THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER (_Continued_).
To the child its mother should be as God.--_G. Stanley Hall_.
A mother is the holiest thing alive.--_Coleridge_.
God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offence into everlasting
forgetfulness.--_Henry Ward Beecher_.
When the social world was written in terms of mother-right, the
religious world was expressed in terms of mother-god.
There is nothing more charming than to see a mother with a child in her
arms, and nothing more venerable than a mother among a number of her
children.--_Goethe_.
_Mother-Earth_.
"Earth, Mother of all," is a world-wide goddess. Professor O.T. Mason,
says: "The earth is the mother of all mankind. Out of her came they. Her
traits, attributes, characteristics, they have so thoroughly inherited
and imbibed, that, from any doctrinal point of view regarding the origin
of the species, the earth may be said to have been created for men, and
men to have been created out of the earth. By her nurture and tuition
they grow up and flourish, and, folded in her bosom, they sleep the
sleep of death. The idea of the earth-mother is in every cosmogony.
Nothing is more beautiful in the range of mythology than the conception
of Demeter with Persephone, impersonating the maternal earth, rejoicing
in the perpetual return of her daughter in spring, and mourning over her
departure in winter to Hades" (389 (1894). 140).
Dr. D.G. Brinton writes in the same strain (409. 238): "Out of the earth
rises life, to it it returns. She it is who guards all germs, nourishes
all beings. The Aztecs painted her as a woman with countless breasts;
the Peruvians called her '_Mama_ Allpa,' _mother_ Earth; in
the Algonkin tongue, the words for earth, mother, father, are from the
same root. _Homo, Adam, chamaigenes_, what do all these words mean
but earth-born, the son of the soil, repeated in the poetic language of
Attica in _anthropos_, he who springs up like a flower?"
Mr. W. J. McGee, treating of "Earth the Home of Man," says (502. 28):--
"In like manner, mankind, offspring of Mother Earth, cradled and nursed
through helpless infancy by things earthly, has been brought well
towards maturity; and, like the individual man, he is repaying the debt
unconsciously assumed at the birth of his kind, by transforming the face
of nature, by making all things better than they were before, by aiding
the good and destroying the bad among animals and plants, and by
protecting the aging earth from the ravages of time and failing
strength, even as the child protects his fleshly mother. Such are the
relations of earth and man."
The Roman babe had no right to live until the father lifted him up from
"mother-earth" upon which he lay; at the baptism of the ancient Mexican
child, the mother spoke thus: "Thou Sun, Father of all that live, and
thou Earth, our Mother, take ye this child and guard it as your son"
(529. 97); and among the Gypsies of northern Hungary, at a baptism, the
oldest woman present takes the child out, and, digging a circular trench
around the little one, whom she has placed upon the earth, utters the
following words: "Like this Earth, be thou strong and great, may thy
heart be free from care, be merry as a bird" (392 (1891). 20). All of
these practices have their analogues in other parts of the globe.
In another way, infanticide is connected with "mother-earth." In the
book of the "Wisdom of Solomon" (xiv. 23) we read: "They slew their
children in sacrifices." Infanticide--"murder most foul, as in the best
it is, but this most foul, strange, and unnatural"--has been sheltered
beneath the cloak of religion. The story is one of the darkest pages in
the history of man. A priestly legend of the Khonds of India attributes
to child-sacrifice a divine origin:--
"In the beginning was the Earth a formless mass of mud, and could not
have borne the dwelling of man, or even his weight; in this liquid and
ever-moving slime neither tree nor herb took root. Then God said: 'Spill
human blood before my face!' And they sacrificed a child before Him. ...
Falling upon the soil, the bloody drops stiffened and consolidated it."
But too well have the Khonds obeyed the command: "And by the virtues of
the blood shed, the seeds began to sprout, the plants to grow, the
animals to propagate. And God commanded that the Earth should be watered
with blood every new season, to keep her firm and solid. And this has
been done by every generation that has preceded us."
More than once "the mother, with her boys and girls, and perhaps even a
little child in her arms, were immolated together,"--for sometimes the
wretched children, instead of being immediately sacrificed, were allowed
to live until they had offspring whose sad fate was determined ere their
birth. In the work of Reclus may be read the fearful tale of the cult of
"Pennou, the terrible earth-deity, the bride of the great Sun-God" (523.
315).
In Tonga the paleness of the moon is explained by the following legend:
Vatea (Day) and Tonga-iti (Night) each claimed the first-born of Papa
(Earth) as his own child. After they had quarrelled a great deal, the
infant was cut in two, and Vatea, the husband of Papa, "took the upper
part as his share, and forthwith squeezed it into a ball and tossed it
into the heavens, where it became the sun." But Tonga-iti, in sullen
humour, let his half remain on the ground for a day or two. Afterward,
however, "seeing the brightness of Vatea's half, he resolved to imitate
his example by compressing his share into a ball, and tossing it into
the dark sky during the absence of the sun in Avaiki, or netherworld."
It became the moon, which is so pale by reason of "the blood having all
drained out and decomposition having commenced," before Tonga-iti threw
his half up into the sky (458. 45). With other primitive peoples, too,
the gods were infanticidal, and many nations like those of Asia Minor,
who offered up the virginity of their daughters upon the altars of their
deities, hesitated not to slay upon their high places the first innocent
pledges of motherhood.
The earth-goddess appears again when the child enters upon manhood, for
at Brahman marriages in India, the bridegroom still says to the bride,
"I am the sky, thou art the earth, come let us marry" (421. 29).
And last of all, when the ineluctable struggle of death is over, man
returns to the "mother-earth"--dust to dust. One of the hymns of the
Rig-Veda has these beautiful words, forming part of the funeral
ceremonies of the old Hindus:--
"Approach thou now the lap of Earth, thy mother,
The wide-extending Earth, the ever-kindly;
A maiden soft as wool to him who comes with gifts,
She shall protect thee from destruction's bosom.
