Chapter II

of Jackson's book, _op. cit._]

Sharks and Dragons.

When the life-giving attributes of water were confused with the same properties with which shells had independently been credited long before, the shell's reputation was rationalized as an expression of the vital powers of the ocean in which the mollusc was born. But the same explanation was also extended to include fishes, and other denizens of the water, as manifestations of similar divine powers. In the lecture on "Dragons and Rain Gods" I referred to the identification of Ea, the Babylonian Osiris, with a fish (p. 105). When the value of the pearl as the giver of life impelled men to incur any risks to obtain so precious an amulet, the chief dangers that threatened pearl-fishers were due to sharks. These came to be regarded as demons guarding the treasure-houses at the bottom of the sea. Out of these crude materials the imaginations of the early pearl-fishers created the picture of wonderful submarine palaces of Naga kings in which vast wealth, not merely of pearls, but also of gold, precious stones, and beautiful maidens (all of them "givers of life," _vide infra_, p. 224), were placed under the protection of shark-dragons.[273] The conception of the pearl (which is a surrogate of the life-giving Great Mother) guarded by dragons is linked by many bonds of affinity with early Erythraean and Mediterranean beliefs. The more usual form of the story, both in Southern Arabian legend and in Minoan and Mycenaean art, represents the Mother Goddess incarnate in a sacred tree or pillar with its protecting dragons in the form of serpents or lions, or a variety of dragon-surrogates, either real animals, such as deer or cattle, or composite monsters (Fig. 26).[274]

There are reasons for believing that these stories were first invented somewhere on the shores of the Erythraean Sea, probably in Southern Arabia. The animation of the incense-tree by the Great Mother, for the reasons which I have already expounded,[275] formed the link of her identification with the pearl, which probably acquired its magical reputation in the same region.

"In the Persian myth, the white Haoma is a divine tree, growing in the lake Vourukasha: the fish Khar-mahi circles protectingly around it and defends it against the toad Ahriman. It gives eternal life, children to women, husbands to girls, and horses to men. In the Minokhired the tree is called 'the preparer of the corpse'" (Spiegel, "Eran. Altertumskunde," II, 115--quoted by Jung, "Psychology of the Unconscious," p. 532). The idea of guarding the divine tree[276] by dragons was probably the result of the transference to that particular surrogate of the Great Mother of the shark-stories which originated from the experiences of the seekers after pearls, her other representatives.

There are many other bits of corroborative evidence to suggest that these shell-cults and the legends derived from them were actually transmitted from the Red Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean. Nor is it surprising that this should have happened, when it is recalled that Egyptian sailors were trafficking in both seas long before the Pyramid Age, and no doubt carried the beliefs and the legends of one region to the other. I have already referred to the adoption in the Mediterranean area of the idea of the dragon-protectors of the tree- and pillar-forms of the Great Mother, and suggested that this was merely a garbled version of the pearl-fisher's experience of the dangers of attacks by sharks. But the same legends also reached the Levant in a less modified form, and then underwent another kind of transformation (and confusion with the tree-version) in Cyprus or Syria.

As the shark would be a not wholly appropriate actor in the Mediterranean, its role is taken by its smaller Selachian relative, the dog-fish. In the notes on Pliny's Natural History, Dr. Bostock and Mr. H. T. Riley[277] refer to the habits of dog-fishes ("Canes marini"), and quote from Procopius ("De Bell. Pers." B. I, c. 4) the following "wonderful story in relation to this subject": "Sea-dogs are wonderful admirers of the pearl-fish, and follow them out to sea.... A certain fisherman, having watched for the moment when the shell-fish was deprived of the attention of its attendant sea-dog, ... seized the shell-fish and made for the shore. The sea-dog, however, was soon aware of the theft, and making straight for the fisherman, seized him. Finding himself thus caught, he made a last effort, and threw the pearl-fish on shore, immediately on which he was torn to pieces by its protector."[278]

Though the written record of this story is relatively modern the incident thus described probably goes back to much more ancient times. It is only a very slightly modified version of an ancient narrative of a shark's attack upon a pearl-diver.

