_Ancient Monuments of the West--The Valley of the Mississippi--Numerous
Earthworks of the Western States--Theory as to origin of the
mounds--The "Defence" Theory--The Religious Theory--Earthwork of the
"Great Serpent" on Bush Creek--The "Alligator," Ohio--The "Cross,"
Pickaway County--Structures of Wisconsin--Mr. Pigeons Drawings--
Significance of the Earth-mounds--The Egg and Man's Primitive
Ideas--The Egg as a Symbol--Birth of Brahma--Aristophanes and his
"Comedy of the Birds"--The Hymn to Protogones--The Chinese and
Creation--The Mundane or Orphic Egg--Kneph--Mr. Gliddon's replies to
certain enquiries--The Orphic Theogony and the Egg--The Great Unity._
The ancient monuments of the Western United States consist for the most
part of elevations and embankments of earth and stone, erected with great
labour and manifest design. In connection with these, more or less
intimate, are found various minor relics of art, consisting of ornaments
and implements of many kinds, some of them composed of metal but most of
stone.
These remains are spread over a vast amount of country. They are found on
the sources of the Alleghany, in the western part of the state of New York
on the east; and extend thence westwardly along the southern shore of Lake
Erie, and through Michigan and Wisconsin, to Iowa and the Nebraska
territory on the west. Some ancient works, probably belonging to the same
system with those of the Mississippi valley and erected by the same
people, occur upon the Susquehanna river as far down as the Valley of
Wyoming in Pennsylvania. The mound builders seem to have skirted the
southern border of Lake Erie, and spread themselves in diminished numbers
over the western part of the State of New York, along the shores of Lake
Ontario to the St. Lawrence river. They penetrated into the interior,
eastward, as far as the county of Onondaga, where some slight vestiges of
their work still exist. These seem to have been their limits at the
north-east. We have no record of their occurrence above the great lakes.
Carner mentions some on the shores of Lake Pepin, and some are said to
occur near Lake Travers, under the 46th parallel of latitude. Lewis and
Clarke saw them on the Missouri river, one thousand miles above its
junction with the Mississippi; and they have been observed on the Kanzas
and Platte and on other remote western rivers. They are found all over the
intermediate country, and spread over the valley of the Mississippi to the
Gulf of Mexico. They line the shores of the Gulf from Texas to Florida,
and extend in diminished numbers into South Carolina. They occur in great
numbers in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Arkansas,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and
Texas. They are found in less numbers in the Western portions of New York,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North and South Carolina; as also in Michigan,
Iowa, and in the Mexican territory beyond the Rio Grande del Norte. In
short, they occupy the entire basin of the Mississippi and its
tributaries, as also the fertile plains along the Gulf.
Although possessing throughout certain general points of resemblance going
to establish a kindred origin, these works, nevertheless, resolve
themselves into three grand geographical divisions, which present in many
respects striking contrasts, yet so gradually merge into each other that
it is impossible to determine where one series terminates and the other
begins. In the region bordering upon the upper lakes, to a certain extent
in Michigan, Iowa and Missouri, but particularly in Wisconsin, we find a
succession of remains, entirely singular in their form and presenting but
slight analogy to any others of which we have in any portion of the globe.
The larger proportion of these are structures of earth bearing the forms
of beasts, birds, reptiles, and even of men; they are frequently of
gigantic dimensions, constituting huge _basso-relievos_ upon the face of
the country. They are very numerous and in most cases occur in long and
apparently dependent ranges. In connection with them are found many
conical mounds and occasional short lines of embankment, in rare instances
forming enclosures. These animal effigies are mainly confined to
Wisconsin, and extend across that territory from Ford du Lac in a
south-western direction, ascending the Fox river and following the general
course of Rock and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi. They may be much
more extensively disseminated; but it is here only that they have been
observed in considerable numbers. In Michigan, as also in Iowa and
Missouri, similar elevations of more or less outline are said to occur.
They are represented as dispersed in ranges like the buildings of a modern
city, and covering sometimes an arc of many acres.
The number of these ancient remains is well calculated to excite surprise,
and has been adduced in support of the hypothesis that they are most if
not all of them natural formations, "the result of diluvial action,"
modified perhaps in some instances, but never erected by man. Of course no
such suggestion was ever made by individuals who had enjoyed the
opportunity of seeing and investigating them. Single structures of earth
could not possibly bear more palpable evidences of an artificial origin
than do most of the western monuments. The evidences in support of this
assertion, derived from the form, structure, position and contents of
these remains, sufficiently appear in the pages of this work.