"Open thyself, O Earth, and press not heavily;
Be easy of access and of approach to him,
As mother with her robe her child,
So do thou cover him, O Earth!" (421. 31).
The study of the mortuary rites and customs of the primitive peoples of
all ages of the world's history (548) reveals many instances of the
belief that when men, "the common growth of mother-earth," at last rest
their heads upon her lap, they do not wholly die, for the immortality of
Earth is theirs. Whether they live again,--as little children are often
fabled to do,--when Earth laughs with flowers of spring, or become
incarnate in other members of the animate or inanimate creation, whose
kinship with man and with God is an article of the great folk-creed, or,
in the beautiful words of the burial service of the Episcopal Church,
sleep "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain
hope of the resurrection," all testifies that man is instinct with the
life that throbs in the bosom of Earth, his Mother. As of old, the story
ran that man grew into being from the dust, or sprang forth in god-like
majesty, so, when death has come, he sinks to dust again, or
triumphantly scales the lofty heights where dwell the immortal deities,
and becomes "as one of them."
With the idea of the earth-mother are connected the numerous myths of
the origin of the first human beings from clay, mould, etc., their
provenience from caves, holes in the ground, rocks and mountains,
especially those in which the woman is said to have been created first
(509. 110). Here belong also not a few ethnic names, for many primitive
peoples have seen fit to call themselves "sons of the soil, _terrae
filii_, _Landesleute_."
Muller and Brinton have much to say of the American earth-goddesses,
_Toci_, "our mother," and goddess of childbirth among the ancient
Mexicans (509. 494); the Peruvian _Pachamama_, "mother-earth," the
mother of men (509. 369); the "earth-mother" of the Caribs, who through
earthquakes manifests her animation and cheerfulness to her children,
the Indians, who forthwith imitate her in joyous dances (509. 221); the
"mother-earth" of the Shawnees, of whom the Indian chief spoke, when he
was bidden to regard General Harrison as "Father": "No, the sun yonder
is my father, and the earth my mother; upon her bosom will I repose,"
etc. (509. 117).
Among the earth-goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome are Demeter, Ceres,
Tellus, Rhea, Terra, Ops, Cybele, Bona Dea, Bona Mater, Magna Mater,
Gaea, Ge, whose attributes and ceremonies are described in the books of
classical mythology. Many times they are termed "mother of the gods" and
"mother of men"; Cybele is sometimes represented as a woman advanced in
pregnancy or as a woman with many breasts; Rhea, or Cybele, as the
hill-enthroned protectress of cities, was styled _Mater turrita_.
The ancient Teutons had their _Hertha_, or _Erdemutter_, the
_Nertha_ of Tacitus, and fragments of the primitive earth-worship
linger yet among the folk of kindred stock. The Slavonic peoples had
their "earth-mother" also.
The ancient Indian Aryans worshipped Prithîvî-mâtar, "earth-mother," and
Dyaus pitar, "sky-father," and in China, Yang, Sky, is regarded as the
"father of all things," while Yu, Earth, is the "mother of all things."
Among the ancient Egyptians the "earth-mother," the "parent of all
things born," was Isis, the wife of the great Osiris. The natal
ceremonies of the Indians of the Sia Pueblo have been described at great
length by Mrs. Stevenson (538. 132-143). Before the mother is delivered
of her child the priest repeats in a low tone the following prayer:--
"Here is the child's sand-bed. May the child have good thoughts and know
its mother-earth, the giver of food. May it have good thoughts and grow
from childhood to manhood. May the child be beautiful and happy. Here is
the child's bed; may the child be beautiful and happy. Ashes man, let me
make good medicine for the child. We will receive the child into our
arms, that it may be happy and contented. May it grow from childhood to
manhood. May it know its mother Ct'sêt [the first created woman], the
Ko'pishtaia, and its mother-earth. May the child have good thoughts and
grow from childhood to manhood. May it be beautiful and happy" (538.
134).
On the fourth morning after the birth of the child, the doctress in
attendance, "stooping until she almost sits on the ground, bares the
child's head as she holds it toward the rising sun, and repeats a long
prayer, and, addressing the child, she says: 'I bring you to see your
Sun-father and Ko'pishtaia, that you may know them and they you'" (538.
141).
_Mother-Mountain._
Though we are now accustomed, by reason of their grandeur and sublimity,
to personify mountains as masculine, the old fable of Phædrus about the
"mountain in labour, that brought forth a mouse,"--as Horace has it,
_Montes laborabant et parturitur ridiculus mus_,--shows that
another concept was not unknown to the ancients. The Armenians call
Mount Ararat "Mother of the World" (500. 39), and the Spaniards speak of
a chief range of mountains as _Sierra Madre_. In mining we meet
with the "mother-lode," _veta, madre_, but, curiously enough, the
main shaft is called in German _Vaterschacht_.
We know that the Lapps and some other primitive peoples "transferred to
stones the domestic relations of father, mother, and child," or regarded
them as children of Mother-Earth (529. 64); "eggs of the earth" they are
called in the magic songs of the Finns. In Suffolk, England,
"conglomerate is called 'mother of stones,' under the idea that pebbles
are born of it"; in Germany _Mutterstein_. And in litholatry, in
various parts of the globe, we have ideas which spring from like
conceptions.
