_The Ancient Sacred Fish--Fish Diet and its supposed Effects--Fish
and the Jews--The god Krodo--Oanes--Dagon--The Fish-god at Nimroud--
Khorsabad--Fish Worship in Syria--Temple of Dagon at Azotus--The
Dagon of the Bible--Adramelech--Abstinence from Fish Food--Ancient
Character of Fish Worship--Paradise Lost--The Irish demi-god Phin--The
Fish as a Christian Symbol--Idea involved in Fish Worship--Holy Fish
Ponds--Ancient Caledonian Objections to Fish--Other anti-fish-eating
Nations--Ishtar._
Inman remarks that "the fish selected for honour amongst the ancients was
neither flat, globular, nor cylindrical; it was more or less oval, and
terminated in a forked tail. In shape it was like the almond, or the
'concha' with the 'nates.' Its open mouth resembles the 'os uteri,' still
called 'os tincæ,' or tench's mouth. Ancient priests are represented as
clothed with a fish, the head being the mitre. The fish's head as a mitre
still adorns the heads of Romish bishops. The fish was sacred to Venus,
and was a favourite esculent among the luxurious Romans. The fish was an
emblem of fecundity. The word _nun_, however, in the Hebrew, signifies to
_sprout_, _to put forth_, as well as _fish_; and thus the fish symbolises
the male principle in an active state. The creature had a very strong
symbolic connection with the worship of Aphrodite, and the Romanists still
eat it on that day of the week called Dies Veneris, Venus' Day."
"At the present time there are certain fish which are supposed to give
greatly increased virile power to those who eat them. I have (proceeds
Inman) indistinct recollection of a similar fact having been recorded in
Athenæus, who quotes Theophrastus as his authority. The passage is to the
effect, that a diet on a certain fish enabled an Indian prince to show one
hundred proofs of his manhood in a single day. The same writer mentions
goat's flesh as having something of the same effect. The Assyrian Oannes
was represented as a man-fish, and the Capricorn or goat with fish tail,
in the Zodiac, is said to have been an emblem of him.
"The fish was also associated with Isis, who, like Venus, represented the
female element in creation. It was likewise a sacred emblem amongst the
Buddhists.
"Since writing the above, I have ascertained that eating fish for supper,
on Friday night, is a Jewish custom or institution. As amongst that nation
fecundity is a blessing specially promised by the Omnipotent, so it is
thought proper to use human means for ensuring the blessing on the day set
apart by the Almighty. The Jewish Sabbath begins at sunset on Friday, and
three meals are to be taken during the day, which are supposed to have a
powerful aphrodisiac operation. The ingredients are meat and fish, garlic
and pepper; and the particular fish selected, so far as I can learn, is
the skate--that which in the Isle of Man is still supposed to be a
powerful satyrion. The meal is repeated twice on a Saturday. Mons. Lajard
bears testimony to the extent of this custom in the following passage,
though he does not directly associate it with the fish, except that the
latter are often seen on coins, with the other attributes of Venus. After
speaking of the probable origin of the cult, he says--'In our days,
indeed, the Druses of Lebanon, in their secret vespers, offer a true
worship to the sexual parts of the female, and pay their devotions every
Friday night--that is to say, the day which is consecrated to Venus; the
day in which, on his side, the Mussulman finds in the code of Mahomet, the
double obligation to go to the mosque and to perform the conjugal
duty.'"[8]
"In 1492, Bede mentions that 'a God Krodo is worshipped in the Hartz,
having his feet on a fish, a wheel in one hand and a pail of water in the
other--clearly a Vishnoo or Fishnoo solar deity carrying the solar or
lunar disk, and the ark or womb of fertility. These fish-gods, as Mr.
Baring Gould states in the case of the American Kox-Kox or Teokipaktli,
_i.e._, fish-god, much resemble the Old Testament Noah, for Kox,
encountered a flood and rescued himself in a cypress trunk (a true phallic
symbol), and peopled the world with wise and intelligent beings.' His full
title mixes him up with the 'flesh-god' idea of Hebrews and others. North
American Indians relate that they too followed a fish-man or demi-god
from Asia; he was only a man from the breasts upward, below he was a fish,
or, indeed, two fish, for each leg was a separate fish."[9]
"It is said Oanes was a man-headed fish, and the earliest Hermes or
Messenger of God to Kaldia. Berosus says he ate not, yet taught all the
arts of geometry, and the harvesting and storing of fruits and seeds.