For reasons which I shall discuss in the following pages, the role of the cowry and pearl as representatives of the Great Mother was in the Levant assumed by the mandrake, just as we have already seen the Southern Arabian conception of her as a tree adopted in Mycenaean lands. Having replaced the sea-shell by a land plant it became necessary, in adapting the legend, to substitute for the "sea-dog" some land animal. Not unnaturally it became a dog. Thus the story of the dangers incurred in the process of digging up a mandrake assumed the well-known form.[279] The attempt to dig up the mandrake was said to be fraught with great danger. The traditional means of circumventing these risks has been described by many writers, ancient and modern, and preserved in the folk-lore of most European and western Asiatic countries. The story as told by Josephus is as follows: "They dig a trench round it till the hidden part of the root is very small, then they tie a dog to it, and when the dog tries hard to follow him that tied him, this root is easily plucked up, but the dog dies immediately, as it were, instead of the man that would take the plant away."[280] Thus the dog takes the place of the dog-fish when the mandrake becomes the pearl's surrogate. The only discrepancy between the two stories is the point to which Josephus calls specific attention. For instead of the dog killing the thief, as the shark (dog-fish) kills the stealer of pearls, the dog becomes the victim as a substitute for the man. As Josephus remarks, "the dog dies immediately, as it were, instead of the man that would take the plant away". This distortion of the story is true to the traditions of legend-making. The dog-incident is so twisted as to be transformed into a device for plucking the dangerous plant without risk.

It is quite possible that earlier associations of the dog with the Great Mother may have played some part in this transference of meaning, if only by creating confusion which made such rationalization necessary. I refer to the part played by Anubis in helping Isis to collect the fragments of Osiris; and the role played by Anubis, and his Greek _avatar_ Cerberus, in the world of the dead. Whether the association of the dog-star Sirius with Hathor had anything to do with the confusion is uncertain.[281]

There was an intimate association of the dog with the goddess of the under-world (Hecate) and the ritual of rebirth of the dead.[282] Perhaps the development of the story of the underworld-goddess Aphrodite's dog and the mandrake may have been helped by this survival of the association of Isis with Anubis, even if there is not a more definite causal relationship between the dog-incidents in the various legends.

The divine dog Anubis is frequently represented in connexion with the ritual of rebirth,[283] where it is shown upon a standard in association with the placenta. The hieroglyphic sign for the Egyptian word _mes_, "to give birth," consists of the skins of three dogs (or jackals, or foxes). The three-headed dog Cerberus that guarded the portal of Hades may possibly be a distorted survival of this ancient symbolism of the three-fold dog-skin as the graphic sign for the act of emergence from the portal of birth. Elsewhere (p. 223) in this lecture I have referred to Charon's _obolus_ as a surrogate of the life-giving pearl or cowry placed in the mouth of the dead to provide "vital substance". Rohde[284] regards Charon as the second Cerberus, corresponding to the Egyptian dog-faced god Anubis: just as Charon received his _obolus_, so in Attic custom the dead were provided with [Greek: melitoutia] the object of which is usually said to be to pacify the dog of hell.

What seems to link all these fantastic beliefs and customs with the story of the dog and the mandrake is the fact that they are closely bound up with the conception of the dog as the guardian of hidden treasure.

The mandrake story may have arisen out of a mingling of these two streams of legend--the shark (dog-fish) protecting the treasures at the bottom of the sea, and the ancient Egyptian beliefs concerning the dog-headed god who presides at the embalmer's operations and superintends the process of rebirth.

The dog of the story is a representative of the dragon guarding the goddess in the form of the mandrake, just as the lions over the gate at Mycenae heraldically support her pillar-form, or the serpents in Southern Arabia protect her as an incense tree. Dog, Lion, and Serpent in these legends are all representatives of the goddess herself, i.e. merely her own _avatars_ (Fig. 26).

