bhagavad Gita.
'"The great BRAHM is my womb;
in it I place my foetus; and from it is the production of all nature.—The
great BRAHM is the womb of all those various forms which are conceived in every
natural womb; and I am the father that soweth the seed."—Page 107.']
[210] [Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. 5, p. 381.
'They who know the divine essence (brahma) in Purusha, know Parameshthin.
He who knows Parameshhin, and he who knows Prajapati they who know the highest
divine mystery (brahmana) know in consequence Skambha. Tell who is that
Skambha of whom Vaisvanara (Agni) is the head, the Angirases the eye, and the
Yatus (demons) are the limbs; of whom they say divine knowledge (brahma)
is the mouth, the Madhukasa the tongue, and the Viraj the adder; from whom they
hewed off the Rik verses, and cut off the Yajus; of whom the Sama verses are the
hairs, and the Atharvangirases (i.e. the Atharva-veda) the mouth.']
[211] [Guigniaut,
Religions de l'Antiquité,
pl. 1.]
[212] [Legge, Chinese Classics, vol. 3, pt. 1. p.
9; Pref. Shu King.]
[213] [Champollion,
Panthéon Égyptien,
pl. 5.
Pierret,
Le Pantheon Égyptien,
p. 6.]
[214] [Bacchae.]
[215] [Lingua Latina.]
[216] [Religions de l'Antiquite, pl. 13.]
[217] [Didron,
Christian Iconography, vol. 1,
fig. 50.]
[218] [King, Gnostics and their Remains, pl.
5. fig. 1.]
[219] [Norberg, Codex Nazaraeus, vol. 2, p. 109.]
[220] [Ibid.]
[221] [Clement Alexander,
Stromateis, bk. 3:9, and Clement of Rome, Epistle, bk. 2:12. See
Gospel of the Egyptians.]
[222] [Gal. 3:28. 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in
Christ Jesus.']
[223] [From Wright, Generative Powers, in Knight,
Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, pl. 14.]
[224] [Poss. p. 50. 'A sort of deism without metaphysics was
what the fathers of Judaism and Islamism inaugurated at that early period, with
a very sure and unerring instinct. his god of theirs, formed by a fusion of the
nameless gods, will become the absolute God who loves what is good and hates
what is evil, the God whose worship is prompted by an honest heart. The inroad
of the scientific mind within the last century has made a great change in the
relation of things. "What was an advantage has become a drawback. The Semitic
mind and intellect have appeared as hostile to experimental science and to
research into the mechanical causes of the world. In appearance nearer than
Paganism to the rational conception of the universe, the theology of the nomad
Semite, transported into scholastic minds, has been in reality more injurious to
positive science than polytheism. Paganism persecuted science less bitterly than
the monotheistic religions originating with the Semites. Islam was the
destruction of positive philosophy, which attempted to struggle into being among
some of the peoples which it had subjected. Christian theology, with its Bible,
has, for the last three centuries, been the worst enemy of science."']
[225] [Jer. 2:28. 'But where are thy gods that thou
hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy
trouble: for according to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.']
[226] [Histories, bk. 1:131. 'The customs which I know the Persians to observe are
the following. They have no images of the gods, no temples nor altars, and
consider the use of them a sign of folly. This comes, I think, from their not
believing the gods to have the same nature with men, as the Greeks imagine.
Their wont, however, is to ascend the summits of the loftiest mountains, and
there to offer sacrifice to Jupiter, which is the name they give to the whole
circuit of the firmament. They likewise offer to the sun and moon, to the earth,
to fire, to water, and to the winds. These are the only gods whose worship has
come down to them from ancient times. At a later period they began the worship
of Urania, which they borrowed from the Arabians and Assyrians.' Tr., Rawlinson.
'These are the customs, so far as I know, which the Persians practise:
Images and temples and altars they do not account it lawful to erect, nay they
even charge with folly those who do these things; and this, as it seems to me,
because they do not account the gods to be in the likeness of men, as do the
Hellenes. But it is their wont to perform sacrifices to Zeus going up to the
most lofty of the mountains, and the whole circle of the heavens they call Zeus:
and they sacrifice to the Sun and the Moon and the Earth, to Fire and to Water
and to the Winds: these are the only gods to whom they have sacrificed ever from
the first; but they have learnt also to sacrifice to Aphrodite Urania, having
learnt it both from the Assyrians and the Arabians.'
Tr., Macauley.]
[227] [Rit. ch. 26. 'I have passed Seb the Lord of the
Gods.' Birch's tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[228] [Rit. ch. 54. 'Oh Tum! give me the delicious
breath of thy nostril. I am the Egg of the Great Cackler [Seb]. I have watched this great egg which Seb prepared for
the earth.'
Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[229] [Rit. ch. 69. 'He is Osiris, the eldest of the
five Gods begotten of Seb.'
Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[230] [Rit. ch. 136. 'Growing light, the beauty of
the Sun in its light, is, in its being an image, as it is said, for the Great
Inundater, the father of the Gods, the suppliers of delicious taste in the heart.'
Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[231]
[NG 1:185]
[232] [Lingua Latina.]
[233] ['On the Indian Tribes and Languages of Costa
Rica,' PAPS, 14 (1875),
483.]
[234] [Hieroglyphica, bk. 1. 13. 'When they
would symbolise the Mundane God, or fate, or the number 5,
they depict a STAR. And they use it to denote God, because the providence of God
maintains the order by which the motion of the stars and the whole universe is
subjected to his government, for it appears to them that without a god nothing
whatsoever could endure. And they symbolise by it fate, because even this is
regulated by the dispositions of the stars:—and also the number 5, because,
though there are multitudes of stars in the heavens, five of them only by their
motion perfect the natural order of the world.']
[235] [Pierret,
Le Pantheon Égyptien. p.
22.]
[236] [Burnouf,
L'Inde Français.]
[237] [Naville, 'Inscription of the Destruction
of Mankind by Ra,'
RP, 6, 103. See p. 110.]