Every night he retired to the sea (the Female and Holy Spirit), and after
him came Messiahs. Helladius called him Oes, but says he had the feet of a
man, and sprang from a mundane egg. He had a fish's skin, and Higgins says
he first taught astrology in Kaldia. The mother of Oanes was worshipped as
Venus Atergates, 'the good spirit,' and Oanes himself possibly signifies
the 'first-born of the Yoni,' the Protogonos of Sankuniathon. The Japanese
represent their Messiah emerging like Vishnoo from a fish, and as such
call him Kan-On or Can-on, and his temple, Onius, and make his spirit
repose on twelve cushions, just as they do in the case of Fo or Boodha,
showing clearly the solar significance of the whole. So we see a close
connection between the Kaldian O-AN or Oanes the Hebrew AON, which in
Koptic is the 'Enlightener,' and the Egyptian ON. In Armorik, Oan and
Oanic, and in Irish, UAN is a lamb, and in Hebrew Jonas signifies the
gentle one, a 'Revealer' or word from God, and a dove, so that the sum of
the whole points to the Sanscrit Yoni.
"Pan, Jove's senior brother, used to be called 'a whale-like fish,' and he
entangled Typhon in his nets and caught him, and yet who so unlike a fish
in character as the goat-footed god.
"So Boodha is called Day-Po or Fishpo; Vishnoo appears in the first Avatar
as a fish, for he is Viçoo, Fiçoo or Fish-oo, as Christ is _Ischa_ in
Ireland, which is the Welsh _Fischa_. In all lands, fish have proved the
saviours of many men, and among the fish, the dolphin, as the delphus or
womb. She who has dedicated her life to her God we call a nun, and this
with Hebrews is a fish, and the Yoni. Fish and birds were called in
Asyrian Nanu-Itsurn, yet a fish spoken of in opposition to a bird was
_Kha_ and a bird _Khu_. Isis was a brooding bird, yet is generally seen
with a fish on her head. The fish was the first to swallow up the
genitals of Osiris, when Typhon caused him to be cut up into pieces and
thrown away.
"Eating fish was considered to induce venery even more than beef or
garlic, and Shemitic races recommended or ordered such repasts on Frig's
Day, or night--their Sabbath or Sabbath Eve. Among the Druses of Syria,
Layard assures us such matters are still carefully attended to on Venus'
or Frig's Eve, adding that 'in secret vespers' these pious persons 'offer
a true worship to the sexual parts of the female.'"[10]
"Oannes and Dag-on (the fish On) are identical. According to an ancient
fable preserved by Berosus, a creature half man and half fish came out of
that part of the Erythræan Sea, which borders upon Babylonia, where he
taught men the arts of life, to construct cities, to found temples, to
compile laws, and, in short, instructed them in all things that tend to
soften manners and humanize their lives; and, he adds, that a
representative of this animal Oannes was preserved in his day. A figure of
him sporting in the waves, and apparently blessing a fleet of vessels, was
discovered in a marine piece of sculpture by M. Botta, in the excavations
of Khorsabad.
"At Nimroud, a gigantic image was found by Mr. Layard, representing him
with the fish's head as a cap and the body of the fish depending over his
shoulders, his legs those of a man, his left hand holding a richly
decorated bag, and his right hand upraised as if in the act of presenting
the mystic Assyrian fir-cone." (_Baring Gould's Myths of the Middle
Ages._)
Mr. Layard, in his interesting work "Nineveh and its Remains," thus
alludes to this--"I must not omit to allude to the tradition preserved by
Berosus, which appears to attribute to a foreign nation, arriving by sea,
the introduction at some remote period of civilization and certain arts
into Babylonia. According to the historian, there appeared out of the
Erythræan or Persian Gulf, an animal endowed with reason, called Oannes.
Its body was like that of a fish; but under the head of the fish was that
of a man, and added to its tail were women's feet. Its voice, too, was
human, and it spoke an articulate language. During the day it instructed
the Chaldæans in letters and in all arts and sciences, teaching them to
build temples; but at night it plunged again into the sea. Five such
monsters appeared at different epochs in Babylonia, and were called
'Annedoti' (coming out of, or proceeding from). The first was named the
Musarus Oannes, and the last Odacon. Their images, he adds, were preserved
in Chaldæa even to this day. (This fragment of Berosus is preserved by
Apollodorus. See Cory's Fragments.)
