Summary.

Fig. 6.—Representation of the ancient Mexican Worship of the Sun. The image of the sun is held up by a man in front of his face; two men blow conch-shell trumpets; another pair burn incense; and a third pair make blood-offerings by piercing their ears—after Zelia Nuttall.Fig. 6.—Representation of the ancient Mexican Worship of the SunThe image of the sun is held up by a man in front of his face; two men blow conch-shell trumpets; another pair burn incense; and a third pair make blood-offerings by piercing their ears—after Zelia Nuttall.

Fig. 6.—Representation of the ancient Mexican Worship of the SunThe image of the sun is held up by a man in front of his face; two men blow conch-shell trumpets; another pair burn incense; and a third pair make blood-offerings by piercing their ears—after Zelia Nuttall.

Fig. 6.—Representation of the ancient Mexican Worship of the Sun

The image of the sun is held up by a man in front of his face; two men blow conch-shell trumpets; another pair burn incense; and a third pair make blood-offerings by piercing their ears—after Zelia Nuttall.

But it was not merely the use of incense and libations and the identities in the wholly arbitrary attributes of the American pantheon that reveal the sources of their derivation in the Old World. When the Spaniards first visited Yucatan they found traces of a Maya baptismal rite which the natives calledzihil, signifying "to be born again". At the ceremony also incense was burnt.[126]

The forehead, the face, the fingers and toes were moistened. "After they had been thus sprinkled with water, the priest arose and removed the cloths from the heads of the children, and then cut off with a stone knife a certain bead that was attached to the head from childhood."[127]

[The custom of wearing such a bead during childhood is found in Egypt at the present day.]

In the case of the girls, their mothers "divested them of a cord which was worn during their childhood, fastened round the loins, having a small shell that hung in front ('una conchuela asida que les venia a dar encima de la parte honesta'—Landa). The removal of this signified that they could marry."[128]

This use of shells is found in the Soudan and East Africa at the present day.[129]The girdle upon which the shells were hung is the prototype of the cestus of Hathor, Ishtar, Aphrodite, Kali and all the goddesses of fertility in the Old World. It is an admirable illustration of the fact that not only were the finished products, the goddesses and their fantastic repertory of attributes, transmitted to the New World, but also the earliest and most primitive ingredients out of which the complexities of their traits were compounded.

In Chapter III ("The Birth of Aphrodite") I shall explain what an important part the invention of this girdle played in the development of the material side of civilization and the even vaster influence it exerted upon beliefs and ethics. It represents the first stage in the evolution of clothing; and it was responsible for originating the belief in love-philtres and in the possibility of foretelling the future.

It would lead me too far from my main purpose in this book to discuss the widespread geographical distribution and historical associations of the customs of baptism and pouring libations among different peoples. I may, however, refer the reader to an article by Mr. Elsdon Best, entitled "Ceremonial Performances Pertaining to Birth, as Performed by the Maori of New Zealand in Past Times" (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. XLIV, 1914, p. 127), which sheds a clear light upon the general problem.

The whole subject of baptismal ceremonies is well worth detailed study as a remarkable demonstration of the spread of culture in early times.