_Mother-Night._
Milton speaks of the "wide womb of uncreate night," and some of the
ancient classical poets call _Nox_ "the mother of all things, of
gods as well as men." "The Night is Mother of the Day," says Whittier,
and the myth he revives is an old and wide-spread one. "Out of Night is
born day, as a child comes forth from the womb of his mother," said the
Greek and Roman of old. As Bachofen (6. 16, 219) remarks: "Das
Mutterthum verbindet sich mit der Idee der den Tag aus sich gebierenden
Nacht, wie das Vaterrecht dem Reiche des Lichts, dem von der Sonne mit
der Mutter Nacht gezeugten Tage." Darkness, Night, Earth, Motherhood,
seem all akin in the dim light of primitive philosophy. Yet night is not
always figured as a woman. James Ferguson, the Scotch poet, tells us how
"Auld Daddy Darkness creeps frae his hole,
Black as a blackamoor, blin' as a mole,"
and holds dominion over earth till "Wee Davie Daylicht comes keekin'
owre the hill" (230. 73).
An old Anglo-Saxon name for Christinas was _modra-neht,_ "mother's
night."
_Mother-Dawn._
In Sanskrit mythology Ushas, "Dawn," is daughter of Heaven, and
poetically she is represented as "a young wife awakening her children
and giving them new strength for the toils of the new day."
Sometimes she is termed _gavam ganitri,_ "the mother of the cows,"
which latter mythologists consider to be either "the clouds which pour
water on the fields, or the bright mornings which, like cows, are
supposed to step out one by one from the stable of the night" (510.
431).
In an ancient Hindu hymn to Ushas we read:--
"She shines upon us like a young wife, rousing every living being to go
to his work. When the fire had to be kindled by men, she made the light
by striking down darkness.
"She rose up, spreading far and wide, and moving everywhere. She grew in
brightness, wearing her brilliant garment. The mother of the cows, the
leader of the days, she shone gold-coloured, lovely to behold" (421.
29).
This daughter of the sky was the "lengthener of life, the love of all,
the giver of food, riches, blessings." According to Dr. Brinton, the
Quiche Indians of Guatemala speak of Xmucane and Xpiyacoc as being "the
great ancestress and the great ancestor" of all things. The former is
called _r'atit zih, r'atit zak,_ "primal mother of the sun and
light" (411. 119).
_Mother-Days_.
In Russia we meet with the days of the week as "mothers." Perhaps the
most remarkable of these is "Mother Friday," a curious product of the
mingling of Christian hagiology and Slavonic mythology, of St. Prascovia
and the goddess Siwa. On the day sacred to her, "Mother Friday" wanders
about the houses of the peasants, avenging herself on such as have been
so rash as to sew, spin, weave, etc., on a Friday (520. 206).
In a Wallachian tale appear three supernatural females,--the holy
mothers Friday, Wednesday, and Sunday,--who assist the hero in his quest
of the heroine, and in another Wallachian story they help a wife to find
her lost husband.
"Mother Sunday" is said "to rule the animal world, and can collect her
subjects by playing on a magic flute. She is represented as exercising
authority over both birds and beasts, and in a Slovak story she bestows
on the hero a magic horse" (520. 211). In Bulgaria we even find
mother-months, and Miss Garnett has given an account of the superstition
of "Mother March" among the women of that country (61.I. 330). William
Miller, the poet-laureate of the nursery, sings of _Lady Summer_:--
"Birdie, birdie, weet your whistle!
Sing a sang to please the wean;
Let it be o' Lady Summer
Walking wi' her gallant train!
Sing him how her gaucy mantle,
Forest-green, trails ower the lea,
Broider'd frae the dewy hem o't
Wi' the field flowers to the knee!
"How her foot's wi' daisies buskit,
Kirtle o' the primrose hue,
And her e'e sae like my laddie's,
Glancing, laughing, loving blue!
How we meet on hill and valley,
Children sweet as fairest flowers,
Buds and blossoms o' affection,
Rosy wi' the sunny hours" (230. 161).
_Mother-Sun_.
In certain languages, as in Modern German, the word for "sun" is
feminine, and in mythology the orb of day often appears as a woman. The
German peasant was wont to address the sun and the moon familiarly as
"Frau Sonne" and "Herr Mond," and in a Russian folk-song a fair maiden
sings (520. 184):--
"My mother is the beauteous Sun,
And my father, the bright Moon;
My brothers are the many Stars,
And my sisters the white Dawns."
Jean Paul beautifully terms the sun "Sonne, du Mutterauge der Welt!" and
Hölty sings: "Geh aus deinem Gezelt, Mutter des Tags hervor, und
vergülde die wache Welt"; in another passage the last writer thus
apostrophizes the sun: "Heil dir, Mutter des Lichts!" These terms
"mother-eye of the world," "mother of day," "mother of light," find
analogues in other tongues. The Andaman Islanders have their _chän-a
bô-dô_, "mother-sun" (498. 96), and certain Indians of Brazil call
the sun _coaraçy_, "mother of the day or earth." In their sacred
language the Dakota Indians speak of the sun as "grandmother" and the
moon as "grandfather." The Chiquito Indians "used to call the sun their
mother, and, at every eclipse of the sun, they would shoot their arrows
so as to wound it; they would let loose their dogs, who, they thought,
went instantly to devour the moon" (100. 289).
The Yuchi Indians called themselves "children of the sun." Dr. Gatschet
tells us: "The Yuchis believe themselves to be the offspring of the sun,
which they consider to be a female. According to one myth, a couple of
human beings were born from her monthly efflux, and from, these the
Yuchis afterward originated." Another myth of the same people says: "An
unknown mysterious being once came down upon the earth and met people
there who were the ancestors of the Yuchi Indians. To them this being
(_Hi'ki_, or _Ka'la hi'ki_) taught many of the arts of life,
and in matters of religion admonished them to call the sun their mother
as a matter of worship" (389 (1893). 280).
_Mother-Moon_.