[238] [Description of Greece, bk. 8:38. 'Among the
marvels of Mount Lycaeus the most wonderful is this. On it is a precinct of
Lycaean Zeus, into which people are not allowed to enter. If anyone takes no
notice of the rule and enters, he must inevitably live no longer than a year. A
legend, moreover, was current that everything alike within the precinct, whether
beast or man, cast no shadow. For this reason when a beast takes refuge in the
precinct, the hunter will not rush in after it, but remains outside, and though
he sees the beast can behold no shadow. In Syene also just on this side of
Aethiopia neither tree nor creature casts a shadow so long as the sun is in the
constellation of the Crab, but the precinct on Mount Lycaeus affects shadows in
the same way always and at every season.' Frazer's tr.]
[239] [An Introduction to the Science of Comparative
Mythology and Folklore,
p. 106. 'The same root or word furnished a name for wolves, λυκοι,
and for the rays of the sun. The growth of a myth converting the rays into
wolves, would thus be inevitable. The connexion of these ideas is prominent in
the story of Lykaon, see p. 42. The comparison of the Myrmidons of Achilles to
wolves is especially striking.']
[240] [BB 2:507.]
[241] [Maspero, 'Instructions of Amenemhat I,'
RP, 2, 9. See p. 11.]
[242] [ARSB, 3. 39.]
[243] [Artharva-Veda, 10.8.]
[244] [Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. 3, p. 10.
Wrong p. no. Unable to trace.]
[245] [Pl. in ARSB.]
[246] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch.
76.]
[247] [Ibid., ch.
52.]
[248] [ARSB, 1, 267.
ARSB, 5,
254.]
[249] [Birth of War God, quoted in Stone,
Cradle-Land of Arts and Creeds,
p. 115. 'The general religious allusions and the description of an
ascetic apply to the Hindus of the present day. Kalidasa has distinctly
expressed the Trinity in Unity. As quoted by Professor Max Muller, he wrote:
"In those three Persons the one God was shown,
Each first in place, each last, not one alone.
Of Siva, Vishnu, Brahma, each may be
First, second, third, among the blessed Three."'
See also
Muller, Chips from a German Worshop, vol. 1, p. 18.]
[250] [Boscawen, 'Notes on the
Religion and Mythology of the Assyrians,' TSBA, 4:2,
288. This is quite obviously the completely wrong ref.]
[251] [Herodotus, Histories, bk. 2. 35. 'Concerning Egypt itself shall extend my remarks to a
great length, because there is no country that possesses so many wonders, nor
any that has such a number of works which defy description. Not only is the
climate different from that of the rest of the world, and the rivers unlike any
other rivers, but the people also, in most of their manners and customs, exactly
reverse the common practice of mankind. The women attend the markets and trade,
while the men sit at home at the loom; and here, while the rest of the world
works the woof up the warp, the Egyptians work it down; the women likewise carry burthens upon their shoulders, while the men carry them upon their heads. They
eat their food out of doors in the streets, but retire for private purposes to
their houses, giving as a reason that what is unseemly, but necessary, ought to
be done in secret, but what has nothing unseemly about it, should be done
openly. A woman cannot serve the priestly office, either for god or goddess, but
men are priests to both; sons need not support their parents unless they choose,
but daughters must, whether they choose or no.' Tr., Rawlinson.
'Of Egypt however I shall make my report at length, because it has
wonders more in number than any other land, and works too it has to show as much
as any land, which are beyond expression great: for this reason then more shall
be said concerning it.
The Egyptians in agreement with their climate, which is unlike any other, and
with the river, which shows a nature different from all other rivers,
established for themselves manners and customs in a way opposite to other men in
almost all matters: for among them the women frequent the market and carry on
trade, while the men remain at home and weave; and whereas others weave pushing
the woof upwards, the Egyptians push it downwards: the men carry their burdens
upon their heads and the women upon their shoulders: the women make water
standing up and the men crouching down: they ease themselves in their houses and
they eat without in the streets, alleging as reason for this that it is right to
do secretly the things that are unseemly though necessary, but those which are
not unseemly, in public: no woman is a minister either of male or female
divinity, but men of all, both male and female: to support their parents the
sons are in no way compelled, if they do not desire to do so, but the daughters
are forced to do so, be they never so unwilling.' Tr., Macauley.
I can find no mention of a
three-headed and four-armed lion-god found at Meroë referred to by Rawlinson in his
notes to Herodotus. Massey must mean another of Rawlinon's works.]
[252] [Birch, 'Inscription of the Gold Mines at
Rhedesieh and Kuban,'
RP, 8, 67. See p. 78.
Brugsch,
History of Egypt Under the Pharaohs, vol. 2, p. 80, who quotes
the same.]
[253] [Note: should read
Sa.]
[254] [Legge, Shu-King.]
[255] [The
Death of Lemminkainen.]
[256] [Fornander,
An Account of the Polynesian Race,
vol. 1, p. 61. 'It may be translated thus:
"The Priest. O Kane and Ku, the builder, is it true?
The Congregation. If is true, it is so.
The Priest. O great Lono, dwelling on the water, is it true?
The Congregation. It is true, it is so.
The Priest. Quickened, increasing, moving. Raised up is the continent (island,
division). Is it true?
The Congregation. It is true, it is so; it is true, it is so; it is true,
it is so; the true god.
All together. Kane-Po-Lani, O heavenly father, with Ku the builder in the
blazing heaven, with great Lono of the flashing eyes, a god, the god of
lightning, the fixed light of heaven, standing on the earth, on the earth of
Kane-kumu-honua, he is god. It is true, it is so; it is true, it is so; he is
the true god."']
[257] [Shortland,
Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders,
pp. 62-4. '"In the early history of the world, a race of men endowed with
supernatural powers are fabled to have existed. In those days lived three
brothers, named Maui. The eldest was called Maui-mua, another was called Maui-roto,
and the youngest Maui-potiki. The youngest brother was very badly used by his
elder brothers, who were in the habit of leaving him at home when they went
abroad. They did not even suffer him to sit at meals with them, but would throw
him a bone or other offal to eat, while they devoured the best parts themselves.
