plucking the rich fruits of his ripe scholarship and nimble wit. At the
same time, with rougher implements and cruder methods, I have been
burrowing in the depths of the earth, trying to recover information
concerning the habits and thoughts of mankind many centuries before
Dionysus and Apollo, and Artemis and Aphrodite, were dreamt of.

In the course of these subterranean gropings no one was more surprised
than I was to discover that I was getting entangled in the roots of the
same plants whose golden fruit Dr. Rendel Harris was gathering from his
Olympian heights. But the contrast in our respective points of view was
perhaps responsible for the different appearance the growths assumed.

To drop the metaphor, while he was searching for the origins of the
deities a few centuries before the Christian era began, I was finding
their more or less larval forms flourishing more than twenty centuries
before the commencement of his story. For the gods and goddesses of his
narrative were only the thinly disguised representatives of much more
ancient deities decked out in the sumptuous habiliments of Greek
culture.

In his lecture on Aphrodite, Dr. Rendel Harris claimed that the goddess
was a personification of the mandrake; and I think he made out a good
prima facie case in support of his thesis. But other scholars have set
forth equally valid reasons for associating Aphrodite with the argonaut,
the octopus, the purpura, and a variety of other shells, both univalves
and bivalves.[245]

The goddess has also been regarded as a personification of water, the
ocean, or its foam.[246] Then again she is closely linked with pigs,
cows, lions, deer, goats, rams, dolphins, and a host of other creatures,
not forgetting the dove, the swallow, the partridge, the sparling, the
goose, and the swan.[247]

The mandrake theory does not explain, or give adequate recognition to,
any of these facts. Nor does Dr. Rendel Harris suggest why it is so
dangerous an operation to dig up the mandrake which he identifies with
the goddess, or why it is essential to secure the assistance of a
dog[248] in the process. The explanation of this fantastic fable gives
an important clue to Aphrodite's antecedents.

[235: An elaboration of a lecture delivered at the John Rylands Library,
on 14 November, 1917.]

[236: "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 52. Compare also A. E. W.
Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," Vol. I, p. 435.]

[237: With a strange disregard of Sir Arthur Evans's "Mycenæan Tree and
Pillar Cult," Mr. H. R. Hall makes the following remarks in his "Ægean
Archæology" (p. 150): "The origin of the goddess Aphrodite has long been
taken for granted. It has been regarded as a settled fact that she was
Semitic, and came to Greece from Phœnicia or Cyprus. But the new
discoveries have thrown this, like other received ideas, into the
melting-pot, for the Minoans undoubtedly worshipped an Aphrodite. We see
her, naked and with her doves, on gold plaques from one of the Mycenæan
shaft-graves (Schuchhardt, _Schliemann_, Figs. 180, 181), which must be
as old as the First Late Minoan period (_c._ 1600-1500 B.C.), and--not
rising from the foam, but sailing over it--in a boat, naked, on the lost
gold ring from Mochlos. It is evident now that she was not only a
Canaanitish-Syrian goddess, but was common to all the people of the
Levant. She is Aphrodite-Paphia in Cyprus, Ashtaroth-Astarte in Canaan,
Atargatis in Syria, Derketo in Philistria, Hathor in Egypt; what the
Minoans called her we do not know, unless she was Britomartis. She must
take her place by the side of Rhea-Diktynna in the Minoan pantheon."

It is not without interest to note that on the Mochlos ring the goddess
is sailing in a papyrus float of Egyptian type, like the moon-goddess in
her crescent moon.

The association of this early representative of Aphrodite with doves is
of special interest in view of Highnard's attempt ("Le Mythe de Venus,"
_Annales du Musée Guimet_, T. 1, 1880, p. 23) to derive the name of "la
déesse à la colombe" from the Chaldean and Phœnician _phrit_ or _phrut_
meaning "a dove".

Mr. Hall might have extended his list of homologues to Mesopotamia,
Iran, and India, to Europe and Further Asia, to America, and, in fact,
every part of the world that harbours goddesses.]

[238: "Shells as Evidence of the Migration of Early Culture."]

[239: "The Ascent of Olympus."]

[240: A striking confirmation of the fact that the mandrake is really a
surrogate of the cowry is afforded by the practice in modern Greece of
using the mandrake carried in a leather bag in the same way (and for the
same magical purpose as a love philtre) as the Baganda of East Africa
use the cowry (in a leather bag) at the present time.]

[241: Old Gerade was frank enough to admit that he "never could perceive
shape of man or woman" (quoted by Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p. 110).]

[242: "Jacob and the Mandrakes," _Proceedings of the British Academy_,
Vol. VIII, p. 22.]

[243: The John Rylands Library.]

[244: "The Ascent of Olympus."]

[245: See the memoirs by Tümpel, Jahn, Houssay, and Jackson, to which
reference is made elsewhere in these pages.]

[246: The well-known circumstantial story told in Hesiod's theogony.]

[247: See the article "Aphrodite" in Roscher's "Lexikon".]

[248: Sir James Frazer's claim that the incident of the ass in a late
Jewish story of Jacob and the mandrakes (_op. cit._, p. 20) "helps us to
understand the function of the dog," is quite unsupported. The learned
guardian of the Golden Bough does not explain _how_ it helps us to
understand.]

The Search for the Elixir of Life. Blood as Life.

In delving into the remotely distant history of our species we cannot
fail to be impressed with the persistence with which, throughout the
whole of his career, man (of the species _sapiens_) has been
seeking[249] for an elixir of life, to give added "vitality" to the dead
(whose existence was not consciously regarded as ended), to prolong the
days of active life to the living, to restore youth, and to protect his
own life from all assaults, not merely of time, but also of
circumstance. In other words, the elixir he sought was something that
would bring "good luck" in all the events of his life and its
continuation. Most of the amulets, even of modern times, the lucky
trinkets, the averters of the "Evil Eye," the practices and devices for
securing good luck in love and sport, in curing bodily ills or mental
distress, in attaining material prosperity, or a continuation of
existence after death, are survivals of this ancient and persistent
striving after those objects which our earliest forefathers called
collectively the "givers of life".

From statements in the earliest literature[250] that has come down to us
from antiquity, no less than from the views that still prevail among
the relatively more primitive peoples of the present day, it is clear
that originally man did not consciously formulate a belief in
immortality.

It was rather the result of a defect of thinking, or as the modern
psychologist would express it, an instinctive repression of the
unpleasant idea that death would come to him personally, that primitive
man refused to contemplate or to entertain the possibility of life
coming to an end. So intense was his instinctive love of life and dread
of such physical damage as would destroy his body that man unconsciously
avoided thinking of the chance of his own death: hence his belief in the
continuance of life cannot be regarded as the outcome of an active
process of constructive thought.

This may seem altogether paradoxical and incredible.

How, it may be asked, can man be said to repress the idea of death, if
he instinctively refused to admit its possibility? How did he escape the
inevitable process of applying to himself the analogy he might have been
supposed to make from other men's experience and recognize that he
must die?

Man appreciated the fact that he could kill an animal or another man by
inflicting certain physical injuries on him. But at first he seems to
have believed that if he could avoid such direct assaults upon himself,
his life would flow on unchecked. When death does occur and the
onlookers recognize the reality, it is still the practice among certain
relatively primitive people to search for the man who has inflicted
death on his fellow.

It would, of course, be absurd to pretend that any people could fail to
recognize the reality of death in the great majority of cases. The mere
fact of burial is an indication of this. But the point of difference
between the views of these early men and ourselves, was the tacit
assumption on the part of the former, that in spite of the obvious
changes in his body (which made inhumation or some other procedure
necessary) the deceased was still continuing an existence not unlike
that which he enjoyed previously, only somewhat duller, less eventful
and more precarious. He still needed food and drink, as he did before,
and all the paraphernalia of his mortal life, but he was dependent upon
his relatives for the maintenance of his existence.

Such views were difficult of acceptance by a thoughtful people, once
they appreciated the fact of the disintegration of the corpse in the
grave; and in course of time it was regarded as essential for continued
existence that the body should be preserved. The idea developed, that so
long as the body of the deceased was preserved and there were restored
to it all the elements of vitality which it had lost at death, the
continuance of existence was theoretically possible and worthy of
acceptance as an article of faith.

Let us consider for a moment what were considered to be elements of
vitality by the earliest members of our species.[251]

From the remotest times man seems to have been aware of the fact that he
could kill animals or his fellow men by means of certain physical
injuries. He associated these results with the effusion of blood. The
loss of blood could cause unconsciousness and death. Blood, therefore,
must be the vehicle of consciousness and life, the material whose escape
from the body could bring life to an end.[252]

The first pictures painted by man, with which we are at present
acquainted, are found upon the walls and roofs of certain caves in
Southern France and Spain. They were the work of the earliest known
representatives of our own species, _Homo sapiens_, in the phase of
culture now distinguished by the name "Aurignacian".

The animals man was in the habit of hunting for food are depicted.[253]
In some of them arrows are shown implanted in the animal's flank near
the region of the heart; and in others the heart itself is represented.

This implies that at this distant time in the history of our species, it
was already realized how vital a spot in the animal's anatomy the heart
was. But even long before man began to speculate about the functions of
the heart, he must have learned to associate the loss of blood on the
part of man or animals with death, and to regard the pouring out of
blood as the escape of its vitality. Many factors must have contributed
to the new advance in physiology which made the heart the centre or the
chief habitation of vitality, volition, feeling, and knowledge.

Not merely the empirical fact, acquired by experience in hunting, of the
peculiarly vulnerable nature of the heart, but perhaps also the
knowledge that the heart contained life-giving blood, helped in
developing the ideas about its functions as the bestower of life and
consciousness.

The palpitation of the heart after severe exertion or under the
influence of intense emotion would impress the early physiologist with
the relationship of the heart to the feelings, and afford confirmation
of his earlier ideas of its functions.

But whatever the explanation, it is known from the folk-lore of even the
most unsophisticated peoples that the heart was originally regarded as
the seat of life, feeling, volition, and knowledge, and that the blood
was the life-stream. The Aurignacian pictures in the caves of Western
Europe suggest that these beliefs were extremely ancient.

The evidence at our disposal seems to indicate that not only were such
ideas of physiology current in Aurignacian times, but also certain
cultural applications of them had been inaugurated even then. The
remarkable method of blood-letting by chopping off part of a finger
seems to have been practised even in Aurignacian times.[254]

If it is legitimate to attempt to guess at the meaning these early
people attached to so singular a procedure, we may be guided by the
ideas associated with this act in outlying corners of the world at the
present time. On these grounds we may surmise that the motive underlying
this, and other later methods of blood-letting, such as circumcision,
piercing the ears, lips, and tongue, gashing the limbs and body, et
cetera, was the offering of the life-giving fluid.

Once it was recognized that the state of unconsciousness or death was
due to the loss of blood it was a not illogical or irrational procedure
to imagine that offerings of blood might restore consciousness and life
to the dead.[255] If the blood was seriously believed to be the vehicle
of feeling and knowledge, the exchange of blood or the offering of blood
to the community was a reasonable method for initiating anyone into the
wider knowledge of and sympathy with his fellow-men.

Blood-letting, therefore, played a part in a great variety of
ceremonies, of burial and of initiation, and also those of a
therapeutic[256] and, later, of a religious significance.

But from Aurignacian times onwards, it seems to have been admitted that
substitutes for blood might be endowed with a similar potency.

The extensive use of red ochre or other red materials for packing around
the bodies of the dead was presumably inspired by the idea that
materials simulating blood-stained earth, were endowed with the same
life-giving properties as actual blood poured out upon the ground in
similar vitalizing ceremonies.

As the shedding of blood produced unconsciousness, the offering of blood
or red ochre was, therefore, a logical and practical means of restoring
consciousness and reinforcing the element of vitality which was
diminished or lost in the corpse.

The common statement that primitive man was a fantastically irrational
child is based upon a fallacy. He was probably as well endowed mentally
as his modern successors; and was as logical and rational as they are;
but many of his premises were wrong, and he hadn't the necessary body of
accumulated wisdom to help him to correct his false assumptions.

If primitive man regarded the dead as still existing, but with a reduced
vitality, it was a not irrational procedure on the part of the people of
the Reindeer Epoch in Europe to pack the dead in red ochre (which they
regarded as a surrogate of the life-giving fluid) to make good the lack
of vitality in the corpse.

If blood was the vehicle of consciousness and knowledge, the exchange of
blood was clearly a logical procedure for establishing communion of
thought and feeling and so enabling an initiate to assimilate the
traditions of his people.

If red carnelian was a surrogate of blood the wearing of bracelets or
necklaces of this life-giving material was a proper means of warding off
danger to life and of securing good luck.

If red paint or the colour red brought these magical results, it was
clearly justifiable to resort to its use.

All these procedures are logical. It is only the premises that were
erroneous.

The persistence of such customs in Ancient Egypt makes it possible for
us to obtain literary evidence to support the inferences drawn from
archæological data of a more remote age. For instance, the red jasper
amulet sometimes called the "girdle-tie of Isis," was supposed to
represent the blood of the goddess and was applied to the mummy "to
stimulate the functions of his blood";[257] or perhaps it would be more
accurate to say that it was intended to add to the vital substance which
was so obviously lacking in the corpse.

[249: In response to the prompting of the most fundamental of all
instincts, that of the preservation of life.]

[250: See Alan Gardiner, _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. IV,
Parts II-III, April-July, 1917, p. 205. Compare also the Babylonian
story of Gilgamesh.]

[251: Some of these have been discussed in Chapter 1 ("Incense and
Libations") and will not be further considered here.]

[252: "The life which is the blood thereof" (Gen. ix. 4).]

[253: See, for example, Sollas, "Ancient Hunters," 2nd Edition, 1915,
pp. 326 (fig. 163), 333 (fig. 171), and 36 (fig. 189).]

[254: Sollas, _op. cit._, pp. 347 _et seq._]

[255: The "redeeming blood," [Greek: Pharmakon athanasias].]

[256: The practice of blood-letting for therapeutic purposes was
probably first suggested by a confused rationalization. The act of
blood-letting was a means of healing; and the victim himself supplied
the vitalizing fluid!]