"In a bas-relief from Korsabad representing a naval engagement, or the
seige of a city on the sea coast, we have the god nearly as described by
Berosus. To the body of a man as far as the waist, is joined the tail of a
fish. The three-horned cap, surmounted by the flower in the form of a
fleur-de-lis, as worn by the winged figures of the bas-reliefs, marks the
sacred character. The right hand is raised as in the representations of
the winged deity in the circle. This figure is in the sea amongst fish and
marine animals. On Assyrian cylinders and germs the same symbolical figure
is very frequently found, even more closely resembling in its form the
description of Berosus, numerous instances of which are given in Lajard's
large work on the Worship of Venus.
"This Fish Worship extended to Syria, and appears to have been more
prevalent in that country than in Assyria. The Dagon of the Philistines of
Ashdad evidently resembled the figure on the Assyrian sculptures and
cylinders. When it fell before the ark, the head and both the palms of his
hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the fishy part of Dagon was
left to him. (I. Samuel, v. 4; see the marginal reading.) The same idol is
mentioned in Judges xvi. The meaning of the word in Hebrew is 'a fish.'
Although the image, like that of the Assyrians, appears to have been
originally male; at a later period, it became female in Syria, as we learn
from Lucian (de Deâ Syriâ), and Diodorus Siculus, who describes the idol
at Ascalon with the face of a woman and body of a fish. (Lib. ii.) An
icthyolatry, connected with Derceto or Atergates, was perhaps confounded
with the worship of Dagon."[11]
"In Azotus, or Asdotus, a renowned city of the Philistines, there was a
celebrated temple of Dagon in which the inhabitants kept the ark of the
covenant, in presence of the idols. And when they arose early in the
morning, behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the
ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands
were cut off upon the threshold; and rah dagon nischar aghlaju, that is,
as R. D. Cimchi explains it, only the form of a fish was left to him. (I.
Samuel, v. 4.) For Dag and Dagah are words interpreted to mean fish,
whence he was called Dagon. The sacred scriptures, in Hebrews, bestow on
him the masculine gender, and so do the authors of the Greek version.
Philo Biblius says of Dagon, that he is a fruiterer and the son of
Coelus, and thus thinks he should be called, because he first discovered
fruit. For Dagon in Hebrew is translated by the Greek word Siton, which
means fruit. He is also said to be the inventor of the plough, therefore
was named Zeus the plougher, as if he were Jupiter, the president of
agriculture.
"Ptolemus says that Ceres was called Sito among the Syracusans, from the
same Greek word Sito. But he is mistaken; for, while he derives it from
Dagon (which means fruit), he should have deduced it from Dag (which means
a fish). There is the most ancient testimony outside of the Bible in
regard to this god of Asia in what Berosus, Apollodorus, and Polyhistor
write concerning Oannes. For Oannes is mentioned as a two-headed animal;
that feet like those of human beings grew from his tail, and that the rest
of him is a fish. His voice was likewise human, and they say that,
emerging from the Red Sea, he came to Babylon, but that he returned to the
sea at sunset. He did this every day as if he were an amphibious animal.
From him men learned all the various arts, letters, agriculture, the
consecration of temples, architecture, political government, and whatever
could possibly pertain to civilised life, and the most wonderful history
of Belus and Omorea. His image was preserved down to the time of Berosus,
that is, to the beginning of the Grecian monarchy. This marine god can be
no other than Dagon, whose history is found in Samuel. He was worshipped
not only by the Philistines, but by the Babylonians also. Apollodorus,
from the same Berosus, narrates more extensively of four Oannes, called
Annedotos, who likewise in the lapse of ages appeared out of the Red Sea,
every one of whom was half man and half fish. But in the time of Ædoracus,
king of the Chaldeans, who preceded the deluge a few ages, another similar
figure appeared, who was called Odakon. Dagon is undoubtedly intended and
referred to in this fable of Odakon. Abydenos speaks of a second
Annedotos, and bestows on him the form of a semi-demon. Helladius
Besantinus speaks of a certain man of the name of Oleus arising out of the
Red Sea, whose head, hands and feet were human, but that the other members
of the body were those of a fish and that he taught letters, and the
science of astronomy. As all these references are so applicable to the
Oannes of Besorus, it is more than probable that the librarian made the
mistake in the name of abbreviation in the copy.