At last Maui-potiki got tired of this sort of life, and one day when his
brothers had launched their canoe to go out fishing, he took his place in the
bow, and insisted on going too. When they reached the fishing ground, the
brothers asked him where his hook was. 'This will do,' said little Maui, pulling
his own jaw-bone out of its socket. He then fastened the jaw-bone to a string
and threw it overboard. But when he tried to pull it in again, he found he had
got hold of something very heavy. However, he hauled away at his line, and at
last hauled up whenua, or land. This feat of little Maui was the first proof he
gave of his great power.
"Some way off from the habitation of the three Maui lived an old woman called
Hine-nui-a-te-po (Great-daughter-of-the-night). She had the reputation of being
a very terrible person, and no one ventured to meddle with her property. Little
Maui, however, determined to go and visit her country, to see whether he could
find anything good there. So coming near the place where Hine-nui lived, he
seated himself on a bill overlooking her garden, and began to play a tune on his
flute.
"As soon as Hine-nui heard the sound of the flute, she sent out some of her
slaves to watch and see who was corning. But before they went, she gave them
this injunction, 'If the comes down the hill walking upright on his legs, catch
him, for he is a thief: but if he comes walking on his hands and feet, having
his belly and face upwards, then know he is an Atua, and be sure not to meddle
with him.'
"Little Maui heard all she said, and, of course, came down the hill on his hands
and feet; and as the slaves never meddled with him, supposing him to be an Atua,
he crept into the old lady's kumara store, and after eating as much as he could,
carried off a basket full.
"The next day his brothers sat together eating their morning meal, and every now
and then threw a bit to little Maui, who sat as usual by himself at a distance
from them. Instead of picking up these morsels, however, he pulled out from
under his cloak a kumara, and ate it. At last the elder Maui, seeing all the
scraps thrown to his brother still lying untouched, asked little Maui what he
was eating. 'Excellent food, let me tell you,' said little Maui, throwing a
handful towards his two brothers.
"The elder Maui was much pleased with the taste and size of the kumara, and
wished to know where some more of them were to be obtained.
"Little Maui then told how he had stolen the kumara from the store of
Hine-nui-a-te-po. But instead of repeating correctly the command which the old
woman had given her slaves when she sent them to watch in the garden, he made
her say, 'If the man comes down the hill on his hands and legs catch him, for he
is a thief: but if he comes walking upright on his legs, leave him alone, for he
is an Atua.'
"Maui-mua was so much pleased with the adventure of his young brother that he
resolved to set off the same evening, and steal some kumara in the same way. So
when it began to grow dusk, he started, little Maui calling to him as he was
going, and bidding him to be sure remember correctly the command given to her
slaves by Hine-nui-a-te-po.
"Maui-mua soon arrived at the hill overlooking the garden, played a tune on his
flute, as his brother had done, and then descended towards the kumara store. But
Ilme-nui's slaves were on the look out, and seeking that he walked after the
manner of men, and not like an Atua, they caught him and brought him to their
mistress, who squeezed him between her thighs so hard that he was killed.
"This was the first death which took place in the world."']
[258] [Lefebure, 'Book of Hades,' RP,
10 &
12.]
[259] ['Nash, in his Christ's Teares over Jerusalem,
1613, p. 185, speaking of the plague in London, says: "The vulgar menialty
conclude therefore it is like to increase, because a hearnshaw (a whole
afternoone together) sate on the top of Saint Peter's Church in Cornehill. They
talk of an oxe that told the bell at Wolwitch, and howe from an oxe he
transformed himselfe to an old man, and from an old man to an infant, and from
an infant to a young man. Strange prophetical reports (as touching the sicknes)
they mutter he gave out, when in truth they are nought els but cleanly coined
lies, which some pleasant sportive wits have devised to gull them most grossely."'
From Brand, Observations on
Popular Antiquities, vol. 3, p. 214.]
[260] [Didron,
Christian Iconography,
vol. 2, figs. 141,
142.]
[261] [Ibid., vol. 2, fig.
137.]
[262] [Muir,
Original Sanskrit Texts, vol.
5, p. 341. 'In vi. 61, 11 f., she is said to fill the terrestrial regions and
the air (apaprushi parthivdni uru rajo antariksham), and to occupy three
abodes (trisadashtha), and to have seven parts or be sevenfold (sapta-dhdtit).']
[263] [Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 1, ch.
5.4. 'As, then, they represent all material substance to be formed from three
passions, viz. fear, grief, and perplexity, the account they give is as follows:
Animal substances originated from fear and from conversion; the Demiurge they
also describe as owing; his origin to conversion; but the existence of all the
other animal substances they ascribe to fear, such as the souls of irrational
animals, and of wild beasts, and men. And on this account, he (the Demiurge),
being incapable of recognising any spiritual essences, imagined himself to be
God alone, and declared through the prophets, "I am God, and besides me there is
none else." They further teach that the spirits of wickedness derived their
origin from grief. Hence the devil, whom they also call Cosmocrator (the ruler
of the world), and the demons, and the angels, and every wicked spiritual being
that exists, found the source of their existence. They represent the Demiurge as
being the son of that mother of theirs (Achamoth), and Cosmocrator as the
creature of the Demiurge. Cosmocrator has knowledge of what is above himself,
because he is a spirit of wickedness; but the Demiurge is ignorant of such
things, inasmuch as he is merely animal. Their mother dwells in that place which
is above the heavens, that is, in the intermediate abode; the Demiurge in the
heavenly place, that is, in the hebdomad; but the Cosmocrator in this our world.
The corporeal elements of the world, again, sprang, as we before remarked, from
bewilderment and perplexity, as from a more ignoble source. Thus the earth arose
from her state of stupor; water from the agitation caused by her fear; air from
the consolidation of her grief; while fire, producing death and corruption, was
inherent in all these elements, even as they teach that ignorance also lay
concealed in these three passions.']
[264] [Rit. ch. 165, supp. 'The mother of Pa-sha-ka-sa [Ψιαξ],
royal wife of Paruhaka, the Creator, the regent, Lord of the Tomb, mother in the
horizon of heaven, doing what her heart has wished, prostrating the detainers of
food with thy fist.' Birch' tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[265] [Davies,
The Mythology and Rites of the
British Druids, p. 177.]