[257: Davies and Gardiner, "The Tomb of Amenemhet," p. 112.]

The Cowry as a Giver of Life.

Blood and its substitutes, however, were not the only materials that had
acquired a reputation for vitalizing qualities in the Reindeer Epoch.
For there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that shells also were
regarded, even in that remote time, as life-giving amulets.

If the loss of blood was at first the only recognized cause of death,
the act of birth was clearly the only process of life-giving. The portal
by which a child entered the world was regarded, therefore, not only as
the channel of birth, but also as the actual giver of life.[258] The
large Red Sea cowry-shell, which closely simulates this "giver of life,"
then came to be endowed by popular imagination with the same powers.
Hence the shell was used in the same way as red ochre or carnelian: it
was placed in the grave to confer vitality on the dead, and worn on
bracelets and necklaces to secure good luck by using the "giver of life"
to avert the risk of danger to life. Thus the general life-giving
properties of blood, blood substitutes, and shells, came to be
assimilated the one with the other.[259]

At first it was probably its more general power of averting death or
giving vitality to the dead that played the more obtrusive part in the
magical use of the shell. But the circumstances which led to the
development of the shell's symbolism naturally and inevitably conferred
upon the cowry special power over women. It was the surrogate of the
life-giving organ. It became an amulet to increase the fertility of
women and to help them in childbirth. It was, therefore, worn by girls
suspended from a girdle, so as to be as near as possible to the organ it
was supposed to simulate and whose potency it was believed to be able to
reinforce and intensify. Just as bracelets and necklaces of carnelian
were used to confer on either sex the vitalizing virtues of blood, which
it was supposed to simulate, so also cowries, or imitations of them made
of metal or stone, were worn as bracelets, necklaces, or hair-ornaments,
to confer health and good luck in both sexes. But these ideas received a
much further extension.

As the giver of life, the cowry came to have attributed to it by some
people definite powers of creation. It was not merely an amulet to
increase fertility: it was itself the actual parent of mankind, the
creator of all living things; and the next step was to give these
maternal functions material expression, and personify the cowry as an
actual woman in the form of a statuette with the distinctly feminine
characters grossly exaggerated;[260] and in the domain of belief to
create the image of a Great Mother, who was the parent of the universe.

[Illustration: Fig. 18 (a) The Archaic Egyptian slate palette of Narmer
showing, perhaps, the earliest design of Hathor (at the upper corners of
the palette) as a woman with cow's horns and ears (compare Flinders
Petrie, "The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty," Part I, 1900, Plate
XXVII, Fig. 71). The pharaoh is wearing a belt from which are suspended
four cow-headed Hathor figures in place of the cowry-amulets of more
primitive peoples. This affords corroboration of the view that Hathor
assumed the functions originally attributed to the cowry-shell.

(b) The king's _sporran_, where Hathor-heads (H) take the place of the
cowries of the primitive girdle.]

[Illustration: Fig. 19.--The front of Stela B (famous for the realistic
representations of the Indian elephant at its upper corners), one of the
ancient Maya monuments at Copan, Central America (after Maudslay's
photograph and diagram).

The girdle of the chief figure is decorated both with shells (_Oliva_ or
_Conus_) and amulets representing human faces corresponding to the
Hathor-heads on the Narmer palette (Fig. 18).]

Thus gradually there developed out of the cowry-amulet the conception of
a creator, the giver of life, health, and good luck. This Great Mother,
at first with only vaguely defined traits, was probably the first deity
that the wit of man devised to console him with her watchful care over
his welfare in this life and to give him assurance as to his fate in
the future.

At this stage I should like to emphasize the fact that these beliefs had
taken shape long before any definite ideas had been formulated as to the
physiology of animal reproduction and before agriculture was practised.

Man had not yet come to appreciate the importance of vegetable
fertility, nor had he yet begun to frame theories of the fertilizing
powers of water, or give specific expression to them by creating the god
Osiris in his own image.

Nor had he begun to take anything more than the most casual interest in
the sun, the moon, and the stars. He had not yet devised a sky-world nor
created a heaven. When, for reasons that I have already discussed,[261]
the theory of the fertilizing and the animating power of water was
formulated, the beliefs concerning this element were assimilated with
those which many ages previously had grown up in explanation of the
potency of blood and shells. In addition to fertilizing the earth, water
could also animate the dead. The rivers and the seas were in fact a vast
reservoir of this animating substance. The powers of the cowry, as a
product of the sea, were rationalized into an expression of the great
creative force of the water.

A bowl of water became the symbol of the fruitfulness of woman. Such
symbolism implied that woman, or her uterus, was a receptacle into which
the seminal fluid was poured and from which a new being emerged in a
flood of amniotic fluid.

The burial of shells with the dead is an extremely ancient practice, for
cowries have been found upon human skeletons of the so-called "Upper
Palæolithic Age" of Southern Europe.

At Laugerie-Basse (Dordogne) Mediterranean cowries were found arranged
in pairs upon the body; two pairs on the forehead, one near each arm,
four in the region of the thighs and knees, and two upon each foot.
Others were found in the Mentone caves, and are peculiarly important,
because, upon the same stratum as the skeleton with which they were
associated, was found part of a _Cassis rufa_, a shell whose habitat
does not extend any nearer than the Indian Ocean.[262]

[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Diagrams illustrating the form of cowry-belts
worn in (a) East Africa and (b) Oceania respectively.

(c) Ancient Indian girdle (from the figure of Sirima Devata on the
Bharat Tope), consisting of strings of pearls and precious stones, and
what seem to be (fourth row from the top) models of cowries.

(d) The Copan girdle (from Fig. 19) in which both shells and heads of
deities are represented. The two objects suspended from the belt between
the heads recall Hathor's sistra.]

These facts are very important. In the first place they reveal the great
antiquity of the practice of burying shells with the dead, presumably
for the purpose of "life-giving". Secondly, they suggest the possibility
that their magical value as givers of life may be more ancient than
their specific use as intensifiers of the fertility of women. Thirdly,
the association of these practices with the use of the shell _Cassis
rufa_ indicates a very early cultural contact between the people living
upon the North-Western shores of the Mediterranean in the Reindeer Age
and the dwellers on the coasts of the Indian Ocean; and the
probability that these special uses of shells by the former were
inspired by the latter.

This hint assumes a special significance when we first get a clear view
of the more fully-developed shell-cults of the Eastern Mediterranean
many centuries later.[263] For then we find definite indications that
the cultural uses of shells were obviously borrowed from the Erythræan
area.

Long before the shell-amulet became personified as a woman the
Mediterranean people had definitely adopted the belief in the cowry's
ability to give life and birth.

[258: As it is still called in the Semitic languages. In the Egyptian
Pyramid Texts there is a reference to a new being formed "by the vulva
of Tefnut" (Breasted).]

[259: Many customs and beliefs of primitive peoples suggest that this
correlation of the attributes of blood and shells went much deeper than
the similarity of their use in burial ceremonies and for making
necklaces and bracelets. The fact that the monthly effusion of blood in
women ceased during pregnancy seems to have given rise to the theory,
that the new life of the child was actually formed from the blood thus
retained. The beliefs that grew up in explanation of the placenta form
part of the system of interpretation of these phenomena: for the
placenta was regarded as a mass of clotted blood (intimately related to
the child which was supposed to be derived from part of the same
material) which harboured certain elements of the child's mentality
(because blood was the substance of consciousness).]

[260: See S. Reinach, "Les Déesses Nues dans l'Art Oriental et dans
l'Art Grec," _Revue Archéol._, T. XXVI, 1895, p. 367. Compare also the
figurines of the so-called Upper Palæolithic Period in Europe.]

[261: Chapter I.]

[262: The literature relating to these important discoveries has been
summarized by Wilfrid Jackson in his "Shells as Evidence of the
Migrations of Early Culture," pp. 135-7.]

[263: Cowries were obtained in Neolithic sites at Hissarlik and Spain
(Siret, _op. cit._, p. 18).]

The Origin of Clothing.

The cowry and its surrogates were supposed to be potent to confer
fertility on maidens; and it became the practice for growing girls to
wear a girdle on which to suspend the shells as near as possible to the
organ their magic was supposed to stimulate. Among many peoples[264]
this girdle was discarded as soon as the girls reached maturity.

This practice probably represents the beginning of the history of
clothing; but it had other far-reaching effects in the domain of belief.

It has often been claimed that the feeling of modesty was not the reason
for the invention of clothing, but that the clothes begat modesty.[265]
This doctrine contains a certain element of truth, but is by no means
the whole explanation. For true modesty is displayed by people who have
never worn clothes.

Before mankind could appreciate the psychological fact that the wearing
of clothing might add to an individual's allurement and enhance her
sexual attractiveness, some other circumstances must have been
responsible for suggesting the experiments out of which this empirical
knowledge emerged. The use of a girdle (a) as a protection against
danger to life, and (b) as a means of conferring fecundity on
girls[266] provided the circumstances which enabled men to discover that
the sexual attractiveness of maidens, which in a state of nature was
originally associated with modesty and coyness, was profoundly
intensified by the artifices of clothing and adornment.

Among people (such as those of East Africa and Southern Arabia) in which
it was customary for unmarried girls to adorn themselves with a girdle,
it is easy to understand how the meaning of the practice underwent a
change, and developed into a device for enhancing their charms and
stimulating the imaginations of their suitors.

Out of such experience developed the idea of the magical girdle as an
allurement and a love-provoking charm or philtre. Thus Aphrodite's
girdle acquired the reputation of being able to _compel_ love. When
Ishtar removed her girdle in the under-world reproduction ceased in the
world. The Teutonic Brunhild's great strength lay in her girdle. In fact
magic virtues were conferred upon most goddesses in every part of the
world by means of a cestus of some sort.[267] But the outstanding
feature of Aphrodite's character as a goddess of love is intimately
bound up with these conceptions which developed from the wearing of a
girdle of cowries.

[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Two representations of Astarte (Qetesh).

(a) The mother-goddess standing upon a lioness (which is her Sekhet
form): she is wearing her girdle, and upon her head is the moon and the
cow's horns, conventionalized so as to simulate the crescent moon. Her
hair is represented in the conventional form which is sometimes used as
Hathor's symbol. In her hands are the serpent and the lotus, which again
are merely forms of the goddess herself.

(b) Another picture of Astarte (from Roscher's "Lexikon") holding the
papyrus sceptre which at times is regarded as an animate form of the
mother-goddess herself and as such a thunder weapon.]

In the Biblical narrative, after Adam and Eve had eaten the forbidden
fruit, "the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were
naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons,"
or, as the Revised Version expresses it, "girdles". The girdle of
fig-leaves, however, was originally a surrogate of the girdle of
cowries: it was an amulet to give fertility. The consciousness of
nakedness was part of the knowledge acquired as _the result_ of the
wearing of such girdles (and the clothing into which they developed),
and was not originally the motive that impelled our remote ancestors to
clothe themselves.

The use of fig-leaves for the girdle in Palestine is an interesting
connecting link between the employment of the cowry and the mandrake for
similar purposes in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea and in Cyprus and
Syria respectively (_vide infra_).

In Greece and Italy, the sweet basil has a reputation for magical
properties analogous to those of the cowry. Maidens collect the plant
and wear bunches of it upon their body or upon their girdles; while
married women fix basil upon their heads.[268] It is believed that the
odour of the plant will attract admirers: hence in Italy it is called
_Bacia-nicola_. "Kiss me, Nicholas".[269]

In Crete it is a sign of mourning presumably because its life-prolonging
attributes, as a means of conferring continued existence to the dead,
have been so rationalized in explanation of its use at funerals.

On New Year's day in Athens boys carry a boat and people remark, "St.
Basil is come from Cæsarea".

[264: See Jackson, _op. cit._, pp. 139 _et seq._]

[265: For a discussion of this subject see the chapter on "The
Psychology of Modesty and Clothing," in William I. Thomas's "Sex and
Society," Chicago, 1907; also S. Reinach, "Cults, Myths, and Religions,"
p. 177; and Paton, "The Pharmakoi and the Story of the Fall," _Revue
Archéol._, Serie IV. T. IX, 1907, p. 51.]

[266: It is important to remember that shell-girdles were used by both
sexes for general life-giving and luck-bringing purposes, in the
funerary ritual of both sexes, in animating the dead or statues of the
dead, to attain success in hunting, fishing, and head-hunting, as well
as in games. Thus men also at times wore shells upon their belts or
aprons, and upon their implements and fishing nets, and adorned their
trophies of war and the chase with them. Such customs are found in all
the continents of the Old World and also in America, as, for example, in
the girdles of _Conus_- and _Oliva_-shells worn by the figures
sculptured upon the Copan stelæ. See, for example, Maudslay's pictures
of stele N, Plate 82 (Biologia Centrali-Americana; Archæology) _inter
alia_. But they were much more widely used by women, not merely by
maidens, but also by brides and married women, to heighten their
fertility and cure sterility, and by pregnant women to ensure safe
delivery in childbirth. It was their wider employment by women that
gives these shells their peculiar cultural significance.]

[267: Witness the importance of the girdle in early Indian and American
sculptures: in the literature of Egypt, Babylonia, Western Europe, and
the Mediterranean area. For important Indian analogies and Egyptian
parallels see Moret, "Mystères Égyptiens," p. 91, especially note 3. The
magic girdle assumed a great variety of forms as the number of
surrogates of the cowry increased. The mugwort (Artemisia) of Artemis
was worn in the girdle on St. John's Eve (Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p.
91): the people of Zante use vervain in the same way; the people of
France (Creuse et Corrères) rye-stalks; Eve's fig-leaves; in Vedic India
the initiate wore the "cincture of Munga's herbs"; and Kali had her
girdle of hands. Breasted, ("Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p.
29) says: "In the oldest fragments we hear of Isis the great, who
_fastened on the girdle_ in Khemmis, when she brought her [censer] and
burned incense before her son Horus."]

