Chapter II.

DRAGONS AND RAIN GODS.[130]

An adequate account of the development of the dragon-legend would

represent the history of the expression of mankind's aspirations and

fears during the past fifty centuries and more. For the dragon was

evolved along with civilization itself. The search for the elixir of

life, to turn back the years from old age and confer the boon of

immortality, has been the great driving force that compelled men to

build up the material and the intellectual fabric of civilization. The

dragon-legend is the history of that search which has been preserved by

popular tradition: it has grown up and kept pace with the constant

struggle to grasp the unattainable goal of men's desires; and the story

has been constantly growing in complexity, as new incidents were drawn

within its scope and confused with old incidents whose real meaning was

forgotten or distorted. It has passed through all the phases with which

the study of the spreading of rumours or the development of dreams has

familiarized students of psychology. The simple original stories, which

become blended and confused, their meaning distorted and reinterpreted

by the rationalizing of incoherent incidents, are given the dramatic

form with which the human mind invests all stories that make a strong

appeal to its emotions, and then secondarily elaborated with a wealth of

circumstantial detail. This is the history of popular legends and the

development of rumours. But these phenomena are displayed in their most

emphatic form in dreams.[131] In his waking state man restrains his

roving fancies and exercises what Freud has called a "censorship" over

the stream of his thoughts: but when he falls asleep, the "censor" dozes

also; and free rein is given to his unrestrained fancies to make a

hotch-potch of the most varied and unrelated incidents, and to create a

fantastic mosaic built up from fragments of his actual experience, bound

together by the cement of his aspirations and fears. The myth resembles

the dream because it has developed without any consistent and effective

censorship. The individual who tells one particular phase of the story

may exert the controlling influence of his mind over the version he

narrates: but as it is handed on from man to man and generation to

generation the "censorship" also is constantly changing. This lack of

unity of control implies that the development of the myth is not unlike

the building-up of a dream-story. But the dragon-myth is vastly more

complex than any dream, because mankind as a whole has taken a hand in

the process of shaping it; and the number of centuries devoted to this

work of elaboration has been far greater than the years spent by the

average individual in accumulating the stuff of which most of his dreams

have been made. But though the myth is enormously complex, so vast a

mass of detailed evidence concerning every phase and every detail of its

history has been preserved, both in the literature and the folk-lore of

the world, that we are able to submit it to psychological analysis and

determine the course of its development and the significance of every

incident in its tortuous rambling.

In instituting these comparisons between the development of myths and

dreams, I should like to emphasize the fact that the interpretation of

the _myth_ proposed in these pages is almost diametrically opposed to

that suggested by Freud, and pushed to a _reductio ad absurdum_ by his

more reckless followers, and especially by Yung.

The dragon has been described as "the most venerable symbol employed in

ornamental art and the favourite and most highly decorative motif in

artistic design". It has been the inspiration of much, if not most, of

the world's great literature in every age and clime, and the nucleus

around which a wealth of ethical symbolism has accumulated throughout

the ages. The dragon-myth represents also the earliest doctrine or

systematic theory of astronomy and meteorology.

In the course of its romantic and chequered history the dragon has been

identified with all of the gods and all of the demons of every religion.

But it is most intimately associated with the earliest stratum of

divinities, for it has been homologized with each of the members of the

earliest Trinity, the Great Mother, the Water God, and the Warrior Sun

God, both individually and collectively. To add to the complexities of

the story, the dragon-slayer is also represented by the same deities,

either individually or collectively; and the weapon with which the hero

slays the dragon is also homologous both with him and his victim, for it

is animated by him who wields it, and its powers of destruction make it

a symbol of the same power of evil which it itself destroys.

Such a fantastic paradox of contradictions has supplied the materials

with which the fancies of men of every race and land, and every stage of

knowledge and ignorance, have been playing for all these centuries. It

is not surprising, therefore, that an endless series of variations of

the story has been evolved, each decked out with topical allusions and

distinctive embellishments. But throughout the complex tissue of this

highly embroidered fabric the essential threads of the web and woof of

its foundation can be detected with surprising constancy and regularity.

Within the limits of such an account as this it is obvious that I can

deal only with the main threads of the argument and leave the

interesting details of the local embellishments until some other time.

The fundamental element in the dragon's powers is the control of water.

Both in its beneficent and destructive aspects water was regarded as

animated by the dragon, who thus assumed the rôle of Osiris or his enemy

Set. But when the attributes of the Water God became confused with those

of the Great Mother, and her evil avatar, the lioness (Sekhet) form of

Hathor in Egypt, or in Babylonia the destructive Tiamat, became the

symbol of disorder and chaos, the dragon became identified with

her also.

Similarly the third member of the Earliest Trinity also became the

dragon. As the son and successor of the dead king Osiris the living king

Horus became assimilated with him. When the belief became more and more

insistent that the dead king had acquired the boon of immortality and

was really alive, the distinction between him and the actually living

king Horus became correspondingly minimized. This process of

assimilation was advanced a further stage when the king became a god and

was thus more closely identified with his father and predecessor. Hence

Horus assumed many of the functions of Osiris; and amongst them those

which in foreign lands contributed to making a dragon of the Water God.

But if the distinction between Horus and Osiris became more and more

attenuated with the lapse of time, the identification with his mother

Hathor (Isis) was more complete still. For he took her place and assumed

many of her attributes in the later versions of the great saga which is

the nucleus of all the literature of mythology--I refer to the story of

"The Destruction Of Mankind".

The attributes of these three members of the Trinity, Hathor, Osiris,

and Horus, thus became intimately linked the one with the other; and in

Susa, where the earliest pictorial representation of a real dragon

developed, it received concrete form (Fig. 1) as a monster compounded of

the lioness of Hathor (Sekhet) with the falcon (or eagle) of Horus, but

with the human attributes and water-controlling powers which originally

belonged to Osiris. In some parts of Africa the earliest "dragon" was

nothing more than Hathor's cow or the gazelle or antelope of Horus

(Osiris) or of Set.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Early Representation of a "Dragon" Compounded of

the Forepart of an Eagle and the Hindpart of a Lion--(from an Archaic

Cylinder-seal from Susa, after Jequier).]

[Illustration: Fig. 2.--The Earliest Babylonian Conception of the Dragon

Tiamat--(from a Cylinder-seal in the British Museum, after L. W. King).]

But if the dragon was compounded of all three deities, who was the

slayer of the evil dragon?

The story of the dragon-conflict is really a recital of Horus's vendetta

against Set, intimately blended and confused with different versions of

"The Destruction of Mankind".[132] The commonplace incidents of the

originally prosaic stories were distorted into an almost unrecognizable

form, then secondarily elaborated without any attention to their

original meaning, but with a wealth of circumstantial embellishment, in

accordance with the usual methods of the human mind that I have already

mentioned. The history of the legend is in fact the most complete,

because it is the oldest and the most widespread, illustration of those

instinctive tendencies of the human spirit to bridge the gaps in its

disjointed experience, and to link together in a kind of mental mosaic

the otherwise isolated incidents in the facts of daily life and the

rumours and traditions that have been handed down from the

story-teller's predecessors.

In the "Destruction of Mankind," which I shall discuss more fully in the

following pages (p. 109 _et seq._), Hathor does the slaying: in the

later stories Horus takes his mother's place and earns his spurs as the

Warrior Sun-god:[133] hence confusion was inevitably introduced between

the enemies of Re, the original victims in the legend, and Horus's

traditional enemies, the followers of Set. Against the latter it was

Osiris himself who fought originally; and in many of the non-Egyptian

variants of the legend it is the rain-god himself who is the warrior.

Hence all three members of the Trinity were identified, not only with

the dragon, but also with the hero who was the dragon-slayer.

But the weapon used by the latter was also animated by the same Trinity,

and in fact identified with them. In the Saga of the Winged Disk, Horus

assumed the form of the sun equipped with the wings of his own falcon

and the fire-spitting uræus serpents. Flying down from heaven in this

form he was at the same time the god and the god's weapon. As a fiery

bolt from heaven he slew the enemies of Re, who were now identified with

his own personal foes, the followers of Set. But in the earlier versions

of the myth (i.e. the "Destruction of Mankind"), it was Hathor who was

the "Eye of Re" and descended from heaven to destroy mankind with fire;

she also was the vulture (Mut); and in the earliest version she did the

slaughter with a knife or an axe with which she was animistically

identified.

But Osiris also was the weapon of destruction, both in the form of the

flood (for he was the personification of the river) and the rain-storms

from heaven. But he was also an instrument for vanquishing the demon,

when the intoxicating beer or the sedative drink (the potency of which

was due to the indwelling spirit of the god) was the chosen means of

overcoming the dragon.