Shelley sings of
"That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,"
and in other languages besides Latin the word for moon is feminine, and
the lunar deity a female, often associated with childbirth. The
moon-goddesses of the Orient--Diana (Juno), Astarte, Anahita,
etc.--preside over the beginnings of human life. Not a few primitive
peoples have thought of the moon as mother. The ancient Peruvians
worshipped _Mama-Quilla_, "mother-moon," and the Hurons regarded
Ataensic, the mother or grandmother of Jouskeha, the sun, as the
"creatress of earth and man," as well as the goddess of death and of the
souls of the departed (509. 363). The Tarahumari Indians of the Sierra
of Chihuahua, Mexico, call the sun _au-nau-ru-a-mi_, "high father,"
and the moon, _je-ru-a-mi_, "high mother." The Tupi Indians of
Brazil term the moon _jacy_, "our mother," and the same name occurs
in the Omagua and other members of this linguistic stock. The Muzo
Indians believe that the sun is their father and the moon their mother
(529. 95).
Horace calls the moon _siderum regina_, and Apuleius, _regina
coeli_, and Milton writes of
"mooned Ashtaroth,
Heaven's queen and mother both."
Froebel's verses, "The Little Girl and the Stars," are stated to be
based upon the exclamation of the child when seeing two large stars
close together in the heavens, "Father-Mother-Star," and a further
instance of like nature is cited where the child applied the word
"mother" to the moon.
_Mother-Fire._
An ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, taught that the
world was created from fire, the omnipotent and omniscient essence, and
with many savage and barbaric peoples fire-worship has nourished or
still flourishes. The Indie Aryans of old produced fire by the method of
the twirling stick, and in their symbolism "the turning stick, Pramanta,
was the father of the god of fire; the immovable stick was the mother of
the adorable and luminous Agni [fire]"--a concept far-reaching in its
mystic and mythological relations (100. 564).
According to Mr. Gushing the Zuñi Indians term fire the "Grandmother of
Men."
In their examination of the burial-places of the ancient Indian
population of the Salado River Valley in Arizona, the Hemenway Exploring
Expedition found that many children were buried near the kitchen
hearths. Mr. Cushing offers the following explanation of this custom,
which finds analogies in various parts of the world: "The matriarchal
grandmother, or matron of the household deities, is the fire. It is
considered the guardian, as it is also, being used for cooking, the
principal 'source of life' of the family. The little children being
considered unable to care for themselves, were placed, literally, under
the protection of the family fire that their soul-life might be
nourished, sustained, and increased" (501. 149). Boecler tells us that
the Esthonian bride "consecrates her new home and hearth by an offering
of money cast into the fire, or laid on the oven, for _Tule-ema_,
[the] Fire Mother" (545. II. 285). In a Mongolian wedding-song there is
an invocation of "Mother Ut, Queen of Fire," who is said to have come
forth "when heaven and earth divided," and to have issued "from the
footsteps of Mother-Earth." She is further said to have "a manly son,
a beauteous daughter-in-law, bright daughters" (484. 38).
_Mother-Water._
The poet Homer and the philosopher Thales of Miletus agreed in regarding
water as the primal element, the original of all existences, and their
theory has supporters among many primitive peoples. At the baptism
festivals of their children, the ancient Mexicans recognized the goddess
of the waters. At sunrise the midwife addressed the child, saying, among
other things: "Be cleansed with thy mother, Chalchihuitlicue, the
goddess of water." Then, placing her dripping finger upon the child's
lips, she continued: "Take this, for on it thou must live, grow, become
strong, and flourish. Through it we receive all our needs. Take it."
And, again, "We are all in the hands of Chalchihuitlicue, our mother";
as she washed the child she uttered the formula: "Bad, whatever thou
art, depart, vanish, for the child lives anew and is born again; it is
once more cleansed, once more renewed through our mother
Chalchihuitlicue." As she lifted the child up into the air, she prayed,
"O Goddess, Mother of Water, fill this child with thy power and virtue"
(326. I. 263).
In their invocation for the restoration of the spirit to the body, the
Nagualists,--a native American mystic sect,--of Mexico and Central
America, make appeal to "Mother mine, whose robe is of precious gems,"
_i.e._ water, regarded as "the universal mother." The "robe of
precious stones" refers to "the green or vegetable life" resembling the
green of precious stones. Another of her names is the "Green Woman,"--a
term drawn from "the greenness which follows moisture" (413. 52-54).
The idea of water as the source of all things appears also in the
cosmology of the Indie Aryans. In one of the Vedic hymns it is stated
that water existed before even the gods came into being, and the
Rig-veda tells us that "the waters contained a germ from which
everything else sprang forth." This is plainly a myth of the motherhood
of the waters, for in the Brâhmanas we are told that from the water
arose an egg, from which came forth after a year Pragâpati, the creator
(510. 248). Variants of this myth of the cosmic egg are found in other
quarters of the globe.
_Mother-Ocean._
The Chinchas of Peru looked upon the sea as the chief deity and the
mother of all things, and the Peruvians worshipped _Mama-Cocha_,
"mother sea" (509. 368), from which had come forth everything, even
animals, giants, and the Indians themselves. Associated with
_Mama-Cocha_ was the god _Vira-Cocha_, "sea-foam." In Peru
water was revered everywhere,--rivers and canals, fountains and
wells,--and many sacrifices were made to them, especially of certain
sea-shells which were thought to be "daughters of the sea, the mother of
all waters." The traditions of the Incas point to an origin from Lake
Titicaca, and other tribes fabled their descent from fountains and
streams (412. 204). Here belong, doubtless, some of the myths of the
sea-born deities of classical mythology as well as those of the
water-origin of the first of the human race, together with kindred
conceits of other primitive peoples.