The structure, not less than the form and position of a large number of
the Earthworks of the West, and especially of the Scioto valley, render it
clear that they were erected for other than defensive purposes. The small
dimensions of most of the circles, the occurrence of the ditch interior to
the embankments, and the fact that many of them are completely commanded
by adjacent heights, are some of the circumstances which may be mentioned
as sustaining this conclusion. We must seek, therefore, in the connection
in which these works are found and in the character of the mounds, if such
there be within their walls, for the secret of their origin. And it may be
observed that it is here we discover evidences still more satisfactory and
conclusive than are furnished by their small dimensions and other
circumstances above mentioned, that they were not intended for defence.
Thus, when we find an enclosure containing a number of mounds, all of
which it is capable of demonstration were religious in their purposes or
in some way connected with the superstitions of the people who built them,
the conclusion is irresistible that the enclosure itself was also deemed
sacred and thus set apart as "tabooed" or consecrated ground--especially
where it is obvious at the first glance that it possesses none of the
requisites of a military work. But it is not to be concluded that those
enclosures alone, which contain mounds of the description here named, were
designed for sacred purposes. We have reason to believe that the religious
system of the mound builders, like that of the Aztecs, exercised among
them a great if not controlling influence. Their government may have been,
for aught we know, a government of priesthood; one in which the priestly
and civil functions were jointly exercised, and one sufficiently powerful
to have secured in the Mississippi valley, as it did in Mexico, the
erection of many of those vast monuments which for ages will continue to
challenge the wonder of men. There may have been certain superstitious
ceremonies, having no connection with the purposes of the mounds, carried
on in the enclosures specially dedicated to them. It is a conclusion which
every day's investigation and observation has tended to confirm, that
most, perhaps all, of the earthworks not manifestly defensive in their
character were in some way connected with the superstitious rights of the
builders, though in what manner, it is, and perhaps ever will be,
impossible satisfactorily to determine.
By far the most extraordinary and interesting earthwork discovered in the
West is the Great Serpent, situate on Brush Creek at a point known as the
"Three Forks," near the north line of Adams county, Ohio. It occupies the
summit of a high crescent-form hill or spur of land, rising a hundred and
fifty feet above the level of Brush Creek, which washes its base. The side
of the hill next the stream presents a perpendicular wall of rock, while
the other slopes rapidly, though it is not so steep as to preclude
cultivation. The top of the hill is not level but slightly convex, and
presents a very even surface one hundred and fifty feet wide by one
thousand long, measuring from its extremity to the point where it connects
with the table land. Conforming to the curve of the hill and occupying its
very summit is the serpent, its head resting near the point and its body
winding back for seven hundred feet in graceful undulations, terminating
in a triple coil at the tail. The entire length, if extended, would be not
less than one thousand feet. The neck of the serpent is stretched out and
slightly curved, and its mouth is opened wide as if in the act of
swallowing or ejecting an oval figure which rests partially within the
distended jaws. This oval is formed by an embankment of earth, without any
perceptible opening, four feet in height, and is perfectly regular in
outline, its transverse and conjugate diameters being one hundred and
sixty and eighty feet respectively. The ground within the oval is slightly
elevated: a small circular elevation of large stones much burned once
existed in its centre, but they have been thrown down and scattered by
some ignorant visitor, under the prevailing impression probably that gold
was hidden beneath them. The point of the hill within which this
egg-shaped figure rests seems to have been artificially cut to conform to
its outline, leaving a smooth platform, ten feet wide and somewhat
inclining inwards, all around it.
Upon either side of the serpent's head extend two small triangular
elevations ten or twelve feet over. They are not high, and although too
distinct to be overlooked, are yet much too much obliterated to be
satisfactorily traced.