This, in brief, is the framework of the dragon-story. The early Trinity

as the hero, armed with the Trinity as weapon, slays the dragon,

which again is the same Trinity. With its illimitable possibilities for

dramatic development and fantastic embellishment with incident and

ethical symbolism, this theme has provided countless thousands of

story-tellers with the skeleton which they clothed with the living flesh

of their stories, representing not merely the earliest theories of

astronomy and meteorology, but all the emotional conflicts of daily

life, the struggle between light and darkness, heat and cold, right and

wrong, justice and injustice, prosperity and adversity, wealth and

poverty. The whole gamut of human strivings and emotions was drawn

into the legend until it became the great epic of the human spirit and

the main theme that has appealed to the interest of all mankind in

every age.

An ancient Chinese philosopher, Wang Fu, writing in the time of the Han

Dynasty, enumerates the "nine resemblances" of the dragon. "His horns

resemble those of a stag, his head that of a camel, his eyes those of a

demon, his neck that of a snake, his belly that of a clam, his scales

those of a carp, his claws those of an eagle, his soles those of a

tiger, his ears those of a cow."[134] But this list includes only a

small minority of the menagerie of diverse creatures which at one time

or another have contributed their quota to this truly astounding

hotch-potch.

This composite wonder-beast ranges from Western Europe to the Far East

of Asia, and as we shall see, also even across the Pacific to America.

Although in the different localities a great number of most varied

ingredients enter into its composition, in most places where the dragon

occurs the substratum of its anatomy consists of a serpent or a

crocodile, usually with the scales of a fish for covering, and the feet

and wings, and sometimes also the head, of an eagle, falcon, or hawk,

and the forelimbs and sometimes the head of a lion. An association of

anatomical features of so unnatural and arbitrary a nature can only mean

that all dragons are the progeny of the same ultimate ancestors.

[Illustration: Fig. 7.--A Mediæval Picture of a Chinese Dragon upon its

cloud (After the late Professor W. Anderson)]

[Illustration: Fig. 8.--A Chinese Dragon (After de Groot)]

[Illustration: Fig. 9.--Dragon from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon]

[Illustration: Fig. 10.--Babylonian Weather God]

But it is not merely a case of structural or anatomical similarity, but

also of physiological identity, that clinches the proof of the

derivation of this fantastic brood from the same parents. Wherever the

dragon is found, it displays a special partiality for water. It controls

the rivers or seas, dwells in pools or wells, or in the clouds on the

tops of mountains, regulates the tides, the flow of streams, or the

rainfall, and is associated with thunder and lightning. Its home is a

mansion at the bottom of the sea, where it guards vast treasures,

usually pearls, but also gold and precious stones. In other instances

the dwelling is upon the top of a high mountain; and the dragon's breath

forms the rain-clouds. It emits thunder and lightning. Eating the

dragon's heart enables the diner to acquire the knowledge stored in this

"organ of the mind" so that he can understand the language of birds,

and in fact of all the creatures that have contributed to the making

of a dragon.

It should not be necessary to rebut the numerous attempts that have been

made to explain the dragon-myth as a story relating to extinct monsters.

Such fantastic claims can be made only by writers devoid of any

knowledge of palæontology or of the distinctive features of the dragon

and its history. But when the Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian

Antiquities in the British Museum, in a book that is not intended to be

humorous,[135] seriously claims Dr. Andrews' discovery of a gigantic

fossil snake as "proof" of the former existence of "the great

serpent-devil Apep," it is time to protest.

Those who attempt to derive the dragon from such living creatures as

lizards like _Draco volans_ or _Moloch horridus_[136] ignore the

evidence of the composite and unnatural features of the monsters.

"Whatever be the origin of the Northern dragon, the myths, when they

first became articulate for us, show him to be in all essentials the

same as that of the South and East. He is a power of evil, guardian of

hoards, the greedy withholder of good things from men; and the slaying

of a dragon is the crowning achievement of heroes--of Siegmund, of

Beowulf, of Sigurd, of Arthur, of Tristam--even of Lancelot, the _beau

ideal_ of mediæval chivalry" (_Encyclopædia Britannica_, vol. viii., p.

467). But if in the West the dragon is usually a "power of evil," in the

far East he is equally emphatically a symbol of beneficence. He is

identified with emperors and kings; he is the son of heaven the bestower

of all bounties, not merely to mankind directly, but also to the earth

as well.

Even in our country his symbolism is not always wholly malevolent,

otherwise--if for the moment we shut our eyes to the history of the

development of heraldic ornament--dragons would hardly figure as the

supporters of the arms of the City of London, and as the symbol of many

of our aristocratic families, among which the Royal House of Tudor is

included. It is only a few years since the Red Dragon of Cadwallader was

added as an additional badge to the achievement of the Prince of Wales.

But, "though a common ensign in war, both in the East and the West, as

an ecclesiastical emblem his opposite qualities have remained

consistently until the present day. Whenever the dragon is represented,

it symbolizes the power of evil, the devil and his works. Hell in

mediæval art is a dragon with gaping jaws, belching fire."

And in the East the dragon's reputation is not always blameless. For it

figures in some disreputable incidents and does not escape the sort of

punishment that tradition metes out to his European cousins.

[130: An elaboration of a Lecture delivered in the John Rylands Library

on 8 November, 1916.]

[131: In his lecture, "Dreams and Primitive Culture," delivered at the

John Rylands Library on 10 April, 1918, Dr. Rivers has expounded the

principles of dream-development.]

[132: _Vide infra_, p. 109 _et seq._]

[133: Hence soldiers killed in battle and women dying in childbirth

receive special consideration in the exclusive heaven of (Osiris's)

Horus's Indian and American representatives, Indra and Tlaloc.]

[134: M. W. de Visser, "The Dragon in China and Japan," _Verhandelingen

der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam_, Afdeeling

Letterkunde, Deel XIII, No. 2, 1913, p. 70.]

[135: E. A. Wallis Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," 1904, vol. i,

p. 11]

[136: Gould's "Mythical Monsters," 1886.]

The Dragon in America and Eastern Asia.

In the early centuries of the Christian era, and probably also even for

two or three hundred years earlier still, the leaven of the ancient

civilizations of the Old World was at work in Mexico, Central America

and Peru. The most obtrusive influences that were brought to bear,

especially in the area from Yucatan to Mexico, were inspired by the

Cambodian and Indonesian modifications of Indian beliefs and practices.

The god who was most often depicted upon the ancient Maya and Aztec

codices was the Indian rain-god Indra, who in America was provided with

the head of the Indian elephant[137] (i.e. seems to have been confused

with the Indian Ganesa) and given other attributes more suggestive of

the Dravidian Nâga than his enemy, the Aryan deity. In other words the

character of the American god, known as _Chac_ by the Maya people and as

_Tlaloc_ by the Aztecs, is an interesting illustration of the effects of

such a mixture of cultures as Dr. Rivers has studied in Melanesia.[138]

Not only does the elephant-headed god in America represent a blend of

the two great Indian rain-gods which in the Old World are mortal

enemies, the one of the other (partly for the political reason that the

Dravidians and Aryans were rival and hostile peoples), but all the

traits of each deity, even those depicting the old Aryan conception of

their deadly combat, are reproduced in America under circumstances which

reveal an ignorance on the part of the artists of the significance of

the paradoxical contradictions they are representing. But even many

incidents in the early history of the Vedic gods, which were due to

arbitrary circumstances in the growth of the legends, reappear in

America. To cite one instance (out of scores which might be quoted), in

the Vedic story Indra assumed many of the attributes of the god Soma. In

America the name of the god of rain and thunder, the Mexican Indra, is

_Tlaloc_, which is generally translated "pulque of the earth," from

_tlal[l]i_, "earth," and _oc[tli]_, "pulque, a fermented drink (like the

Indian drink _soma_) made from the juice of the agave".[139]

The so-called "long-nosed god" (the elephant-headed rain-god) has been

given the non-committal designation "god B," by Schellhas.[140]

[Illustration: Fig. 11.--Reproduction of a Picture in the Maya Codex

Troano representing the Rain-god _Chac_ treading upon the Serpent's

head, which is interposed between the earth and the rain the god is

pouring out of a bowl. A Rain-goddess stands upon the Serpent's tail.]