In the Bengalese tale of "The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead,"
recorded by Day, the hero pleads: "O mother Ocean, please make way for
me, or else I die" (426. 250), and passes on in safety. The poet
Swinburne calls the sea "fair, white mother," "green-girdled mother,"
"great, sweet mother, mother and lover of men, the sea."
_Mother-River._
According to Russian legend "the Dnieper, Volga, and Dvina used once to
be living people. The Dnieper was a boy, and the Volga and Dvina his
sisters." The Russians call their great river "Mother Volga," and it is
said that, in the seventeenth century, a chief of the Don Cossacks,
inflamed with wine, sacrificed to the mighty stream a Persian princess,
accompanying his action with these words: "O Mother Volga, thou great
River! much hast thou given me of gold and of silver, and of all good
things; thou hast nursed me and nourished me, and covered me with glory
and honor. But I have in no way shown thee my gratitude. Here is
somewhat for thee; take it!" (520. 217-220).
In the Mahábhárata, the great Sanskrit epic, King Sántanu is said to
have walked by the side of the river one day, where "he met and fell in
love with a beautiful girl, who told him that she was the river Ganges,
and could only marry him on condition he never questioned her conduct.
To this he, with a truly royal gallantry, agreed; and she bore him
several children, all of whom she threw into the river as soon as they
were born. At last she bore him a boy, Bhíshma; and her husband begged
her to spare his life, whereupon she instantly changed into the river
Ganges and flowed away" (258. 317). Similar folk-tales are to be met
with in other parts of the world, and the list of water-sprites and
river-goddesses is almost endless. Greater than "Mother Volga," is
"Mother Ganges," to whom countless sacrifices have been made. In the
language of the Caddo Indians, the Mississippi is called _báhat
sássin_, "mother of rivers."
_Mother-Plant._
The ancient Peruvians had their "Mother Maize," _Mama Cora_, which
they worshipped with a sort of harvest-home having, as Andrew Lang
points out, something in common with the children's last sheaf, in the
north-country (English and Scotch) "kernaby," as well as with the
"Demeter of the threshing-floor," of whom Theocritus speaks (484. 18).
An interesting legend of the Indians of the Pueblos of Arizona and New
Mexico is recorded by Muller (509. 60). Ages ago there dwelt on the
green plains a beautiful woman, who refused all wooers, though they
brought many precious gifts. It came to pass that the land was sore
distressed by dearth and famine, and when the people appealed to the
woman she gave them maize in plenty. One day, she lay asleep naked; a
rain-drop falling upon her breast, she conceived and bore a son, from
whom are descended the people who built the "Casas Grandes." Dr. Fewkes
cites a like myth of the Hopi or Tusayan Indians in which appears
_kó-kyan-wüq-ti_, "the spider woman," a character possessing
certain attributes of the Earth-Mother. Speaking of certain ceremonies
in which _Cá-li-ko_, the corn-goddess, figures, he calls attention
to the fact that "in initiations an ear of corn is given to the novice
as a symbolic representation of mother. The corn is the mother of all
initiated persons of the tribe" (389 (1894). 48).
Mr. Lummis also speaks of "Mother Corn" among the Pueblos Indians: "A
flawless ear of pure white corn (type of fertility and motherhood) is
decked out with a downy mass of snow-white feathers, and hung with
ornaments of silver, coral, and the precious turquoise" (302. 72).
Concerning the Pawnee Indians, Mr. Grinnell tells us that after the
separation of the peoples, the boy (medicine-man) who was with the few
who still remained at the place from which the others had departed,
going their different ways, found in the sacred bundle--the Shekinah of
the tribe--an ear of corn. To the people he said: "We are to live by
this, this is our Mother." And from "Mother Corn" the Indians learned
how to make bows and arrows. When these Indians separated into three
bands (according to the legend), the boy broke off the nub of the ear
and gave it to the Mandans, the big end he gave to the Pawnees, and the
middle to the Rees. This is why, at the present time, the Pawnees have
the best and largest corn, the Rees somewhat inferior, and the Mandans
the shortest of all--since they planted the pieces originally given them
(480 (1893). 125).
The old Mexicans had in Cinteotl a corn-goddess and deity of fertility
in whose honour even human sacrifices were made. She was looked upon as
"the producer," especially of children, and sometimes represented with a
child in her arms (509. 491).
In India there is a regular cult of the holy basil (_Ocymum
sanetum_), or _Tulasî_, as it is called, which appears to be a
transformation of the goddess Lakshmî. It may be gathered for pious
purposes only, and in so doing the following prayer is offered: "Mother
_Tulasî_, be thou propitious. If I gather thee with care, be
merciful unto me. O _Tulasî_, mother of the world, I beseech thee."
This plant is worshipped as a deity,--the wife of Vishnu, whom the
breaking of even a little twig grieves and torments,--and "the pious
Hindus invoke the divine herb for the protection of every part of the
body, for life and for death, and in every action of life; but above
all, in its capacity of ensuring children to those who desire to have
them." To him who thoughtlessly or wilfully pulls up the plant "no
happiness, no health, no children." The _Tulasî_ opens the gates of
heaven; hence on the breast of the pious dead is placed a leaf of basil,
and the Hindu "who has religiously planted and cultivated the
_Tulasî_, obtains the privilege of ascending to the palace of
Vishnu, surrounded by ten millions of parents" (448. 244).