[266] [Inman,
Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, vol. 1, fig.
34.]
[267] [Rit. ch. 17. 'It is the left Eye of the Sun when it
sheds blood after he sends it.' Birch' tr. Cf.
Renouf's.]
[268] [Davies,
The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids,
p. 187. 'He is represented as having had three wives, the daughters of
mythological personages: each of these wives had the name of Gwenhwyvar, that
is, the lady of the summit of the water. These three wives of Arthur are only so
many copies of the same mystical character, the import of which may be perceived
in the construction of the name.']
[269] [ARC, 2, 14-73. 'We are told, that the three
unchaste matrons, of Druidical mystery, were daughters of one father, namely, Cul Vunawyd Prydain, which implies, the person occupying the narrow spot, in the
waters of Britain. This very title has an aspect to Arkite mystery. The Piluvian
god, or sacred bull, had his residence in such a spot.
The first of these three sisters was Essyllt, spectacle, surnamed Vyngwen, or
with the white money the concubine of Trystan, the herald, the son of Tallwch,
the deluge.
The second was Penarwen, the lady with the splendid head, the wife of Owen, the
son of Urien.
The third sister was Bun, the maid Kovi, the wife of the flame-bearer.' From
Davies, ibid., pp. 44-5.]
[270] [Ralston, Russian Folk-tales,
pp. 73-6. 'Once upon a time there lived a king and queen. They had three, sons,
two of them with their wits about them, but the third a simpleton. Now the King
had a deer-park in which were quantities of wild animals of different kinds.
Into that park there used to come a huge beast Norka was its name and do fearful
mischief, devouring some of the animals every night. The King did all he could,
but he was unable to destroy it. So at last he called his sons together and
said: 'Whoever will destroy the Norka, to him will I give the half of my
kingdom.'
Well, the eldest son undertook the task. As soon as it was night, he took his
weapons and set out. But before he reached the park, he went into a traktir (or
tavern), and there he spent the whole night in revelry. When he came to his
senses it was too late; the day had already dawned. He felt himself disgraced in
the eyes of his father, but there was no help for it. The next day the second
son went, and did just the same. Their father scolded them both soundly, and
there was an end of it Well, on the third day the youngest son undertook the
task. They all laughed him to scorn, because he was so stupid, feeling sure he
wouldn't do anything. But he took his arms, and went straight into the park, and
sat down on the grass in such a position that, the moment he went asleep, his
weapons would prick him, and he would awake.
Presently the midnight hour sounded. The earth began to shake, and the Norka
came rushing up, and burst right through the fence into the park, so huge was
it. The Prince pulled himself together, leapt to his feet, crossed himself, and
went straight at the beast. It fled back, and the Prince ran after it. But he
soon saw that he couldn't catch it on foot, so he hastened to the stable, laid
his hands on the best horse there, and set off in pursuit. Presently he came up
with the beast, and they began a fight. They fought and fought; the Prince gave
the beast three wounds. At last they were both utterly exhausted, so they lay
down to take a short rest But the moment the Prince closed his eyes, up jumped
the Beast and took to flight. The Prince's horse awoke him; up he jumped in a
moment, and set off again in pursuit, caught up the Beast, and again began
fighting with it. Again the Prince gave the Beast three wounds, and then he and
the Beast lay down again to rest. Thereupon away fled the Beast as before. The
Prince caught it up, and again gave it three wounds. But all of a sudden, just
as the Prince began chasing it for the fourth time, the Beast fled to a great
white stone, tilted it up, and escaped into the other world, crying out to the
Prince: 'Then only will you overcome me, when you enter here.'
The Prince went home, told his father all that had happened, and asked him to
have a leather rope plaited, long enough to reach to the other world. His father
ordered this to be done. When the rope was made, the Prince called for his
brothers, and he and they, having taken servants with them, and everything that
was needed for a whole year, set out for the place where the Beast had
disappeared under the stone. When they got there, they built a palace on the
spot, and lived in it for some time. But when everything was ready, the youngest
brother said to the others: 'Now, brothers, who is going to lift this stone?'
Neither of them could so much as stir it, but as soon as he touched it, away it
flew to a distance, though it was ever so big big as a hill. And when he had
flung the stone aside, he spoke a second time to his brothers, saying:
'Who is going into the other world, to overcome the Norka?'
Neither of them offered to do so. Then he laughed at them for being such
cowards, and said:
'Well, brothers, farewell! Lower me into the other world, and don't go away from
here, but as soon as the cord is jerked, pull it up.'
His brothers lowered him accordingly, and when he had reached the other world,
underneath the earth, he went on his way. He walked and walked. Presently he
espied a horse with rich trappings, and it said to him:
'Hail, Prince Iva! Long have I awaited thee!'
He mounted the horse and rode on rode and rode, until he saw standing before
him, a palace made of copper. He entered the courtyard, tied up his horse, and
went indoors. In one of the rooms a dinner was laid out. He sat down and dined,
and then went into a bedroom. There he found a bed, on which he lay down to
rest. Presently there came in a lady, more beautiful than can be imagined
anywhere but in a skazka, who said:
'Thou who art in my house, name thyself! If thou art an old man, thou shalt be
my father; if a middle-aged man, my brother; but if a young man, thou shalt be
my husband dear. And if thou art a woman, and an old one, thou shalt r be my
grandmother; if middle-aged, my mother; and if a girl, thou shalt be my own
sister.'
Thereupon he came forth. And when she saw him, she was delighted with him, and
said:
'Wherefore, O Prince Ivan my husband dear shalt thou be! wherefore hast thou
come hither?'
Then he told her all that had happened, and she said:
'That beast which thou wishest to overcome is my brother. He is staying just now
with my second sister, who lives not far from here in a silver palace. I bound
up three of the wounds which thou didst give him.'
Well, after this they drank, and enjoyed themselves, and held sweet converse
together, and then the prince took leave of her, and went on to the second
sister, the one who lived in the silver palace, and with her also he stayed
awhile. She told him that her brother Norka was then at her youngest sister's.
