The Evolution of the Dragon Part 23

[273: In Eastern Asia (see, for example, s.h.i.+nji Nis.h.i.+mura, "The Hisago-Bune," Tokio, 1918, published by the Tokio Society of Naval Architects, p. 18, where the dragon is identified with the _wani_, which can be either a crocodile or a shark); in Oceania (L. Frobenius, "Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes," Bd. I., 1904, and C. E. Fox and F. H. Drew, "Beliefs and Tales of San Cristoval," _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, Vol. XLV, 1915, p. 140); and in America (see Thomas Gann, "Mounds in Northern Honduras," _Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, 1897-8, Part II, p. 661) the dragon a.s.sumes the form of a shark, a crocodile, or a variety of other animals.]

[274: Sir Arthur Evans, "Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult," _op. cit.

supra_: W. Hayes Ward, "The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," _op. cit._: and Robertson Smith, "The Religion of the Semites," p. 133: "In Hadramant it is still dangerous to touch the sensitive mimosa, because the spirit that resides in the plant will avenge the injury". When men interfere with the incense trees it is reported: "the demons of the place flew away with doleful cries in the shape of white serpents, and the intruders died soon afterwards".]

[275: _Vide supra_, p. 38.]

[276: In Western mythology the dragon guarding the fruit-bearing tree of life is also identified with the Mother of Mankind (Campbell, "Celtic Dragon Myth," pp. xli and 18). Thus the tree and its defender are both surrogates of the Great Mother. When Eve ate the apple from the tree of Paradise she was committing an act of cannibalism, for the plant was only another form of herself. Her "sin" consisted in aspiring to attain the immortality which was the exclusive privilege of the G.o.ds. This incident is a.n.a.logous to that found in the Indian tales where mortals steal the _amrita_. By Eve's sin "death came into the world" for the paradoxical reason that she had eaten the food of the G.o.ds which gives immortality. The punishment meted out to her by the Almighty seems to have been to inhibit the life-giving and birth-facilitating action of the fruit of immortality, so that she and all her progeny were doomed to be mortal and to suffer the pangs of child-bearing.

There was a widespread belief among the ancients that ceremonies in connexion with the G.o.ds must (to be efficacious) be done in the reverse of the usual human way (Hopkins, "Religions of India," p. 201). So also an act which gives immortality to the G.o.ds, brings death to man.

The full realization of the fact that man was mortal imposed upon the early theologians the necessity of explaining the immortality of the G.o.ds. The elixir of life was the food of the G.o.ds that conferred eternal life upon them. By one of those paradoxes so dear to the maker of myths this same elixir brought death to man.]

[277: Bohn's Edition, 1855, Vol. II, p. 433.]

[278: A Cretan scene depicts a man attacking a dog-headed sea-monster (Mackenzie, _op. cit._, "Myths of Crete," p. 139).]

[279: A number of versions of this widespread fable have been collected by Dr. Rendel Harris (_op. cit._) and Sir James Frazer (_op. cit._). I quote here from the former (p. 118).]

[280: Josephus, "Bell. Jud.," VII, 6, 3, quoted by Rendel Harris, _op.

cit._, p. 118.]

[281: The dog-star became a.s.sociated with Hathor for reasons which are explained on p. 209. It was "the opener of the Way" for the birth of the sun and the New Year.]

[282: When Artemis acquired the reputation as a huntress and her deer became her quarry the dog was rationalized into the new scheme.]

[283: See, for example, Moret's "Mysteres egyptiens," pp. 77-80.]

[284: "Psyche," p. 244.]

[285: See, for example, Jung, _op. cit._, p. 268.]

[286: Nekhebit, the Egyptian Vulture G.o.ddess, was identified by the Greeks with Eileithyia, the G.o.ddess of birth (Wiedemann, "Religion of the Ancient Egyptians," p. 141). She was usually represented as a vulture hovering over the king. Her place can be taken by the falcon of Horus or in the Babylonian story of Etana by the eagle. In the Indian Mahabharata the Garuda is described as "the bird of life ... destroyer of all, creator of all".]

[287: Quoted by Jung, _op. cit._, p. 530.]

[288: See Rendel Harris (_op. cit._) and Sir James Frazer (_op. cit._).]

[289: Jackson, _op. cit._]

[290: An interesting rationalization (of which Mr. T. H. Pear has kindly reminded me) of this ancient Oriental belief is still alive amongst British women. It is maintained that pearls "lose their l.u.s.tre" unless they are worn in contact with the skin. This of course is a pure myth, but also an illuminating survival.]

[291: See Frazer, _op. cit._, p. 16, especially the references to the "devil's candle" and "the lamp of the elves".]

[292: Rendel Harris, _op. cit._, p. 113: Other factors played a part in the development of this legend of opening up treasure-houses. Both Artemis and Hecate are a.s.sociated with a magical plant capable of opening locks and helping the process of birth. Artemis is a G.o.ddess of the portal and her life-giving symbol in a mult.i.tude of varied forms is found appropriately placed above the lintel of doors.]