In Denmark, there is a popular belief that in the elder
(_Sambucus_) there lives a spirit or being known as the
"elder-mother" (_hylde-moer_), or "elder-woman"
(_hilde-qvinde_), and before elder-branches may be cut this
petition is uttered: "Elder-mother, elder-mother, allow me to cut thy
branches." In Lower Saxony the peasant repeats, on bended knees, with
hands folded, three times the words: "Lady Elder, give me some of thy
wood; then will I also give thee some of mine, when it grows in the
forest" (448. 318-320). In Huntingdonshire, England, the belief in the
"elder-mother" is found, and it is thought dangerous to pluck the
flowers, while elder-wood, in a room, or used for a cradle, is apt to
work evil for children. In some parts of England, it is believed that
boys beaten with an elder stick will be retarded in their growth; in
Sweden, women who are about to become mothers kiss the elder. In
Germany, a somewhat similar personification of the juniper, "Frau
Wachholder," exists. And here we come into touch with the dryads and
forest-sprites of all ages, familiar to us in the myths of classic
antiquity and the tales of the nursery (448. 396).
In a Bengalese tale, the hero, on coming to a forest, cries: "O mother
_kachiri_, please make way for me, or else I die," and the wood
opens to let him pass through (426. 250).
Perhaps the best and sweetest story of plant mythology under this head
is Hans Christian Andersen's beautiful tale of "The Elder-Tree
Mother,"--the Dryad whose name is Remembrance (393. 215).
_Mother-Thumb._
Our word _thumb_ signifies literally "thick or big finger," and the
same idea occurs in other languages. With not a few primitive peoples
this thought takes another turn, and, as in the speech of the
Karankawas, an extinct Indian tribe of Texas, "the _biggest_, or
_thickest_ finger is called '_father_, _mother_, or
_old_'" (456. 68). The Creek Indians of the Southeastern United
States term the "thumb" _ingi itchki_, "the hand its mother," and a
like meaning attaches to the Chickasaw _ilbak-ishke_, Hichiti
_ilb-iki_, while the Muskogees call the "thumb," the "mother of
fingers." It is worthy of note, that, in the Bakaïri language of Brazil,
the thumb is called "father," and the little finger, "child," or "little
one" (536. 406). In Samoa the "thumb" is named _lima-matua_,
"forefather of the hand," and the "first finger" _lima-tama_,
"child of the hand." In the Tshi language of Western Africa a finger is
known as _ensah-tsia-abbah_, "little child of the hand," and in
some other tongues of savage or barbaric peoples "fingers" are simply
"children of the hand."
Professor Culin in his notes of "Palmistry in China and Japan," says:
"The thumb, called in Japanese, _oya-ubi_, 'parent-finger,' is for
parents. The little finger, called in Japanese, _ko-ubi_,
'child-finger,' is for children; the index-finger is for uncle, aunt,
and elder brother and elder sister. The third finger is for younger
brother and younger sister" (423a). A short little finger indicates
childlessness, and lines on the palm of the hand, below the little
finger, children. There are very many nursery-games and rhymes of
various sorts based upon the hand and fingers, and in not a few of these
the thumb and fingers play the _rôle_ of mother and children.
Froebel seized upon this thought to teach the child the idea of the
family. His verses are well-known:--
"Das ist die Groszmama,
Das ist der Groszpapa,
Das ist der Vater,
Das ist die Mutter,
Das ist's kleine Kindchen ja;
Seht die ganze Familie da.
Das ist die Mutter lieb und gut,
Das ist der Vater mit frohem Muth;
Das ist der Bruder lang und grosz;
Das ist die Schwester mit Puppchen im Schoosz;
Und dies ist das Kindchen, noch klein und zart,
Und dies die Familie von guter Art."
Referring to Froebel's games, Elizabeth Harrison remarks:--
"In order that this activity, generally first noticed in the use of the
hands, might be trained into right and ennobling habits, rather than be
allowed to degenerate into wrong and often degrading ones, Froebel
arranged his charming set of finger-games for the mother to teach her
babe while he is yet in her arms; thus establishing the right activity
before the wrong one can assert itself. In such little songs as the
following:--
'This is the mother, good and dear;
This the father, with hearty cheer;
This is the brother, stout and tall;
This is the sister, who plays with her doll;
And this is the baby, the pet of all.
Behold the good family, great and small,'
the child is led to personify his fingers and to regard them as a small
but united family over which he has control." (257 a. 14).
Miss Wiltse, who devotes a chapter of her little volume to "Finger-songs
related to Family Life and the Imaginative Faculty," says:--
"The dawning consciousness of the child so turned to the family
relations is surely better than the old nursery method of playing 'This
little pig went to market'" (384. 45).
And from the father and mother the step to God is easy.
Dr. Brewer informs us that in the Greek and Roman Church the Trinity is
symbolized by the thumb and first two fingers: "The thumb, being strong,
represents the _Father_; the long, or second finger, _Jesus
Christ_; and the first finger, the _Holy Ghost_, which
proceedeth from the Father and the Son" (_Dict. of Phrase and
Fable_, P. 299).
_Mother-God_.
The "Motherhood of God" is an expression that still sounds somewhat
strangely to our ears. We have come to speak readily enough of the
"Fatherhood of God" and the "Brotherhood of Man," but only a still small
voice has whispered of the "Motherhood of God" and the "Sisterhood of
Woman." Yet there have been in the world, as, indeed, there are now,
multitudes to whom the idea of Heaven without a mother is as blank as
that of the home without her who makes it. If over the human babe bends
the human mother who is its divinity,--
"The infant lies in blessed ease
Upon his mother's breast;
No storm, no dark, the baby sees
Invade his heaven of rest.
He nothing knows of change or death--
Her face his holy skies;
The air he breathes, his mother's breath--
His stars, his mother's eyes,"--
so over the infant-race must bend the All-Mother, _das
Ewigweibliche._ Perhaps the greatest service that the Roman Catholic
Church has rendered to mankind is the prominence given in its cult of
the Virgin Mary to the mother-side of Deity. In the race's final concept
of God, the embodiment of all that is pure and holy, there must surely
be some overshadowing of a mother's tender love. With the "Father-Heart"
of the Almighty must be linked the "Mother-Soul." To some extent, at
least, we may expect a harking back to the standpoint of the Buddhist
Kalmuck, whose child is taught to pray: "O God, who art my father and my
mother."
