[302: It was adduced also by Tümpel and others before him.]

[303: or _Pteroceras_.]

[304: Jackson, _op. cit._, p. 38.]

[305: "Koptos," pp. 7-9, Pls. III. and IV.: for a discussion of the

significance of these statues see Jean Capart, "Les Débuts de l'Art en

Égypte," Brussels, 1904, p. 216 _et seq._]

[306: This may help to explain the peculiar sanctity of the shell.]

[307: Frazer, _op. cit._, 4.]

[308: Just as Hathor (or her surrogate Horus) turned men into the

creatures of Set, _i.e._ pigs, crocodiles, _et cetera_.]

[309: "Excavations at Saqqara," 1905-1906, p. 14.]

[310: Maspero, "The Dawn of Civilization," p. 34.]

[311: Saville, "Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador," 1907.]

[312: A detailed summary of the literature relating to the world-wide

distribution of certain phases of the dragon-myth is given by Frobenius,

"Das Zeitalter des Sonnesgottes," Berlin, 1904: on pp. 63-5 he gives the

Rata-myth.]

[313: Which can also be compared with the conventional form of the

thunderbolt.]

[314: Of course the hands had the additional significance as trophies of

her murderous zeal. But I think this is a secondary rationalization of

their meaning. An excellent photograph of a bronze statue (in the

Calcutta Art Gallery), representing Kali with her girdle of hands, is

given by Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie, "Indian Myth and Legend," p. xl.]

[315: F. T. Elworthy has summarized the extensive literature relating to

hand-amulets ("The Evil Eye," 1895; and "Horns of Honour," 1900). Many

of these hands have the definite reputation as fertility charms which

one would expect if Houssay's hypothesis of their derivation from the

octopus is well founded.]

The Swastika.

Houssay (_op. cit. supra_) has made the interesting suggestion that the

swastika may have been derived from such conventionalized

representations of the octopus as are shown in Fig. 23. This series of

sketches is taken from Tümpel's memoir, which provided the foundation

for Houssay's hypothesis.

[Illustration: Fig. 23.--A series of Mycenæan conventionalizations of

the Argonaut and the Octopus (after Tümpel), which provided the basis

for Houssay's theory of the origin of the triskele (_a_, _c_, and _d_)

and swastika (b and e), and Siret's theory to explain the design of

Bes's face (f and g)]

A vast amount of attention has been devoted to this lucky symbol,[316]

which still enjoys a widespread vogue at the present day, after a

history of several thousand years. Although so much has been written in

attempted explanation of the swastika since Houssay made his suggestion,

so far as I am aware no one has paid the slightest attention to his

hypothesis or made even a passing reference to his memoir.[317]

Fantastic and far-fetched though it may seem at first sight (though

surely not more so than the strictly orthodox solar theory advocated by

Mr. Cook or Mrs. Nuttall's astral speculations) Houssay's suggestion

offers an explanation of some of the salient attributes of the swastika

on which the alternative hypotheses shed little or no light.

Among the earliest known examples of the symbol are those engraved upon

the so-called "owl-shaped" (but, as Houssay has conclusively

demonstrated, really octopus-shaped) vases and a metal figurine found by

Schliemann in his excavations of the hill at Hissarlik.[318] The

swastika is represented upon the _mons Veneris_ of these figures, which

represent the Great Mother in her form as a woman or as a pot, which is

an anthropomorphized octopus, one of the avatars of the Great Mother.

The symbol seems to have been intended as a fertility amulet like the

cowry, either suspended from a girdle or depicted upon a pubic shield or

conventionalized fig-leaf.

Wherever it is found the swastika is supposed to be an amulet to confer

"good luck" and long life. Both this reputation and the association with

the female organs of reproduction link up the symbol with the cowry, the

_Pterocera_, and the octopus. It is clear then that the swastika has the

same reputation for magic and the same attributes and associations as

the octopus; and it may be a conventionalized representation of it, as

Houssay has suggested.

It must not be assumed that the identification of the swastika with the

Great Mother and her powers of giving life and resurrection

_necessarily_ invalidates the solar and astral theories recently

championed by Mr. Cook and Mrs. Nuttall respectively. I have already

called attention to the fact that the Sun-god derived his existence and

all his attributes from his mother. The whole symbolism of the Winged

Disk and the Wheel of the Sun and their reputation for life-giving and

destruction were adopted from the Great Mother. These well-established

facts should prepare us to recognize that the admission of the truth of

Houssay's suggestion would not necessarily invalidate the more widely

accepted solar significance of the swastika.

Tümpel called attention to the fact that, when they set about

conventionalizing the octopus, the Mycenæan artists often resorted to

the practice of representing pairs of "arms" as units and so making

four-limbed and three-limbed forms (Fig. 23), which Houssay regards as

the prototypes of the swastika and the triskele respectively. That such

a process may have played a part in the development of the symbol is

further suggested by the form of a Transcaucasian swastika found by

Rössler,[319] who assigns it to the Late Bronze or Early Iron Age. Each

of the four limbs is bifurcated at its extremity. Moreover they exhibit

the series of spots, so often found upon or alongside the limbs of the

symbol, which suggest the conventional way of representing the suckers

of the octopus in the Mycenæan designs (Fig. 23).

Another remarkable picture of a swastika-like emblem has been found in

America.[320] The elephant-headed god sits in the centre and four pairs

of arms radiate from him, each of them equipped with definite suckers.

Another possible way in which the design of a four-limbed swastika may

have been derived from an octopus is suggested by the gypsum weight

found in 1901 by Sir Arthur Evans[321] in the West Magazine of the

palace at Knossos (_circa_ 1500 B.C.). Upon the surface of this weight

the form of an octopus has been depicted, four of the arms of which

stand out in much stronger relief than the others.

The number four has a peculiar mystical significance (_vide infra_, p.

206) and is especially associated with the Sun-god Horus. This fact may

have played some part in the process of reduction of the number of limbs

of the octopus to four; or alternatively it may have helped to emphasize

the solar associations of the symbol, which other considerations were

responsible for suggesting. The designs upon the pots from Hissarlik

show that at a relatively early epoch the swastika was confused with the

sun's disc represented as a wheel with four spokes.[322] But the solar

attributes of the swastika are secondary to those of life-giving and

luck-bringing, with which it was originally endowed as a form of the

Great Mother.

The only serious fact which arouses some doubt as to the validity of

Houssay's theory is the discovery of an early painted vase at Susa

decorated with an unmistakable swastika. Edmond Pottier, who has

described the ceramic ware from Susa,[323] regards this pot as

Proto-Elamite of the earliest period. If Pottier's claim is justified we

have in this isolated specimen from Susa the earliest example of the

swastika. Moreover, it comes from a region in which the symbol was

supposed to be wholly absent.

This raises a difficult problem for solution. Is the Proto-Elamite

swastika the prototype of the symbol whose world-wide migrations have

been studied by Wilson (_op. cit. supra_)? Or is it an instance of

independent evolution? If it falls within the first category and is

really the parent of the early Anatolian swastikas, how is it to be

explained? Was the conventionalization of the octopus design much more

ancient than the earliest Trojan examples of the symbol? Or was the

Susian design adopted in the West and given a symbolic meaning which it

did not have before then?

These are questions which we are unable to answer at present because the

necessary information is lacking. I have enumerated them merely to

suggest that any hasty inferences regarding the bearing of the Susian

design upon the general problem are apt to be misleading. Vincent[324]

claims that the fact of the swastika having been in use by ceramic

artists in Crete and Susiana many centuries before the appearance of

Mycenæan art is fatal to Houssay's hypothesis. But I think it is too

soon to make such an assumption. The swastika was already a rigidly

conventionalized symbol when we first know it both in the Mediterranean

and in Susiana. It may therefore have a long history behind it. The

octopus may possibly have begun to play a part in the development of

this symbolism before the Egyptian Bes (_vide supra_, p. 171) was

evolved, perhaps even before the time of the Coptos statues of Min

(_supra_, p. 169), or in the early days of Sumerian history when the

conventional form of the water-pot was being determined (_infra_, p.

179). These are mere conjectures, which I mention merely for the purpose

of suggesting that the time is not yet ripe for using such arguments as

Vincent's finally to dispose of Houssay's octopus-theory.

There can be no doubt that the symbolism of the Mycenæan spiral and the

volute is closely related to the octopus. In fact, the evidence provided

by Minoan paintings and Mycenæan decorative art demonstrates that the

spiral as a symbol of life-giving was definitely derived from the

octopus. The use of the volute on Egyptian scarabs[325] and also in the

decoration of an early Thracian statuette of a nude goddess[326]

indicate that it was employed like the spiral and octopus as a

life-symbol.

In Spanish graves of the Early and Middle Neolithic types M. Siret found

cowry-shells in association with a series of flint implements, crude

idols, and pottery almost precisely reproducing the forms of similar

objects found with cowries and pecten shells at Hissarlik.[327] But when

the Æneolithic phase of culture dawned in Spain, and the Ægean

octopus-motif made its appearance there, the culture as a whole reveals

unmistakable evidence of a predominantly Egyptian inspiration.