So he went on to the youngest sister, who lived in a golden palace. She told him
that her brother was at that time asleep on the blue sea, and she gave him a
sword of steel and a draught of the Water of Strength, and she told him to cut
off her brother's head at a single stroke. And when he had heard these things,
he went his way.
And when the Prince came to the blue sea, he looked there slept Norka on a stone
in the middle of the sea; and when it snored, the water was agitated for seven
year's around. The Prince crossed himself, went up to it and smote it on the
head with his sword. The head jumped off, saying the while, 'Well, I'm done for
now!' and rolled far away into the sea.
After killing the Beast, the Prince went back again, picking up all the three
sisters by the way, with the intention of taking them out into the upper world:
for they all loved him and would not be separated from him.']
[271] [King,
The Gnostics and their Remains, Ancient and Medieval, pl.
3. fig. 5.]
[272] ['Of the Face Appearing in the Orb of the Moon,' in Essays,
vol.
5, p. 292. 'And of the three fatal Goddesses or Parcae, she which is called
Atropos is placed in the sun, and gives the principle of generation; and Clotho,
being lodged in the moon, is she who joins, mingles, and unites; and the last,
named Lachesis, is on the earth, where she adds her helping hand, and with her
does Fortune very much participate.' Goodwin's ed.]
[273] [Geography, bk. 4, 33. 'At the distance of 40
stadia from Memphis is a brow of a hill, on which are many pyramids, the tombs
of the kings. Three of them are considerable. Two of these are reckoned among
the seven wonders [of the world]. They are a stadium in height, and of a
quadrangular shape. Their height somewhat exceeds the length of each of the
sides. One pyramid is a little larger than the other. At a moderate height in
one of the sides is a stone, which may be taken out; when that is removed, there
is an oblique passage [leading] to the tomb. They are near each other, and upon
the same level. Farther on, at a greater height of the mountain, is the third
pyramid, which is much less than the two others, but constructed at much greater
expense; for from the foundation nearly as far as the middle, it is built of
black stone. Mortars are made of this stone, which is brought from a great
distance; for it comes from the mountains of Ethiopia, and being hard and
difficult to be worked, the labour is attended with great expense. It is said to
be the tomb of a courtesan, built by her lovers, and whose name, according to
Sappho the poetess, was Doriche. She was the mistress of her brother Charaxus,
who traded to the port of Naucratis with wine of Lesbos. Others call her
Rhodopis. A story is told of her, that, when she was bathing, an eagle snatched
one of her sandals from the hands of her female attendant and carried it to
Memphis; the eagle soaring over the head of the king, who was administering
justice at the time, let the sandal fall into his lap. The king, struck with the
shape of the sandal, and the singularity of the accident, sent over the country
to discover the woman to whom it belonged. She was found in the city of
Naucratis, and brought to the king, who made her his wife. At her death she was
honoured with the above-mentioned tomb.' Hamilton's and Falconer's ed.]
[274] [Wilkinson,
Materia Hieroglyphica, 16.b.]
[275] [Callaway,
Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus, vol.
1, pp. 308-11. 'She went to the river; when she came to it, she went into
a pool and washed; she came out with her whole body shining like brass, and
holding in her hand her brass rod. She smote the ground and said, "Come out, all
ye people of my father, and cattle of my father, and my food." There at once
came out of the earth many people," and many cattle, and her food. She ate. Her
own ox also came out; she mounted it and said,
"In my father's cattle-pen we used to sing E-a-ye; Among the white-tailed cattle
we used to sing E-a-ye."
All the people, together with the trees, took up the song, singing in unison
with her. When she had done all this, she descended from her ox; she smote the
ground with her rod, and said, "Open, earth, that my father's things and his
people may enter." And truly the earth opened, and all the things and men
entered.
She returns to the garden and Udalana wonders.
Again she took some black earth and smeared her body with it, and was as she was
before. She went up from the river to the garden, and went into the watch-house.
She said, "Have the birds been here some time?" Udalana said, "Au! by the
council! does she see because she left me alone with many birds." As they were
still speaking a large flock of birds came. Udalana said, "There they are,
Umsila-wezinja." Untombi-yapansi said, "Tajd, tayi, you birds yonder which
devour my sister's garden. Although she is not my sister truly; although I am
now Umsila-wezinja; I was not truly Umsila-wezinja; I was Untombi-yapansi." The
birds at once went away in accordance with her word. But Udalana wondered much
at that saying of hers, and said, "I say, Umsila-wezinja, what are you saying
"Untombi-yapansi replied, "I say nothing." Udalana descended from her
watch-house, and went to that of Untombi-yapansi, and said to her, "Hau! where
have you eaten, Umsila-wezinja?" Untombi-yapansi said, "Why do you ask?" She
replied, "I ask because I do not see the refuse of the sugar-cane where you have
eaten." Untombi-yapansi said, "I have eaten."
The sun set; they returned home. When they arrived the chief asked, saying,
"Were there any birds there, Umsila-wezinja?"
Untombi-yapansi replied, "Yes; there were very many indeed."
The imbulu said, "This is her custom. Umsila-wezinja will just sit on the
ground, until the garden is utterly destroyed by the birds. And when it is all
gone, she says she has been worsted by the birds." They sat; they retired to
rest. In the morning they went to watch. When they were at the gateway
Untombi-yapansi stood still and said, "Go on." Udalana replied, "Hau! what
happens to you if you go first? Every day I go in front." But Untombi-yapansi
was afraid to go first because the dew wiped off that with which she smeared her
body, that the brass-colour may not glisten, and people recognise her. Udalana
went on. They came to the garden and sat down. Udalana said, "There they are,
Umsila-wezinja." Untombi-yapansi said, "Tayi, tayi those birds which devour my
sister's garden; although she is not my sister truly; but she was my sister."
She said, "Stay and watch, Udalana; I am now going to bathe." She went. When
Untombi-yapansi had gone, Udalana went after her, and she too went to the river.