In all ages and over the whole world peoples of culture less than ours
have had their "mother-gods," all the embodiments of motherhood, the joy
of the _Magnificat_, the sacrosanct expression of the poet's
truth:--
"Close to the mysteries of God art thou,
My brooding mother-heart,"
the recognition of that outlasting secret hope and love, of which the
Gospel writer told in the simple words: "Now there stood by the cross of
Jesus his mother," and faith in which was strong in the Mesopotamians of
old, who prayed to the goddess Istar, "May thy heart be appeased as the
heart of a mother who has borne children." The world is at its best when
the last, holiest appeal is _ad matrem_. Professor O.T. Mason has
eloquently stated the debt of the world's religions to motherhood (112.
12):--"The mother-goddess of all peoples, culminating in the apotheosis
of the Virgin Mary, is an idea either originated by women, or devised to
satisfy their spiritual cravings. So we may go through the pantheons of
all peoples, finding counterparts of Rhea, mother-earth, goddess of
fertility; Hera, queen of harvests, feeder of mankind; Hestia, goddess
of the hearth and home, of families and states, giving life and warmth;
Aphrodite, the beautiful, patron of romantic love and personal charms;
Hera, sovereign lady, divine caciquess, embodiment of queenly dignity;
Pallas Athene, ideal image of that central inspiring force that we learn
at our mother's knee, and that shone in eternal splendour; Isis, the
goddess of widowhood, sending forth her son Horus, to avenge the death
of his father, Osiris; as moon-goddess, keeping alive the light until
the sun rises again to bless the world."
_The All-Mother._
In Polynesian mythology we find, dwelling in the lowest depths of Avaiki
(the interior of the universe), the "Great Mother,"--the originator of
all things, _Vari-ma-te-takere_, "the very beginning,"--and her
pet child, Tu-metua, "Stick by the parent," her last offspring,
inseparable from her. All of her children were born of pieces of flesh
which she plucked off her own body; the first-born was the man-fish
Vatea, "father of gods and men," whose one eye is the sun, the other the
moon; the fifth child was Raka, to whom his mother gave the winds in a
basket, and "the children of Raka are the numerous winds and storms
which distress mankind. To each child is allotted a hole at the edge of
the horizon, through which he blows at pleasure." In the songs the gods
are termed "the children of Vatea," and the ocean is sometimes called
"the sea of Vatea." Mr. Gill tells us that "the Great Mother
approximates nearest to the dignity of creator"; and, curiously enough,
the word _Vari_, "beginning," signifies, on the island of
Rarotonga, "mud," showing that "these people imagined that once the
world was a 'chaos of mud,' out of which some mighty unseen agent, whom
they called _Vari_, evolved the present order of things" (458. 3,
21).
Another "All-Mother" is she of whom our own poets have sung, "Nature,"
the source and sustainer of all.
_Mother-Nature_.
"So übt Natur die Mutterpflicht," sang the poet Schiller, and "Mother
Nature" is the key-word of those modern poets who, in their mystic
philosophy, consciously or unconsciously, revive the old mythologies.
With primitive peoples the being, growing power of the universe was
easily conceived as feminine and as motherly. Nature is the "great
parent," the "gracious mother," of us all. In "Mother Nature," woman,
the creator of the earliest arts of man, is recognized and personified,
and in a wider sense even than the poet dreamt of: "One touch of Nature
makes the whole world kin."
Pindar declared that "gods and men are sons of the same mother," and
with many savage and barbaric tribes, gods, men, animals, and all other
objects, animate and inanimate, are akin(388.210). As Professor
Robertson Smith has said: "The same lack of any sharp distinction
between the nature of different kinds of visible beings appears in the
old myths in which all kinds of objects, animate and inanimate, organic
and inorganic, appear as cognate with one another, with men, and with
the gods" (535.85). Mr. Hartland, speaking of this stage of thought,
says: "Sun and moon, the wind and the waters, perform all the functions
of living beings; they speak, they eat, they marry and have children"
(258.26). The same idea is brought out by Count D'Alviella: "The highest
point of development that polytheism could reach, is found in the
conception of a monarchy or divine family, embracing all terrestrial
beings, and even the whole universe" (388.211). Mr. Frank Cushing
attributes like beliefs in the kinship of all existences to the Zuni
Indians (388.66), and Mr. im Thurn to the Indians of Guiana (388.99).
This feeling of kinship to all that is, is beautifully expressed in the
words of the dying Greek Klepht: "Do not say that I am dead, but say
that I am married in the sorrowful, strange countries, that I have taken
the flat stone for a mother-in-law, the black earth for my wife, and the
little pebbles for brothers-in-law." (Lady Verney, _Essays_, II.
39.)
In the Trinity of Upper Egypt the second person was Mut, "Mother
Nature." the others being Armin, the chief god, and their son, Khuns.
Among the Slavs, according to Mone, Ziwa is a nature-goddess, and the
Wends regard her as "many-breasted Mother Nature," the producing and
nourishing power of the earth. Her consort is Zibog, the god of life
(125. II. 23).
Curiously reminiscent of the same train of ideas which has given to the
_moderson_ of Low German the signification of "bastard," is our own
equivalent term "natural son."
Poets and orators have not failed to appeal to "Mother Nature" and to
sing her panegyrics, but there is perhaps nothing more sweet and noble
than the words of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: "Nature, like a loving mother,
is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its
place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat
and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony, and beauty may reign
supreme," and the verses of Longfellow:--
"And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, 'Here is a story-book
Thy Father has--written for thee.