M. Siret claims, however, that, even in the Neolithic phase in Spain,

the crude idols represent forms derived from the octopus in the Eastern

Mediterranean (p. 59 _et seq._). He regards the octopus as "a

conventional symbol of the ocean, or, more precisely, of the fertilizing

watery principle" (p. 19). He elucidates a very interesting feature of

the Æneolithic representation of the octopus in Spain. The spiral-motif

of the Ægean gives place to an angular design, which he claims to be due

to the influence of the conventional Egyptian way of representing water

(p. 40). If this interpretation is correct--and, in spite of the

slenderness of the evidence, I am inclined to accept it--it affords a

remarkable illustration of the effects of culture-contact in the

conventionalization of designs, to which Dr. Rivers has called

attention.[328] Whatever explanation may be provided of this method of

representing the arms of the octopus with its angularly bent

extremities, it seems to have an important bearing on Houssay's

hypothesis of the swastika's origin. For it would reveal the means by

which the spiral or volute shape of the limbs of the swastika became

transformed into the angular form, which is so characteristic of the

conventional symbol.[329]

The significance of the spiral as a form of the Great Mother inevitably

led to its identification with the thunder weapon, like all her other

surrogates. I have already referred (Chapter II, p. 98) to the

association of the spiral with thunder and lightning in Eastern Asia.

But other factors played a significant part in determining this

specialization. In Egypt the god Amen was identified with the ram; and

this creature's spirally curved horn became the symbol of the

thunder-god throughout the Mediterranean area,[330] and then further

afield in Europe, Africa, and Asia, where, for instance, we see Agni's

ram with the characteristic horn. This blending of the influence of the

octopus- and the ram's-horn-motifs made the spiral a conventional

representation of thunder. This is displayed in its most definite form

in China, Japan, Indonesia, and America, where we find the separate

spiral used as a thunder-symbol, and the spiral appendage on the side of

the head as a token of the god of thunder.[331]

[316: Thomas Wilson ("The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and its

Migrations; with Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in

Prehistoric Times," _Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1894_,

Washington, 1896) has given a full and well-illustrated summary of most

of the literature: further information is provided by Count d'Alviella

(_op. cit. supra_), "The Migration of Symbols"; by Zelia Nuttall ("The

Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations,"

_Archæological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum_,

Cambridge, Mass., 1901); and Arthur Bernard Cook ("Zeus, A Study in

Ancient Religion," Vol. I, Cambridge, 1914, pp. 472 _et seq._).]

[317: Since this has been printed Mr. W. J. Perry has called my

attention to a short article by René Croste ("Le Svastika," _Bull.

Trimestriel de la Société Bayonnaise d'Études Regionales_, 1918), in

which Houssay's hypothesis is mentioned as having been adopted by

Guilleminot ("Les Nouveaux Horizons de la Science").]

[318: Wilson (_op. cit._, pp. 829-33 and Figs. 125, 128, and 129) has

collected the relevant passages and illustrations from Schliemann's

writings.]

[319: _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd. 37, p. 148.]

[320: Seler, _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, Bd., 41, p. 409.]

[321: _Corolla Numismatica_, 1906, p. 342.]

[322: A. B. Cook, "Zeus," pp. 198 _et seq_.]

[323: "Etude Historique et Chronologique sur les Vases Peints de

l'Acropole de Suse," _Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse_, T. XIII,

_Rech. Archéol._, 5^e série, 1912, Plate XLI, Fig. 3.]

[324: "Canaan," p. 340, footnote.]

[325: Alice Grenfell, _Journal of Egyptian Archæology_, Vol. II, 1915,

p. 217: and _Ancient Egypt_, 1916, Part I, p. 23.]

[326: S. Reinach, _Revue Archéol._, T. XXVI, 1895, p. 369.]

[327: L. Siret, "Questions de Chronologie et d'Ethnographie Ibériques,"

1913, p. 18, Fig. 3.]

[328: Rivers, "History of Melanesian Society," Vol. II, p. 374; also

_Report Brit. Association_, 1912, p. 599.]

[329: M. Siret assigns the date of the appearance in Spain of the highly

conventionalized angular form of octopus to the time between the

fifteenth and the twelfth centuries B.C.; and he attributes it to

Phoenician influence (p. 63).]

[330: Cook, "Zeus," p. 346 _et seq._]

[331: This is well shown upon the Copan representations (Fig. 19) of the

elephant-headed god--see _Nature_, November, 25, 1915, p. 340.]

The Mother Pot.

In the lecture on "Incense and Libations" (Chapter I) I referred to the

enrichment of the conception of water's life-giving properties which the

inclusion of the idea of human fertilization by water involved. When

this event happened a new view developed in explanation of the part

played by woman in reproduction. She was no longer regarded as the real

parent of mankind, but as the matrix in which the seed was planted and

nurtured during the course of its growth and development. Hence in the

earliest Egyptian hieroglyphic writing the picture of a pot of water was

taken as the symbol of womanhood, the "vessel" which received the seed.

A globular water-pot, the common phonetic value of which is _Nw_ or

_Nu_, was the symbol of the cosmic waters, the god _Nw (Nu)_, whose

female counterpart was the goddess _Nut_.

In his report, "A Collection of Hieroglyphs,"[332] Mr. F. Ll. Griffith

discusses the bowl of water (a) and says that it stands for the female

principle in the words for _vulva_ and woman. When it is recalled that

the cowry (and other shells) had the same double significance, the

possibility suggests itself whether at times confusion may not have

arisen between the not very dissimilar hieroglyphic signs for "a shell"

(h) and "the bowl of water" (woman) (f).[333]

[Illustration: Fig. 6.

(a) Picture of a bowl of water--the hieroglyphic sign equivalent to _hm_

(the word _hmt_ means "woman")--Griffith, "Beni Hasan," Part III, Plate

VI, Fig. 88 and p. 29.

(b) "A basket of sycamore figs"--Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," Vol.

I, p. 323.

(c) and (d) are said by Wilkinson to be hieroglyphic signs meaning

"wife" and are apparently taken from (b). But (c) is identical with (i),

which, according to Griffith (p. 14), represents a bivalve shell (g,

from Plate III, Fig. 3), more usually placed obliquely (h). The varying

conventionalizations of (a) or (b) are shown in (d), (e), and (f)

(Griffith, "Hieroglyphics," p. 34).

(k) The sign for a lotus leaf, which is a phonetic equivalent of the

sign (h), and, according to Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 26), "is

probably derived from the same root, on account of its shell-like

outline".

(l) The hieroglyphic sign for a pot of water in such words as _Nu_

and _Nut_.

(m) A "pomegranate" (replacing a bust of Tanit) upon a sacred column at

Carthage (Arthur J. Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 46).

(n) The form of the body of an octopus as conventionalized on the coins

of Central Greece (compare Fig. 24 (d)). Its similarity to the Egyptian

pot-sign (l) (which also has the significance of mother-goddess) is

worthy of note.]

Referring to the sign (g and h) for "a shell," Mr. Griffith says (p.

25): "It is regularly found at all periods in the word _haw·t_ =

altar,[334] and perhaps only in this word: but it is a peculiarity of

the Pyramid Texts that the sign shown in the text-figures _c_, _h_,

and _i_ is in them used very commonly, not as a word-sign, but also

as a phonetic equivalent to the sign labelled _k_ (in the text-figure)

for _h'_ (_kha_), or apparently for _h_ alone in many words.

"The name of the lotus leaf is probably derived from the same root, on

account of its shell-like outline or _vice versa_."

[Illustration: Fig. 7.

(a) An Egyptian design representing the sun-god Horus emerging from a

lotus, representing his mother Hathor (Isis).

(b) Papyrus sceptre often carried by goddesses and animistically

identified with them either as an instrument of life-giving or

destruction.

(c) Conventionalized lily--the prototype of the trident and the

thunder-weapon.

(d) A water-plant associated with the Nile-gods.]

The familiar representation of Horus (and his homologues in India and

elsewhere) being born from the lotus suggests that the flower represents

his mother Hathor. But as the argument in these pages has led us towards

the inference that the original form of Hathor was a shell-amulet,[335]

it seems not unlikely that her identification with the lotus may have

arisen from the confusion between the latter and the cowry, which no

doubt was also in part due to the belief that both the shell and the

plant were expressions of the vital powers of the water in which they

developed.

The identification of the Great Mother with a pot was one of the factors

that played a part in the assimilation of her attributes with those of

the Water God, who in early Sumerian pictures was usually represented

pouring the life-giving waters from his pot (Fig. 24, _h_ and _l_).

[Illustration:

Fig. 24.

(a) and (b) Two Mycenæan pots (after Schliemann).

(a) The so-called "owl-shaped" vase is really a representation of the

Mother-Pot in the form of a conventionalized Octopus (Houssay).