[107]Donald A. Mackenzie, "Myths of Babylonia and Assyria," p. 44et seq.[108]Dr. Alan Gardiner has protested against the assertions of "some Egyptologists, influenced more by anthropological theorists than by the unambiguous evidence of the Egyptian texts," to the effect that "the funerary rites and practices of the Egyptians were in the main precautionary measures serving to protect the living against the dead" (Article "Life and Death (Egyptian)," Hastings'Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics). I should like to emphasize the fact that the "anthropological theorists," who so frequently put forward these claims have little more justification for them than "some Egyptologists". Careful study of the best evidence from Babylonia, India, Indonesia, and Japan, reveals the fact that anthropologists who make such claims have in many cases misinterpreted the facts. In an article on "Ancestor Worship" by Professor Nobushige Hozumi in A. Stead's "Japan by the Japanese" (1904) the true point of view is put very clearly: "The origin of ancestor-worship is ascribed by many eminent writers to thedread of ghostsand the sacrifices made to the souls of ancestors for the purpose ofpropitiatingthem. It appears to me more correct to attribute the origin of ancestor-worship to a contrary cause. It was theloveof ancestors, not thedreadof them" [Here he quotes the Chinese philosophers Shiu-ki and Confucius in corroboration] that impelled men to worship. "We celebrate the anniversary of our ancestors, pay visits to their graves, offer flowers, food and drink, burn incense and bow before their tombs, entirely from a feeling of love and respect for their memory, and no question of 'dread' enters our minds in doing so" (pp. 281 and 282). [See, however, Appendix B, p. 74.][109]For, as I have already explained, the idea so commonly and mistakenly conveyed by the term "soul-substance" by writers on Indonesian and Chinese beliefs would be much more accurately rendered simply by the word "life," so that the stealing of it necessarily means death.[110]Barton,op. cit.p. 105.[111]The evidence set forth in these pages makes it clear that such ideas are not restricted to the Semites: nor is there any reason to suppose that they originated amongst them.[112]Albert J. Carnoy, "Iranian Views of Origins in Connexion with Similar Babylonian Beliefs,"Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. XXXVI, 1916, pp. 300-20.[113]This is Professor Carnoy's summary of Professor Jastrow's views as expressed in his article "Sumerian and Akkadian Views of Beginnings".[114]Jastrow's interpretation of a recently-discovered tablet published by Langdon under the titleThe Sumerian Epic of Paradise, the Flood and the Fall of Man.[115]I have already (p. 43) mentioned the fact that it is still preserved in China also.[116]Henry Whitehead (Bishop of Madras), "The Village Deities of Southern India," Madras Government Museum, Bull., Vol. V, No. 3, 1907; Wilber Theodore Elmore, "Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism: A Study of the Local and Village Deities of Southern India," University Studies: University of Nebraska, Vol. XV, No. 1, Jan., 1915. Compare the sacrifice of the fore-leg of a living calf in Egypt—A. E. P. B. Weigall, "An Ancient Egyptian Funeral Ceremony,"Journal of Egyptian Archæology, Vol. II, 1915, p. 10. Early literary references from Babylonia suggest that a similar method of offering blood was practised there.[117]William Ellis, "Polynesian Researches," 2nd edition, 1832, Vol. I, p. 373.[118]See H. Vincent, "Canaan d'après l'exploration récente," Paris, 1907, p. 395.[119]"Les Premières Civilizations," Paris, 1909, p. 404: Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse, Tome VIII, archéol.; and Mission Scientifique au Caucase, Tome I.[120]W. J. Perry, "The Relationship between the Geographical Distribution of Megalithic Monuments and Ancient Mines,"Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, Vol. 60, Part I, 24th Nov., 1915.[121]The evidence for this is being prepared for publication by Captain Leonard Munn, R.E., who has personally collected the data in Hyderabad.[122]Annual Report of the Archæological Department, Southern Circle, Madras, for the year 1915-1916. See for example Mr. A. H. Longhurst's photographs and plans (Plates I-IV) and especially that of the old Siva temple at Kambaduru, Plate IV (b).[123]As I shall show in "The Birth of Aphrodite" (Chapter III).[124]W. J. Perry, "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia".[125]"A Penitential Rite of the Ancient Mexicans," Archæological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. I, No. 7, 1904.[126]Bancroft,op. cit.Vol. II, pp. 682 and 683.[127]Op. cit.p. 684.[128]Ibid.[129]See J. Wilfrid Jackson,op. cit. supra.

[107]Donald A. Mackenzie, "Myths of Babylonia and Assyria," p. 44et seq.

[108]Dr. Alan Gardiner has protested against the assertions of "some Egyptologists, influenced more by anthropological theorists than by the unambiguous evidence of the Egyptian texts," to the effect that "the funerary rites and practices of the Egyptians were in the main precautionary measures serving to protect the living against the dead" (Article "Life and Death (Egyptian)," Hastings'Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics). I should like to emphasize the fact that the "anthropological theorists," who so frequently put forward these claims have little more justification for them than "some Egyptologists". Careful study of the best evidence from Babylonia, India, Indonesia, and Japan, reveals the fact that anthropologists who make such claims have in many cases misinterpreted the facts. In an article on "Ancestor Worship" by Professor Nobushige Hozumi in A. Stead's "Japan by the Japanese" (1904) the true point of view is put very clearly: "The origin of ancestor-worship is ascribed by many eminent writers to thedread of ghostsand the sacrifices made to the souls of ancestors for the purpose ofpropitiatingthem. It appears to me more correct to attribute the origin of ancestor-worship to a contrary cause. It was theloveof ancestors, not thedreadof them" [Here he quotes the Chinese philosophers Shiu-ki and Confucius in corroboration] that impelled men to worship. "We celebrate the anniversary of our ancestors, pay visits to their graves, offer flowers, food and drink, burn incense and bow before their tombs, entirely from a feeling of love and respect for their memory, and no question of 'dread' enters our minds in doing so" (pp. 281 and 282). [See, however, Appendix B, p. 74.]

[109]For, as I have already explained, the idea so commonly and mistakenly conveyed by the term "soul-substance" by writers on Indonesian and Chinese beliefs would be much more accurately rendered simply by the word "life," so that the stealing of it necessarily means death.

[110]Barton,op. cit.p. 105.

[111]The evidence set forth in these pages makes it clear that such ideas are not restricted to the Semites: nor is there any reason to suppose that they originated amongst them.