At one time I imagined that the role of Anubis as a god of embalming and the restorer of the dead was merely an ingenuous device on the part of the early Egyptians to console themselves for the depredations of jackals in their cemeteries. For if the jackal were converted into a life-giving god it would be a comforting thought to believe that the dead man, even though devoured, was "in the bosom of his god" and thereby had attained a rebirth in the hereafter. In ancient Persia corpses were thrown out for the dogs to devour. There was also the custom of leading a dog to the bed of a dying man who presented him with food, just as Cerberus was given honey-cakes by Hercules in his journey to hell. But I have not been able to obtain any corroboration of this supposition. It is a remarkable coincidence that the Great Mother has been identified with the necrophilic vulture as Mut; and it has been claimed by some writers[285] that, just as the jackal was regarded as a symbol of rebirth in Egypt and the dead were exposed for dogs to devour in Persia, so the vulture's corpse-devouring habits may have been primarily responsible for suggesting its identification with the Great Mother and for the motive behind the Indian practice of leaving the corpses of the dead for the vultures to dispose of.[286] It is not uncommon to find, even in English cathedrals, recumbent statues of bishops with dogs as footstools. Petronius ("Sat.," c. 71) makes the following statement: "valde te rogo, ut secundum pedes statuae meae catellam pingas--ut mihi contingat tuo beneficio post mortem vivere".[287] The belief in the dog's service as a guide to the dead ranges from Western Europe to Peru.

To return to the story of the dog and the mandrake: no doubt the demand will be made for further evidence that the mandrake actually assumed the role of the pearl in these stories. If the remarkable repertory of magical properties assigned to the mandrake[288] be compared with those which developed in connexion with the cowry and the pearl,[289] it will be found that the two series are identical. The mandrake also is the giver of life, of fertility to women, of safety in childbirth; and like the cowry and the pearl it exerts these magical influences only if it be worn in contact with the wearer's skin.[290] But the most definite indication of the mandrake's homology with the pearl is provided by the legend that "it shines by night". Some scholars,[291] both ancient and modern, have attempted to rationalize this tradition by interpreting it as a reference to the glow-worms that settle on the plant! But it is only one of many attributes borrowed by the mandrake from the pearl, which was credited with this remarkable reputation only when early scientists conceived the hypothesis that the gem was a bit of moon substance.

As the memory of the real history of these beliefs grew dim, confusion was rapidly introduced into the stories. I have already explained how the diving for pearls started the story of the great palace of treasures under the waters which was guarded by dragons. As the pearl had the reputation of shining by night, it is not surprising that it or some of its surrogates should in course of time come to be credited with the power of "revealing hidden treasures," the treasures which in the original story were the pearls themselves. Thus the magic fern-seed and other treasure-disclosing vegetables[292] are surrogates of the mandrake, and like it derive their magical properties directly or indirectly from the pearl.

The fantastic story of the dog and the mandrake provides the most definite evidence of the derivation of the mandrake-beliefs from the shell-cults of the Erythraean Sea. There are many other scraps of evidence to corroborate this. I shall refer here only to one of these. "The discovery of the art of purple-dyeing has been attributed to the Tyrian tutelary deity Melkart, who is identified with Baal by many writers. According to Julius Pollux ('Onomasticon,' I, iv.) and Nonnus ('Dionys.,' XL, 306) Hercules (Melkart) was walking on the seashore accompanied by his dog and a Tyrian nymph, of whom he was enamoured. The dog having found a _Murex_ with its head protruding from its shell, devoured it, and thus its mouth became stained with purple. The nymph, on seeing the beautiful colour, bargained with Hercules to provide her with a robe of like splendour."[293] This seems to be another variant of the same story.

[273: In Eastern Asia (see, for example, Shinji Nishimura, "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 Institute_, 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 assumes 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 gods. This incident is analogous 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 gods 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 gods 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 gods, 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 gods. The elixir of life was the food of the gods 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 associated 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 goddess, was identified by the Greeks with Eileithyia, the goddess 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 lustre" 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 associated with a magical plant capable of opening locks and helping the process of birth. Artemis is a goddess of the portal and her life-giving symbol in a multitude of varied forms is found appropriately placed above the lintel of doors.]