[268: This distinction between the significance of the amulet when worn
on the girdle and on the head (in the hair), or as a necklace or
bracelet, is very widespread. On the girdle it _usually_ has the
significance of stimulating the individual's fertility: worn elsewhere
it was intended to ward off danger to life, _i.e._ to give good luck. An
interesting surrogate of Hathor's distinctive emblem is the necklace of
golden apples worn by a priestess of Apollo (Rendel Harris, _op. cit._,
p. 42).]

[269: De Gubernatis, "Mythologie des Plantes," Vol. II, p. 35.]

Pearls.

During the chequered history of the Great Mother the attributes of the
original shell-amulet from which the goddess was sprung were also
changing and being elaborated to fit into a more complex scheme. The
magical properties of the cowry came to be acquired by other Red Sea
shells, such as _Pterocera_, the pearl oyster, conch shells, and others.
Each of these became intimately associated with the moon.[270] The
pearls found in the oysters were supposed to be little moons, drops of
the moon-substance (or dew) which fell from the sky into the gaping
oyster. Hence pearls acquired the reputation of "shining by night," like
the moon from which they were believed to have come: and every surrogate
of the Great Mother, whether plant, animal, mineral or mythical
instrument, came to be endowed with the power of "shining by night". But
pearls were also regarded as the quintessence of the shell's life-giving
properties, which were considered to be all the more potent because they
were sky-given emanations of the moon-goddess herself. Hence pearls
acquired the reputation of being the "givers of life" _par excellence_,
an idea which found literal expression in the ancient Persian word
_margan_ (from _mar_, "giver" and _gan_, "life"). This word has been
borrowed in all the Turanian languages (ranging from Hungary to
Kamskatckha), but also in the non-Turanian speech of Western Asia,
thence through Greek and Latin (_margarita_) to European languages.[271]
The same life-giving attributes were also acquired by the other
pearl-bearing shells; and at some subsequent period, when it was
discovered that some of these shells could be used as trumpets, the
sound produced was also believed to be life-giving or the voice of the
great Giver of Life. The blast of the trumpet was also supposed to be
able to animate the deity and restore his consciousness, so that he
could attend to the appeals of supplicants. In other words the noise
woke up the god from his sleep. Hence the shell-trumpet attained an
important significance in early religious ceremonials for the ritual
purpose of summoning the deity, especially in Crete and India, and
ultimately in widely distant parts of the world.[272] Long before these
shells are known to have been used as trumpets, they were employed like
the other Red Sea shells as "givers of life" to the dead in Egypt. Their
use as trumpets was secondary.

And when it was discovered that purple dye could be obtained from
certain of the trumpet-shells, the colouring-matter acquired the same
life-giving powers as had already been conferred upon the trumpet and
the pearls: thus it became regarded as a divine substance and as the
exclusive property of gods and kings.

Long before, the colour red had acquired magic potency as a surrogate of
life-giving blood; and this colour-symbolism undoubtedly helped in the
development of the similar beliefs concerning purple.

[270: For the details see Jackson, _op. cit._, pp. 57-69. Both the
shells and the moon were identified with the Great Mother. Hence they
were homologized the one with the other.]

[271: Dr. Mingana has given me the following note: "It is very probable
that the Græco-Latin _margarita_, the Aramæo-Syriac _margarita_, the
Arabic _margan_, and the Turanian _margan_ are derived from the Persian
_mar-gân_, meaning both 'pearl' and 'life,' or etymologically 'giver,
owner, or possessor, of life'. The word _gān_, in Zend _yān_, is
thoroughly Persian and is undoubtedly the original form of this
expression."]

[272: See Chapter II of Jackson's book, _op. cit._]

Sharks and Dragons.

When the life-giving attributes of water were confused with the same
properties with which shells had independently been credited long
before, the shell's reputation was rationalized as an expression of the
vital powers of the ocean in which the mollusc was born. But the same
explanation was also extended to include fishes, and other denizens of
the water, as manifestations of similar divine powers. In the lecture on
"Dragons and Rain Gods" I referred to the identification of Ea, the
Babylonian Osiris, with a fish (p. 105). When the value of the pearl as
the giver of life impelled men to incur any risks to obtain so precious
an amulet, the chief dangers that threatened pearl-fishers were due to
sharks. These came to be regarded as demons guarding the treasure-houses
at the bottom of the sea. Out of these crude materials the imaginations
of the early pearl-fishers created the picture of wonderful submarine
palaces of Nâga kings in which vast wealth, not merely of pearls, but
also of gold, precious stones, and beautiful maidens (all of them
"givers of life," _vide infra_, p. 224), were placed under the
protection of shark-dragons.[273] The conception of the pearl (which is
a surrogate of the life-giving Great Mother) guarded by dragons is
linked by many bonds of affinity with early Erythræan and Mediterranean
beliefs. The more usual form of the story, both in Southern Arabian
legend and in Minoan and Mycenæan art, represents the Mother Goddess
incarnate in a sacred tree or pillar with its protecting dragons in the
form of serpents or lions, or a variety of dragon-surrogates, either
real animals, such as deer or cattle, or composite monsters (Fig.
26).[274]

There are reasons for believing that these stories were first invented
somewhere on the shores of the Erythræan Sea, probably in Southern
Arabia. The animation of the incense-tree by the Great Mother, for the
reasons which I have already expounded,[275] formed the link of her
identification with the pearl, which probably acquired its magical
reputation in the same region.

"In the Persian myth, the white Haoma is a divine tree, growing in the
lake Vourukasha: the fish Khar-mâhi circles protectingly around it and
defends it against the toad Ahriman. It gives eternal life, children to
women, husbands to girls, and horses to men. In the Minôkhired the tree
is called 'the preparer of the corpse'" (Spiegel, "Eran. Altertumskunde,"
II, 115--quoted by Jung, "Psychology of the Unconscious," p. 532). The
idea of guarding the divine tree[276] by dragons was probably the result
of the transference to that particular surrogate of the Great Mother of
the shark-stories which originated from the experiences of the seekers
after pearls, her other representatives.

There are many other bits of corroborative evidence to suggest that
these shell-cults and the legends derived from them were actually
transmitted from the Red Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean. Nor is it
surprising that this should have happened, when it is recalled that
Egyptian sailors were trafficking in both seas long before the Pyramid
Age, and no doubt carried the beliefs and the legends of one region to
the other. I have already referred to the adoption in the Mediterranean
area of the idea of the dragon-protectors of the tree- and pillar-forms
of the Great Mother, and suggested that this was merely a garbled
version of the pearl-fisher's experience of the dangers of attacks by
sharks. But the same legends also reached the Levant in a less modified
form, and then underwent another kind of transformation (and confusion
with the tree-version) in Cyprus or Syria.

As the shark would be a not wholly appropriate actor in the
Mediterranean, its rôle is taken by its smaller Selachian relative, the
dog-fish. In the notes on Pliny's Natural History, Dr. Bostock and Mr.
H. T. Riley[277] refer to the habits of dog-fishes ("Canes marini"), and
quote from Procopius ("De Bell. Pers." B. I, c. 4) the following
"wonderful story in relation to this subject": "Sea-dogs are wonderful
admirers of the pearl-fish, and follow them out to sea.... A certain
fisherman, having watched for the moment when the shell-fish was
deprived of the attention of its attendant sea-dog, ... seized the
shell-fish and made for the shore. The sea-dog, however, was soon aware
of the theft, and making straight for the fisherman, seized him. Finding
himself thus caught, he made a last effort, and threw the pearl-fish on
shore, immediately on which he was torn to pieces by its
protector."[278]

Though the written record of this story is relatively modern the
incident thus described probably goes back to much more ancient times.
It is only a very slightly modified version of an ancient narrative of a
shark's attack upon a pearl-diver.

For reasons which I shall discuss in the following pages, the rôle of
the cowry and pearl as representatives of the Great Mother was in the
Levant assumed by the mandrake, just as we have already seen the
Southern Arabian conception of her as a tree adopted in Mycenæan lands.
Having replaced the sea-shell by a land plant it became necessary, in
adapting the legend, to substitute for the "sea-dog" some land animal.
Not unnaturally it became a dog. Thus the story of the dangers incurred
in the process of digging up a mandrake assumed the well-known
form.[279] The attempt to dig up the mandrake was said to be fraught
with great danger. The traditional means of circumventing these risks
has been described by many writers, ancient and modern, and preserved in
the folk-lore of most European and western Asiatic countries. The story
as told by Josephus is as follows: "They dig a trench round it till the
hidden part of the root is very small, then they tie a dog to it, and
when the dog tries hard to follow him that tied him, this root is easily
plucked up, but the dog dies immediately, as it were, instead of the man
that would take the plant away."[280] Thus the dog takes the place of
the dog-fish when the mandrake becomes the pearl's surrogate. The only
discrepancy between the two stories is the point to which Josephus calls
specific attention. For instead of the dog killing the thief, as the
shark (dog-fish) kills the stealer of pearls, the dog becomes the victim
as a substitute for the man. As Josephus remarks, "the dog dies
immediately, as it were, instead of the man that would take the plant
away". This distortion of the story is true to the traditions of
legend-making. The dog-incident is so twisted as to be transformed into
a device for plucking the dangerous plant without risk.

It is quite possible that earlier associations of the dog with the Great
Mother may have played some part in this transference of meaning, if
only by creating confusion which made such rationalization necessary. I
refer to the part played by Anubis in helping Isis to collect the
fragments of Osiris; and the rôle played by Anubis, and his Greek
_avatar_ Cerberus, in the world of the dead. Whether the association of
the dog-star Sirius with Hathor had anything to do with the confusion is
uncertain.[281]

There was an intimate association of the dog with the goddess of the
under-world (Hecate) and the ritual of rebirth of the dead.[282] Perhaps
the development of the story of the underworld-goddess Aphrodite's dog
and the mandrake may have been helped by this survival of the
association of Isis with Anubis, even if there is not a more definite
causal relationship between the dog-incidents in the various legends.

The divine dog Anubis is frequently represented in connexion with the
ritual of rebirth,[283] where it is shown upon a standard in association
with the placenta. The hieroglyphic sign for the Egyptian word _mes_,
"to give birth," consists of the skins of three dogs (or jackals, or
foxes). The three-headed dog Cerberus that guarded the portal of Hades
may possibly be a distorted survival of this ancient symbolism of the
three-fold dog-skin as the graphic sign for the act of emergence from
the portal of birth. Elsewhere (p. 223) in this lecture I have referred
to Charon's _obolus_ as a surrogate of the life-giving pearl or cowry
placed in the mouth of the dead to provide "vital substance". Rohde[284]
regards Charon as the second Cerberus, corresponding to the Egyptian
dog-faced god Anubis: just as Charon received his _obolus_, so in Attic
custom the dead were provided with [Greek: melitoutia] the object of
which is usually said to be to pacify the dog of hell.

What seems to link all these fantastic beliefs and customs with the
story of the dog and the mandrake is the fact that they are closely
bound up with the conception of the dog as the guardian of hidden
treasure.

The mandrake story may have arisen out of a mingling of these two
streams of legend--the shark (dog-fish) protecting the treasures at the
bottom of the sea, and the ancient Egyptian beliefs concerning the
dog-headed god who presides at the embalmer's operations and
superintends the process of rebirth.

The dog of the story is a representative of the dragon guarding the
goddess in the form of the mandrake, just as the lions over the gate at
Mycenæ heraldically support her pillar-form, or the serpents in Southern
Arabia protect her as an incense tree. Dog, Lion, and Serpent in these
legends are all representatives of the goddess herself, i.e. merely her
own _avatars_ (Fig. 26).

At one time I imagined that the rôle of Anubis as a god of embalming and
the restorer of the dead was merely an ingenuous device on the part of
the early Egyptians to console themselves for the depredations of
jackals in their cemeteries. For if the jackal were converted into a
life-giving god it would be a comforting thought to believe that the
dead man, even though devoured, was "in the bosom of his god" and
thereby had attained a rebirth in the hereafter. In ancient Persia
corpses were thrown out for the dogs to devour. There was also the
custom of leading a dog to the bed of a dying man who presented him with
food, just as Cerberus was given honey-cakes by Hercules in his journey
to hell. But I have not been able to obtain any corroboration of this
supposition. It is a remarkable coincidence that the Great Mother has
been identified with the necrophilic vulture as Mut; and it has been
claimed by some writers[285] that, just as the jackal was regarded as a
symbol of rebirth in Egypt and the dead were exposed for dogs to devour
in Persia, so the vulture's corpse-devouring habits may have been
primarily responsible for suggesting its identification with the Great
Mother and for the motive behind the Indian practice of leaving the
corpses of the dead for the vultures to dispose of.[286] It is not
uncommon to find, even in English cathedrals, recumbent statues of
bishops with dogs as footstools. Petronius ("Sat.," c. 71) makes the
following statement: "valde te rogo, ut secundum pedes statuae meae
catellam pingas--ut mihi contingat tuo beneficio post mortem
vivere".[287] The belief in the dog's service as a guide to the dead
ranges from Western Europe to Peru.

To return to the story of the dog and the mandrake: no doubt the demand
will be made for further evidence that the mandrake actually assumed the
rôle of the pearl in these stories. If the remarkable repertory of
magical properties assigned to the mandrake[288] be compared with those
which developed in connexion with the cowry and the pearl,[289] it will
be found that the two series are identical. The mandrake also is the
giver of life, of fertility to women, of safety in childbirth; and like
the cowry and the pearl it exerts these magical influences only if it be
worn in contact with the wearer's skin.[290] But the most definite
indication of the mandrake's homology with the pearl is provided by the
legend that "it shines by night". Some scholars,[291] both ancient and
modern, have attempted to rationalize this tradition by interpreting it
as a reference to the glow-worms that settle on the plant! But it is
only one of many attributes borrowed by the mandrake from the pearl,
which was credited with this remarkable reputation only when early
scientists conceived the hypothesis that the gem was a bit of moon
substance.

As the memory of the real history of these beliefs grew dim, confusion
was rapidly introduced into the stories. I have already explained how
the diving for pearls started the story of the great palace of treasures
under the waters which was guarded by dragons. As the pearl had the
reputation of shining by night, it is not surprising that it or some of
its surrogates should in course of time come to be credited with the
power of "revealing hidden treasures," the treasures which in the
original story were the pearls themselves. Thus the magic fern-seed and
other treasure-disclosing vegetables[292] are surrogates of the
mandrake, and like it derive their magical properties directly or
indirectly from the pearl.