(b) The other vase represents the Octopus Mother-Pot, with a jar upon

her head and another in her hands--a three-fold representation of the

Great Mother as a pot.

(c) A Cretan vase from Gournia in which the Octopus-motive is

represented as a decoration upon the pot instead of in its form.

(d), (e), (f), (g), and (h) A series of coins from Central Greece (after

Head) showing a series of conventionalizations of the Octopus, with its

pot-like body and palm-tree-like arms (f).

(i) _Sepia officinalis_ (after Tryon).

(k) and (l) The so-called "spouting vases" in the hands of the

Babylonian god Ea, from a cylinder seal of the time of Gudea, Patesi of

Tello, after Ward ("Seal Cylinders, etc.," p. 215).

The "spouting vases" have been placed in conjunction with the Sepia to

suggest the possibility of confusion with a conventionalized drawing of

the latter in the blending of the symbolism of the water-jar and

cephalopods in Western Asia and the Mediterranean.]

This idea of the Mother Pot is found not only in Babylonia, Egypt,

India,[336] and the Eastern Mediterranean, but wherever the influence of

these ancient civilizations made itself felt. It is widespread among the

Celtic-speaking peoples. In Wales the pot's life-giving powers are

enhanced by making its rim of pearls. But as the idea spread, its

meaning also became extended. At first it was merely a jug of water or a

basket of figs, but elsewhere it became also a witch's cauldron, the

magic cup, the Holy Grail, the font in which a child is reborn into the

faith, the vessel of water here being interpreted in the earliest sense

as the uterus or the organ of birth. The Celtic pot, so Mr. Donald

Mackenzie tells me, is closely associated with cows, serpents, frogs,

dragons, birds, pearls, and "nine maidens that blow the fire under the

cauldron"; and, if the nature of these relationships be examined, each

of them will be found to be a link between the pot and the Great Mother.

The witch's cauldron and the maidens who assist in the preparation of

the witch's medicine seem to be the descendants respectively of Hathor's

pots (in the story of the Destruction of Mankind) and the Sekti who

churn up the _didi_ and the barley with which to make the elixir of

immortality and the sedative draught for the destructive goddess

herself.

Mr. Donald Mackenzie has given me a number of additional references from

Celtic and Indian literature in corroboration of these widespread

associations of the pot with the Great Mother; and he reminds me that in

Oceania the coco-nut has the same reputation as the pot in the Indian

_Mahabharata_. It is the source of food and anything else that is

wanted, and its supply can never be exhausted. [On some future occasion

I hope to make use of the wonderful legends of the pot's life-giving

powers, to which Mr. Mackenzie has directed my attention. At present,

however, I must content myself with the statement that the pot's

identity with the Great Mother is deeply rooted in ancient belief

throughout the greater part of the world.[337]]

The diverse conceptions of the Great Mother as a pot and as an octopus

seem to have been blended in Mycenæan lands, where the so-called

"owl-shaped" pots were clearly intended to represent the goddess in both

these aspects united in one symbol. When the diffusion of these ideas

into more remote parts of the world took place syntheses with other

motives produced a great variety of most complex forms. In Honduras

pottery vessels have been found[338] which give tangible expression to

the blending of the ideas of the Mother Pot, the crocodile-like

_Makara_, star-spangled like Hathor's cow, Aphrodite's pig, and Soma's

deer, and provided with the deer's antlers of the Eastern Asiatic dragon

(see Chapter II, p. 103).

The New Testament sets forth the ancient conception of birth and

rebirth. When Nicodemus asks: "How can a man be born again when he is

old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" he

is told: "Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot

enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh:

and that which is born of the spirit is spirit" (John iii. 4, 5, and 6).

The phrase "born of water" refers to the birth "of the flesh"; and the

mother's womb is the vessel containing "the water" from which the new

life emerges. Plutarch states, with reference to the birth of Isis:

"[Greek: tetartê de tên Isin en panygrois genesthai]". The great waters

which produced all living things, the Egyptian god Nun and the goddess

Nut, were expressed in hieroglyphic as pots of water. The goddess was

identified with Hathor's celestial star-spangled cow, the original

mother of the sun-god; and the word "Nun" was a symbol of all that was

new, young, and fresh, and the fertilizing and life-giving waters of the

annual inundation of the Nile. Hathor was the daughter of these waters,

as Aphrodite was sprung from the sea-foam.

[332: _Archæol. Survey of Egypt_, 1898, p. 3.]

[333: Compare the two-fold meaning of the Latin _testa_ as "shell" and

"bowl".]

[334: Compare the association of shells with altars in Minoan Crete and

the widespread use of large shells as bowls for "holy water" in

Christian churches.]

[335: Miss Winifred M. Crompton, Assistant Keeper of the Egyptian

Department of the Manchester Museum, has called my attention to a

remarkable piece of evidence which affords additional corroboration of

the view that Hathor was a development of the cowry-amulet. Upon the

famous archaic palette of Narmer (Fig. 18), a sporran, composed of four

representations of Hathor's head, takes the place of the original

cowries that were suspended from more primitive girdles.

The cowries of the head ornament of primitive peoples of Africa and Asia

(and of the Mediterranean area in early times--Schliemann's "Ilios,"

Fig. 685) are often replaced in Egypt by lotus flowers (W. D. Spanton,

"Water Lilies of Egypt," _Ancient Egypt_, 1917, Part I, Figs. 19, 20,

and 21). Upon the head-band of the statue of Nefert, which I have

reproduced in Chapter I (Fig. 4), a conventional lotus design is found

(see Spanton's Fig. 19), which is almost identical with the classical

thunder-weapon.]

[336: Among the Dravidian people at the present day the seven goddesses

(corresponding to the seven Hathors) are often represented by seven

pots.]

[337: The luxuriant crop of stories of the Holy Grail was not inspired

originally by mere literary invention. A tradition sprung from the

fountain-head of all mythology, the parent-story of the Destruction of

Mankind, provided the materials which a series of writers elaborated

into the varied assortment of legends of the Mother Pot. The true

meaning of the Quest of the Holy Grail can be understood only by reading

the fabled accounts of it in the light of the ancient search for the

elixir of life and the historical development of the narrative

describing that search.

A concise summary of the Grail literature will be found in Jessie L.

Weston's "The Quest of the Holy Grail" (1913). Her theory will be found,

after some slight modifications, to fall into line with the general

argument of this book.

Mr. F. Ll. Griffith tells me that the Egyptian hieroglyphic for the verb

"coire cum" gives frank expression to the real meaning of the symbolism

of the pot as the matrix which receives the seed. The same idea provides

the material for the incident of the birth of Drona (the pot-born) in

the Adi Parva (Sections CXXXI, CXXXIX, and CLXVIII, in Roy's

translation) of the Mahabharata, to which Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie has

kindly called my attention. Drona was conceived in a pot from the seed

of a Rishi. A widespread variant of the same story is the conception of

a child from a drop of blood in a pot (see, for example, Hartland,

"Legend of Perseus," Vol. I, pp. 98 and 144). If the pot can thus create

a human being, it is easy to understand how it acquired its reputation

of being also able to multiply food and provide an inexhaustible supply.

Similarly, all substances, such as barley, rice, gold, pearls, and jade,

to which the possession of a special vital essence or "soul substance"

was attributed, were believed to be able to reproduce themselves and so

increase in quantity of their own activities. As "givers of life" they

were also able to add to their own life-substance, in other words to

grow like any other living being.]

[338: "An American Dragon," _Man_, November, 1918.]

Artemis and the Guardian of the Portal.

Sir Gardner Wilkinson states (see text-figure, p. 179, _b_) that "a

basket of sycamore figs" was originally the hieroglyphic sign for a

woman, a goddess, or a mother. Later on (p. 199) I shall refer to the

possible bearing of this Egyptian idea upon the origin of the Hebrew

word for mandrakes and the allusion to "a basket of figs" in the Book

of Jeremiah.

The life-giving powers attributed to "love-apples" and the association

of these ideas with the fig-tree may have facilitated the transference

of these attributes of "apples" to those actually growing upon a tree.

We know that Aphrodite was intimately associated, not only with

"love-apples," but also with real apples. The sun-god Apollo's connexion

with the apple-tree, which Dr. Rendel Harris, with great daring, wants

to convert into an identity of name, was probably only one of the

results of that long series of confusions between the Great Mother

(Hathor) and the Sun-god (Horus), to which I have referred in my

discussion of the dragon-story.

But when Apollo's form emerges more clearly he is associated not with

Aphrodite but with Artemis, whom Dr. Rendel Harris has shown to be

identified with the mugwort, _Artemisia_. The association of the goddess

with this plant is probably related to the identification of Sekhet with

the marsh-plants of the Egyptian Delta and of Hathor and Isis with the

lotus and other water plants. Any doubt as to the reality of these

associations and Egyptian connexions is banished by the evidence of

Artemis's male counterpart Apollo Hyakinthos and his relations to the

sacred lily and other water plants.[339] Artemis was a gynæcological

specialist: for she assisted women not only in childbirth and the

expulsion of the placenta, but also in cases of amenorrhoea and

affections of the uterus. She was regarded as the goddess of the portal,

not merely of birth,[340] but also of gold and treasure, of which she

possessed the key, and of the year (January).

