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THE ALL-KNOWING
GOD
This is a volume in the Arno Press collection
MY THOLOGY Advisory Editor Kees W. Bolle
Editorial Board Angelo Brelich Joseph Campbell Mircea Eliade
See last pages of this volume for a complete list of titles.
THE ALL-KNOWING
RAFFAELE
GOD
PETTAZZONI
Authorised Translation by
H. J. ROSE
wil ARNO PRESS A New York Times Company New York / 1978 AP FINI
in?
pe oe cee ey em Sf > NI
rmiesG) © nihaPRASSI VA
=
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i
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Methuen
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Library of Congress Cataloging
Pettazzoni,
Inc.
Raffaele,
all-knowing
in Publication
Data
1853-1959.
God.
(Mythology) Translation
Reprint
of L'onniscienza
du Dio.
of the 1956 ed. published by Methuen,
London.
Includes bibliographical references. 1. God-Omniscience. 2. Religions. 3. Religion, Primitive. I. Titles 10) Series. CBL205.P4713 1978] 20 Wee walals TT-79150
ISBN 0-l05-10559-2
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
RAFFAELE
PETTAZZONI
Professor of the History of Religions, University of Rome; Doctor honoris causa of the Universities of Brussels and Strasbourg; Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Accademia delle Scienze dell’ istituto di Bologna, the Accademia Pontaniana, Naples; Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy ;Member of the German Archaeological Institute; Foreign Member of the Royal Society of Letters, Lund.
LG] MROSTENI SO Corresponding Fellow of the Lombard Institute of Sciences and Letters, Milan; Foreign Member of the Royal Society of Letters, Lund; Foreign Member of the Royal Netherlands
Academy; Hon. Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford; Emeritus Professor of Greek, St. Salvators College, St. Andrews; Hon. LL.D., St. Andrews.
THE ALL-KNOWING
GOD
Researches into
early Religion and Culture by RAFFAELE
PETTAZZONI
Authorised Translation by
H. J. ROSE
otros6pa, otdos S€ voei, 00os dé 7° akover
XENOPHANES,
Fgt. 24 (Diog. Laert. IX, 19)
6dos vous, Gros pas mazp@ov, bdos odbaducs, mavTa OpGv, mavTa axotwy, eldas mavTa
CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, Stromat. VII, 5
totus oculus, totus auris, totus cerebrum, totus brachium. . . . Deus sapientissimus sentit etintelligit omnia ISAAC NEWTON, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Liber III (1687)
METHUEN & CO. LTD, LONDON 36 Essex Street, Strand, W.C.2
First published in 1956
CATALOGUE
NO. 5720/U
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
The Camelot Press Ltd., London and Southampton
AUTHOR’S
PREFACE
r
NHIS book originated in a series of lectures on The Omniscience of God, which I delivered in October 1935 in the University of Uppsala, by courteous invitation of the Olaus Petri Foundation. A summary of them will be found in Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religiont Vol. XI (1935), pp. 215-17. But the first beginnings of the work lie further back and the germ of them is in a very wide scheme of study planned some forty years ago and achieved only in part with the publication of. my book L’Essere celeste nelle credenze dei popoli primitivi, which came out in Rome in 1922 as the first section of a tripartite treatise having the title Dio: Formazione e sviluppo del monoteismo nella storia delle religioni. The other two sections, which were to have handled respectively JJ Dio supremo nelle religioni politeistiche and Il Dio unico nelle religioni monoteistiche, never were and never will be completed in the shape which I then planned.* As the work progressed, apart from correcting here and there my views on particular points, I was led to fix my attention more and more on the attributes of Deity and especially on that of omniscience, to which I devoted some special studies on various occasions, namely Ahura Mazda, the knowing Lord, in Indo-Iranian Studies in honour of Dastur Darab Peshotan Sanjana (London and Leipzig 1925); L’omniscience de Dieu, in Actes du Ve Congrès International d’Histoire des Religions (1929), Lund 1930; Allwissende hichste Wesen bgt primitivsten Volkern, in Archiv Siir Religionswissenschaft xxix (1931). In the present volume the themes, old and new, of my research are taken up again, but the research is definitely focussed on the attribute of Divine omniscience considered as an ideological complex and as a religious experience. The work has been carried out (like that on La confessione dei peccati, 3 vols., Bologna 1929-36, French translation, La confession des péchés, 2 vols., Paris 1931-32) on the two distinct but conjoined planes of phenomenology and of religious history, as complementary and inseparable factors of the science of religion in its essential unity (cf. my Apergu introductif in Numen i, 1954, Leiden, E. J. Brill). The phenomenological interpretation, based on formal typology, is combined in one with the assignment of the attribute of omniscience
to a definite historical and cultural environment. * The four titles may be rendered in English: (1) The skygod in the beliefs of primitive peoples, (2) Gon: the formation and development of monotheism in the history of religion, (3) The supreme God in polytheistic religions, (4) The One God of monotheistic religions.
vi
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
I am not blind to the difficulties and dangers of so wide an undertaking. The novelty of the theme, the almost entire absence of preliminary studies, have made it necessary again and again, chapter by chapter, to explore very diverse fields, every one of which would call for a special competence such as none but specialists can reach. I am sure that these will be indulgent to my attempt to overstep the bounds of specialisation. The work, begun before the second world war, had to be broken off and resumed several times. The agreement with the publisher dates from 1938 and has been kept, a comforting example of faithfulness to contracts in unpropitious days. For reasons of space, some subsidiary sections and paragraphs have been omitted. It has been found possible to include these, along with a larger number‘of notes and some additional illustrations, in the Italian edition (Turin, Einaudi, 1955), which is entitled L’Onniscienza di Dio. My friend Professor H. J. Rose, besides being a translator past compare, has been a valuable collaborator and my undying gratitude goes out to him. To those who have courteously provided me with the material here reproduced in the illustrations I express my warm thanks, and especially to my late friend Professor Antonio Minto, Director of the Archaeological Museum of Florence, to the Directors of the Archaeological Museum of Turin, of the Louvre, of the Kestner Museum, Hanover, and of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, and to Dr. D. Zoncev, Director of the Museum of Plovdiv.
Useful suggestions and information have reached me from Professor F. W. von Bissing, Professor Gavril I. Kazarov of Sofia, and others mentioned in various chapters; to all of them I once again express my warmest thanks. R. PETTAZZONI Rome, 1954
TRANSLATOR’S
PREFACE
|Y work, of which the author speaks so warmly, has consisted of rendering into English what he had written in Italian, doing my best to prove that in this instance traduttore should not be synonymous with traditore. I wish here to express my general agreement with the views set forth in this work, while reserving judgement on some details. H. J. Rose
CAI
CONTENTS AUTHOR’S PREFACE
v
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
vil
INTRODUCTION
I 31 31 52 34
I. AFRICA Pygmies Bushmen, Hottentots and Damara Bantu Sudanese
36
Nilotic and Niloto-Hamitic peoples Cushites
38 40
it EGYPT
a
49
49
Thot
50
Horus
5I
Amun Many-eyed deities Summary
55
III. BABYLONIA Anu Enlil Ea
58 63 49
77 a7 78
Sin Shamash Marduk Other deities
78 79 79 84
IV. PHOENICIANS
89 89 gl 97 97 105 106 107
The two-faced El ‘Lhe Punic Janus
V. ISRAEL Psalms and Wisdom literature Prophets Historical books Antiquity of the idea of divine omniscience The Cherubim
109
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD 115 115
MIE THE HITTITES The sun-god The weather-god The ‘Gods of the King”
115 116
118 118 122 125
NAT: INDIA Vedism and Brahmanism Hinduism Buddhism and Jainism
132 132 134 139
VARIE IRAN Ahura Mazdah Mithra Saosyant
IX. GREECE
Argos panoptes
145 145 I5I
Boreas, Aer, Aither Helios and Selene
153 190
Zeus
. ANCIENT ROME Juppiter Semo Sancus Janus UE
È
THE THRACIANS The “Thracian Rider” as sungod The Thracian “Hermes” as god of the “kings”
XII
THE
TEUTONS
Wotan-Odin
LV
178 178 183
KELTS
The three-headed Gaulish god The three-headed god on planetary vases The two-faced god XIII. THE
163 163 163 164.
THE SLAVS Triglav, Svantevit and others
196
200 207 220 220
234 234
CONTENTS XV.
xi
UGRO-FINNS, URALO-ALTAICS, Mordvins Voguls and Ostiaks
SIBERIANS
Samoyeds Turko-Mongols and related peoples Koryaks General reflections
XVI.
CHINA Shang-ti and T’ien Shang and Chou
XVIII.
XIX.
ASSAM AND UPPER BURMA Nagas Kachin, Lushei, Lakher
289 289 292
THE
Andaman Islands Peninsula of Malacca
301 301 310
Philippine Islands
318
NEGRITOS
INDONESIA
329 929 SII ooo 399 Oa
Nias Borneo Celebes Flores The Moluccas
DX SAI
257 259 261 263 264 273 273 277 281
Prehistory
VIL
256
OCEANIA: MICRONESIA, POLYNESIA AUSTRALIA
RAITT. NORTH AMERICA The Eskimo The North-West Indians The Californians
The Athapascans The Algonkin The Iroquois The Sioux
MELANESIA, 341 359
354 354 361
364 371 372 382
384
THE
xii
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
The Caddo The South-East
The Pueblos and the South-West
XXIII. MEXICO XXIV.
AND
CENTRAL
AMERICA
385 387 390 404
SOUTH AMERICA EPILOGUE
433
INDEX
457
ILLUSTRATIONS Facing page
1, a, 6. “Bes Pantheos’’, bronze, Musée du Louvre E. 11554. Photo Giraudon, from the original
54
. “Bes Pantheos”’, enamelled pottery figure in Cairo Museum, G. Daressy, Textes et dessins magiques, Plate X, No. 9429
55
. “Bes
Pantheos”, serpentine, From the original
Kestner
Museum,
Hanover.
DÒ
a, b. The Metternich Stele, front and back views; F. Lexa,
La magie dans l Egypte antique (Paris 1925), Plates 29 and 30 . Stele from the Turin Museum, from the original
59
. Babylonian cylinder seal; H. Frankfort, Cylinder Seals (London 1939), Plate xixa . Limestone
relief, Berlin VA
2890; Miscellanea
58
84
Orientalia A.
Deimel (Rome 1935), p. 151
84
. Terracotta, Constantinople; A Jeremias, Handbuch der altorientalischen Geisteskultur (Leipzig 1929), p. 354, Fig. 184
84
a, b, c. Coins from Mallos in Kilikia; Svoronos, Zeitschrift fiir Numismatik xvi (1888), Plate x, Nos. 13, 14, 15
92
10. Seal from Mohenjo-Daro; Sir J. Marshall, (London 1931), Plate xii, No. 17
Mohenjo-Daro
11. Yogi in the svastikdsana position; H. von Glasenapp, Brahma und Buddha (Berlin 1926), Fig. 15 12, a, 6. Jewelled
bronze
vase in Gulistan
112
Tel
Palace, Teheran;
A Survey of Persian Art vi, 1314 A. 13, a, 6. Red-figure stamnos from Caere, at Vienna, Masner, Die Sammlung antiker Vasen und Terrakotten im kk. dsterreichischen Museum (Vienna 1892), No. 338
14. Red-figure oinochoe from Cumae, at Naples; Monumenti antichi pubblicati dall’ Accademia dei Lincei (Vol. XXII), (Milan 1913), Plate 85 15. Attic black figure amphora from Bomarzo, in British Museum (B. 164); Corpus Vasorum: British Museum III Plate 30
128
150
151
ALL-KNOWING
THE
xiv
16. Red-figure oxybaphon from (Cambridge 1925), p. 380, 17. Bell crater from Chiusi; A. B. From Annali dell’ Instituto
GOD
Ruvo; A. B. Cook, 104, cf. Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll xvi, col. 56 (“der altitalischer Gott des Sonnenlaufes”) Huth, Janus, pp. 25, 49; Fr. Altheim, A Hist. of Roman Religion (London 1938), p. 194; same, in Worter u. Sachen, N.F. i (1938), pp. 41 599» and in Italien u. Rom. i (1941), p. 146.
176
THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
78. The correct interpretation given by H. J. Rose in Harv. Theol. Rev. (1949), p. 170 sg., of the formula ante (post) octauo Tanam Lunam in country speech (Varro de re rust. i, 37, 5) loses none of its force even if we give Iana Luna, not the sense of “Gateway Moon, Moon of Entrance or Beginning”?, but one which sticks closer to the physical act of walking, cf. J. Swennung, Untersuchungen zu Palladius (Uppsala 1935), p. 261 sqg. That too may be the meaning of ianeus, explained as ianitor by Festus, p. 92, 2 Linds, in the wersi Ianuli of the hymn of the Salii (Festus p. 3, 15 Linds., Varro, de ling. Lat. vii, 26). For some ancient etymologies, see Nigidius Figulus ap. Macrob., Sat. i, 9, 8, cf. 17, 64, Iana as Diana, and Diana from via (Diuiana, Deuiana) (sic/), Varro,
ibid. v, 68 (p. 22 Goetz-Schoell). 79. Among the Pomo of north central California, the Sun and Moon (the former is thought of as the day sun, the latter as the night sun) are conceived as “travelling fires”’, see J. de Angulo and W. R. Benson in Anthropos xxvii (1932), 266 and Journ. Am. Folk-Lore xlviii (1935), 236. Also, among the Kato the Sun is the daytime Traveller, the Moon the Traveller by night, Nagaico. The moon as a traveller is a figure common to other tribes of central northern California. She is Keyumka, the Traveller, among the coastal Yuki, Taikomol, the Solitary Traveller, among the inland Yuki, and so on (see Chapter XXII,
p. 365). Kutnahin, the noonday Sun, the chief figure in the religion of the Chitimacha of Louisiana, is often found in their myths in the shape of a traveller (Swanton, Bull. 43 of the Bureau of Am. Ethnol., p. 137; Frances Densmore, Bull. 133 (Anthropological Papers 19, Washington 1943), p. 12). 80. The idea that the double face is to be understood, not in the traditional manner, but as a sign of universal vision was put forward by Fr. Marx, in Index lectionum in Academia Rostochiensi semestre hiberno a. 1888/89 publice privatimque habendarum, p. 4. 81. Anthropos, 1932, p. 430. 82. Kramer, Palau (Hamburg 1926), pp. 335, 343. 83. In the zanus we have to do with the purificatory numinosity by virtue of which every outlet or other restricted passage-way has accredited to it the power to scrape away or affect in some fashion the impurity or contagion sticking to the person of whoever passes through (see A. van Gennep, Les Rites de Passage, 1909; Sir J. G. Frazer, G.B.,3 xi, pp. 179 foll., 193 foll.). The three hundred and six Fabii who went out to battle against the men of Veii under the right-hand ianus of the Porta Carmentalis, or Scelerata, all fell at the Cremera, Livy ii, 49, 8, perhaps because they had used that passage when they should have gone by the left-hand one. Analogous inshape to the ianus inits primitive form was the tigillum sororium, a beam fixed horizontally from one wall to another over a lane, the Vicus Sceleratus, under which according to tradition the survivor of the three Horatii had had to go to purify himself from the killing of his sister (Livy i, 26, 12 foll., Dion. Hal., Antiquit. iii, 22, 6 foll., who mentions the two altars of anus Curiatius and Iuno Sororia which stood there. That a magico-religious performance is in question is recognised by H. J. Rose, “Mana in Greece and Rome”, in Harv. Theol. Rev. xlii, 1949, p. 165 foll., although he inclines to believe it was a positive, mana, connected with the adolescence of young men, rather than elimination of a negative
mana). ‘The ancients already saw an analogy between this and the structure and
FIG. 24.—-Stele from Cochlakovo (Cirpan), in Plovdiv Museum; Gavril I. Kazarov, Die Denkmdler des thrakischen Reitergottes in Bulgarien (Budapest, 1938), no. 159, fig. 72
FIG. 26.—Stele from Komatevo (Plovdiv), in Plovdiv Museum; Kazarov, no. 533, fig. 272
FIG.
25.—Stele
from
Izvor
(Plovdiv), in Plovdiv Museum;
Kazaroy, no. 427, fig. 237
FIG. 27.—Stele from Plovdiv, in Plovdiv Museum; Kazarov in Anzeiger der Akademie der
Wissenschaften in Wien, philos.hist. Klasse, 1940, p. 110, fig. 2
FIG. 28.—Stele at Cerven brég (Lukovit); Kazarov, Derkmdler,
no. 148, fig. 64
FIG. 29.—Stele from Cikarlare (Cirpan),
in Plovdiv Museum;
Kazarov, no. 151, fig. 65 &
FIG. 30.—Stele from Krivnia (Razgrad), in Razgrad Museum; Kazarov, no. 557, fig. 286
ANCIENT
ROME
177
function of the iugum or yoke under which the personnel of a defeated army had to pass before being let go, as at the Caudine Forks. This may have been also the original function of the Janus geminus, and before that again of the single ianus which may have stood originally on the site until a second was added in the ultimate structural form of the whole, with the further addition of the twofaced statue of the god within; it was to perform the ceremony of purification of the troops. Compare the purifications of the arms, trumpets and baggage of the army at the beginning and end of the campaigning season, in the Equirria, Quinquatrus and Tubilustrium of March, and at the end of it in the Ecus October and the Armilustrium, in other words when they went forth to war and when they returned from it, that is from slaughter and bloodshed. See C. Bailey, Phases in the Religion of Ancient Rome (Berkeley, Calif., 1932), p. 24; flatly contradicted, but without reason given, by Deubner in A.R.W. xxxili
(1936), p. 132. Cf. also W. Warde Fowler; Roman Essays. and Interpretations (Oxford 1920), p. 70 foll., who finds a purificatory purpose also in the passage of victorious troops through the Porta Triumphalis (see H. Petrikovits, Die Porta Triumphalis, in Oesterr. Fahresh. (1933), p. 187 foll.). Here perhaps we must look for the meaning and origin of the custom of opening the geminae belli portae (Vergil, Aen. vii, 607), i.e. the two gates of the Ianus Geminus, in wartime and closing them in peacetime. As for the ianua, we know that every part of it corresponded to a divinity, or rather a mere indigitation, Forculus for the fores or door-panels, Cardea for the cardo or hinge, Limentinus for the limen or threshold (Varro, fgt. 159 Funaioli, in Gramm. rom. frag. i, p. 243; Tert., adu. nat. ii, 15, cf. W. F. Otto, “‘Rémische Sondergotter,” in Rhein. Mus. lxiv, 1909, p. 456). But the numinosity of the ianua had its own specific character, derived from its very being. It was the point of division and of communication between two religiously separate
worlds, that of the household, the res familiaris (larem, Ovid, Fast. loc. cit.) with its close, welcoming intimacy, guarded by the imagines of the ancestors, protected by the Lares, the Penates and Vesta the hearth-goddess, and the world outside, the res publica (forum, Ovid, ibid.), which had all the fascination and the
danger of the unknown and unforeseen. See M. B. Ogle, ‘“The House-door in Greek and Roman religion and folk-lore’”’, in Am. 7. Phil., 1911, pp. 251-715 W. H. Hudspeth, “The cult of the door amongst the Miao in South-West China”, in Folk-Lore xxxiii (1902), p. 406; K. Meister, Die Hausschwelle in Sprache und Religion der Rimer (Heidelberg 1925); O. Weinreich, Gebet und Wunder (Stuttgart 1929), p. 34 foll. 84. Fr. G. Speck, A Study of the Delaware Indian Big House Ceremony, in Pubs. of the Pennsylvanian Historical Commission, 2 (Harrisburg 1931), p. 22 599. quoted by W. Schmidt, Ursprung v, p. 482; cf. Chapter XXII, p. 379£.
Chapter XI
THE
THRACIANS
(a) THE “‘THRACIAN RIDER’’ 99 AS SUNGOD E can count by hundreds to-day our monuments of the so-called Thracian Rider. They come from the Balkan region, especially from the south of the Danube, from all that territory which anciently was Thrace, but mostly from what is now Bulgaria.1 Usually they are in the form of stelae of no great size and rather rough workmanship, having on them, in relief, a male figure, sometimes with but more commonly without a beard, riding a horse, sometimes at the walk but generally at the gallop, after some beast, which is oftenest a boar but occasionally a goat, stag or hare; or else returning from the hunt with his game. Behind the horse there is often the figure of an attendant, who sometimes holds on by the horse’s tail, while in front of it there are one or two female figures. One or two dogs, occasionally also a lion, which joins in the hunt, a tree, which now and again has a snake twined about the trunk, an altar with a fire burning on it, and a mixing-bowl upside-down are more or less common subsidiary objects. All these monuments belong to the Imperial Roman period, generally the second or third century A.D., though some are of the first. The type of the Thracian Rider which is constantly reproduced in all our examples is pretty well fixed, except for secondary modifications. It derives from Greek art, from tomb-sculptures, namely those figures of the dead man on horseback which were common on tombstones. It is enough to mention (apart from the famous monument of Dexileos in the Kerameikos at Athens) the specimen from Abdera, a Greek colony in Thrace.? The monuments of the Thracian Rider have however no sepulchral character, the vast majority of them pertain to the cult of a god; usually they belong to sanctuaries. Quite often they bear inscriptions in Greek or Latin, giving the name of the divinity to whom the stele is dedicated, and the commonest name is Heros or Heron. In some cases, this has its real and original meaning of a dead man “‘heroised’’,® but usually, on these monuments,
Heros
is the name of a real god,® the deity to whom the monument is dedicated and who is represented thereon in the shape of a,mounted man. In other instances the rider-god shown on the stele is, according to the inscription, Apollo (sometimes under his title of Phoibos)? or Asklepios.®
THE
THRACIANS
179
That amounts to saying that the Thracian rider-god could not be exactly identified with any Greek deity, but only approximately with several, according to his various aspects. Even iconographically, indeed, the Rider has sometimes the characteristics of Apollo,® sometimes of Asklepios!° and so on.11 Among the many stelae showing the Thracian Rider, there are some on which the mounted figure, while agreeing in everything else with its usual type, has a very noteworthy peculiarity. There are several heads, or faces. We know so far of five stelae on which the Rider has three heads; of these four come from the region of Plovdiv,
the ancient Philippopolis (Figs. 24-27),12 while one, our Fig. 28, is from the region of Iskar (Oiskos), in northern Bulgaria.13 The central head is always full-face, while those at the sides are sometimes in profile, turned opposite ways (Figs. 24-26), sometimes they too are full-face (Figs. 27, 28), and more clearly separated from the central head. In Fig. 28 the three heads are apparently beardless, while in Nos. 24-27 they are bearded. In one example only, Fig. 29, which comes from the ancient Pizos, east of Philippopolis, the Rider is shown with two heads, or faces, which seem to have beards and are both in profile and turned opposite ways.14 In these monuments the Rider’s figure can hardly represent any ordinary person. The multiple heads are not the characteristic of a mere human being, even if “heroized”. It is plain that here a superhuman being is meant, even a deity. But what deity? Two of our stelae are inscribed, below, with the name of the dedicators, above, with that of the deity to whom the stele is dedicated. On one (Fig. 25), we read xupiw 610, i.e. “to the lord god” ;1° «upuos is a common epithet in the Rider’s monuments,!6 and is applied to Heros as well as to Apollo and Asklepios.1? The other (Fig. 26) has the words 0]ew ravdor.w.18 Kazarow would read this as ravBoror®!® but the restoration is far from certain, and that of Leo Weber, who reads rew067[7]@, is much to be prefered.2° The stele is therefore dedicated to the “allseeing god’’21 an epithet which fits a three-headed or three-faced being very well, since his three heads, or faces, enable him to look simultaneously in three, and so, ideally, in all, directions, while even the two heads, facing opposite ways, are enough to express the same idea. I hold that the possession of three or two heads? means the same here, being merely different expressions of an identical idea, the power to see everything. This attribute of the Rider gives a very useful hint as to his nature. Universal vision is indeed a natural attribute of the sun; Helios “‘sees
all and hears all” in the Iliad, and in Sophokles he is “the all-beholding
Sun” (Chapter IX, p. 155). Aeschylus speaks of “‘the Sun’s all-seeing
orb”, ravéamnv xdkdov “Hiiov® and an Orphic fragment styles him
180
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD epithet, inits Thracian same The “AXe).2+ “Helios all-seeing” (savdmra form zavOdrr7s, is found, as we have seen, on the dedicatory inscription
of one of the stelae of the Rider with three heads (Fig. 26).25 If then universal vision is an attribute belonging especially to the Sun, and many-headed figures are the sculptural symbol of it, we may assume that the many-headed Rider is a sungod. We have also seen that another monument of the three-headed Rider is dedicated ‘to the god” with the epithet «pos, Lord, which on other monuments of the same group is regularly given to Apollo as a solar deity (see note 17), and is also found asa title of Helios on an inscription from the Thracian Chersonese.28 Other stelae of the same class are dedicated to Heros under the title Inuictus,2? again a common epithet of Helios and other solar deities. The solar character of the Rider is confirmed by other
cult-monuments in which he is shown with rays about his head (cf. Fig. 30),28 or wearing a nimbus?? such as the head of the Sungod characteristically has. In others again he has a torch raised in his right hand,?° an obvious emblem of light, or again a rosette, which is a solar symbol, is shown above him.81, 32 The lion also which accompanies him on his hunts probably has solar significance, whether in allusion to the sign of the Zodiac, or, like the dog, to the heat of the dogdays, when the sun at his summer solstice triumphs over the winter cold; or again it might indicate his putting the darkness to flight, much as Mithra is occasionally shown as a mounted huntsman accompanied by a lion, and the lion again is closely associated with the solar disk (which is three-faced) on the Persian vase in our Fig. 125.33 It is a fact that, quite apart from the cult of the Rider, sun-worship is attested for Thrace at a much older date. The sun, who in Greece, during the archaic and classical periods, had very little worship in his own person, as Helios,34 was on the contrary the object of fervid adoration from very ancient times among the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula.85 The Paionians, an ancient people of Illyrian origin,36 worshipped the sun under an aniconic form, a little disk perched on top of a long pole;3? our authority for this is Maximus of Tyre, a Platonic philosopher, or rather an eclectic sophist, of the time of the Antonines, but the antiquity of the sun-worship is shown by the coinage. On the coins of Lykkeios or Lyppeios king of Paionia, who was an ally of the Illyrians and Thracians against Philip V of Macedonia,® the laurel-crowned head of Apollo frequently occurs,8? most distinctly a solar god. Occasionally it is accompanied by the legend Derronatos, an epithet probably containing the name of a native god, Derron,4° probably a sun-god with whom Apollo had been identified. A similar conclusion is to be drawn from the “Apollo Oteudanos” or ‘“Eteudaniskos” of two Thracian inscriptions found on the ancient Paionian territory, not far from Monastir.41 As to the Macedonians,
THE
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181
we know from Livy (xl, 21-22) that in 181 B.c. Philip V, accompanied by his son Perseus, climbed a peak of Mt. Haemus and descended
again in haste,
after having
dedicated
two
altars, one
to
“‘Juppiter”, the other to the Sun. The royal house of Macedonia was descended from Perdikkas, who founded the kingdom in the seventh century B.c. According to a legend preserved by Herodotos (viii, 137), Perdikkas was the youngest of three brothers, who came as exiles into the Macedonian territory from Argos (i.e. Argos in the Orestis, S.W. of Macedonia; later tradition confuses it with Argos in the Peloponnesos), and there became the hired servants of the “king” of
Lebaia, who refused them the wages agreed upon and, when they asked for them, pointed to the sun, which was then shining in through the smoke-hole of his house, saying “That is the wage you have earned”. Whereupon Perdikkas replied, ‘We accept it”, and with a knife which he happened to have in his hand traced the outline of the sunlight on the ground, after which he thrice took up ‘‘of the sunlight” and put it in his bosom; in other words, he took formal possession of the land marked out by the circle on the ground. He then went away with his brothers. His performance was effective, for when Perdikkas became lord of all Macedonia, he thus became master of Lebaia also. Apart from the magical nature of his action,42 we can catch a glimpse here of ancient devotion to the sun on the part of the Macedonian royal house.43 As to the Thracians in particular, their veneration of the sun44 is vouched for in a fragment of Sophokles’ tragedy Tereus, which invokes him in the words “O Sun, whose splendour is most revered of the horse-loving Thracians’’.46 Orpheus, again a Thracian, is credited with a similar devotion for the sun, for according to a myth preserved in the Catasterismi of the so-called Eratosthenes and in all probability derived from the Bassarids of Aeschylust6 he used to rise while it was still dark to climb before dawn to the summit of Mt. Pangaion and salute the luminary at its first appearance. We must further take note of the numerous mentions of a cult of Apollo in Thrace.4? Apollo is of course a Greek deity, and it was the Greeks who brought him with them to their settlements on the Thracian coast; indeed, a Milesian colony on the Black Sea was actually called Apollonia.48 But from the coast his cult made its way to the natives of the interior of Thrace, and overlaid a Thracian divinity, as we may believe from the many local worships in which Apollo is given non-Greek titles, such as Zerynthios, Sitalkes, etc., all Thracian.4® In the same way, at a later date on monuments of the Rider we find Apollo entitled Geikethienos, Skodrenos, Staraskenos, Zelaenos and other such epithets.5° As we have seen, the same thing went on among other Balkan peoples also, for instance in Paionia, where we find the cult of Apollo Derron, Apollo Oteudanos and so on, cf. above, p. 180. In all
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GOD
these cases the Greek Apollo has overlaid a native divinity, who very probably somehow resembled him, and was of solar character. In Asia Minor likewise we find several rider-gods worshipped in the Graeco-Roman period, and all of them sungods. They are shown mounted, armed generally not with a lance but with a club and
double axe. A “Hatos 颔 inmw, mentioned along with Egyptian and
other deities in an inscription from Pergamos,*! corresponds to the pros beds émimos (barbarism for épimmos) on one of the Thracian stelae dedicated to the Rider. Helios Apollon Kisaludenos, or more briefly Apollon Kisaludenos, is the sungod worshipped at Kisaluda in the neighbourhood of Smyrna, and he too is shown as a rider-god.5? Even if the explicit identification with Helios were absent, we often find in Asia Minor, particularly in Lydia and Phrygia, that Apollo is nothing but a Greek interpretation of a barbarian pre-Hellenic solar power; Apollo Lairbenos, Apollo Bozenos and so forth, usually shown on horseback and holding a double axe on the shoulder, are one and all sungods, or rather, one and all are local forms of the same sungod.53
The god “Oouos, or ‘O. (kat) Aikatos, of Lydia and Phrygia, is a
solar divinity, and he is often shown on horseback and carrying the double axe.5+ The same is true of the @eds Swlwv in Phrygia and Pamphylia, who also is shown riding, with rays about his head (like ‘the Thracian Rider, see Fig. 30), with double axe or club.5* In Lykia especially, Telmessos was the centre of the worship of the @eds KaxaaBos, another form of the solar deity, regularly shown riding and bearing a club.5¢ On arelief from Telmessos the same god appears once, it would seem, with the name of Trikasbos.5? In Syria, too, there are found cultmonuments of the sungod shown as a rider; they are of Imperial Roman date.53 These Anatolian parallels indirectly confirm the solar nature of the Thracian Rider, quite apart from his many heads and even when he is shown with a normal, human shape. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the god was brought into Thrace from Asia Minor. “Anatolian” elements are indeed to be found in the Thracian cult of the Rider; a god, Sozon, worshipped in Asia Minor and shown there with rays about his head, as we have already seen, had a cult in Thrace too, for a stele found in the sanctuary of the Heros near Dinikli®? is dedicated to him, The Phrygian Sabazios also had a cult in Thrace, and his characteristic gesture, the right hand lifted in the so-called Latin benediction, found its way to the figure of the Rider also.®° The epithets of sanctus and diuesanctus applied to the Heros®! recall the name of the Anatolian god “Oawos (kai Aixatos), already mentioned. The rosette, which is to be found on one monument of the Rider, is seen also on some reliefs discovered in Syria.¢? But all this has to do only with the external and formal aspects of the Thracian god and his
THE
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183
worship. That worship itself did not come in from Asia Minor, any more than from Greece. The Rider is a national deity of Thrace, and in my opinion his origins go back much farther than the Roman period,*3 as we shall presently see.