I reproduce here a remarkable drawing (Fig. 11) from the Codex Troano,

in which this god, whom the Maya people called _Chac_, is shown pouring

the rain out of a water-jar (just as the deities of Babylonia and India

are often represented), and putting his foot upon the head of a serpent,

who is preventing the rain from reaching the earth. Here we find

depicted with childlike simplicity and directness the Vedic conception

of Indra overcoming the demon Vritra. Stempell describes this scene as

"the elephant-headed god B standing upon the head of a serpent";[141]

while Seler, who claims that god B is a tortoise, explains it as the

serpent forming a footstool for the rain-god.[142] In the

Codex Cortes the same theme is depicted in another way, which is truer

to the Indian conception of Vritra, as "the restrainer"[143] (Fig. 12).

[Illustration: Fig. 12.--Another representation of the Elephant-headed

Rain god. He is holding thunderbolts, conventionalised in a hand-like

form. The Serpent is converted into a sac, holding up the rain-waters.]

The serpent (the American rattlesnake) restrains the water by coiling

itself into a sac to hold up the rain and so prevent it from reaching

the earth. In the various American codices this episode is depicted in

as great a variety of forms as the Vedic poets of India described when

they sang of the exploits of Indra. The Maya Chac is, in fact, Indra

transferred to the other side of the Pacific and there only thinly

disguised by a veneer of American stylistic design.

But the Aztec god Tlaloc is merely the Chac of the Maya people

transferred to Mexico. Schellhas declares that the "god B," the "most

common figure in the codices," is a "universal deity to whom the most

varied elements, natural phenomena, and activities are subject". "Many

authorities consider God B to represent Kukulkan, the Feathered Serpent,

whose Aztec equivalent is Quetzalcoatl. Others identify him with

Itzamna, the Serpent God of the East, or with Chac, the Rain God of the

four quarters and the equivalent of Tlaloc of the Mexicans."[144]

From the point of view of its Indian analogies these confusions are

peculiarly significant, for the same phenomena are found in India. The

snake and the dragon can be either the rain-god of the East or the enemy

of the rain-god; either the dragon-slayer or the evil dragon who has to

be slain. The Indian word _Nâga_, which is applied to the beneficent god

or king identified with the cobra, can also mean "elephant," and this

double significance probably played a part in the confusion of the

deities in America.

In the Dresden Codex the elephant-headed god is represented in one place

grasping a serpent, in another issuing from a serpent's mouth, and again

as an actual serpent (Fig. 13). Turning next to the attributes of these

American gods we find that they reproduce with amazing precision those

of Indra. Not only were they the divinities who controlled rain,

thunder, lightning, and vegetation, but they also carried axes and

thunderbolts (Fig. 13) like their homologues in the Old World. Like

Indra, Tlaloc was intimately associated with the East and with the tops

of mountains, where he had a special heaven, reserved for warriors who

fell in battle and women who died in childbirth. As a water-god also he

presided over the souls of the drowned and those who in life suffered

from dropsical affections. Indra also specialized in the same branch

of medicine.

In fact, if one compares the account of Tlaloc's attributes and

achievements, such as is given in Mr. Joyce's "Mexican Archæology" or

Professor Seler's monograph on the "Codex Vaticanus," with Professor

Hopkins's summary of Indra's character ("Religions of India") the

identity is so exact, even in the most arbitrary traits and confusions

with other deities' peculiarities, that it becomes impossible for any

serious investigator to refuse to admit that Tlaloc and Chac are merely

American forms of Indra. Even so fantastic a practice as the

representation of the American rain-god's face as composed of contorted

snakes[145] finds its analogy in Siam, where in relatively recent times

this curious device was still being used by artists.[146]

"As the god of fertility maize belonged to him [Tlaloc], though not

altogether by right, for according to one legend he stole it after it

had been discovered by other gods concealed in the heart of a

mountain."[147] Indra also obtained soma from the mountain by similar

means.[148]

In the ancient civilization of America one of the most prominent deities

was called the "Feathered Serpent," in the Maya language, Kukulkan,

Quiché Gukumatz, Aztec Quetzalcoatl, the Pueblo "Mother of Waters".

Throughout a very extensive part of America the snake, like the Indian

Nâga, is the emblem of rain, clouds, thunder and lightning. But it is

essentially and pre-eminently the symbol of rain; and the god who

controls the rain, Chac of the Mayas, Tlaloc of the Aztecs, carried the

axe and the thunderbolt like his homologues and prototypes in the Old

World. In America also we find reproduced in full, not only the legends

of the antagonism between the thunder-bird and the serpent, but also

the identification of these two rivals in one composite monster, which,

as I have already mentioned, is seen in the winged disks, both in the

Old World and the New.[149] Hardly any incident in the history of the

Egyptian falcon or the thunder-birds of Babylonia, Greece or India,

fails to reappear in America and find pictorial expression in the Maya

and Aztec codices.

[Illustration: Fig. 13.

A photographic reproduction of the 36th page of the Dresden Maya Codex.

Of the three pictures in the top row one represents the elephant-headed

god _Chac_ with a snake's body. He is pouring out rain. The central

picture represents the lightning animal carrying fire down from heaven

to earth. On the right _Chac_ is shown in human guise carrying

thunder-weapons in the form of burning torches.

In the second row a goddess sits in the rain: her head is prolonged into

that of a bird, holding a fish in its beak. The central picture shows

_Chac_ in his boat ferrying a woman across the water from the East. The

third illustration depicts the familiar conflict between the vulture and

serpent.

In the third row _Chac_ is seen with his axe: in the central picture he

is standing in the water looking up towards a rain-cloud; and on the

right he is shown sitting in a hut resting from his labours.]

What makes America such a rich storehouse of historical data is the fact

that it is stretched across the world almost from pole to pole; and for

many centuries the jetsam and flotsam swept on to this vast strand has

made it a museum of the cultural history of the Old World, much of which

would have been lost for ever if America had not saved it. But a record

preserved in this manner is necessarily in a highly confused state. For

essentially the same materials reached America in manifold forms. The

original immigrants into America brought from North-Eastern Asia such

cultural equipment as had reached the area east of the Yenesei at the

time when Europe was in the Neolithic phase of culture. Then when

ancient mariners began to coast along the Eastern Asiatic littoral and

make their way to America by the Aleutian route there was a further

infiltration of new ideas. But when more venturesome sailors began to

navigate the open seas and exploit Polynesia, for centuries[150] there

was a more or less constant influx of customs and beliefs, which were

drawn from Egypt and Babylonia, from the Mediterranean and East Africa,

from India and Indonesia, China and Japan, Cambodia and Oceania. One and

the same fundamental idea, such as the attributes of the serpent as a

water-god, reached America in an infinite variety of guises, Egyptian,

Babylonian, Indian, Indonesian, Chinese and Japanese, and from this

amazing jumble of confusion the local priesthood of Central America

built up a system of beliefs which is distinctively American, though

most of the ingredients and the principles of synthetic composition were

borrowed from the Old World.

Every possible phase of the early history of the dragon-story and all

the ingredients which in the Old World went to the making of it have

been preserved in American pictures and legends in a bewildering variety

of forms and with an amazing luxuriance of complicated symbolism and

picturesque ingenuity. In America, as in India and Eastern Asia, the

power controlling water was identified both with a serpent (which in the

New World, as in the Old, was often equipped with such inappropriate and

arbitrary appendages, as wings, horns and crests) and a god, who was

either associated or confused with an elephant. Now many of the

attributes of these gods, as personifications of the life-giving powers

of water, are identical with those of the Babylonian god Ea and the

Egyptian Osiris, and their reputations as warriors with the respective

sons and representatives, Marduk and Horus. The composite animal of

Ea-Marduk, the "sea-goat" (the Capricornus of the Zodiac), was also the

vehicle of Varuna in India whose relationship to Indra was in some

respects analogous to that of Ea to Marduk in Babylonia.[151] The Indian

"sea-goat" or _Makara_ was in fact intimately associated both with

Varuna and with Indra. This monster assumed a great variety of forms,

such as the crocodile, the dolphin, the sea-serpent or dragon, or

combinations of the heads of different animals with a fish's body (Fig.

14). Amongst these we find an elephant-headed form of the _makara_,

which was adopted as far east as Indonesia and as far west as Scotland.

[Illustration: Fig. 14.

A. The so-called "sea-goat" of Babylonia, a creature compounded of the

antelope and fish of Ea.

B. The "sea-goat" as the vehicle of Ea or Marduk.

C to K--a series of varieties of the _makara_ from the Buddhist Rails at

Buddha Gaya and Mathura, circa 70 B.C.-70 A.D., after Cunningham

("Archæological Survey of India," Vol. III, 1873, Plates IX and XXIX).