This brings us back to the guardianship of gold and treasures which

plays so vital a part in the evolution of the Mediterranean goddesses.

For, like the story of the dog and the mandrake, it emphasizes the

conchological ancestry of these deities and their connexion with the

guardians of the subterranean palaces where pearls are found. But

Artemis was not only the opener of the treasure-houses, but she also

possessed the secret of the philosopher's stone: she could transmute

base substances into gold,[341] for was she not the offspring of the

Golden Hathor? To open the portal either of birth or wealth she used her

magic wand or key. As _Nub_, the lady of gold, the Great Mother could

not only change other substances into gold, but she was also the

guardian of the treasure house of gold, pearls, and precious stones.

Hence she could grant riches. Elsewhere in this chapter (p. 221) I shall

explain how the goddess came to be identified with gold.

Just as Hathor, the Eye of Re, descended to provide the elixir of youth

for the king who was the sun-god, so Artemis is described as

travelling through the air in a car drawn by two serpents[342] seeking

the most pious of kings in order that she might establish her cult with

him and bless him with renewed youth.[343]

Artemis was a moon-goddess closely related to Britomartis and Diktynna,

the Cretan prototype of Aphrodite. These goddesses afforded help to

women in childbirth and were regarded as guardians of the portal. The

goddess of streams and marshes was identified with the mugwort

(_Artemisia_), which was hung above the door in the place occupied at

other times by the winged disk, the thunder-stone, or a crocodile

(dragon). As the guardian of portals Artemis's magic plant could open

locks and doors. As the giver of life she could also withhold the vital

essence and so cause disease or death; but she possessed the means of

curing the ills she inflicted. Artemis, in fact, like all the other

goddesses, was a witch.

In former lectures[344] I have often discussed the remarkable feature of

Egyptian architecture, which is displayed in the tendency to exaggerate

the door-posts and lintels, until in the New Empire the great temples

become transformed into little more than monstrously overgrown doorways

or pylons. I need not emphasize again the profound influence exerted by

this line of development upon the Dravidian temples of India and the

symbolic gateways of China and Japan.

[Illustration: Fig. 25.

(a) Winged Disk from the Temple of Thothmes I.

(b) Persian design of Winged Disk above the Tree of Life (Ward, "Seal

Cylinders of Western Asia," Fig. 1109).

(c) Assyrian or Syro-Hittite design of the Winged Disk and Tree of Life

in an extremely conventionalized form (Ward, Fig. 1310).

(d) Assyrian conventionalized Winged Disk and Tree of Life, from the

design upon the dress of Assurnazipal (Ward, Fig. 670).

(e) Part of the design from a tablet of the time of Dungi (Ward, Fig.

663). The Tree of Life (or the Great Mother) between the two mountains:

alongside the tree is the heraldic eagle.

(f) Design on a Cretan sarcophagus from Hagia Triada (Blinkenberg, Fig.

9). The Tree of Life has now become the handle of the Double Axe, into

which the Winged Disk has been transformed. But the bird which was the

prototype of the Winged Disk has been added.

(g) Double axe from a gold signet from Acropolis Treasure, Mycenæ (after

Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," p. 10).

(h) Assyrian Winged Disk (Ward, Fig. 608) showing reduplication of the

wing-pattern, possibly suggesting the doubling of each axe-blade in _g_.

(i) "Primitive Chaldean Winged Gate" (Ward, Fig. 349). The Gate as the

Goddess of the Portal.

(k) Persian Winged Disk (Ward, Fig. 1144) above a fire-altar in the form

suggestive of the mountains of dawn (compare Fig. 26, _c_).

(l) An Assyrian Tree of Life and Winged Disk crudely conventionalized

(Ward, Fig. 695).

(m) Assyrian Tree of Life and "Winged Disk" in which the god is riding

in a crescent replacing the Disk (Ward, Fig. 695).]

This significance of gates was no doubt suggested by the idea that they

represented the means of communication between the living and the dead,

and, symbolically, the portal by which the dead acquired a rebirth into

a new form of existence. It was presumably for this reason that the

winged disk as a symbol of life-giving, was placed above the lintels of

these doors, not merely in Egypt, Phoenicia, the Mediterranean Area, and

Western Asia, but also in America,[345] and in modified forms in India,

Indonesia, Melanesia, Cambodia, China, and Japan.

The discussion (Chapter II) of the means by which the winged disk came

to acquire the power of life-giving, "the healing in its wings," will

have made it clear that the sun became accredited with these virtues

only when it assumed the place of the other "Eye of Re," the Great

Mother. In fact, it was a not uncommon practice in Egypt to represent

the eyes of Re or of Horus himself in place of the more usual winged

disk. In the Ægean area the original practice of representing the Great

Mother was retained long after it was superseded in Egypt by the use of

the winged disk (the sun-god).

Over the lintel of the famous "Lion Gate" at Mycenæ, instead of the

winged disk, we find a vertical pillar to represent the Mother Goddess,

flanked by two lions which are nothing more than other representatives

of herself (Fig. 26). [Illustration: Fig. 26.

(a) An Egyptian picture of Hathor between the mountains of the horizon

(on which trees are growing) (after Budge, "Gods of the Egyptians," Vol.

II, p. 101). [This is a part only of a scene in which the goddess Nut is

giving birth to the sun, whose rays illuminate Hathor on the horizon, as

Sothis, the "Opener of the Way" for the sun.]

(b) The mountains of the horizon supporting a cow's head as a surrogate

of Hathor, from a stele found at Teima in Northern Arabia, now in the

Louvre (after Sir Arthur Evans, _op. cit._, p. 39). This indicates the

identity of what Evans calls "the horns of consecration" and the

"mountains of the horizon," and also suggests how confusion may have

arisen between the mountains and the cow's horns.

(c) The Mesopotamian sun-god Shamash rising between the Eastern

Mountains, the Gates of Dawn (Ward, _op. cit._, p. 373).

(d) The familiar Egyptian representation of the sun rising between the

Eastern Mountains (the splitting of the mountain giving birth to "the

ridiculous mouse"--Smintheus). The _ankh_ (life-sign) below the sun is

the determinative of the act of giving birth or life. The design is

heraldically supported by the Great Mother's lionesses.

(e) Part of the design from a Mycenæan vase from Old Salamis (after

Evans, p. 9). The cow's head and the Eastern Mountains are shown

alongside one another, each of them supporting the Double Axe

representing the god.

(f) Part of the design from a lentoid gem from the Idæan Cave, now in

the Candia Museum (after Evans, Fig. 25). If this design be compared

with the Egyptian picture (a), it will be seen that Hathor's place is

taken by the tree-form of the Great Mother, and the trees which in the

former (a) are growing upon the Eastern Mountains are now placed

alongside the "horns". In the complete design (_vide_ Evans, _op. cit._,

p. 44) a votary is represented blowing a conch-shell trumpet to animate

the deity in the sacred tree.

(g) The Eastern Mountains supporting the pillar-form of the goddess

(after Evans, Fig. 66).

(h) Another Mycenæan design comparable with (e).

(i) Design from a signet-ring from Mycenæ (after Evans, Fig. 34). If

this be compared with the Egyptian picture (a) it will be noted that the

Great Mother is now replaced by a tree: the Eastern Mountains by bulls,

from whose backs the trees of the Eastern Mountains are sprouting. This

design affords interesting corroboration of the suggestion that the

Eastern Mountains may be confused with the cow's head (see _b_ and _c_)

or with the cow itself. Newberry (_Annals of Archæology and

Anthropology_, Liverpool, Vol. I, p. 28) has called attention to the

intimate association (in Protodynastic Egypt) of the Eastern Mountains,

the Bull and the Double Axe--a certain token of cultural contact

with Crete.

(k) The famous sculpture above the Lion Gate at Mycenæ. The pillar form

of the Great Mother heraldically supported by her lioness-avatars, which

correspond to the cattle of the design (i) and the Eastern Mountains of

(a). The use of this design above the lintel of the gate brings it into

homology with the Winged Disk. The Pillar represents the Goddess, as the

Disk represents her Egyptian _locum tenens_, Horus; her destructive

representatives (the lionesses) correspond to the two uræi of the Winged

Disk design.]

In his "Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult," Sir Arthur Evans has shown that

all possible transitional forms can be found (in Crete and the Ægean

area) between the representation of the actual goddess and her

pillar-and tree-manifestations, until the stage is reached where the sun

itself appears above the pillar between the lions.[346] In the large

series of seals from Mesopotamia and Western Asia which have been

described in Mr. William Hayes Ward's monograph,[347] we find manifold

links between both the Egyptian and the Minoan cults.