An effigy in the form of an alligator occurs near Granville, Licking
county, Ohio, upon a high hill or headland; in connection with which there
are unmistakable evidences of an altar, similar to that in conjunction
with the work just named. It is known in the vicinity as "the Alligator,"
which designation has been adopted for want of a better, although the
figure bears as close a resemblance to the lizard as any other reptile. It
is placed transversly to the point of land on which it occurs, the head
pointing to the south-west. The total length from the point of the nose
following the curve of the tail to the tip is about two hundred and fifty
feet, the breadth of the body forty feet, and the length of the feet or
paws each thirty-six feet. The ends of the paws are a little broader than
the remaining portions of the same, as if the spread of the toes had been
originally indicated. Some parts of the body are more elevated than
others, an attempt having evidently been made to preserve the proportions
of the object copied. The outline of the figure is clearly defined; its
average height is not less than four feet; at the shoulders it is six feet
in altitude. Upon the inner side of the effigy is an elevated circular
space covered with stones which have been much burned. This has been
denominated an altar.
It seems more than probable that this singular effigy, like that last
described, had its origin in the superstition of its makers. It was
perhaps the high place where sacrifices were made on stated or
extraordinary occasions, and where the ancient people gathered to
celebrate the rites of their unknown worship. Its position and all the
circumstances attending it certainly favour such a conclusion.
The same is true of a work in the form of a cross, occupying a like
situation near the village of Tarlton, Pickaway County, Ohio. From these
premises, we are certainly justified in concluding that these several
effigies had probably a cognate design, possessed a symbolical
significance, and were conspicuous objects of religious regard, and that
on certain occasions sacrifices were made on the altars within or near
them.
The only structures sustaining any analogy to these are found in Wisconsin
and the extreme North-west. There we find great numbers of mounds bearing
the forms of animals of various kinds, and entering into a great variety
of combinations with each other, and with conical mounds and lines of
embankments, which are also abundant. They are usually found on the low,
level, or undulating prairies, and seldom in such conspicuous positions as
those discovered in Ohio. Whether they were built by the same people with
the latter, and had a common design and purpose, it is not undertaken to
say, nor is it a question into which we propose to enter.
It is an interesting fact that amongst the animal effigies of Wisconsin,
structures in the form of serpents are of frequent occurrence.
Some years ago, Mr. Pigeon, of Virginia, made drawings of a number of
these, and he stated that near the junction of the St. Peter's with the
Mississippi River were a large number of mounds and monuments,
consisting--1st, of a circle and square in combination, as at Circleville,
in Ohio, the sole difference being a large truncated mound in the centre
of the square, as well as in the centre of the circle, with a platform
round its base; 2nd, near by, the effigy of a gigantic animal resembling
the elk, in length one hundred and ninety-five feet; 3rd, in the same
vicinity, a large conical mound, three hundred feet in diameter at the
base, and thirty feet in height, its summit covered with charcoal. This
mound was surrounded by one hundred and twenty smaller mounds, disposed in
the form of a circle. Twelve miles to the westward of these, and within
sight of them, was a large conical truncated mound, sixty feet in diameter
at the bottom, and eighteen feet high, built upon a raised platform or
bottom. It was surrounded by a circle three hundred and sixty-five feet in
circumference. Entwined around this circle, in a triple coil, was an
embankment, in the form of a serpent, two thousand three hundred and ten
feet in length. This embankment, at the centre of the body, was eighteen
feet in diameter, but diminished towards the head and tail in just
proportion. The elevation of the head was four feet, of the body six feet,
of the tail two feet. The central mound was capped with blue clay, beneath
which was sand mixed with charcoal and ashes.
Mounds arranged in serpentine form have also been found in Iowa, at a
place formerly known as Prairie La Porte, afterwards called Gottenburgh.
Also at a place seven miles north of these on Turkey River, where the
range was two and a half miles long, the mounds occurring at regular
intervals. Twenty miles to the westward of this locality was the effigy of
a great serpent with that of a tortoise in front of its mouth. This
structure was found to be one thousand and four feet long, eighteen feet
broad at its widest part, and six feet high; the tortoise was eighteen by
twelve feet.
Mr. Pigeon gave accounts of many other structures, tending to illustrate
and confirm the opinions advanced respecting the religious and symbolical
character and design of many, if not all, the more regular earth-works of
the Western States. Thirty miles west of Prairie Du Chien, he found a
circle enclosing a pentagon, which in its turn enclosed another circle,
within which was a conical truncated mound. The outer circle was twelve
hundred feet in circumference, the embankment twelve feet broad and from
three to five feet high. The entrance was on the east. The mound was
thirty-six feet in diameter by twelve feet high. Its summit was composed
of white pipe-clay, beneath which was found a large quantity of mica in
sheets. It exhibited abundant traces of fire.