(Db) THE THRACIAN ‘ ‘“‘HERMES’’ AS GOD OF THE ‘‘KINGS’’ The sun is not included among the Thracian deities named by Herodotos in that passage at the beginning of his fifth book (v, 6-8) which is our most important document for the religion of that people.®4 He is speaking there of Thracians generally, having first (chs. 3-5) described the particular customs of certain individual populations. But it does not seem likely®® that all he says holds good for all the sections of that nation which he describes as “‘the largest in the world, save the Indians” (v, 3, 1). Of their wide territory he had visited only the coast and the district of Pangaion, no part of the interior. Even sO, since it was precisely at Pangaion that the sun-worship was situated, according to the story concerning Orpheus already cited (above, p. 181), it is strange that Herodotos should say nothing at all about any such cult. According to him, the only gods in the Thracian religion are Ares, Dionysos and Artemis (v, 3). Besides these three, he also mentions Hermes, but according to him only those three are worshipped by the whole people, Hermes being adored only by the “‘kings’’. These “‘kings”’ (BaovAdes) are not reigning sovrans properly so called, having each sole power, but the totality of princes, or gentry in the general and collective sense,** in other words the entire aristocratic class, which naturally centred about the kings proper, and as such was distinct from the mass of the population. These “‘kings’’, or nobles, did possibly take part in the cult of the three great national deities, but they had also a worship strictly reserved for themselves, that is to say the cult of Hermes, who thus was ranked by them above the other gods, since he was thought of as the head of their clan, from whom they proudly claimed descent and by whom alone they swore (Herod. v, 7). It is plain that this “Hermes”, with such deep roots in Thracian tradition and custom, is not the Greek god, although he too
was worshipped in the Balkan peninsula,6? where he had been introduced by Greek colonists; Herodotos” ‘Hermes? is the Greek interpretation of a native Thracian deity; which one? What makes Herodotos’ remarks on Thracian religion so valuable is that they are fitted into the framework of Thracian national life, sketched in Bk. v, chaps. 6-8. A section of the population, says the historian, does nothing, but lives solely by war and brigandage. This is clearly the ruling class, with its “heroic” ideal, to which any kind of work was abhorrent, particularly farm-work, as being the most humiliating and dishonourable.** On the one hand, therefore, we have
184
THE
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GOD
the warlike nobility. on the other the toiling masses. These two social classes appear to have been clearly differentiated by their customs; tattooing, says Herodotos,® is a mark of high rank, no one being tattooed who did not belong to the aristocracy. The usages at burial, consisting of a three-days lying in state, sacrifices, a feast, cremation or inhumation, and games, are, still according to the same authority, those of the rich.?° This economic and social duality which pervades their customs and their whole life is mirrored also in their religion; for the very exclusiveness of their cult of Hermes marked off the ruling class in this respect also from the masses, particularly from the despised peasantry, which, given over as it was to field-work and dependent upon the chances and changes of agriculture, probably reverenced above all others that god whom Herodotos calls Dionysos, no doubt a deity of vegetation and what it produces. The idea suggests itself that this double structure of their economic and social life had its roots in a duality of race; that these two classes,
separate in their culture and their religion, may have arisen from the superimposition of a foreign, invading people upon an earlier, agricultural population native to the place. If we define this more nearly, we must see in the invaders representatives of the Indo-European element, which, in the Balkan peninsula as elsewhere, superimposed itself upon a pre-Indo-European racial complex, Mediterranean if we may use the conventional term. As a rule the expansions of the IndoEuropeans took place, so far as we can guess, not by a great flood of immigrants arriving in hordes, but by means of compact groups, firmly organised and superior as fighters, which imposed themselves rather through their warlike spirit and organised force than by mere weight of numbers.7 From these conquering minorities arose, in the countries they had overrun, the aristocratic clans of lords and the dynasties of kings.?2 So it was in Thrace, and so probably in all manner of other countries, India, Iran, the Near East and Palestine, Syria and Asia Minor.7? The same thing happened in Greece, where the newcomers laid the foundation of the ruling class of warriors, whose pride of caste was on a level with their contempt for the common man, as we may still see in the episode of Thersites, in Homer.’* The heroic and knightly ideal, with its passion for war, hunting and plundering and its contempt for all regular occupation, above all for tilling the soil, in short the very state of things which Herodotos testifies concerning the Thracians, is vouched for elsewhere as regards the Gauls and Germans likewise.75 The differentiation of the ruling aristocracy in religious as in other matters has a valuable parallel in the Scythians, again an Indo-European people; for they, still according to Herodotos (iv, 59), had, like the Thracians, a certain number of national divinities, including an ‘“‘Apollo”’, while the Royal Scythians (Bacio
THE
THRACIANS
185
2'x¥Gat, in other words the clan to which the “kings” or lords, Baourées, belonged), paid their worship to another god as well, named in Scythian Thagimasadas’?® and explained in Greek as Poseidon.
Thus “Hermes” and Dionysos are in Herodotos (v, 7) the extremes of a clearly defined religious duality. On the other hand, in the myth of Orpheus and the Bassarids, already cited (above, p. 181), Orpheus is a fervent worshipper of the Sun, who climbs Mt. Pangaion every morning to salute the great day-star at its first appearance, thereby exciting the jealousy of Dionysos, and Dionysos gets his revenge by having Orpheus killed by the Bassarids. Here again, therefore, we get a contrast between two religions, that of Dionysos and that of the Sun. This religious duality, then, may have something to do with the other to which Herodotos bears witness. He makes a contrast between the religion of the people at large and that of the “kings”, and more especially, between the Dionysiac religion of the common peasantry and the religion of “Hermes” which is the preserve of nobles living by war and hunting. This knightly and bellicose aristocracy, for which there existed no more hateful and vile state than that of a tiller of the soil, was naturally inclined to neglect “Dionysos” (as Orpheus does), for the same reason which led the peasantry in their turn to exalt him. Thus the dual religion in Herodotos, ‘“Dionysos” against “Hermes”, agrees in one of its extremes, Dionysos, with the legend of Orpheus in which that god is opposed to the Sun. The coincidence would be perfect if it could be extended to the other extreme likewise, in other words if
the Herodotean “Hermes”, i.e. the Thracian god to whom he gives that name, was also a solar deity. In this way also the absence (see above, p. 183) of the Sun, or of “Apollo”, from the list of Thracian divinities in Herodotos would become explicable; for he would be absent in appearance only. But how could a sun-god ever come to be interpreted as Hermes? It is to be considered in this connection that an infernal aspect is common to both Hermes, as psychopompos,?? and to the Sun as setting daily in the west and vanishing beneath the horizon to lighten the underground world of the dead during the night and reappear at sun-rise in the east.?8 This very fact has a fairly significant parallel in the religious history of antiquity, in the Greek interpretation of the Persian god Mithra. Among the theological equations to be found in the great sepulchral inscription of Antiochos of Kommagene (about. 69-34 B.c.) is one which refers to Mithra, and in it this sun-god is identified not only with Helios and Apollo but also with Hermes.?? It may be added that Mithra was invoked by the rulers of Persia to witness their oaths and asseverations,®° and, according to Herodotos’ evidence (v, 7), Hermes was in like manner called upon by the “kings” of Thrace, This function of guardian and guarantor of oaths, treaties
186
THE
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GOD
and the like, belongs, as we know, to sungods, because the sun, which
sees and knows everything, knows not only the deeds but even the thoughts of men and no breach of an oath that is taken or a treaty concluded can escape him. We are informed that the Bithynians, who were of Thracian stock, used to sit when they met to administer justice facing the sun, “that the sun might have his eye on them’ at the moment when they gave sentence.81 Let us now consider another aspect of this Thracian “Hermes”. We know that he was worshipped, still according to Herodotos, as the head, the ancestor and progenitor, of the royal clans (above, p. 183). This aspect also finds its parallel in the cult of the Rider; the connection is given by certain stelae in his honour bearing dedications to Apollo, who is now and then described as yewkos or yeviaKos.8? The
title of dpyyyds, likewise given to Apollo, or Phoibos,*? and that of dpynyéras, which the Heros or Theos bears in some monuments from Selymbria on the Black Sea’ that show him as a horseman, have the same meaning; and we may include in the list some monuments of the
Rider in which the god is styled 7rdrptos or rarp@®os.85 Also, on one of
the monuments of the three-headed Rider (Fig. 27), the dedicators are “the kin, at its own expense” (4) cvvyevia éxx TOv eidiwv).89 The Herodotean
‘Hermes’,
head of the royal clans,
thus
corre-
sponds to the ‘“‘Thracian Rider” in the shape of Apollo yevxds, Ie. Progenitor. And we find another analogy with the “Thracian Rider” in the fact that Herodotos” “Hermes” is a god of oatlts when taken by the “kings”. This implies, as already stated, that he has universal vision
and therefore omniscience, like that which, in the case of the Rider, is shown by his many heads, that characteristic attribute of solar beings who can see everything. Also the infernal aspect of the Herodotean
“Hermes”, hinted at in his very name, finds a parallel in certain stelae of the Rider in which the god, shown with three heads (Figs. 24 and 27), has with him a three-headed dog,8? i.e. a Kerberos, the dog of Hades.88
We may say therefore that the Rider of our Thracian stelae of the second and third centuries A.D. has his distant predecessor in Herodotos’ “Hermes”, god of the “kings”, as a representative of an ancient sungod. The multiple heads themselves, as a naive expression of universal vision, might go back to the primitive Thracian notion of their sungod® rather than be, as some have thought,9° derived from the manyheaded Greek herms, which might indeed have played their part, but if so, no more than a secondary one, in interpreting the Rider as Hermes. Analogously, the aspect which Herodotos’ “Hermes” shares with the rider, the attribute of being an ancestral or tribal deity, might perhaps have contributed to the application to the Thracian sungod of the Greek name Heros,?! and also to his art-type, which is that used to represent the heroised dead; but here again other
THE
THRACIANS
187 factors have co-operated, and we must now give some account of them. The worship of the Rider, as we know it from the monuments, which are so many, from over so large an area, and dedicated by people of every kind and every class,®2 reveals itself to us as a widespread and popular cult, unlike the old aristocratic clan-cult of “Hermes” in Herodotos, restricted as that was to the minority composed of the princely families. How, then, can wespeak of continuity between one and the other? But continuity does not exclude, but rather implies development, and the centuries which intervene between Herodotos and the
monuments of the Rider furnish more than one possibility of transformation. It is not possible only but highly probable that in ‘this space of several hundred years® the ancient worship of the nobility was so generalised as to become the inheritance of the whole Thracian people, as in days of old the cults of the other divinities mentioned by Herodotos (Ares, Dionysos and Artemis) had been. The old aristocratic system, which had given rise to the feudal monarchies of the Odrysian kings Teres, Sitalkes and Seuthes, gradually declined with the falling off of these kingdoms as early as the days of the Macedonian domination, and if it still survived here and there in the third century B.c., it was submerged once and for all under the Roman overlordship. But contact with Roman civilisation produced a new awakening of the national spirit of Thrace, as had already happened earlier on contact with the culture of Greece. It thus came about with the Thracians as often with other peoples, in ancient and modern times, that under foreign rule and by.a kind of reaction to an alien culture the national spirit gained greater self-consciousness, clearer realisation of its own peculiar character and of its originality which could not be confused with any other. This new consciousness, which perforce could do nothing in the world of politics, yet found a way to express itself in the realm of religion, and its expression was no other than the cult of the Rider. The very remarkable success of this cult during the second and third centuries A.D. were really the most patent sign of a revival, and it is not wrong to speak, as has been done in this connection,?* of a religious renascence. If this revival marched under the banner of the Rider rather than another, it was because the horseman-god, the ancient deity of the kings, had become the expression of the truest
national spirit. Their independence being lost, the old partitions between the classes were down, and to the social and political levelling a religious levelling corresponded. Gentle and simple now shared a common fate, so it was natural that they should also join in the same worship. The real winner was Dionysos; his religion, with its hopes of another life, was victorious because these were so much alive in the minds of
the Thracians, surprising as such hopes are in the still barbarous world
188
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
of the Trausoi, Teryzoi and Krobizoi, and of those Getae, who also were
Thracians, whom
Herodotos
styles d@avariCovres®®. The figure of
the Rider was so human that every dedicator and every believer might see in it himself, transfigured and transferred to a world beyond this earth, wherein he would have a share in a superior, or “divine”’ existence, denied to him here and now. Indeed, this image reflected the ancient “heroic” or knightly ideal of the nobles and kings; the mounted Hero was originally the old sungod from whom the royal houses were descended. But Dionysos himself, in Thrace, had also taken on that
iconographic form; the art-type of the ancient dynastic Rider-god ended by being adapted to him also, that is, to the Thracian god of vegetation and of the prolific abundance of nature; so we find him, for instance, under the local form of the theos Asdouletos in the relief, already mentioned,%* from the ancient district of the Maedi.
NOTES 1. The work published by the Bulgarian archaeologist Gavril I. Kazarov Die Denkmdler des thrakischen Reiters in Bulgarien (Dissertationes Pannonicae, Ser. II, fasc. 14) Budapest, 1938, contains 1128 items, of which 528 are reproduced on the 89 plates. Cf. his art. “Heros”, in Realenc., Supplementband III, 1132-48, and VI A, 478 sgg. Among earlier publications may be named E. Kalinka, Antike Denkmdaler in Bulgarien (1906). For the region of Philippi, see P. Collart, Philippes (Paris 1937), p. 423 sgg.; for Thasos, H. Seyrig, in Bull. corr. hellén., 1927, p. 198 sqq., with Plate x. On the worship of the Thracian Rider in Rome, particularly among the cavalry recruits from ‘Thrace (he had a shrine on the Caelian in the camp of the equites singulares and another in the Praetorian camp on the Esquiline), see Seure, in Rev. ét. grecques 1913, p. 239, and Mateescu, “I Traci nelle epigrafi di Roma”, in Eph, Daco-Romana
i (1923), P. 57 544.
2. Kazarov, Denkmdler, Fig. 1a; Ch. Picard, La sculpture antique II (Paris 1926), 56, No. 2.. 3. Kazarov, ibid. p. 5 (the sanctuaries are usually on elevated spots). 4. He is often called Qeds5 or deus, with various epithets, Thracian, Greek or Latin, as èmnk6w Bed owriipe (No. 8), let Addapenvò (933), 0B éemnkdw peylotw Addapynvar (916) Oe@ emnkdw Ape (666), xopiw Fed erumio (sic: Kupiw Be@ epurmiw), (363), rarpiw Bed emKow (453), ded Lwbovri l'ikxevrinvò (210).
5. Especially in the formula (véos) ijpws yaipe (Kazarov, Nos. 292, 521, 986 sqq., cf. Kalinka, op. cit., Nos. 296 sqg., 355). Cf. Collart, Philibpes, p. 424. That the Rider regularly represents the dead man (heroised) is a notion of Vulié, as unfounded (see Kazarov, pp. 14-15) as that of Buday, that the Rider stands for the dedicator. But in certain cases there obviously has been heroisation,.which extends even to the female figure accompanying the dead man, as on a stele from Thasos (Seyrig, in Bull. corr. hell., 1927, Plate x, p. 201 sq.).
THE
THRACIANS
189
6. Kazarov, Nos. 454, 509, 780, 808; 06 “Hpwri, Nos. 12507; Oe “Hpan, Nos. 604, 731; “deo Heroni”, C.I.L. iii, 8147, cf. 14424, also Heroni sancto, Kazarov, Nos. 162, 255 sg., 558, 592, 668, etc. Some epithets are shared by
the Heros and the @eds, e.g. Kazarov, No. 293, kupiw “Hpax Ilvppnpovaa alongside of Beds péyas ITuppnpovdas, Realenc. Supp. III, 1142. 7. 0e& DoiBw, Kazarov, Nos. 522, 835. 8. Much less commonly to other deities, as Silvanus, the Dioskuroi (No. 754), the Nymphs (No. 844), etc., see Kazarov’s indices; also to one female divinity or another (Hygieia, Diana, Aphrodite), but associated with Asklepios or Silvanus (Diana, exceptionally, occurs alone in Kazarov No. 341). g. He carries a lyre in Nos. 482, 680, 904, cf. 923 (Kazarov).
10. Kazarov No. 98; we find also “Hp ° AckAnmdai, 259. 11. Dionysos, for instance, with the name of feds ’ AcdovAnrtds, see Perdrizet, “Relief du pays des Maédes représentant un Dionysos Thrace’’, in Rev. Arch. 1904-1, p. 19 and Platei (A.D. 215), and .Cultes et mythes du Pangée, Plate ii, D125,,p-121. 0. 3. 12. Kazarov, op. cit., No, 159, Plate xii, 72 (our Fig. 24), No. 427, Plate xl, 237 (Fig. 25), No. 533, Plate xlvi, 273 (Fig. 26). The stele in our Fig. 27 was published by Kazarov in Anzeiger d. Wien. Akad. d. Wiss., 1940, p. 109, and in his article (in Bulgarian, with synopsis in French) Contribution a l’étude des divinités polycephales, in Bull. de l’Institut Archéologique Bulgare xvii (1950), p. 4, Fig. 3. 13. Kazarov No. 148, Plate xi, 64 (our Fig. 28). 14. Kazarov No. 151, Plate xi, 65. 15. Same, No. 427, with bibliography there. 16. Same, No. 363, see above, n. 4.
17. Samé, Nos. 120, 293, 374, 392, 661, 796, 803; 209, 235, 538, 890, 1001, cf. Seandrnv Ve@v * AréMuwva, No. 160; 88, 94, 328 599., 347 599-3 381, 565, 600, 702 sq. 18. Same, No. 533. 19. Kazarov, in Archdologischer Anzeiger (1929), P. 232 599. 20. “Durchaus nicht sicher”, Wilamowitz, Glaube d. Hellenen I, p. 53, D. I (there is no room for two letters); L. Weber in A.R.W. xxxi (1934), p. 174. 21. ravB6rrw=Tavr6mmy; for 0 in Thracian for Gk. 7, see Kazarov, op. cit.
(n. 19), p. 233. So Isis is ravrém(7ris) in Oxyr. Pap. 1380, col. 5, 93, cf.
above, p. 29 n. 324. 22. That we are to imagine a third head which is out of sight is as superfluous a hypothesis as that (cf. Weber, op. cit., p. 174) which supposes that when the Rider has three heads we are to understand a fourth, i.e. that he has four heads rather than three. 23. Aesch., fgt. 192, cf. P.V. gt.
24. Orph. frag. 47, 10-11 Kern. 25. Kazarov No. 533; cf. the title of Isis quoted above, note 21. 26. C.I.G. ii, 2016d, kipre “HAte, cf. “He kipie in an inscription from l Phrygia, 7.H.S. v. (1884), p. 253. Heroni 12463, inuicto; Eroni 7531, inuicto; Heroni 27. C.LL. iii, 7592, inuicto.
190
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
28. On a fragmentary stele from Krivnia, Kazarov No. 557. 29. Ibid., Nos. 142, 1098.
30. Ibid., No. 287, inscribed “How ITadadewnvd. 31. Ibid., No. 607. 32. Kazarov, Textband, p. 11. 33. Kazarov, Nos. 141, 563, 602, 619, 836, 847, cf. his Textband, p. 8; A. Roes, “L’animal au signe solaire’’, in Rev. arch. xii (1938), p. 157 sqg. The cold is symbolised by the boar (Kazarov, No. 1046) or bull (zbid., Nos. 401, 452, 475, etc.). For Mithra’s lion, see Rostovzev in Rom. Mitt., 1934, p. 190, Plate xiii. 34. See M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, 1 (Munich, Beck, 1941), p. 790; “The Origin of the Belief among the Greeks in the Divinity of the Heavenly Bodies”, in Harv. Theol. Rev. (1940), p. 1 sqg. Sokrates in Plato, Crat. 397 c-d, says that the Sun and other gods (Moon, Earth, Stars, Sky) now worshipped by the barbarians were worshipped in Greece also by the original inhabitants. Cf. Ar., Peace 406 and the scholiast on ibid. 410. 35. R. Pettazzoni, Antichi culti solari nella Penisola Balconica, in Rivista d’Albania, II (1941), 109 sqg.; Délger, Sol Salutis, ed. 2 (Miinster i/W., 1925), 41; Kazarov, in Realenc. VI A, 504 sq. 36. Kazarov, “Die ethnographische Stellung der Paonen”, in Klio xviii (1923), p. 20 sqqg. Beloch’s
opinion
(Griechische Geschichte, ed. 2, I, 2, Strass-
burg 1913, p. 56 sqg.) that the Paionians were ethnically Greeks has found no favour. Their coinage, which J. Svoronos, ‘‘L’hellénisme primitif de la Macédoine prouvé par la numismatique et l’or du Pangée”, in Fourn. internat. d’archéologie numismatique, xix (1918-19), pp. 1-262, presses into the service of a political theory, shows particular agreements in weight, metallic composition, etc., with that of some Illyrian cities (Damastion and Pelagia), see H. Gaebler, “Zur Miinzkunde Makedoniens”, in Zeitschrift fiir Numismatik xxxvii (1927), p. 223. J. M. F. May, The Coinage of Damastion and the lesser Coinages of the Illyro-Paeonian Region (London 1939), p. 30 qq. 37. Max. Tyr., Philos. ii, 8 (p. 25 Hobein). 38. Diod. Sic. xvi, 22, 3; A. Momigliano, Filippo il Macedone (Florence
1934), p. 48.