The tree-form of the Great Mother there becomes transformed into the

"tree of life" and the winged disk is perched upon its summit. Thus we

have a duplication of the life-giving deities. The "tree of life" of the

Great Mother surmounted by the winged disk which is really her surrogate

or that of the sun-god, who took over from her the power of life-giving

(Figs. 25 and 26).

In an interesting Cretan sarcophagus from Hagia Triada[348] the

life-giving power is _tripled_. There is not only the tree representing

the Great Mother herself; but also the double axe (the winged-disk

homologue of the sun-god); and the more direct representation of him as

a bird perched upon the axe (Fig. 25, _f_).

The identification of the Great Mother with the tree or pillar seems

also to have led to her confusion with the pestle with which the

materials for her draught of immortality was pounded. She was also the

bowl or mortar in which the pestle worked.[349]

As the Great Mother became confused with the pestle, so, "the

Soma-plant, whose stalks are crushed by the priests to make the

Soma-libation, becomes in the _Vedas_ itself the Crusher or Smiter, by a

very characteristic and frequent Oriental conceit in accordance with

which the agent and the person or thing acted on are identified".[350]

"The pressing-stones by means of which Soma is crushed typify

thunderbolts." "In the _Rig-Veda_, we read of him [Soma] as

_jyotihrathah_, _i.e._ 'mounted on a car of light' (IX, 5, 86, verse

43); or again: 'Like a hero he holds weapons in his hand ... mounted on

a chariot' (IX, 4, 76, verse 2)"--(p. 171).

"Soma was the giver of power, of riches and treasures, flocks and herds,

but above all, the giver of immortality" (p. 140).

Sir Arthur Evans is of opinion "that in the case of the Cypriote

cylinders the attendant monsters and, to a certain extent, the symbolic

column itself, are taken from an Egyptian solar cycle, and the inference

has been drawn that the aniconic pillars among the Mycenæans of Cyprus

were identified with divinities having some points in common with the

sun-gods Ra, or Horus, and Hathor, the Great Mother" (_op. cit._, pp. 63

and 64).

In attempting to find some explanation of how the tree or pillar of the

goddess came to be replaced in the Indian legend by Mount Meru, the

possibility suggests itself whether the aniconic form of the Great

Mother placed between two relatively diminutive hills may not have

helped, by confusion, to convert the cone itself into a yet bigger hill,

which was identified with Mount Meru, the summit of which in other

legends produced the _amrita_ of the gods, either in the form of the

soma plant that grew upon its heights, or the rain clouds which

collected there. But, as the subsequent argument will make clear, the

real reason for the identification of the Great Mother with a mountain

was the belief that the sun was born from the splitting of the eastern

mountain, which thus assumed the function of the sun-god's mother.

Possibly the association of the tops of mountains with cloud- and

rain-phenomena and the gods that controlled them played some part in

the development of the symbolism of mountains. [When I referred (in

Chapter II, p. 98) to the fact that what Sir Arthur Evans calls "the

horns of consecration" was primarily the split mountain of the dawn, I

was not aware that Professor Newberry ("Two Cults of the Old Kingdom,"

_Annals of Archæology and Anthropology_, Liverpool, Vol. I, 1908, p. 28)

had already suggested this identification.]

In the Egyptian story the god Re instructed the Sekti of Heliopolis to

pound the materials for the food of immortality. In the Indian version,

the gods, aware of their mortality, desired to discover some elixir

which would make them immortal. To this end, Mount Meru [the Great

Mother] was cast into the sea [of milk]. Vishnu, in his second avatar as

a tortoise[351] supported the mountain on his back; and the Nâga serpent

Vasuki was then twisted around the mountain, the gods seizing its head

and the demons his tail twirled the mountain until they had churned the

amrita or water of life. Wilfrid Jackson has called attention to the

fact that this scene has been depicted, not only in India and Japan, but

also in the Precolumbian _Codex Cortes_ drawn by some Maya artist in

Central America.[352]

The horizon is the birthplace of the gods; and the birth of the deity is

depicted with literal crudity as an emergence from the portal between

its two mountains. The mountain splits to give birth to the sun-god,

just as in the later fable the parturient mountain produced the

"ridiculous mouse" (Apollo Smintheus). The Great Mother is described as

giving birth--"the gates of the firmament are undone for Teti himself at

break of day" [that is when the sun-god is born on the horizon]. "He

comes forth from the Field of Earu" (Egyptian Pyramid Texts--Breasted's

translation).

In the domain of Olympian obstetrics the analogy between birth and the

emergence from the door of a house or the gateway of a temple is a

common theme of veiled reference. Artemis, for instance, is a goddess of

the portal, and is not only a helper in childbirth, but also grows in

her garden a magical herb which is capable of opening locks. This

reputation, however, was acquired not merely by reason of her skill in

midwifery, but also as an outcome of the legend[353] of the

treasure-house of pearls which was under the guardianship of the great

"giver of life" and of which she kept the magic key. She was in fact

the feminine form of Janus, the doorkeeper who presided over all

beginnings, whether of birth, or of any kind of enterprise or new

venture, or the commencement of the year (like Hathor). Janus was the

guardian of the door of Olympus itself, the gate of rebirth into the

immortality of the gods.

The ideas underlying these conceptions found expression in an endless

variety of forms, material, intellectual, and moral, wherever the

influence of civilization made itself felt. I shall refer only to one

group of these expressions that is directly relevant to the

subject-matter of this book. I mean the custom of suspending or

representing the life-giving symbol above the portal of temples and

houses. Thus the plant peculiar to Artemis herself, the mugwort or

Artemisia, was hung above the door,[354] just as the winged disk was

sculptured upon the lintel, or the thunder-stone was placed above the

door of the cowhouse[355] to afford the protection of the Great Mother's

powers of life-giving to her own cattle.

In the Pyramid Texts the rebirth of a dead pharaoh is described with

vivid realism and directness. "The waters of life which are in the sky

come. The waters of life which are in the earth come. The sky burns for

thee, the earth trembles for thee, before the birth of the god. The two

hills are divided, the god comes into being, the god takes possession of

his body. The two hills are divided, this Neferkere comes into being,

this Neferkere takes possession of his body. Behold this Neferkere--his

feet are kissed by the pure waters which are from Atum, which the

phallus of Shu made, which the vulva of Tefnut brought into being. They

have come, they have brought for thee the pure waters from their

father."[356]

The Egyptians entertained the belief[357] that the sun-god was born of

the celestial cow Mehetweret, a name which means "Great Flood," and

is the equivalent of the primeval ocean Nun. In other words the

celestial cow Hathor, the embodiment of the life-giving waters of heaven

and earth, is the mother of Horus. So also Aphrodite was born of the

"Great Flood" which is the ocean.

In his report upon the hieroglyphs of Beni Hasan,[358] Mr. Griffith

refers to the picture of "a woman of the marshes," which is read

_sekht_, and is "used to denote the goddess Sekhet, the goddess of the

marshes, who presided over the occupations of the dwellers there. Chief

among these occupations must have been the capture of fish and fowl and

the culture and gathering of water-plants, especially the papyrus and

the lotus". Sekhet was in fact a rude prototype of Artemis in the

character depicted by Dr. Rendel Harris.[359]

It is perhaps not without significance that the root of a marsh plant,

the _Iris pseudacorus_[360] is regarded in Germany as a luck-bringer

which can take the place of the mandrake.[361]

The Great Mother wields a magic wand which the ancient Egyptian scribes

called the "Great Magician". It was endowed with the two-fold powers of

life-giving and opening, which from the beginning were intimately

associated the one with the other from the analogy of the act of birth,

which was both an opening and a giving of life. Hence the "magic wand"

was a key or "opener of the ways," wherewith, at the ceremonies of

resurrection, the mouth was opened for speech and the taking of food, as

well as for the passage of the breath of life, the eyes were opened for

sight, and the ears for hearing. Both the physical act of opening (the

"key" aspect) as well as the vital aspect of life-giving (which we may

call the "uterine" aspect) were implied in this symbolism. Mr. Griffith

suggests that the form of the magic wand may have been derived from that

of a conventionalized picture of the uterus,[362] in its aspect as a

giver of life. But it is possible also that its other significance as an

"opener of the ways" may have helped in the confusion of the

hieroglyphic uterus-symbol with the key-symbol, and possibly also with

double-axe symbol which the vaguely defined early Cretan Mother-Goddess

wielded. For, as we have already seen (_supra_, p. 122), the axe also

was a life-giving divinity and a magic wand (Fig. 8).

[Illustration: Fig. 8.

(a) "Ceremonial forked object," or "magic wand," used in the ceremony of

"opening the mouth," possibly connected with (b) (a bicornuate uterus),

according to Griffith ("Hieroglyphics," p. 60).

(c) The Egyptian sign for a key.

(d) The double axe of Crete and Egypt.]

In his chapter on "the Origin of the Cult of Artemis," Dr. Rendel Harris

refers to the reputation of Artemis as the patron of travellers, and to

Parkinson's statement: "It is said of Pliny that if a traveller binde

some of the hearbe [Artemisia] with him, he shall feele no weariness at

all in his journey" (p. 72). Hence the high Dutch name _Beifuss_ is

applied to it.

