The Evolution of the Dragon Part 14

[144: Herbert J. Spinden, "Maya Art," p. 62.]

[145: Seler, "Codex Vatica.n.u.s," Figs. 299-304.]

[146: See, for example, F. W. K. Muller, "Nang," _Int. Arch. f.

Ethnolog._, 1894, Suppl. zu Bd. vii., Taf. vii., where the mask of _Ravana_ (a late surrogate of Indra in the _Ramayana_) reveals a survival of the prototype of the Mexican designs.]

[147: Joyce, _op. cit._, p. 37.]

[148: For the incident of the stealing of the soma by Garuda, who in this legend is the representative of Indra, see Hopkins, "Religions of India," pp. 360-61.]

[149: "The Influence of Ancient Egyptian Civilization in the East and in America," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 1916, Fig. 4, "The Serpent-Bird".]

[150: Probably from about 300 B.C. to 700 A.D.]

[151: For information concerning Ea's "Goat-Fish," which can truly be called the "Father of Dragons," as well as the prototype of the Indian _makara_, the mermaid, the "sea-serpent," the "dolphin of Aphrodite,"

and of most composite sea-monsters, see W. H. Ward's "Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," pp. 382 _et seq._ and 399 _et seq._; and especially the detailed reports in de Morgan's _Memoires_ (Delegation en Perse).]

[152: _Nature, op. cit., supra_.]

[153: Juan Martinez Hernandez, "La Creacion del Mundo segun los Mayas,"

Paginas Ineditas del MS. De Chumayel, _International Congress of Americanists, Proceedings of the XVIII. Session_, London, 1912, p. 164.]

[154: From the folk-lore of America I have collected many interesting variants of the Indra story and other legends (and artistic designs) of the elephant. I hope to publish these in the near future.]

[155: _Peabody Museum Papers_, 1901.]

[156: See, for example, Wilfrid Jackson's "Sh.e.l.ls as Evidence of the Migration of Early Culture," pp. 50-66.]

[157: "Notes on the Maoris, etc.," _Journal of the Ethnological Society_, vol. i., 1869, p. 368.]

[158: _Op. cit._, p. 231.]

[159: I quote this and the following paragraphs verbatim from Garrick Mallery, "Picture Writing of the American Indians," _10th Annual Report, 1888-89, Bureau of Ethnology (Smithsonian Inst.i.tute)_. p. 78.]

[160: _Op. cit._, pp. 35 _et seq._]

[161: See de Visser, p. 41.]

[162: There can be no doubt that the Chinese dragon is the descendant of the early Babylonian monster, and that the inspiration to create it probably reached Shensi during the third millennium B.C. by the route indicated in my "Incense and Libations" (_Bull. John Rylands Library_, vol. iv., No. 2, p. 239). Some centuries later the Indian dragon reached the Far East via Indonesia and mingled with his Babylonian cousin in j.a.pan and China.]

[163: "Religious System of China," vol. iii., chap, xii., pp. 936-1056.]

[164: This paragraph is taken almost verbatim from de Visser, _op. cit._ pp. 59 and 60.]

[165: G. E. Gerini, "Researches on Ptolemy's Geography of Eastern Asia,"

_Asiatic Society's Monographs_, No. 1, 1909, p. 146.]

[166: De Visser, p. 102, and de Groot, vi., p. 1265, Plate XVIII. The reference to "a range of mountains ... as a symbol of the world" recalls the Egyptian representation of the eastern horizon as two hills between which Hathor or her son arises (see Budge, "G.o.ds of the Egyptians," vol.

ii., p. 101; and compare Griffith's "Hieroglyphs," p. 30): the same conception was adopted in Mesopotamia (see Ward, "Seal Cylinders of Western Asia," fig. 412, p. 156) and in the Mediterranean (see Evans, "Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult," pp. 37 _et seq._). It is a remarkable fact that Sir Arthur Evans, who, upon p. 64 of his memoir, reproduces two drawings of the Egyptian "horizon" supporting the sun's disk, should have failed to recognize in it the prototype of what he calls "the horns of consecration". Even if the confusion of the "horizon" with a cow's horns was very ancient (for the horns of the Divine Cow supporting the moon made this inevitable), this rationalization should not blind us as to the real origin of the idea, which is preserved in the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Cretan and Chinese pictures (see Fig. 26, facing p. 188).]

[167: De Visser, p. 103.]

[168: P. 104. The Chinese triquetrum has a circle in the centre and five or eight commas.]

[169: See on this my paper "The Origin of Early Siberian Civilization,"

now being published in the _Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society_.]

[170: Wilfrid Jackson, "Sh.e.l.ls as Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture," p. 106.]

[171: I shall discuss this more fully in "The Birth of Aphrodite".]

[172: "Religions of India," p. 197.]

[173: "Mythe der Kei-Insulaner und Verwandtes," _Zeitsch. f.

Ethnologie_, vol. xxv., 1893, pp. 533 _et seq._]

[174: See Fig. 14.]

The Evolution of the Dragon.

The American and Indonesian dragons can be referred back primarily to India, the Chinese and j.a.panese varieties to India and Babylonia. The dragons of Europe can be traced through Greek channels to the same ultimate source. But the cruder dragons of Africa are derived either from Egypt, from the aegean, or from India. All dragons that strictly conform to the conventional idea of what such a wonder-beast should be can be shown to be sprung from the fertile imagination of ancient Sumer, the "great breeding place of monsters" (Minns).