[293: Jackson, _op. cit._, p. 195.]

The Octopus.

Aphrodite was a.s.sociated not only with the cowry, the pearl, and the mandrake, but also with the octopus, the argonaut, and other cephalopods. Tumpel seems to imagine that the identification of the G.o.ddess with the argonaut and the octopus necessarily excludes her a.s.sociation with molluscs; and Dr. Rendel Harris attributes an equally exclusive importance to the mandrake. But in such methods of argument due recognition is not given to the outstanding fact in the history of primitive beliefs. The early philosophers built up their great generalizations in the same way as their modern successors. They were searching for some explanation of, or a working hypothesis to include, most diverse natural phenomena within a concise scheme. The very essence of such attempts was the inst.i.tution of a series of h.o.m.ologies and fancied a.n.a.logies between dissimilar objects. Aphrodite was at one and the same time the personification of the cowry, the conch sh.e.l.l, the purple sh.e.l.l, the pearl, the lotus, and the lily, the mandrake and the bryony, the incense tree and the cedar, the octopus and the argonaut, the pig, and the cow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 21.--(a) A slate triad found by Professor G. A.

Reisner in the temple of the Third Pyramid at Giza. It shows the Pharaoh Mycerinus supported on his right side by the G.o.ddess Hathor, represented as a woman with the moon and the cow's horns upon her head, and on the left side by a nome G.o.ddess, bearing upon her head the jackal-symbol of her nome.

(b) The Ecuador Aphrodite. Bas-relief from Cerro Jaboncillo (after Saville, "Antiquities of Manabi, Ecuador," Preliminary Report, 1907, Plate x.x.xVIII).

A grotesque composite monster intended to represent a woman (compare Saville's Plates x.x.xV, x.x.xVI, and x.x.xIX), whose head is a conventionalized Octopus, whose body is a _Loligo_, and whose limbs are human.]

Every one of these identifications is the result of a long and chequered history, in which fancied resemblances and confusion of meaning play a very large part. But I cannot too strongly repudiate the claim made by Sir James Frazer that such events are merely so many evidences of the innate human tendency to personify nature. The history of the arbitrary circ.u.mstances that were responsible for the development of each one of these h.o.m.ologies is entirely fatal to this wholly unwarranted speculation.[294] Tumpel claims[295] the Aphrodite was a.s.sociated more especially with "a species of _Sepia_". He refers to the attempts to a.s.sociate the G.o.ddess of love with amulets of univalvular sh.e.l.ls "in virtue of a certain peculiar and obscene symbolism".[296] Naturalists, however, designate with the term _Venus Cytherea_ certain gaping bivalve molluscs.

But, according to Tumpel (p. 386), neither univalvular nor bivalve sh.e.l.ls can be regarded as a real part of the G.o.ddess's cultural equipment. There is no representation of Aphrodite coming in a sh.e.l.l from across the sea.[297] The truly sacred Aphrodite-sh.e.l.l was entirely different, so Tumpel believes: it was obviously difficult to preserve, but for that reason more worthy of notice, for the small [Greek: choirinai] (pectines), virginalia marina (Apuleius de mag. 34, 35, and in reference thereto, Isidor. origg. 9, 5, 24) or spuria ([Greek: sporia]) were only the commoner and more readily obtained surrogates: the univalvular sh.e.l.ls.

([Greek: monothyra] of Aristotle), such as those just mentioned, and the other [Greek: ostrea] of Aphrodite, the Nerites (periwinkles, etc.), the purple sh.e.l.l and the Echines were also real Veneriae conchae. Among the Nerites Aelian enumerates (N.A. 14, 28): [Greek: Aphroditen de syndiaitomenen en te thalatte hesthenai te to Nerite tode kai echein auton philon]. On account of their supposed medicinal value in cases of abortion and especially as a prophylactic for pregnant women the [Greek: Echeneis] (pure Latin re[mi]mora) was called [Greek: odinolyte][298]

(Pliny, 32, 1, 5: pisciculus!). According to Mutia.n.u.s (Pliny, 9, 25 (41), 79 f.), it was a species of purple sh.e.l.l, but larger than the true _Murex purpura_. From this the sanct.i.ty of the Echines to the Cnidian Aphrodite is demonstrated: "quibus (conchis) inhaerentibus plenam ventis stetisse navem portantem Periandro, ut castrarentur n.o.bilis pueros, conchasque, quae id praest.i.terint, apud Cnidiorum Venerem coli" (Pliny).

Tumpel then (p. 387) accuses Stephani of being mistaken in his interpretation of Martial's Cytheriacae (Epign. II, 47, 1 = purple sh.e.l.ls) as the amulets of Aphrodite, and claims that Jahn has given the correct solution of the following pa.s.sages from Pliny (N.H., 9, 33 [52], 103, compare 32, 11 [53]): "navigant ex his (conchis) veneriae, praebentesque concavam sui partem et aurae opponentes per summa aequorum velificant"; and further (9, 30[49], 94): "in Propontide concham esse acatii modo carinatam inflexa puppe, prora rostrata, in hac condi nauplium animal saepiae simile ludendi societate sola, duobus hoc fieri generibus: tranquillum enim vectorem demissis palmulis ferire ut remis; si vero flatus invitet, easdem in usu gubernaculi porrigi pandique buccarum sinus aurae".

