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 Archaeology 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 Naga 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 uraei 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 Archaeology_, March, 1918, p. 64.]

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

[358: "Archaeol. 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, "Mycenaean 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' _Encyclopaedia 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