L. The _makara_ as the vehicle of Varuna, after Sir George Birdwood. It

is not difficult to understand how, in the course of the easterly

diffusion of culture, such a picture should develop into the Chinese

Dragon or the American Elephant-headed God.]

I have already called attention[152] to the part played by the _makara_

in determining the development of the form of the elephant-headed god in

America. Another form of the _makara_ is described in the following

American legend, which is interesting also as a mutilated version of the

original dragon-story of the Old World.

In 1912 Hernández translated and published a Maya manuscript[153] which

had been written out in Spanish characters in the early days of the

conquest of the Americas, but had been overlooked until six years ago.

It is an account of the creation, and includes the following passages:

"All at once came the water [? rain] after the dragon was carried away.

The heaven was broken up; it fell upon the earth; and they say that

_Cantul-ti-ku_ (four gods), the four Baccab, were those who destroyed

it.... 'The whole world', said _Ah-uuc-chek-nale_ (he who seven times

makes fruitful), 'proceeded from the seven bosoms of the earth.' And he

descended to make fruitful _Itzam-kab-uin_ (the female whale with

alligator-feet), when he came down from the central angle of the

heavenly region" (p. 171).

Hernández adds that "the old fishermen of Yucatan still call the whale

_Itzam_: this explains the name of _Itzaes_, by which the Mayas were

known before the founding of Mayapan".

The close analogy to the Indra-story is suggested by the phrase

describing the coming of the water "after the dragon was carried away".

Moreover, the Indian sea-elephant _makara_, which was confused in the

Old World with the dolphin of Aphrodite, and was sometimes also regarded

as a crocodile, naturally suggests that the "female whale with the

alligator-feet" was only an American version of the old Indian legend.

All this serves, not only to corroborate the inferences drawn from the

other sources of information which I have already indicated, but also to

suggest that, in addition to borrowing the chief divinities of their

pantheon from India, the Maya people's original name was derived from

the same mythology.[154]

It is of considerable interest and importance to note that in the

earliest dated example of Maya workmanship (from Tuxtla, in the Vera

Cruz State of Mexico), for which Spinden assigns a tentative date of 235

B.C., an unmistakable elephant figures among the four hieroglyphs which

Spinden reproduces (_op. cit._, p. 171). A similar hieroglyphic sign is

found in the Chinese records of the Early Chow Dynasty (John Ross, "The

Origin of the Chinese People," 1916, P. 152).

The use of the numerals four and seven in the narrative translated by

Hernández, as in so many other American documents, is itself, as Mrs.

Zelia Nuttall has so conclusively demonstrated,[155] a most striking and

conclusive demonstration of the link with the Old World.

Indra was not the only Indian god who was transferred to America, for

all the associated deities, with the characteristic stories of their

exploits,[156] are also found depicted with childlike directness of

incident, but amazingly luxuriant artistic phantasy, in the Maya and

Aztec codices.

We find scattered throughout the islands of the Pacific the familiar

stories of the dragon. One mentioned by the Bishop of Wellington refers

to a New Zealand dragon with jaws like a crocodile's, which spouted

water like a whale. It lived in a fresh-water lake.[157] In the same

number of the same _Journal_ Sir George Grey gives extracts from a Maori

legend of the dragon, which he compares with corresponding passages from

Spenser's "Faery Queen". "Their strict verbal and poetical conformity

with the New Zealand legends are such as at first to lead to the

impression either that Spenser must have stolen his images and language

from the New Zealand poets, or that they must have acted unfairly by the

English bard" (p. 362). The Maori legend describes the dragon as "in

size large as a monstrous whale, in shape like a hideous lizard; for in

its huge head, its limbs, its tail, its scales, its tough skin, its

sharp spines, yes, in all these it resembled a lizard" (p. 364).

Now the attributes of the Chinese and Japanese dragon as the controller

of rain, thunder and lightning are identical with those of the American

elephant-headed god. It also is associated with the East and with the

tops of mountains. It is identified with the Indian Nâga, but the

conflict involved in this identification is less obtrusive than it is

either in America or in India. In Dravidian India the rulers and the

gods are identified with the serpent: but among the Aryans, who were

hostile to the Dravidians, the rain-god is the enemy of the Nâga. In

America the confusion becomes more pronounced because Tlaloc (Chac)

represents both Indra and his enemy the serpent. The representation in

the codices of his conflict with the serpent is merely a tradition

which the Maya and Aztec scribes followed, apparently without

understanding its meaning.

In China and Japan the Indra-episode plays a much less prominent part,

for the dragon is, like the Indian Nâga, a beneficent creature, which

approximates more nearly to the Babylonian Ea or the Egyptian Osiris. It

is not only the controller of water, but the impersonation of water and

its life-giving powers: it is identified with the emperor, with his

standard, with the sky, and with all the powers that give, maintain, and

prolong life and guard against all kinds of danger to life. In other

words, it is the bringer of good luck, the rejuvenator of mankind, the

giver of immortality.

But if the physiological functions of the dragon of the Far East can

thus be assimilated to those of the Indian Nâga and the Babylonian and

Egyptian Water God, who is also the king, anatomically he is usually

represented in a form which can only be regarded as the Babylonian

composite monster, as a rule stripped of his wings, though not of his

avian feet.

In America we find preserved in the legends of the Indians an accurate

and unmistakable description of the Japanese dragon (which is mainly

Chinese in origin). Even Spinden, who "does not care to dignify by

refutation the numerous empty theories of ethnic connections between

Central America" [and in fact America as a whole] "and the Old World,"

makes the following statement (in the course of a discussion of the

myths relating to horned snakes in California): "a similar monster,

possessing antlers, and sometimes wings, is also very common in Algonkin

and Iroquois legends, although rare in art. As a rule the horned serpent

is a water spirit and an enemy of the thunder bird. Among the Pueblo

Indians the horned snake seems to have considerable prestige in

religious belief.... It lives in the water or in the sky and is

connected with rain or lightning."[158]

Thus we find stories of a dragon equipped with those distinctive tokens

of Chinese origin, the deer's antlers; and along with it a snake with

less specialized horns suggesting the Cerastes of Egypt and Babylonia. A

horned viper distantly akin to the Cerastes of the Old World does occur

in California; but its "horns" are so insignificant as to make it highly

improbable that they could have been in any way responsible for the

obtrusive rôle played by horns in these widespread American stories.

But the proof of the foreign origin of these stories is established by

the horned serpent's achievements.

It "lives in the water or the sky" like its homologue in the Old World,

and it is "a water spirit". Now neither the Cobra nor the Cerastes is

actually a water serpent. Their achievements in the myths therefore have

no possible relationship with the natural habits of the real snakes.

They are purely arbitrary attributes which they have acquired as the

result of a peculiar and fortuitous series of historical incidents.

It is therefore utterly inconceivable and in the highest degree

improbable that this long chain of chance circumstances should have

happened a second time in America, and have been responsible for the

creation of the same bizarre story in reference to one of the rarer

American snakes of a localized distribution, whose horns are mere

vestiges, which no one but a trained morphologist is likely to have

noticed or recognized as such.

But the American horned serpent, like its Babylonian and Indian

homologues, is also the enemy of the thunder bird. Here is a further

corroboration of the transmission to America of ideas which were the

chance result of certain historical events in the Old World, which I

have mentioned in this lecture.

In the figure on page 94 I reproduce a remarkable drawing of an American

dragon. If the Algonkin Indians had not preserved legends of a winged

serpent equipped with deer's antlers, no value could be assigned to this

sketch: but as we know that this particular tribe retains the legend of

just such a wonder-beast, we are justified in treating this drawing as

something more than a jest.

"Petroglyphs are reported by Mr. John Criley as occurring near Ava,

Jackson County, Illinois. The outlines of the characters observed by him

were drawn from memory and submitted to Mr. Charles S. Mason, of Toledo,

Ohio, through whom they were furnished to the Bureau of Ethnology.

Little reliance can be placed upon the accuracy of such drawing, but

from the general appearance of the sketches the originals of which they

are copies were probably made by one of the middle Algonquin tribes of

Indians.[159]

"The 'Piasa' rock, as it is generally designated, was referred to by the

missionary explorer Marquette in 1675. Its situation was immediately

above the city of Alton, Illinois."

Marquette's remarks are translated by Dr. Francis Parkman as follows:--

"On the flat face of a high rock were painted, in red, black, and green,

a pair of monsters, each 'as large as a calf, with horns like a deer,

red eyes, a beard like a tiger, and a frightful expression of

countenance. The face is something like that of a man, the body covered

with scales; and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the

body, over the head, and between the legs, ending like that of a fish.'"