"'Come wander with me,' she said,
'Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread,
In the manuscripts of God.'
"And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him, night and day,
The rhymes of the universe.
"And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She--would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale."
Through the long centuries Nature has been the mother, nurse, and
teacher of man.
_Other Mother-Goddesses_.
Among other "mother-goddesses" of ancient Italy we find _Maia
Mater_, _Flora Mater_, both deities of growth and reproduction;
_Lua Mater_, "the loosing mother," a goddess of death; _Acca
Larentia_, the mother of the Lares (_Acca_ perhaps =
_Atta_, a child-word for mother, as Lippert suggests); _Mater
matuta_, "mother of the dawn," a goddess of child-birth, worshipped
especially by married women, and to whom there was erected a temple at
Cære.
The mother-goddesses of Germany are quite numerous. Among those minor
ones cited by Grimm and Simrock, are: Haulemutter, Mutter Holle, the
Klagemütter or Klagemuhmen, Pudelmutter (a name applied to the goddess
Berchta), Etelmutter, Kornmutter, Roggenmutter, Mutterkorn, and the
interesting Buschgroszmutter, "bush grandmother," as the "Queen of the
Wood-Folk" is called. Here the mother-feeling has been so strong as to
grant to even the devil a mother and a grandmother, who figure in many
proverbs and folk-locutions. When the question is asked a Mecklenburger,
concerning a social gathering: "Who was there?" he may answer: "The
devil and his mother (_möm_)"; when a whirlwind occurs, the saying
is: "The Devil is dancing with his grandmother."
In China the position of woman is very low, and, as Mr. Douglas points
out: "It is only when a woman becomes a mother that she receives the
respect which is by right due to her, and then the inferiority of her
sex disappears before the requirements of filial love, which is the
crown and glory of China" (434. 125).
In Chinese cosmogony and mythology motherhood finds recognition. Besides
the great Earth-Mother, we meet with Se-wang-moo, the "Western Royal
Mother," a goddess of fairy-land, and the "Mother of Lightning," thunder
being considered the "father and teacher of all living beings."
Lieh-tze, a philosopher of the fifth century B.C., taught: "My body is
not my own; I am merely an inhabitant of it for the time being, and
shall resign it when I return to the 'Abyss Mother'" (434. 222, 225,
277).
In the Flowery Kingdom there is also a sect "who worship the goddess
Pity, in the form of a woman holding a child in her arms."
Among the deities and semi-deities of the Andaman Islanders are
_chän·a·ê·lewadi_, the "mother of the race,"--Mother E·lewadi;
_chän·a·erep_, _chän·a·châ·riâ_, _chän·a·te·liu_,
_chän·a·li·mi_, _chän·a·jär·a·ngûd_, all inventors and
discoverers of foods and the arts. In the religious system of the
Andaman Islanders, _Pû·luga-_, the Supreme Being, by whom were
created "the world and all objects, animate and inanimate, excepting
only the powers of evil," and of whom it is said, "though his appearance
is like fire, yet he is (nowadays) invisible," is "believed to live in a
large stone house in the sky with a wife whom he created for himself;
she is green in appearance, and has two names, _chän·a·àu·lola_
(Mother Freshwater Shrimp) and _chän·a·pâ·lak-_--(Mother Eel); by
her he has a large family, all except the eldest being girls; these
last, known as _mô·ro-win--_ (sky-spirits or angels), are said to be
black in appearance, and, with their mother, amuse themselves from time
to time by throwing fish and prawns into the streams and sea for the use
of the inhabitants of the world" (498. 90). With these people also the
first woman was _chän·a·ê·lewadi_ (Mother E-lewadi), the ancestress
of the present race of natives. She was drowned, while canoeing, and
"became a small crab of a description still named after her
_ê·lewadi_" (498. 96):
Quite frequently we find that primitive peoples have ascribed the origin
of the arts or of the good things of life to women whom they have
canonized as saints or apotheosized into deities.
We may close our consideration of motherhood and what it has given the
world with the apt words of Zmigrodzki:--
"The history of the civilization (Kulturgeschichte) of our race, is, so
to speak, _the history of the mother-influence_. Our ideas of
morality, justice, order, all these are simply _mother-ideas_. The
mother began our culture in that epoch in which, like the man, she was
_autodidactic_. In the epoch of the Church Fathers, the highly
educated mother saved our civilization and gave it a new turn, and only
the highly educated mother will save us out of the moral corruption of
our age. Taken individually also, we can mark the ennobling, elevating
influence which educated mothers have exercised over our great men. Let
us strive as much as possible to have highly accomplished mothers,
wives, friends, and then the wounds which we receive in the struggle for
life will not bleed as they do now" (174. 367).
The history of civilization is the story of the mother, a story that
stales not with repetition. Richter, in his _Levana_, makes
eloquent appeal:--
"Never, never has one forgotten his pure, right-educating mother! On the
blue mountains of our dim childhood, towards which we ever turn and
look, stand the mothers who marked out for us from thence our life; the
most blessed age must be forgotten ere we can forget the warmest heart.
You wish, O woman, to be ardently loved, and forever, even till death.
Be, then, the mothers of your children."
Tennyson in _The Foresters_ uses these beautiful words: "Every man
for the sake of the great blessed Mother in heaven, and for the love of
his own little mother on earth, should handle all womankind gently, and
hold them in all honour." Herein lies the whole philosophy of life. The
ancient Germans were right, who, as Tacitus tells us, saw in woman
_sanctum aliquid et providum_, as indeed the Modern German
_Weib_ (cognate with our _wife_) also declares, the original
signification of the word being "the animated, the inspirited."