The fantastic story of the dog and the mandrake provides the most
definite evidence of the derivation of the mandrake-beliefs from the
shell-cults of the Erythræan Sea. There are many other scraps of
evidence to corroborate this. I shall refer here only to one of these.
"The discovery of the art of purple-dyeing has been attributed to the
Tyrian tutelary deity Melkart, who is identified with Baal by many
writers. According to Julius Pollux ('Onomasticon,' I, iv.) and Nonnus
('Dionys.,' XL, 306) Hercules (Melkart) was walking on the seashore
accompanied by his dog and a Tyrian nymph, of whom he was enamoured. The
dog having found a _Murex_ with its head protruding from its shell,
devoured it, and thus its mouth became stained with purple. The nymph,
on seeing the beautiful colour, bargained with Hercules to provide her
with a robe of like splendour."[293] This seems to be another variant of
the same story.

[273: In Eastern Asia (see, for example, Shinji Nishimura, "The
Hisago-Bune," Tokio, 1918, published by the Tokio Society of Naval
Architects, p. 18, where the dragon is identified with the _wani_, which
can be either a crocodile or a shark); in Oceania (L. Frobenius, "Das
Zeitalter des Sonnengottes," Bd. I., 1904, and C. E. Fox and F. H. Drew,
"Beliefs and Tales of San Cristoval," _Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute_, Vol. XLV, 1915, p. 140); and in America (see
Thomas Gann, "Mounds in Northern Honduras," _Nineteenth Annual Report of
the Bureau of American Ethnology_, 1897-8, Part II, p. 661) the dragon
assumes the form of a shark, a crocodile, or a variety of other
animals.]

[274: Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," _op. cit.
supra_: W. Hayes Ward, "The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," _op. cit._:
and Robertson Smith, "The Religion of the Semites," p. 133: "In
Hadramant it is still dangerous to touch the sensitive mimosa, because
the spirit that resides in the plant will avenge the injury". When men
interfere with the incense trees it is reported: "the demons of the
place flew away with doleful cries in the shape of white serpents, and
the intruders died soon afterwards".]

[275: _Vide supra_, p. 38.]

[276: In Western mythology the dragon guarding the fruit-bearing tree of
life is also identified with the Mother of Mankind (Campbell, "Celtic
Dragon Myth," pp. xli and 18). Thus the tree and its defender are both
surrogates of the Great Mother. When Eve ate the apple from the tree of
Paradise she was committing an act of cannibalism, for the plant was
only another form of herself. Her "sin" consisted in aspiring to attain
the immortality which was the exclusive privilege of the gods. This
incident is analogous to that found in the Indian tales where mortals
steal the _amrita_. By Eve's sin "death came into the world" for the
paradoxical reason that she had eaten the food of the gods which gives
immortality. The punishment meted out to her by the Almighty seems to
have been to inhibit the life-giving and birth-facilitating action of
the fruit of immortality, so that she and all her progeny were doomed to
be mortal and to suffer the pangs of child-bearing.

There was a widespread belief among the ancients that ceremonies in
connexion with the gods must (to be efficacious) be done in the reverse
of the usual human way (Hopkins, "Religions of India," p. 201). So also
an act which gives immortality to the gods, brings death to man.

The full realization of the fact that man was mortal imposed upon the
early theologians the necessity of explaining the immortality of the
gods. The elixir of life was the food of the gods that conferred eternal
life upon them. By one of those paradoxes so dear to the maker of myths
this same elixir brought death to man.]

[277: Bohn's Edition, 1855, Vol. II, p. 433.]

[278: A Cretan scene depicts a man attacking a dog-headed sea-monster
(Mackenzie, _op. cit._, "Myths of Crete," p. 139).]

[279: A number of versions of this widespread fable have been collected
by Dr. Rendel Harris (_op. cit._) and Sir James Frazer (_op. cit._). I
quote here from the former (p. 118).]

[280: Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," VII, 6, 3, quoted by Rendel Harris, _op.
cit._, p. 118.]

[281: The dog-star became associated with Hathor for reasons which are
explained on p. 209. It was "the opener of the Way" for the birth of the
sun and the New Year.]

[282: When Artemis acquired the reputation as a huntress and her deer
became her quarry the dog was rationalized into the new scheme.]

[283: See, for example, Moret's "Mystères Égyptiens," pp. 77-80.]

[284: "Psyche," p. 244.]

[285: See, for example, Jung, _op. cit._, p. 268.]

[286: Nekhebit, the Egyptian Vulture goddess, was identified by the
Greeks with Eileithyia, the goddess of birth (Wiedemann, "Religion of
the Ancient Egyptians," p. 141). She was usually represented as a
vulture hovering over the king. Her place can be taken by the falcon of
Horus or in the Babylonian story of Etana by the eagle. In the Indian
Mahábhárata the Garuda is described as "the bird of life ... destroyer
of all, creator of all".]

[287: Quoted by Jung, _op. cit._, p. 530.]

[288: See Rendel Harris (_op. cit._) and Sir James Frazer (_op. cit._).]

[289: Jackson, _op. cit._]

[290: An interesting rationalization (of which Mr. T. H. Pear has kindly
reminded me) of this ancient Oriental belief is still alive amongst
British women. It is maintained that pearls "lose their lustre" unless
they are worn in contact with the skin. This of course is a pure myth,
but also an illuminating survival.]

[291: See Frazer, _op. cit._, p. 16, especially the references to the
"devil's candle" and "the lamp of the elves".]

[292: Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p. 113: Other factors played a part in
the development of this legend of opening up treasure-houses. Both
Artemis and Hecate are associated with a magical plant capable of
opening locks and helping the process of birth. Artemis is a goddess of
the portal and her life-giving symbol in a multitude of varied forms is
found appropriately placed above the lintel of doors.]

[293: Jackson, _op. cit._, p. 195.]

The Octopus.

Aphrodite was associated not only with the cowry, the pearl, and the
mandrake, but also with the octopus, the argonaut, and other
cephalopods. Tümpel seems to imagine that the identification of the
goddess with the argonaut and the octopus necessarily excludes her
association with molluscs; and Dr. Rendel Harris attributes an equally
exclusive importance to the mandrake. But in such methods of argument
due recognition is not given to the outstanding fact in the history of
primitive beliefs. The early philosophers built up their great
generalizations in the same way as their modern successors. They were
searching for some explanation of, or a working hypothesis to include,
most diverse natural phenomena within a concise scheme. The very essence
of such attempts was the institution of a series of homologies and
fancied analogies between dissimilar objects. Aphrodite was at one and
the same time the personification of the cowry, the conch shell, the
purple shell, the pearl, the lotus, and the lily, the mandrake and the
bryony, the incense tree and the cedar, the octopus and the argonaut,
the pig, and the cow.

[Illustration: Fig. 21.--(a) A slate triad found by Professor G. A.
Reisner in the temple of the Third Pyramid at Giza. It shows the Pharaoh
Mycerinus supported on his right side by the goddess Hathor, represented
as a woman with the moon and the cow's horns upon her head, and on the
left side by a nome goddess, bearing upon her head the jackal-symbol of
her nome.

(b) The Ecuador Aphrodite. Bas-relief from Cerro Jaboncillo (after
Saville, "Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador," Preliminary Report, 1907,
Plate XXXVIII).

A grotesque composite monster intended to represent a woman (compare
Saville's Plates XXXV, XXXVI, and XXXIX), whose head is a
conventionalized Octopus, whose body is a _Loligo_, and whose limbs
are human.]

Every one of these identifications is the result of a long and chequered
history, in which fancied resemblances and confusion of meaning play a
very large part. But I cannot too strongly repudiate the claim made by
Sir James Frazer that such events are merely so many evidences of the
innate human tendency to personify nature. The history of the arbitrary
circumstances that were responsible for the development of each one of
these homologies is entirely fatal to this wholly unwarranted
speculation.[294] Tümpel claims[295] the Aphrodite was associated more
especially with "a species of _Sepia_". He refers to the attempts to
associate the goddess of love with amulets of univalvular shells "in
virtue of a certain peculiar and obscene symbolism".[296] Naturalists,
however, designate with the term _Venus Cytherea_ certain gaping
bivalve molluscs.

But, according to Tümpel (p. 386), neither univalvular nor bivalve
shells can be regarded as a real part of the goddess's cultural
equipment. There is no representation of Aphrodite coming in a shell
from across the sea.[297] The truly sacred Aphrodite-shell was entirely
different, so Tümpel believes: it was obviously difficult to preserve,
but for that reason more worthy of notice, for the small [Greek:
choirinai] (pectines), virginalia marina (Apuleius de mag. 34, 35, and
in reference thereto, Isidor. origg. 9, 5, 24) or spuria ([Greek:
sporia]) were only the commoner and more readily obtained surrogates:
the univalvular shells.

([Greek: monothyra] of Aristotle), such as those just mentioned, and the
other [Greek: ostrea] of Aphrodite, the Nerites (periwinkles, etc.), the
purple shell and the Echineïs were also real Veneriae conchae. Among the
Nerites Aelian enumerates (N.A. 14, 28): [Greek: Aphroditên de
syndiaitômenên en tê thalattê hêsthênai te tô Nêritê tôde kai echein
auton philon]. On account of their supposed medicinal value in cases of
abortion and especially as a prophylactic for pregnant women the [Greek:
Echenêis] (pure Latin re[mi]mora) was called [Greek: ôdinolytê][298]
(Pliny, 32, 1, 5: pisciculus!). According to Mutianus (Pliny, 9, 25
(41), 79 f.), it was a species of purple shell, but larger than the true
_Murex purpura_. From this the sanctity of the Echineïs to the Cnidian
Aphrodite is demonstrated: "quibus (conchis) inhaerentibus plenam ventis
stetisse navem portantem Periandro, ut castrarentur nobilis pueros,
conchasque, quae id praestiterint, apud Cnidiorum Venerem coli" (Pliny).

Tümpel then (p. 387) accuses Stephani of being mistaken in his
interpretation of Martial's Cytheriacae (Epign. II, 47, 1 = purple
shells) as the amulets of Aphrodite, and claims that Jahn has given the
correct solution of the following passages from Pliny (N.H., 9, 33 [52],
103, compare 32, 11 [53]): "navigant ex his (conchis) veneriae,
praebentesque concavam sui partem et aurae opponentes per summa aequorum
velificant"; and further (9, 30[49], 94): "in Propontide concham esse
acatii modo carinatam inflexa puppe, prora rostrata, in hac condi
nauplium animal saepiae simile ludendi societate sola, duobus hoc fieri
generibus: tranquillum enim vectorem demissis palmulis ferire ut remis;
si vero flatus invitet, easdem in usu gubernaculi porrigi pandique
buccarum sinus aurae".

Tümpel claims (pp. 387 and 388) that this quotation settles the
question. Aphrodite's "shell," according to him, is the _Nauplius_
(depicted as a shell-fish, with its sail-like palmulæ spread out to the
wind, but with the same sails flattened into plate-like arms for
steering), clearly "a species of _Sepia_," wholly like Aphrodite
herself, a ship-like shell-fish sailing over the surface of the water,
the concha veneria. [The analogy to a ship bearing the Great Mother is
extremely ancient and originally referred to the crescent moon carrying
the moon-goddess across the heavenly ocean.]

Elsewhere (p. 399) he discusses the reasons for the connexion of
Aphrodite with the "nautilus," by which is meant the argonaut of
zoologists.

But if Jahn and Tümpel have thus clearly established the proof of the
intimate association of Aphrodite with certain cephalopods, they are
wholly unjustified in the assumption that their quotations from
relatively modern authors disprove the reality of the equally close
(though more ancient) relationship of the goddess to the cowry, the
pearl-shell, the trumpet-shell, and the purple-shell.

It must not be forgotten that, as we have already seen, the primitive
shell-cults of the Erythræan Sea had been diffused throughout the
Mediterranean area long before Aphrodite was born upon the shores of the
Levant, and possibly before Hathor came into existence in the south. The
use of the cowry and gold models of the cowry goes back to an early time
in Ægean history.[299] And the influence of Aphrodite's early
associations had become blurred and confused by the development of new
links with other shells and their surrogates.

But the connexion of Aphrodite with the octopus and its kindred played a
very obtrusive part in Minoan and Mycenæan art; and its influence was
spread abroad as far as Western Europe[300] and towards the East as far
as America. In many ways it was a factor in the development of such
artistic designs as the spiral and the volute, and not improbably also
of the swastika.

[Illustration: Fig. 22.--(a) _Sepia officinalis_, after Tryon,
"Cephalopoda".

(b) _Loligo vulgaris_, after Tryon.

(c) The position usually adopted by the resting Octopus, after Tryon.]

Starting from the researches of Tümpel, a distinguished French
zoologist, Dr. Frédéric Houssay,[301] sought to demonstrate that the
cult of Aphrodite was "based upon a pre-existing zoological philosophy".
The argument in support of his claim that Aphrodite was a
personification of the octopus must be sharply differentiated into two
parts: first, the reality of the association of the octopus with the
goddess, of which there can be no doubt; and secondly, his explanation
of it, which (however popular it may be with classical writers and
modern scholars)[302] is not only a gratuitous assumption, but also,
even if it were based upon more valid evidence than the speculations
of such recent writers as Pliny, would not really carry the explanation
very far.

I refer to his claim that "les premiers conquérants de la mer furent
induits en vénération du poulpe nageur (octopus) parce qu'ils crurent
que quelque-uns de ces céphalopodes, les poulpes sacrés (argonauta)
avaient, comme eux et avant eux, inventé la navigation" (_op. cit._, p.
15). Idle fancies of this sort do not help us to understand the
arbitrary beliefs concerning the magical powers of the octopus.

The real problem we have to solve is to discover why, among all the
multitude of bizarre creatures to be found in the Mediterranean Sea, the
octopus and its allies should thus have been singled out for distinctive
appreciation, and also acquired the same remarkable attributes as the
cowry.