"What has been extracted from the Scriptures and what has been said from
the writings of the ancients will convince any one that the figure of
Dagon was a mixture of the human and marine form. His body was marine, and
his face, hands, and feet were human.
"The Scriptures say expressly that his hands and feet were cut off, or
broken, when he fell before the ark of the Testament. These ancients wrote
that his feet grew to his tail. The Scriptures make him a masculine god,
but what has been said elsewhere of the common sex of the gods should be
here considered, for this very Dagon was changed into the goddess
Adirdaga, that is, Atergatis, Adargatis, Derceto, and those other names
mispronounced by the Europeans. It is certain that the Phoenician and
Babylon goddess is the very same figure as Dagon, if you will change the
sex. Lucianus describes briefly the image of Derceto as seen by him in
Phoenicia, and it answers to that of Dagon. But also among other great
writers the goddess of Hierapolis is called Derceto, or Atergatis.
"Macrobius contends that, with the figures of Atergatis, she is Astarte,
that very mother of gods, and he does not speak of her as any other than
that goddess of Hierapolis.
"Unless she had been half fish, she would by no means have been called
Derceto. But Atergatis, Adergatis, Atargata, Derceto, Derce, Adargidis,
Atargatis, all of which are names of this goddess, are corrupt words, and
from Adardaga, which in Hebrew means a magnificent or potent fish. This
name was surely most suitable for Oannes, who is said to have conferred so
many benefits on mankind.
"In the same way the Sepharvites called their god Adramelech, which means
a magnificent king. In the fables there is generally no other reason for
the figure than that because formerly Dirce, the daughter of Venus, having
fallen into the sea, was by fish preserved from all injuries of the
waters, or on account of the metamorphosis of Venus into a fish, when she
was running away terrified at the horrible advances of the monstre Typhon.
"Manilius, in his Astronomicon, book fourth, says:--
'When Heaven grew weak and a successful fight,
The giants raised and gods were saved by flight,
From snaky Typhon's arms, a fish's shape
Saved Venus and secured her from a rape.
Euphrates hid her, and from thence his streams
Owe all obedience to the fish's beams.'
"Or because a fish carried from the Euphrates an egg of wonderful size,
which a dove kept warm, and hatched the Syrian goddess; hence it was that
they abstained from the eating of fish. They feared that if they ate those
animals the vengeance of the goddess would be aroused: that the limbs of
their body would swell; that they would be covered by ulcers, and consumed
by wasting disease. Plutarch says of the Pythagoreans, that of sea
creatures they especially abstained from eating the fish called mullet and
urtic. They abstained from eating any kind of fish in order to instruct
men and accustom themselves to acts of justice, for they say that fish
neither do nor are capable of doing us harm. Others abstained from fish,
the same author says, because man arose from a liquid substance, and
therefore they worship fish as of the same production and breeding with
themselves.
"Anaximander says that men were first produced in fish, and when they were
grown up and able to help themselves were thrown out, and so lived upon
the land. So he contends that fishes were our common parents.
"Xenophon, in his Anabasis, speaking of the river Chalos, says it was
filled with large and gentle fish, which the Syrians worshipped as gods.
Neither would they permit them to be injured.
"These stories about fish are by no means the growth of the more ancient
ages, for about the time of the return of the Israelites from Egyptian
bondage, the Tyrians were in the habit of taking fish to Jerusalem for
sale. In Nehemiah xiii., v. 16 the words are as follows: 'There dwell men
of Tyre also therein, which brought fish, and all manner of ware and sold
on the sabbath, unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem.' At this
time the Jews were not free from the profane rites of their neighbours,
particularly such as had taken their wives from among the Philistines, who
especially worshipped Dagon. To eat fish or to sell them on the public
market-place was surely a great indignity to the god. There were certain
fish sacred among other nations, as Pompilius among the Grecians, Anguilla
among the Egyptians, and others among the Pythagoreans. In the same way as
fish, so were also doves held in great honour out of favour to this god.
It is, however, well known that doves were sacred to Venus, and she is
Derceto.
"The temple of Dagon is called Beth-Dagon, which is pure Hebrew. (See I.