[112]Albert J. Carnoy, "Iranian Views of Origins in Connexion with Similar Babylonian Beliefs,"Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. XXXVI, 1916, pp. 300-20.

[113]This is Professor Carnoy's summary of Professor Jastrow's views as expressed in his article "Sumerian and Akkadian Views of Beginnings".

[114]Jastrow's interpretation of a recently-discovered tablet published by Langdon under the titleThe Sumerian Epic of Paradise, the Flood and the Fall of Man.

[115]I have already (p. 43) mentioned the fact that it is still preserved in China also.

[116]Henry Whitehead (Bishop of Madras), "The Village Deities of Southern India," Madras Government Museum, Bull., Vol. V, No. 3, 1907; Wilber Theodore Elmore, "Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism: A Study of the Local and Village Deities of Southern India," University Studies: University of Nebraska, Vol. XV, No. 1, Jan., 1915. Compare the sacrifice of the fore-leg of a living calf in Egypt—A. E. P. B. Weigall, "An Ancient Egyptian Funeral Ceremony,"Journal of Egyptian Archæology, Vol. II, 1915, p. 10. Early literary references from Babylonia suggest that a similar method of offering blood was practised there.

[117]William Ellis, "Polynesian Researches," 2nd edition, 1832, Vol. I, p. 373.

[118]See H. Vincent, "Canaan d'après l'exploration récente," Paris, 1907, p. 395.

[119]"Les Premières Civilizations," Paris, 1909, p. 404: Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse, Tome VIII, archéol.; and Mission Scientifique au Caucase, Tome I.

[120]W. J. Perry, "The Relationship between the Geographical Distribution of Megalithic Monuments and Ancient Mines,"Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, Vol. 60, Part I, 24th Nov., 1915.

[121]The evidence for this is being prepared for publication by Captain Leonard Munn, R.E., who has personally collected the data in Hyderabad.

[122]Annual Report of the Archæological Department, Southern Circle, Madras, for the year 1915-1916. See for example Mr. A. H. Longhurst's photographs and plans (Plates I-IV) and especially that of the old Siva temple at Kambaduru, Plate IV (b).

[123]As I shall show in "The Birth of Aphrodite" (Chapter III).

[124]W. J. Perry, "The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia".

[125]"A Penitential Rite of the Ancient Mexicans," Archæological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. I, No. 7, 1904.

[126]Bancroft,op. cit.Vol. II, pp. 682 and 683.

[127]Op. cit.p. 684.

[128]Ibid.

[129]See J. Wilfrid Jackson,op. cit. supra.

In these pages I have ranged over a very wide field of speculation, groping in the dim shadows of the early history of civilization. I have been attempting to pick up a few of the threads which ultimately became woven into the texture of human beliefs and aspirations, and to suggest that the practice of mummification was the woof around which the web of civilization was intimately intertwined.

I have already explained how closely that practice was related to the origin and development of architecture, which Professor Lethaby has called the "matrix of civilization," and how nearly the ideas that grew up in explanation and in justification of the ritual of embalming were affected by the practice of agriculture, the second great pillar of support for the edifice of civilization. It has also been shown how far-reaching was the influence exerted by the needs of the embalmer, which impelled men, probably for the first time in history, to plan and carry out great expeditions by sea and land to obtain the necessary resins and the balsams, the wood and the spices. Incidentally also in course of time the practice of mummification came to exert a profound effect upon the means for the acquisition of a knowledge of medicine and all the sciences ancillary to it.

But I have devoted chief attention to the bearing of the ideas which developed out of the practice and ritual of embalming upon the spirit of man. It gave shape and substance to the belief in a future life; it was perhaps the most important factor in the development of a definite conception of the gods: it laid the foundation of the ideas which subsequently were built up into a theory of the soul: in fact, it was intimately connected with the birth of all those ideals and aspirations which are now included in the conception of religious belief and ritual. A multitude of other trains of thought were started amidst the intellectual ferment of the formulation of the earliest concrete system of biological theory. The idea of the properties and functions of water which had previously sprung up in connexion with the development of agriculture became crystallized into a more definite form as the result of the development of mummification, and this has played an obtrusive part in religion, in philosophy and in medicine ever since. Moreover its influence has become embalmed for all time in many languages and in the ritual of every religion.

But it was a factor in the development not merely of religious beliefs, temples and ritual, but it was also very closely related to the origin of much of the paraphernalia of the gods and of current popular beliefs. The swastika and the thunderbolt, dragons and demons, totemism and the sky-world are all of them conceptions that were more or less closely connected with the matters I have been discussing.