I believe that the Red Sea "Spider shell," _Pterocera_,[303] was the
link between the cowry and the octopus. This shell was used, like the
cowry, for funerary purposes in Egypt and as a trumpet in India.[304]
But it was also depicted upon a series of remarkable primitive statues
of the god Min, which were found at Coptos during the winter 1893-4 by
Professor Flinders Petrie.[305] Some of these objects are now in the
Cairo Museum and the others in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. They are
supposed to be late predynastic representations of the god Min. If this
supposition is correct they are the earliest idols (apart from mere
amulets) that have been preserved from antiquity.

Upon these statues, representations of the Red Sea shell _Pterocera
bryonia_ are sculptured in low relief. Mr. F. Ll. Griffith is
disinclined to accept my suggestion that the object of these pictures of
the shell was to animate the statues. But whether this was their purpose
or not, it is probably not without some significance that these
life-giving shells were associated with so obtrusively phallic a deity
as Min. In any case they afford concrete evidence of cultural contact
between Coptos and the Red Sea, and indicate that these particular
shells were chosen as symbols of that sea or its coast.

[Illustration: Fig. 5--Pterocera Bryonia. the Red Sea Spider-shell.
_Col._--the columella 1-7--the "claws".]

The distinctive feature of the _Pterocera_ is that the mantle in the
adult expands into a series of long finger-like processes each of which
secretes a calcareous process or "claw". There are seven[306] of these
claws as well as the long columella (Fig. 5). Hence, when the
shell-cults were diffused from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean (where
the _Pterocera_ is not found), it is quite likely that the people of the
Levant may have confused with the octopus some sailor's account of the
eight-rayed shell (or perhaps representations of it on some amulet or
statue). Whether this is the explanation of the confusion or not, it is
certain that the beliefs associated with the cowry and the octopus in
the Ægean area are identical with those linked up with the cowry and the
_Pterocera_ in the Red Sea.

I have already mentioned that the mandrake is believed to possess the
same magical powers. Sir James Frazer has called attention to the fact
that in Armenia the bryony (_Bryonia alba_) is a surrogate of the
mandrake and is credited with the same attributes.[307] Lovell Reeve
("Conchologia Iconica," VI, 1851) refers to the Red Sea _Pterocera_ as
the "Wild Vine Root" species, previously known as _Strombus radix
bryoniae_; and Chemnitz ("Conch. Cab.," 1788, Vol. X, p. 227) says the
French call it "Racine de brione femelle imparfaite," and refer to it as
"the maiden". Here then is further evidence that this shell (a) was
associated in some way with a surrogate of the mandrake (Aphrodite), and
(b) was regarded as a maiden. Thus clearly it has a place in the
chequered history of Aphrodite. I have suggested the possibility of its
confusion with the octopus, which may have led to the inclusion of the
latter within the scope of the marine creatures in Aphrodite's cultural
equipment. According to Matthioli (Lib. 2, p. 135), another of
Aphrodite's creatures, the purple shell-fish, was also known as "the
maiden". By Pliny it is called Pelogia, in Greek [Greek: porphyra]; and
[Greek: porphyrômata] was the term applied to the flesh of swine that
had been sacrificed to Ceres and Proserpine (Hesych.). In fact, the
purple-shell was "the maiden" and also "the sow": in other words it was
Aphrodite. The use of the term "maiden" for the _Pterocera_ suggests a
similar identification. To complete this web of proof it may be noted
that an old writer has called the mandrake the plant of Circe, the
sorceress who turned men into swine by a magic draught.[308] Thus we
have a series of shells, plants, and marine creatures accredited with
identical magical properties, and each of them known in popular
tradition as "the maiden". They are all culturally associated with
Aphrodite.

I shall have occasion (_infra_, p. 177) to refer to M. Siret's account
of the discovery of the Ægean octopus-motif upon Æneolithic objects in
Spain, and of the widespread use in Western Europe of certain
conventional designs derived from the octopus. M. Siret also (see the
table, Fig. 6, on p. 34 of his book) makes the remarkable claim that the
conventional form of the Egyptian Bes, which, according to Quibell,[309]
is the god whose function it is to preside over sexual intercourse in
its purely physical aspect, is derived from the octopus. If this is
true--and I am bound to admit that it is far from being proved--it
suggests that the Red Sea littoral may have been the place of origin of
the cultural use of the octopus and an association with Hathor, for Bes
and Hathor are said to have been introduced into Egypt from there.[310]

That the octopus was actually identified with the Great Mother and also
with the dragon is revealed by the fact of the latter assuming an
octopus-form in Eastern Asia and Oceania, and by the occurrence of
octopus-motifs in the representation of the goddess in America. One of
the most remarkable series of pictures depicting the Great Mother is
found sculptured in low relief upon a number of stone slabs from Manabi
in Central America,[311] one of which I reproduce here (Fig. 21_b_).
The head of the goddess is a conventionalized octopus; to that was added
a body consisting of a _Loligo_; and, to give greater definiteness to
this remarkable process of building up the form of the goddess,
conventional representations of her arms and legs (and in some of the
sculptures also the _pudendum muliebre_) were added. Thus there can
be no doubt of the identification of this American Aphrodite and
the octopus.

In the Polynesian Rata-myth there is a very instructive series of
manifestations of the dragon.[312] The first form assumed by the monster
in this story was a gaping shell-fish of enormous size; then it appeared
as a mighty octopus; and lastly, as a whale, into whose jaws the hero
Nganaoa sprang, as his representatives are said to have done elsewhere
throughout the world (Frobenius, _op. cit._, pp. 59-219).

Houssay (_op. cit. infra_) calls attention to the fact that at times
Astarte was shown carrying an octopus as her emblem,[313] and has
suggested that it was mistaken for a hand, just as in America the
thunderbolt of Chac was given a hand-like form in the Dresden Codex
(_vide supra_. Fig. 13), and elsewhere (_e.g._ Fig. 12).

If this suggestion should prove to be well founded it would provide a
more convincing explanation of the girdle of hands worn by the Indian
goddess Kali[314] than that usually given. If the "hands" really
represent surrogates of the cowry, the wearing of such a girdle brings
the Indian goddess into line, not only with Astarte and Aphrodite, but
also with the East African maidens who still wear the girdle of cowries.
Kali's exploits were in many respects identical with those of the
bloodthirsty Sekhet-manifestation of the Egyptian goddess Hathor. Just
as Sekhet had to be restrained by Re for her excess of zeal in murdering
his foes, so Siva had to intervene with Kali upon the battlefield
flooded with gore (as also in the Egyptian story) to spare the remnant
of his enemies.[315]

[294: Sir James Frazer, "Jacob and the Mandrakes," _Proc. Brit.
Academy_.]

[295: K. Tümpel, "Die 'Muschel der Aphrodite,'" _Philologus, Zeitschrift
für das Classische Alterthum_, Bd. 51, 1892, p. 385: compare also, with
reference to the "Muschel der Aphrodite," O. Jahn, _SB. d. k. Sächs. G.
d. W._, VII, 1853, p. 16 ff.; also IX, 1855, p. 80; and Stephani,
_Compte rendu pour l'an 1870-71_, p. 17 ff.]

[296: See Jahn, _op. cit._, 1855, T. V, 6, and T. IV, 8: figures of the
so-called [Greek: Choirinai] (from [Greek: Choiros] in the double sense
as "pig" and "the female pudendum"): Aristophanes, Eq. 1147; Vesp. 332;
Pollux, 8, 16; Hesch. s.v.]

[297: The fact that no graphic representation of this event has been
found is surely a wholly inadequate reason for refusing to credit the
story. Very few episodes in the sacred history of the gods received
concrete expression in pictures or sculptures until relatively late. A
Hellenistic representation of the goddess emerging from a bivalve was
found in Southern Russia (Minns, "Scythians and Greeks," p. 345).

Tümpel cites the following statements: "te (Venus) ex concha natam esse
autumant: cave tu harum conchas spernas!" Tibull. 3, 3, 24: "et faveas
concha, Cypria, vecta tua"; Statius Silv. 1, 2, 117: Venus to
Violentilla, "haec et caeruleïs mecum consurgere digna fluctibus et
nostra potuit considere concha"; Fulgent. myth. 2, 4 "concha etiam
marina pingitur (Venus) portari (I. HS:--am portare)"; Paulus Diacon. p.
52, "M. Cytherea Venus ab urbe Cythera, in quam primum devecta esse
dicitur concha, cum in mari esset concepta cet".]

[298: From [Greek: ôdino]--"to have the pains of childbirth".]

[299: See Schliemann, "Ilios," p. 455; and Siret, _op. cit_.]

[300: Siret, _op. cit. supra_, p. 59.]

[301: "Les Théories de la Genèse à Mycènes et le sens zoologique de
certains symboles du culte d'Aphrodite," _Revue Archéologique_, 3^ie
série, T. XXVI, 1895, p. 13.]

[302: It was adduced also by Tümpel and others before him.]

[303: or _Pteroceras_.]

[304: Jackson, _op. cit._, p. 38.]

[305: "Koptos," pp. 7-9, Pls. III. and IV.: for a discussion of the
significance of these statues see Jean Capart, "Les Débuts de l'Art en
Égypte," Brussels, 1904, p. 216 _et seq._]

[306: This may help to explain the peculiar sanctity of the shell.]

[307: Frazer, _op. cit._, 4.]

[308: Just as Hathor (or her surrogate Horus) turned men into the
creatures of Set, _i.e._ pigs, crocodiles, _et cetera_.]

[309: "Excavations at Saqqara," 1905-1906, p. 14.]

[310: Maspero, "The Dawn of Civilization," p. 34.]

[311: Saville, "Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador," 1907.]

[312: A detailed summary of the literature relating to the world-wide
distribution of certain phases of the dragon-myth is given by Frobenius,
"Das Zeitalter des Sonnesgottes," Berlin, 1904: on pp. 63-5 he gives the
Rata-myth.]

[313: Which can also be compared with the conventional form of the
thunderbolt.]

[314: Of course the hands had the additional significance as trophies of
her murderous zeal. But I think this is a secondary rationalization of
their meaning. An excellent photograph of a bronze statue (in the
Calcutta Art Gallery), representing Kali with her girdle of hands, is
given by Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie, "Indian Myth and Legend," p. xl.]

[315: F. T. Elworthy has summarized the extensive literature relating to
hand-amulets ("The Evil Eye," 1895; and "Horns of Honour," 1900). Many
of these hands have the definite reputation as fertility charms which
one would expect if Houssay's hypothesis of their derivation from the
octopus is well founded.]

The Swastika.

Houssay (_op. cit. supra_) has made the interesting suggestion that the
swastika may have been derived from such conventionalized
representations of the octopus as are shown in Fig. 23. This series of
sketches is taken from Tümpel's memoir, which provided the foundation
for Houssay's hypothesis.

[Illustration: Fig. 23.--A series of Mycenæan conventionalizations of
the Argonaut and the Octopus (after Tümpel), which provided the basis
for Houssay's theory of the origin of the triskele (_a_, _c_, and _d_)
and swastika (b and e), and Siret's theory to explain the design of
Bes's face (f and g)]

A vast amount of attention has been devoted to this lucky symbol,[316]
which still enjoys a widespread vogue at the present day, after a
history of several thousand years. Although so much has been written in
attempted explanation of the swastika since Houssay made his suggestion,
so far as I am aware no one has paid the slightest attention to his
hypothesis or made even a passing reference to his memoir.[317]
Fantastic and far-fetched though it may seem at first sight (though
surely not more so than the strictly orthodox solar theory advocated by
Mr. Cook or Mrs. Nuttall's astral speculations) Houssay's suggestion
offers an explanation of some of the salient attributes of the swastika
on which the alternative hypotheses shed little or no light.

Among the earliest known examples of the symbol are those engraved upon
the so-called "owl-shaped" (but, as Houssay has conclusively
demonstrated, really octopus-shaped) vases and a metal figurine found by
Schliemann in his excavations of the hill at Hissarlik.[318] The
swastika is represented upon the _mons Veneris_ of these figures, which
represent the Great Mother in her form as a woman or as a pot, which is
an anthropomorphized octopus, one of the avatars of the Great Mother.
The symbol seems to have been intended as a fertility amulet like the
cowry, either suspended from a girdle or depicted upon a pubic shield or
conventionalized fig-leaf.

Wherever it is found the swastika is supposed to be an amulet to confer
"good luck" and long life. Both this reputation and the association with
the female organs of reproduction link up the symbol with the cowry, the
_Pterocera_, and the octopus. It is clear then that the swastika has the
same reputation for magic and the same attributes and associations as
the octopus; and it may be a conventionalized representation of it, as
Houssay has suggested.

It must not be assumed that the identification of the swastika with the
Great Mother and her powers of giving life and resurrection
_necessarily_ invalidates the solar and astral theories recently
championed by Mr. Cook and Mrs. Nuttall respectively. I have already
called attention to the fact that the Sun-god derived his existence and
all his attributes from his mother. The whole symbolism of the Winged
Disk and the Wheel of the Sun and their reputation for life-giving and
destruction were adopted from the Great Mother. These well-established
facts should prepare us to recognize that the admission of the truth of
Houssay's suggestion would not necessarily invalidate the more widely
accepted solar significance of the swastika.

Tümpel called attention to the fact that, when they set about
conventionalizing the octopus, the Mycenæan artists often resorted to
the practice of representing pairs of "arms" as units and so making
four-limbed and three-limbed forms (Fig. 23), which Houssay regards as
the prototypes of the swastika and the triskele respectively. That such
a process may have played a part in the development of the symbol is
further suggested by the form of a Transcaucasian swastika found by
Rössler,[319] who assigns it to the Late Bronze or Early Iron Age. Each
of the four limbs is bifurcated at its extremity. Moreover they exhibit
the series of spots, so often found upon or alongside the limbs of the
symbol, which suggest the conventional way of representing the suckers
of the octopus in the Mycenæan designs (Fig. 23).

Another remarkable picture of a swastika-like emblem has been found in
America.[320] The elephant-headed god sits in the centre and four pairs
of arms radiate from him, each of them equipped with definite suckers.