Four miles distant from this, on the lowlands of the Kickapoo River, Mr.
Pigeon discovered a mound with eight radiating points, undoubtedly
designed to represent the Sun. It was sixty feet in diameter at the base,
and three feet high. The points extended outwards about nine feet.
Surrounding this mound were five crescent-shaped mounds so arranged as to
constitute a circle. Many analagous structures were discovered at other
places, both in Wisconsin and Iowa. At Cappile Bluffs, on the Mississippi
River, was found a conical, truncated mound, surrounded by nine radiating
effigies of men, the heads pointing inwards.
Probably no one will hesitate in ascribing to work just described, some
extraordinary significance. It cannot be supposed to be the offspring of
an idle fancy or a savage whim. It bears, in its position and the harmony
of its structure, the evidences of design, and it seems to have been begun
and finished in accordance with a matured plan, and not to have been the
result of successive and unmeaning combinations. It is probably not a work
for defence, for there is nothing to defend; on the contrary, it is
clearly and unmistakably, in form and attitude, the representation of a
serpent, with jaws distended, in the act of swallowing or ejecting an oval
figure, which may be distinguished, from the suggestions of analogy, as an
egg. Assuming for the entire structure a religious origin, it can be
regarded only as the recognised symbol of some grand mythological idea.
What abstract conception was thus embodied; or what vast event thus
typically commemorated, we have no certain means of knowing! Analogy,
however, although too often consulted on trivial grounds, furnishes us
with gleams of light, of greater or less steadiness, as our appeals to its
assistance happen to be conducted, on every subject connected with man's
beliefs. We proceed now to discover what light reason and analogy shed
upon the singular structure before us.
Naturally, and almost of necessity, the egg became associated with man's
primitive idea of a creation. It aptly symbolised that primordial,
quiescent state of things which preceded their vitalization and
activity--the inanimate chaos, before life began, when "the earth was
without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." It was
thus received in the early cosmogonies, in all of which the vivification
of the Mundane Egg constituted the act of creation; from it sprang the
world resplendent in glory and teeming with life.
Faber says--"The ancient pagans, in almost every part of the globe, were
wont to symbolize the world by an Egg. Hence this symbol is introduced
into the cosmogonies of nearly all nations, and there are few persons even
among those who have not made mythology their study, to whom the Mundane
Egg is not perfectly familiar. It was employed, not only to represent the
earth, but also the Universe in its largest extent."[5]
"The world," says Menu, "was all darkness, undiscernible,
undistinguishable, altogether in a profound sleep, till the Self-Existent,
Invisible God (Brahm), making it manifest with five elements and other
glorious forms, perfectly dispelled the gloom. Desiring to raise up
creatures by an emanation from his own essence, he first created the
waters, and inspired them with power of motion; by that power was produced
a golden egg, blazing like a thousand stars, in which was born Brahma, the
great parent of national beings, that which is the invisible cause,
self-existent, but unperceived. This divinity having dwelt in the Egg
through revolving years, himself meditating upon himself, divided into two
equal parts, and from these halves he framed the heavens and the earth,
placing in the midst the subtil ether, the eight points of the world, and
the permanent receptacle of the waters."
The above is Maurice's translation. Sir William Jones renders it:--"The
sole, self-existent power, having willed to produce various beings from
his own divine substance, first, with a thought created the waters, and
placed in them a productive seed. That seed became an egg, bright as
gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams, and in that egg was
born himself, in the form of Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits."
Aristophanes, in his Comedy of the Birds, is thought to have given the
notions of cosmogony, ancient even in his days. "Chaos, Night, black
Erebus, and wide Tartarus first existed: there was neither earth, nor air,
nor heaven; but in the bosom of Erebus black-winged Night produced an
Aerial Egg, from which was born golden-pinioned Love (Phanes), and he, the
Great Universal Father, begot our race out of dark Chaos, in the midst of
wide-spreading Tartarus, and called us into light."
We find this conception clearly embodied in one of the Orphic fragments,
the Hymn to Protogones, who is equivalent to Phanes, the Life-giver,
Priapus, or Generator.