When Untombi-yapansi came to the river she entered the pool, and came out with
her body glistening, and carrying in her hand her brass rod. Udalana wondered
when she saw this. But Untombi-yapansi did not see Udalana, for she had
concealed herself. Untombi-yapansi took her rod and smote the ground and said,
"Open, earth, that I may see the things of my father; that all may come out,
and my father's people, and my things and the cattle." All these things came out
in accordance with her saying. Food also came out; she ate. She took her garment
which was ornamented with brass balls, she put it on, and mounted her ox, having
adorned herself She said, "In my father's cattle-pen we used to sing E-a-ye;
Among the red-tailed cattle we used to sing E-a-ye."
All the people and the trees took up the song. Udalana was afraid, and trembled;
for it was as if the very earth was moving.']
[276] [Antiquity
Explained and Represented in Scriptures,
pl. 30,
fig. 11.
Maurice,
Indian Antiquities,
vol. 5.]
[277] [See any translation of the Yi King or Book of
Changes, James Legge's being the best and most readily available.]
[278] [Didron,
Christian Iconography,
vol. 2, fig. 147.]
[279] [Clementine Homilies, 20.2. 'The two ages. And
Peter said: "Listen, therefore, to the truth of the harmony in regard to the
evil one. God appointed two kingdoms, and established two ages, determining that
the present world should be given to the evil one, because it is small, and
passes quickly away; but He promised to preserve for the good one the age to
come, as it will be great and eternal. Man, therefore He created with free-will,
and possessing the capability of inclining to whatever actions he wishes. And
his body consists of three parts, deriving its origin from the female; for it
has lust, anger, and grief, and what is consequent on these. But the spirit not
being uniform, but consisting of three parts, derives its origin from the male;
and it is capable of reasoning, knowledge, and fear, and what is consequent on
these. And each of these triads has one root, so that man is a compound of two
mixtures, the female and the male. Wherefore also two ways have been laid before
him—those of obedience and disobedience to law; and two kingdoms have been
established,—the one called the kingdom of heaven, and the other the kingdom of
those who are now kings upon earth. Also two kings have been appointed, of whom
the one is selected to rule by law over the present and transitory world, and
his composition is such that he rejoices in the destruction of the wicked. But
the other and good one, who is the King of the age to come, loves the whole
nature of man; but not being able to have boldness in the present world, he
counsels what is advantageous, like one who tries to conceal who he really is."'
ANCL, 17, 312.]
[280] [Ibid., 17.9. 'God the centre or heart of the
universe. "One, then, is the God who truly exists, who presides in a superior
shape, being the heart of that which is above and that which is below twice,
which sends forth from Him as from a centre the life-giving and incorporeal
power; the whole universe with the stars and regions of the heaven, the air, the
fire, and if anything else exists, is proved to be a substance infinite in
height, boundless in depth, immeasurable in breadth, extending the life-giving
and wise nature from Him over three infinites. It must be, therefore, that this
infinite which proceeds from Him on every side exists, having as its heart Him
who is above all, and who thus possesses figure; for wherever He be, He is as it
were in the centre of the infinite, being the limit of the universe. And the
extensions taking their rise with Him, possess the nature of six infinites; of
whom the one taking its rise with Him penetrates into the height above, another
into the depth below, another to the right hand, another to the left, another in
front, and another behind; to whom He Himself, looking as to a number that is
equal on every side, completes the world in six temporal intervals, Himself
being the rest, and having the infinite age to come as His image, being the
beginning and the end. For in Him the six infinites end, and from Him they
receive their extension to infinity."'
ANCL, 17, 264.]
[281] [Ibid., 17.10. 'The nature and shape of God.
"This is the mystery of the hebdomad. For He Himself is the rest of the whole
who grants Himself as a rest to those who imitate His greatness within their
little measure. For He is alone, sometimes comprehensible, sometimes
incomprehensible, [sometimes limitable,] sometimes illimitable, having
extensions which proceed from Him into infinity. For thus He is comprehensible
and incomprehensible, near and far, being here and there, as being the only
existent one, and as giving a share of that mind which is infinite on every
hand, in consequence of which souls breathe and possess life; and if they be
separated from the body and be found with a longing for Him, they are borne
along into His bosom, as in the winter time the mists of the mountains,
attracted by the rays of the sun, are borne along immortal to it. What affection
ought therefore to arise within us if we gaze with our mind on His beautiful
shape! But otherwise it is absurd [to speak of beauty]. For beauty cannot exist
apart from shape; nor can one be attracted to the love of God, nor even deem
that he can see Him, if God has no form."' ANCL, 17, 265.]
[282] [Zohar, 3. 262. a.]
[283] [Jer. 22:18. 'Therefore thus saith the LORD
concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah; They shall not lament for
him, saying, Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! they shall not lament for him,
saying, Ah lord! or, Ah his glory!']
[284] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch.
57.]
[285] [The
Deipnosophists or Banquet of the Learned.]
[286] [Medhurst,
Chinese and English Dictionary, vol. 1. Poss. p.
1345.]
[287] [King, Antiquities of Mexico, vol. 6,
pp. 141-53, 6-8.]
[288] [Montfaucon,
Antiquity
Explained and Represented in Scriptures,
t. cl.-clxix, clxxvii.]
[289] [Alexandri Tralliani Medici Libri Duodem?]
[290] [Ny Wnaethpwyd Neuadd,
p. 6. I am unable to trace this work; nor can a Welsh-speaking friend of Mr
David Shaw, Massey's most recent biographer, help clear up this Welsh title.]
[291] [Sayce, 'The Astronomy and Astrology of the
Babylonians, with Translations of the Tablets relating to these Subjects,' TSBA, 3, 147.
'That body was described as a sphere, half of which is igneous, the light not
being derived from the Sun; its movements were said to be threefold, though
irregular, one in longitude, one in latitude, and one in an orbit; and its
phases to be produced by the alternate conversion of the luminous and the opaque
sides to the Earth, these conversions always coinciding with the Moon's
conjunction with the Sun; and a lunar eclipse happening when the dark part is
turned towards the Earth.']
[292] [Rit. ch. 80. 'I have made the Eye of Horus when it
was not coming on the festival of the 15th day. I am the Woman, an orb of light
in the darkness. I have brought my orb to darkness; it is changed into light.'