Maccabeus x., 23.) 'The horsemen also being scattered in the field, fled
to Azotus and went into Beth-Dagon, their idol's temple, for safety.'
Venus of the Ascalonites--that is Derceto--has the very same name with
Herodotus, as Mylitta, Alitta, and the mother of the gods, and about the
temple of the goddess of Hierapolis fish and doves were received as
sacred, and in her honour, no less than where Derceto was worshipped.
"'Paradise Lost' has the following of this deity:--
'Next came one
Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark
Maimed his brute image, heads and hands lopped off
In his own temple on the grunsel edge,
Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers;
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
And downward fish: yet had his temple high
Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,
And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.'[12]
"Phin.--The old Irish demi-god Pin or Fin seems to have been a form of
Pineus, and, like him, was a son of Hermes, sharing, with the Budh or
Da-Beoc, the exalted title of Bar-en-di, Son of the One God. It was Fin
who conquered the dragon or put down serpent worship and established all
the holy rites connected with Crones or Lingams, and, strangely enough,
Phins or Feni, as Dr. P. W. Joyce calls them, showed like Eastern
Boodhists, a great liking for both charms, which are but small phali,
suitable for carrying or wearing on the person. They are exactly like the
little Lingas worn on the arms, or secreted on the head or chest of Indian
Sivaites. Irish history relates that Christian Feni diligently searched
out and revered the teeth of St. Patrick.
"In the Brehon Laws of the Senchus Mor, the Feni or Fiannas, or champions,
are described as a real historical people and the lawgivers of Irene. What
Arthur and his knights were to Brythonick, British, or 'Little Briton'
Kelts, Fin and his Fenians were in the two Skotias or among the Skoti.
"Before the Pagan Phin was converted, he is described as presiding over
the Tara assembly 'as a Druid in strangely flowered garments' (note the
likeness to Indra and Herakles), and with a double-pointed head-dress, and
bearing in his hand a book, like Brahma, Matthew, Vishnoo, and the fishy
deities of Assyria, and of the Clonfest Cathedral, County Galway, pictures
of which are given by Keane.
"The two-headed mitre of fishy form, the upright rod, spotted or chequered
garment, and basket in hand, distinctly mark the Eastern idea of a great
Phalik chief, whilst in the mermaid with open book and jaunty arm akimbo,
who allows not even the waters to obscure her sexual capacities, we see
the Irish idea of Atargatis or Derketis, or 'Divine Ketis,' that form of
Venus which Juno assumed at Kupros, in the old Kelto-Pelasgian temple of
Kupreuses. There, says Bryant, she was worshipped by the _Pigalia_,
_Pialia_ or _Pials_, that is, the worshippers of the Oracle or Pi, who may
be called the Pi-i, Phin-i, Pi-ni or Pini, a word which is possibly the
base of the Latin and French terms for the Phallus, and which is otherwise
of unknown but significant derivation. Macrobius calls _Der-Ketis_ 'the
mother of the gods,' and Syrians, 'the receptacle of the gods,' that is,
an _Erk_ or Ark, which the fish represented. If we were fully cognisant of
the origin of _Der-Ketis_, it might turn out to be, like the Indian names,
a dual or Linga-in Yoni. Thus Brahma, sitting on the lotus, is called
_Brahma-Yoni_, and if _Der_ be the Jovine tree or Oak, Der-Ketis would be
simply the bi-sexual name of a supreme god. The mythical Semiramis was a
daughter of _Der-ketis_, who was changed into a dove, and her mother into
a fish, showing the close intertwining of all these figures by
phallists."[13]
"Christians were very partial to the fish, but indeed, may be said to have
carried on freely all the ancient ideas, as which faith has not after its
first attempt at purification? On Christian tombs especially do fish
abound, commonly crossed, which reminds us that crossed serpents denote
their act of intercourse, and in this symbolism the fish would be very
natural and usual, because denoting new life in death. Derceto, the
half-fish and half-woman of the temple of the Dea Syria at Hira, was, says
Lucian, the perfection of woman; she was the mystic Oanes, Athor, and
Venus, whom Egyptians have handed down to us embalmed.
"So the Fathers of the Church have called their flocks Pisciculi, and
their high-priest a fisherman; and have given to all cardinals and bishops
the fish-head of Dagon.