"I invoke thee, oh Protogones, two-fold, great, wandering through the
ether;
Egg-Born rejoicing in thy golden wings;
Bull-faced, the Generator of the blessed and of mortal men;
The much-renowned Light, the far celebrated Ericapaeus;
Ineffable, occult, impetuous all-glittering strength;
Who scatterest the twilight cloud of darkness from the eyes,
And roam'st through the world upon the flight of thy wings,
Bringing forth the brilliant and all-pure light; wherefore I invoke
thee, as Phanes,
As Priapus the King, and as the dark-faced splendour,--
Come, thou blessed being, full of Metis (wisdom) and generation, come in
joy
To thy sacred, ever-varying mysteries."
We have, according to these early notions, the egg representing Being
simply; Chaos, the great void from which, by the will of the superlative
Unity, proceeds the generative or creative influence, designated among the
Greeks as "Phanes," "Golden-pinioned Love," "The Universal Father,"
"Egg-born Protogones" (the latter Zeus or Jupiter); in India as "Brahma,"
the "Great Parent of Rational Creatures," the "Father of the Universe;"
and in Egypt as "Ptha," the "Universal Creator."
The Chinese, whose religious conceptions correspond generally with those
of India, entertained similar notions of the origin of things. They set
forth that Chaos, before the creation, existed in the form of a vast egg,
in which was contained the principles of all things. Its vivification,
among them also, constituted the act of creation.
According to this and other authorities, the vivification of the Mundane
Egg is allegorically represented in the temple of Daibod, in Japan, by a
nest egg, which is shown floating in an expanse of waters against which a
bull (everywhere an emblem of generative energy, and prolific heat, the
Sun) is striking with his horns.
"Near Lemisso, in the Island of Cyprus, is still to be seen a gigantic
egg-shaped vase, which is supposed to represent the Mundane or Orphic Egg.
It is of stone, and measures thirty feet in circumference. Upon one side,
in a semi-circular niche, is sculptured a bull, the emblem of productive
energy. This figure is understood to signify the Tauric constellation,
"The Stars of Abundance," with the heliacal or cosmical rising of which
was connected the return of the mystic reinvigorating principle of animal
fecundity."[6]
In the opinions above mentioned, many other nations of the ancient world,
the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, and the Indo-Scythiac
nations of Europe participated. They not only supported the propriety of
the allegory, says Maurice, from the perfection of its external form, but
fancifully extended the allusion to its interior composition, comparing
the pure white shell to the fair expanse of heaven; the fluid, transparent
white, to the circumambient air, and the more solid yolk to the central
earth.
Even the Polynesians entertained the same general notions. The tradition
of the Sandwich Islanders is that a bird (with them it is an emblem of
Deity) laid an egg upon the waters which burst of itself and produced the
Islands.
The great hemaphrodite first principle in its character of Unity, the
Supreme Monad, the highest conception of Divinity was denominated Kneph or
Cnuphis among the Egyptians. According to Plutarch this god was without
beginning and without end, the One, uncreated and eternal, above all, and
comprehending all. And as Brahm, "the Self-existent Incorruptible" Unity
of the Hindus, by direction of His energetic will upon the expanse of
chaos, "with a thought" (say Menu) produced a "golden egg blazing like a
thousand stars" from which sprung Brahma, the Creator; so according to the
mystagogues, Kneph, the Unity of Egypt, was represented as a serpent
thrusting from his mouth an egg, from which proceeds the divinity _Phtha_,
the active creative power, equivalent in all his attributes to the Indian
Brahma.
That Kneph was symbolized by the ancient Egyptians under the form of a
serpent is well known. It is not, however, so well established that the
act of creation was allegorically represented in Egypt by the symbolic
serpent thrusting from its mouth an egg, although no doubt of the fact
seems to have been entertained by the various authors who have hitherto
written on the Cosmogony and Mythology of the primitive nations of the
East. With the view of ascertaining what new light has been thrown upon
the subject by the investigations of the indefatigable Champollion and his
followers--whose researches among the monuments and records of Ancient
Egypt have been attended with most remarkable results--the following
inquiries were addressed to Mr. G. R. Gliddon (U.S. Consul at Cairo), a
gentleman distinguished for his acquaintance with Egyptian science, and
his zeal in disseminating information on a subject too little
understood:--
"Do the serpent and the egg, separate or in combination, occur among the
Egyptian symbols and if they occur what significance seem to have been
assigned them? Was the serpent in any way associated with the worship of
the sun or the kindred worship of the Phallus?"
