The Evolution of the Dragon Part 31

In the celebration of these anniversaries the priestesses of Aphrodite worked themselves up in a wild state of frenzy; and the term [Greek: hysteria][411] became identified with the state of emotional derangement a.s.sociated with such orgies. The common belief that the term "hysteria"

is derived directly from the Greek word for uterus is certainly erroneous. The word [Greek: hysteria] was used in the same sense as [Greek: Aphrodisia], that is as a synonym for the festivals of the G.o.ddess. The "hysteria" was the name for the orgy in celebration of the G.o.ddess on New Year's day: then it was applied to the condition produced by these excesses; and ultimately it was adopted in medicine to apply to similar emotional disturbances. Thus both the terms "hysteria" and "lunacy"[412] are intimately a.s.sociated with the earliest phases in the moon-G.o.ddess's history; and their survival in modern medicine is a striking tribute to the strong hold of effete superst.i.tion in this branch of the diagnosis and treatment of disease.[413]

I have already referred to the a.s.sociation of Artemis with the portal of birth and rebirth. As the guardian of the door her Roman representative Diana and her masculine _avatar_ Dia.n.u.s or Ja.n.u.s gave the name to the commencement of the year. The Great Mother not only initiated the measurement of the year, but she (or her representative) lent her name to the opening of the year in various countries.

But the story of the Destruction of Mankind has preserved the record not only of the circ.u.mstances which were responsible for originating the measurement of the year and the making of a calendar, but also of the materials out of which were formed the mythical epochs preserved in the legends of Greece and India and many other countries further removed from the original centre of civilization. When the elaboration of the early story involved the destruction of mankind, it became necessary to provide some explanation of the continued existence of man upon the earth. This difficulty was got rid of by creating a new race of men from the fragments of the old or from the clay into which they had been transformed (_supra_, p. 196). In course of time this _secondary_ creation became the basis of the familiar story of the _original_ creation of mankind. But the story also became transformed in other ways. Different versions of the process of destruction were blended into one narrative, and made into a series of catastrophes and a succession of acts of creation. I shall quote (from Mr. T. A. Joyce's "Mexican Archaeology," p. 50) one example of these series of mythical epochs or world ages to ill.u.s.trate the method of synthesis:--

When all was dark Tezcatlipoca transformed himself into the sun to give light to men.

1. This sun terminated in the destruction of mankind, including a race of giants, by _jaguars_.

2. The second sun was Quetzalcoatl, and his age terminated in a terrible _hurricane_, during which mankind was transformed into monkeys.

3. The third sun was Tlaloc, and the destruction came by a _rain of fire_.

4. The fourth was Chalchintlicue, and mankind was finally destroyed by a _deluge_, during which they became fishes.

The first episode is clearly based upon the story of the lioness-form of Hathor destroying mankind: the second is the Babylonian story of Tiamat, modified by such Indian influences as are revealed in the _Ramayana_: the third is inspired by the Saga of the Winged Disk; and the fourth by the story of the Deluge.

Similar stories of world ages have been preserved in the mythologies of Eastern Asia, India, Western Asia, and Greece, and no doubt were derived from the same original source.

[400: The Greek Chronus was the son of Selene.]

[401: Or possibly the situations of Upper and Lower Egypt.]

[402: See G. Elliot Smith, "The Ancient Egyptians".]

[403: The a.s.sociation of north and south with the primary subdivision of the state probably led to the inclusion of the other two cardinal points to make the subdivision four-fold.]

[404: The number four was a.s.sociated with the sun-G.o.d. There were four "children of Horus" and four spokes to the wheel of the sun.]

[405: "Architecture," p. 24.]

[406: See the chapter on "Magic" in Jevons, "Comparative Religion". In his article "Magic (Egyptian)," in Hastings' _Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics_ (p. 266), Dr. Alan Gardiner makes the following statement: "The mystical potency attaching to certain _numbers_ doubtless originated in a.s.sociations of thought that to us are obscure. The number seven, in Egyptian magic, was regarded as particularly efficacious. Thus we find references to the seven Hathors: _cf._ [Greek: ai hepta Tychai tou ouranou] (A. Dieterich, _Eine Mithrasliturgie_, Leipzig, 1910, p.

71): 'the seven daughters of Re,' who 'stand and weep and make seven knots in their seven tunics'; and similarly 'the seven hawks who are in front of the barque of Re'."

Are the seven daughters of Re the seven days of the week, or the representatives of Hathor corresponding to the seven days?]

[407: Chapter II, p. 118.]

[408: We have already seen that the primitive aspect of life-giving that played an essential part in the development of the story we are considering was the search for the means by which youth could be restored. It is significant that Hathor's reputed ability to restore youth is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts in a.s.sociation with her functions as the measurer of years: for she is said "to turn back the years from King Teti," so that they pa.s.s over him without increasing his age (Breasted, "Thought and Religion in Ancient Egypt," p. 124).]

[409: Breasted ("Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt," p. 22) states that as the inundation began at the rising of Sothis, the star of Isis, sister of Osiris, they said to him [_i.e._ Osiris]: "The beloved daughter, Sothis, makes thy fruits (rnpwt) in her name of 'Year'

(rnpt)".]

[410: The Great Mother was identified with the moon, but when she became specialized, her representative adopted Sothis or Venus as her star.]

[411: "At Argos the princ.i.p.al fete of Aphrodite was called [Greek: hysteria] because they offered sacrifices of pigs ("Athen." III, 49, 96; "Clem. Alex. Protr." 33)"--Article "Aphrodisia," _Dict. des Antiquites_, p. 308. The Greek word for pig had the double significance of "pig" and "female organs of reproduction".]