Another possible way in which the design of a four-limbed swastika may
have been derived from an octopus is suggested by the gypsum weight
found in 1901 by Sir Arthur Evans[321] in the West Magazine of the
palace at Knossos (_circa_ 1500 B.C.). Upon the surface of this weight
the form of an octopus has been depicted, four of the arms of which
stand out in much stronger relief than the others.

The number four has a peculiar mystical significance (_vide infra_, p.
206) and is especially associated with the Sun-god Horus. This fact may
have played some part in the process of reduction of the number of limbs
of the octopus to four; or alternatively it may have helped to emphasize
the solar associations of the symbol, which other considerations were
responsible for suggesting. The designs upon the pots from Hissarlik
show that at a relatively early epoch the swastika was confused with the
sun's disc represented as a wheel with four spokes.[322] But the solar
attributes of the swastika are secondary to those of life-giving and
luck-bringing, with which it was originally endowed as a form of the
Great Mother.

The only serious fact which arouses some doubt as to the validity of
Houssay's theory is the discovery of an early painted vase at Susa
decorated with an unmistakable swastika. Edmond Pottier, who has
described the ceramic ware from Susa,[323] regards this pot as
Proto-Elamite of the earliest period. If Pottier's claim is justified we
have in this isolated specimen from Susa the earliest example of the
swastika. Moreover, it comes from a region in which the symbol was
supposed to be wholly absent.

This raises a difficult problem for solution. Is the Proto-Elamite
swastika the prototype of the symbol whose world-wide migrations have
been studied by Wilson (_op. cit. supra_)? Or is it an instance of
independent evolution? If it falls within the first category and is
really the parent of the early Anatolian swastikas, how is it to be
explained? Was the conventionalization of the octopus design much more
ancient than the earliest Trojan examples of the symbol? Or was the
Susian design adopted in the West and given a symbolic meaning which it
did not have before then?

These are questions which we are unable to answer at present because the
necessary information is lacking. I have enumerated them merely to
suggest that any hasty inferences regarding the bearing of the Susian
design upon the general problem are apt to be misleading. Vincent[324]
claims that the fact of the swastika having been in use by ceramic
artists in Crete and Susiana many centuries before the appearance of
Mycenæan art is fatal to Houssay's hypothesis. But I think it is too
soon to make such an assumption. The swastika was already a rigidly
conventionalized symbol when we first know it both in the Mediterranean
and in Susiana. It may therefore have a long history behind it. The
octopus may possibly have begun to play a part in the development of
this symbolism before the Egyptian Bes (_vide supra_, p. 171) was
evolved, perhaps even before the time of the Coptos statues of Min
(_supra_, p. 169), or in the early days of Sumerian history when the
conventional form of the water-pot was being determined (_infra_, p.
179). These are mere conjectures, which I mention merely for the purpose
of suggesting that the time is not yet ripe for using such arguments as
Vincent's finally to dispose of Houssay's octopus-theory.

There can be no doubt that the symbolism of the Mycenæan spiral and the
volute is closely related to the octopus. In fact, the evidence provided
by Minoan paintings and Mycenæan decorative art demonstrates that the
spiral as a symbol of life-giving was definitely derived from the
octopus. The use of the volute on Egyptian scarabs[325] and also in the
decoration of an early Thracian statuette of a nude goddess[326]
indicate that it was employed like the spiral and octopus as a
life-symbol.

In Spanish graves of the Early and Middle Neolithic types M. Siret found
cowry-shells in association with a series of flint implements, crude
idols, and pottery almost precisely reproducing the forms of similar
objects found with cowries and pecten shells at Hissarlik.[327] But when
the Æneolithic phase of culture dawned in Spain, and the Ægean
octopus-motif made its appearance there, the culture as a whole reveals
unmistakable evidence of a predominantly Egyptian inspiration.

M. Siret claims, however, that, even in the Neolithic phase in Spain,
the crude idols represent forms derived from the octopus in the Eastern
Mediterranean (p. 59 _et seq._). He regards the octopus as "a
conventional symbol of the ocean, or, more precisely, of the fertilizing
watery principle" (p. 19). He elucidates a very interesting feature of
the Æneolithic representation of the octopus in Spain. The spiral-motif
of the Ægean gives place to an angular design, which he claims to be due
to the influence of the conventional Egyptian way of representing water
(p. 40). If this interpretation is correct--and, in spite of the
slenderness of the evidence, I am inclined to accept it--it affords a
remarkable illustration of the effects of culture-contact in the
conventionalization of designs, to which Dr. Rivers has called
attention.[328] Whatever explanation may be provided of this method of
representing the arms of the octopus with its angularly bent
extremities, it seems to have an important bearing on Houssay's
hypothesis of the swastika's origin. For it would reveal the means by
which the spiral or volute shape of the limbs of the swastika became
transformed into the angular form, which is so characteristic of the
conventional symbol.[329]

The significance of the spiral as a form of the Great Mother inevitably
led to its identification with the thunder weapon, like all her other
surrogates. I have already referred (Chapter II, p. 98) to the
association of the spiral with thunder and lightning in Eastern Asia.
But other factors played a significant part in determining this
specialization. In Egypt the god Amen was identified with the ram; and
this creature's spirally curved horn became the symbol of the
thunder-god throughout the Mediterranean area,[330] and then further
afield in Europe, Africa, and Asia, where, for instance, we see Agni's
ram with the characteristic horn. This blending of the influence of the
octopus- and the ram's-horn-motifs made the spiral a conventional
representation of thunder. This is displayed in its most definite form
in China, Japan, Indonesia, and America, where we find the separate
spiral used as a thunder-symbol, and the spiral appendage on the side of
the head as a token of the god of thunder.[331]

[316: Thomas Wilson ("The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and its
Migrations; with Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in
Prehistoric Times," _Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1894_,
Washington, 1896) has given a full and well-illustrated summary of most
of the literature: further information is provided by Count d'Alviella
(_op. cit. supra_), "The Migration of Symbols"; by Zelia Nuttall ("The
Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations,"
_Archæological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum_,
Cambridge, Mass., 1901); and Arthur Bernard Cook ("Zeus, A Study in
Ancient Religion," Vol. I, Cambridge, 1914, pp. 472 _et seq._).]

[317: Since this has been printed Mr. W. J. Perry has called my
attention to a short article by René Croste ("Le Svastika," _Bull.
Trimestriel de la Société Bayonnaise d'Études Regionales_, 1918), in
which Houssay's hypothesis is mentioned as having been adopted by
Guilleminot ("Les Nouveaux Horizons de la Science").]

[318: Wilson (_op. cit._, pp. 829-33 and Figs. 125, 128, and 129) has
collected the relevant passages and illustrations from Schliemann's
writings.]

[319: _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. 37, p. 148.]

[320: Seler, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd., 41, p. 409.]

[321: _Corolla Numismatica_, 1906, p. 342.]

[322: A. B. Cook, "Zeus," pp. 198 _et seq_.]

[323: "Etude Historique et Chronologique sur les Vases Peints de
l'Acropole de Suse," _Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse_, T. XIII,
_Rech. Archéol._, 5^e série, 1912, Plate XLI, Fig. 3.]

[324: "Canaan," p. 340, footnote.]

[325: Alice Grenfell, _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. II, 1915,
p. 217: and _Ancient Egypt_, 1916, Part I, p. 23.]

[326: S. Reinach, _Revue Archéol._, T. XXVI, 1895, p. 369.]

[327: L. Siret, "Questions de Chronologie et d'Ethnographie Ibériques,"
1913, p. 18, Fig. 3.]

[328: Rivers, "History of Melanesian Society," Vol. II, p. 374; also
_Report Brit. Association_, 1912, p. 599.]

[329: M. Siret assigns the date of the appearance in Spain of the highly
conventionalized angular form of octopus to the time between the
fifteenth and the twelfth centuries B.C.; and he attributes it to
Phœnician influence (p. 63).]

[330: Cook, "Zeus," p. 346 _et seq._]

[331: This is well shown upon the Copan representations (Fig. 19) of the
elephant-headed god--see _Nature_, November, 25, 1915, p. 340.]

The Mother Pot.

In the lecture on "Incense and Libations" (Chapter I) I referred to the
enrichment of the conception of water's life-giving properties which the
inclusion of the idea of human fertilization by water involved. When
this event happened a new view developed in explanation of the part
played by woman in reproduction. She was no longer regarded as the real
parent of mankind, but as the matrix in which the seed was planted and
nurtured during the course of its growth and development. Hence in the
earliest Egyptian hieroglyphic writing the picture of a pot of water was
taken as the symbol of womanhood, the "vessel" which received the seed.
A globular water-pot, the common phonetic value of which is _Nw_ or
_Nu_, was the symbol of the cosmic waters, the god _Nw (Nu)_, whose
female counterpart was the goddess _Nut_.

In his report, "A Collection of Hieroglyphs,"[332] Mr. F. Ll. Griffith
discusses the bowl of water (a) and says that it stands for the female
principle in the words for _vulva_ and woman. When it is recalled that
the cowry (and other shells) had the same double significance, the
possibility suggests itself whether at times confusion may not have
arisen between the not very dissimilar hieroglyphic signs for "a shell"
(h) and "the bowl of water" (woman) (f).[333]

[Illustration: Fig. 6.

(a) Picture of a bowl of water--the hieroglyphic sign equivalent to _hm_
(the word _hmt_ means "woman")--Griffith, "Beni Hasan," Part III, Plate
VI, Fig. 88 and p. 29.

(b) "A basket of sycamore figs"--Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," Vol.
I, p. 323.

(c) and (d) are said by Wilkinson to be hieroglyphic signs meaning
"wife" and are apparently taken from (b). But (c) is identical with (i),
which, according to Griffith (p. 14), represents a bivalve shell (g,
from Plate III, Fig. 3), more usually placed obliquely (h). The varying
conventionalizations of (a) or (b) are shown in (d), (e), and (f)
(Griffith, "Hieroglyphics," p. 34).

(k) The sign for a lotus leaf, which is a phonetic equivalent of the
sign (h), and, according to Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 26), "is
probably derived from the same root, on account of its shell-like
outline".

(l) The hieroglyphic sign for a pot of water in such words as _Nu_
and _Nut_.

(m) A "pomegranate" (replacing a bust of Tanit) upon a sacred column at
Carthage (Arthur J. Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 46).

(n) The form of the body of an octopus as conventionalized on the coins
of Central Greece (compare Fig. 24 (d)). Its similarity to the Egyptian
pot-sign (l) (which also has the significance of mother-goddess) is
worthy of note.]

Referring to the sign (g and h) for "a shell," Mr. Griffith says (p.
25): "It is regularly found at all periods in the word _ḫaw·t_ =
altar,[334] and perhaps only in this word: but it is a peculiarity of
the Pyramid Texts that the sign shown in the text-figures _c_, _h_,
and _i_ is in them used very commonly, not as a word-sign, but also
as a phonetic equivalent to the sign labelled _k_ (in the text-figure)
for _ḫ'_ (_kha_), or apparently for _ḫ_ alone in many words.

"The name of the lotus leaf is probably derived from the same root, on
account of its shell-like outline or _vice versa_."

[Illustration: Fig. 7.

(a) An Egyptian design representing the sun-god Horus emerging from a
lotus, representing his mother Hathor (Isis).

(b) Papyrus sceptre often carried by goddesses and animistically
identified with them either as an instrument of life-giving or
destruction.

(c) Conventionalized lily--the prototype of the trident and the
thunder-weapon.

(d) A water-plant associated with the Nile-gods.]

The familiar representation of Horus (and his homologues in India and
elsewhere) being born from the lotus suggests that the flower represents
his mother Hathor. But as the argument in these pages has led us towards
the inference that the original form of Hathor was a shell-amulet,[335]
it seems not unlikely that her identification with the lotus may have
arisen from the confusion between the latter and the cowry, which no
doubt was also in part due to the belief that both the shell and the
plant were expressions of the vital powers of the water in which they
developed.

The identification of the Great Mother with a pot was one of the factors
that played a part in the assimilation of her attributes with those of
the Water God, who in early Sumerian pictures was usually represented
pouring the life-giving waters from his pot (Fig. 24, _h_ and _l_).

Fig. 24.

(a) and (b) Two Mycenæan pots (after Schliemann).

(a) The so-called "owl-shaped" vase is really a representation of the
Mother-Pot in the form of a conventionalized Octopus (Houssay).

(b) The other vase represents the Octopus Mother-Pot, with a jar upon
her head and another in her hands--a three-fold representation of the
Great Mother as a pot.

(c) A Cretan vase from Gournia in which the Octopus-motive is
represented as a decoration upon the pot instead of in its form.

(d), (e), (f), (g), and (h) A series of coins from Central Greece (after
Head) showing a series of conventionalizations of the Octopus, with its
pot-like body and palm-tree-like arms (f).

(i) _Sepia officinalis_ (after Tryon).

(k) and (l) The so-called "spouting vases" in the hands of the
Babylonian god Ea, from a cylinder seal of the time of Gudea, Patesi of
Tello, after Ward ("Seal Cylinders, etc.," p. 215).

The "spouting vases" have been placed in conjunction with the Sepia to
suggest the possibility of confusion with a conventionalized drawing of
the latter in the blending of the symbolism of the water-jar and
cephalopods in Western Asia and the Mediterranean.]

This idea of the Mother Pot is found not only in Babylonia, Egypt,
India,[336] and the Eastern Mediterranean, but wherever the influence of
these ancient civilizations made itself felt. It is widespread among the
Celtic-speaking peoples. In Wales the pot's life-giving powers are
enhanced by making its rim of pearls. But as the idea spread, its
meaning also became extended. At first it was merely a jug of water or a
basket of figs, but elsewhere it became also a witch's cauldron, the
magic cup, the Holy Grail, the font in which a child is reborn into the
faith, the vessel of water here being interpreted in the earliest sense
as the uterus or the organ of birth. The Celtic pot, so Mr. Donald
Mackenzie tells me, is closely associated with cows, serpents, frogs,
dragons, birds, pearls, and "nine maidens that blow the fire under the
cauldron"; and, if the nature of these relationships be examined, each
of them will be found to be a link between the pot and the Great Mother.