The left foot of the dead was called "the staff of Hathor" by the

Egyptians; and the goddess was said "to make the deceased's legs to

walk".[363]

It was a common practice to tie flowers to a mummy's feet, as I

discovered in unwrapping the royal mummies. According to Moret (_op.

cit._) the flowers of Upper and Lower Egypt were tied under the king's

feet at the celebration of the Sed festival.

Mr. Battiscombe Gunn (quoted by Dr. Alan Gardiner) states that the

familiar symbol of life known as the _ankh_ represents the string of a

sandal.[364]

It seems to be worth considering whether the symbolism of the

sandal-string may not have been derived from the life-girdle, which in

ancient Indian medical treatises was linked in name with the female

organs of reproduction and the pubic bones. According to Moret (_op.

cit._, p. 91) a girdle furnished with a tail was used as a sign of

consecration or attainment of the divine life after death. Jung (_op.

cit._, p. 270), who, however, tries to find a phallic meaning in all

symbolism, claims that reference to the foot has such a significance.

[339: Evans, _op. cit._, p. 50.]

[340: Her Latin representative, Diana, had a male counterpart and

conjugate, Dianus, _i.e._ Janus, of whom it was said: "Ipse primum Janus

cum puerperium concipitur ... aditum aperit recipiendo semini". For

other quotations see Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p. 88 and the article

"Janus" in Roscher's "Lexikon".]

[341: Rendel Harris, p. 73.]

[342: No doubt the two uræi of the Saga of the Winged Disk.]

[343: A. B. Cook, "Zeus," Vol. I, p. 244.]

[344: _Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society_, 1916.]

[345: "The Influence of Egyptian Civilization in the East and in

America," _Bulletin of the John Rylands Library_, 1916.]

[346: Evans's, Fig. 41, p. 63.]

[347: "The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," 1910.]

[348: Paribeni, "Monumenti antichi dell'accademia dei Lincei," XIX,

punt. 1, pll. 1-3; and V. Duhn, "Arch. f. Religionswissensch.," XII, p.

161, pll. 2-4; quoted by Blinkenberg, "The Thunder Weapon," pp. 20 and

21, Fig. 9.]

[349: Without just reason, many writers have assumed that the pestle,

which was identified with the handle used in the churning of the ocean

(see de Gubernatis, "Zoological Mythology," Vol II, p. 361), was a

phallic emblem. This meaning may have been given to the handle of the

churn at a later period, when the churn itself was regarded as the

Mother Pot or uterus; but we are not justified in assuming that this was

its primary significance.]

[350: Gladys M. N. Davis, "The Asiatic Dionysos," p. 172.]

[351: The tortoise was the vehicle of Aphrodite also and her

representatives in Central America.]

[352: Jackson, "Shells, etc.," pp. 57 _et seq._]

[353: _Vide supra_, p. 158.]

[354: Rendel Harris, "The Ascent of Olympus," p. 80. In the building up

of the idea of rebirth the ancients kept constantly before their minds a

very concrete picture of the actual process of parturition and of the

anatomy of the organs concerned in this physiological process. This is

not the place to enter into a discussion of the anatomical facts

represented in the symbolism of the "giver of life" presiding over the

portal and the "two hills" which are divided at the birth of the deity:

but the real significance of the primitive imagery cannot be wholly

ignored if we want to understand the meaning of the phraseology used by

the ancient writers.]

[355: Blinkenberg, "The Thunder-weapon," p. 72.]

[356: Aylward M. Blackman, "Sacramental Ideas and Usages in Ancient

Egypt," _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, March,

1918, p. 64.]

[357: _Op. cit._, p. 60.]

[358: "Archæol. Survey of Egypt," 5th Memoir, 1896, p. 31.]

[359: See especially _op. cit._, p. 35, the goddess of streams and

marshes, who was also herself "the mother plant," like the mother of

Horus.]

[360: Whose cultural associations with the Great Mother in the Eastern

Mediterranean littoral has been discussed by Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenæan

Tree and Pillar Cult," pp. 49 _et seq._ Compare also _Apollo hyakinthos_

as further evidence of the link with Artemis.]

[361: P. J. Veth, "Internat. Arch. f. Ethnol.," Bd. 7, pp. 203 and 204.]

[362: "Hieroglyphics," p. 60.]

[363: Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," Vol. I, pp. 436 and 437.]

[364: Alan Gardiner, "Life and Death (Egyptian)," Hastings'

_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_.]

The Mandrake.

We have now given reasons for believing that the personification of the

mandrake was in some way brought about by the transference to the plant

of the magical virtues that originally belonged to the cowry shell.

The problem that still awaits solution is the nature of the process by

which the transference was effected.

When I began this investigation the story of the Destruction of Mankind

(see Chapter II) seemed to offer an explanation of the confusion.

Brugsch, Naville, Maspero, Erman, and in fact most Egyptologists, seemed

to be agreed that the magical substance from which the Egyptian elixir

of life was made was the mandrake. As there was no hint[365] in the

Egyptian story of the derivation of its reputation from the fancied

likeness to the human form, its identification with Hathor seemed to be

merely another instance of those confusions with which the pathway of

mythology is so thickly strewn. In other words, the plant seemed to have

been used merely to soothe the excited goddess: then the other

properties of "the food of the gods," of which it was an ingredient,

became transferred to the mandrake, so that it acquired the reputation

of being a "giver of life" as well as a sedative. If this had been true

it would have been a simple process to identify this "giver of life"

with the goddess herself in her rôle as the "giver of life," and her

cowry-ancestor which was credited with the same reputation.

But this hypothesis is no longer tenable, because the word _d'd'_

(variously transliterated _doudou_ or _didi_), which Brugsch[366] and

his followers interpreted as "mandragora," is now believed to have

another meaning.

In a closely reasoned memoir, Henri Gauthier[367] has completely

demolished Brugsch's interpretation of this word. He says there are

numerous instances of the use of _d'd'_ (which he transliterates

_doudouiou_) in the medical papyri. In the Ebers papyrus "_doudou_

d'Eléphantine broyé" is prescribed as a remedy for external application

in diseases of the heart, and as an astringent and emollient dressing

for ulcers. He says the substance was brought to Elephantine from the

interior of Africa and the coasts of Arabia.

Mr. F. Ll. Griffith informs me that Gauthier's criticism of the

translation "mandrakes" is undoubtedly just: but that the substance

referred to was most probably "red ochre" or "hæmatite".[368]

The relevant passage in the Story of the Destruction of Mankind (in Seti

I's tomb) will then read as follows: "When they had brought the red

ochre, the Sekti of Heliopolis pounded it, and the priestesses mixed the

pulverized substance with the beer, so that the mixture resembled human

blood".

I would call special attention to Gauthier's comment that the

blood-coloured beer "had _some magical and marvellous property which is

unknown to us_".[369]

In his dictionary Brugsch considered the determinative [Symbol: circle

over three vertical lines] to refer to the fruits of a tree which he

called "apple tree," on the supposed analogy with the Coptic [jiji

(janja iota janja iota)], _fructus autumnalis_, _pomus_, the Greek

[Greek: opôra]; and he proposed to identify the supposed fruit, then

transliterated _doudou_, with the Hebrew _doudaïm_, and translate it

_poma amatoria_, mandragora, or in German, _Alraune_. This

interpretation was adopted by most scholars until Gauthier raised

objections to it.

As Loret and Schweinfurth have pointed out, the mandrake is not found in

Egypt, nor in fact in any part of the Nile Valley.[370]

But what is more significant, the Greeks translated the Hebrew

_duda'im_ by [Greek: mandragoras] and the Copts did not use the

word [Coptic: jiji] in their translations, but either the Greek word or

a term referring to its sedative and soporific properties. Steindorff

has shown (_Zeitsch. f. Ægypt. Sprache_, Bd. XXVII, 1890, p. 60) that

the word in dispute would be more correctly transliterated "_didi_"

instead of "_doudou_".

Finally, in a letter Mr. Griffith tells me the identification of _didi_

with the Coptic [Coptic: jiji], "apple (?)" is philologically

impossible.

Although this red colouring matter is thus definitely proved not to be

the fruit of a plant, there are reasons to suggest that when the story

of the Destruction of Mankind spread abroad--and the whole argument of

this book establishes the fact that it did spread abroad--the substance

_didi_ was actually confused in the Levant with the mandrake. We have

already seen that in the Delta a prototype of Artemis was already

identified with certain plants.

In all probability _didi_ was originally brought into the Egyptian

legend merely as a surrogate of the life-blood, and the mixture of which

it was an ingredient was simply a restorer of youth to the king. But the

determinative (in the tomb of Seti I)--a little yellow disc with a red

border, which misled Naville into believing the substance to be yellow

berries--may also have created confusion in the minds of ancient

Levantine visitors to Egypt, and led them to believe that reference was

being made to their own yellow-berried drug, the mandrake. Such an

incident might have had a two-fold effect. It would explain the

introduction into the Egyptian story of the sedative effects of _didi_,

which would easily be rationalized as a means of soothing the maniacal

goddess; and in the Levant it would have added to the real properties of

mandrake[371] the magical virtues which originally belonged to _didi_

(and blood, the cowry, and water).