[412: Aphrodite sends Aphrodisiac "mania" (see Tumpel, _op. cit._, pp.

394 and 395).]

[413: There is still widely prevalent the belief in the possibility of being "moonstruck," and many people, even medical men who ought to know better, solemnly expound to their students the influence of the moon in producing "lunacy". If it were not invidious one could cite instances of this from the writings of certain teachers of psychological medicine in this country within the last few months. The persistence of these kinds of traditions is one of the factors that make it so difficult to effect any real reform in the treatment of mental disease in this country.]

The Seven-headed Dragon.

I have already referred to the magical significance attached to the number seven and the widespread references to the seven Hathors, the seven winds to destroy Tiamat, the seven demons, and the seven fates.

In the story of the Flood there is a similar insistence on the seven-fold nature of many incidents of good and ill meaning in the narrative. But the dragon with this seven-fold power of wreaking vengeance came to be symbolized by a creature with seven heads.

A j.a.panese story told in Henderson's notes to Campbell's "Celtic Dragon Myth"[414] will serve as an introduction to the seven-headed monster:--

"A man came to a house where all were weeping, and learned that the last daughter of the house was to be given to a dragon with _seven or eight_[415] heads who came to the sea-sh.o.r.e yearly to claim a victim. He went with her, enticed the dragon to drink _sake_ from pots set out on the sh.o.r.e, and then he slew the monster. From the end of his tail he took out a sword, which is supposed to be the Mikado's state sword. He married the maiden, and with her got a jewel or talisman which is preserved with the regalia. A third thing of price so preserved is a mirror."

The seven-headed dragon is found also in the Scottish dragon-myth, and the legends of Cambodia, India, Persia, Western Asia, East Africa, and the Mediterranean area.

The seven-headed dragon probably originated from the seven Hathors. In Southern India the Dravidian people seem to have borrowed the Egyptian idea of the seven Hathors. "There are seven Mari deities, all sisters, who are wors.h.i.+pped in Mysore. All the seven sisters are regarded vaguely as wives or sisters of Siva."[416] At one village in the Trichinopoly district Bishop Whitehead found that the G.o.ddess Kaliamma was represented by seven bra.s.s pots, and adds: "It is possible that the seven bra.s.s pots represent seven sisters or the seven virgins sometimes found in Tamil shrines" (p. 36). But the G.o.ddess who animates seven pots, who is also the seven Hathors, is probably well on the way to becoming a dragon with seven heads.

There is a close a.n.a.logy between the Swahili and the Gaelic stories that reveals their ultimate derivation from Babylonia. In the Scottish story the seven-headed dragon comes in a storm of wind and spray. The East African serpent comes in a storm of wind and dust.[417] In the Babylonian story seven winds destroy Tiamat.

"The famous legend of the seven devils current in antiquity was of Babylonian origin, and belief in these evil spirits, who fought against the G.o.ds for the possession of the souls and bodies of men, was widespread throughout the lands of the Mediterranean basin. Here is one of the descriptions of the seven demons:--

"Of the seven the first is the south wind....

"The second is a dragon whose open mouth....

"The third is a panther whose mouth spares not.

"The fourth is a frightful python....

"The fifth is a wrathful ... who knows no turning back.

"The sixth is an on-rus.h.i.+ng ... who against G.o.d and king [attacks].

"The seventh is a hurricane, an evil wind which [has no mercy].

"The Babylonians were inconsistent in their description of the seven devils, describing them in various pa.s.sages in different ways. In fact they actually conceived of a very large number of these demons, and their visions of the other evil spirits are innumerable. According to the incantation of Shamash-shum-ukin fifteen evil spirits had come into his body and

"'My G.o.d who walks at my side they drove away.'

"The king calls himself 'the son of his G.o.d'. We have here the most fundamental doctrines of Babylonian theology, borrowed originally from the religious beliefs of the Sumerians. For them man in his natural condition, at peace with the G.o.ds and in a state of atonement, is protected by a divine spirit whom they conceived of as dwelling in their bodies along with their souls or 'the breath of life'. In many ways the Egyptians held the same doctrine, in their belief concerning the _ka_[418] or the soul's double. According to the beliefs of the Sumerians and Babylonians these devils, evil spirits, and all evil powers stand for ever waiting to attach (_sic_) (? attack) the divine genius with each man. By means of insinuating snares they entrap mankind in the meshes of their magic. They secure possession of his soul and body by leading him into sin, or bringing him into contact with tabooed things, or by overcoming his divine protector with sympathetic magic.... These adversaries of humanity thus expel a man's G.o.d, or genius, or occupy his body. These rituals of atonement have as their primary object the ejection of the demons and the restoration of the divine protector. Many of the prayers end with the pet.i.tion, 'Into the kind hands of his G.o.d and G.o.ddess restore him'.

"Representations of the seven devils are somewhat rare.... The Brit.

Mus. figurine represents the demon of the winds with body of a dog, scorpion tail, bird legs and feet" (S. Langdon, "A Ritual of Atonement for a Babylonian King," _The Museum Journal_ [University of Pennsylvania], Vol. VIII, No. 1, March, 1917, pp. 39-44).

But the Babylonians not only adopted the Egyptian conception of the power of evil as being seven demons, but they also seem to have fused these seven into one, or rather given the real dragon seven-fold attributes.[419]

In "The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia"[420] (British Museum), Marduk's weapon is compared to "the fish with seven wings".