39. Gaebler, op. cît., p. 226 sgg., Svoronos, op. cit., p. 5 sqq40. Th. Reinach, “Apollon Derronaios,” in Rev. Numismatique (1897), p. 121 sqq. Cf. Hesychios s.u. Adppwv. Maxedovixds Saiuwv & trép tv voooty-
Twv eUyovrar. Cf. the Rider as Asklepios and Sozon, supr., pp. 178f., 182. 41. L. Heuzey, Mission archéologique de Macédoine (Paris 1876), p. 319;
Kazarov, in Klio, 1923, p. 20. 42. Cf. Grace H. Macurdy, Troy and Paeonia, with glimpses of ancient Balkan History and Religion (New York 1925), p. 98. 43. Alexander the Great sacrifices to “the Moon, the Sun and the Earth” after an eclipse of the moon in 331 B.c., Arrian, Anab. iii, 7, 6, and to the Sun after the Battle of the Hydaspes, 327-6 3.c., Diod. Sic. xvii, 89, 3 Curtius Rufus ix, 1, 1. 44. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Glaube der Hellenen I, p. 254.
45. Soph., fgt. 523 Nauck?, 582 Pearson, “Hue, pelo
Tov céÀas.
Opnéi mpéoBio-
THE
THRACIANS
QI
46. Ps.-Eratosth., Catast. 24 (p. 29 Olivieri, Myth. Graeci III, 1). But the derivation from Aeschylus is not certain, see Linforth in Trans. Am. Phil. Ass. Ixii (1931), p. 11 sqq.. 47. Apollo has a Thracian priest in the Odyssey, ix, 198. 48. Strabo vii, p. 319.
49. Livy xxxviii, 41, 4. Cf. the ZypuvOov dvtpov at Samothrace, Lykophron, Alex. 77, Suid s.u. Z'apo9pakn, the Zypdvioi, a Thracian people in Theopompos, fgt. 173 in F.H.G.I, p. 307, Aphrodite Zeipjvyn in Macedonia (Hesychios s.u.), On zeronai, zeronaith, in the “Etruscoid” inscription from Lemnos, see R. Pettazzoni, in Rendiconti della R. Acad. dei Lincei, 1909, p. 652 sq. This is not to say that the Lemnian inscription is in the Thracian language. See Beloch, op, cit. I,? 2, p. 53; Kazarov, Beitràge zur Kulturgeschichte der Thraker (Sarajevo, 1916), p. 1, n. 1; Schachermeyr, Etruskische Frihgeschichte (Berlin 1929), p. locative, Pausanias Thuc. ii,
272; Cortsen, in Glotia xviii (1930), p. 101 sq., takes zeronai as a “in the tomb”. For Sitalkas as the Thracian name of Apollo, see x, 15, 2; it is the name of sundry Thracian kings, Herodotos iv, 80, 29, 1; cf. Kazarov, op. cit., p. 98. See further Mateescu, in Ephemeris
Dacoromana i (1923), pp. 239 sqq. 50. Apollo Geikethienos, Kazarov No. 154, cf. 208-210; Skodrenos, No. 157; Zelaenos, No. 890. 51. Frankel, Die Inschriften von Pergamon ii (Berlin 1895), No. 336: Z'dpamw, Eiow, “AvovBw, ‘Apdoxparny, ’’Oorpw, *Amw, “HXwov ep inmmw kal ikérnv mapa T® inmw, ”“Apn, AvooKxovpous .. . . Kazarov, No. 363 (above, n. 4). 52. Gagé, “Deux dieux cavaliers d’Asie Mineure”’, in Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire xliii (1926), p. 103, Fig. 1, cf. Dittenberger, Syll. (ed. 3), 996. 53. Cf. Benndorf, Reisen in Lykien (Vienna 1884), p. 125, Fig. 77, and p. 153; also my Confessione dei peccati iii (Bologna 1936), p. 83. 54. See Ath. Mitt. vi (1881), p. t99, No. 16; x (1885), 11 sgg. He is at times associated with Apollo, ibid. xxv (1900), 431 sgg., No. 54 (0eiw Kat °Ar6Mwv), cf. C.I.G., 3830 (Beois doiors kai Sikaiors), also with Helios,
FAS.
v (1884), p. 253 (“Ootos dixeos (sic) and “Hdwos
Kvpwos). Cf. the
monument from Dorylaion in Oéesterr. Fahreshefte (1908) Beiblatt, pp. 198-201, and
Dòlger,
Die
Sonne
der Gerechtigkeit,
ii, p. 90; also Puchstein, Reisen in
Kleinasien und Nordsyrien (Berlin 1890), p. 341, No. 5 (inscription from Jdlde, of date 143 B.c.); Gétting. Gel. Anz., 1897, p. 408, No. 50; Ath. Mit. xxv
(1900), p. 431 sg., No. 54.
-
55. B.C.H. ii (1878), p. 170, Nos. 2, 4; iv (1880), Plate x, 3; 45 7.-H.S. vili (1887), p. 237 sq. Cf. the altar of Philomelion in Ath. Mit. (1900), p. 443 59.5
No. 76, dedicated Anroidy odlovri kai ’Hediw Bacifi . . . . dikatorarois
78° dotowor [Peoî]s, i.e. to Apollo and the Sun;
cf. Arch.-epigraph. Mitt. xix
(1896), p. 50. 56. Tituli Asiae Minoris ii (Tituli Lyciae), I, Nos. 7-10, 12 (from Rhodes), 13 (from Adalia); Mon. Antichi xxiii (1915), pp. 15-16, Fig. 1; Ann. della Scuola Italiana di Atene iii (1921), p. 16 sg., No. 9, Fig. 10, p. 78, No. 74; iv-v (1924), p. 486 sg., Nos. 41, 42. 57. O. Weinreich is of opinion (‘Zum dreikòpfigen thrakischen Reiter u. zum lykischen Trikasbos”, in Arch. Anz., 1927, pp. 20-23) that Trikasbos is a simplification of *Trikaskabos “‘an intensification (Steigerung) of the character and
192
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
functions of the god”? Kakasbos, a verbal equivalent of the figured representation of the Rider with three heads. The matter seems*to me very doubtful (none of the rider-gods of Asia Minor has more than one head). Kretschmer, in Glotta xv (1926), p. 74 s4., cf. Zingerle ibid., p. 65 sqq., suggests that -asbos in Kakasbos or Tri(ka)kasbos is the Phrygian word for a horse, cf. Skt. asva, Iranian aspa, Lat. equos, and in Thracian the Rider’s epithets Odrdomos and
Overtomos
(Bertomos)
“mounted”, éfimmos;
(Kazarov,
Nos.
78, 755)
probably
meaning
cf. also esbenus, G.I.L. iii, 8040, Parvan, Dacia, 1924,
278, and ’E¢Béveos in the inscription on the relief from Nikopolis (Perdrizet, in Corolla Numismatica in Honour of B. V. Head, Oxford 1906, p. 230 sq.). The result would be that Kakasbos means ungliicksross and Trikasbos, dreimalungliicksross. But against this may be urged the dubiety of an Indo-European etymology for a Lykian name like Kakasbos, especially in view of the compounds beginning with xaxa- (Kretschmer, Einleitung in die gr. Sprache (G6ttingen 1896), p. 351) and the characteristic treatment of consonants in Lykian, ibid., p. 374. 58. Such is at least the chief god on the stele from El-Ferzol with his radiate nimbus and a globe in his hand, see Ronzevalle in Mélanges de l’université St. Joseph xxi, 1 (1937), Plate vi, vii Fig. 7. This is acknowledged even by so systematic an upholder of the negative as H. Seyrig (Syria 1949, p. 242 sqg.).
Seyrig is inclined to deny the solar character of all “rider” gods in general, not only those of Syria, such as the god Genneas, for whom see above, Chap. IV, n. 6, and the god on the stele from Hamah, see Ronzevalle, loc. cit., Plate xvii, cf. Mouterde, “Dieux cavaliers de la region d’Alep”, in Md. Univ. St. Ff. xi (1926), p. 309 sgq., but also those of Anatolia and the Balkans, including the “Thracian Rider”. ‘
cf. his art., ‘Das Heilig59. Kazarov, No. 210 (Oc Sédlovru Tievrinv®);. tum des thrakischen Reiters bei Diinikli”, in Xlio xxii (1929), p. 236. The epithet Gike(n)t(h)ienos is given to Apollo also, Kazarov, Nos. 182, 184, cf. 208, 209. 60. Kazarov, in Realenc. VI A, 485 sq.; Blinkenberg, Archaeologische Studien (Copenhagen and Leipzig, 1904), p. 66 .sqg.; Kazarov, Denkmdler, p. 7. The gesture is found even when the Rider-type is used to represent a dead man, see Seyrig in B.C.H., 1927, Plate x. 61. Kazarov, Nos. 162, 255 sq., 372 and elsewhere. 62. Kazarov, No. 607 (see above, p. 180); the relief is from Sueida, see Dunand, Musée de Soueida 31, No. 36, and H. Seyrig, Antiquités syriennes Il (Paris 1938), p. 21. 63. For his Hittite origins, see W. Leonhard, Hettiter u. Amazonen, cf. Picard, Ephèse et Klaros, pp. 444, 450, Mouterde, in Mélanges de la Faculté Orientale St. Joseph, xi (1926), p. 311. 64. See my paper, ‘La religione dell’ antica Tracia”, in Seria Kazaroviana I (Sofia 1950), pp. 291-299. 65. Perdrizet, in B.C.H. xxxv (1911), 116; Seure, in Rev. ét. anc. (1912), p. 260, n. 1; Kazarov, in Realenc. VI A, 520 sq. 66. Cf. the Baofes in the Iliad, Nilsson, “Das homerische Kénigtum” (Sitzungsber. Berlin. Akad., 1927, p. 33 599.). ; 67. See the coinage of Ainos and Abdera in the fifth century B.c. (British Museum Coins, Thrace, pp. 71; 75: 77 51. 230); that of the Derronians in Babelon,
THE
THRACIANS
193
Traité ii, 1, p. 1045; of Thessalonike, British Museum Goins, Macedonia, p. 109, 4, etc., also Realenc. VIII, 745. 68. Herod. v, 6, 2; Ovid, Trist. v, 10, 16. 69. Hdt., ibid., Strab. vii, 5, 4; on the other hand, among the Getai it was the slaves who were tattooed (Artemidoros, Onirocr. 1, 8, p. 14, 10 Hercher). Tattooing was practised particularly by the women, in some peoples only by them, Dion Chrysostom, orat. xv, 19 (Budé ed.), cf. Klearchos, fgt. 8 (F.H.G. II, p. 306); Phanokles, fgt. 1, 23 sg9. Powell. For tattooing 4mong the Thracians see Tomaschek, “Die alten Thraker’’, in Sitzungber. Wien. Akad. cxxviii (1893), p. 116 sgg.; Kazarov, Beitràge (cf. note 49), p. 67 sgg.; Perdrizet, in BiG. Les IQXI, p. 108 sgg.; Dòlger, “Tatowierung in den Dionysasmysterien”, in Antike und Christentum, ii (1930), p. 104 599. 70. Herodotos v, 8. 71. Nilsson, op. cit. supr. n. 66, p. 22 sq. 72. Even in the fifth century B.c. we find a Geta who is king of the Edonians (his coinage in Babelon, Traité II, 1, p. 1049 sg.), see Perdrizet, “Géta, roi des Edons”, in B.C.H. xxxv (191 1), p. 108 sqq. 73. Cf. R. Schmòkel, Die ersten Arier im Alten Orient (Leipzig 1938). 74. Nilsson, Gesch. d. gr. Rel. I, p. 311; cf. Wilamowitz, Glaube d. Hell. ii, p. 8: ‘Bei Homer sind die Nnpwes der Stand aus dem die Kénige hervorragen, im Gegensatze zu den \aot.” 75. Galli turpe esse ducunt frumentum manu quaerere, Cicero, de re pub. iii, 15; for the Germans, see Caesar, B.G. vi, 22-23; Tacitus, Germ. 14: per bella €t raptus .. . nec arare terram aut exspectare annum. ... 15: multum uenatibus, plus per otium transigunt, dediti somno ciboque, fortissimus quisque ac bellicosissimus nihil agens, etc.; Mela, iii 3, 37. See the Preface of the new edition of my Religione nella Grecia antica, Turin 1953; (French, Paris 1953). 76. See Kretschmer in Glotta, 1936, 22, who would read Thagamisadas, but cf. Oktamasades, name of a Scythian in Herodotos, iv. 80. 77. Odyssey, xxiv, 1 sqg., Aesch. Pers. 628 sqq. According to Ramsay in F-H.S. iii, p. 9, the Psychopompos is to be found on the ancient rock tombs in
Phrygia. 78. The notion of the nightly journey of the sun is widespread outside of the Greek world (Ancient Egypt, etc.). See Fr. Boll, Die Sonne im Glauben und in der Weltanschauung der alten Vélker, (Stuttgart 1922), p. 18 sgg.; C. Koch, Gestirnverehrung (Frankfurt a/M 1933); Délger, Sol Salutis, ed. 2 (Minster i/W 1925), p. 355 544.; A. Szabé, “Der Wagen des Amphiaraos”, in Paideuma i (1938-40), p. 318 sgg.; K. Kerényi, ‘“Vater Helios”, in Eranos-Fahrbuch x (Zurich 1944), p. 81 sgg.; also E. Sieg, “Der Nachtweg der Sonne nach der vedischen Anschauung”, in Gott. Nachr. (1923), p. 1 sg.; J. P. Mills, The Ao
Nagas (London 1926), p. 298. 79. See Dittenberger, O(rientis) G(raecae) I(nscriptiones) S(electae), No. 383, p. 598: "AméAAwvos Mibpov ‘Hiiov ‘Eppov. The function of Hermes Psychopompos as guide of souls to the lower world corresponds to that of Mithra, who leads the souls of the righteous on their upward path to heaven, cf. H. Gressmann, Die hellenistische Gestirnreligion (Leipzig 1925), p. 23. 80. Xenophon, Oecon. 4.24, Cyrop. vii, 5, 53, Aelian, Var. hist. i, 33, cf.
Plutarch, Alex. 30, 8. See Spiegel, Eranische Altertumskunde iii (Leipzig 1871), o
194
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
p. 601, and my paper (quoted above, n. 64) on La religione dell’ antica Tracia,
p. 292. 81. Arrian fgt. 25 (Vol. furnished by J. H. Hutton, hold that “in all oaths, it between sunrise and sunset, 82. yevx® "AndAAww,
ii, p. 206, Roos). One parallel among many is The Sema Nagas (London 1921), p. 166: the Naga is essential that the swearing should take place ‘that the sun may see,’”’ cf. pp. 249-50 Kazarov, No. 9573; 0e® "Ardd\Awu yeviaKkad
Ì
°Ecrparenv@, Seure, in Rev. ét. anc., 1912, p. 257, N. 5.
83. DoiBw uerépov yévovs apyny@ Kalinka, Antite Denkmdler in Bulgarien, No. 164.
84. “Hpw apyayéra, Seure in B.C.H., 1912, p. 584, Nos. 39 599.; 0e@ dpyayéra, ibid. No. 38; also Oe@ “Hpw apyayera, Athen. Mitt. (1908), p. 154, No. 13, with L. Robert’s correction, Rev. Arch., 1933, U, 124. For Apollo Archegetes in Asia Minor, (Bologna 1936), p. 81 sqq.
see R. Pettazzoni,
La confessione dei peccati iii
85. matplw bed emynxdw, Arch. Anzeig, 1915, p. 222, Realenc., Suppl. III,
1141. See also Seure in Rev. Arch., 1911, ul, p. 444, No.
12, and cf. Apollo
Patroos at Athens in the oath of the heliasts (Pausanias i, 3, 3; Pollux viii
122); Apollo Patroos Sozon in Asia Minor, Realenc. III A, 1249. 86. See Kazarov, in Anzeiger d. Wien. Akad., 1940, p. 110. 87. A three-headed dog is found also in two Dacian monuments
of the hist. Rev. in Linckenheld see Sucellus), Keltic (the mallet” the with “god relig., 1929, i, p. 58, n. I, p. 84.
88. On Kazarov’s stele No. 518, the Rider holds the cornucopiae, which assimilates him to Pluto. A rider-god with kalathos and cornucopiae is found
earlier, on coins of Odessos and Istros of the second century B.c., Pick, Die
antiken Miinzen von Dacien und Moesien, i (1908), Plate iii, 8 foll. (Istros), ii (1910) Plate iv, 13 (Odessos). Cf. Arch. Jahrb. xiii (1898), p. 161 foll. For the cult of Pluto in Thrace, see Perdrizet in Corolla Numismatica (to B. V. Head, London 1906), 230 foll., Kazarov in Realenc. Vi A, 523. 89. “The concept of many-headed divine figures was perhaps not originally strange even to the Thracians”, Kazarov, p. 11, note 62.
go. U. von Wilamowitz (Glaube der Hellenen ii, p. 9), thinks that “‘the word [sc. ]pws] must have been Thracian as well as Greek’’.
gi. Kazarov in Realenc. Vi A, 482 foll. It is true that some stelae of the Thracian Rider are dedicated to the “Hero” with the epithet of propylaios (Kazarov’s Nos. 90, 451,1116, cf. Seure in Rev. ét. anc. xiv, 1912, p. 382 foll. O. Weinreich, “Heros propylaios und Apollon propylaios”, in Athen. Mitt. xxxviii, 1913, p. 62 foll.; S. Casson, Thrace and Illyria, Oxford 1926, p. 251). He was therefore worshipped in Thrace as guardian of doors and cross-roads, like Hermes in Greece; see Kaibel, Epigr. Graeca, No. 841, tov mpd mUAats “Hpwa, tòv dAkuov év tpiddovowv, and the inscription from Pautalia which
makes a figure of the Rider say, rdvras dao. oretyovow am doTeos 75€ mpos dorv/Acvoow 1) écopa, Jiretek, in Arch.-epigraph. Mitt. aus Oesterreich x (1886), p. 64; Dumont-Homolle in Mél d’archéol. et d’épigr. (Paris 1892), p. 317; Seure in Rev. ét. anc., 1912, p. 390. But that the Thracian Hermes is simply the Greek one imported from the colonies of that nation is refuted, if by nothing else, by the fact that unlike the Greek Hermes he is shown mounted, on a he-goat or a
THE THRACIANS
195
ram, his sacred beasts (Kazarov, in Arch. Anzeiger, 1929, pp. 321-22, Figs. 31, 32). No less unlikely is the idea of Seure (Rev. des ét. anc. xiv, 1912, p. 243) that the triple head of the Thracian Rider is derived from that of the goddess Hekate. She was indeed represented in Thrace as well as in Greece with three bodies, on the model of famous Greek prototypes (Pausanias ii, 30, 2, Alkamene s originates this form of statue), and consequently with three heads. See E. Petersen in Arch.-epigr. Mittheil. aus Oesterreich iv (1882), Plates vi, vii; Tocilescu , Monumentele epigrafice si sculpturali ale Museului Nationaldin Bucuresci (Bucharest 1902), No. 4, p. 503 foll., No. 5, p. 508 foll.; Seure in Rev. archéol. 1Q1I3-il, p- 227, No. 105, Fig. 33, and p. 228, No. 106, Fig. 34. Cf. the bronze statuette in Babelon-Blanchet, Cat. des bronzes antiques de la Bib. Nationale (Paris 1895), p. 308, No. 699. g2. ““We may safely assume that there never was a Thracian village without a modest sanctuary of the Heros’’, says Kazarov, p. 3. Some monuments are dedicated by two or three persons, as Kazarov’s Nos. 427 and 507, but never, it seems, by women, Kazarov, p. 15. 93. The gap seems less marked if we notice that the figure of a mounted god was shown on the inscription which headed the text of the treaty of alliance concluded in 356/55 between Athens and the Thracian king Ketriporis and two other Balkan princes (/.G. ii2, p. 127; Dittenberger, $y//.8, No. 196). The figure of a galloping horseman on coins of the Thracian kings of the fifth and fourth centuries (British Museum Coins, Thrace, p. 201, coin of Seuthes I, Pp. 203, coin of Kotys I) has no attribute which makes it certain that we have to do with a deity, cf. Kazarov, pp. 11, 12. But as early as the coins of Qdessos (cf. above, n. 88), from 200 B.c. onwards, the mounted figure appears certainly to be a god, to judge by the horn of plenty which he carries in his hand, after the fashion of the Greek Pluto and the Egyptian Sarapis. See B. Pick, Thrakische Miinzbilder, in Arch. Jahr. xiii (1898), p. 161 foll., Plate x, No. 21 foll. 94. Kazarov, p. 11, who quotes Rostovtzev, and in Realenc. Vi A, 473 foll. 95. Herodotos v, 4, 1, cf. iv, 93 and 94, Photios and Suidas s.iu. Zd\potis,
Plato, Charm. 156d (dmrabavarilew).
96. Above, n. 11. Cf. Seyrig in B.C.H. 1927, p. 198 foll., on Dionysos et le cavalier thrace. For Dionysos shown with the Rider, see Kazarov, p. 14, No. 852. The organisation of the Dionysiac conventicles also is taken over from the Thracian god, as feds Zovpeyé0ns, at Philippi, see Lemerle in B.C.H.
1936, p. 336.
Chapter XII
THE
(a) THE N certain
KELTS
THREE-HEADED
monuments
of Roman
GAULISH
GOD
date discovered in Gaul, from
is |Belgium to Aquitania, a god with three heads or three faces altars and pillars or stelae are these part most the For shown.! carved in relief. The pillars are quite common; they are found especially in the neighbourhood of Reims, and the leading element of their figured decoration is this triple head (Figs. 31, 32).2 Other monuments show the three-headed figure at full length, either alone, as in the stele from Paris, in the Musée Carnavalet (Fig. 33), or grouped with two other deities, as in the altar from Beaune, Còte d’Or (Fig. 34),* and that from Dennevy, Sadne-et-Loire (Fig. 35)®. A stone bust of the three-headed god, with the three heads separate, is also known (Fig. 5, from Condat in the Dordogne).® Indeed an iconographic distinction is made between two types, one “‘loose”’, with the three heads, or faces, more or less separated from one another,’ and one, so to speak, ‘“‘con-
centrated”, having only one head, but three faces so overlying each other that there are altogether but four eyes, since» either eye of the central face serves likewise as an eye of the adjacent side-face (cf. Chapter VIII, Fig. 125).8 A bronze statuette (Fig. 37),° discovered at Savigny, near Autun, shows the god sitting cross-legged, with but one head, but with two additional little faces moulded on the cranium, one
behind either ear.1° What is the nature, and what is the origin of this three-headed Gaulish deity? His name is unknown; whereas there are other! Gaulish gods whose names are found written beside the figures to which they belong in certain monuments, there is no figure of the triple-headed one which is inscribed. Such knowledge as we can get of the three-headed god we are obliged to deduce more or less directly from his iconography. One of the most important iconographical details is the triple head itself. S. Reinach12 supposes this to be of secondary origin, derived from imitation of some archaic three-headed herm1* brought in by Greek colonists to Massalia and thence making its way ultimately to the hinterland. This hypothesis is quite gratuitous, considering the possibility of there having existed a native god with three heads, and that his triple head suggested, by way of three-headed herms, his eventual identification with Hermes. In itself, a triple head is so
FIG. 31.—Cippus from Espérandieu, Bas-reliefs Gaule, no. 3652
Reims; de la
FIG. 33.—Stele in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris; Espérandieu,
no. 3137
ric. 32.—Cippus from La Malmaison; Espérandieu, no. 3756
FIG. 34.—Stele from Beaune, Cote d’or; Espérandieu, no. 2083
FIG. 35.—Stele from Dennevy; Espérandieu, no. 2131
FIG. 36.—Stone bust from Condat (Dordogne); Espérandieu, no. 1316
FIG.