The ideas which grew up in association with the practice of mummification were responsible for the development of the temple and its ritual and for a definite formulation of the conception of deities. But they were also responsible for originating a priesthood. For the resuscitation of the dead king, Osiris, and for the maintenance of his existence it was necessary for his successor, the reigning king, to perform the ritual of animation and the provision of food and drink. The king, therefore, was the first priest, and his functions were not primarily acts of worship but merely the necessary preliminaries for restoring life and consciousness to the dead seer so that he could consult him and secure his advice and help.

It was only when the number of temples became so great and their ritual so complex and elaborate as to make it a physical impossibility for the king to act in this capacity in all of them and on every occasion that he was compelled to delegate some of his priestly functions to others, either members of the royal family or high officials. In course of time certain individuals devoted themselves exclusively to these duties and became professional priests; but it is important to remember that at first it was the exclusive privilege of Horus, the reigning king, to intercede with Osiris, the dead king, on behalf of men, and that the earliest priesthood consisted of those individuals to whom he had delegated some of these duties.

In conclusion I should like to express in words what must be only too apparent to every reader of this statement. It claims to be nothing more than a contribution to the study of some of the most difficult problems in the history of human thought. For one so ill-equipped for a task of such a nature as I am to attempt it calls for a word of explanation. The clear light that recent research has shed upon the earliest literature in the world has done much to destroy the foundations upon which the theories propounded by scholars have been built up. It seemed to be worth while to attempt to read afresh the voluminous mass of old documents with the illumination of this new information.

The other reason for making such an attempt is that almost every modern scholar who has discussed the matters at issue has assumed that the fashionable doctrine of the independent development of human beliefs and practices was a safe basis upon which to construct his theories. At best it is an unproven and reckless speculation. I am convinced it is utterly false. Holding such views I have attempted to read the evidence afresh.

On re-reading the discussion of the significance of thekaI realize that, in striving after brevity and conciseness—to keep the size of my statement within the limits of theBulletin of the John Rylands Library, generously elastic though it is—I have left the argument in a rather nebulous form.

It must not be imagined that a concrete-minded people like the ancient Egyptians entertained highly abstract and ethereal ideas about "the soul". They recognized that all the expressions of consciousness and personality could cease during sleep; and at the same time the phenomena of dreams seemed to afford evidence that these absent elements of the individual's being were enjoying real experiences elsewhere. Thus there was analter ego, identified by this matter-of-fact people with the twin (placenta) which was born with the child and was clearly concerned with its physical and intellectual nourishment—for it was obviously connected by its stalk to the embryo like a tree to its roots, and it seemed to be composed of blood, which was regarded as the vehicle of mind. But this intellectual "twin" kept pace in its growth with the physical body. When a statue was made to represent the latter thekacould dwell in the real body or the statue.

The identification of the placenta with the moon helped the growth of the conception that this "birth-promoter" could not only bring about a re-birth in the life to come, but also facilitate a transference to the sky-world. The placenta had already been superintending the deceased's welfare upon earth and would continue to do so when he rejoined hiskain the sky world.

The complexity of the conception is due to the fact that the simple early belief in "a double" was gradually elaborated, as one new idea after another became added to it, and rationalized to blend with the former complex in an increasingly involved synthesis. It was only when theelaborate scaffolding of material factors was cleared away that a more ethereal conception of "the soul" was sublimated.

I should like to emphasize the fact that my protest (on p. 63) was directed against the claim that the custom of offering food and drink to the dead was inspiredprimarilyto prevent them from troubling the living. Its original purpose was to sustain and reanimate the dead; but, of course, when its real meaning was forgotten, it was explained in a great variety of ways by the people who made a practice of presenting offerings to the dead without really knowing why they did so.

Dr. Alan Gardiner himself has made a statement which casual readers (i.e., those who do not discriminate between the motive for the invention of a procedure and the reasons subsequently given for its continuance) might regard as a contradiction of my quotation from his writings on p. 62. Thus he says: "Any god could doubtless attack human beings, but savage and malicious deities, like Seth [Set], the murderer of Osiris, or Sakhmet, [Sekhet], the 'lady of pestilence' (nb-t 'idw), were doubtless most to be feared." [This attitude of the malignant goddesses is revealed in a most obtrusive form in the village deities of the Dravidians of Southern India.] "The dead were specially to be feared; nor was it only those dead who were unhappy or unburied that might torment the living, for the magician sometimes warns them that their tombs are endangered" (Article "Magic (Egyptian),"Hastings' Encycl. Ethics and Religion, p. 264).

But it is important to bear in mind, as the same scholar has explained elsewhere ["Life and Death (Egyptian),"Hastings' Encycl., p. 23]: "Nothing could be farther from the truth [than the statement that 'the funerary rites and practices of the Egyptians were in the main precautionary measures serving to protect the living against the dead']; it is of fundamental importance to realize that the vast stores of wealth and thought expended by the Egyptians on their tombs—that wealth and that thought which created not only the pyramids, but also the practice of mummification and a very extensive funerary literature—were due to the anxiety of each member of the community with regard to his own individual future welfare, and not to feelings of respect, or fear, or duty felt towards the other dead."