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

The Octopus.

Aphrodite was associated not only with the cowry, the pearl, and the mandrake, but also with the octopus, the argonaut, and other cephalopods. Tuempel seems to imagine that the identification of the goddess with the argonaut and the octopus necessarily excludes her association 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 institution of a series of homologies and fancied analogies between dissimilar objects. Aphrodite was at one and the same time the personification of the cowry, the conch shell, the purple shell, 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.

[Illustration: 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 goddess Hathor, represented as a woman with the moon and the cow's horns upon her head, and on the left side by a nome goddess, 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 XXXVIII).

A grotesque composite monster intended to represent a woman (compare Saville's Plates XXXV, XXXVI, and XXXIX), 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 circumstances that were responsible for the development of each one of these homologies is entirely fatal to this wholly unwarranted speculation.[294] Tuempel claims[295] the Aphrodite was associated more especially with "a species of _Sepia_". He refers to the attempts to associate the goddess of love with amulets of univalvular shells "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 Tuempel (p. 386), neither univalvular nor bivalve shells can be regarded as a real part of the goddess's cultural equipment. There is no representation of Aphrodite coming in a shell from across the sea.[297] The truly sacred Aphrodite-shell was entirely different, so Tuempel 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 shells.

([Greek: monothyra] of Aristotle), such as those just mentioned, and the other [Greek: ostrea] of Aphrodite, the Nerites (periwinkles, etc.), the purple shell and the Echineis 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 Mutianus (Pliny, 9, 25 (41), 79 f.), it was a species of purple shell, but larger than the true _Murex purpura_. From this the sanctity of the Echineis to the Cnidian Aphrodite is demonstrated: "quibus (conchis) inhaerentibus plenam ventis stetisse navem portantem Periandro, ut castrarentur nobilis pueros, conchasque, quae id praestiterint, apud Cnidiorum Venerem coli" (Pliny).

Tuempel then (p. 387) accuses Stephani of being mistaken in his interpretation of Martial's Cytheriacae (Epign. II, 47, 1 = purple shells) as the amulets of Aphrodite, and claims that Jahn has given the correct solution of the following passages 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".

Tuempel claims (pp. 387 and 388) that this quotation settles the question. Aphrodite's "shell," according to him, is the _Nauplius_ (depicted as a shell-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 ship-like shell-fish sailing over the surface of the water, the concha veneria. [The analogy to a ship bearing the Great Mother is extremely ancient and originally referred to the crescent moon carrying the moon-goddess 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 Tuempel have thus clearly established the proof of the intimate association of Aphrodite with certain cephalopods, they are wholly unjustified in the assumption that their quotations from relatively modern authors disprove the reality of the equally close (though more ancient) relationship of the goddess to the cowry, the pearl-shell, the trumpet-shell, and the purple-shell.

It must not be forgotten that, as we have already seen, the primitive shell-cults of the Erythraean Sea had been diffused throughout the Mediterranean area long before Aphrodite was born upon the shores 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 associations had become blurred and confused by the development of new links with other shells 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.

[Illustration: 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 Tuempel, 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 association of the octopus with the goddess, of which there can be no doubt; and secondly, his explanation of it, which (however popular it may be with classical writers and modern scholars)[302] is not only a gratuitous assumption, 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 multitude 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 shell," _Pterocera_,[303] was the link between the cowry and the octopus. This shell 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 god 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 god 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 shell _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 shell was to animate the statues. But whether this was their purpose or not, it is probably not without some significance that these life-giving shells were associated 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 shells were chosen as symbols of that sea or its coast.

[Illustration: Fig. 5--Pterocera Bryonia. the Red Sea Spider-shell. _Col._--the columella 1-7--the "claws".]