37.—Bronze
from
Autun, Saòne-et-Loire
THE KELTS
197
characteristic an attribute that it is allowable to look to it for a hint of the very nature of the god to whom it is ascribed. We have been able, several times already, to show that three heads are a naive way of indicating the universal vision, and so the omniscience, of a god. As
we have said in Chapter XI, the three-headed Thracian Rider is also an all-seeing god. Such universal vision is the especial property of sungods. May not, therefore, the three-headed deity of Gaul be likewise an all-seeing god, a solar divinity ?14 There are sundry indications of the existence among the Gauls of a primitive sun-cult. As early as the ancient Periplus (fourth century B.c., if not earlier) to which Avienus goes back, mention is made of a lofty rock near the source of the Rhone ‘‘called by the natives (gentici) the Pillar of the Sun’”’.1° The wheel, a solar symbol (cf. pp. 167, 169),15 is found already in the ornamentation of a Hallstatt scabbard,!7 where it probably has a ritual significance. Together with an ithyphallic human figure, it appears on one of the rude pre-Roman rock carvings of the Isére district;18 here, as in other stelae of the same group,?® the figure has one hand raised in a hieratic gesture which, in form, reminds us
us of the benedictio Latina (cf. above, p. 182). It is likely that an ancient native solar god survived in sundry local cults in the Gaulish world, under various names,?° such as “‘Apollo’”’, cf. Caesar, B.G. vi, 17, 2. At a later date, there are abundant representations of Apollo on carved stelae and the like, wearing a radiate crown,?! also of the Sun with a similar crown and a nimbus.2? So late as the Passio S. Marcelli (Marcellus of Tongern, died about A.D. 280) we hear of an image of the Sun (ad Solis imaginem, ad Solis simulacrum) in the town of Cabillonum (Chalons-sur Saòne, department of Saòne-et-Loire), although, in the case of this and other possible survivals of an ancient solar cult, it remains to be determined how much is to be credited to the paganism of Rome (Apollo) or of the East (Mithra). Concerning the threeheaded god we must now ask whether his solar nature, inferable from his figure, finds corroboration from some other positive indication.?3 The Gaulish Mercury, i.e. that particular form which Mercury assumed in Romanised Gaul, has aspects, including his close associa-
tion with a female deity, the goddess Rosmerta,?4 which are strange to the Roman Mercury and in all probability go back to a native god identified with Mercurius. That this native god was the three-headed deity and no other, and that the three-headed deity of Gaul was thus assimilated to the Roman Mercurius?® is rendered probable by the fact that certain attributes of the three-headed god in art, such as the ram, the he-goat, the tortoise and the purse, all of which his image in the Musée Carnavalet has (see Fig. 33),2° and likewise the cock, which is often shown on his monuments,?? are proper also to HermesMercurius both in Roman?8 and in Gallo-Roman inconography.?? On
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GOD god include three-headed the other hand, the animal associations of the the ramand head ram’s the bull,3! the as such other elements as well,3° headed serpent? which, being strange to Mercurius, cannot be due to assimilation to the Roman deity, whereas they appear to have their roots in the native religious thought.%$ That the assimilation of the three-headed god to Mercurius is thus only approximate is not to be wondered at, but follows the general rule of interpretatio Romana, or the designation of barbarian deities by Latin names. This neither did nor could grasp fully the character of the deity it translated, for the obvious reason that every deity is unique in
himself, an absolutely original formation which does not correspond wholly and exactly with any other god of a different religion. To this intrinsic reason must be added another, which is external and depends on the wholly casual circumstances under which the interpretation is made, and on the individual factors which come into play. Any given deity may give rise to different interpretations, not only as a result of its own multifarious aspects, which are likely to suggest as many
different identifications with various deities, but also in accordance with the varying quality of the interpreters. The first Roman penetration of Gaul came by way of trade, and the traders were naturally, as such, inclined to see a Mercury where the soldiers who took part in the subsequent conquest would have seen rather a Mars.34 One of these peculiar features of the Gaulish ‘Mercury’ is his pre-eminence over all the other deities who received the worship and adoration of the peoples of Gaul (deorum maxime Mercurium colunt, says Caesar, Bell. Gall. vi, 17, 1). Such predominance well befits the three-headed god as a solar deity, and the plurima simulacra mentioned by Caesar as a sign of the wide-spread cult of “Mercury” may be no other than the numerous pillars with the face of the three-headed deity which have come to light especially in the neighbourhood of Reims, but probably were scattered everywhere along the roads,?* particularly, like Greek herms, where three or four ways met, as if to look all ways at once. Thus the three-headed deity appears indeed such as Caesar’s “Mercury’? was, wiarum atque itinerum dux, or, as ,we read on inscriptions, uiator (C.I.L. xii, 1084, 5849) and deus qui uias et semitas commentus est (C.I.L. vii, 271). Also, the character of patron of commerce which is given to “Mercurius” by Caesar (B.G. ibid., ad quaestus pecuniae mercaturasque habere uim maximam) seems to fit the three-headed god, not because that was his own real nature, but because he must have appeared so to Roman traders,86 since they were interested not only in the safety of the roads over which that deity kept watch but also for the validity of contracts, which probably were made in his name; for as sungod, from whom nothing could be hid, he was the natural guarantor of the good faith of agreements, and so the protection of
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trade, among other things; hinged on the general character of omniscience which is the especial attribute of a sun-god. Here mention must be made also of the names of the Gaulish Mercury. He had indeed a great variety of epithets, which are to be found on inscriptions belonging to monuments of his cult. Some are Latin, and these include one, matutinus,3? which is totally alien to the Roman Mercurius, but easily intelligible if it has reference to the three-headed Gaulish deity as sungod and therefore god of the morning light. Keltic epithets are commoner, and these are derived partly from the names of places or peoples, in which or among whom the Roman god had a cult,38 partly from names of Keltic divinities with whom Mercurius was locally identified. Among the names of native origin is Visucius, which sometimes is found alone,3* but oftener as an epithet of Mercurius,*° occurring thus in six or seven inscriptions,#1 which for the most part are from the district between the Moselle and the Rhine, although sporadic examples come from Bordeaux and even from the right bank of the Rhine, at Heidelberg. Visucius, according to some, is to be derived from the Keltic visu or vissu,42 “to know”, “knowledge”,
and means “the knower?°.48 This might therefore refer to the omniscience of the three-headed god.4* At first sight it-.may seem strange that this god, being solar, should be interpreted as Mercurius, a god who has nothing solar about him. But here again we are helped out, and the coincidence is significant in itself, by the analogy already cited in Chapter XI of the interpretation of the Persian Mithra as Hermes, probably by way of the setting and nocturnal aspects of the sun with their underworld implications, which make contact with Hermes’ aspect as Guide of Souls. We may also add another analogy, that between the ancient sun-god of the Thracian “kings” (see Chapter XI), whom Herodotos interprets as Hermes, in his capacity as ancestor and head of the royal clans, and the Gaulish Dis Pater of Caesar (B.G. vi, 18), who according to the teaching of the Druids was the ancestor of all the Gaulish clans. This descent from an infernal deity, Dis Pater being the same as Pluto, is connected by Caesar (loc. cit.) with the Gaulish custom of reckoning time by nights and not by days and beginning the day, not at dawn, but at sunset, both for ordinary days and for birthdays, also for the first of every month and for New Year’s Day.45 Dis Pater thus comes indirectly to take on the character of a regulator of time, the proper function of the Sun.46 The fact that the three-headed god could be interpreted for Romans now as Mercurius and now as Dis Pater (the former in his secular aspect, the latter perhaps in a more esoteric or Druidical capacity) is merely part of the varying dynamism of interpretatio Romana, as we have described it already. In ancient Irish tradition also, Donn, the tribal ancestor of the
Gaels, is at the same time god of the dead, and his house (Teach
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Duinn), localised in a rock near the island of Dursey in the far west, where he is buried, is the realm of the dead, where all his descendants must join him.4? But he is also probably a god of the setting sun,*® for he died by drowning, in other words disappeared at sunset into the
waves of the sea. In this connection it is well to remember a tradition relating to “Kronos”49 a prisoner and sent to sleep ‘by command of Zeus” as Hesiod says (W.D. 169), attended by daimones on an uninhabited island off the coast of Britain. The existence of a three-headed Keltic god may also help us to understand the tradition which places in the west the three-headed or three-bodied Geryon, guardian of the Hesperides, and his island, Erytheia (Red Island), the name of which makes one think of the setting sun and thus of the world of the dead.5° In England too we find traces of the three-headed god. The threefaced head appears as an architectural motif on a relief from Risingham dedicated to the numina. Augustorum by a Gaulish cohort.5! But apart from this Gaulish importation of Roman date, it is not out of place to suppose that the three-headed deity already belonged to the original religion of the island Kelts as to that of their brethren on the continent. In Ireland, on Corleck Hill near Baileborough,
Co. Cavan, in a
district which local tradition calls by the paganising name of “country of the idols” there was found a head cut in sandstone with three faces carven on it.52 o (b) THE
THREE-HEADED GOD ON THE PLANETARY VASES The three-faced head is found also on a group of monuments of a quite different kind. We refer to terracotta vases, adorned outside with busts of deities in relief, which were separately formed in suitable little moulds and then stuck on to the surface of the vase.53 The best-preserved example, broken but complete, is our Fig. 38, now at Paris in the Cabinet des Médailles.54 It was found in 1847 at Bavay, where recent excavations have brought to light numerous fragments of comparable vases, including heads of the three-headed god.®5 The Paris specimen has seven busts, five (including the threeheaded one) bearded, the other two beardless. Starting from the triple head and moving from left to right of the spectator, they run thus: 1 Three-headed
2 Bearded 3 Bearded 4 Beardless 6 Bearded 7 Beardless.
5 Bearded
Fig. 39 is another example. It was found in 1872 at Jupille in Belgium and is now preserved in the Liège Museum,5 It had originally seven
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busts, and so it has to-day, but only six of these were reconstructed from the fragments available, the seventh being restorer’s work, to replace the original bust, which is lost. Three reconstructed heads have beards and three have not. The three-headed figure is missing, and it is likely that this was the very head that is lost. If that is so, we get the following arrangement, running from the spectator’s left to his right: I (Three-headed)
2 Bearded 3 Beardless 4 Beardless 6 Bearded 7 Beardless.
5 Bearded
A third example was found in 1908 in a tomb on the Fliegenberg near Troisdorf,57 and is preserved in Cologne Museum.58 Here there were originally six busts, of which
but four, one of them three-headed,
survive (see Fig. 40). One is entirely lost, of another slight traces remain. The order, starting from the three-headed. figure and moving from the spectator’s left to his right, is 1 Three-headed
2 Bearded
3 Beardless 6 Bearded.
4 (missing)
5 (missing)
Another example has been found at Tournai; there the busts were originally seven, but only five survive; the three-headed is missing.59 Fragments of other vases of this kind have been found at Bavay itself, 90 at Élouges in Hainaut,5! at Aiseau (Charleroy), Schalkhoven in Limburg and elsewhere.s2 Another fragment, Fig. 41, found at Mons, has only the three-headed bust.83 At Trèves, a mould used for making the busts which were to be attached to the vases has been found and is preserved there; this is of a beardless figure.®* It will be seen that that is a very homogeneous group, not only in technique®> but also in the form of the vases, which have a big belly, and in the style. The treatment of the hair (spirals) and of the beard (spirals or ridges) is particularly to be noted. The faces, or busts, are all full-front, set alongside each other like so many medallions. All have large eyes, wide open in their large sockets and under more or less arched eyebrows. Other peculiarities common to them all are the marks interposed between the figures, two or three dots one above another in the Bavay specimen, a small circle set high in that from Jupille, the same with a cross under it in that from Troisdorf.** Most scholars date these vases in the second and third Christian centuries;
others, judging from the style of the figures, put them in the first.67 All alike come from the region lying between the Meuse and Sambre and the Rhine, which forms part of the ancient Gallia Belgica. Bavay, from which the Paris vase apparently comes, is the ancient Bagacum,
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THE
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the capital of the Nervii, who were a Keltic people of Gallia Belgica, to which also belonged the territory of Liége, whence comes the specimen from Jupille, while the Cologne vase, found in a German grave, is also in all probability of Belgian make.°° The three-headed figure on these vases cannot be dissociated from that of the stelae, pillars and other sculptured monuments of Roman Gaul of which we have already spoken (p. 196). Even on the formal side, the three-headed personage on the vases has his points of contact with the one on the carved monuments in his ‘‘concentrated”’ type (cf. p. 196). The difference is the iconographic complex in which he is found on the vases. This group of seven lends itself to association with the seven planets and the days of the week.?° The week, as part of the month and connected with the phases of the moon, goes back to ancient Babylonian origins. Through the influence of Chaldean astrology, each day came to be associated with a particular deity, as being under his regency. When the week spread through the GraecoRoman world during the Hellenistic period, the planetary Babylonian deities were each identified with one belonging to the classical world, and from them the days of the week got each its name, Sunday, the day of the Sun, Monday, of the Moon, and then the days of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn (Tuesday-Saturday). These deities were shown under their respective types, according to the conventions of Hellenistic-Roman art. The Sun wore his radiate crown, the Moon her lunar horns, Mars his helmet, Mercury carried his caduceus, Jupiter his thunderbolt, Venus her mirror, Saturn his sickle. Then, when in the second and third centuries, if not before, the use of the week spread from Rome to the Romanised West, the artrepresentations of the planetary deities according to the traditional classical types spread with it.71 Those remarkable monuments commonly called by German archaeologists JFuppitersdulen or Gigantensdulen, i.e. Juppiter-columns or giant-columns,?? which were put up just at that time, mostly in northern Gaul but also in the Rhine provinces and elsewhere, usually have, over their square base with its four figures
of deities (the “‘four-god stones” to be dealt with below, p. 207), a drum of smaller dimensions, generally eight-sided, but always with seven divine figures, one on each face, who are no other than the
planetary gods of the days of the week, usually shown full-length, but sometimes represented by busts only, or even heads.?8 Busts or heads of gods, whether in high relief or merely painted in sundry colours, are also a common ornamental motif in that characteristic pottery with its shining black glaze and its decoration a barbotine which was in use at the same period, especially in the third century a.p., in the same parts of Gaul and Germany.’4 The number of busts varies;75 they are. sometimes exactly seven,” and represent the seven planetary gods.
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In this pottery-ware, as on the drums of the monumental columns, the iconography is of the usual sort, purely and typically classical; the three-headed god, who does not belong to classical art, never appears.?? His appearance, therefore, on the group of “‘planetary”’ vases, besides the monuments of Gallo-Roman sculpture already quoted, is all the more important. His presence on planetary vases tells us that the cultural invasions of foreign origin, however important and conspicuous, were not altogether accepted passively. In some districts where the population was either Keltic or strongly influenced by the Kelts, the native spirit reacted to the foreign currents. One sign of this reaction is just the three-headed god, who, as we have said, belonged to the native tradition, which was Keltic and Gaulish.
If therefore the three-headed deity could be identified with or assimilated to one of the planetary divinities, this identification or assimilation may presumably give us a valuable indication of his own nature. It all depends on identifying the planetary deity with whom. he was equated. This is no easy matter, because, apart from that particular deity who was absorbed, in art, into the three-headed god, the other six have lost the attributes of their classical and conventional type without taking up a native type equally characteristic.” We are helped out to some extent, however, by the distinction between the planetary deities as male (Sun, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn) and female (Moon and Venus), for naturally the three-headed god must have been assimilated to one of the five male deities; but which one?
Three different identifications have been put forward. (a) The threeheaded god is Mars.79 This equation is based on the succession of the divine images on the Bavay vase. Speaking generally, if the figures are those of the planetary gods, their order will coincide with that of the days of the week. This happens for the Bavay vase only if the threeheaded figure represents the god of Tuesday (Dies Martis, martedi, mardi), for then we get, reading from the spectator’s left to his right, Bearded
Beardless
Three-headed
Bearded
Bearded
Beardless
1 (Sun)
2 (Moon)
3 (Mars)
4 (Mercury)
5 (Jupiter)
6 (Venus)
Bearded
7 (Saturn).
But this equation, resulting as it does from a deduction, ought to have some positive support, a condition which is not fulfilled, because the three-headed god is never characterised as Mars in art, here* or elsewhere, nor ever has any attribute in common with him. On the other hand, it is evident that the equation of the triple-headed divinity with Mars is no longer valid when the order of succession changes, as in fact it does not apply to the vases from Jupille and Troisdorf.
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(5) The three-headed god is Mercury.81 This equation, unlike the first, has positive support, for the assimilation of this god to Mercury, while approximate and partial (see above, p. 197f.), is a given fact, resulting, as we have seen, from the iconography of the carved monuments. But if we take the three-headed god as the deity of Wednesday (Dies Mercuri, mercoledì, mercredi), the resulting succession of divinities
does not coincide, on any of the three vases, with the order of the days of the week. To preserve this equation, we must give up the planetary character of the vases and the gods figured on them. S. Reinach did not hesitate to take this step, and so came to the conclusion that the figures on the Belgian vases had nothing to do with the planets, which he sought to support by the fact that on the Jupille vase there are three beardless deities, whereas there are but two goddesses among the divinities of the days of the week. This argument is, of course, much weakened if we admit the possibility that one of the beardless figures represents a male deity, and such a possibility, which may be regarded as a certainty,®? was implicitly admitted in the third identification, viz., (c) The three-headed god is Saturn. This equation’ is based on the order of the figures on the Jupille vase, considered as representations of the planetary gods, whose order must therefore coincide with that of the days of the week. This condition can be fulfilled only if, identifying the beardless male deity with Mars, we take the three-headed god, assumed to supply the place of the missing figure (see p. 201), to be the regent of Saturday, i.e. Saturn. In that cage, still reading from left to right, we get the following series: (Three-headed) 1 (Saturn)
Bearded 2 (Sun)
Beardless Beardless, male 3 (Moon) 4 (Mars) Beardless Bearded 7 (Venus). 6 (Jupiter)
Bearded 5 (Mercury)
Thus the equation of the three-headed god with Saturn is a deduction, like his identification with Mars, and therefore is open to the same objections. And indeed, there is nothing positive elsewhere to indicate that he was assimilated to Saturn.84 It must be added that the equation itself, being deduced from the succession of the gods on the vase from Jupille, naturally will not apply to the other vases, which have a different order. As to the vase from Troisdorf, published in 1910 (see note 57), it neither does nor can throw much light on the solution of the problem for the reason that in it the figures, as already said, were but six, and even of these only four, the three-headed god, two bearded and one beardless deity (cf. p. 201) are more or less well preserved, while one is entirely missing and one unrecognisable. Under such conditions, any
ill
pl. (1910), il
Mannus, 18;
Par Médailles, des Cabinet the in 38.—Vase FIG.
FIG. 39.—Vase from Jupille in Li¢ge Museum; Mannus, ii (1910), plate iv
FIG. 40.—Vase from Fliegenberg (Troisdorf); in Cologne Museum; Mannus, ibid., plate ii
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restoration of them as seven becomes more problematical than ever, for we are not sure even of the sex of the missing deity, and therefore of the position in which to put him, or her, in the series. A fully satisfactory explanation of the three-headed figure on the Belgian vases cannot be given on the basis of the examples at present
available. The fact is that no explanation hitherto given holds good for more than one vase, that on which the hypothesis is based, not for the others. So, for the Bavay vase, only the identification of the threeheaded god with Mars holds good, see p. 203, for that of Jupille only his equation with Mercury;®5 hence it has been supposed that he gave rise to a double identification, varying between Mercury and Mars.89 But his equation with Mercury (S. Reinach, see p. 204) depends on none of the vases, but on the monuments,
and will not fit the vases,
unless we give up their planetary character, which the equation will not suit. For my part, I hold that any interpretation of the threeheaded god which holds good for the vases must, to be satisfactory, fit the monuments also, and that, so far from giving up the planetary character of the former, we should found our identification upon it. The new explanation of the three-headed god which I now propose8? takes account of this double requirement. To begin with, it must be noted that the order of the divine figures on each vase may be read either from left to right, as has been done hitherto, or from right to left (meaning the spectator’s left in either case). On the Jupille vase, if we assume, as everyone is inclined to do, that the missing figure,
see p. 201, was really the three-headed god, and further, that one of the beardless figures is to be taken as male, we get, by reading from right to left, a series which coincides with that of the days of the week if, but only if, the three-headed deity is the god of (Sunday and) the Sun. In this case, the beardless male figure must be identified, not with Mars, as Demarteau would have it (see p’203), but with Juppiter.* So: Bearded 7 Saturn
Beardless 6 Venus
Bearded Beardless, male 4 Mercury 5 Jupiter 1 Three-headed Sun
Bearded 3 Mars
Beardless 2 Moon
If we apply the same equation of the three-headed figure with the
Sun to the vase from Bavay, and read, as before, from right to left, we get:
Bearded 7 Saturn
Bearded 6 Jupiter
Beardless 5 Venus
Bearded Bearded 4 Mercury 3 Mars
Beardless Three-headed I Sun. 2 Moon
This, it is true, does not fit the order of days in the week exactly, but
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THE
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it comes very near it; to get complete agreement, we have only to reverse two adjacent figures, Jupiter and Venus. It is a fact that the original planetary week did not begin with (Sunday and) the Sun, but with (Saturday and) Saturn.8° Saturn is the highest of the planets, in other words the farthest from the earth.% In a picture from Pompeii, which has seven medallions in two rows, four above and three below, and is assuredly one of the oldest representations of the seven planetary gods from the classical world,?! Saturn is still in the first place,92 then come the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus, in the usual week-order. This is not the natural order of the planets according to their respective distances
from the earth, that being, from farthest to nearest, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon, but is that astronomically
inferred from it.9* But in Roman Gaul and Germany, on the so-called Juppiter-columns®* and other monuments of provincial art,95 which certainly inspired the makers of the Belgian planetary vases,9* we get the rival type of week, which begins with the Sun and his day, doubtless under the influence of pagan theological dogmas of Oriental provenance,?? and especially of Mithraism, which certainly
made its way into the Rhine provinces and into Gallia Belgica, and took its part in spreading the use of the planetary week.9® On some Mithraic monuments we find the seven planets with the Sun at their head.1° Therefore it is allowable to suppose that on the Belgian vases the order of the days of the week may have begun ‘with the threeheaded figure, which, as we have already seen (above, p. 203f.), can hardly be got to represent Saturn (Demarteau) or Mars (Usener and others), whereas we know that it stood for the Sun, the all-seeing Sun, the three heads being an expression in art of that luminary’s power of seeing everything. If we turn the vase daily, in one or the other direction, on its vertical axis, in such a manner as to turn it completely around in the course of a week and to bring every day the figure to which that day belongs into the pre-eminent central position relatively to the spectator, or it may be to a votive lamp or other offering placed before it, the vase might serve to keep count of the days of the week. Also in the *‘Juppitercolumns” and other planetary monuments, which keep more or less strictly to classical iconography and so have not the three-headed figure, the succession of the planetary deities of the days of the week runs sometimes from left to right, sometimes from right to left,1°1 and this is true also of the Mithraic monuments, on which the seven planetary gods run sometimes from the right to the left.102 As to the above-mentioned anomalies, namely the imperfect agreement between the distribution of male and female figures on the vase from Bavay and that from Jupille and the limitation to six on the
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specimen from Troisdorf, they remain whatever explanation we give of the three-headed figure. It is, however, noteworthy that they also find their parallels on the monuments, for, especially on those belonging to the cult of Mithra, the order of the planets is not always strictly kept.103 As to the Belgian vases, it is well to bear in mind their character as barbarous provincial products, in which it is not remarkable to find inexactnesses and departures from the types and models they imitate. Also, not all need have served to reckon the days of the week; some assuredly had a different and practical use, to hold drink at feasts.104 That was indeed the object of some noteworthy products of the potters of the Roman provinces, for instance the planetary vase (painted) from Mainz, around the rim of which runs the inscription accipe me sitiens et trade sodali, i.e. “when thirsty, take me and (after drinking) pass me on to a friend”’,105 In any case, thè equation of the three-headed god with the Sun has an advantage over other identifications, in that, keeping to the planetary nature of the vases, indeed basing itself thereon, it is found to agree with the nature of the god on the non-planetary monuments, inasmuch as, despite his Roman interpretatio as Mercury, we find (above, p. 197) that he is really a sungod. Being arrived at independently, these two interpretations, one planetary the other not, support each other. If the planetary god of the sun, shown in Roman art (cf. p. 202) after his usual classical type, could be expressed in Gaulish iconography by the three-headed deity, that implies that the latter was somehow conceived as being a solar divinity. In this way the iconographic identification of the planetary sungod with the threeheaded god gives us a valuable indication of the latter’s nature. It also tells us that, side by side with the partial identification of him by the Romans as Mercury, the original conception of him as god of the sun remained alive in the native tradition. (C) THE TWO-FACED GOD The theory of S. Reinach that the three-headed deity arises out of the Greek Hermes (see p. 196) is paralleled by that put forward in 1875 by R. Mowat,1°6 that he is derived from the Roman god Janus and specifically from Janus quadrifrons, as he is shown at full length on some imperial (Hadrianic) coins.10? This idea has no value save as a symptom of the same erroneous tendency to deny the originality of the Gaulish god by giving him non-Gaulish origins.198 Mention was made above (p. 202) of those square stone bases, with a deity in relief on each face, which are generally known by their German name of Viergittersteine, literally ‘‘four-god-stones’’.19 One of these, which was found near Reims,11° has the figures of (a) Mercury, (5) Juppiter, (c) a goddess and (d) another god, dressed in a short
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THE
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GOD
tunic and a cloak, after the Gaulish fashion, barefooted, holding in his right hand a rounded object, perhaps a goblet or~a loaf, in his left a knotted stick. This god has two heads, one with and the other without a beard (Fig. 42). It is not, however, absolutely certain that he is a Janus, for we cannot exclude the imaginary presence of a third head which is not shown, at least not in the round. The possibility therefore remains that here again we have to do with the three-headed divinity, as is the case on a fragmentary stele discovered at Senon,111 on which the disposition of the two surviving heads (one whole, slight traces only of the other) makes it quite probable that there was a third. It is a fact that the cult of Janus, unlike that of other Roman deities, is poorly represented in Gaul. We know of but one dedication to him, which comes
from the territory of Apt (Colonia Iulia Apta), in Gallia Narbonensis.112 There his name is joined to an epithet the reading of which is uncertain, but it is plainly not Latin (Jano uaeoso [?], C.LL. XII, 1065), which at any rate serves to show that Janus has been superimposed on some local native divinity. Outside Gaul, we find traces of the worship of Janus in Noricum,!13 an Illyrian country but under Keltic influence, 114, 115 and clearer ones in Dalmatia, which again is
strongly influenced by the Kelts; several inscriptions have been discovered there dedicated to Ianus pater or Ianus Augustus,116 and in one of thema statue of the god is mentioned.117 Augustus did in fact revive, together with many other cults and religious institutions which had fallen into disuse, the cult of Janus,118 but it is hard to see why that worship should have revived outside Rome in Dalmatia in particular, and hardly anywhere else,119 unless it was for some reason connected with the local religion. This might have been the existence already in situt2° of a many-headed pre-Roman god, of whom Janus might be the interpretation. Some hints concerning a janiform god among the Kelts may be got from the study of coins. It is well known that the gold philippus21, i.e. the gold stater of Philip II of Macedonia, 359-336 B.c., served as model for the first coins of Keltic populations, and first for the Kelts of the Danube. On
some silver staters of these Danubian Kelts we see, instead of the head of Zeus which
the Macedonian
coins have, a double head of Zeus,
that is to say a two-faced bearded head,122 whether got by imitation of Greek models, for instance the coins of Amphipolis or Thessalonike,123 or, by way of the Keltic Boii, from the head of Janus on Roman pieces. It remains to be seen whether this fondness for the two-faced type of the god may not have, among the Danubian Kelts, something to do with a many-headed deity already existing in their primitive religion. It is certain that such a predilection is to be found also among the Kelts of Gaul and those of Britain. On some gold coins of the Gaulish population we find the two-faced head again, generally without a
FIG. 41.—Vase fragment from Mons; Mannus, ibid., p. 206, fig. 1
FIG. 42.—Carved base from Reims; Espérandieu, no. 3666
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THE
KELTS
209
beard,124 and the same beardless type occurs in England also, on coins of Cunobelinus,!25 the Cymbeline of legend, who was king of Camulodunum,!26 the modern Colchester, in the days of Tiberius and Caligula. Geoffrey of Monmouth (died 1154), drawing as he alleges upon an ancient Welsh chronicle of the seventh century, states that Cordelia buried her father, King Lear, at Leicester in a crypt which he had made in honour of the two-faced Janus. There, whenever the New Year came around, all the artisans of the city resorted and performed some work belonging to their trade in order that the year, thus well begun, might all be favourable to their industry.12? Here we have a reflexion of a rite of inaugurating the New Year, such as‘is attested by Ovid for the Roman world,!28 in connection with the cult of Janus and in his own month of January. It then came to be celebrated in various parts of Europe in the Middle Ages.129 But it may be that in England, as elsewhere, the Roman festival was grafted upon religious elements which already existed in pre-Roman times. In the Middle Ages, despite the thunders of the Church, the custom of celebrating the New Year and other anniversaries with masquerades!®° in which those taking part disguised themselves in various shapes, including those of beasts, particularly deer,1%1 lasted a long time, especially in Europe. These bestial shapes are in the last analysis those of theriomorphic gods, which is precisely what some deities of the Keltic religion, such as Cernunnos, were; we know (n. 11) that he had astag’s antlers. It
is likely that these guisings included a two-faced “‘mask’’, representing another Keltic god, and a double-headed one at that, who as such naturally gave rise to an identification with Janus. In the witch-rites which
preserved,
in England,
France
and
elsewhere,
considerable
elements of the cult and ritual of ancient Keltic paganism throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, the Devil was represented as late as the seventeenth century by a Janus, that is to say a figure with a two-faced head or mask.132 The traces mentioned above (p. 199f.) of the three-headed god in England and Ireland suggest that among the insular as among the continental Kelts this god may go back to their original religion. It is quite possible, in my opinion, that even in this, as among the Thracians (cf. above, p. 179), the same deity was primitively thought of as having either two heads or three since the number of heads did not matter when it came to expressing by a plurality of them the power of universal vision (cf. p. 128). Also, the bifrons lapideus magnae latidudinis ante fores sacrae aedis, the two-headed and very broad stone figure before the church door, which was still in existence in an old centre of pagan religion, the territory of Croviacus (now Crouy, Dept. of the Aisne), in the ninth century, that is to say in Norman times,1** might have been originally the statue of a native two-headed god.134 E
210
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
NOTES . A. Bertrand, in Rev. Archéologique, 1880-ii, p. 6 sqg.; S. Reinach, o figurés de la Gaule p. 188 sqq. A list of the monuments of the threeheaded god is given by P. Lambrechts, Contributions a l’étude des divinités celtiques (Bruges 1942), p. 33 foll. 2. Espérandieu, Receuil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine, Nos. 1055 (Auch, Aquitania), 2668 (Nimes), 3287 (Langres), 3651-2, 3654-9, 3661, 3669, 3751 (Reims), 3756, 3762 (Laon, Aisne), 4729 (Le Chatelet), 7234 (Metz), 7700 (Soissons). In the (fragmentary) relief from Tréves, Espérandieu No. 4937, the head of the three-headed deity is seer under the feet of the middle one of three female figures shown there, see-Germania Romana, ed. 2, IV, Plate 28, 2; Westdeutsche Zeitschrift xxvi (1907), p. 315, Plate 10, No. 13. 3. Espérandieu, No. 3137 4. Same, No. 2083. 5. Same, No. 2131. 6. Same, No. 1316. 7. Same, Nos. 1316, 2083. 8. Same, Nos. 1055, 2668, 3651- 2, 3654-9, 3661, 3756, 7700, also the fulllength figure, zbid., No. 3137, in the Musée Carnavalet, and No. 2131 (altar from Dennevy). g. S. Reinach, Bronzes figurés, p. 185, No. 177. 10. Cf. the female bronze head with two little female heads projecting from either side of the central one, from Cébazat (Clermont); Courcelle-Seneuil, Les dieux gaulois (Paris 1910), p. 161, Plate x; Audollent, Petit bronze tricéphale Hae en Auvergne, in Serta Hoffilleriana, Zagabriae 1940, Plates xvii, xviii. . Cernunnos, Espérandieu, No. 3133; Esus, ibzd, 3134; Sucellus, ibid. No."4566 LCs 12. S. Reinach, ‘‘Mercure tricéphale”, in his Cultes, Mythes et Religions III (Paris 1908), p. 168 sqq. 13. Cf. Ch. Renel, Les religions de la Gaule (Paris 1906), p. 263 sqq.; J. Toutain, Les cultes paîens dans l’empire romain iii (Paris 1920), pp. 260, 276. 14. E. Windisch, ‘Das keltische Britannien”, in Abhandlungen d. séchsischen Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften xxix (1912), No. vi, p. 82: “Die Dreiképfigkeit kònnte ein bildlicher Ausdruck sein fùr das Schauen des Gottes nach allen Seiten hin, mag man nun an einen héchsten, alles beschauenden Gott denken, oder an den Herrn und Huter der Herden.” 15. Avienus, Ora maritima, 644 sqq., cf. C. Clemen, “Die Religion der Kelten”, in A(rchiv ftir) R(eligions) W(issenschaft) xxxvii (1941), pp. 104, 108, 75g: 16. Montelius, “Das Sonnenrad”, in Mannus i (1909), pp. 53 sgq., 169 sqq. 17. La Tène I (fifth and fourth centuries B.c.), see W. Krause, Die Religion der Kelten (Haas, Bilderatlas zur Religionsgeschichte, xvii), No. 27, a remarkable parallel to the figures on the Gundestrup vase, ibid., No. 26, cf. W. A. von Jenny, Keltische Metallarbeiten (Berlin 1935), Plate 25. 18. Krause, op. cit., No. 21; Espérandieu, No. 829.