Another version, by Davidson and Struve, of the discovery of the

petroglyph is as follows:--

"Again they (Joliet and Marquette) were floating on the broad bosom of

the unknown stream. Passing the mouth of the Illinois, they soon fell

into the shadow of a tall promontory, and with great astonishment beheld

the representation of two monsters painted on its lofty limestone front.

According to Marquette, each of these frightful figures had the face of

a man, the horns of a deer, the beard of a tiger, and the tail of a fish

so long that it passed around the body, over the head, and between the

legs. It was an object of Indian worship and greatly impressed the mind

of the pious missionary with the necessity of substituting for this

monstrous idolatry the worship of the true God."

A footnote connected with the foregoing quotation gives the following

description of the same rock:--

"Near the mouth of the Piasa creek, on the bluff, there is a smooth rock

in a cavernous cleft, under an overhanging cliff, on whose face 50 feet

from the base, are painted some ancient pictures or hieroglyphics, of

great interest to the curious. They are placed in a horizontal line from

east to west, representing men, plants and animals. The paintings,

though protected from dampness and storms, are in great part destroyed,

marred by portions of the rock becoming detached and falling down."

Mr. McAdams, of Alton, Illinois, says, "The name Piasa is Indian and

signifies, in the Illini, the bird which devours men". He furnishes a

spirited pen-and-ink sketch, 12 by 15 inches in size and purporting to

represent the ancient painting described by Marquette. On the picture

is inscribed the following in ink: "Made by Wm. Dennis, April 3rd,

1825". The date is in both letters and figures. On the top of the

picture in large letters are the two words, "FLYING DRAGON". This

picture, which has been kept in the old Gilham family of Madison county

and bears the evidence of its age, is reproduced as Fig. 3.

[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Wm. Dennis's Drawing of the "Flying Dragon"

Depicted on the Rocks at Piasa, Illinois.]

He also publishes another representation with the following remarks:--

"One of the most satisfactory pictures of the Piasa we have ever seen is

in an old German publication entitled 'The Valley of the Mississippi

Illustrated. Eighty illustrations from Nature, by H. Lewis, from the

Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico,' published about the year

1839 by Arenz & Co., Dusseldorf, Germany. One of the large full-page

plates in this work gives a fine view of the bluff at Alton, with the

figure of the Piasa on the face of the rock. It is represented to have

been taken on the spot by artists from Germany.... In the German picture

there is shown just behind the rather dim outlines of the second face a

ragged crevice, as though of a fracture. Part of the bluff's face might

have fallen and thus nearly destroyed one of the monsters, for in later

years writers speak of but one figure. The whole face of the bluff was

quarried away in 1846-47."

The close agreement of this account with that of the Chinese and

Japanese dragon at once arrests attention. The anatomical peculiarities

are so extraordinary that if Père Marquette's account is trustworthy

there is no longer any room for doubt of the Chinese or Japanese

derivation of this composite creature. If the account is not accepted we

will be driven, not only to attribute to the pious seventeenth-century

missionary serious dishonesty or culpable gullibility, but also to

credit him with a remarkably precise knowledge of Mongolian archæology.

When Algonkin legends are recalled, however, I think we are bound to

accept the missionary's account as substantially accurate.

Minns claims that representations of the dragon are unknown in China

before the Han dynasty. But the legend of the dragon is much more

ancient. The evidence has been given in full by de Visser.[160]

He tells us that the earliest reference is found in the _Yih King_, and

shows that the dragon was "a water animal akin to the snake, which

[used] to sleep in pools during winter and arises in the spring." "It is

the god of thunder, who brings good crops when he appears in the rice

fields (as rain) or in the sky (as dark and yellow clouds), in other

words when he makes the rain fertilize the ground" (p. 38).

In the _Shu King_ there is a reference to the dragon as one of the

symbolic figures painted on the upper garment of the emperor Hwang Ti

(who according to the Chinese legends, which of course are not above

reproach, reigned in the twenty-seventh century B.C.). In this ancient

literature there are numerous references to the dragon, and not merely

to the legends, _but also to representations_ of the benign monster on

garments, banners and metal tablets.[161] "The ancient texts ... are

short, but sufficient to give us the main conceptions of Old China with

regard to the dragon. In those early days [just as at present] he was

the god of water, thunder, clouds, and rain, the harbinger of blessings,

and the symbol of holy men. As the emperors are the holy beings on

earth, the idea of the dragon being the symbol of Imperial power is

based upon this ancient conception" (_op. cit._, p. 42).

In the fifth appendix to the _Yih King_, which has been ascribed to

Confucius, (i.e. three centuries earlier than the Han dynasty mentioned

by Mr. Minns), it is stated that "_K'ien_ (Heaven) is a horse, _Kw'un_

(Earth) is a cow, _Chen (Thunder) is a dragon_." (_op. cit._, p.

37).[162]

The philosopher Hwai Nan Tsze (who died 122 B.C.) declared that the

dragon is the origin of all creatures, winged, hairy, scaly, and

mailed; and he propounded a scheme of evolution (de Visser, p. 65). He

seems to have tried to explain away the fact that he had never actually

witnessed the dragon performing some of the remarkable feats attributed

to it: "Mankind cannot see the dragons rise: wind and rain assist them

to ascend to a great height" (_op. cit._, p. 65). Confucius also is

credited with the frankness of a similar confession: "As to the dragon,

we cannot understand his riding on the wind and clouds and his ascending

to the sky. To-day I saw Lao Tsze; is he not like the dragon?" (p. 65).

This does not necessarily mean that these learned men were sceptical of

the beliefs which tradition had forged in their minds, but that the

dragon had the power of hiding itself in a cloak of invisibility, just

as clouds (in which the Chinese saw dragons) could be dissipated in the

sky. The belief in these powers of the dragon was as sincere as that of

learned men of other countries in the beneficent attributes which

tradition had taught them to assign to their particular deities. In the

passages I have quoted the Chinese scholars were presumably attempting

to bridge the gap between the ideas inculcated by faith and the evidence

of their senses, in much the same sort of spirit as, for instance,

actuated Dean Buckland last century, when he claimed that the glacial

deposits of this country afforded evidence in confirmation of the Deluge

described in the Book of Genesis.

The tiger and the dragon, the gods of wind and water, are the keystones

of the doctrine called _fung shui_, which Professor de Groot has

described in detail.[163]

He describes it "as a quasi-scientific system, supposed to teach men

where and how to build graves, temples, and dwellings, in order that the

dead, the gods, and the living may be located therein exclusively, or as

far as possible, under the auspicious influences of Nature". The dragon

plays a most important part in this system, being "the chief spirit of

water and rain, and at the same time representing one of the four

quarters of heaven (i.e. the East, called the Azure Dragon, and the

first of the seasons, spring)." The word Dragon comprises the high

grounds in general, and the water streams which have their sources

therein or wind their way through them.[164]

The attributes thus assigned to the Blue Dragon, his control of water

and streams, his dwelling on high mountains whence they spring, and his

association with the East, will be seen to reveal his identity with the

so-called "god B" of American archæologists, the elephant-headed god

_Tlaloc_ of the Aztecs, _Chac_ of the Mayas, whose more direct parent

was Indra.

It is of interest to note that, according to Gerini,[165] the word

_Nâga_ denotes not only a snake but also an elephant. Both the Chinese

dragon and the Mexican elephant-god are thus linked with the Nâga, who

is identified both with Indra himself and Indra's enemy Vritra. This is

another instance of those remarkable contradictions that one meets at

every step in pursuing the dragon. In the confusion resulting from the

blending of hostile tribes and diverse cultures the Aryan deity who,

both for religious and political reasons, is the enemy of the Nâgas

becomes himself identified with a Nâga!

I have already called attention (_Nature_, Jan. 27, 1916) to the fact

that the graphic form of representation of the American elephant-headed

god was derived from Indonesian pictures of the _makara_. In India

itself the _makara_ (see Fig. 14) is represented in a great variety of

forms, most of which are prototypes of different kinds of dragons. Hence

the homology of the elephant-headed god with the other dragons is

further established and shown to be genetically related to the evolution

of the protean manifestations of the dragon's form.

The dragon in China is "the heavenly giver of fertilizing rain" (_op.

cit._, p. 36). In the _Shu King_ "the emblematic figures of the ancients

are given as the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountain, the _dragon_,

and the variegated animals (pheasants) which are depicted on the upper

sacrificial garment of the Emperor" (p. 39). In the _Li Ki_ the unicorn,

the phoenix, the tortoise, and the dragon are called the four _ling_

(p. 39), which de Visser translates "spiritual beings," creatures with

enormously strong vital spirit. The dragon possesses the most _ling_ of

all creatures (p. 64). The tiger is the deadly enemy of the dragon

(p. 42).