Birch's tr. Cf. Renouf's.]
[293] [Lajard,
Recherches sur le Culte, les Symboles, les Attributs, et les Monuments
Figurés de Venus, en Orient et en Occident, pl.
25.]
[294] [Case, 86, g. 1.]
[295] [Commentary on the Timaeus, vol. 1, p. 80, bk. 1.
'It is necessary, however, to discuss every particular. With respect to Egypt,
therefore, some call it an image of matter; others of the whole earth, as being
divided analogously to it; and others of the intelligible, and the intelligible
essence, but we say, that in what is here asserted, it is assimilated to the
whole invisible order, which is the principle of visible natures. With respect
to Delta also, it is produced from the Nile, being divided about the Saitic
province, so as to make its egress from one right line to the right and left,
and to the sea, the sea forming the hypotenuse of the triangle, which Plato
calls the Saitic province; indicating, in what he here says, that it is that
about which the stream of the Nile is divided. It is, however, analogous to the
one vivific fountain of all divine life, and, in visible natures, to the
celestial triangle which is connective of all generation, being proximate to the
ram, which the Egyptians particularly honour, on account of Ammon having the
fare of a ram, and also because the ram is the principle of veneration, and is
moral with the greatest celerity, as being among the constellations established
about the equinoctial.' Taylor's tr.]
[296] [Naville, 'The Litany of Ra,'
RP, 8, 103. See p. 116, ch.
2.7.]
[297] [Sarcophagus of Queen of Amasis, in the British Museum.]
[298] [Eph. 2:14. 'For he is our peace, who hath made
both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.']
[299] [Eph. 2:15-22. 'Having abolished in his flesh the
enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in
himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain
the enmity thereby:
And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were
nigh.
For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with
the saints, and of the household of God;
And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ
himself being the chief corner stone;
In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in
the Lord;
In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the
Spirit.']
[300] [Incipiut sermones dominicales super evãngelia
epistolas per totu annum
(printed 1476 or 1483).]
[301] [Jebamoth, 4. 13.
Mishna.]
[302] [Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus;
also in Parmenides. Unable to trace.]
[303] [1 John 5:7-8. 'For there are three that bear
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are
one.
And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and
the blood: and these three agree in one.']
[304] [The History of the Rites, Customs, and Manner
of Life of the Present Jews Throughout the World.]
[305] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch.
56.]
[306] [Is. 15.5. 'My heart shall cry out for Moab; his
fugitives shall flee unto Zoar, an heifer of three years old: for by the
mounting up of Luhith with weeping shall they go it up; for in the way of
Horonaim they shall raise up a cry of destruction.']
[307] [Dialogues of the Dead, 'Sale of Creeds,' vol. 1.
'Py. Next you will learn to count.
First D. I can do that already.
Py. Let me hear you.
First D. One, two, three, four,—
Py. There you are, you see. Four (as you call it) is ten. Four the perfect
triangle. Four the oath of our school.' Flower's tr. See full text
here.]
[308] [Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus,
vol. 1, p. 430, bk. 3. 'This therefore, is what the Pythagoric hymn says about
number: That it proceeds from the secret recesses of the monad, until it arrives
at t fu divine tetrad, And this generates the decad, which is the mother of all
things. Thus also the father of the Golden Verses, celebrates the tetractys
itself, as the fountain of perennial nature. For the world being adorned by the
tetrad, which proceeds from the monad and triad, is terminated by the decad, as
being comprehensive of all things.' Taylor's tr.]
[309] [Source.]
[310] [Divine Pymander, bk. 7:51.]
[311] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch.
76.]
[312] [British Museum, case 86, G. 133.]
[313] [Mal. 1:14. 'But cursed be the deceiver, which
hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt
thing: for I am a great King, saith the LORD of hosts, and my name is dreadful
among the heathen.']
[314] [Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 1. ch.
14.1. 'The various hypotheses of Marcus and others, Theories respecting letters
and syllables.
This Marcus then, declaring that he alone was the matrix and receptacle of the
Sige of Colorbasus, inasmuch as he was only-begotten, has brought to the birth
in some such way as follows that which was committed to him of the defective
Enthymesis. He declares that the infinitely exalted Tetrad descended upon him
from the invisible and indescribable places in the form of a woman (for the
world could not have borne it coming in its male form), and expounded to him
alone its own nature, and the origin of all things, which it had never before
revealed to any one either of gods or men. This was done in the following terms:
When first the unoriginated, inconceivable Father, who is without material
substance, and is neither male nor female, willed to bring forth that which is
ineffable in Him, and to endow with form that which is invisible, He opened his
mouth, and sent forth the Word similar to Himself, who, standing near, showed
Him what He Himself was, inasmuch as He had been manifested in the form of that
which was invisible. Moreover, the pronunciation of His name took place as
follows:—He spake the first word of it, which was the beginning [of all the
rest], and that utterance consisted of four letters. He added the second, and
this also consisted of four letters. Next He uttered the third, and this again
embraced ten letters. Finally, He pronounced the fourth, which was composed of
twelve letters. Thus took place the enunciation of the whole name, consisting of
thirty letters, and four distinct utterances. Each of these elements has its own
peculiar letters, and character, and pronunciation, and forms, and images, and
there is not one of them that perceives the shape of that [utterance] of which
it is an element. Neither does any one know itself, nor is it acquainted with
the pronunciation of its neighbour, but each one imagines that by its own
utterance it does in fact name the whole. For while every one of them is a part
of the whole, it imagines its own sound to be the whole name, and does not leave
off sounding until, by its own utterance, it has reached the last letter of each
of the elements. This teacher declares that the restitution of all things will
take place, when all these, mixing into one letter, shall utter one and the same
sound. He imagines that the emblem of this utterance is found in Amen, which we
pronounce in concert. The diverse sounds (he adds) are those which have
form to that Æon who is without material
substance and unbegotten, and these, again, are the forms which the Lord has
called angels, who continually behold the face of the Father.' ANCL
5, 57-8.]
[315] [Of Isis and Osiris, ch.
76.]