In my lecture on "Dragons and Rain Gods" (Chapter II) I explained that

the Egyptian story of the Destruction of Mankind is merely one version

of a saga of almost world-wide currency. In many of the non-Egyptian

versions[372] the rôle of _didi_ in the Egyptian story is taken by some

_vegetable_ product of a _red_ colour; and many of these versions reveal

a definite confusion between the red fruit and the red clay, thus

proving that the confusion of _didi_ with the mandrake is no mere

hypothetical device to evade a difficulty on my part, but did actually

occur.

In the course of the development of the Egyptian story the red clay from

Elephantine became the colouring matter of the Nile flood, and this in

turn was rationalized as the blood or red clay into which the bodies of

the slaughtered enemies of Re were transformed,[373] and the material

out of which the new race of mankind was created.[374] In other words,

the new race was formed of _didi_. There is a widespread legend that the

mandrake also is formed from the substance of dead bodies[375] often

represented as innocent or chaste men wrongly killed, just as the red

clay was the substance of mankind killed to appease Re's wrath, "the

blood of the slaughtered saints".[376]

But the original belief is found in a more definite form in the ancient

story that "the mandrake was fashioned out of the same earth whereof God

formed Adam".[377] In other words the mandrake was part of the same

substance as the earth _didi_.[378]

Further corroboration of this confusion is afforded by a story from

Little Russia, quoted by de Gubernatis.[379] If bryony (a widely

recognized surrogate of mandrake) be suspended from the girdle all the

dead Cossacks (who, like the enemies of Re in the Egyptian story, had

been killed and broken to pieces in the earth) will come to life again.

_Thus we have positive evidence of the homology of the mandrake with red

clay or hæmatite._

The transference to the mandrake of the properties of the cowry (and the

goddesses who were personifications of the shell) and blood (and its

surrogates) was facilitated by the manifold homologies of the Great

Mother with plants. We have already seen that the goddess was identified

with: (a) incense-trees and other trees, such as the sycamore, which

played some definite part in the burial ceremonies, either by providing

the divine incense, the materials for preserving the body, or for making

coffins to ensure the protection of the dead, and so make it possible

for them to continue their existence; and (b) the lotus, the lily, the

iris, and other marsh plants,[380] for reasons that I have already

mentioned (p. 184).

The Babylonian poem of Gilgamesh represents one of the innumerable

versions of the great theme which has engaged the attention of writers

in every age and country attempting to express the deepest longings of

the human spirit. It is the search for the elixir of life. The object of

Gilgamesh's search is a magic _plant_ to prolong life and restore youth.

The hero of the story went on a voyage by water in order to obtain what

appears to have been a marsh plant called _dittu_.[381] The question

naturally arises whether this Babylonian story and the name of the plant

played any part in Palestine in blending the Egyptian and Babylonian

stories and confusing the Egyptian elixir of life, the red earth _didi_,

with the Babylonian elixir, the plant _dittu_?

In the Babylonian story a serpent-demon steals the magic plant, just as

in India _soma_, the food of immortality, is stolen. In Egypt Isis

steals Re's name,[382] and in Babylonia the Zu bird steals the tablets

of destiny, the _logos_. In Greek legend apples are stolen from the

garden of Hesperides. Apples are surrogates of the mandrake and _didi_.

We have now seen that the mandrake is definitely a surrogate (a) of the

cowry and a series of its shell-homologues, and (b) of the red substance

in the Story of the Destruction of Mankind.

There still remain to be determined (i) the means by which the mandrake

became identified with the goddess, (ii) the significance of the Hebrew

word _duda-im_, and (iii) the origin of the Greek word

_mandragora_.

The answer to the first of these three queries should now be obvious

enough. As the result of the confusion of the life-giving magical

substance _didi_ with the sedative drug, mandrake, the latter acquired

the reputation of being a "giver of life" and became identified with

_the_ "giver of life," the Great Mother, the story of whose exploits was

responsible for the confusion.

The erroneous identification of _didi_ with the mandrake was originally

suggested by Brugsch from the likeness of the word (then transliterated

_doudou_) with the Hebrew word _duda-im_ in Genesis, usually

translated "mandrakes". I have already quoted the opinion of Gauthier

and Griffith as to the error of such identification. But the evidence

now at our disposal seems to me to leave no doubt as to the reality of

the confusion of the Egyptian red substance with the mandrake. This

naturally suggests the possibility that the similarity of the sounds of

the words _may_ have played some part in creating the confusion: but it

is impossible to admit this as a factor in the development of the story,

because the Hebrew word probably arose out of the identification of the

mandrake with the Great Mother and not by any confusion of names. In

other words the similarity of the names of these homologous substances

is a mere coincidence.

Dr. Rendel Harris claims (and Sir James Frazer seems to approve of the

suggestion) that the Hebrew word _duda-im_ was derived from

_dodim_, "love"; and, on the strength of this derivation, he soars

into a lofty flight of philological conjecture to transmute

_dodim_, into _Aphrodite_, "love" into the "goddess of love". It

would be an impertinence on my part to attempt to follow these

excursions into unknown heights of cloudland.

But my colleagues Professor Canney and Principal Bennett tell me that

the derivation of _duda-im_ from _dodim_ is improbable;

and the former authority suggests that _duda-im_ may be merely

the plural of _dud_, a "pot".[383] Now I have already explained how a

pot came to symbolize a woman or a goddess, not merely in Egypt, but

also in Southern India, and in Mycenæan Greece, and, in fact, the

Mediterranean generally.[384] Hence the use of the term _dud_ for the

mandrake implies either (a) an identification of the plant with the

goddess who is the giver of life, or (b) an analogy between the form of

the mandrake-fruit and a pot, which in turn led to it being called a

pot, and from that being identified with the goddess.[385]

I should explain that when Professor Canney gave me this statement he

was not aware of the fact that I had already arrived at the conclusion

that the Great Mother was identified with a pot and also with the

mandrake; but in ignorance of the meaning of the Hebrew words I had

hesitated to equate the pot with the mandrake. As soon as I received his

note, and especially when I read his reference to the second meaning,

"basket of figs," in Jeremiah, I recalled Mr. Griffith's discussion of

the Egyptian hieroglyphic ("a pot of water") for woman, wife, or

goddess, and the claim made by Sir Gardner Wilkinson that this manner of

representing the word for "wife" was apparently taken from a

conventionalized picture of "a basket of sycamore figs".[386] The

interpretation has now clearly emerged that the mandrake was called

_duda'im_ by the Hebrews because it was identified with the

Mother Pot. The symbolism involved in the use of the Hebrew word also

suggests that the inspiration may have come from Egypt, where a woman

was called "a pot of water" or "a basket of figs".

When the mandrake acquired the definite significance as a symbol of the

Great Mother and the power of life-giving, its fruit, "the love apple,"

became the quintessence of vitality and fertility. The apple and the

pomegranate became surrogates of the "love apple," and were graphically

represented in forms hardly distinguishable from pots, occupying places

which mark them out clearly as homologues of the Great Mother

herself.[387]

But once the mandrake was identified with the Great Mother in the Levant

the attributes of the plant were naturally acquired from her local

reputation there. This explains the pre-eminently conchological aspect

of the magical properties of the mandrake and the bryony.

I shall not attempt to refer in detail to the innumerable stories of red

and brown apples, of rowan berries, and a variety of other red fruits

that play a part in the folk-lore of so many peoples, such as _didi_

played in the Egyptian myth. These fruits can be either elixirs of life

and food of the gods, or weapons for overcoming the dragon as Hathor

(Sekhet) was conquered by her sedative draught.[388]

In his account of the peony, Pliny ("Nat. Hist.," Book XXVIII, Chap. LX)

says it has "a stem two cubits in length, accompanied by two or three

others, and of a reddish colour, with a bark like that of the laurel ...

the seed is enclosed in capsules, _some being red_ and some black ... it

has an _astringent taste_. The leaves of the female plant _smell like

myrrh_". Bostock and Riley, from whose translation I have made this

quotation, add that in reality the plant is destitute of smell. In the

Ebers papyrus _didi_ was mixed with incense in one of the

prescriptions;[389] and in the Berlin medical papyrus it was one of the

ingredients of a fumigation used for treating heart disease. If my

contention is justified, it may provide the explanation of how the

confusion arose by which the peony came to have attributed to it a

"smell like myrrh".