The dragon sheds a brilliant light at night (p. 44), usually from his

glittering eyes. He is the giver of omens (p. 45), good and bad, rains

and floods. The dragon-horse is a vital spirit of Heaven and Earth (p.

58) and also of river water: it has the tail of a huge serpent.

The ecclesiastical vestments of the Wu-ist priests are endowed with

magical properties which are considered to enable the wearer to control

the order of the world, to avert unseasonable and calamitous events,

such as drought, untimely and superabundant rainfall, and eclipses.

These powers are conferred by the decoration upon the dress. Upon the

back of the chief vestment the representation of a range of mountains is

embroidered as a symbol of the world: on each side (the right and left)

of it a large dragon arises above the billows to represent the

fertilizing rain. They are surrounded by gold-thread figures

representing clouds and spirals typifying rolling thunder.[166]

A ball, sometimes with a spiral decoration, is commonly represented in

front of the Chinese dragon. The Chinese writer Koh Hung tells us that

"a spiral denotes the rolling of thunder from which issues a flash of

lightning".[167] De Visser discusses this question at some length and

refers to Hirth's claim that the Chinese triquetrum, i.e., the

well-known three-comma shaped figure, the Japanese _mitsu-tomoe_, the

ancient spiral, represents thunder also.[168] Before discussing this

question, which involves the consideration of the almost world-wide

belief in a thunder-weapon and its relationship to the spiral ornament,

the octopus, the pearl, the swastika and triskele, let us examine

further the problem of the dragon's ball (see Fig. 15).

[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Photograph of a Chinese Embroidery in the

Manchester School of Art representing the Dragon and the Pearl-Moon

Symbol.]

De Groot regards the dragon as a thunder-god and therefore, like Hirth,

assumes that the supposed thunder-ball is being _belched forth_ and not

being _swallowed_ by the dragon. But de Visser, as the result of a

conversation with Mr. Kramp and the study of a Chinese picture in

Blacker's "Chats on Oriental China" (1908, p. 54), puts forward the

suggestion that the ball is the moon or the pearl-moon which the dragon

is swallowing, thereby causing the fertilizing rain. The Chinese

themselves refer to the ball as the "precious pearl," which, under the

influence of Buddhism in China, was identified with "the pearl that

grants all desires" and is under the special protection of the Nâga,

i.e., the dragon. Arising out of this de Visser puts the conundrum: "Was

the ball originally also a pearl, not of Buddhism but of Taoism?"

In reply to this question I may call attention to the fact that the

germs of civilization were first planted in China by people strongly

imbued with the belief that the pearl was the quintessence of

life-giving and prosperity-conferring powers:[169] it was not only

identified with the moon, but also was itself a particle of

moon-substance which fell as dew into the gaping oyster. It was the very

people who held such views about pearls and gold who, when searching for

alluvial gold and fresh-water pearls in Turkestan, were responsible for

transferring these same life-giving properties to jade; and the magical

value thus attached to jade was the nucleus, so to speak, around which

the earliest civilization of China was crystallized.

As we shall see, in the discussion of the thunder-weapon (p. 121), the

luminous pearl, which was believed to have fallen from the sky, was

homologized with the thunderbolt, with the functions of which its own

magical properties were assimilated.

Kramp called de Visser's attention to the fact that the Chinese

hieroglyphic character for the dragon's ball is compounded of the signs

for _jewel_ and _moon_, which is also given in a Japanese lexicon as

_divine pearl_, the pearl of the bright moon.

"When the clouds approached and covered the moon, the ancient Chinese

may have thought that the dragons had seized and swallowed this pearl,

more brilliant than all the pearls of the sea" (de Visser, p. 108).

The difficulty de Visser finds in regarding his own theory as wholly

satisfactory is, first, the red colour of the ball, and secondly, the

spiral pattern upon it. He explains the colour as possibly an attempt to

represent the pearl's lustre. But de Visser seems to have overlooked the

fact that red and rose-coloured pearls obtained from the conch-shell

were used in China and Japan.[170]

"The spiral is much used in delineating the sacred pearls of Buddhism,

so that it might have served also to design those of Taoism; although I

must acknowledge that the spiral of the Buddhist pearl goes upward,

while the spiral of the dragon is flat" (p. 103).

De Visser sums up the whole argument in these words:--

"These are, however, all mere suppositions. The only facts we know are:

the eager attitude of the dragons, ready to grasp and swallow the ball;

the ideas of the Chinese themselves as to the ball being the moon or a

pearl; the existence of a kind of sacred "moon-pearl"; the red colour of

the ball, its emitting flames and its spiral-like form. As the three

last facts are in favour of the thunder theory, I should be inclined to

prefer the latter. Yet I am convinced that the dragons do not _belch

out_ the thunder. If their trying to _grasp_ or _swallow_ the thunder

could be explained, I should immediately accept the theory concerning

the thunder-spiral, especially on account of the flames it emits. But I

do not see the reason why the god of thunder should persecute thunder

itself. Therefore, after having given the above facts that the reader

may take them into consideration, I feel obliged to say: 'non liquet'"

(p. 108).

It does not seem to have occurred to the distinguished Dutch scholar,

who has so lucidly put the issue before us, that his demonstration of

the fact of the ball being the pearl-moon about to be swallowed by the

dragon does not preclude it being also confused with the thunder.

Elsewhere in this volume I have referred to the origin of the spiral

symbolism and have shown that it became associated with the pearl

_before_ it became the symbol of thunder. The pearl-association in fact

was one of the links in the chain of events which made the pearl and

the spirally-coiled arm of the octopus the sign of thunder.[171]

It seems quite clear to me that de Visser's pearl-moon theory is the

true interpretation. But when the pearl-ball was provided with the

spiral, painted red, and given flames to represent its power of emitting

light and shining by night, the fact of the spiral ornamentation and of

the pearl being one of the surrogates of the thunder-weapon was

rationalized into an identification of the ball with thunder and the

light it was emitting as lightning. It is, of course, quite irrational

for a thunder-god to swallow his own thunder: but popular

interpretations of subtle symbolism, the true explanation of which is

deeply buried in the history of the distant past, are rarely logical and

almost invariably irrelevant.

In his account of the state of Brahmanism in India after the times of

the two earlier Vedas, Professor Hopkins[172] throws light upon the real

significance of the ball in the dragon-symbolism. "Old legends are

varied. The victory over Vritra is now expounded thus: Indra, who slays

Vritra, is the sun. Vritra is the moon, who swims into the sun's mouth

on the night of the new moon. The sun rises after swallowing him, and

the moon is invisible because he is swallowed. The sun vomits out the

moon, and the latter is then seen in the west, and increases again, to

serve the sun as food. In another passage it is said that when the moon

is invisible he is hiding in plants and waters."

This seems to clear away any doubt as to the significance of the ball.

It is the pearl-moon, which is both swallowed and vomited by the dragon.

The snake takes a more obtrusive part in the Japanese than in the

Chinese dragon and it frequently manifests itself as a god of the sea.

The old Japanese sea-gods were often female water-snakes. The cultural

influences which reached Japan from the south by way of Indonesia--many

centuries before the coming of Buddhism--naturally emphasized the

serpent form of the dragon and its connexion with the ocean.

But the river-gods, or "water-fathers," were real four-footed dragons

identified with the dragon-kings of Chinese myth, but at the same time

were strictly homologous with the Nâga Rajas or cobra-kings of India.

The Japanese "Sea Lord" or "Sea Snake" was also called

"Abundant-Pearl-Prince," who had a magnificent palace at the bottom of

the sea. His daughter ("Abundant-Pearl-Princess") married a youth whom

she observed, reflected in the well, sitting on a cassia tree near the

castle gate. Ashamed at his presence at her lying-in she was changed

into a _wani_ or crocodile (de Visser, p. 139), elsewhere described as a

dragon (_makara_). De Visser gives it as his opinion that the _wani_ is

"an old Japanese dragon, or serpent-shaped sea-god, and the legend is an

ancient Japanese tale, dressed in an Indian garb by later generations"

(p. 140). He is arguing that the Japanese dragon existed long before

Japan came under Indian influence. But he ignores the fact that at a

very early date both India and China were diversely influenced by

Babylonia, the great breeding place of dragons; and, secondly, that

Japan was influenced by Indonesia, and through it by the West, for many

centuries before the arrival of such later Indian legends as those

relating to the palace under the sea, the castle gate and the cassia

tree. As Aston (quoted by de Visser) remarks, all these incidents and

also the well that serves as a mirror, "form a combination not unknown

to European folk-lore".