THE
KELTS
2II
19. Krause, ibid., Nos. 19, 20; Espérandieu, Nos. 410, 411. For the wheel on tombstones, see Espérandieu, Nos. 879 (C.I.L. XIII, 336), 5705 (C.I.L., 11668), cf. Nos. 5684, 5687, 5696 (gravestones from the neighbourhood of Saverne). Cf. also the solar wheel on the Picene stelae of Novilara, etc., E. Brizio, Monumenti Antichi V (Milan 1895), pp. 177-8. Fig. 28; Vladimir Dumitrescu, Leta del ferro nel Piceno (Bucharest 1929), Plate i. 20. E.g. Mars Loucetius, C.J.L. xiii, 3087, etc., see Pauly-WissowaKroll, Realenc. XIV, 1951. Cf. Macrobius, Saturn. i, 19, 5: Accitani, Hispana gens, simulacrum Martis radiis ornatum maxima religione celebrant, Neton uocantes.
21. Espérandieu, Nos. 2532, 3964, 5425. 22. Same, Nos. 94, 343, 2858, 4793 (twelve rays, one for each month), 5616. 23. Among the definitely Gaulish attributes of the three-headed deity, the torque, even if it has kept something of the sacred and symbolic value it may originally have had (cf. Polybios ii, 29, 8; 31, 4), tells us little of his nature because, as an element of Gaulish costume, it is not specifically proper to him but common to a variety of Gaulish deities, see Espérandieu 3653, cf. 4839. E.g. the “horned god” wears it (Cernunnos on the altar from Notre Dame has a torque threaded on each of his horns, Espérandieu No. 3133, F. Koepp in Bonner Fahrbiicher cxxv, 1919, Plate vi, 2, cf. the horned god with a torque in his right hand on the Gundestrip vase, von Jenny, Keltische Metallarbeiten, Plate 24). Nor do horns, although they are attributed to the three-headed god (on his middle head in the example from Langres, Espérandieu 3287, cf. the figure from Condat, ibid. 1316; head of the statuette from Savigny-Autun, above, Fig. 37; a horned three-headed figure on a fragment of a planetary vase from Bavay, P. Darche, ‘‘Les ‘Vases de Bavay’ ’’, in Bull. Archéol 1932-33, Paris 1925, p. 607), and have been used as an argument to prove that he and Cernunnos are one (J. Toutain, Les cultes paiens dans l’empire romain, ili, p. 261 foll.). But on the Beaune stele, Espérandieu 2083, the horned and the threeheaded god are shown side by side, and therefore are not the same. Furthermore, the three-headed god from Langres, the only one which preserves traces of the horns (for the other examples mentioned above have nothing but the depressions or holes into which the horns were to be fitted), has not the antlers of a stag, but apparently the horns of a ram or, more probably, of a bull, see G. Drioux, Cultes indigénes dés Lingons (Paris and Langres 1934), p. 68. So the horns, like the torque, instead of being the attribute of any one deity, might signify some quality or character shared by several. For the god Cernunnos see Phyllis Pray-Bober, ‘“‘Cernunnos; origin and transformation of a Celtic divinity’, in A. 7.A. lv (1951), pp. 13-51. 24. Espérandieu, Nos. 1573 (?), 3668, 3756, 4709, 6991, 7519, 7641. For Mercurius-Rosmerta and in general the pairs of Gaulish deities, see W. Schleiermacher, ‘“Studien an Géttertypen der ròmischen Rheinprovinzen”, in 23er Bericht der rémisch-germanischen Kommission (1934), p. 110 foll. 25. “Durchgangig ist die Gleichsetzung des Dreikopfes mit Mercurius bemerkenwerterweise jedoch nicht”, Heichelheim in Realenc. XV, 1000 foll. 26. The purse in the right hand, resting on the head of a he-goat, as in the
Notre-Dame figure of the three-headed god, Fig. 33, is found again in some
THE
212
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
representations of Mercury, who holds his caduceus in his left hand. See Espérandieu,
Nos.
1074,
1074, 2082, 3142,
3143,
3595» 4698, 6064, 7519.
The purse, or bag, is an attribute of Cernunnos also, ibid. 3653, and of other deities, zbid. 1573. 27. Espérandieu, Nos. 2656, 3657, 3659, cf. 3748 (“L’oiseau qui décore la partie supérieure des autels de Reims ne peut étre qu’un coq”, zbid, V, p. 12); 7700, cf. 3668; 4640. The cock associated with other deities also, ibid. 276, 437. Prohibition against eating the flesh of fowls (gallinam) among the Britons, Caesar, B.G. v, 12, 6.
28. Eitrem, in Realenc. VIII, 757; Kroll, ibid. XV. 977. 29. Ram, Espérandieu, Index; he-goat, ibid, 4698; tortoise, ibid. 7068; he-goat and cock, ibid. 3141-43, 4696, 6610; he-goat and tortoise, 3595; all three, 6423, etc.
30. G. Drieux, of. cit., p. 11; cf. P. Monceaux in Rev. historique xxxv (1887), p. 250 foll. g1. On the three-horned bull (S. Reinach, Bronzes, p. 278, n. 1, Espérandieu
5380, 5389) and on Tarvos Trigaranus altar, Espérandieu
3134,
Krause,
(inscribed relief on the Notre-Dame
Bilderatlas, Nos. 52, 53, C.J.L. xii, 3026),
cf. S. Reinach, in Cultes, mythes et religions, i, p. 233 foll. The relief with the figure of a bull beside a thick-leaved tree and three birds (cranes) perched on it (cf. the high relief on the same altar with the inscription Esus and the analogous scene on the relief from Tréves, Espérandieu, 4929, Krause, op. cit., No. 50) might represent the gathering of the mistletoe from the oak, which for the Gauls was a real and proper rite (Caesar, B.G. vii, 18, 2), carried out on the day of new moon, i.e. the first day of the month, with a sacrifice of a white bull. The bronze bull on which oaths were taken among the €imbri, who were Kelticised Germans (see Plutarch, Marius 23), might be the representative of a sungod in his capacity as god of oaths and punisher of perjurers. 32. Ram’s head and the three-headed god on the monument in Espérandieu, No. 3657; two ram-headed serpents circling the figure of the threeheaded god from Savigny, Fig. 37. : 33. Ram’s head, Espérandieu 3656-59, cf. 3655, 3669, 3745, 3748, 7700. Horned serpent associated with various deities, ibid., 1573-2067, (cf. O. Weinreich, Triskaidekadische Studien, Giessen 1916, p. 15 foll.), 4839, and on the Gundestrup vase, von Jenny, op. cit., Plate 24. 34. Cf. Wissowa, “Interpretatio romana”, in A.R.W. xix (1916-19), p. 25. 35. Cf. Hettner, Fihrer durch das Provinzialmuseum in Trier (Tréves 1903), p. 33, No. 92. 36. Mercurius negotiator, C.I.L. xiii, 7360, merc(ator) 6294, nundinator
7569.
37. Cf CLL. xiii, 5,235; E. Howald and E. Mayer, Die rémische Schweiz (Zurich 1940), p. 259. For matutinus in relation to Keltic °matu-, °mato-, see Vendryès, ‘“Teutomatos”, in C. Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions (1939), P- 473. 38. Toutain, Les cultes paiens, ili, p. 205. 39. Visucio, C.I.L. xiii, 6404, ..0.M. et Visucio, ibid. 5991. . 40. Mercurio Augusto Visucio, ibid., 577; Mercurio Visucio, ibid., 3660, 4257 (C.I.L. xiii, 4 p. 49), Visucio Mercurio, ibid., 6437; deo Mercurio Visucio et sa(n)cte
THE Visucte, ibid., 6384, see Keune
KELTS
213
in Roscher’s Lexikon, art. Visucia. In C.I.L.
xili, 6118, 53664, it is doubtful whether Viducus is an epithet of the god or.the
name of the dedicator. 41. Keune, of. cit. and art. Visucius, cf. his “Mercurius Visucius”, in Korrespondenzblatt d. Westdeutschen Kettschrift fiir Geschichte u. Kunst xvi (1897) p. 82. sqg.;
Drexel
p. 38 (No. 184), 40.
in 14er Bericht der rémisch-germanischer Kommission
(1922),
42. From *vistu, *vidtu, cf. O. Irish fius, “knowledge”. 43. “Wissend” according to Holder, Altkelt. Sprachschatz, s.u.; “le voyant”, “le savant”, D’Arbois de Jubainville, in Rev. celtique ii, (1873-75), p. 123. 44. For other interpretations of the name, see Jullian, Inscriptions romaines
de Bordeaux (Bordeaux 1887) I, p. 46 sqq. (No. 15), and Histoire de la Gaule, TE pre) nz 2. 45. Caesar, Bell. Gall. vi, 18, 1-2: Galli se omnes ab Dite patre prognatos
praedicant, idque ab Druidibus proditum dicunt. ob eam causam spatia omnis temporis non numero dierum sed noctium finiunt; dies natalis et mensium et annorum initia sic obseruant ut noctem dies subsequatur. The same is true of other people, as the Germans (Tacitus, Germ. 11, 2), Athenians (Pliny, N.H. II, 188, Macrob., Saturn. i, 3, 4), and so forth, see, for the East,
Benzinger, Hebr. Archdol., ed. 3 (1927), p. 168. Cf. S. Reinach in DarembergSaglio, Dict. des Ant. II, 169. , 46. Cf. Gallum (as representing all Gaul) filium Solis, Filargirius (Philargyrius), the commentator on Vergil (after A.D. 500), on Bucol. vi, 64 (p. 120, 14 Hagen, quoted in Zwicker, of. cit. I, p. 32), also Pisum Celtarum regem, Apollinis Hyperborei filium, Servius Dan. on Aen. x, 179. 47. Krause, op. cit., p. 10, cf. K. Meyer, “Der altirische Totengott und die Toteninsel”, in Sitzungsber. d. Berlin. Akad., 1919, P. 537 599: especially p. 542. 48. Donn, ‘dark red” from *dhus-no. cf. Lat. fus-cus, Meyer, loc. cit., p. 543. 49. Demetrios of Tarsos, who was in Britain about a.p. 80 according to Dessau in Hermes, 1911, p. 156 foll., ap. Plutarch, Moral. 4204, 9414. 50. Hesiod, W.D. 16 (spurious but probably fairly old). For Geryon, see Hesiod, Theog. 287 foll., Aesch., Agam. 870, Eurip., Herc. Fur. 423, Diodorus Siculus v, 24, Lucian, Herc. 2 (Vol. iii, p. 129, Jacobitz). Cf. Wilamowitz, Glaube der Hellenen i, pp. 276, 314; E. Wikén, Die Kunde der Hellenen von dem Lande und den Vélkern der Apenninenhalbinsel bis 300 v. Chr. (Lund 1937), p. 12 foll.; F. F. Jacobsen, Early Celtic Art, p. 10, n. 4 (“ ‘Geryones’ was probably a tricephalic Celtic god’’). 51. C.LL. vii, 1001; J. C. Bruce, Lapidarium Septentrionale, iii (Newcastle-onTyne 1872), p. 325 foll., No. 627. Cf. R. G. Collingwood, The Archaeology of Roman Britain (London 1930), p. 48; J. Werner, in Rémisch-germanische Forschungen xvi (1921), Plate 19, Fig. 15; E. Kriiger in Germania xxiii (1939), p. 259, takes the triple head to be female. 52. A. Mahr “New aspects and problems in Irish prehistory”’, in Proc. of the Prehist. Soc. 1937, p. 414ff., pl. xxvi. J. Vendryés, ‘‘L’unité en trois personnes chez les Celtes,” in C.R. de l’Acad. des Inscr. (1935), pp. 324-41, draws attention to the frequency in Irish legends of a person who is both one and triple, as triplets or other three brothers, e.g. Dub, Donn and Dobor, or Ciar, Corc and Conmac, and others. Of these, one only is of importance and does anything,
214
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
the others being nothing but pale reflexions of the first. According to him, we have to do with an ancient concept, common to the island Kelts and those of the Continent; cf. the three Matres side by side with a single Mater. In this, the triplication means an extraordinary and supernormal increase of power: “en triplant un personnage, on ne fait que lui reconnaitre ou lui conférer une force supérieure”. This idea, already applied and generalised by other scholars, as H. Usener, W. Déonna, O. Weinreich (p. 191, n.57), may indeed have played its part in these triplications, especially in the case of monstrous beings; but it hardly is sufficient to explain the three-headed god of the Kelts completely, since we know no representation of him in a triple-form. 53. S. Loeschcke, “Applikenform einer Planetenvase”, in Rémisch-germanische Korrespondenzblatt viii (1915), Pp. I Sq. 54. E. Babelon, Guide illustré du Cabinet des Médailles (Paris 1900), p. 24, Fig. 12; Le Cab. des Med. I (Paris 1924), p. 221, Fig. 81;.C. Jullian, “Le vase aux sept dieux du Cabinet des Médailles”, in Rev. é. anc. x (1908), p. 173 sqq., with Plates xii, xiii. E. Kriger, “Deux monuments du dieu tricéphale gaulois”’, in Congrès de la Féderation archéologique et historique en Belgique, 21e Session (Liége 1909), is not accessible to me. 55. P. Darche, “Les ‘vases de Bavay’,” Bulletin Archéologique 1932-33, (Paris 1935), p. 665 sqq., Plate xxii. 56. F. de Villenoisy, “Le vase gallo-belge de Jupille”, in Bull. de VInst. Archéologique Liégeois, xxiii (1892), pp. 423-30; J.-E. Demarteau, “Le vase planétaire de Jupille’”’, in Mélanges God. Kurth (Liége and Paris, 1908), II, pp. 15-25. 57. C. Rademacher, ‘“Germanische Graber d. Kaiserzeit am Fliegenberg bei Troisdorf”, in Mannus ii (1910), pp. 1-17, cf. i (1909), pp.,83-9558. G. Kossinna, “Zur Wochengòttervase vom Fliegenberg bei Troisdorf”’, in Mannus ii (1910), pp. 201-8. 59. M. Amand, “Fouilles de Tournai”, in L’Antiquité Classique xii (1943), pp. 100-102, Plate ili. 60. H. Biévelet, “L’exploration archéologique de Bavai’’, in Gallia i, 2 (1943), pp. 178, 182; P. Darche, loc. cit. ; 61. Musées Royaux: Belgique ancienne: Cat. descriptif et raisonné par le Baron de Loé, ii (Brussels 1937), Salle III, 58. 62. P. Lambrechts, Contributions a l'étude des divinités celtiques (Brugge 1942), p. 36; Amans, Joc. cit., p. 100 n. I.
63. Rev. archéol. 1893-1, p. 289, Fig. 2; Mannus ii (1910), p. 206, 64. Loeschcke, ibid., cf. Germania Romana?, v, Plate 24, 4. 65. Rademacher in Mannus ii (1910), p. 11; Loeschcke, ibid. 66. Rademacher, ibid., p. 7. The vase of which fragments have come to light at Charleroy has also, between one figure and the next, “l’annelet séparatif du haut” and below it ‘une còte verticale longue de deux centimètres”’, de Villenoisy, loc. cit. p. 426. Cf. also the fragmentary limestone plaque described by Espérandieu, No. 1055, in which a longitudinal ornament separates the two faces, one belonging to the three-headed god. See further nn. 77, 101. 67. Rademacher, ibid., Loeschcke, ibid., p. 5. Cf. Ph. Pray Bober, in American Journal of Arch. (1951), p. 38; P. Darche, loc. cit., p. 669. : 68. C.I.L. xiii, 1, 2, p. 569; Espérandieu, op. cîit., V, p. 187 sq.
THE
KELTS
215
69. Rademacher in Mannus i (1909), p. 93 sqq.; Kossinna, ibid. ii (1910), p. 201 sq. 70. Thus Babelon and Jullian, Joc. citt., Usener, in Rhein. Mus., 1903, p. 162, and the rest; contra, S. Reinach, see p. 204, and Phyllis Pray Bober, in her paper on ‘“Cernunnos”’, American Fournal of Archaeology (1951), P. 37 549: 71. E. Maass, Die Tagesgòtter in Rom. u. den Provinzen (Berlin 1902), p. 265 sqq., cf. Roscher in his Lexikon III, 2535, art, “‘Planeten”, Boll, in PaulyWissowa-Kroll, Realenc. VII, 2548 sqq. 72. F. Haug, in Westdeutsche Zeitschrift x (1891), p. 295 sqq.; A. Riese, “Die sogenannten Juppiter- oder Gigentensàulen”, ibid. xxvi (1907), p. 141 sqq.; Fr. Hertlein, Die Fuppitergigantensdulen (Stuttgart 1910); F. Drexel, “Die Gotterverehrung im ròmischen Germanien”, in Beficht d. ròmisch-germanischen Kommission xiv (1922), p. 53 sqq.; Haug, “Gigantensaulen”’, in Realenc., Supplem.
IV
(1924), 691 sgg.; M.
P. Nilsson,
“Zur
Deutung
d. Juppiter-
gigantensàulen”, in A.R.W. xxiii (1925), p. 175 sqg.; G, Behrens, “Zur Frage d. Juppitergigantensàulen”, in Germania xvi (1932), p. 33 sqq.; H. Hommel, in A.R.W. xxxvii (1941), p. 161; P. Lambrechts; Contributions è l’étude des divinités celtiques (Brugge 1942), p. xi sgg.; id. “Recherches nouvelles sur la colonne du dieu cavalier au géant anguipéde’’, in Bulletin de I’Académie royale de Belgique (1948), p. 535 599 73. Haug, Die Wochengéttersteine, in Westdeutsche Zeitschrift, IX (1890), p. 17 sqg.; Roscher’s Lexikon VI (1937), 517. 74. Loeschcke, of. cit., p. 6. 75. Four on the Trèves vase, see Kriger, “Die Triergottervase”, in Trierer Keitschrift 1 (1926), p. 1, Plates i, il. 76. So on the vase from Mainz, known in German as the Mainzer Wochengotterbecher, Kriger, ibid., p. 13, Fig. 14. Perhaps the fragmentary specimen from Tréves mentioned ibid., p. 9, had originally the seven planetary deities, though only the Sun and Moon are preserved. 77. Apart from the Belgian vases, the three-headed figure in planetary association appears, if at all, only on the fragmentary limestone plaque from Aquitania in Espérandieu No. 1055, see note 66, note 101. 78. Demarteau is wrong in asserting that the concentric lines under the neck of the Sun and of Jupiter represent clouds. 79. So Usener, Jullian, Loeschcke, Kriiger and Kossinna, loce. citt. 80. Despite the attempts of Kriiger, see Radermacher in Mannus, 1910, p. 13. 81. So S. Reinach, “Mercure tricéphale”’, in Cultes, mythes et religions III, p. 170 sqq. 82: Beardless bust of Mercury (with caduceus), beardless bust of god with wheel (Juppiter?) among the Bavay fragments, P. Darche, loc. cit., p. 666; Juppiter is beardless on the altar from Mavilly, n. 88. 83. Demarteau, in Mélanges G. Kurth ii, p. 15 sqq. He supposes, zbid., p. 20, that the beardless figure which he takes to be male is Mars. 84. According to Demarteau, of. cit., p. 21, the three-headed figure is. attributed to Saturn either because, being the most distant planet, he is the first of them (cf. p. 206), or else because, according to the imperfect observations of ancient astronomers, Saturn appeared as a group of three stars. 85. According to Kossinna in Mannus (1910), p. 208, the three-headed god
216
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GOD
should be Mercury on the vase from Troisdorf, and Mars on the vase of Bavay. 86. Kossinna, loc. cit.; Heichelheim in Realenc. XV, 1001. 87. See my paper, “The Gaulish three-headed god on planetary vases”, in Journal of Celtic Studiesi (1949), pp. 35-46. 88. Juppiter is beardless on the altar from Mavilly, a piece of Gallo-Roman sculpture, see Rev. archéologique 1891-1, ‘Plate i, Espérandieu No. 2067. See also n. 82. 89. This holds good for the Jews even to-day and probably also as early as the Babylonians, although our oldest evidence from Babylon relates properly, not to the continuous week, but to the seven-day period which was regulated by the phases of the moon and recommenced at the beginning of every month. go. Fr. Boll, art. ““Hebdomas’’, in Realenc. VII, 2553 594. gt. Maass, Tagesgotter 263. The oldest mention of a day of the week named after a planetary god in Latin literature also concerns Saturday, viz. Tibullus i, 3, 18, Saturniue sacram me tenuisse diem. 92. Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. des antjquités II, p. 172, Fig. 2402. 93. Dio Cassius xxxvii, 18-19. 94. See above, n. 72. 95. The Mainz goblet with the seven planetary deities, see Trierer The Chiang were primarily herdsmen and stock-breeders,®6 while the Chou were also tillers of the soil,97 though perhaps on a smaller scale than the Shang.¢8 The Chou, as already mentioned (p. 279), took over the Shang culture, but stamped upon it the mark of a different spirit of their own.*® Moreover, they also kept certain traditional institutions native to them, which differed from those of the Shang. Among the Chou the throne normally passed directly to the eldest son of the principal wife of the King,7° i.e. kingship descended from father to son; on the other hand, among the Shang, the kingship did not descend directly from father to son, but rather from elder brother to younger brother.?1 “We have here a fundamental difference of social organisation. It shows beyond question that the Chou and Shang peoples, while similar in many respects, were products of two distinct lines of cultural evolution, with long separate histories.” On the one hand, then, at least for the royal family, the succession among the Chou passed in the male line (patriarchal), while on the other, among the Shang, it was matrilineal.?2 With this sociological difference goes another in the economic sphere, for the Chou, like the rest of the western “‘barbarians’’, were, as has been said, nearer to the nomadic and pastoral type, the Shang closer to the agricultural. The difference between T’ien, the chief god (originally) of the Chou and (Shang-)ti, the original Shang high god, fits this dualism also. It is not a difference of form or type only, but also one of ethnology, belonging to the history of civilisation, inasmuch as it has its roots deep in the two great component elements of Chinese culture. One of these is the culture of nomadic herdsmen and stock-breeders which spreads over so wide an area especially in the central and northern regions of the Asiatic continent, largely shared by the Altaic, Uralic and UgroFinnish (and Indo-European) peoples; a fact which accounts for the resemblance between T’ien and Tengri, Num, Torem (and for that matter Dyaus). The other is a culture markedly agricultural and matrilineal, which spreads especially from central and coastal China and extends also to the north, among the Shang, which accounts for the difference between T’ien and (Shang-)ti.