The distinctive feature of the _Pterocera_ is that the mantle in the adult expands into a series of long finger-like processes each of which secretes a calcareous process or "claw". There are seven[306] of these claws as well as the long columella (Fig. 5). Hence, when the shell-cults were diffused from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean (where the _Pterocera_ is not found), it is quite likely that the people of the Levant may have confused with the octopus some sailor's account of the eight-rayed shell (or perhaps representations of it on some amulet or statue). Whether this is the explanation of the confusion or not, it is certain that the beliefs associated with the cowry and the octopus in the AEgean area are identical with those linked up with the cowry and the _Pterocera_ in the Red Sea.

I have already mentioned that the mandrake is believed to possess the same magical powers. Sir James Frazer has called attention to the fact that in Armenia the bryony (_Bryonia alba_) is a surrogate of the mandrake and is credited with the same attributes.[307] Lovell Reeve ("Conchologia Iconica," VI, 1851) refers to the Red Sea _Pterocera_ as the "Wild Vine Root" species, previously known as _Strombus radix bryoniae_; and Chemnitz ("Conch. Cab.," 1788, Vol. X, p. 227) says the French call it "Racine de brione femelle imparfaite," and refer to it as "the maiden". Here then is further evidence that this shell (a) was associated in some way with a surrogate of the mandrake (Aphrodite), and (b) was regarded as a maiden. Thus clearly it has a place in the chequered history of Aphrodite. I have suggested the possibility of its confusion with the octopus, which may have led to the inclusion of the latter within the scope of the marine creatures in Aphrodite's cultural equipment. According to Matthioli (Lib. 2, p. 135), another of Aphrodite's creatures, the purple shell-fish, was also known as "the maiden". By Pliny it is called Pelogia, in Greek [Greek: porphyra]; and [Greek: porphyromata] was the term applied to the flesh of swine that had been sacrificed to Ceres and Proserpine (Hesych.). In fact, the purple-shell was "the maiden" and also "the sow": in other words it was Aphrodite. The use of the term "maiden" for the _Pterocera_ suggests a similar identification. To complete this web of proof it may be noted that an old writer has called the mandrake the plant of Circe, the sorceress who turned men into swine by a magic draught.[308] Thus we have a series of shells, plants, and marine creatures accredited with identical magical properties, and each of them known in popular tradition as "the maiden". They are all culturally associated with Aphrodite.

I shall have occasion (_infra_, p. 177) to refer to M. Siret's account of the discovery of the AEgean octopus-motif upon AEneolithic objects in Spain, and of the widespread use in Western Europe of certain conventional designs derived from the octopus. M. Siret also (see the table, Fig. 6, on p. 34 of his book) makes the remarkable claim that the conventional form of the Egyptian Bes, which, according to Quibell,[309] is the god whose function it is to preside over sexual intercourse in its purely physical aspect, is derived from the octopus. If this is true--and I am bound to admit that it is far from being proved--it suggests that the Red Sea littoral may have been the place of origin of the cultural use of the octopus and an association with Hathor, for Bes and Hathor are said to have been introduced into Egypt from there.[310]

That the octopus was actually identified with the Great Mother and also with the dragon is revealed by the fact of the latter assuming an octopus-form in Eastern Asia and Oceania, and by the occurrence of octopus-motifs in the representation of the goddess in America. One of the most remarkable series of pictures depicting the Great Mother is found sculptured in low relief upon a number of stone slabs from Manabi in Central America,[311] one of which I reproduce here (Fig. 21_b_). The head of the goddess is a conventionalized octopus; to that was added a body consisting of a _Loligo_; and, to give greater definiteness to this remarkable process of building up the form of the goddess, conventional representations of her arms and legs (and in some of the sculptures also the _pudendum muliebre_) were added. Thus there can be no doubt of the identification of this American Aphrodite and the octopus.

In the Polynesian Rata-myth there is a very instructive series of manifestations of the dragon.[312] The first form assumed by the monster in this story was a gaping shell-fish of enormous size; then it appeared as a mighty octopus; and lastly, as a whale, into whose jaws the hero Nganaoa sprang, as his representatives are said to have done elsewhere throughout the world (Frobenius, _op. cit._, pp. 59-219).