After de Visser had given his own views, he modified them (on p. 141)

when he learned that essentially the same dragon-stories had been

recorded in the Kei Islands and Minahassa (Celebes). In the light of

this new information he frankly admits that "the resemblance of several

features of this myth with the Japanese one is so striking, that we may

be sure that the latter is of Indonesian origin." He goes further when

he recognizes that "probably the foreign invaders, who in prehistoric

times conquered Japan, came from Indonesia, and brought the myth with

them" (p. 141). The evidence recently brought together by W. J. Perry in

his book "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia" makes it certain that the

people of Indonesia in turn got it from the West.

An old painting reproduced by F. W. K. Müller,[173] who called de

Visser's attention to these interesting stories, shows Hohodemi (the

youth on the cassia tree who married the princess) returning home

mounted on the back of a crocodile, like the Indian Varuna upon the

_makara_ in a drawing reproduced by the late Sir George Birdwood.[174]

The _wani_ or crocodile thus introduced from India, _via_ Indonesia, is

really the Chinese and Japanese dragon, as Aston has claimed. Aston

refers to Japanese pictures in which the Abundant-Pearl-Prince and his

daughter are represented with dragon's heads appearing over their human

ones, but in the old Indonesian version they maintain their forms as

_wani_ or crocodiles.

The dragon's head appearing over a human one is quite an Indian motive,

transferred to China and from there to Korea and Japan (de Visser, p.

142), and, I may add, also to America.

[Since the foregoing paragraphs have been printed, the Curator of the

Liverpool Museum has kindly called my attention to a remarkable series

of Maya remains in the collection under his care, which were obtained in

the course of excavations made by Mr. T. W. F. Gann, M.R.C.S., an

officer in the Medical Service of British Honduras (see his account of

the excavations in Part II. of the 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of

Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution of Washington). Among them is a

pottery figure of a _wani_ or _makara_ in the form of an alligator,

equipped with diminutive deer's horns (like the dragon of Eastern Asia);

and its skin is studded with circular elevations, presumably meant to

represent the spots upon the star-spangled "Celestial Stag" of the

Aryans (p. 130). As in the Japanese pictures mentioned by Aston, a human

head is seen emerging from the creature's throat. It affords a most

definite and convincing demonstration of the sources of American

culture.]

The jewels of flood and ebb in the Japanese legends consist of the

pearls of flood and ebb obtained from the dragon's palace at the bottom

of the sea. By their aid storms and floods could be created to destroy

enemies or calm to secure safety for friends. Such stories are the

logical result of the identification of pearls with the moon, the

influence of which upon the tides was probably one of the circumstances

which was responsible for bringing the moon into the circle of the great

scientific theory of the life-giving powers of water. This in turn

played a great, if not decisive, part in originating the earliest belief

in a sky world, or heaven.

[137: "Precolumbian Representations of the Elephant in America,"

_Nature_, Nov. 25, 1915, p. 340; Dec. 16, 1915, p. 425; and Jan. 27,

1916, p. 593.]

[138: "History of Melanesian Society," Cambridge, 1914.]

[139: H. Beuchat, "Manuel d' Archéologie Américaine," 1912, p. 319.]

[140: "Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts," _Papers of

the Peabody Museum_, vol. iv., 1904.]

[141: _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. 40, 1908, p. 716.]

[142: "Die Tierbilder der mexikanischen und der Maya-Handschriften,"

_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. 42, 1910, pp. 75 and 77. In the

remarkable series of drawings from Maya and Aztec sources reproduced by

Seler in his articles in the _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, the _Peabody

Museum Papers_, and his monograph on the _Codex Vaticanus_, not only is

practically every episode of the dragon-myth of the Old World

graphically depicted, but also every phase and incident of the legends

from India (and Babylonia, Egypt and the Ægean) that contributed to the

building-up of the myth.]

[143: Compare Hopkins, "Religions of India," p. 94.]

[144: Herbert J. Spinden, "Maya Art," p. 62.]

[145: Seler, "Codex Vaticanus," Figs. 299-304.]

[146: See, for example, F. W. K. Müller, "Nang," _Int. Arch. f.

Ethnolog._, 1894, Suppl. zu Bd. vii., Taf. vii., where the mask of

_Ravana_ (a late surrogate of Indra in the _Ramayana_) reveals a

survival of the prototype of the Mexican designs.]

[147: Joyce, _op. cit._, p. 37.]

[148: For the incident of the stealing of the soma by Garuda, who in

this legend is the representative of Indra, see Hopkins, "Religions of

India," pp. 360-61.]

[149: "The Influence of Ancient Egyptian Civilization in the East and in

America," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 1916, Fig. 4, "The

Serpent-Bird".]

[150: Probably from about 300 B.C. to 700 A.D.]

[151: For information concerning Ea's "Goat-Fish," which can truly be

called the "Father of Dragons," as well as the prototype of the Indian

_makara_, the mermaid, the "sea-serpent," the "dolphin of Aphrodite,"

and of most composite sea-monsters, see W. H. Ward's "Seal Cylinders of

Western Asia," pp. 382 _et seq._ and 399 _et seq._; and especially the

detailed reports in de Morgan's _Mémoires_ (Délégation en Perse).]

[152: _Nature, op. cit., supra_.]

[153: Juan Martinez Hernández, "La Creación del Mundo segun los Mayas,"

Páginas Inéditas del MS. De Chumayel, _International Congress of

Americanists, Proceedings of the XVIII. Session_, London, 1912, p. 164.]

[154: From the folk-lore of America I have collected many interesting

variants of the Indra story and other legends (and artistic designs) of

the elephant. I hope to publish these in the near future.]

[155: _Peabody Museum Papers_, 1901.]

[156: See, for example, Wilfrid Jackson's "Shells as Evidence of the

Migration of Early Culture," pp. 50-66.]

[157: "Notes on the Maoris, etc.," _Journal of the Ethnological

Society_, vol. i., 1869, p. 368.]

[158: _Op. cit._, p. 231.]

[159: I quote this and the following paragraphs verbatim from Garrick

Mallery, "Picture Writing of the American Indians," _10th Annual Report,

1888-89, Bureau of Ethnology (Smithsonian Institute)_. p. 78.]

[160: _Op. cit._, pp. 35 _et seq._]

[161: See de Visser, p. 41.]

[162: There can be no doubt that the Chinese dragon is the descendant of

the early Babylonian monster, and that the inspiration to create it

probably reached Shensi during the third millennium B.C. by the route

indicated in my "Incense and Libations" (_Bull. John Rylands Library_,

vol. iv., No. 2, p. 239). Some centuries later the Indian dragon reached

the Far East via Indonesia and mingled with his Babylonian cousin in

Japan and China.]

[163: "Religious System of China," vol. iii., chap, xii., pp. 936-1056.]

[164: This paragraph is taken almost verbatim from de Visser, _op. cit._

pp. 59 and 60.]

[165: G. E. Gerini, "Researches on Ptolemy's Geography of Eastern Asia,"

_Asiatic Society's Monographs_, No. 1, 1909, p. 146.]

[166: De Visser, p. 102, and de Groot, vi., p. 1265, Plate XVIII. The

reference to "a range of mountains ... as a symbol of the world" recalls

the Egyptian representation of the eastern horizon as two hills between

which Hathor or her son arises (see Budge, "Gods of the Egyptians," vol.

ii., p. 101; and compare Griffith's "Hieroglyphs," p. 30): the same

conception was adopted in Mesopotamia (see Ward, "Seal Cylinders of

Western Asia," fig. 412, p. 156) and in the Mediterranean (see Evans,

"Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," pp. 37 _et seq._). It is a remarkable

fact that Sir Arthur Evans, who, upon p. 64 of his memoir, reproduces

two drawings of the Egyptian "horizon" supporting the sun's disk, should

have failed to recognize in it the prototype of what he calls "the horns

of consecration". Even if the confusion of the "horizon" with a cow's

horns was very ancient (for the horns of the Divine Cow supporting the

moon made this inevitable), this rationalization should not blind us as

to the real origin of the idea, which is preserved in the ancient

Egyptian, Babylonian, Cretan and Chinese pictures (see Fig. 26, facing

p. 188).]

[167: De Visser, p. 103.]

[168: P. 104. The Chinese triquetrum has a circle in the centre and five

or eight commas.]