It was only in response to certain binding obligations that the living observed all those costly and troublesome rules which were believed to insure the welfare of the deceased. But this recognition of the primary and real purpose of the food offerings as sustenance for the dead or the godsmust not be allowed to blind us to the fact that there is widespread throughout the world a real fear of the dead and ghosts, and that in many places food-offerings are made for the specific purpose "of appeasing the fairies".

Mr. Donald Mackenzie tells me that offerings of milk and porridge are made at the stone monuments in Scotland, and children carry meal in their pockets to protect themselves from the fairies. For the dead went to Fairyland.

Beliefs of a similar kind can be collected from most parts of the world: but the point I specially want to emphasize is that they aresecondaryrationalizations of a custom which originally had an utterly different significance.

Prof. Barton's statement (supra, p. 64) is typical of a widespread misapprehension, resulting from the confusion between sexual relations and the giving of life. At first primitive people did not realize that the manifestations of the sex instinct had anything whatever to do with reproduction. They were aware of the fact that women gave birth to children; and the organ concerned in this process was regarded as the giver of life, the creator. The apotheosis of these powers led to the conception of the first deity. But it was only secondarily that these life-giving attributes were brought into association with the sexual act and the masculine powers of fertilization. Much confusion has been created by those writers who see manifestations of the sexual factor and phallic ideas in every aspect of primitive religion, where in most cases only the power of life-giving plays a part.

An adequate account of the development of the dragon-legend would represent the history of the expression of mankind's aspirations and fears during the past fifty centuries and more. For the dragon was evolved along with civilization itself. The search for the elixir of life, to turn back the years from old age and confer the boon of immortality, has been the great driving force that compelled men to build up the material and the intellectual fabric of civilization. The dragon-legend is the history of that search which has been preserved by popular tradition: it has grown up and kept pace with the constant struggle to grasp the unattainable goal of men's desires; and the story has been constantly growing in complexity, as new incidents were drawn within its scope and confused with old incidents whose real meaning was forgotten or distorted. It has passed through all the phases with which the study of the spreading of rumours or the development of dreams has familiarized students of psychology. The simple original stories, which become blended and confused, their meaning distorted and reinterpreted by the rationalizing of incoherent incidents, are given the dramatic form with which the human mind invests all stories that make a strong appeal to its emotions, and then secondarily elaborated with a wealth of circumstantial detail. This is the history of popular legends and the development of rumours. But these phenomena are displayed in their most emphatic form in dreams.[131]In his waking state man restrains his roving fancies and exercises what Freud has called a "censorship" over the stream of his thoughts: but when he falls asleep, the "censor" dozes also; and free rein is given to his unrestrained fancies to make a hotch-potch of the most varied and unrelated incidents, and to create a fantastic mosaic built up from fragments of his actual experience, bound together by the cement of his aspirations and fears. The myth resembles the dream because it has developed without any consistent and effective censorship. The individual who tells one particular phase of the story may exert the controlling influence of his mind over the version he narrates: but as it is handed on from man to man and generation to generation the "censorship" also is constantly changing. This lack of unity of control implies that the development of the myth is not unlike the building-up of a dream-story. But the dragon-myth is vastly more complex than any dream, because mankind as a whole has taken a hand in the process of shaping it; and the number of centuries devoted to this work of elaboration has been far greater than the years spent by the average individual in accumulating the stuff of which most of his dreams have been made. But though the myth is enormously complex, so vast a mass of detailed evidence concerning every phase and every detail of its history has been preserved, both in the literature and the folk-lore of the world, that we are able to submit it to psychological analysis and determine the course of its development and the significance of every incident in its tortuous rambling.

In instituting these comparisons between the development of myths and dreams, I should like to emphasize the fact that the interpretation of themythproposed in these pages is almost diametrically opposed to that suggested by Freud, and pushed to areductio ad absurdumby his more reckless followers, and especially by Yung.

The dragon has been described as "the most venerable symbol employed in ornamental art and the favourite and most highly decorative motif in artistic design". It has been the inspiration of much, if not most, of the world's great literature in every age and clime, and the nucleus around which a wealth of ethical symbolism has accumulated throughout the ages. The dragon-myth represents also the earliest doctrine or systematic theory of astronomy and meteorology.

In the course of its romantic and chequered history the dragon has been identified with all of the gods and all of the demons of every religion. But it is most intimately associated with the earliest stratum of divinities, for it has been homologized with each of the members of the earliest Trinity, the Great Mother, the Water God, and theWarrior Sun God, both individually and collectively. To add to the complexities of the story, the dragon-slayer is also represented by the same deities, either individually or collectively; and the weapon with which the hero slays the dragon is also homologous both with him and his victim, for it is animated by him who wields it, and its powers of destruction make it a symbol of the same power of evil which it itself destroys.