Houssay (_op. cit. infra_) calls attention to the fact that at times Astarte was shown carrying an octopus as her emblem,[313] and has suggested that it was mistaken for a hand, just as in America the thunderbolt of Chac was given a hand-like form in the Dresden Codex (_vide supra_. Fig. 13), and elsewhere (_e.g._ Fig. 12).

If this suggestion should prove to be well founded it would provide a more convincing explanation of the girdle of hands worn by the Indian goddess Kali[314] than that usually given. If the "hands" really represent surrogates of the cowry, the wearing of such a girdle brings the Indian goddess into line, not only with Astarte and Aphrodite, but also with the East African maidens who still wear the girdle of cowries. Kali's exploits were in many respects identical with those of the bloodthirsty Sekhet-manifestation of the Egyptian goddess Hathor. Just as Sekhet had to be restrained by Re for her excess of zeal in murdering his foes, so Siva had to intervene with Kali upon the battlefield flooded with gore (as also in the Egyptian story) to spare the remnant of his enemies.[315]

[294: Sir James Frazer, "Jacob and the Mandrakes," _Proc. Brit. Academy_.]

[295: K. Tuempel, "Die 'Muschel der Aphrodite,'" _Philologus, Zeitschrift fuer das Classische Alterthum_, Bd. 51, 1892, p. 385: compare also, with reference to the "Muschel der Aphrodite," O. Jahn, _SB. d. k. Saechs. G. d. W._, VII, 1853, p. 16 ff.; also IX, 1855, p. 80; and Stephani, _Compte rendu pour l'an 1870-71_, p. 17 ff.]

[296: See Jahn, _op. cit._, 1855, T. V, 6, and T. IV, 8: figures of the so-called [Greek: Choirinai] (from [Greek: Choiros] in the double sense as "pig" and "the female pudendum"): Aristophanes, Eq. 1147; Vesp. 332; Pollux, 8, 16; Hesch. s.v.]

[297: The fact that no graphic representation of this event has been found is surely a wholly inadequate reason for refusing to credit the story. Very few episodes in the sacred history of the gods received concrete expression in pictures or sculptures until relatively late. A Hellenistic representation of the goddess emerging from a bivalve was found in Southern Russia (Minns, "Scythians and Greeks," p. 345).

Tuempel cites the following statements: "te (Venus) ex concha natam esse autumant: cave tu harum conchas spernas!" Tibull. 3, 3, 24: "et faveas concha, Cypria, vecta tua"; Statius Silv. 1, 2, 117: Venus to Violentilla, "haec et caeruleis mecum consurgere digna fluctibus et nostra potuit considere concha"; Fulgent. myth. 2, 4 "concha etiam marina pingitur (Venus) portari (I. HS:--am portare)"; Paulus Diacon. p. 52, "M. Cytherea Venus ab urbe Cythera, in quam primum devecta esse dicitur concha, cum in mari esset concepta cet".]

[298: From [Greek: odino]--"to have the pains of childbirth".]

[299: See Schliemann, "Ilios," p. 455; and Siret, _op. cit_.]

[300: Siret, _op. cit. supra_, p. 59.]

[301: "Les Theories de la Genese a Mycenes et le sens zoologique de certains symboles du culte d'Aphrodite," _Revue Archeologique_, 3^ie serie, T. XXVI, 1895, p. 13.]

[302: It was adduced also by Tuempel 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 Debuts de l'Art en Egypte," 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 Tuempel's memoir, which provided the foundation for Houssay's hypothesis.

[Illustration: Fig. 23.--A series of Mycenaean conventionalizations of the Argonaut and the Octopus (after Tuempel), 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.

Tuempel called attention to the fact that, when they set about conventionalizing the octopus, the Mycenaean 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 Roessler,[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 Mycenaean 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 Mycenaean 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 Mycenaean spiral and the volute is closely related to the octopus. In fact, the evidence provided by Minoan paintings and Mycenaean 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 AEneolithic phase of culture dawned in Spain, and the AEgean 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 AEneolithic representation of the octopus in Spain. The spiral-motif of the AEgean 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 (