[169: See on this my paper "The Origin of Early Siberian Civilization,"

now being published in the _Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester

Literary and Philosophical Society_.]

[170: Wilfrid Jackson, "Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of Early

Culture," p. 106.]

[171: I shall discuss this more fully in "The Birth of Aphrodite".]

[172: "Religions of India," p. 197.]

[173: "Mythe der Kei-Insulaner und Verwandtes," _Zeitsch. f.

Ethnologie_, vol. xxv., 1893, pp. 533 _et seq._]

[174: See Fig. 14.]

The Evolution of the Dragon.

The American and Indonesian dragons can be referred back primarily to

India, the Chinese and Japanese varieties to India and Babylonia. The

dragons of Europe can be traced through Greek channels to the same

ultimate source. But the cruder dragons of Africa are derived either

from Egypt, from the Ægean, or from India. All dragons that strictly

conform to the conventional idea of what such a wonder-beast should be

can be shown to be sprung from the fertile imagination of ancient Sumer,

the "great breeding place of monsters" (Minns).

But the history of the dragon's evolution and transmission to other

countries is full of complexities; and the dragon-myth is made up of

many episodes, some of which were not derived from Babylonia.

In Egypt we do not find the characteristic dragon and dragon-story. Yet

all of the ingredients out of which both the monster and the legends are

compounded have been preserved in Egypt, and in perhaps a more primitive

and less altered form than elsewhere. Hence, if Egypt does not provide

dragons for us to dissect, it does supply us with the evidence without

which the dragon's evolution would be quite unintelligible.

Egyptian literature affords a clearer insight into the development of

the Great Mother, the Water God, and the Warrior Sun God than we can

obtain from any other writings of the origin of this fundamental stratum

of deities. And in the three legends: The Destruction of Mankind, The

Story of the Winged Disk, and The Conflict between Horus and Set, it has

preserved the germs of the great Dragon Saga. Babylonian literature has

shown us how this raw material was worked up into the definite and

familiar story, as well as how the features of a variety of animals were

blended to form the composite monster. India and Greece, as well as more

distant parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia, and even America have

preserved many details that have been lost in the real home of the

monster.

In the earliest literature that has come down to us from antiquity a

clear account is given of the original attributes of Osiris. "Horus

comes, he recognizes his father in thee [Osiris], youthful in thy name

of 'Fresh Water'." "Thou art indeed the Nile, great on the fields at the

beginning of the seasons; gods and men live by the moisture that is in

thee." He is also identified with the inundation of the river. "It is

Unis [the dead king identified with Osiris] who inundates the land." He

also brings the wind and guides it. It is the breath of life which

raises the king from the dead as an Osiris. The wine-press god comes to

Osiris bearing wine-juice and the great god becomes "Lord of the

overflowing wine": he is also identified with barley and with the beer

made from it. Certain trees also are personifications of the god.

But Osiris was regarded not only as the waters upon earth, the rivers

and streams, the moisture in the soil and in the bodies of animals and

plants, but also as "the waters of life that are in the sky".

"As Osiris was identified with the waters of earth and sky, he may even

become the sea and the ocean itself. We find him addressed thus: 'Thou

art great, thou art green, in thy name of Great Green (Sea); lo, thou

art round as the Great Circle (Okeanos); lo, thou art turned about, thou

art round as the circle that encircles the Haunebu (Ægeans)."

This series of interesting extracts from Professor Breasted's "Religion

and Thought in Ancient Egypt" (pp. 18-26) gives the earliest Egyptians'

own ideas of the attributes of Osiris. The Babylonians regarded Ea in

almost precisely the same light and endowed him with identical powers.

But there is an important and significant difference between Osiris and

Ea. The former was usually represented as a man, that is, as a dead

king, whereas Ea was represented as a man wearing a fish-skin, as a

fish, or as the composite monster with a fish's body and tail, which was

the prototype of the Indian _makara_ and "the father of dragons".

In attempting to understand the creation of the dragon it is important

to remember that, although Osiris and Ea were regarded primarily as

personifications of the beneficent life-giving powers of water, as the

bringers of fertility to the soil and the givers of life and immortality

to living creatures, they were also identified with the destructive

forces of water, by which men were drowned or their welfare affected in

various ways by storms of sea and wind.

Thus Osiris or the fish-god Ea could destroy mankind. In other words the

fish-dragon, or the composite monster formed of a fish and an antelope,

could represent the destructive forces of wind and water. Thus even the

malignant dragon can be the homologue of the usually beneficent gods

Osiris and Ea, and their Aryan surrogates Mazdah and Varuna.

By a somewhat analogous process of archaic rationalization the sons

respectively of Osiris and Ea, the sun-gods Horus and Marduk, acquired a

similarly confused reputation. Although their outstanding achievements

were the overcoming of the powers of evil, and, as the givers of light,

conquering darkness, their character as warriors made them also powers

of destruction. The falcon of Horus thus became also a symbol of chaos,

and as the thunder-bird became the most obtrusive feature in the weird

anatomy of the composite Mesopotamian dragon and his more modern

bird-footed brood, which ranges from Western Europe to the Far East of

Asia and America.

That the sun-god derived his functions directly or indirectly from

Osiris and Hathor is shown by his most primitive attributes, for in "the

earliest sun-temples at Abusir, he appears as the source of life and

increase". "Men said of him: 'Thou hast driven away the storm, and hast

expelled the rain, and hast broken up the clouds'." Horus was in fact

the son of Osiris and Hathor, from whom he derived his attributes. The

invention of the sun-god was not, as most scholars pretend, an attempt

to give direct expression to the fact that the sun is the source of

fertility. That is a discovery of modern science. The sun-god acquired

his attributes secondarily (and for definite historical reasons) from

his parents, who were responsible for his birth.

The quotation from the Pyramid Texts is of special interest as an

illustration of one of the results of the assimilation of the idea of

Osiris as the controller of water with that of a sky-heaven and a

sun-god. The sun-god's powers are rationalized so as to bring them

into conformity with the earliest conception of a god as a power

controlling water.

Breasted attempts to interpret the statements concerning the storm and

rain-clouds as references to the enemies of the sun, who steal the

sky-god's eye, i.e., obscure the sun or moon.[175] The incident of

Horus's loss of an eye, which looms so large in Egyptian legends, is

possibly more closely related to the earliest attempts at explaining

eclipses of the sun and moon, the "eyes" of the sky. The obscuring of

the sun and moon by clouds is a matter of little significance to the

Egyptian: but the modern Egyptian _fellah_, and no doubt his

predecessors also, regard eclipses with much concern. Such events

excite great alarm, for the peasants consider them as actual combats

between the powers of good and evil.

In other countries where rain is a blessing and not, as in Egypt, merely

an unwelcome inconvenience, the clouds play a much more prominent part

in the popular beliefs. In the Rig-Veda the power that holds up the

clouds is evil: as an elaboration of the ancient Egyptian conception of

the sky as a Divine Cow, the Great Mother, the Aryan Indians regarded

the clouds as a herd of cattle which the Vedic warrior-god Indra (who in

this respect is the homologue of the Egyptian warrior Horus) stole from

the powers of evil and bestowed upon mankind. In other words, like

Horus, he broke up the clouds and brought rain.

The antithesis between the two aspects of the character of these ancient

deities is most pronounced in the case of the other member of this most

primitive Trinity, the Great Mother. She was the great beneficent giver

of life, but also the controller of life, which implies that she was the

death-dealer. But this evil aspect of her character developed only under

the stress of a peculiar dilemma in which she was placed. On a famous

occasion in the very remote past the great Giver of Life was summoned to

rejuvenate the ageing king. The only elixir of life that was known to

the pharmacopoeia of the times was human blood: but to obtain this

life-blood the Giver of Life was compelled to slaughter mankind. She

thus became the destroyer of mankind in her lioness _avatar_ as Sekhet.

The earliest known pictorial representation of the dragon (Fig. 1)

consists of the forepart of the sun-god's falcon or eagle united with

the hindpart of the mother-goddess's lioness. The student of modern

heraldry would not regard this as a dragon at all, but merely a gryphon

or griffin. A recent writer on heraldry has complained that, "in spite

of frequent corrections, this creature is persistently confused in the

popular mind with the _dragon_, which is even more purely

imaginary."[176] But the investigator of the early history of these

wonder-beasts is compelled, even at the risk of incurring the herald's

censure, to regard the gryphon as one of the earliest known tentative

efforts at dragon-making. But though the fish, the falcon or eagle, and

the composite eagle-lion monster are early known pictorial

representations of the dragon, good or bad, the serpent is probably more

ancient still (Fig. 2).