The witch's cauldron and the maidens who assist in the preparation of
the witch's medicine seem to be the descendants respectively of Hathor's
pots (in the story of the Destruction of Mankind) and the Sekti who
churn up the _didi_ and the barley with which to make the elixir of
immortality and the sedative draught for the destructive goddess
herself.

Mr. Donald Mackenzie has given me a number of additional references from
Celtic and Indian literature in corroboration of these widespread
associations of the pot with the Great Mother; and he reminds me that in
Oceania the coco-nut has the same reputation as the pot in the Indian
_Mahābhārata_. It is the source of food and anything else that is
wanted, and its supply can never be exhausted. [On some future occasion
I hope to make use of the wonderful legends of the pot's life-giving
powers, to which Mr. Mackenzie has directed my attention. At present,
however, I must content myself with the statement that the pot's
identity with the Great Mother is deeply rooted in ancient belief
throughout the greater part of the world.[337]]

The diverse conceptions of the Great Mother as a pot and as an octopus
seem to have been blended in Mycenæan lands, where the so-called
"owl-shaped" pots were clearly intended to represent the goddess in both
these aspects united in one symbol. When the diffusion of these ideas
into more remote parts of the world took place syntheses with other
motives produced a great variety of most complex forms. In Honduras
pottery vessels have been found[338] which give tangible expression to
the blending of the ideas of the Mother Pot, the crocodile-like
_Makara_, star-spangled like Hathor's cow, Aphrodite's pig, and Soma's
deer, and provided with the deer's antlers of the Eastern Asiatic dragon
(see Chapter II, p. 103).

The New Testament sets forth the ancient conception of birth and
rebirth. When Nicodemus asks: "How can a man be born again when he is
old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" he
is told: "Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh:
and that which is born of the spirit is spirit" (John iii. 4, 5, and 6).

The phrase "born of water" refers to the birth "of the flesh"; and the
mother's womb is the vessel containing "the water" from which the new
life emerges. Plutarch states, with reference to the birth of Isis:
"[Greek: tetartê de tên Isin en panygrois genesthai]". The great waters
which produced all living things, the Egyptian god Nun and the goddess
Nut, were expressed in hieroglyphic as pots of water. The goddess was
identified with Hathor's celestial star-spangled cow, the original
mother of the sun-god; and the word "Nun" was a symbol of all that was
new, young, and fresh, and the fertilizing and life-giving waters of the
annual inundation of the Nile. Hathor was the daughter of these waters,
as Aphrodite was sprung from the sea-foam.

[332: _Archæol. Survey of Egypt_, 1898, p. 3.]

[333: Compare the two-fold meaning of the Latin _testa_ as "shell" and
"bowl".]

[334: Compare the association of shells with altars in Minoan Crete and
the widespread use of large shells as bowls for "holy water" in
Christian churches.]

[335: Miss Winifred M. Crompton, Assistant Keeper of the Egyptian
Department of the Manchester Museum, has called my attention to a
remarkable piece of evidence which affords additional corroboration of
the view that Hathor was a development of the cowry-amulet. Upon the
famous archaic palette of Narmer (Fig. 18), a sporran, composed of four
representations of Hathor's head, takes the place of the original
cowries that were suspended from more primitive girdles.

The cowries of the head ornament of primitive peoples of Africa and Asia
(and of the Mediterranean area in early times--Schliemann's "Ilios,"
Fig. 685) are often replaced in Egypt by lotus flowers (W. D. Spanton,
"Water Lilies of Egypt," _Ancient Egypt_, 1917, Part I, Figs. 19, 20,
and 21). Upon the head-band of the statue of Nefert, which I have
reproduced in Chapter I (Fig. 4), a conventional lotus design is found
(see Spanton's Fig. 19), which is almost identical with the classical
thunder-weapon.]

[336: Among the Dravidian people at the present day the seven goddesses
(corresponding to the seven Hathors) are often represented by seven
pots.]

[337: The luxuriant crop of stories of the Holy Grail was not inspired
originally by mere literary invention. A tradition sprung from the
fountain-head of all mythology, the parent-story of the Destruction of
Mankind, provided the materials which a series of writers elaborated
into the varied assortment of legends of the Mother Pot. The true
meaning of the Quest of the Holy Grail can be understood only by reading
the fabled accounts of it in the light of the ancient search for the
elixir of life and the historical development of the narrative
describing that search.

A concise summary of the Grail literature will be found in Jessie L.
Weston's "The Quest of the Holy Grail" (1913). Her theory will be found,
after some slight modifications, to fall into line with the general
argument of this book.

Mr. F. Ll. Griffith tells me that the Egyptian hieroglyphic for the verb
"coire cum" gives frank expression to the real meaning of the symbolism
of the pot as the matrix which receives the seed. The same idea provides
the material for the incident of the birth of Drona (the pot-born) in
the Adi Parva (Sections CXXXI, CXXXIX, and CLXVIII, in Roy's
translation) of the Mahabharata, to which Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie has
kindly called my attention. Drona was conceived in a pot from the seed
of a Rishi. A widespread variant of the same story is the conception of
a child from a drop of blood in a pot (see, for example, Hartland,
"Legend of Perseus," Vol. I, pp. 98 and 144). If the pot can thus create
a human being, it is easy to understand how it acquired its reputation
of being also able to multiply food and provide an inexhaustible supply.
Similarly, all substances, such as barley, rice, gold, pearls, and jade,
to which the possession of a special vital essence or "soul substance"
was attributed, were believed to be able to reproduce themselves and so
increase in quantity of their own activities. As "givers of life" they
were also able to add to their own life-substance, in other words to
grow like any other living being.]

[338: "An American Dragon," _Man_, November, 1918.]

Artemis and the Guardian of the Portal.

Sir Gardner Wilkinson states (see text-figure, p. 179, _b_) that "a
basket of sycamore figs" was originally the hieroglyphic sign for a
woman, a goddess, or a mother. Later on (p. 199) I shall refer to the
possible bearing of this Egyptian idea upon the origin of the Hebrew
word for mandrakes and the allusion to "a basket of figs" in the Book
of Jeremiah.

The life-giving powers attributed to "love-apples" and the association
of these ideas with the fig-tree may have facilitated the transference
of these attributes of "apples" to those actually growing upon a tree.

We know that Aphrodite was intimately associated, not only with
"love-apples," but also with real apples. The sun-god Apollo's connexion
with the apple-tree, which Dr. Rendel Harris, with great daring, wants
to convert into an identity of name, was probably only one of the
results of that long series of confusions between the Great Mother
(Hathor) and the Sun-god (Horus), to which I have referred in my
discussion of the dragon-story.

But when Apollo's form emerges more clearly he is associated not with
Aphrodite but with Artemis, whom Dr. Rendel Harris has shown to be
identified with the mugwort, _Artemisia_. The association of the goddess
with this plant is probably related to the identification of Sekhet with
the marsh-plants of the Egyptian Delta and of Hathor and Isis with the
lotus and other water plants. Any doubt as to the reality of these
associations and Egyptian connexions is banished by the evidence of
Artemis's male counterpart Apollo Hyakinthos and his relations to the
sacred lily and other water plants.[339] Artemis was a gynæcological
specialist: for she assisted women not only in childbirth and the
expulsion of the placenta, but also in cases of amenorrhœa and
affections of the uterus. She was regarded as the goddess of the portal,
not merely of birth,[340] but also of gold and treasure, of which she
possessed the key, and of the year (January).

This brings us back to the guardianship of gold and treasures which
plays so vital a part in the evolution of the Mediterranean goddesses.
For, like the story of the dog and the mandrake, it emphasizes the
conchological ancestry of these deities and their connexion with the
guardians of the subterranean palaces where pearls are found. But
Artemis was not only the opener of the treasure-houses, but she also
possessed the secret of the philosopher's stone: she could transmute
base substances into gold,[341] for was she not the offspring of the
Golden Hathor? To open the portal either of birth or wealth she used her
magic wand or key. As _Nūb_, the lady of gold, the Great Mother could
not only change other substances into gold, but she was also the
guardian of the treasure house of gold, pearls, and precious stones.
Hence she could grant riches. Elsewhere in this chapter (p. 221) I shall
explain how the goddess came to be identified with gold.

Just as Hathor, the Eye of Re, descended to provide the elixir of youth
for the king who was the sun-god, so Artemis is described as
travelling through the air in a car drawn by two serpents[342] seeking
the most pious of kings in order that she might establish her cult with
him and bless him with renewed youth.[343]

Artemis was a moon-goddess closely related to Britomartis and Diktynna,
the Cretan prototype of Aphrodite. These goddesses afforded help to
women in childbirth and were regarded as guardians of the portal. The
goddess of streams and marshes was identified with the mugwort
(_Artemisia_), which was hung above the door in the place occupied at
other times by the winged disk, the thunder-stone, or a crocodile
(dragon). As the guardian of portals Artemis's magic plant could open
locks and doors. As the giver of life she could also withhold the vital
essence and so cause disease or death; but she possessed the means of
curing the ills she inflicted. Artemis, in fact, like all the other
goddesses, was a witch.

In former lectures[344] I have often discussed the remarkable feature of
Egyptian architecture, which is displayed in the tendency to exaggerate
the door-posts and lintels, until in the New Empire the great temples
become transformed into little more than monstrously overgrown doorways
or pylons. I need not emphasize again the profound influence exerted by
this line of development upon the Dravidian temples of India and the
symbolic gateways of China and Japan.

[Illustration: Fig. 25.

(a) Winged Disk from the Temple of Thothmes I.

(b) Persian design of Winged Disk above the Tree of Life (Ward, "Seal
Cylinders of Western Asia," Fig. 1109).

(c) Assyrian or Syro-Hittite design of the Winged Disk and Tree of Life
in an extremely conventionalized form (Ward, Fig. 1310).

(d) Assyrian conventionalized Winged Disk and Tree of Life, from the
design upon the dress of Assurnazipal (Ward, Fig. 670).

(e) Part of the design from a tablet of the time of Dungi (Ward, Fig.
663). The Tree of Life (or the Great Mother) between the two mountains:
alongside the tree is the heraldic eagle.

(f) Design on a Cretan sarcophagus from Hagia Triada (Blinkenberg, Fig.
9). The Tree of Life has now become the handle of the Double Axe, into
which the Winged Disk has been transformed. But the bird which was the
prototype of the Winged Disk has been added.

(g) Double axe from a gold signet from Acropolis Treasure, Mycenæ (after
Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 10).

(h) Assyrian Winged Disk (Ward, Fig. 608) showing reduplication of the
wing-pattern, possibly suggesting the doubling of each axe-blade in _g_.

(i) "Primitive Chaldean Winged Gate" (Ward, Fig. 349). The Gate as the
Goddess of the Portal.

(k) Persian Winged Disk (Ward, Fig. 1144) above a fire-altar in the form
suggestive of the mountains of dawn (compare Fig. 26, _c_).

(l) An Assyrian Tree of Life and Winged Disk crudely conventionalized
(Ward, Fig. 695).

(m) Assyrian Tree of Life and "Winged Disk" in which the god is riding
in a crescent replacing the Disk (Ward, Fig. 695).]

This significance of gates was no doubt suggested by the idea that they
represented the means of communication between the living and the dead,
and, symbolically, the portal by which the dead acquired a rebirth into
a new form of existence. It was presumably for this reason that the
winged disk as a symbol of life-giving, was placed above the lintels of
these doors, not merely in Egypt, Phœnicia, the Mediterranean Area, and
Western Asia, but also in America,[345] and in modified forms in India,
Indonesia, Melanesia, Cambodia, China, and Japan.

The discussion (Chapter II) of the means by which the winged disk came
to acquire the power of life-giving, "the healing in its wings," will
have made it clear that the sun became accredited with these virtues
only when it assumed the place of the other "Eye of Re," the Great
Mother. In fact, it was a not uncommon practice in Egypt to represent
the eyes of Re or of Horus himself in place of the more usual winged
disk. In the Ægean area the original practice of representing the Great
Mother was retained long after it was superseded in Egypt by the use of
the winged disk (the sun-god).

Over the lintel of the famous "Lion Gate" at Mycenæ, instead of the
winged disk, we find a vertical pillar to represent the Mother Goddess,
flanked by two lions which are nothing more than other representatives
of herself (Fig. 26). [Illustration: Fig. 26.

(a) An Egyptian picture of Hathor between the mountains of the horizon
(on which trees are growing) (after Budge, "Gods of the Egyptians," Vol.
II, p. 101). [This is a part only of a scene in which the goddess Nut is
giving birth to the sun, whose rays illuminate Hathor on the horizon, as
Sothis, the "Opener of the Way" for the sun.]

(b) The mountains of the horizon supporting a cow's head as a surrogate
of Hathor, from a stele found at Teima in Northern Arabia, now in the
Louvre (after Sir Arthur Evans, _op. cit._, p. 39). This indicates the
identity of what Evans calls "the horns of consecration" and the
"mountains of the horizon," and also suggests how confusion may have
arisen between the mountains and the cow's horns.

(c) The Mesopotamian sun-god Shamash rising between the Eastern
Mountains, the Gates of Dawn (Ward, _op. cit._, p. 373).

(d) The familiar Egyptian representation of the sun rising between the
Eastern Mountains (the splitting of the mountain giving birth to "the
ridiculous mouse"--Smintheus). The _ankh_ (life-sign) below the sun is
the determinative of the act of giving birth or life. The design is
heraldically supported by the Great Mother's lionesses.

(e) Part of the design from a Mycenæan vase from Old Salamis (after
Evans, p. 9). The cow's head and the Eastern Mountains are shown
alongside one another, each of them supporting the Double Axe
representing the god.

(f) Part of the design from a lentoid gem from the Idæan Cave, now in
the Candia Museum (after Evans, Fig. 25). If this design be compared
with the Egyptian picture (a), it will be seen that Hathor's place is
taken by the tree-form of the Great Mother, and the trees which in the
former (a) are growing upon the Eastern Mountains are now placed
alongside the "horns". In the complete design (_vide_ Evans, _op. cit._,
p. 44) a votary is represented blowing a conch-shell trumpet to animate
the deity in the sacred tree.