Pliny proceeds: "Both plants [_i.e._ male and female] grow in the woods,

and they should always be taken up at night, it is said; as it would be

dangerous to do so in the day-time, the woodpecker of Mars being sure to

attack the person so engaged.[390] It is stated also that the person,

while taking up the root, runs great risk of being attacked with

[prolapsus ani].... Both plants are used[391] for various purposes: the

red seed, taken in red wine, about fifteen in number, arrest

menstruation; while the black seed, taken in the same proportion, in

either raisin or other wine, are curative of diseases of the uterus." I

refer to these red-coloured beverages and their therapeutic use in

women's complaints to suggest the analogy with that other red drink

administered to the Great Mother, Hathor.

In his essay, "Jacob and the Mandrakes,"[392] Sir James Frazer has

called attention to the homologies between the attributes of the peony

and the mandrake and to the reasons for regarding the former as Aelian's

_aglaophotis_.

Pliny states ("Nat. Hist.," Book XXIV, Chap. CII) that the

_aglaophotis_ "is found growing among the marble quarries of Arabia, on

the side of Persia," just as the Egyptian _didi_ was obtained near the

granite quarries at Aswan. "By means of this plant [aglaophotis],

according to Democritus, the Magi can summon the deities into their

presence when they please, "just as the users of the conch-shell trumpet

believed they could do with this instrument. I have already (p. 196)

emphasized the fact that all of these plants, mandrake, bryony, peony,

and the rest, were really surrogates of the cowry, the pearl, and the

conch-shell. The first is the ultimate source of their influence on

womankind, the second the origin of their attribute of _aglaophotis_,

and the third of their supposed power of summoning the deity. The

attributes of some of the plants which Pliny discusses along with the

peony are suggestive. Pieces of the root of the _achaemenis_ (? perhaps

_Euphorbia antiquorum_ or else a night-shade) taken in wine, torment the

guilty to such an extent in their dreams as to extort from them a

confession of their crimes. He gives it the name also of "hippophobas,"

it being an especial object of terror to mares. The complementary story

is told of the mandrake in mediæval Europe. The decomposing tissues of

the body of an innocent victim on the gallows when they fall upon the

earth can become reincarnated in a mandrake--the _main de gloire_ of old

French writers.

Then there is the plant _adamantis_, grown in Armenia and

Cappadocia, which when _presented to a lion makes the beast fall upon

its back_, and drop its jaws. Is this a distorted reminiscence of the

lion-manifestation of Hathor who was calmed by the substance _didi_? A

more direct link with the story of the destruction of mankind is

suggested by the account of the _ophiusa_, "which is found in

Elephantine, an island of Ethiopia". This plant is of a livid colour,

and hideous to the sight. Taken by a person in drink, it inspires such a

horror of serpents, which his imagination continually represents as

menacing him that he commits suicide at last: hence it is that persons

guilty of sacrilege are compelled to drink an infusion of it (Pliny,

"Nat. Hist.," XXIV, 102). I am inclined to regard this as a variant of

the myth of the Destruction of Mankind in which the "snake-plant" from

Elephantine takes the place of the uræi of the Winged Disk Saga, and

punishes the act of sacrilege by driving the delinquent into a state of

delirium tremens.

The next problem to be considered is the derivation of the word

_mandragora_. Dr. Mingana tells me it is a great puzzle to discover any

adequate meaning. The attempt to explain it through the Sanskrit _mand_,

"joy," "intoxication," or _mantasana_, "sleep," "life," or _mandra_,

"pleasure," or _mantara_, "paradise tree," and _agru_, "unmarried,

violently passionate," is hazardous and possibly far-fetched.

The Persian is _mardumgiah_, "man-like plant".

The Syro-Arabic word for it is _Yabrouh_, Aramaic _Yahb-kouh_, "giver of

life". This is possibly the source of the Chinese _Yah-puh-lu_ (Syriac

_ya-bru-ha_) and _Yah-puh-lu-Yak_. The termination _Yak_ is merely the

Turanian termination meaning "diminutive".

The interest of the Levantine terms for the mandrake lies in the fact

that they have the same significance as the word for pearl, _i.e._

"giver of life". This adds another argument (to those which I have

already given) for regarding the mandrake as a surrogate of the pearl.

But they also reveal the essential fact that led to the identification

of the plant with the Mother-Goddess, which I have already discussed.

In Arabic the mandrake is called _abou ruhr_, "father of life," _i.e._

"giver of life".[393]

In Arabic _margan_ means "coral" as well as "pearl". In the

Mediterranean area coral is explained as a new and marvellous plant

sprung from the petrified blood-stained branches on which Perseus hung

the bleeding head of Medusa. Eustathius ("Comment. ad Dionys. Perieget."

1097) derives [Greek: koralion] from [Greek: korê], personifying the

monstrous virgin: but Chæroboscos claims that it comes from [Greek:

korê] and [Greek: alion], because it is a maritime product used to make

ornaments for maidens. In any case coral is a "giver of life" and as

such identified with a maiden,[394] as the most potential embodiment of

life-giving force. But this specific application of the word for "giver

of life" was due to the fact that in all the Semitic languages, as well

as in literary references in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts, this phrase was

understood as a reference to the female organs of reproduction. The

same _double entendre_ is implied in the use of the Greek word for "pig"

and "cowry," these two surrogates of the Great Mother, each of which can

be taken to mean the "giver of life" or the "pudendum muliebre".

Perhaps the most plausible suggestion that has been made as to the

derivation of the word "mandragora" is Delâtre's claim[395] that it is

compounded of the words _mandros_, "sleep," and _agora_, "object or

substance," and that mandragora means "the sleep-producing substance".

This derivation is in harmony with my suggestion as to the means by

which the plant acquired its magical properties. The sedative substance

that, in the Egyptian hieroglyphs (of the Story of the Destruction of

Mankind), was represented by yellow spheres with a red covering was

confused in Western Asia with the yellow-berried plant which was known

to have sedative properties. Hence the plant was confused with the

mineral and so acquired all the magical properties of the Great Mother's

elixir. But the Indian name is descriptive of the actual properties of

the plant and is possibly the origin of the Greek word.

Another suggestion that has been made deserves some notice. It has been

claimed that the first syllable of the name is derived from the Sanskrit

_mandara_, one of the trees in the Indian paradise, and the instrument

with which the churning of the ocean was accomplished.[396] The mandrake

has been claimed to be the tree of the Hebrew paradise; and a connexion

has thus been instituted between it and the _mandara_. This hypothesis,

however, does not offer any explanation of how either the mandrake or

the _mandara_ acquired its magical attributes. The Indian tree of life

was supposed to "sweat" _amrita_ just as the incense trees of Arabia

produce the divine life-giving incense.

But there are reasons[397] for the belief that the Indian story of the

churning of the sea of milk is a much modified version of the old

Egyptian story of the pounding of the materials for the elixir of life.

The _mandara_ churn-stick, which is often supposed to represent the

phallus,[398] was originally the tree of life, the tree or pillar which

was animated by the Great Mother herself.[399] So that the _mandara_ is

homologous with the _mandragora_. But so far as I am aware, there is no

adequate reason for deriving the latter word from the former.

The derivation from the Sanskrit words _mandros_ and _agora_ seems to

fit naturally into the scheme of explanation which I have been

formulating.

In the Egyptian story the Sekti of Heliopolis pounded the _didi_ in a

mortar to make "the giver of life," which by a simple confusion might be

identified with the goddess herself in her capacity as "the giver of

life". This seems to have occurred in the Indian legend. Lakshmi, or

Sri, was born at the churning of the ocean. Like Aphrodite, who was born

from the sea-foam churned from the ocean, Lakshmi was the goddess of

beauty, love, and prosperity.

Before leaving the problems of mandrake and the homologous plants and

substances, it is important that I should emphasize the rôle of blood

and blood-substitutes, red-stained beer, red wine, red earth, and red

berries in the various legends. These life-giving and death-dealing

substances were all associated with the colour red, and the destructive

demons Sekhet and Set were given red forms, which in turn were

transmitted to the dragon, and to that specialized form of the dragon

which has become the conventional way of representing Satan.

[The whole of the mandrake legend spread to China and became attached to

the plants _ginseng_ and _shang-luh_--see de Groot, Vol. II, p. 316 _et

seq._; also Kumagusu Minakata, _Nature_, Vol. LI, April 25, 1895, p.

608, and Vol. LIV, Aug. 13, 1896, p. 343. The fact that the Chinese

make use of the Syriac word _yabruha_ (_vide supra_) suggests the source

of these Chinese legends.]

[365: As Maspero has specifically mentioned ("Dawn of Civilization," p.

166).]

[366: "Die Alraune als altägyptische Zauberpflanze," _Zeitsch. f. Ægypt.

Sprache_, Bd. XXIX, 1891, pp. 31-3.]

[367: "Le nom hiéroglyphique de l'argile rouge d'Eléphantine," _Revue

Égyptologique_, XI^e Vol., Nos. i.-ii., 1904, p. 1.]

[368: It is quite possible that the use of the name "hæmatite" for this

ancient substitute for blood may itself be the result of the survival of

the old tradition.]

[369: It is very important to keep in mind the two distinct properties

of _didi_: (a) its magical life-giving powers, and (b) its sedative

influence.]