"The fish is universally worshipped in all lands as the most fecundative
of all creatures; and where most valued, the superstitious have offered it
in sacrifice to their gods refusing to eat it. Many a time have I
travelled through a poor and barren country where it was all mankind could
do to live, and seen rivers and lakes teeming with fine fish which I dared
not touch, or only so by stealth as night came on, much to the annoyance
of my followers and myself, and the detriment of the people.
"We find Phoenicians, Kelts and Syrians specially mentioned as holding
the fish in the greatest reverence, and at different periods of their
history not eating it. The hill-tribes towards the sources of the Indus
have the same ideas. The Phoenicians picture Dagon and Dorketa the gods
of _Gaza_ and _As-Kal-on_, as Fish Gods, or perhaps we should say a fish
god and goddess, for we know they were also Astartian Deities. _Kuthera_
and _Kupros_ (Cypress) as shrines of Aphrodite, vied in the worship of
this fruitful Kubele, and Syria held the great northern shrine of
Hieropolis most holy to Venus as the _Fish Goddess_. _Cadiz_, Kodes, or
_Gadir-Gades_, had Herkales on one side of her coins, and a fish or
Lunette on the other; whilst Syracuse, or rather Soora-Koos, and Soosa
alike held their finny multitudes sacred to Fertility. In these days we
can imagine what a curse these faiths here were to the poor, and, indeed,
to humanity."[14]
"The high round hill of Tabor, known to Christians as the 'Mount of
Transfiguration,' is called by the Falâhin the _umbilicus_ of their
great earth mother Terra--that womb of nature in which we are
transfigured. To her also they had sacred temples at Askalon and Akcho
with suitable holy waters; and still at Tripolis, her very ancient city,
do we find her pond of holy fish, which are said to 'fight against
infidels,' and to which multitudes still make long pilgrimages, and
worship with offerings and sacrifices. We have often come across similar
holy ponds and lakes in India, and been warned off with our unholy rod and
line. The Venus of Tripolis was Kadishah or Atergatis; indeed the city is
called Kadishah, a name expressive of coarse phallic vices."[14]
"Dion Cassius says the Caledonians never taste fish, although their lakes
and rivers furnish an inexhaustible supply. Two 'holie fishes' in the
seventeenth century occupied a well near the church of Kilmore in
Argyleshire. They were black--never changed colour--neither increased in
number nor in size in the memory of the most aged. The people believed
that no others existed anywhere. Mr. Martin, in his 'Western Isles,'
describes the ceremonies practised by invalids who came to be cured by the
waters of a well at Loch Saint, in the Isle of Skye. They drank the water
and then moved round the well deasil (sunwise), and before departing left
an offering on the stone. Martin adds that no one would venture to kill
any of the fish in Loch Saint, or to cut as much as a twig from an
adjacent copse. These customs practised in the end of the seventeenth
century, have apparently reference to the worship of the sun, the
fountain, the fish, and the oak.
"The absence of any allusion to the art of catching fish has been used as
an argument in support of the authenticity of the poem of Ossian, as well
as being corroborative of the statement of Dion Cassius. Fish-eaters was
one of the contemptuous epithets which the Scottish Celt applied to the
Saxon and other races that settled in the Lowlands of Scotland, and the
remains of the superstitious veneration of fish, or rather abstaining from
fish as an article of food, is registered by the author of 'Caledonia' as
influencing the more purely Celtic portions of the British population in
the early part of the present century.
"Ancient nations that did not eat but worshipped the fish were the
Syrians, Phoenicians, and Celts. But in Caufiristaun, in the remote
parts of the Hindu-Cosh, the Caufirs will not eat fish, although it is not
said that they worship it. They believe in one great god, but have
numerous idols that represent those who were once men and women. A plain
stone, about four feet high, represents God, whose shape they say they do
not know. One of their tribes call God Dagon. The fish-god and goddess of
the Phoenicians were called Dago and Derceto; the worship of Dagon being
more particularly celebrated at Gaza and Ashdod; that of Derceto at
Ascalon."[15]
"The old sculptures and gems of Babylon and Assyria furnish sufficient
proof of the worship of Fertility, but writers and readers have alike lost
the key, or purposely skipped the subject, and this we have a prominent
example of in the case of the beautiful Assyrian cylinder, exhibiting the
worship of the Fish God, which Mr. Rawlinson gives us without a comment.