But the history of the dragon's evolution and transmission to other countries is full of complexities; and the dragon-myth is made up of many episodes, some of which were not derived from Babylonia.

In Egypt we do not find the characteristic dragon and dragon-story. Yet all of the ingredients out of which both the monster and the legends are compounded have been preserved in Egypt, and in perhaps a more primitive and less altered form than elsewhere. Hence, if Egypt does not provide dragons for us to dissect, it does supply us with the evidence without which the dragon's evolution would be quite unintelligible.

Egyptian literature affords a clearer insight into the development of the Great Mother, the Water G.o.d, and the Warrior Sun G.o.d than we can obtain from any other writings of the origin of this fundamental stratum of deities. And in the three legends: The Destruction of Mankind, The Story of the Winged Disk, and The Conflict between Horus and Set, it has preserved the germs of the great Dragon Saga. Babylonian literature has shown us how this raw material was worked up into the definite and familiar story, as well as how the features of a variety of animals were blended to form the composite monster. India and Greece, as well as more distant parts of Africa, Europe, and Asia, and even America have preserved many details that have been lost in the real home of the monster.

In the earliest literature that has come down to us from antiquity a clear account is given of the original attributes of Osiris. "Horus comes, he recognizes his father in thee [Osiris], youthful in thy name of 'Fresh Water'." "Thou art indeed the Nile, great on the fields at the beginning of the seasons; G.o.ds and men live by the moisture that is in thee." He is also identified with the inundation of the river. "It is Unis [the dead king identified with Osiris] who inundates the land." He also brings the wind and guides it. It is the breath of life which raises the king from the dead as an Osiris. The wine-press G.o.d comes to Osiris bearing wine-juice and the great G.o.d becomes "Lord of the overflowing wine": he is also identified with barley and with the beer made from it. Certain trees also are personifications of the G.o.d.

But Osiris was regarded not only as the waters upon earth, the rivers and streams, the moisture in the soil and in the bodies of animals and plants, but also as "the waters of life that are in the sky".

"As Osiris was identified with the waters of earth and sky, he may even become the sea and the ocean itself. We find him addressed thus: 'Thou art great, thou art green, in thy name of Great Green (Sea); lo, thou art round as the Great Circle (Okeanos); lo, thou art turned about, thou art round as the circle that encircles the Haunebu (aegeans)."

This series of interesting extracts from Professor Breasted's "Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt" (pp. 18-26) gives the earliest Egyptians'

own ideas of the attributes of Osiris. The Babylonians regarded Ea in almost precisely the same light and endowed him with identical powers.

But there is an important and significant difference between Osiris and Ea. The former was usually represented as a man, that is, as a dead king, whereas Ea was represented as a man wearing a fish-skin, as a fish, or as the composite monster with a fish's body and tail, which was the prototype of the Indian _makara_ and "the father of dragons".

In attempting to understand the creation of the dragon it is important to remember that, although Osiris and Ea were regarded primarily as personifications of the beneficent life-giving powers of water, as the bringers of fertility to the soil and the givers of life and immortality to living creatures, they were also identified with the destructive forces of water, by which men were drowned or their welfare affected in various ways by storms of sea and wind.

Thus Osiris or the fish-G.o.d Ea could destroy mankind. In other words the fish-dragon, or the composite monster formed of a fish and an antelope, could represent the destructive forces of wind and water. Thus even the malignant dragon can be the h.o.m.ologue of the usually beneficent G.o.ds Osiris and Ea, and their Aryan surrogates Mazdah and Varuna.

By a somewhat a.n.a.logous process of archaic rationalization the sons respectively of Osiris and Ea, the sun-G.o.ds Horus and Marduk, acquired a similarly confused reputation. Although their outstanding achievements were the overcoming of the powers of evil, and, as the givers of light, conquering darkness, their character as warriors made them also powers of destruction. The falcon of Horus thus became also a symbol of chaos, and as the thunder-bird became the most obtrusive feature in the weird anatomy of the composite Mesopotamian dragon and his more modern bird-footed brood, which ranges from Western Europe to the Far East of Asia and America.

That the sun-G.o.d derived his functions directly or indirectly from Osiris and Hathor is shown by his most primitive attributes, for in "the earliest sun-temples at Abusir, he appears as the source of life and increase". "Men said of him: 'Thou hast driven away the storm, and hast expelled the rain, and hast broken up the clouds'." Horus was in fact the son of Osiris and Hathor, from whom he derived his attributes. The invention of the sun-G.o.d was not, as most scholars pretend, an attempt to give direct expression to the fact that the sun is the source of fertility. That is a discovery of modern science. The sun-G.o.d acquired his attributes secondarily (and for definite historical reasons) from his parents, who were responsible for his birth.

The quotation from the Pyramid Texts is of special interest as an ill.u.s.tration of one of the results of the a.s.similation of the idea of Osiris as the controller of water with that of a sky-heaven and a sun-G.o.d. The sun-G.o.d's powers are rationalized so as to bring them into conformity with the earliest conception of a G.o.d as a power controlling water.