Such a fantastic paradox of contradictions has supplied the materials with which the fancies of men of every race and land, and every stage of knowledge and ignorance, have been playing for all these centuries. It is not surprising, therefore, that an endless series of variations of the story has been evolved, each decked out with topical allusions and distinctive embellishments. But throughout the complex tissue of this highly embroidered fabric the essential threads of the web and woof of its foundation can be detected with surprising constancy and regularity.

Within the limits of such an account as this it is obvious that I can deal only with the main threads of the argument and leave the interesting details of the local embellishments until some other time.

The fundamental element in the dragon's powers is the control of water. Both in its beneficent and destructive aspects water was regarded as animated by the dragon, who thus assumed the rôle of Osiris or his enemy Set. But when the attributes of the Water God became confused with those of the Great Mother, and her evil avatar, the lioness (Sekhet) form of Hathor in Egypt, or in Babylonia the destructive Tiamat, became the symbol of disorder and chaos, the dragon became identified with her also.

Similarly the third member of the Earliest Trinity also became the dragon. As the son and successor of the dead king Osiris the living king Horus became assimilated with him. When the belief became more and more insistent that the dead king had acquired the boon of immortality and was really alive, the distinction between him and the actually living king Horus became correspondingly minimized. This process of assimilation was advanced a further stage when the king became a god and was thus more closely identified with his father and predecessor. Hence Horus assumed many of the functions of Osiris; and amongst them those which in foreign lands contributed to making a dragon of the Water God. But if the distinction between Horus and Osiris became more and more attenuated with the lapse of time, the identification with his mother Hathor (Isis) was more complete still. For he took her place and assumed many of her attributes in the later versions of the great saga which is the nucleus of all the literature of mythology—I refer to the story of "The Destruction Of Mankind".

The attributes of these three members of the Trinity, Hathor, Osiris, and Horus, thus became intimately linked the one with the other; and in Susa, where the earliest pictorial representation of a real dragon developed, it received concrete form (Fig. 1) as a monster compounded of the lioness of Hathor (Sekhet) with the falcon (or eagle) of Horus, but with the human attributes and water-controlling powers which originally belonged to Osiris. In some parts of Africa the earliest "dragon" was nothing more than Hathor's cow or the gazelle or antelope of Horus (Osiris) or of Set.

Fig. 1.—Early Representation of a "Dragon" Compounded of the Forepart of an Eagle and the Hindpart of a Lion—(from an Archaic Cylinder-seal from Susa, after Jequier).Fig. 1.—Early Representation of a "Dragon" Compounded of the Forepart of an Eagle and the Hindpart of a Lion—(from an Archaic Cylinder-seal from Susa, after Jequier).

Fig. 1.—Early Representation of a "Dragon" Compounded of the Forepart of an Eagle and the Hindpart of a Lion—(from an Archaic Cylinder-seal from Susa, after Jequier).

Fig. 2.—The Earliest Babylonian Conception of the Dragon Tiamat—(from a Cylinder-seal in the British Museum, after L. W. King).Fig. 2.—The Earliest Babylonian Conception of the Dragon Tiamat—(from a Cylinder-seal in the British Museum, after L. W. King).

Fig. 2.—The Earliest Babylonian Conception of the Dragon Tiamat—(from a Cylinder-seal in the British Museum, after L. W. King).

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

The story of the dragon-conflict is really a recital of Horus's vendetta against Set, intimately blended and confused with different versions of "The Destruction of Mankind".[132]The commonplace incidents of the originally prosaic stories were distorted into an almost unrecognizable form, then secondarily elaborated without any attention to their original meaning, but with a wealth of circumstantial embellishment, in accordance with the usual methods of the human mind that I have already mentioned. The history of the legend is in fact the most complete, because it is the oldest and the most widespread, illustration of those instinctive tendencies of the human spirit to bridge thegaps in its disjointed experience, and to link together in a kind of mental mosaic the otherwise isolated incidents in the facts of daily life and the rumours and traditions that have been handed down from the story-teller's predecessors.

In the "Destruction of Mankind," which I shall discuss more fully in the following pages (p. 109et seq.), Hathor does the slaying: in the later stories Horus takes his mother's place and earns his spurs as the Warrior Sun-god:[133]hence confusion was inevitably introduced between the enemies of Re, the original victims in the legend, and Horus's traditional enemies, the followers of Set. Against the latter it was Osiris himself who fought originally; and in many of the non-Egyptian variants of the legend it is the rain-god himself who is the warrior.

Hence all three members of the Trinity were identified, not only with the dragon, but also with the hero who was the dragon-slayer.