(c) PREHISTORY But T’ien and (Shang-)ti, or the Chou and the Shang, are not to be thought of as typical exponents of two worlds utterly separate. This
notion, being too schematically dualistic, would in its over-simplification
282
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GOD
lead us as far astray as that now obsolete, that the Chinese civilisation is absolutely original. The civilisation of the Shang, no less than that of the Chou, is already a complex formation, in which many cultural components have met, and these of varied origin, from different places and having already local differences.’ The western element which is dominant in the Chou culture is perhaps already to be found in that of the Shang also, even perhaps in those aspects of Shangt-i which have to do with the sky and the weather (see above, pp. 279-80). It is true that here the western element is obscured and thrust back into the second line by the prepotence of the other elements, from the south and east, which chiefly give the Shang culture its characteristic appearance; these include the predominance of the worship of ghosts and of animism, which as we have seen (above, p. 277), colour the figure of Shang-ti himself. It is likely that even the earlier neolithic cultures, discovered in southern China by the Swedish geologist Johann Gunnar Andersson, were themselves already composite.?4 One of the components of the neolithic cultures in northern China (stamped pottery) has been attributed by some to the ancestors of the present-day Miao, the Proto-Miao, who are thought to have had their original habitat further north, on the Yang-tse-kiang and the Hoangho,?5 relatively near the Proto-Tungus, the ancestors of the Tungus of to-day. These in turn are thought to have been situated further south and then thrust northward by the wedge driven in by the great immigration of the peoples thrusting from the west, that is from the inland of Asia, in consequence of which the original continuity of these ‘“‘proto-Chinese” was split up, another portion of them being thrust southward to become the Miao.7® It is a fact that the Miao of to-day possess the idea of a supreme celestial Being or principle called Ndo. The word ndo means the physical sky, the firmament, also weather, seasons, but it also means the Supreme Being, God.?? Ndo too is all-knowing and no one can escape.him; “‘Ndo sees” and ‘‘Ndo knows” are expressions in current use, particularly in oaths; while besides ‘‘Ndo sees me” we also find the equivalent ‘the Lord of Heaven sees me”. All this indeed finds an exact parallel among the Tungus. In their language, boa or buga means both ‘sky, heaven, weather” and also “‘a greater, omnipotent, ever-
existing Being’’, and Buga again is ‘‘all-knowing”’ (cf. Chapter XV, p. 263). But this is not enough to establish a particular genetic connection between Ndo and Buga as being the results of one and the same idea of a supreme celestial Being or principle, an idea common to the Proto-Miao and the Proto-Tungus. The same concept, with the same
fluctuation of meaning between the weather-sky and a supreme skygod, is to be found (to say nothing of Tien-Shang-ti) equally in the cases of Tengri, Num, Dyaus and others,
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On the other hand, we know that the Miao were exposed, as were also the Tungus, for centuries-to the influence of Chinese culture and thought. How far, then, can the Miao idea of Ndo, or the Tungus Buga, be supposed original? The same question arises with regard to other neighbouring peoples more or less akin to the Miao, since they also have the idea of a supreme celestial Being or principle. Such is Mé, the Sky, among the Mo-so of Yiinnan,?8 and the ‘king of heaven” among the Yao, who “knows when anyone disobeys’’,7° also the Sky, Mé-nyi-mo, properly the bright sky or the light of the sky, among the Lolo; he again knows everything and is acquainted even with the secret thoughts of men’s hearts.80 In any case, the identification of the neolithic inhabitants of China with the Proto-Miao and proto-Tungus is in the last degree problematical.81 And be this as it may, the agricultural and matriarchal ambient of these neolithic cultures’? seems from the ethnological point of view not best adapted for forming the concept of a great supreme sky-god.83
NOTES 1. J. W. Inglis, The divine name in ancient China (Shanghai 1910); N. Séderblom, Das Werden des Gottesglaubens (ed. 2, Leipzig 1926), p. 189 sgg. Sometimes both names are found in the same passge, Sdderblom, of. cit., p. 210, 213. It is seldom that we find in the texts a composite appellation of the supreme god brought about by combining the two names, as in the inscription of the great temple at Pekin, Huang T’ien Shang-ti. Cf. Shu-King V, 12, 9, Legge, Vol. III, p. 425; Sdderblom, of. cit., pp. 189,212, 214; P. D’Elia in Rivista degli studi orientali xxii (1947), pp. 101-3. 2. Cf. Shu-King V, 9, 1, 4, Legge, Vol. III, p. 385.
3. Chiin-tsiu IX, 25, 2, Legge, Vol. V, p. 514; cf. Schindler, in Hirth Anniversary Volume, pp. 347, 3574. As early as the oldest part of the Shu-King, Séderblom, op. cit., p. 193; cf. Shi-King I, 15, 2, 2, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 234, etc., hao-ien “sunny sky” and min-t’ien, “cloudy sky’, etc.; B. Schindler, loc. cit., p. 304 sq.; Séderblom, op. cit., p. 218. 5. Shang-ti smells, Shi-King III, 2, 1, 8, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 472; Shu-King V, 27, 4, 4, Legge, Vol. III, p. 592; so does T’ien, Shu-King V, 1, 2, 3, Legge, Vol. III, p. 290 etc. 6. The passage is quoted in Meng-tse V, 1, 5, 8, Legge, Vol. II, p. 233. 7. Legge, Vol. III, p. 255. 8. Cf. Soderblom, op. cit., p. 222. g. Cf. A. Forke, Geschichte der alten chinesischen Philosophie (Hamburg 1927),
p. 10.40.
n
DI
Tso-Chuan ap. Legge, Vol. V, p. 168; cf. Granet, La religion des Chinois (Paris 1922), p. 57 54.
284.
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
11. Shi-King III, 3, 11, 2, Legge IV, p. 565; cf. III, 3, 10, 6, Legge, ibid., p. 563; Shu-King IV, 9, 1, 3, Legge, Vol. III, p. 264. 12, Shi-King II, 4, 9, 2-3, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 321 s9.; Tso-Chuan ap. Legge, Vol. V, pp. 88, 161, etc. 13. Sdéderblom, op. cit.. pp. 211, 214, 217 5qq., founded on Inglis’ statistics, Ci, note rT. 14. Ibid., p. 233. 15. Ibid., p. 209. 16. Forke, op. cit., p. 37717. A. Forke, Me-ti, des Sozialethikers u. seiner Schiiler philosophische Werke (Mitt. des Seminars f. orientalische Sprachen, Beiband zum Jhg. XXIlI-XXV, Berlin 1922), p. 314 sg.; Geschichte, p. 378. Me-ti attributes the power of seeing everything to “spirits” in general as well, cf. Shi-King III, 3, 2, 8, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 515, in the sense that nothing can' escape their notice, ‘da die Geister alles sehen, so darf man nicht in diistern Schlùchten, weiten Simpfen, Bergwaldern oder tiefen Talern sich sicher wahnen, denn der Blick der Geister bemerkt alles.”’ (Me-ti VII, 6, v, trans. Forke, op. cit., p. 379). 17a. Cf. J.-J.-L. Duyvendak, Tao-té-king, Le livre de la voie et de la vertu (Paris
1953). 18. 19. 20. 21.
Lieh-Tse I, 2r; Forke, op. cit., p. 291 sq. Forke, op. cit., p. 465. Ibid., p. 531. F. Huberty James, ‘The Theism of China”,
in The Chinese Recorder
xxvili (1897), p. 517. Cf. Fr. Rawlinson, ‘Some Chinese Ideas of the Supreme Being”, ibid., lvii (1926); p. 802. 21a. For Ti as a constituent of some royal names of the Shang dynasty see note 35. 22. M. Courant, “Sur le prétendu monothéisme des anciens Chinois”, in Rev. hist. rel. t. xli (1900), p. I sqq. 23. N. Sdéderblom, Das Werden des Gottesglaubens® (Leipzig 1926), p. 204 sqq. 24. Sdéderblom, of. cit., pp. 207, 222 sg.; cf. A. Forke, Geschichte, p. 42. 25. Ed. Chavannes, “Le dieu du sol dans l’ancienne religion chinoise”, in Rev. hist. rel. xliii (1901), p. 123 sqg.; same, ‘Le dieu du sol dans la Chine antique,” in Ann. du Musée Guimet, Bib. d’études, t. xxi (Paris 1910), pp. 4375253 cf. Sdderblom, op. cit., p. 196. 26. Bruno Schindler, “The Development of the Chinese Conception of Supreme Beings”, in Asia Major, Introductory Volume (Hirth Anniversary Vol., London 1923), pp. 298-366. 27. The Shang dynasty, reigning from 1706 to 1122 B.c. according to the traditional chronology, is now dated by sinologists about 1450-1050 B.c. See especially Creel’s work, The Birth of China (London 1936); cf. W. Eberhard, Chinas Geschichte (Bern 1948), p. 28 sqq. 28. Ed. Chavannes, ‘“‘La divination par l’écaille de tortue dans la haute antiquité chinoise”’, in Journ. Asiatique, xvii (1911), p. 127 sqq. A. Bernhardi, Friigeschichtliche Orakelknochen aus China, in Bassler-Archiv iv (1913), 14-28; E. J. Eisenberger, “Das Wahrsagen aus dem Schulterblatt’’, in Internat. Arch. f. Ethnographie xxxviii (1940); Fr. Paudler, ibid., pp. 99-118. 29. Creel, op. cit., pp. 21 sqq., 185 sqq.
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285
30. Ibid., p. 195. 31. Ibid., p. 190. 32. Ibid., p. 183 sg.; cf. p. 195, “If the King hunts to-day in Shuai, will he not encounter heavy rain?” 33. Ibid., p. 184. 34. Ibid., p. 174 sqq. 35. Ibid., p. 183, cf. p. 184: “In fact there is some possibility that they are right who say that Ti himself was originally a deified ancestor, the progenitor of the Shang kings. . . .°° 36. L. C. Hopkins, ‘““The Sovereigns of the Shang Dynasty”, in 7-R.4.5. 1917, p. 69 sqq.; W. P. Yetts, “The Shang-Yin Dynasty and the An-yang Finds”, in 7.R.A.S. 1933, p. 671 (cf. Creel, op. cit., p. 196). Compare Ti Chia in the oracular inscriptions, Yetts, ibid. 37. Creel, op. cit., p. 183, says, “This is possible, but not proved”’. The theory of James M. Menzies (Oracle Records from the Waste of Yin, Shanghai, 1917) is not very convincing, although Creel, op. cit., p. 182 sq., thinks it “the most plausible”. According to it, Ti was originally the name of a sacrifice (ti is written like liao, to present a burnt offering) ; but the parallels adduced with the Indian Agni and’Brahman amount to little, since neither Agni nor Brahman is the sacrifice itself, but respectively the fire and the formula used at sacrifice. 38. Particularly to be noticed is the “Ruler of the (four ?) Quarters”, whom, according to Creel (op. cit., p. 180) it is thought well to feed with cattle and pigs. “He surveyed the four quarters” is said of Shang-ti himself, Shi-King III, I, 7, 1, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 448. 38a. Shi-King IV, 1, 1, 10, Legge, S.B.E., Vol. 3, p. 320: wheat and barley appointed by Ti for the nourishment of all. The great rain-sacrifice also offered to Shang-ti, cf. Liki IV, 2, 2, 8, S.B.E., Vol. 27, p. 273 59-5 cf. Schindler, Hirth Anniversary Vol., p. 355 S939. Creel, of. cit., p. 181: “ ‘King Wind’, perhaps the same as the wind without the title. . . . ‘Wind, the envoy of Ti’, or just the ‘Envoy of Ti.’ ” 40. Creel, ibid., p. 342. Cf. D’Elia, in Rivista degli Studi Orientali xxii (1947),
p. 102. 41. Creel, ibid. For the bronzes in question, see Creel, in 7.R.A.S. (1936), p. 463 sqq., and Karlgren, “The Dating of Chinese Bronzes’’, ibid. (1937), the Pp. 33 sgg.; same, “Yin and Chou in Ghinese Bronzes”, in Bulletin of Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities viii (Stockholm 1938). 42. Creel, Birth, p. 342. 43. Ibid., p. 224. 44. Ibid., p. 342-3. é e p. 109 45. Ibid., p. 343; D’Elia, in Rivista degli Studi Orientali xxii (1947), (note). 46. Schindler in Hirth Anniv. Vol., p. 302 599. 47. Creel, op. cit., p. 342.
of. cit., 48. Cf. the sign for wang, “king”, on the oracular bones, Creel, p. 137. 49. Creel, op. cit., p. 342. e À 50. Schindler, loc. cit. figure 1s little the of head. the 48), note (cf. wang for sign archaic 51. In the
286
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
barely indicated. Compare also the head of the archaic character for “‘ghost”’ on the oracular bones, Creel, op. cit., p. 177, which is a little human figure seen in profile, with a large head of an unnatural aspect (‘“‘rather fearful’’, Creel). The character for chien, to see, on the bones is made up ofa little human figure seen in profile with an eye (seen from in front) in place of the head, ‘a man whose head is all eye’”’, Creel, p. 164.
52. Séderblom, Das Werden des Gottesglaubes,2 p. 195. 53. Even the modern form of the character ?#’zen, in which the conventionalised human figure is topped by a horizontal line (developed out of the globe or disk?) may signify the sky as ‘something that is above man”, Schindler, op. cit., p. 302, note, cf. Hopkins, in 7.R.A.S. (1917), p. 774. 54. Sdderblom, of. cit., p. 195, note 28: ‘Das alte Zeichen fiir T’zen scheint vielmehr die Sonne mit einem menschlichen Leibe darzustellen, also ein Bild
des Sonnengottes zu sein.” ; 55. Br. Schindler, zbzd., pp. 303, 305: for the sun as a constituent part of the characters hao-tien (sunny sky) and min-t’ien (cloudy sky), see ibid. 56. See the passages in Sdderblom, op. cit., pp. 218 sgq., 231 sqq. (from the Yih-King), 233 sqq. (from the Li-ki); cf. Schindler, of. cit., p. 304, note. 57. A. Forke, Geschichte, p. 39. 58. There are no figures of T’ien (cf. D’Elia, /.c., 109 n. 1), and images of Shang-ti only in Taoism, in which he is conceived in a peculiar way, cf. Séderblom, of. cit., p. 225, note 75. 59. Shi-King I, 6, 1, 1, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 110; ibid. I, 10, 8, 1, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 183; cf. ibid. I, 11, 6, 1, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 198, and II 5, 6, 5, Legge Vol. IV, p. 348. 60. Shi-King III, 3, 3, 7, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 523; ¢f. Sdderblom, of. cit., p. 218. 61. Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese-English Dictionary (ed. 2, 1911), s.v. 62. Cf. Shi-King I, 15, 2, 2, Legge, Vol. IV, p. 234, and II 6, 6, 2, Legge
Vol. IV, p. 374; compare also Li-ki II, 2, 3, 29 (S.B.E., Vol. XXVII, p. 201). 63. Creel, op. cit., pp. 156, 220; W. Eberhard, Chinas Geschichte (Bern 1948), PP. 32 59. 37 599. 64. Creel, p. 213. 65. Ibid., p. 215. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid., pp. 72, 81 sqg., 199 549. 68. Ibid., p. 221. 69. Ibid., p. 222. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid., pp. 127 sq. 72. A reasonable explanation for the fact that a king sacrifices to his “several fathers” (Creel, p. 128) can be got by the consideration that “‘the term ‘father’ was used to include paternal uncles. . . . Polygamy was probably practised (by the Shang kings) but with moderation (ibid., p. 1 31)... . Former queens as well as kings were sacrificed to . . . but female ancestors were sacrificed to separately, also (ibid., p. 179, cf. p. 190)... . When Shang divined about sacrificing to a king or queen, they did it on the day of the week used in his or her ceremonial name. But when a king and a queen were sacrificed to
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together, two such days were usually involved, and in this case not the man’s but the woman’s day was used” (ibid., pp. 179-80).
73. Yetts, in 7.R.A.S. 1933, p. 6573 1935, P- 473 5g-, giving the results of
Dr. Li Chi’s researches. Cf. W. Eberhard, ‘‘Eine neue Arbeitshypothese iiber den Aufbau der friihkinesischen Kulturen’’, in Tagungsbericht der Gesellschaft fiir Vélkerkunde ii (1936, Leipzig, 1937 p. 90 sqq.); especially, same, Lokalkulturen im alten China i-ii (Leiden und Peking 1942). 74. J. G. Andersson, Researches into the prehistory of the Chinese, (Stockholm 1943); cp. “Archaologische Studien in China”, in Mitt. der anthropologischen
Gesellschaft in Wien (1924), p. 60 sqg.; cf. L. Franz, ibid., p. 202, 1925, p. 285, 1926, p. 248 sqq.; Anthropos 1929, p. 313 sqg-; O. Franke, “Die prahistorischen Funde in Nordchina u. die Alteste chinesische Geschichte”, in Mitt. des Seminars f. orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin xxix (1926), 99 sqq.; C. W. Bishop, “The Beginnings of Civilisation in Eastern Asia”, in Annual Report for 1946, Smithsonian Institution (Washington 1941), pp. 431-45. Against the alleged dependence of the Yang-shao culture on the Indo-Europeans, see Eberhard,
Chinas Gesch., p. 24. 75. O. Menghin, “Zur Steinzeit Ostasiens”, in Festschrift P. W. Schmidt (Vienna 1928), p. 917 5qq. 76. W. Koppers, “Tungusen und Miao”, in Mitt. d. anthrop. Ges. in Wien (1930), p. 306 sgg. On p. 318 he says: “Dieser Hochgott der Miao steht dem aktiven ‘Gott im Himmel’ der Tungusen ungleich naher als dem otiosen Himmelsgott der Chinesen”; cf. p. 310. 77. F. M. Savina, Histoire des Miao (Hongkong 1924), pp. 5, 46 sq., 249, 252, 273. 78. J. Bacot, Les Mo-So (Leiden 1913), p. 15. 49. F. W. Leuschner, in Mitt. der deutschen Gesellschaft f. Natur- und Vòlkerkunde Ostasiens xiii (Tokio 1911), p. 274. 80. A. Liétard, Les Lolo p’o0 (Minster i/W 1913), p. 127 sgg.; Father Luigi Vannicelli, O.F.M., La religione dei Lolo (Milan 1944), pp. 18, 46. An analogous problem arises, for instance, regarding the Annaînite Troi, who corresponds to Tien. Trdi is very close to mankind, sees all that they do and hears all that they say; he is a witness to every evil deed and punishes it; common expressions are Troi biet, “Heaven knows”, Trdi yet, “Heaven
observes, or examines” (L.