Tumpel claims (pp. 387 and 388) that this quotation settles the question. Aphrodite's "sh.e.l.l," according to him, is the _Nauplius_ (depicted as a sh.e.l.l-fish, with its sail-like palmulae spread out to the wind, but with the same sails flattened into plate-like arms for steering), clearly "a species of _Sepia_," wholly like Aphrodite herself, a s.h.i.+p-like sh.e.l.l-fish sailing over the surface of the water, the concha veneria. [The a.n.a.logy to a s.h.i.+p bearing the Great Mother is extremely ancient and originally referred to the crescent moon carrying the moon-G.o.ddess across the heavenly ocean.]

Elsewhere (p. 399) he discusses the reasons for the connexion of Aphrodite with the "nautilus," by which is meant the argonaut of zoologists.

But if Jahn and Tumpel have thus clearly established the proof of the intimate a.s.sociation of Aphrodite with certain cephalopods, they are wholly unjustified in the a.s.sumption that their quotations from relatively modern authors disprove the reality of the equally close (though more ancient) relations.h.i.+p of the G.o.ddess to the cowry, the pearl-sh.e.l.l, the trumpet-sh.e.l.l, and the purple-sh.e.l.l.

It must not be forgotten that, as we have already seen, the primitive sh.e.l.l-cults of the Erythraean Sea had been diffused throughout the Mediterranean area long before Aphrodite was born upon the sh.o.r.es of the Levant, and possibly before Hathor came into existence in the south. The use of the cowry and gold models of the cowry goes back to an early time in aegean history.[299] And the influence of Aphrodite's early a.s.sociations had become blurred and confused by the development of new links with other sh.e.l.ls and their surrogates.

But the connexion of Aphrodite with the octopus and its kindred played a very obtrusive part in Minoan and Mycenaean art; and its influence was spread abroad as far as Western Europe[300] and towards the East as far as America. In many ways it was a factor in the development of such artistic designs as the spiral and the volute, and not improbably also of the swastika.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 22.--(a) _Sepia officinalis_, after Tryon, "Cephalopoda".

(b) _Loligo vulgaris_, after Tryon.

(c) The position usually adopted by the resting Octopus, after Tryon.]

Starting from the researches of Tumpel, a distinguished French zoologist, Dr. Frederic Houssay,[301] sought to demonstrate that the cult of Aphrodite was "based upon a pre-existing zoological philosophy".

The argument in support of his claim that Aphrodite was a personification of the octopus must be sharply differentiated into two parts: first, the reality of the a.s.sociation of the octopus with the G.o.ddess, of which there can be no doubt; and secondly, his explanation of it, which (however popular it may be with cla.s.sical writers and modern scholars)[302] is not only a gratuitous a.s.sumption, but also, even if it were based upon more valid evidence than the speculations of such recent writers as Pliny, would not really carry the explanation very far.

I refer to his claim that "les premiers conquerants de la mer furent induits en veneration du poulpe nageur (octopus) parce qu'ils crurent que quelque-uns de ces cephalopodes, les poulpes sacres (argonauta) avaient, comme eux et avant eux, invente la navigation" (_op. cit._, p.

15). Idle fancies of this sort do not help us to understand the arbitrary beliefs concerning the magical powers of the octopus.

The real problem we have to solve is to discover why, among all the mult.i.tude of bizarre creatures to be found in the Mediterranean Sea, the octopus and its allies should thus have been singled out for distinctive appreciation, and also acquired the same remarkable attributes as the cowry.

I believe that the Red Sea "Spider sh.e.l.l," _Pterocera_,[303] was the link between the cowry and the octopus. This sh.e.l.l was used, like the cowry, for funerary purposes in Egypt and as a trumpet in India.[304]

But it was also depicted upon a series of remarkable primitive statues of the G.o.d Min, which were found at Coptos during the winter 1893-4 by Professor Flinders Petrie.[305] Some of these objects are now in the Cairo Museum and the others in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. They are supposed to be late predynastic representations of the G.o.d Min. If this supposition is correct they are the earliest idols (apart from mere amulets) that have been preserved from antiquity.

Upon these statues, representations of the Red Sea sh.e.l.l _Pterocera bryonia_ are sculptured in low relief. Mr. F. Ll. Griffith is disinclined to accept my suggestion that the object of these pictures of the sh.e.l.l was to animate the statues. But whether this was their purpose or not, it is probably not without some significance that these life-giving sh.e.l.ls were a.s.sociated with so obtrusively phallic a deity as Min. In any case they afford concrete evidence of cultural contact between Coptos and the Red Sea, and indicate that these particular sh.e.l.ls were chosen as symbols of that sea or its coast.