To these inquiries Mr. Gliddon replied as follows:--"In respect to your
first inquiry; I concede at once that the general view of the Greco-Roman
antiquity, the oriental traditions collected, often indiscriminately, by
the Fathers and the concurring suffrages of all occidental Mythologists,
attribute the compound symbol of the Serpent combined with the Mundane Egg
to the Egyptians. Modern criticism however, coupled with the application
of the tests furnished by Champollion le-Jeune and his followers since
1827 to the hieroglyphics of Egypt, has recognised so many exotic fables
and so much real ignorance of Egyptology in the accounts concerning that
mystified country, handed down to us from the schools of Alexandria and
Byzantium, that at the present hour science treads doubtingly, where but a
few years ago it was fashionable to make the most sweeping assertions; and
we now hesitate before qualifying, as Egyptian in origin, ideas that
belong to the Mythologies of other eastern nations. Classical authority,
correct enough when treating on the philosophy and speculative theories of
Ptolemaic and Roman Alexandria, is generally at fault when in respect to
questions belonging to anterior or Pharaonic times. Whatever we derive
through the medium of the Alexandrines, and especially through their
successors, the Gnostics, must by the Archaeologist be received with
suspicion.
After this, you will not be surprised if I express doubts as to existence
of the myth of the Serpent and Egg in the Cosmogony of the early
Egyptians. It is lamentably true that, owing to twenty centuries of
destruction, so fearfully wrought out by Mohammed Ali, we do not up to
this day possess one tithe of the monuments or papyri bequeathed to
posterity by the recording genius of the Khime. It is possible that this
myth may have been contained in the vast amount of hieroglyphical
literature now lost to us. But the fact that in no instance whatever, amid
the myriads of inscribed or sculptured documents extant, does the symbol
of the Serpent and the Egg occur, militates against the assumption of
this, perhaps Phoenician myth, as originally Egyptian. "The worship of
the Serpent," observes Ampere, "by the Ophites may certainly have a real
connection with the choice of the Egyptian symbol by which Divinity is
designated in the paintings and hieroglyphics, and which is the Serpent
Uraeus (Basilisk royal, of the Greeks, the seraph set up by Moses. Se Ra
Ph is the singular of seraphim, meaning Semitice, splendour, fire, light;
emblematic of the fiery disk of the sun and which, under the name of
Nehushtan--"Serpent Dragon"--was broken up by the reforming Hezekiah. 2
Kings, 18, 4); or with the serpent with wings and feet, which we see
represented in the Funeral Rituals; but the serpent is everywhere in the
Mythologies and Cosmogonies of the East, and we cannot be assured that the
serpent of the Ophites (any more than that emitting or encircling the
Mundane Egg) was Egyptian rather than Jewish, Persian, or Hindustanee."
"No serpents found in the hieroglyphics bear, so far as I can perceive,
any direct relation to the Ouine Myth, nor have Egyptian Eggs any direct
connection with the Cosmogonical Serpent. The egg, under certain
conditions, seems to denote the idea of a human body. It is also used as a
phonetic sign =S=, and when combined with =T=, is the determinative of the
feminine gender; in which sense exclusively it is sometimes placed close
to a serpent in hieroglyphical legends."
"My doubts apply in attempting to give a specific answer to your specific
question; _i.e._, the direct connection, in Egyptian Mythology, of the
Serpent and the Cosmogonical Egg. In the "Book of the Dead," according to
a MS. translation favoured me by the erudite Egyptologist, Mr. Birch, of
the British Museum, allusion is made to the "great mundane egg" addressed
by the deceased, which seems to refer to the winds or the
atmosphere--again the deceased exclaims 'I have raised myself up in the
form of the great Hawk which comes out of the Egg (_i.e._, the Sun).'
"I do not here perceive any immediate allusion to the duplex emblem of the
egg combined with the serpent, the subject of your query.