Cadière, “Philosophie populaire annamite”’, in Anthropos li, 1907; p. 159). Or,
again, for the Corean Hananim or Tchon, the Sky, who “hears” or “knows”
everything that happens, and “knows that I have not done such-and-such”, see Th. Ohm, O.S.B., “Die Himmelsverehrung der Koreaner”, in Anthropos 1940-I, p. 830 599. are 81. To Menghin (loc. cit., p. 942), the ‘““Hoang-ho” neolithic cultures proto-Chinese; to Koppers, Joc. cit., p. 306 sqq., the Proto-Miao and ProtoTungus are pre-Chinese. 82. Menghin, loc. cit., p. 938; Koppers in Anthropos 1930, pp. 991 599. 998, 1002. traces 83. For the prehistory of Tien and Shang-ti and their omniscience the ed subof astralism and totemism in ancient China and among the uncivilis ArbeitsChinese populations might be of interest (see Eberhard, Eine neue 1942, hypothese, note 73, pp. 102, 103; Lokalkulturen im alten China i, Leiden
288
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ALL-KNOWING
GOD
p. 29 sgq.; B. Laufer, “Totemic Traces among the Indo-Chinese”’, in Journ. Am. Folklore, 1917, p. 415 sqq.; E. Erkes, “Der Totemismus bei den Chinesen u. ihren Stammverwandten”, in In Memoriam Karl Weule, Leipzig 1929, p. 100; W. Koppers, ‘Die Frage des Mutterrechts u. des Totemismus im alten China”, in Anthropos, 1930, p. 981 sgg.) in relation to the solar and totemistic aspects of Tien and Shang-ti pointed out by Br. Schindler in Hirth Anniversary Volume (London 1923), pp. 302 599.5 3475 354+
Chapter XVII
ASSAM
AND
UPPER
BURMA
(a) NAGAS HE Sema Nagas have the idea of a Supreme Being, whom they
name Alhou, ‘the Creator”, from /ho, ‘to create”, also Timilhou,
“creator of men’ (timi). ‘“Omniscience and omnipotence and even omnipresence are vaguely ascribed to Him, and though He is remote and inaccessible, He seems to be all-good as well as almighty and all-knowing.”! Among the Ao Nagas likewise, the Supreme Being and creator Lungkitsungba sees everything, and to him men resort in their need. He does not directly intervene in human affairs, but on occasion exercises a sanction by means of other divinities, subordinate to himself.? The Konyak Nagas have a Supreme Being named Gawang, whose sons men consider themselves to be and on whom they call for plentiful game and good harvests, riches, prosperity and large families. Gawang is omniscient; he sees everything and hears everything. A youth of the chiefs’ clan cannot, as other young men do, eat with girls of lower rank, because ‘‘Gawang sees’’. They will say to a boaster, “Don’t talk such nonsense; Gawang will hear and break your mouth.” Gawang punishes anyone who violates the many tabus, breaks the customs regulating marriage, robs his neighbour, is guilty of cruelty and violence, or bears false witness. He punishes with scanty harvests, lack of success in hunting, fevers and death.3 In every one of the Supreme Beings above named we can find more or less evident celestial traits and aspects. Gawang, according to the Konyak, lives in the sky; it was he who fashioned the vault of the heavens; he is the author of thunder and lightning, and polished stone axes of neolithic type are supposed to be missiles hurled by him. When lightning strikes a tree, the elders of the village sacrifice a cock to Gawang.4 Lungkitsungba, who created sky, sun and moon, is thought of by the Ao Nagas anthropomorphically and at the same time naturalistically: “‘he is like a man, but in his working he is like a wind.” The wind comes down to earth through a large hole in the sky.5 It is indeed in the sky that Lungkitsungba lives, sitting on the top of his stone house as on a throne. This stone house is the sky itself, thought of as a solid vault,@ and the name Lung-ki-tsungba (otherwise written Lungtisangba and Lungkijingba) means “great spirit of the house (47) of stone (lung)”’, in other words of the sky.” He is indeed also known as anung tsungrem, ‘spirit of the sky”, or again anungisungba, “‘great spirit U
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of the sky”, “Lord of the heavens”.8 Lichaba again, who seems to be a figure only locally distinguished from Lungkitsungba,° punishes by means of wind, and in his honour festivals are held to prevent furious gales and subsidences of the soil, as well as to insure good harvests." Here we may remember that in ancient China also, wind is “the messenger of Ti”, the celestial Supreme Being, on the divining-bones of the Shang epoch (see above, p. 278). Alhou likewise, according to the Sema Nagas, lives in the heavenly regions, “some locate him in all the space that is between heaven and earth”.!1! Among the Sema Nagas, and indeed the Nagas in general, “‘thunderstones”’ are called “god-stones”, that is to say stones of Alhou; they are also known as toad-stones, because the toad is connected with rain and thunder-
storms, and therefore also with lightning. On the other hand, the toad is called the friend of Latsapa or Litsaba, who is in all probability a form of Alhou, as possibly Lichaba is of Lungkitsungba among the Ao Nagas.}2 From all this we may conclude that the power of seeing everything is essentially connected, among the Nagas as in so many other cases, with the fact that their Supreme Being is essentially a sky-god. But here we must note that although Gawang is at first sight a Supreme Being of the familiar celestial type, his name contains an alien element, for its literal meaning is Earth(ga)-Sky(wang).13 It is perhaps not without significance that the birth of children is attributed to Gawang, for which reason he is especially invoked in marriage ceremonies, nor that one of the punishments he inflicts is to deny sons to offenders, for instance to those who have illicit extra-matrimonial relations. It looks as if all this had to do with the name of Gawang itself, and with the two elements, Sky and Earth, which compose it, considered as male and female, husband and wife, father and mother. This is not to deny the unity of the Supreme Being; Gawang is not a pair of beings like Dyaus and Prthivi, Rangi and Papa, or Yin and Yang. Gawang, ‘“‘Earth-Sky”, is the Supreme and universal Being, and the dualism is only in his name.14 The fact remains, however, that his name is no
other than a combination of Sky and Earth, or rather Earth and Sky. The Rengma Nagas also have the idea of a divinity greater than the other “‘spirits”, who lives in the sky. Among the south-western Rengma he is called Songinyu, that is to say the “Spirit”, par excellence.15 His voice is the thunder,
which,
from whatever
direction
it is heard,
presages good crops. Polished stone axes are called ‘“‘sky-axes” or “‘spirit-axes’’, and are the missiles with which a sky-spirit knocks down trees struck by lightning.16 But Songinyu is at times found associated with Songperinyu: ‘They are vaguely thought of as a divine pair who created all things and can bring good or evil upon, men, but it is not known which is the male and which is the female.”17Hence the Supreme
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Being of the Rengma, composed as he is of two complementary elements, is parallel to the Konyak Ga-wang, and the elements themselves correspond, not only as masculine and feminine but also as sky and earth.18 Indeed, in a prayer recited at a feast held by the bridegroom after the marriage among the south-western Rengma, SonginyuSongperinyu, like Gawang, is invoked to send prosperous harvests and numerous offspring.19 The Angami Nagas have a Supreme Being named Kepenopfi or Ukepenopfii,2° who is greater than all the other spirits (¢erhoma) and lives in the sky, from which he sends his thunderbolts (stone axes) upon the earth, as befits a celestial being. But the figure of Kepenopfii has another aspect, thus described by J. H. Hutton (The Angami Nagas, 180-81). “This spirit is sometimes spoken of as a creator, but it would seem that this is rather in the sense of the creator of living beings than as the creator of the universe. The word Kepenopfii literally means ‘birth spirit’, and Kepenopfù, indeed, is the ancestress (or ancestor) of the human race. . .. Many Angami, it is true, think and speak of Kepenopfù as a male being, but the termination fii is a feminine termination, and always carries a feminine sense, and, when made to
reflect on the point, most Angamis admit Kepenopfù to be a female being, and it is as such that she appears in the legend . . . of the origin of the Nagas . . . , in which she appears as the ancestress of men and has a mysterious husband of superhuman attributes.” This ambiguity regarding the sex of the supreme creator of the Angami, this oscillation between male and female, finds a parallel in the Supreme Being and creator of the Rengma, Songinyu-Songperinyu, where “‘it is not known which is the male and which the female”, also in that of the Konyak, where the female and the male element are fused in a single being, Ga-wang, ““Earth-Sky”. i This dualism of complementary aspects in the Supreme Beings of some Naga peoples (the idea of a Supreme Being is lacking, it would appear, among the Lhota Nagas, see J. P. Mills, The Lhota Nagas, London 1922, 113) is to be considered in relation to the composite character of the entire Naga culture. The social structure of the Nagas is definitely patrilineal and only a few traces of matrilineal elements exist, but they are not to be ignored.21 Among the most significant is the custom mentioned by Hutton?? from Tobu, among the Chang Naga, who are neighbours of the Konyak. There, the stone seat set
apart for the chiefs is occupied by the chief’s mother while the latter is a minor. Among the Khasis also, who are settled west of the Nagas, the Supreme Being and creator shows the same ambiguity of sex as among the Nagas tribes already mentioned: “The Khasis have a vague belief in a God the Creator, U Blei Nong-thaw, although this deity . . . is frequently given the attribute of the feminine gender”, Ka°lei
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GOD
Nong-thaw.?3 Gurdon sees here the influence of mother-right, which is indeed highly developed among the Khasis. It is very likely that among the Nagas also, patrilineal though they are, the female aspect of the Supreme Being is to be traced to this matrilineal culture whereof, as we have said, some traces survive. Father-right, on the other hand, which is by far the predominant system among the Nagas, would account for the male aspect of the Supreme Being, that is for the figure of a supreme sky-god, who sees and knows everything, such as is characteristic of the peoples of Central and South-eastern Asia, with whom the Nagas are closely connected linguistically, their speech belonging to the Tibeto-Burman group. The carriers of such a Supreme Being moved
in successive
waves
from
the interior
towards
the south,?4
meeting with a matrilineal culture devoted to tilling the soil and to the cult of Mother Earth. This reacted in sundry ways on the new-comers, and the reaction affected even the idea of the Supreme Being, who got a more or less superficial colouring of a matrilineal kind; note that ‘“Earth”° takes precedence of “Sky? in the name of Gawang. However, he kept the most characteristic of his original traits, among which is the attribute of universal vision and consequent omniscience. (0) KACHIN, LUSHEI, LAKHER This interplay of a single omniscient Supreme Being with an erratic type, a Supreme Being and creator who is one and two, male and female, Sky and Earth,?5 is to be found also among other peoples of Assam and Upper Burma. The Kachin, or, as they call themselves, the Jinghpaw, who are settled in Assam, east of the Nagas, but also in West Yinnan and in the north of Upper Burma, have the concept of a Supreme Being, Karai Kasang, who is much superior to the throng of nat or spirits.2° Among the latter is the nat of the sky and of thunder, who is the maker of rain and clouds and whose voice is the thunder. “There is nothing before which a Kachin stands in greater awe than thunder and lightning.” ‘Formerly a common test was to invoke the lightning to strike one dead if guilty; the priest implored the nat of thunder to indicate the guilty; as he finished, the lightning, it may be from:a perfectly clear sky, would strike and kill the offender on the spot.” Despite the absolute superiority of Karai Kasang over all the (other) nat, he is no more than a sublimation of the highest and most dreaded of these, the “spirit of the sky”. Karai Kasang, “‘the One Higher than the Clouds”, is invoked (along with his brethren) to testify to the truth of an assertion.27 He “is immortal, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent”; among his many names is that of “the Omniscient One”’; he knows everything, sees the thoughts of men, sees who has a righteous and who a perverse mind, and “in extreme cases will punish a hopelessly wicked individual’’.28 Karai Kasang is
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also “the Creator”, but in the cosmogonic myth he sets about “‘creating” the world, that is to say fashioning it into its present shape, after the world-material has already been “‘brought forth”? by more primaeval forces, amongst which is “‘a mysterious female half human and half avian.”’2® That the creative activity of a female being thus takes precedence of that of Karai Kasang, which comes in only at a later period, seems to be a reflection of two historical and cultural factors, as among the Nagas, namely an earlier matrilineal culture overlaid by that of the new patrilineal peoples who brought with them the celestial Supreme Being.%° Kachin traditions indicate their northern provenence. The beasts consecrated to Karai Kasang live free until they are sacrificed, after a custom which finds many parallels among the pastoral peoples of Central and Northern Asia and elsewhere. The Lushei, or Kuki-Chin, between Bengal and Upper Burma, have the idea of a Supreme Being, superior to the countless “‘spirits’’, who is the creator of everything and saw to the repopulating of the world after the human race had been annihilated at the time of the Deluge; among the Lushei his name is Pathian, in other tribes Patheng, Pathen or Pathel.31 He lives in the sky, whence he sends the rain, causes thunder and hurls the lightning; lightning is also thought of as the glitter of his sword as he brandishes it in heaven, or the sheen of his robes.32 The former notion is found also among the Khasi regarding U Pyrthat, see p. 299, n. 25. According to a testimony about a century old, among the Thado or New Kuki Pathen has a wife called Nongjai.*3 But the true relations between the alleged pair are far from clear. “I have enquired”’, writes Shakespear (op. cit., p. 200), ‘‘about Pathen’s wife, but though all my informants say it is usual to speak of Pathen Nongjai together, none could say whether Nongjai was Pathen’s wife—an equally powerful being, sharing power with Pathen —or simply another name for Pathen.” We thus find the same ambiguous double sex as in the Supreme Beings of the Nagas and Khasis, already studied. The Lakhers, who belong to the Kuki-Chin group and live to the south-east of the Lushei, have a Supreme Being named Khazang or Khazangpa, ‘‘the father of all”, or Pachhapa, “‘the old man or the source, presumably the source oflife”’.?+ He is thought of as the creator of the universe and regulator of human fates. He, like Pathian, repopulated the world, after the “‘great darkness” (khazanghra) brought about by an eclipse of the sun. His abode is the sky, where he makes thunder and lightning; comets are sent by him to announce times of calamity. The chief sacrifice of the Lakhers, known as Khazangpina, is held to induce Khazangpa to grant good health, prosperity, abundant crops and plenty of beasts, and above all, numerous offspring.*? Similarly, at Chapi, the chief village of the Sabeu, when a woman is
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GOD
barren, the sacrifice called avapalopatla is held to cause the sky to grant her abundaiice of children; it is to be noted that the sky here takes the place of Khazangpa. ‘‘ ‘Oh, wonderful sky above me,’ says the sacrificer, ‘I offer you this horned goat. Grant me sons and daughters, men servants and maid servants, mithun (Bibos frontalis) and domestic animals, and let them increase and multiply.’ ’’38 It is not to be wondered at that the request which otherwise is made to the Supreme Being Khazangpa is here made to the sky, granted that Khazangpa is a sky-god. But the sky is considered by the Sabeu, and only by them, in contrast to the rest of the Lakhers, as a female, and yet it receives sacrifices, while the earth, also thought of as a woman, never gets any.89 This interplay of a female sky with a supreme male sky-god is yet another item in the same series offacts as the double and ambiguous sex of Pathen-Nongjai among the Lushei, of Kepenopfi among the Angami Nagas,4° Songinyu-Songperinyu among the Rengma, and Gawang among the Konyak, for the concept of the sky as a female, restricted as it is to the Sabeu, of whom there are other indications that they are of a different culture from the rest of the Lakhers, is a further isolated sign+! of the complicated and varied series of interferences, actions and reactions, between an underlying matrilineal culture and a superimposed patrilineal one, in the region between India and Indo-China. Yet another point claims our attention in considering the. Supreme Beings of Assam. Among the more backward peoples, those who live by hunting and food-gathering, we often find the idea of a spirit of the woods, or Lord of Beasts, who himself has beast-form and on whom depends the good or bad result of the hunting, for it is he who rules the game and can grant or deny the all-important capture of them. He therefore must not be annoyed or offended, but placated when a beast dear to him is caught, and before eating it it is proper to offer him a pieceofits flesh, or its fat. Although organically, as is plain, this “‘king of beasts” has his roots in a culture which pivoted upon hunting, nevertheless he survives the sunset of his original world, and traces of him are to be found in considerably more advanced cultural environments, among farming and stock-breeding peoples. This has been shown for Africa by H. Baumann in his article Afrikanische Wild- und Buschgòtter, which appeared in the ettschrift fiir Ethnologie Ixxviii (1938), 208-239. The phenomenon, however, is not confined to the African world. Baumann himself draws attention to the remarkable resemblances between the ceremonies performed in Africa to capture certain beasts (elephants) and those practised in, like circumstances among the sub-Arctic peoples of Eurasia and America to catch bears. A. Dirr had examined the same complex among the peoples of the
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Caucasus, see his article, Der kaukasische Wild- und Fagdgott in Anthropos xx (1925), 139-47, where he also points out parallels with the ancient world, especially the Mediterranean wérvia @np@v, the Mistress of Beasts. The figure of a Lord of Beasts is to be found also among the Nagas and other peoples of Assam. Among the Sema Nagas ‘Shikyepu (?=‘Game-allotter’) is the spirit who presides over all wild animals, and it is by his favour only that men are successful in hunting. Whatever game they take is given by him.’’42 Among the Lhota, “‘Sityingo is regarded as the lord of wild animals, which he keeps just as men keep pigs and cattle. Sometimes he can be heard calling the wild pig, but to hear him is very unlucky. He lives in the jungle and is like a small man, with his head twisted to one side. By his favour men have luck in hunting.” In a struggle between Sityingo and another jungle spirit, called Ngazo, the latter ‘“‘twisted Sityingo’s neck. That is why Sityingo can only look one way. Men say to this day that a hunter towards whom Sityingo looks is sure to get something, but that he from whom Sityingo’s face is turned away will get nothing at all.” ““Sttyingo is the jungle deity who owns all wild animals as a man owns domestic animals. If a hunting party kills a deer with a torn ear they will hunt no more that day, for have they not killed a deer whose ear Sityingo has snicked as a sign of ownership. The deer, however, can be eaten. Furthermore, the dogs must be purified before they can hunt again.” During this ceremony of purifying the dogs, an elder addresses the following prayer to Sityingo: ‘We have made new madhu (ricebeer) and new fire, and have purified the dogs. May all the deer wherever they be come to our village and be hunted by these dogs.’’48 Among the Angami there is a spirit, called Tsikeo, who corresponds to Sityingo.44 The western Rengma hold a ceremony every year in January for the success of the year’s hunting, and in this a fowl is sacrificed to the spirit of the game.** With the Konyak it is Gawang, the Supreme Being, himself who takes on the character of king of the beasts. In the spring festival the eldest member of the clan offers a pig to him, saying ‘“Gawang, give us rice and millet; grant us to slay elephants, boars, bears and tigers”. Before going to hunt a man will say, ““Gawang, grant that I may meet boars”. A hunter who has had good success cuts a piece of the meat and some hairs of the beast he has killed and throws them into the jungle for Gawang, saying ‘“Grant me another prey like this one in the future also’’.4¢ It is manifest that this attribute of being lord of the beasts is not original in Gawang; here, for once in a way, the Supreme
Being has taken on the form and functions of the beast-spirit, who exists as an independent figure among the other Nagas.
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THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
Something analogous is to be found among the Lakhers of Upper Burma. To them “the spirit who dwells on Mawma, the lofty peak above Siata, is one of the few kindly spirits. During the great flood this spirit was in charge of all wild animals, and to this day holds sway over them; it is said that no stranger ever visits Mawma without shooting game, as the spirit is fond of hunters and helps them in their quest.”47 However, it is Khazangpa, the Supreme Being of the Lakhers, who is besought at the khazangpina,
their chief festival, to
grant, among other things, plenty of game.48 The fact is that within the framework of an agricultural culture like that of the Nagas and in general of the peoples of Assam and Upper Burma the idea and the worship of a Lord of Beasts shows as a spurious element, archaic in character and remote in origin. This hypothesis, obvious enough in itself, receives objective confirmation from the fact that the Konyak, who are distinguished among the Nagas by the marked archaism of their culture,#9 have preserved among their
traditions a remembrance of a former race, the Mopia, and of another and still older one, the Mainak nok, i.e. “monkey people”, whose weapons were spears and lances pointed with stones (the worked stones which are found occasionally here and there). In these we may recognise a primitive people of hunters and food-gatherers with a full Stone Age culture. Among the Konyak themselves individuals of negroid type are to be found,51 and in other parts of the Naga territory also, indeed in Assam generally, the presence of.an australoid and negroid type, assuredly pre-Mongolian, has been observed.52 The figure of the Lord of Beasts belongs to this pre-agricultural and preMongolian substratum, within the framework of a primitive hunting culture, which figure we find afterwards incorporated in the more advanced forms of a later culture. As this first nucleus of aborigines was partly assimilated by the new-comers, so the Lord of Beasts was fused and dissolved, sometimes, into the figure of the new Supreme Being, as happened in the case of Gawang among the Konyak. Thus Gawang, with his historically significant name ‘“Earth-Sky”?, seems to sum up and epitomise in himself the three factors of the oldest culturehistory of the Nagas and the related peoples of Assam and Burma. These factors are schematically represented by (a) the primitive hunters who worshipped the Lord of Beasts, (b) the early agriculturalists, perhaps of Austronesian stock, who were devotees of the Earth-Mother, (c) tle invading Tibeto-Burmans, who brought with them the Supreme Sky-god; these originally shared in the patrilineal and nomadic culture of Central Asia, to which also belong in large measure not only the
proto-Chinese with their T’ien (cf. p. 281) but also the proto-Siberians and the proto-Indoeuropeans with their all-seeing’ and all-knowing sky-gods, from the Samoyed Num to the Greek Zeus and beyond.
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This intrusive survival of a primitive magico-religious ideology of hunting peoples in the mythology and religion of agriculturists and herdsmen finds interesting parallels in the history of African culture, and the creative activity with which the Lord of Beasts is here and there invested in Africa (for instance, among the Bushmen)58 helps us to understand his occasional absorption into the supreme creator. Thus a new vista is opened before the study of the origin and growth of Supreme Beings. The oldest and most primitive form of a Supreme Being, far from a ‘‘monotheistic” God, as arbitrarily transferred by some modern scholars from the great modern religions, more or less directly inspired by the Bible, to the very dawn of human culture, is rather that of the Lord of Beasts, upon whom, in that primaeval stage, the very existence of man chiefly depends (see the Epilogue).
NOTES 1. J. H. Hutton, The Sema Nagas (London 1921), pp. 191, 194, 328, 423. “The Sema Creator is almost certainly to be identified with the Kachari Creator Alow’’, Hutton, of. cit., 194, n. 2, quoting C. A. Soppitt, Historical and Descriptive Account of Kachari Tribes in North Cachar (1885, reprinted Shillong IQOI), p. 29. 2. J. P. Mills, The Ao Nagas (London 1926), pp. 225, n. 1, 230, quoting Rev. E. W. Clark, Ao-Naga Dictionary (Calcutta 1911), p. 360 sg.; C. von Fiirer-Haimendorf, ‘Die Hochgottgestalten der Ao- und Konyak-Naga von Assam”, in Mitteilungsblatt der Gesellschaft f. Vilkerkunde viii (1938), p. 26. Same author, The Naked Nagas (London 1939), p. 64 sg.; ““Zur Religion einiger hinterindischer Bergvélker’’, in Custom is King: Essays presented to R. R. Marett (London 1936), p. 275, quoting W. C. Smith, The Ao Naga Tribe of Assam (London 1925), p. 78. 3. C. v. Firer-Haimendorf, in Mitt. d. Ges. f. Volkerk. (1938), pp. 27-30; The Naked Nagas, pp. 90, 126, 222 sq., 227. 4. Same, in Mitt. d. Ges.f. Vélkerk. (1938), pp. 26-7. 5. Ibid., 26. Among the Ao of Ungma the wind is the revealer of the truth or falsehood of an oath. If it strips off the thatch from the hut of one who has taken an oath, it is a sign that he has sworn falsely (Mills, Lhota Nagas, London 1922, p. 103); otherwise the indication is given by examining some grains of rice which are wrapped ina leaf and hung fromastick, thus exposing them to the action of two spirits, of whom one comes with the west wind and the other with the east wind (Mills, Ao Nagas, p. 195). This amounts to a specialised doubling of the wind as manifestation of the supreme sky-god (cf. Chapter XVIII, p. 309), who is particularly the guardian of oaths in virtue of his power to see everything. 6. Clark, Ao-Naga Dict., p. 360. Among the Lhota Nagas also “the sky is regarded as being hard like a stone” (Mills, The Lhota Nagas (London 1922), p- 172). The Ao, the Lhota and other Nagas (see Mills, Rengma Nagas, p. 243)
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GOD
also have in common the idea, which Hutton, in Mills, Ao Nagas, p. 298, n. 3,
thinks is of Chinese origin, that above the visible heavens there is a series of others. Cf. Mills, Lhota Nagas, p. 113. 7. Mills, Ao Nagas, p. 360. Lung or long means “stone, rock”, ibid., pp. 23, 26, 216, 218, 289, 426; lolung in Mills, Lhota Nagas, p. 21. 8. Clark, loc. cit.; Mills, Ao Nagas, p. 223 (anung, aning, “‘sky”, pp. 360),
2055 N. 1, 230. 9g. “Some villages call him Lungtisangba” Mills, Ao Nagas, p. 220, n. 1. For the probable foreign (Sangtam) origin of Lichaba, see Hutton, Sema Nagas, p. 196. 10. Clark, op. cit., p. 350 sq.; Smith, op. cit., p. 78 sq.; Mills, do Nagas, p. 220 sq. At the festival of all the “spirits’’ (tsungrem), held in every village in July or August, on the first day, after having sacrificed a pig, they distribute pieces of its flesh to the houses at either end of the main street, so that Lichaba shall find the meat ready whichever way he enters the village (Mills, Ao Nagas, p. 219 sq.). Also, in the ceremony which is held at the village of Longsa after Lichaba has appeared to someone in a dream, four pieces of meat from the sacrificial pig are served out to the end houses of the main street, zb7d., p. 220 sg. The name itself, meaning ‘“‘earth walker’ (Clark, Ao Naga Diction-
ary; Hutton, Sema Naga, p. 195, n. 1), seems appropriate to the wind, which goes to and fro upon the earth, coming from all quarters, and is not enough to make Lichaba an earth-god (Clark, loc. cit., cf. von Fùrer-Haimendorf, in Custom is King, p. 276) in particular, wholly different from Lungkitjinba. It is certain that this identification of the Supreme Being with the wind is not to be taken as a ‘first attempt to express his incorporeal nature’ (see von FurerHaimendorf, in Mitt. d. Ges. f. Volkerk. (1938), p. 26). Lungkitsungba and Lichaba are two historically distinct forms of the Supreme Being, of whom the former is the original Ao god, the latter pre-Ao (same author, in Custom is King, p. 276), or perhaps more probably, Lungkitsungba is Ao, Lichaba postAo, i.e. of foreign, perhaps Sangtam, origin, like Latsapa-Litsaba (see above) among the Sema (Hutton, Sema Nagas, p. 196). 11. Hutton, Sema Nagas, pp. 191, n. 1, 212. 12. Hutton, of. cit., pp. 195 5g., 256 sq. 13. Von Fùrer-Haimendorf, ‘Das Gemeinschaftsleben der Konyak-Naga von Assam”, in Mitteilungen d. Anthropologischen Ges. in Wien Ixxi (1941), 6; cf. Muitteilungsblatt d. Ges.f. Volk. vii (1938), p. 2714. Cp. von Furer-Haimendorf, “‘Mitteilungsblatt”’ (see n. 13), p. 30. 15. Songinyu, “spirit”, corresponds to aniza in the speech of the northwestern and eastern Rengma, see J. P. Mills, The Rengma Nagas (London
1937), Pp. 164 5qq.
16. Mills, op. cit., pp. 245-46. Tyee OCGapeem Ose 18. “The particularly powerful songinyu or aniza who lives in the sky . . . is the father of all living things, as earth is their mother’’, Mills, ibid., p. 165. 19. ‘May children be as ants, and as herds of elephants, and as herds of buffaloes”, Mills, zbid., p. 182.
: 20. Hutton, The Angami Nagas (London 1921), p. 180 sqq. 21. R. Heine-Geldern, “Mutterrecht und Kopfjagd im westlichen
Hinter-
ASSAM AND UPPER BURMA
299
indien”’, in Mitt. d. Wien. Anthropolog. Ges. li (1921), p. 110; cf. W. Schmidt in Anthropos xiv-xv (1919-20), p. 1142. 22. As quoted by von Fiirer-Haimendorf, ‘‘Staat u. Gesellschaft bei den Naga”, in Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie (1932), pp. 38-39. Among the Konyak, the stone seat is often flanked by two menhirs, see Hutton, “The use of stone in the Naga Hills’, in 7.R.A.J. lvi (1926), p. 71; R. Heine-Geldern, “Die Megalithen Sùdostasiens u. ihre Bedeutung”, in Anthropos xxiii (1928), p. 289. 23. P. T. R. Gurdon, The Khasis, ed. 2 (London 1914), p. 105. The* chief deity of the state is also called indifferently U’le: or Ka’lei Synshar, the former being masculine and the latter feminine, and so is “‘god or goddess’, zbid., ps 127. 24. “Die Richtung aller Vélkerwanderungen in Hinterindien war eine nord-stidliche”’, Fiirer-Haimendorf, in Zeitschrift f. Ethnol. (1932), p. 10. 25. Among the Khasi also, alongside of the deity, or deities, U’lei and Ka’lei Nong Thaw, there is evidence of a sky-god U Pyrthat, whose sword is the lightning (cf. the Lushei sky-god, above, p. 293). See Hari Blah, “Notes on the Khasis and Syntengs”, in Census of India, 1931, III, Pt. i, App., p. xx, quoted by Fiirer-Haimendorf in Custom is King, pp. 282-3. 26. O. Hanson, The Kachins (Rangoon 1913), pp. 168 sg., 118, 157, 143. 27. Ch. Gilhodes in Anthropos iii (1908), p. 672. 28. Hanson, op. cit., p. 168; Gilhodes in Anthropos iv (1909), p. 702. 29. Hanson, of. cit., p. 110; cf. Gilhodes, The Kachin (Calcutta 1922), p. 99. The Shé (Chin) adore a female deity named Mother Li as ancestress of the human race, Whitehead, ‘Notes on the Chins of Burma”, in Indian Antiquary xxxvi (1907), p. 204 sg., quoted by Heine-Geldern, in Mitt. d. Wien. Anthr. Ges. (1921), p. 119. 30. Fiirer-Haimendorf, in Custom is King, pp. 281-2. 31. J. Shakespear, The Lushei Kuki Clans (London 1912), pp. 61 sg., 157, 177. 32. Ibid., p. 184; cf. Fiirer-Haimendorf, of. cit. (n. 30), p. 280. The Tikhup, an old Kuki clan, have, it would seem, a sort of monotheistic cult of Pathian, to the exclusion of all other spirits (Shakespear, op. cit., pp. 158, 166). 33. Lieut. R. Stewart, “Notes on Northern Cachar”, in Journ. R. Asiatic Soc. of Bengal (1855), quoted by Shakespear, op. cit., p. 200. 34. N. E. Parry, The Lakhers (London 1932), p. 349; also Khazangleutha (cf. Loitha, Shakespear, op. cit., p. 220). The name is attested among the Lai (Chin) in the form Kézin, a being who lives in the sky, see T. H. Lewin, Wild Races of South-Eastern India (London 1870), quoted by Furer-Haimendorf, Custom is King, p. 281, and cf. Parry, op. cit., p. 508 (Vocabulary); also among the Kuki in the form Khogein Pootteeang (=the Lushei Puthian), so early as J. Macrae, “‘Account of the Kookies or Lunctas’’, in Asiatic Researches vii (1801), quoted by Parry, of. cit., p. 349, n. 1. Cf. also the Kachin Karai Kasang. 35. Parry, op. cit., p. 488, cf. Shakespear, op. cil., pp. 92-3.