(g) The Eastern Mountains supporting the pillar-form of the goddess
(after Evans, Fig. 66).

(h) Another Mycenæan design comparable with (e).

(i) Design from a signet-ring from Mycenæ (after Evans, Fig. 34). If
this be compared with the Egyptian picture (a) it will be noted that the
Great Mother is now replaced by a tree: the Eastern Mountains by bulls,
from whose backs the trees of the Eastern Mountains are sprouting. This
design affords interesting corroboration of the suggestion that the
Eastern Mountains may be confused with the cow's head (see _b_ and _c_)
or with the cow itself. Newberry (_Annals of Archæology and
Anthropology_, Liverpool, Vol. I, p. 28) has called attention to the
intimate association (in Protodynastic Egypt) of the Eastern Mountains,
the Bull and the Double Axe--a certain token of cultural contact
with Crete.

(k) The famous sculpture above the Lion Gate at Mycenæ. The pillar form
of the Great Mother heraldically supported by her lioness-avatars, which
correspond to the cattle of the design (i) and the Eastern Mountains of
(a). The use of this design above the lintel of the gate brings it into
homology with the Winged Disk. The Pillar represents the Goddess, as the
Disk represents her Egyptian _locum tenens_, Horus; her destructive
representatives (the lionesses) correspond to the two uræi of the Winged
Disk design.]

In his "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," Sir Arthur Evans has shown that
all possible transitional forms can be found (in Crete and the Ægean
area) between the representation of the actual goddess and her
pillar-and tree-manifestations, until the stage is reached where the sun
itself appears above the pillar between the lions.[346] In the large
series of seals from Mesopotamia and Western Asia which have been
described in Mr. William Hayes Ward's monograph,[347] we find manifold
links between both the Egyptian and the Minoan cults.

The tree-form of the Great Mother there becomes transformed into the
"tree of life" and the winged disk is perched upon its summit. Thus we
have a duplication of the life-giving deities. The "tree of life" of the
Great Mother surmounted by the winged disk which is really her surrogate
or that of the sun-god, who took over from her the power of life-giving
(Figs. 25 and 26).

In an interesting Cretan sarcophagus from Hagia Triada[348] the
life-giving power is _tripled_. There is not only the tree representing
the Great Mother herself; but also the double axe (the winged-disk
homologue of the sun-god); and the more direct representation of him as
a bird perched upon the axe (Fig. 25, _f_).

The identification of the Great Mother with the tree or pillar seems
also to have led to her confusion with the pestle with which the
materials for her draught of immortality was pounded. She was also the
bowl or mortar in which the pestle worked.[349]

As the Great Mother became confused with the pestle, so, "the
Soma-plant, whose stalks are crushed by the priests to make the
Soma-libation, becomes in the _Vedas_ itself the Crusher or Smiter, by a
very characteristic and frequent Oriental conceit in accordance with
which the agent and the person or thing acted on are identified".[350]

"The pressing-stones by means of which Soma is crushed typify
thunderbolts." "In the _Rig-Veda_, we read of him [Soma] as
_jyotihrathah_, _i.e._ 'mounted on a car of light' (IX, 5, 86, verse
43); or again: 'Like a hero he holds weapons in his hand ... mounted on
a chariot' (IX, 4, 76, verse 2)"--(p. 171).

"Soma was the giver of power, of riches and treasures, flocks and herds,
but above all, the giver of immortality" (p. 140).

Sir Arthur Evans is of opinion "that in the case of the Cypriote
cylinders the attendant monsters and, to a certain extent, the symbolic
column itself, are taken from an Egyptian solar cycle, and the inference
has been drawn that the aniconic pillars among the Mycenæans of Cyprus
were identified with divinities having some points in common with the
sun-gods Ra, or Horus, and Hathor, the Great Mother" (_op. cit._, pp. 63
and 64).

In attempting to find some explanation of how the tree or pillar of the
goddess came to be replaced in the Indian legend by Mount Meru, the
possibility suggests itself whether the aniconic form of the Great
Mother placed between two relatively diminutive hills may not have
helped, by confusion, to convert the cone itself into a yet bigger hill,
which was identified with Mount Meru, the summit of which in other
legends produced the _amrita_ of the gods, either in the form of the
soma plant that grew upon its heights, or the rain clouds which
collected there. But, as the subsequent argument will make clear, the
real reason for the identification of the Great Mother with a mountain
was the belief that the sun was born from the splitting of the eastern
mountain, which thus assumed the function of the sun-god's mother.
Possibly the association of the tops of mountains with cloud- and
rain-phenomena and the gods that controlled them played some part in
the development of the symbolism of mountains. [When I referred (in
Chapter II, p. 98) to the fact that what Sir Arthur Evans calls "the
horns of consecration" was primarily the split mountain of the dawn, I
was not aware that Professor Newberry ("Two Cults of the Old Kingdom,"
_Annals of Archæology and Anthropology_, Liverpool, Vol. I, 1908, p. 28)
had already suggested this identification.]

In the Egyptian story the god Re instructed the Sekti of Heliopolis to
pound the materials for the food of immortality. In the Indian version,
the gods, aware of their mortality, desired to discover some elixir
which would make them immortal. To this end, Mount Meru [the Great
Mother] was cast into the sea [of milk]. Vishnu, in his second avatar as
a tortoise[351] supported the mountain on his back; and the Nâga serpent
Vasuki was then twisted around the mountain, the gods seizing its head
and the demons his tail twirled the mountain until they had churned the
amrita or water of life. Wilfrid Jackson has called attention to the
fact that this scene has been depicted, not only in India and Japan, but
also in the Precolumbian _Codex Cortes_ drawn by some Maya artist in
Central America.[352]

The horizon is the birthplace of the gods; and the birth of the deity is
depicted with literal crudity as an emergence from the portal between
its two mountains. The mountain splits to give birth to the sun-god,
just as in the later fable the parturient mountain produced the
"ridiculous mouse" (Apollo Smintheus). The Great Mother is described as
giving birth--"the gates of the firmament are undone for Teti himself at
break of day" [that is when the sun-god is born on the horizon]. "He
comes forth from the Field of Earu" (Egyptian Pyramid Texts--Breasted's
translation).

In the domain of Olympian obstetrics the analogy between birth and the
emergence from the door of a house or the gateway of a temple is a
common theme of veiled reference. Artemis, for instance, is a goddess of
the portal, and is not only a helper in childbirth, but also grows in
her garden a magical herb which is capable of opening locks. This
reputation, however, was acquired not merely by reason of her skill in
midwifery, but also as an outcome of the legend[353] of the
treasure-house of pearls which was under the guardianship of the great
"giver of life" and of which she kept the magic key. She was in fact
the feminine form of Janus, the doorkeeper who presided over all
beginnings, whether of birth, or of any kind of enterprise or new
venture, or the commencement of the year (like Hathor). Janus was the
guardian of the door of Olympus itself, the gate of rebirth into the
immortality of the gods.

The ideas underlying these conceptions found expression in an endless
variety of forms, material, intellectual, and moral, wherever the
influence of civilization made itself felt. I shall refer only to one
group of these expressions that is directly relevant to the
subject-matter of this book. I mean the custom of suspending or
representing the life-giving symbol above the portal of temples and
houses. Thus the plant peculiar to Artemis herself, the mugwort or
Artemisia, was hung above the door,[354] just as the winged disk was
sculptured upon the lintel, or the thunder-stone was placed above the
door of the cowhouse[355] to afford the protection of the Great Mother's
powers of life-giving to her own cattle.

In the Pyramid Texts the rebirth of a dead pharaoh is described with
vivid realism and directness. "The waters of life which are in the sky
come. The waters of life which are in the earth come. The sky burns for
thee, the earth trembles for thee, before the birth of the god. The two
hills are divided, the god comes into being, the god takes possession of
his body. The two hills are divided, this Neferkere comes into being,
this Neferkere takes possession of his body. Behold this Neferkere--his
feet are kissed by the pure waters which are from Atum, which the
phallus of Shu made, which the vulva of Tefnut brought into being. They
have come, they have brought for thee the pure waters from their
father."[356]

The Egyptians entertained the belief[357] that the sun-god was born of
the celestial cow Mehetwēret, a name which means "Great Flood," and
is the equivalent of the primeval ocean Nun. In other words the
celestial cow Hathor, the embodiment of the life-giving waters of heaven
and earth, is the mother of Horus. So also Aphrodite was born of the
"Great Flood" which is the ocean.

In his report upon the hieroglyphs of Beni Hasan,[358] Mr. Griffith
refers to the picture of "a woman of the marshes," which is read
_sekht_, and is "used to denote the goddess Sekhet, the goddess of the
marshes, who presided over the occupations of the dwellers there. Chief
among these occupations must have been the capture of fish and fowl and
the culture and gathering of water-plants, especially the papyrus and
the lotus". Sekhet was in fact a rude prototype of Artemis in the
character depicted by Dr. Rendel Harris.[359]

It is perhaps not without significance that the root of a marsh plant,
the _Iris pseudacorus_[360] is regarded in Germany as a luck-bringer
which can take the place of the mandrake.[361]

The Great Mother wields a magic wand which the ancient Egyptian scribes
called the "Great Magician". It was endowed with the two-fold powers of
life-giving and opening, which from the beginning were intimately
associated the one with the other from the analogy of the act of birth,
which was both an opening and a giving of life. Hence the "magic wand"
was a key or "opener of the ways," wherewith, at the ceremonies of
resurrection, the mouth was opened for speech and the taking of food, as
well as for the passage of the breath of life, the eyes were opened for
sight, and the ears for hearing. Both the physical act of opening (the
"key" aspect) as well as the vital aspect of life-giving (which we may
call the "uterine" aspect) were implied in this symbolism. Mr. Griffith
suggests that the form of the magic wand may have been derived from that
of a conventionalized picture of the uterus,[362] in its aspect as a
giver of life. But it is possible also that its other significance as an
"opener of the ways" may have helped in the confusion of the
hieroglyphic uterus-symbol with the key-symbol, and possibly also with
double-axe symbol which the vaguely defined early Cretan Mother-Goddess
wielded. For, as we have already seen (_supra_, p. 122), the axe also
was a life-giving divinity and a magic wand (Fig. 8).

[Illustration: Fig. 8.

(a) "Ceremonial forked object," or "magic wand," used in the ceremony of
"opening the mouth," possibly connected with (b) (a bicornuate uterus),
according to Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 60).

(c) The Egyptian sign for a key.

(d) The double axe of Crete and Egypt.]

In his chapter on "the Origin of the Cult of Artemis," Dr. Rendel Harris
refers to the reputation of Artemis as the patron of travellers, and to
Parkinson's statement: "It is said of Pliny that if a traveller binde
some of the hearbe [Artemisia] with him, he shall feele no weariness at
all in his journey" (p. 72). Hence the high Dutch name _Beifuss_ is
applied to it.

The left foot of the dead was called "the staff of Hathor" by the
Egyptians; and the goddess was said "to make the deceased's legs to
walk".[363]

It was a common practice to tie flowers to a mummy's feet, as I
discovered in unwrapping the royal mummies. According to Moret (_op.
cit._) the flowers of Upper and Lower Egypt were tied under the king's
feet at the celebration of the Sed festival.

Mr. Battiscombe Gunn (quoted by Dr. Alan Gardiner) states that the
familiar symbol of life known as the _ankh_ represents the string of a
sandal.[364]

It seems to be worth considering whether the symbolism of the
sandal-string may not have been derived from the life-girdle, which in
ancient Indian medical treatises was linked in name with the female
organs of reproduction and the pubic bones. According to Moret (_op.
cit._, p. 91) a girdle furnished with a tail was used as a sign of
consecration or attainment of the divine life after death. Jung (_op.
cit._, p. 270), who, however, tries to find a phallic meaning in all
symbolism, claims that reference to the foot has such a significance.

[339: Evans, _op. cit._, p. 50.]

[340: Her Latin representative, Diana, had a male counterpart and
conjugate, Dianus, _i.e._ Janus, of whom it was said: "Ipse primum Janus
cum puerperium concipitur ... aditum aperit recipiendo semini". For
other quotations see Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p. 88 and the article
"Janus" in Roscher's "Lexikon".]

[341: Rendel Harris, p. 73.]

[342: No doubt the two uræi of the Saga of the Winged Disk.]

[343: A. B. Cook, "Zeus," Vol. I, p. 244.]

[344: _Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society_, 1916.]

[345: "The Influence of Egyptian Civilization in the East and in
America," _Bulletin of the John Rylands Library_, 1916.]

[346: Evans's, Fig. 41, p. 63.]

[347: "The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," 1910.]

[348: Paribeni, "Monumenti antichi dell'accademia dei Lincei," XIX,
punt. 1, pll. 1-3; and V. Duhn, "Arch. f. Religionswissensch.," XII, p.
161, pll. 2-4; quoted by Blinkenberg, "The Thunder Weapon," pp. 20 and
21, Fig. 9.]

[349: Without just reason, many writers have assumed that the pestle,
which was identified with the handle used in the churning of the ocean
(see de Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," Vol II, p. 361), was a
phallic emblem. This meaning may have been given to the handle of the
churn at a later period, when the churn itself was regarded as the
Mother Pot or uterus; but we are not justified in assuming that this was
its primary significance.]

[350: Gladys M. N. Davis, "The Asiatic Dionysos," p. 172.]

[351: The tortoise was the vehicle of Aphrodite also and her
representatives in Central America.]

[352: Jackson, "Shells, etc.," pp. 57 _et seq._]

[353: _Vide supra_, p. 158.]

[354: Rendel Harris, "The Ascent of Olympus," p. 80. In the building up
of the idea of rebirth the ancients kept constantly before their minds a
very concrete picture of the actual process of parturition and of the
anatomy of the organs concerned in this physiological process. This is
not the place to enter into a discussion of the anatomical facts
represented in the symbolism of the "giver of life" presiding over the
portal and the "two hills" which are divided at the birth of the deity:
but the real significance of the primitive imagery cannot be wholly