"Yet a reservation must be made in behalf of your very consistent
hypothesis--supported, as I allow, by all oriental and classical
authority, if not possibly by the Egyptian documents yet
undeciphered--which hypothesis is Euclidean. 'Things which are equal to
the same are equal to one another.' Now if the 'Mundane Egg' be in the
papyric rituals the equivalent to Sun and that by other hieroglyphical
texts we prove the Sun to be, in Egypt as elsewhere, symbolized by the
figure of a Serpent, does not the 'ultima ratio' resolve both emblems into
one? Your grasp of this Old and New World Question renders it superfluous
that I should now posit the syllogism. I content myself by referring you
to the best of authorities. One point alone is what I would venture to
suggest to your philosophical acumen, in respect to ancient 'parallelisms'
between the metaphysical conceptions of radically distinct nations (if you
please 'species' of mankind, at geographically different centres of
_origins_, compelled of necessity in ages anterior to alphabetical record
to express their ideas by pictures, figurative or symbolical). It is that
man's mind has always conceived, everywhere in the same method, everything
that relates to him; because the inability, in which his intelligence is
circumscribed, to figure to his mind's eye existence distinct from his
own, constrains him to devolve, in the pictorial or sculptural delineation
of his thoughts, within the same circle of ideas; and, ergo, the
figurative representative of his ideas must ever be, in all ages and
countries, the reflex of the same hypotheses, material or physical. May
not the emblem of the Serpent and Egg, as well in the New as in the Old
World, have originated from a similar organic law without thereby
establishing intercourse? Is not your serpent a "rattlesnake" and, ergo,
purely American? Are not Egyptian Serpents all purely Nilotic? The
metaphysical idea of the Cosmogonical Serpent may be one and the same; but
does not the zoological diversity of representation prove that America,
three thousand years ago, could have no possible intercourse with Egypt,
Phoenicia, or _vice versa_?
"Such being the only values attached to Serpents and eggs in Egyptian
hieroglyphics it is arduous to speculate whether an esoteric significance
did or did not exist between those emblems in the, to us, unknown
Cosmogony of the Theban and Memphite Colleges. I, too, could derive
inferences and deduce analogies between the attributes of the God Knuphis,
or the God Ptha, and the 'Mundane Egg' recorded by Eusebius, Jamblichus,
and a wilderness of classical authorities, but I fear with no very
satisfactory result. It is, however, due to Mr. Bonomi, to cite his
language on this subject. Speaking of the colossal statue of Rameses
Sesostris at Metraheni, in a paper read before the Royal Society of
Literature, London, June, 1845, he observes, 'There is one more
consideration connected with the hieroglyphics of the great oval of the
belt, though not affecting the preceding argument; it is the oval or egg
which occurs between the figure of Ptha and the staff of which the usual
signification is Son or Child, but which by a kind of two-fold meaning,
common in the details of sculpture of this period (the 18th or 19th
Dynasty, say B.C. 1500 or 1200), I am inclined to believe refers also to
the myth or doctrine preserved in the writings of the Greek authors, as
belonging to Vulcan and said to be derived from Egypt, viz., the doctrine
of the Mundane Egg. Now, although in no Egyptian sculpture of the remote
period of this statue has there been found any allusion to this doctrine,
it is most distinctly hinted at in one of the age of the Ptolomies; and I
am inclined to think it was imported from the East by Sesostris, where, in
confirmation of its existence at a very remote period. I would quote the
existence of those egg-shaped basaltic stones, embossed with various
devices and covered with cuneatic inscriptions, which are brought from
some of the ancient cities of Mesopotamia.
"In respect to your final inquiry, I may observe that I can produce
nothing from the hieroglyphics to connect, directly, Phallic Worship with
the solar emblem of the Serpent. In Semitic tongues, the same root
signifies Serpent and Phallus; both in different senses are solar
emblems."
In the Orphic Theogony a similar origin is ascribed to the egg, from which
springs "the Egg-born Protogones," the Greek counterpart of the Egyptian
Phtha. The egg in this instance also proceeds from the pre-eminent Unity,
the Serpent God, the "Incomparable Cronus," or Hercules. (Bryant, quoting
Athenagoras, observes--"Hercules was esteemed the chief god, the same as
Cronus, and was said to have produced the Mundane Egg. He is represented
in the Orphic Theology, under the mixed symbol of a lion and a serpent,
and sometimes of a serpent only.")
Cronus was originally esteemed the Supreme, as is manifest from his being
called Il or Ilus, which is the same with the Hebrew El and, according to
St. Jerome, one of the ten names of God. Damascius, in the life of
Isidorus, mentions distinctly that Cronus was worshipped under the name of
El, who, according to Sanchoniathon, had no one superior or antecedent to
himself.