[316] [Ciampini,
Vetera Monimenta, pt. 2, p. 168, pl.
54, and
detail.]
[317] [Didron,
Christian Iconography,
fig. 36.]
[318] [Ibid., poss. vol. 1, pp. 187-8. 'God the Father,
in short, is either entirely absent from sculptured monuments, or if introduced,
some insignificant portion only of his figure is exhibited, and that small
portion even, is either not honourably placed, or is made to act an incongruous
and undignified part. The Son, on the contrary, is constantly present, even in
scenes in which he ought not properly, to be represented; he is always worthily
depicted and honourably placed. These facts may be explained by several
concurring causes, all of which will be here given, as forming an integral part
of the Archaeological history of God the Father.
The first of these causes was probably the hatred felt by the Gnostics for God
the Father; the second, the dread which prevailed amongst the followers of
Christ lest they should appear to recall the idea of Jupiter, or to offer a
pagan idol to the adoration of ignorant Christians; the third, that identical
resemblance between the Father and the Son, which various texts of Holy
Scripture appear to intimate; the fourth, the incarnation of the Son, who is the
speech or Word of the Father; the fifth, the absence of any visible
manifestation of Jehovah, a fact which is confirmed by various texts of
Scripture; the sixth and last, the difficulty all artists must have felt in
imagining or executing so awful and sublime an image.
We notice in the first place, the hatred borne by the Gnostics to Jehovah;
which would most naturally prejudice the iconographic representations of the
Father.
In the first centuries of the Christian era there arose a violent heresy against
God the Father, or Jehovah. Sectarians,, taking up the study of the Old
Testament rather like men whose minds were blinded, than those who were endued
with the full light of intelligence, discovered, that for having transgressed
one prohibition, Adam and all his race had been condemned to death; that for
crimes, the magnitude of which they refused to acknowledge, mankind had perished
in the deluge; that the Israelites, to expiate their murmuring in the desert,
had died by the envenomed bites of fiery serpents; that twenty-four thousand men
had perished on one occasion by the command, of Jehovah, as a punishment for
having been seduced by the beauty of the daughters of Moab, and offering incense
with them to their gods; that the people, to atone for the pride of David, his
chosen king, had been visited by a plague, which destroyed in a brief period, no
less than seventy thousand of them.']
[319] [Ibid., vol. 1, fig.
22.]
[320] [Ibid., vol. 1, fig.
38.]
[321] [Brugsch,
Geographische Inschriften altägyptischer Denkmäler, vol. 1, p.
247.]
[322] [Gillespie,
The Land of Sinim, p.
71. 'Rev. W. Gillespie: "The dragon-boat festival happens in midsummer, and is a
season of great excitement. About 2000 years ago there lived a young Chinese
Mandarin, Wat-yune, highly respected and beloved by the people. To the grief of
all, he was suddenly drowned in the river. Many boats immediately rushed out in
search of him, but his body was never found. Ever since that time, on the same
day of the month, the dragon-boats go out in search of him." "It is something,"
adds the author, "like the bewailing of Adonis, or the weeping for Tammuz
mentioned in Scripture."' From Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 57.
Of Isis and Osiris, ch.
17.]
[323] [Jones, Works, vol. 3, ch. 4:190-1. 'A
twice-born man, void of true devotion, and not having read the Veda, yet eager
to take a gift, sinks down together with it, as with a boat of stone in deep
water.
Let him then, who knows not the law, be fearful of presents from this or that
giver; since an ignorant man, even by a small gift, may become helpless as a cow
in a bog.']
[324] [The Odes of Horace, bk. 1, ode 2, line
43. 'Or, gentle Maia's winged son.' Gladstone's tr.]
[325] [Inman,
Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, vol. 2, p.
650, figs.]
[326] ['City of God,' in Works, (1872), vol. 1, bk.,
13, p. 534. 'For no one will dare to set wise men, whether yet to die or already
dead, in other words, whether already quit of the body, or shortly to be so,
above the immortal gods, to whom the Supreme, in Plato, promises as a munificent
gift life indissoluble, or in eternal union with their bodies. But this same
Plato thinks that nothing better can happen to men than that they pass through
life piously and justly, and, being separated from their bodies, be received
into the bosom of the gods, who never abandon theirs; "that, oblivious of the
past, they may revisit the upper air, and conceive the longing to return again
to the body." Virgil is applauded for borrowing this from the Platonic system.
Assuredly Plato thinks that the souls of mortals cannot always be in their
bodies, but must necessarily be dismissed by death; and, on the other hand, he
thinks that without bodies they cannot endure for ever, but with ceaseless alter
nation pass from life to death, and from death to life.']
[327] [Poss. in his Metaphysics. 'After the
systems we have named came the philosophy of Plato, which in most respects
followed these thinkers, but had pecullarities that distinguished it from the
philosophy of the Italians. For, having in his youth first become familiar with
Cratylus and with the Heraclitean doctrines (that all sensible things are ever
in a state of flux and there is no knowledge about them), these views he held
even in later years. Socrates, however, was busying himself about ethical
matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal
in these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions;
Plato accepted his teaching, but held that the problem applied not to sensible
things but to entities of another kind-for this reason, that the common
definition could not be a definition of any sensible thing, as they were always
changing. Things of this other sort, then, he called Ideas, and sensible things,
he said, were all named after these, and in virtue of a relation to these; for
the many existed by participation in the Ideas that have the same name as they.
Only the name 'participation' was new; for the Pythagoreans say that things
exist by 'imitation' of numbers, and Plato says they exist by participation,
changing the name. But what the participation or the imitation of the Forms
could be they left an open question.'
Ross' tr.]
[328] [The Timaeus. 'The knowledge of the other
gods is beyond us, and we can only accept the traditions of the ancients, who
were the children of the gods, as they said; for surely they must have known
their own ancestors. Although they give no proof, we must believe them as is
customary. They tell us that Oceanus and Tethys were the children of Earth and
Heaven; that Phoreys, Cronos, and Rhea came in the next generation, and were
followed by Zeus and Here, whose brothers and children are known to everybody.'
Jowett's tr.]