PRIVATE WORSHIP
A people so deeply imbued with religious ideas as the Egyptians
doubtless carried their habits of worship beyond the temple gates. But
unfortunately we have no graphic or connected view of their private
devotions. At the present day a few natives will scrupulously follow
the daily ritual of Islam; many keep up some convenient portion, such
as the religious aspect of an evening bath after the day's work; but
most of the peasantry have little or no religious observances. Perhaps
the average of mankind does not differ very greatly, in various
countries, in its extent of religious observance: and most likely the
ancient Egyptian varied in usages much like the modern.
The funeral offerings for the deceased ancestors certainly filled a
large place in observances; the drink offerings poured out upon the
altar in the {82} chapel, and the cakes brought for the _ka_ to feed
upon, were the main expression of family piety. How serious were such
services is seen by their expansion into endowments for great tombs,
extending to the great temples and priesthoods for the kings. The
eldest son was the sacrificing priest for his progenitors, as in China
and India at present; he was called the _an-mut-f_, or 'support of his
mother,' and is figured as leading the worship in the adoration of
deceased kings. But all the sons took part in the sacrifices, and
trapped the birds (_Medum_, x, xiii), or slaughtered the ox for the
_ka_ of their father. Such family sacrifices were the occasions of
social feasts and family reunions; of later times the remains of the
feasts were found strewing the cemetery at Hawara in the tomb chapels;
and to this day both Copts and Mohammedans hold family feasts and spend
the night at the tombs of their ancestors.
All offerings were considered to be presented only by the king, as the
great high-priest of all the land. Every formula of offering began
'May the king give an offering'; and the figure of the king making the
offering, while the offerer stands behind him, is actually shown as
late as the eighteenth dynasty.
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The primitive belief in the tree-goddess, the Hathor who dwelt in the
thick sycomore tree, and showered sycomore figs abundantly on her
devotees, was a popular worship. It was by no means bound up with the
tomb service, as in one case a red recess in a dwelling room had a
panel picture at the top of it showing the tree goddess giving
blessings to her worshipper (_Ramesseum_, xx).
The latter instance gives the meaning of a curious domestic feature in
the well-to-do houses of the bureaucracy at Tell-el-Amarna. In the
central hall of the house was a recess in the wall painted bright red.
It varied from twenty-three to fifty-one inches wide, and was at least
five or six feet high. Sometimes there is an inner recess in the
middle twenty-five to thirty-three inches wide. From the religious
scene over such a recess it seems that these were the foci for family
worship.
The abundance of little statuettes of gods of glazed pottery, and often
of bronze, silver, and even of gold, show how common was the custom of
wearing such devotional objects. Children especially wore figures of
Bes, and less commonly Taurt, the protecting genii of childhood.
Another feature of popular religion was the {84} harvest festival. The
grain was heaped, the winnowing shovels and rakes stuck upright in it,
and then holding up the boards (which were used to scrape up the grain)
in each hand, adoration was paid to Rannut, the serpent-goddess of the
harvest.
The observance of lucky and unlucky days was prevalent. The fragment
of a calendar shows each day marked good or evil, or triply good or
evil.
The household amulets in the prehistoric days were the great serpent
stones with figures of the coiled serpent; much suggesting an earlier
use of large ammonites. In later times the image of Horus subduing the
powers of evil seems to have been the protective figure of the house.
When we reach Roman times we have a fuller view of the popular worship
in the terra-cotta figures. At Ehnasya, for instance, we find the
following proportions--five of Serapis, five Isis, twenty-four Horus,
four Bes, one goddess of palm trees. It was especially the worship of
Horus that was developed in this line. The kind of shrines used in the
houses are also shown by the terra-cottas. These were wooden framed
cupboards, with doors below, over them a recess between two pillars to
hold the image, and a lamp burning {85} before it, and the whole
crowned with a cornice of uræi. Smaller little lamp holders were also
made to hang up, and very possibly to place with a lamp on a grave. At
present mud hutches are made to place lamps in on holy sites in Egypt.
The terra-cottas have also preserved the forms of the wayside shrines.
These were certainly influenced in their architecture by Greek models,
but the idea is probably much older. The shrines were sometimes a
little chamber, with a domed top, like a modern _wely_ or saint's tomb,
or sometimes a roof on four pillars with a dwarf wall or lattice work
around three sides. Such were the places for wayside devotions and
passing prayers, as among the Egyptians of the present day.
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