Brahm, Cronus, and Kneph each represented the mystical union of the
reciprocal or active and passive principles. Most, if not all, the
primitive nations recognised this Supreme Unity, although they did not all
assign him a name. He was the Creator of Gods, who were the Demiurgs of
the Universe, the creators of all rational beings, angels and men, and the
architects of the world.
The early writers exhaust language in endeavours to express the lofty
character and attributes, and the superlative power and dignity of this
great Unity, the highest conception of which man is capable. He is spoken
of in the sacred book of the Hindus as the "Almighty, infinite, eternal,
incomprehensible, self-existent Being; he who see everything, though never
seen; he who is not to be compassed by description; he from whom the
universe proceeds; who reigns supreme, the light of all lights; whose
power is too infinite to be imagined; is Brahm, the One Being, True and
Unknown."[7]
The supreme God of Gods of the Hindus was less frequently expressed by the
name Brahm than by the mystical syllable =O'M=, which corresponded to the
Hebrew Jehovah. Strange as the remark may seem to most minds, it is
nevertheless true, that the fundamental principles of the Hindu religion
were those of pure Monotheism, the worship of one supreme and only God.
Brahm was regarded as too mighty to be named; and, while his symbolized or
personified attributes were adored in gorgeous temples, not one was
erected to him. The holiest verse of the Vedas is paraphrased as follows:
"Perfect truth; perfect happiness; without equal; immortal; absolute
unity; whom neither speech can describe nor mind comprehend;
all-pervading; all-transcending; delighted by his own boundless
intelligence, not limited by space or time; without feet, moving swiftly;
without hands, grasping all worlds; without ears, all-hearing,
understanding all; without cause, the first of all causes; all-ruling;
all-powerful; the Creator, Preserver, and Transformer of all things; such
is the Great One, Brahm."
The character and power of Kneph are indicated in terms no less lofty and
comprehensive than those applied to the omnipotent Brahm. He is described
in the ancient Hermetic books as the "first God, immovable in the solitude
of his Unity, the fountain of all things, the root of all primary,
intelligible, existing forms, the God of Gods, before the etherial and
empyrean Gods and the celestial."
In America this great Unity, this God of Gods, was equally recognised. In
Mexico as Teotl, "he who is all in himself" (Tloque Nahuaque); in Peru as
Varicocha, the "Soul of the Universe"; in Central America and Yucatan as
Stunah Ku or Hunab Ku, "God of Gods, the incorporeal origin of all
things." And as the Supreme Brahm of the Hindus, "whose name was
unutterable," was worshipped under no external form and had neither
temples nor altars erected to him, so the Supreme Teotl and the
corresponding Varicocha and Hunab Ku, "whose names," says the Spanish
conquerors, "were spoken only with extreme dread," were without an image
or an outward form of worship for the reason, according to the same
authorities, that each was regarded as the Invisible and Unknown God.
The Mundane Egg, received as a symbol of original, passive, unorganized,
formless nature, became associated, in conformity with primitive notions,
with other symbols referring to the creative force or vitalizing
influence. Thus in the Hindu cosmogany Brahma is represented, after long
inertia, as arranging the passive elements, "creating the world and all
visible things." Under the form of the emblematic bull the generative
energy was represented breaking the quiescent egg. Encircled by the folds
of the agatho-demon, a type of the active principle, it was suspended
aloft at the temples of Tyre. For the serpent, like the bull, was an
emblem of the sun or of the attributes of that luminary--itself the
celestial emblem of the "Universal Father," the procreative power of
nature. "Everywhere," says Faber, "we find the great father exhibiting
himself in the form of a serpent, and everywhere we find the serpent
invested with the attributes of the Great Father and partaking of the
honours which were paid him."[8]
Under this view, therefore, we may regard the compound symbol of the
serpent and the egg, though specifically allusive to the general creation,
as an illustration of the doctrine of the reciprocal principles which, as
we have already seen, enters largely into the entire fabric of primitive
philosophy and mythology.
Thus have we shewn that the grand conception of a Supreme Unity and the
doctrine of the reciprocal principles existed in America in a well defined
and easily recognised form.
Our present inquiry relates to the symbols by which they were represented
in both continents. That these were not usually arbitrary, but resulted
from associations, generally of an obvious kind, will be readily
admitted.