But the weapon used by the latter was also animated by the same Trinity, and in fact identified with them. In the Saga of the Winged Disk, Horus assumed the form of the sun equipped with the wings of his own falcon and the fire-spitting uræus serpents. Flying down from heaven in this form he was at the same time the god and the god's weapon. As a fiery bolt from heaven he slew the enemies of Re, who were now identified with his own personal foes, the followers of Set. But in the earlier versions of the myth (i.e. the "Destruction of Mankind"), it was Hathor who was the "Eye of Re" and descended from heaven to destroy mankind with fire; she also was the vulture (Mut); and in the earliest version she did the slaughter with a knife or an axe with which she was animistically identified.

But Osiris also was the weapon of destruction, both in the form of the flood (for he was the personification of the river) and the rain-storms from heaven. But he was also an instrument for vanquishing the demon, when the intoxicating beer or the sedative drink (the potency of which was due to the indwelling spirit of the god) was the chosen means of overcoming the dragon.

This, in brief, is the framework of the dragon-story. The early Trinity as the hero, armed with the Trinity as weapon, slays thedragon, which again is the same Trinity. With its illimitable possibilities for dramatic development and fantastic embellishment with incident and ethical symbolism, this theme has provided countless thousands of story-tellers with the skeleton which they clothed with the living flesh of their stories, representing not merely the earliest theories of astronomy and meteorology, but all the emotional conflicts of daily life, the struggle between light and darkness, heat and cold, right and wrong, justice and injustice, prosperity and adversity, wealth and poverty. The whole gamut of human strivings and emotions was drawn into the legend until it became the great epic of the human spirit and the main theme that has appealed to the interest of all mankind in every age.

An ancient Chinese philosopher, Wang Fu, writing in the time of the Han Dynasty, enumerates the "nine resemblances" of the dragon. "His horns resemble those of a stag, his head that of a camel, his eyes those of a demon, his neck that of a snake, his belly that of a clam, his scales those of a carp, his claws those of an eagle, his soles those of a tiger, his ears those of a cow."[134]But this list includes only a small minority of the menagerie of diverse creatures which at one time or another have contributed their quota to this truly astounding hotchpotch.

This composite wonder-beast ranges from Western Europe to the Far East of Asia, and as we shall see, also even across the Pacific to America. Although in the different localities a great number of most varied ingredients enter into its composition, in most places where the dragon occurs the substratum of its anatomy consists of a serpent or a crocodile, usually with the scales of a fish for covering, and the feet and wings, and sometimes also the head, of an eagle, falcon, or hawk, and the forelimbs and sometimes the head of a lion. An association of anatomical features of so unnatural and arbitrary a nature can only mean that all dragons are the progeny of the same ultimate ancestors.

Fig. 7.—A Mediæval Picture of a Chinese Dragon upon its cloud (After the late Professor W. Anderson)Fig. 7.—A Mediæval Picture of a Chinese Dragon upon its cloud (After the late Professor W. Anderson)

Fig. 7.—A Mediæval Picture of a Chinese Dragon upon its cloud (After the late Professor W. Anderson)

Fig. 8.—A Chinese Dragon (After de Groot)Fig. 8.—A Chinese Dragon (After de Groot)

Fig. 8.—A Chinese Dragon (After de Groot)

Fig. 9.—Dragon from the Ishtar Gate of BabylonFig. 9.—Dragon from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon

Fig. 9.—Dragon from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon

Fig. 10.—Babylonian Weather GodFig. 10.—Babylonian Weather God

Fig. 10.—Babylonian Weather God

But it is not merely a case of structural or anatomical similarity, but also of physiological identity, that clinches the proof of the derivation of this fantastic brood from the same parents. Wherever the dragon is found, it displays a special partiality for water. It controls the rivers or seas, dwells in pools or wells, or in the clouds on the topsof mountains, regulates the tides, the flow of streams, or the rainfall, and is associated with thunder and lightning. Its home is a mansion at the bottom of the sea, where it guards vast treasures, usually pearls, but also gold and precious stones. In other instances the dwelling is upon the top of a high mountain; and the dragon's breath forms the rain-clouds. It emits thunder and lightning. Eating the dragon's heart enables the diner to acquire the knowledge stored in this "organ of the mind" so that he can understand the language of birds, and in fact of all the creatures that have contributed to the making of a dragon.

It should not be necessary to rebut the numerous attempts that have been made to explain the dragon-myth as a story relating to extinct monsters. Such fantastic claims can be made only by writers devoid of any knowledge of palæontology or of the distinctive features of the dragon and its history. But when the Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum, in a book that is not intended to be humorous,[135]seriously claims Dr. Andrews' discovery of a gigantic fossil snake as "proof" of the former existence of "the great serpent-devil Āpep," it is time to protest.

Those who attempt to derive the dragon from such living creatures as lizards likeDraco volansorMoloch horridus[136]ignore the evidence of the composite and unnatural features of the monsters.