There we see the mitred man-god with rod and basket adoring the solar
Fructifier, hovering over the fruitful tree from which spring thirteen
full buds, whilst behind him stands another adoring winged deity backed by
a star, a dove, and a yoni. On the opposite side of the Tree of Life is
fire, and another man in the act of adoration, probably the Priest of God,
pleading with both hands open, that the requests of the other two figures
may be granted."[16]
"I may state that all that the author of Anc. Mons. writes in regard to
these old faiths thoroughly supports what I urge, though he is far from
looking at their features as I do, for he clearly knows very little of
Eastern Phallic faiths and their interpretation. Ashtoreth is Ishtar or
woman, the Star in more senses than one; the Phoenicians call her
Astarte, but the 'present Mendean form is Ashtar,' and the plural
Ashtaroth. Bunsen derives this representative name from the very coarse,
but I fear perfectly correct source, '_the seat of the cow_--_Has_ and
_toreth_;' for this is true to the idea of all Hindoos, and shows us that
the terms 'male' and 'female' originally meant the _organs pur et simple_,
which indeed the writer of Gen. i. 27 expresses in the words _Zakar_ and
_Nekabah_. In all African and Arabian dialects, _Nana_ and not Ishtar is
the commonest term for Mother, the usual initial being Ma, Ya, Ye, Ni, and
rarely Om and On; see the long list of over one hundred names given by Sir
John Lubbock as those of the 'non-Aryan nations of Europe and Asia' and of
'East Africa.' There we see Ma and even _Ama_ occasionally used for
Father, perhaps because among some tribes the strange custom existed of
his going to bed to protect and warm the infant as soon as born. The
almost universal initial sounds for the male ancestor are Pa, Fa, Ba, and
in a few instances Da and Ad, and once Od and Ta. In Asia Baba, Aba, Apa,
and sometimes Ama occur; now what we want to know is the origin of these
sounds, but here philology is silent with seemingly no power to advance.
This is not the case, however, in regard to the objective roots of
religion; here we work with reasoning creatures, and can see that the
child continues, and that all mankind have ever continued to mate, whether
in their own kind, or in their gods, the same A's, P's, F's, D's, to
males, and M's, N's, Om's, Y's to females, and we therefore conclude that
those were man's earliest symbols and names for the organs of sex, the
Omphe or Mamma of the mother, which man had first cognisance of, and the
A, Ab or Pa which he noticed as the characteristic of the opposite sex.
The Assyrian often represented Ishtar as the upright fish, probably
because of the fecundative powers of the fish, and as the creature _par
excellence_ of water. The great mythic queen Semiramis, wife of Ninus, the
founder of Nineveh or Ninus, was said to have sprung from a fish some
twenty-three centuries B.C., and to be representative woman, Eva or Mary.
"The mythic genealogy of Semiramis begins with a fish and ends with
Ninyas. Her mother was Dorketo the Fish Goddess of Askalon, in Syria,
where she was worshipped as Astarte or Aphrodite. She was famed down to
the days of Augustus for her beauty, voluptuousness, virtues and vices.
There seems no doubt but that there was some ruler called Semiramis, who
conquered most of Western Asia, Egypt and part of Ethiopia, and who
attempted India. Her fish origin is simply due to her being a woman and to
her marrying _On_ or _Ones_, or probably _Oanes_ or _Ho-Anes_, the Serpent
Fish, or recognised God of Passion, both on the lower Euphrates and the
lower Nile. Her conquests may merely signify that the race who had faith
in her conquered, or that certain conquerors embraced the worship of the
Sun Goddess. When Kaldia fell to Assyria, she was very naturally made to
marry Ninus, or the strong Bull-Uan which this name signifies; she was
preserved by doves, for these birds were sacred to Aphrodite. Mr.
Rawlinson believes that the origin of the myth lies in Ivaloosh's Queen of
the eighth century B.C., who was possibly a Babylonian, and shared in the
Government with her Lord, but there is little doubt that there was such a
queen or goddess. Her name, if embracing Sun and fertilizing energies,
would naturally be Sivamy or Sami (God), Rames, Rami, or Ramesi--the
Goddess of the Sun, in fact Ishtar, which Wilford calls her, saying these
names mean Isis. The Assyrian story is, that she sprang from a dove or
Yoni, which Capotesi would signify, and this is the Indian
manifestation."[17]