"Whatever be the origin of the Northern dragon, the myths, when they first became articulate for us, show him to be in all essentials the same as that of the South and East. He is a power of evil, guardian of hoards, the greedy withholder of good things from men; and the slaying of a dragon is the crowning achievement of heroes—of Siegmund, of Beowulf, of Sigurd, of Arthur, of Tristam—even of Lancelot, thebeau idealof mediæval chivalry" (Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. viii., p. 467). But if in the West the dragon is usually a "power of evil," in the far East he is equally emphatically a symbol of beneficence. He is identified with emperors and kings; he is the son of heaven the bestower of all bounties, not merely to mankind directly, but also to the earth as well.

Even in our country his symbolism is not always wholly malevolent,otherwise—if for the moment we shut our eyes to the history of the development of heraldic ornament—dragons would hardly figure as the supporters of the arms of the City of London, and as the symbol of many of our aristocratic families, among which the Royal House of Tudor is included. It is only a few years since the Red Dragon of Cadwallader was added as an additional badge to the achievement of the Prince of Wales. But, "though a common ensign in war, both in the East and the West, as an ecclesiastical emblem his opposite qualities have remained consistently until the present day. Whenever the dragon is represented, it symbolizes the power of evil, the devil and his works. Hell in mediæval art is a dragon with gaping jaws, belching fire."

And in the East the dragon's reputation is not always blameless. For it figures in some disreputable incidents and does not escape the sort of punishment that tradition metes out to his European cousins.

[130]An elaboration of a Lecture delivered in the John Rylands Library on 8 November, 1916.[131]In his lecture, "Dreams and Primitive Culture," delivered at the John Rylands Library on 10 April, 1918, Dr. Rivers has expounded the principles of dream-development.[132]Vide infra, p. 109et seq.[133]Hence soldiers killed in battle and women dying in childbirth receive special consideration in the exclusive heaven of (Osiris's) Horus's Indian and American representatives, Indra and Tlaloc.[134]M. W. de Visser, "The Dragon in China and Japan,"Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Deel XIII, No. 2, 1913, p. 70.[135]E. A. Wallis Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," 1904, vol. i, p. 11[136]Gould's "Mythical Monsters," 1886.

[130]An elaboration of a Lecture delivered in the John Rylands Library on 8 November, 1916.

[131]In his lecture, "Dreams and Primitive Culture," delivered at the John Rylands Library on 10 April, 1918, Dr. Rivers has expounded the principles of dream-development.

[132]Vide infra, p. 109et seq.

[133]Hence soldiers killed in battle and women dying in childbirth receive special consideration in the exclusive heaven of (Osiris's) Horus's Indian and American representatives, Indra and Tlaloc.

[134]M. W. de Visser, "The Dragon in China and Japan,"Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Deel XIII, No. 2, 1913, p. 70.

[135]E. A. Wallis Budge, "The Gods of the Egyptians," 1904, vol. i, p. 11

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

In the early centuries of the Christian era, and probably also even for two or three hundred years earlier still, the leaven of the ancient civilizations of the Old World was at work in Mexico, Central America and Peru. The most obtrusive influences that were brought to bear, especially in the area from Yucatan to Mexico, were inspired by the Cambodian and Indonesian modifications of Indian beliefs and practices. The god who was most often depicted upon the ancient Maya and Aztec codices was the Indian rain-god Indra, who in America was provided with the head of the Indian elephant[137](i.e. seems to have been confused with the Indian Ganesa) and given other attributes more suggestive of the Dravidian Nâga than his enemy, the Aryan deity. In other words the character of the American god, known asChacby the Maya people and asTlalocby the Aztecs, is an interesting illustration of the effects of such a mixture of cultures as Dr. Rivers has studied in Melanesia.[138]Not only does the elephant-headed god in America represent a blend of the two great Indian rain-gods which in the Old World are mortal enemies, the one of the other (partly forthe political reason that the Dravidians and Aryans were rival and hostile peoples), but all the traits of each deity, even those depicting the old Aryan conception of their deadly combat, are reproduced in America under circumstances which reveal an ignorance on the part of the artists of the significance of the paradoxical contradictions they are representing. But even many incidents in the early history of the Vedic gods, which were due to arbitrary circumstances in the growth of the legends, reappear in America. To cite one instance (out of scores which might be quoted), in the Vedic story Indra assumed many of the attributes of the god Soma. In America the name of the god of rain and thunder, the Mexican Indra, isTlaloc, which is generally translated "pulque of the earth," fromtlal[l]i, "earth," andoc[tli], "pulque, a fermented drink (like the Indian drinksoma) made from the juice of the agave".[139]

The so-called "long-nosed god" (the elephant-headed rain-god) has been given the non-committal designation "god B," by Schellhas.[140]

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