36. Parry, op. cit., pp. 349, 498.
37. Ibid., p. 381. 38. Ibid., p. 361. 39. Ibid., p. 486. But, ibid., p. 381, even at the avapalopatla women are forbidden to eat the flesh of the victim. 40. To Hutton also, in Parry, op. cit., p. 381, n. 1, the idea of the female
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sky among the Sabeu suggests a comparison with “the Angami notion of the Spirit-mother, the ultimate source of at any rate all human life, who lives in the sky”. 1 41. Shakespear, op. cit., p. 221, in the chapter on the Lakhers, mentions on the authority of Mr. Whalley, of the E. Bengal and Assam Police, their belief in “the mysterious Pi-leh-pu, the all-mother, and all-father (strictly translated ‘srandmother’ and ‘grandfather’, the term is generally used for ancestors)—a being not anthropomorphised or materialised, partaking in some shadowy way of the functions both of guardian angel and of originator of the human race”, but adds, “‘In the course of my enquiries I did not come across any references to Pi-leh-pu, but there seems good reason to think that the term is applied to the mythical ancestor of the clan.’ It would seem therefore that we have to do, not with a Supreme Being, but with the tribal ancestor, thought of as man-woman. For pu meaning “‘grandfather’’, ‘‘maternal uncle’’, cf. Shakes-
pear, p. 233, Parry, p. 245.
42. J. H. Hutton, The Sema Nagas (London 1921), p. 197. 43. Mills, The Lhota Nagas, pp. 115, 184, 64-5. 44. Hutton, quoted by Mills, of. cit., p. 64, n. 1. 45. Mills, The Rengma Nagas (London 1937), p. 101. The ceremony includes a purification of the dogs. The eastern Rengma use no dogs in hunting. On occasion also of the foundation of a new village, a part of the victim is offered to the spirit of wild animals, Mills, op. cit., p. 47. 46. Furer-Haimendorf, Hochgottgestalten (cf. above, n. 2), p. 25; Naked Nagas, 228. 47. Parry, op. cit., p. 351. Also “the Sangeu mountain, like Mawma, is supposed to be inhabited by a spirit which is kindly disposed towards hunters?, (OLO RO eee ; 48. Parry, op. cit., p. 363, “Oh, Khazang . . . enable me to shoot many animals’. 49. Furer-Haimendorf, in eitschr. f. Ethnol. (1932), p. 32, cf. Custom is King, p. 274. 50. S. E. Peal, “Fading Histories’, in 7ourn. R. Asiat. Soc. Bengal (1894), pp. 16-17, quoted by Fiirer-Haimendorf, ibid. 51. Hutton, ‘Diaries of Two Tours in the Unadministered Area East of the Naga Hills”, in Memoirs As. Soc. Bengal xi (1929), pp. 10, 17, quoted by Furer-Haimendorf, ibid. 52. Hutton, “A Negrito Substratum in the Population of Assam”, in Man in India ii (1927), p. 257, and the work of two Indian anthropologists quoted by Firer-Haimendorf, Zeitschr. f. Ethnol. (1932), p. 10 n. 1. 53- Cf. Baumann, in Zeitschr.f. Ethnol. (1938), p. 221.
Chapter XVIII THE
NEGRITOS
) yen the name of Negritos is understood usually the ‘“Pygmies” of the extreme south-east of Asia, insular and peninsular, and of Indonesia. They fall into three main groups, (a) those of the Andaman Islands, (b) those of the peninsula of Malacca, (c) those of the Philippine Islands.1 (a2) THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS? Puluga is the chief figure in the belief of the Negritos in the south of Great Andaman (Aka-Bea and Akar-Bale tribes). According to Man, who lived for some years (1868-79) in contact with these southern tribes, Puluga “‘is regarded as omniscient while it is day’? (Man 89). But Brown, who studied the various tribes of the North, Middle and
South Andaman, writes (Brown 159): “I am not able to confirm Mr. Man’s statement that Puluga is omniscient.” The contradiction is more in words than in matter, however, for “there is no means of
distinguishing in Andamanese between ‘all’ and ‘a great deal’”’; (Brown, ibid.). Furthermore, the omniscience of Puluga is not absolute, it is concerned only with human actions (also their “thoughts” according to the expression used by Man), and the natives behave as if “there is a possibility that Puluga may not discover what has been done”.8 The oversight which Puluga exercises over the doings of man‘kind gives rise to a punitive sanction. Among the deeds which displease him are breaches of certain rules of tribal life, such as the digging up of certain roots and the eating of certain kinds of fruit at particular seasons of the year, melting or burning of beeswax, the killing of a kind of cicada or making a noise while it sings, quartering a pig badly, and so forth.4 The punitive measures which Puluga takes against such breaches of custom have to do with the weather. When he is angry with mankind for any of their misdoings, he sends bad weather, especially tempest: “‘in general it may be said that the natives believe that the only punishment that Puluga . . . ever sends against those who offend him... in any way is bad weather” (Brown 162). “‘Storms are regarded as indications of Puluga’s anger; winds are his breath, and are caused to be blown by his will; when it thunders Puluga is said to be growling at something which has annoyed him; lightning is a burning log flung by him at the objects of his wrath” (Man 85). Otherwise, the wind is caused by Puluga ‘by fanning with a very large. . . leaf” (Brown 151).
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‘“‘Puluga is believed to live in a large stone house in the sky . . . when they anger him, he comes out of his house and blows, and growls, and hurls burning faggots at them—in other words visits their offences with violent thunderstorms and heavy squalls” (Man go). ‘““Puluga is said to eat and drink, and, during the dry months of the year, to pass much of his time in sleep, as it is proved by his voice (thunder) being rarely heard at that season’ (Man go). “When they see a dark cloud approaching at a time when rain would prove very inconvenient... they advise Puluga to divert its course (cf. the Semang, p. 316).... If in spite of this a shower falls they imagine that Puluga is undeterred by their warning”’ (Man 85). To the South Andamanese Puluga there corresponds Biliku (or Bilik, or Bilika) in Middle and South Andaman,
and Oluga in Little
Andaman (Brown 147 sqq., 151, etc.). These are three different forms of the same word, one of the few elements which the speech of Little Andaman has in common with that of Great Andaman.5 The radical meaning is ‘“thunder”,6 apparently. Bilik is also, like Puluga, the maker of thunder and tempest to punish the sins of men.’ He too is the wind, in particular the north-east monsoon, which blows during the dry season (December-May),’ whereas Taria, the south-west monsoon, blows in the rainy season. An important difference is that while Puluga is always male only, Biliku in Middle Andaman is sometimes male and sometimes female, and in North Andaman invariably female (Brown 150 sg.). Oluga too, on Little Andaman, is female (Brown 151). Biliku likewise, whether male or female, causes lightning; if male; he like Puluga, does it by throwing a lighted brand (Man 99, Brown 203); if
female, either in that way or by hurling a mother-of-pearl shell (Brown 368), that being the instrument the women use to gather tubers and other plants (Brown 368), whereas both men and women, but particularly men, are accustomed, when on a journey or hunting expedition, to carry the lighted brands intended to preserve their fire (Brown 36, 472). Brown is of opinion’ that the conception of Biliku as a female may have been the primitive one, originally shared by the southern tribes also, which now think of Puluga or Biliku as male. But Brown on principle dislikes researches into the past and in this as in other instances refuses to be drawn into developing a historical theory, preferring to stick to present-day facts. Andrew Lang attached no importance to the difference of sex in the concept of Puluga or Biliku, since to him “Biliku (female) and Puluga (male) are (only) creations of imagination in search for a first cause”.1° It is far otherwise with Father W. Schmidt, for whom Puluga is a Supreme Being of purely monotheistic type, a true representative of that Urmonotheismus which he postulates as the religion of the Urkultur, which he supposes the
THE
NEGRITOS
303
Andamanese, like the other Asiatic and African Pygmies, to represent.!1 As such, as a genuine expression of primaeval monotheism, PulugaBiliku can be nothing but male, and any female features in his nature must be a secondary aspect, due to the influence of a ‘‘matriarchal” culture of Austroasiatic or Austronesian origin, which has superimposed on the original Puluga the divine figure of an ancient Great Mother. .Thus, still according to Schmidt, the primitive unity of religion split into two different religions, that of the male Puluga in South Andaman and that of the female Biliku in Middle and particularly in North Andaman. From this radical alteration he would explain likewise the other aspects of Puluga-Biliku which will not fit the “monotheistic” ideal, among which is his attitude towards mankind. This seems benevolent only in the south, especially in his free gift of fire (Man 96), while in Middle and North Andaman fire had to be stolen from the Supreme Being (Brown 201 sqq.)!* and generally his relations with men are hostile rather than friendly. To this attitude of the Supreme Being towards men that of men towards him corresponds, as is shown especially by certain myths which are inspired with a feeling, not of indifference only, but of outright hostility towards Puluga-Biliku. In a myth of the Aka-Kede of Middle Andaman, “‘Bilika lived with his wife Mite. They had a child. The ancestors ate Bilika’s food. Bilika was very angry. He used to smell their mouths to see if they had eaten his food. When he found a man or a woman
who had done so, he would
cut his throat. The
ancestors were very angry with Bilika, because he killed men and women when they ate his foods. They all came together and killed Bilika and his wife” (Brown 200). Note that Bilika here is not female, but male. It is true that the Aka-Kede are a tribe of Middle Andaman, and therefore, if Schmidt is correct, subject to the influences of mother-
right; but in South Andaman also we find in myths episodes which show outspoken enmity towards Puluga himself. Indeed a myth of the Akar-Bale (see Brown 200-1) says: “In the days of the ancestors Puluga was always getting angry with the ancestors because they dug up yams and ate ¢akan (Entada scandens) and barata (Caryota sobolifera). When he was angry he used to destroy their huts and property. So the people sent him out of the world, saying, ‘We do not want you here. You are always angry with us.’ Puluga went away to the north-east.” In an Aka-Bea legend, again, given by Man (99), the four survivors of the deluge, two men and two women, “began to entertain sentiments of anger and resentment against Puluga for his wholesale destruction of their friends, and, accordingly, when they met him one day, they
determined to kill him, but were deterred from their purpose by Puluga himself. . . . This is said to be the last occasion on which Puluga rendered himself visible, or held any communication with them.”
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Schmidt (Ursprung iii, p. 101) will have it that we have, here again, tendencious myths, created in an environment unfriendly to Puluga and intended to blacken his character (although, according to Schmidt himself, the Aka-Bea are the tribe most faithful to Puluga), which reflect the struggle between the ancient “monotheistic” religion and
the new “matriarchal” one. I think we had better look for a different explanation. Among the Andamanese are certain persons who are credited with the possession of supernatural powers. They are to be found in both North and South Andaman. In the latter, among the Aka-Bea, they are known as oko-paiad (Man 28), in the former as oko-fumu (Brown 176). Both terms mean literally “‘dreamer’’, ‘one who speaks from dreams”. “The powers of a dreamer, supernatural as they are, can only be acquired by supernatural means, through contact in one way or another with the spirits.” One of the means of getting into touch with the spirits is through dreams: “if a man or boy experiences dreams that are in any way extraordinary, particularly if in his dreams he sees spirits . . . he may acquire in time the reputation of a medicine-man” (Brown 177). The oko-paiad ‘“‘are credited with the possession of . . . a mysterious influence over the fortunes and lives of their neighbours. It is thought that they can bring trouble, sickness and death”? (Man 28). In like manner, “by his communication with the spirits, in dreams, or in waking life, the oko-jumu acquires magical knowledge that he is able to turn to account in curing illness and in preventing bad weather. When a person is ill the oko-jumu is often consulted as to the best means of treating the patient” (Brown 178). But at the same time he is ‘‘credited with the power to work evil magic, and by its means to make other people ill, and even to kill them” (Brown 51). In his turn “fa man (an oko-jumu) suspected of evil magic might be liable to the vengeance of those who thought that they had been injured by him” (Brown 51). So among the Aka-Bea, “‘ifa disaster occurs which they think might have been averted had the oko-paiad chosen to exercise his powers, they are said sometimes to conspire to kill him, but so greatly is he feared that not a single instance is known of anyone having ventured to carry such a plan into execution” (Man 29). This killing of a dreamer or medicine-man, whether carried out or only thought of, recalls the killing of Biliku-Puluga in the myths already cited. And the resemblance does not end here. ‘‘Besides their power of causing or curing sickness the oko-jumu are credited with being able to control the weather” (Brown 178). This is once more the very function of Puluga-Biliku, namely to govern good and bad weather. In south Andaman, to make a thunderstorm stop or to drive away one which threatens, leaves of Mimusops are burned, the crackling
THE NEGRITOS
305
of which is thought to be displeasing to Biliku (Brown 156), or to have the power to placate Puluga (Man 85), which is a sort of bringing to bear on him of magical influence. In like manner some medicinemen (oko-jumu) of the North Andaman are reported to have stopped a storm by crushing a piece of the Anadendron paniculatum or of the Ficus laccifera and placing it under a rock in the sea (Brown 157, 178 sq.). In Middle Andaman, according to an old man of the A-Pucikwar tribe who had some reputation as a medicine-man, “‘the spirits of the medicine-men live apart from the spirits of ordinary men and women, and are called... Bilik. . . . It is the Bilik who control the weather. They can also cause or cure sickness in living men” (Brown 169). Since among the A-Putikwar (and the Aka-Kol) Bilik is the name of winds in general! (except the south-west monsoon, which has its own name, Teriya, Brown 148-9, 155), it appears that the belief is that “the medicine-men,
when
they die, become
Bilik’’, in other words
are
identified with a wind, and therefore ‘a (living) medicine-man is able to control the weather through his communication with the Bzlik in dreams” (Brown 374). Finally, even the alternation of Puluga-Biliku (male) and Biliku (female) finds his parallel in the world of “‘dreamers’’. We find that the oko-paiad among the Aka-Bea (South Andaman) are, on Man’s evidence (28), ‘invariably of the male sex’’, but in North Andaman,
according to Brown (176), “‘the natives whom I questioned told me that a woman may possess the same powers, though it is more usual for men to become famous in this way than women”. Thus we see that the Supreme Being is male where the dreamers are men, male and female where some dreamers are men and some women. It can therefore be stated that the figure of the Supreme Being among the Anda-
manese, in his double form of male and female, is conceived on the pattern and in the likeness of the medicine-man or woman respectively.
Among the Aka-Kol and the A-Pucikwar (Middle and South Andaman), we meet even with the idea of a male and a female Biliku as husband and wife (Brown 151). This is not to say that PulugaBiliku passes completely into the figure of the ‘“dreamer” or is nothing but an enlargement of the dreamer himself, sublimated and projected into the world of deity; he is and remains essentially a heavenly being, but in myths he is thought of as being of the dreamer-type. From this an important corollary follows. Since the medicine-man and woman belong, among the Andamanese, to the same historical and cultural complex, it becomes hard to make an ethnological differentiation between their divine exponents, the male Puluga and the female Biliku, assigning the one to the “monotheistic” Urkultur and the other to a superimposed matrilineal culture. Here wide vistas open. Brown writes (176) that the Andamanese dreamers “correspond, to some W
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degree, with the medicine-men, magicians or shamans of other primitive societies.” We at once think in the first place of Asiatic shamanism. Shamans of both sexes are to be found among the peoples, both ancient and modern, of Siberia and among those of the Altai, sometimes with a prevalence of women over men, which has made some think that shamanism may have originated among women.!® In Assam and Upper Burma also we find medicine-men and women with the functions of seers, dreamers
and diviners, among
the Nagas,!°
Kachin,
Lakher and Lushei.17 On the other hand these peoples (see Chapter XVII) have the idea of a Supreme Being, a creator and omniscient, who, like Puluga, causes meteoric phenomena, and is sometimes moreover thought of as female as well as male in form,!8 like Puluga-Biliku, although the male Puluga and the female Biliku are always two different figures and never blend vaguely into a single person as do Gawang and others (see p. 2goff.). There are other points of resemblance. In a myth given by Man (104) in the beginning it was always day; night is a punishment inflicted by Puluga on mankind because a woman had crushed a worm and another had spoiled a plant, whereupon he “‘visited the earth with a long-continued darkness” until Kolwot managed to make him believe that men ‘‘were quite unconcerned and could enjoy themselves in spite of light being withheld from them. To accomplish this, he invented the custom of dancing and singing, the result of which was that Puluga, finding that they had frustrated his intention, granted alternate periods of day and night’, afterwards moderating the darkness of night also, thanks to the creation of the moon. Similarly, among the Lakher,!® the Supreme Being Khazangpa plunged the world into darkness by means of a total eclipse of the sun, and this same myth of the “‘great darkness” (thimzing) appears among the Lushei with the addition2° that, when the human race had been destroyed in the “great darkness’, the new humanity, or the beast-ancestors of the present clans, came out of a cave and began to dance, praying the sun not to shine while they were doing so, to which the sun consented; but afterwards he took a fancy to look on, and then “‘the sun shone out, and all the animals got hot and would not dance any more.” The same theme, in a form much more closely resembling the Andamanese myth, occurs in Japanese mythology as given in the Kajzki, where, the sungoddess Amaterasu having retired in a fit of sulks into a cave, thus plunging
the world
into darkness,
the gods, left in the dark,
resort to the same stratagem to make her believe that they are amusing themselves as well as ever, and when the goddess, hearing such an uproar, puts aside part of the mass of rock which closes the mouth of the cave, so as to peer forth, the gods take advantage of this to open the cave entirely and make her come out.?}
THE NEGRITOS
307
Puluga, Man tells‘us (go), ‘‘is believed to live in a large stone house in the sky”. This means the sky itself, where Puluga lives and which is thought of as made of rock (Man 160, cf. Schmidt, Ursprung iii, p. 106).?2 So among the Lhota Nagas, ‘‘the sky is regarded as being hard like a stone, and forming the floor of the world of the Potsos (spirits)’’, and according to the Ao Nagas the Supreme Being “‘sits in the sky on the dome of his stone house.”23 Moreover, the idea that the sky is made of rock or stone is found in Asia from the Chinese world24 to the Indo-Iranians, as witness Sanskrit agman, Old Persian asman, ‘rock, stone; sky”. From Asia it made its way into Indonesia (p. 318), Polynesia and Australia.25 The parallels here adduced are particularly interesting because the Andamanese themselves probably came originally from the mainland, and possibly their old home was not very far from Assam and Upper Burma, where indeed, as already shown (p. 296, above), traces of an underlying ethnological stratum of negroid type, ultimately akin to the Andamanese and other Negritos, peep out here and there, as well as in Indo-China.26 From there possibly the proto-Andamanese moved
towards their present habitat and settled in it, when it was not yet so completely cut off from the mainland as it now is. According to Eickstedt, we must suppose?” that not many thousands of years ago, where to-day there is a deep cleavage between the Burmese coast and the Andaman Islands, there rose a series of islands, forming part of a larger arc which passed the Nicobars and reached the northern tip of Sumatra. These allowed the Negritos to get to their present abodes on their primitive crafts. The progressive lowering of the sea-bottom, part of a tectonic process which apparently is still going on, has resulted in cutting off the Andamanese more and more in their islands as they now are. As Brown (493) writes, ‘so far as their technical culture is concerned, there is no evidence whatever that the Andamanese have
ever been influenced by contact with any other race since the time, now many centuries ago, when they first reached the islands.”” What he says of their material culture is equally true of the non-material. The culture which the proto-Andamanese brought with them to their new abodes was no longer an Urkultur in a state of purity, but was already, and remained, a composite one, which joined to certain elements of extreme primitiveness, such as the great paucity of stone implements and the inability to make fire, others, including shamanism in both sexes, a rudimentary pottery and the outrigger-canoe, probably due to the proto-Andamanese becoming acquainted: with a higher culture belonging to the Asiatic mainland, which in its turn was already composite, resulting from the encounter of a nomadic and patrilineal complex with one which was matrilineal and agricultural.** This probably holds good for religion also. Puluga-Biliku, in the
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GOD
form in which we know him, probably does not go back to the original Urkultur of the Negritos. A typical and characteristic element of this culture, filled as it was with animalism, as may be expected ina culture of hunters and food-gatherers, is the figure of the Lord of Beasts, which we find, e.g. among the Negritos of the Philippine Islands. Among the Andamanese also, as among the Semang (see p. 317), there is an animalistic mental complex which colours the figure of PulugaBiliku himself. In North Andaman, biliku is also the word for “‘spider’’, and the monitor lizard is also called éluga in the language of Little Andaman (Brown 151). The wife of Puluga, in South Andaman, is “Mother Freshwater Shrimp”, or “Mother Eel” (Man go); the cicada is Puluga’s daughter, or the female Biliku’s (Brown 150, 198, 206). Puluga’s favourite creature, the cicada, not only must not be killed,2® but must not be disturbed. Breaking the commandment against disturbing it when it sings is one of the acts (see above, p. 301) which Puluga punishes with storm (Brown 154 sq., 206, 208). It sings in the evening twilight, after sundown, but also in the dawn, and therefore silence must be observed at dawn also, under the same penalty. ‘Between dawn and sunrise they will do no work, save what is noiseless, lest the sun should be offended, and cause an eclipse, storm, or other
misfortune to overtake them” (Man 85). In this connection, we may note incidentally that while the two occasions, late evening and early morning, correspond exactly, in the second we find “the sun” in place of Puluga. This is a further indication that Puluga has a solar aspect, complementary to his character as a weather-god. This is already implied in the limitation of his all-seeing powers to the daytime (above, p. 301) and is supported by other indications. These animalistic features may be an element belonging to the Urkultur of the proto-Andamanese Negritos which has crystalized around the figure of Puluga-Biliku, much as some aspects of the Lord of Beasts are incorporated in the figure of Gawang among the Konyak Nagas and in Khazangpa among the Lakher (Chapter XVII, p. 295ff.). But Puluga-Biliku is not merely a Lord of Beasts. There is no clear trace, among the Andamanese, of the typical offering of the firstfruits of the chase in the shape of meat from the game killed, which is usually made to the Lord of Beasts when the hunt has been successful, for instance among the Philippine Negritos (see p. 319).3° PulugaBiliku, as we know him to-day, is primarily a celestial Supreme Being. We may admit that the concept of a celestial Being in the proper sense was originally strange to the proto-Andamanese and the other Negritos, as it was or may have been to the Vedda of Ceylon, the Kubu of Sumatra and the ‘Tasmanians. Perhaps it«developed, among the proto-Andamanese and the other Negritos, out of certain particular aspects of the primitive Lord of Beasts, as we will mention later,
THE NEGRITOS
309
not without the concurrence of suggestions due to contact with the higher and settled continental culture of which something has been said above. Be this as it may, since the idea (and the name) of Puluga-BilikuOluga as a sky-god is universal Andamanese, as we have seen (p. 302), we must argue that the proto-Andamanese already possessed him when they took e of their present abode on the Andaman Islands. Then, when they became cut off geographically from the mainland and their contact with it came to an end, the tribes remaining separate in their local habitats, there began an age-long process of differentiation within the people, which led to their present variety of speech and also of thought, as evidenced by the manifold mass of beliefs which we now find, involving sometimes direct contradictions between those of one tribe and of another, or even within the same tribe. A common and also novel element, however, is found amid the diversity of
Andamanese beliefs and is probably due to the conditions of their new geographical environment. In every tribe81 we find the figure of Taria (Daria, Deria, Teriya), who is the south-west monsoon that blows in the rainy season, May to September. Biliku on the other hand governs especially the north-east monsoon, which blows in the dry season when the weather is fine, from December to May. We thus find PulugaBiliku split into two figures corresponding to the mutually complementary monsoons. This doubling very likely indicates an adaptation to the particular environment of the Andaman Islands, where the whole of life is governed by the succession of the monsoons. On the other hand, even this specifically insular development is grafted on to the trunk of the mainland tradition, for behind this splitting of Biliku into two figures and his identification with the north-east monsoon (though he always retains a certain superiority to the other monsoon, Taria),32 stands the figure of the supreme sky-god in his capacity as god of the weather, and more especially as wind-maker, thus presenting parallels, as we already know, to the world of continental Asia on the one hand, where, in old China, the wind is the messenger of Ti
(Chapter XVI, p. 278; cf. Lungitsungba and Lichaba among the Ao Nagas, Chapter XVII, p. 290), and on the other, as will appear later (Chapter XIX), to Indonesia. But whatever we may think of the obscure beginnings and later developments of Puluga, it is certain that his omniscience is not an attribute implied in the idea of a monotheistic God, but a natural growth from the celestial nature of a supreme sky-god, and his limitation to the hours ‘while it is day”, far from being an arbitrary addition ‘ of Man's, as Father Schmidt images (Ursprung iii, p. 107), finds its ali belongs to the obvious explanation in the fact that Puluga (day-)sky.
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(b) THE MALACCA PENINSULA The Negritos of the Malacca Peninsula (the Semang), comprising,
from north to south, the Kensiu, Kenta, Jahai, Sabubn, Menri and
Batek, and those of southern Siam (the Mos and the Chong Negritos), have the concept of a Supreme Being whom they call Karei (or Kaiei, or Kagei). “If not omniscient, Karei at least knows whenever men do wrong”, according to Skeat-Blagden ii, p. 177.33 We therefore have to do, as in the case of Puluga (above, p. 301) with a relative omniscience directed to human activities. The word karei means ‘‘thunder”’.84 Karei is therefore thunder personified in the form of a heavenly being who causes it. Thunder is indeed thought of as the voice of Karei among the Menri and Ple, or Karei makes it by ‘‘turning a wheel of a cart”, according to the Siamese Negritos; the Jahai, if thunder is heard in the distance, say that it is Karei playing with his sons.85 Furthermore, Karei causes and sends lightning; it is the method by which he, being in the sky, communicates with his wife on the earth, according to the Jahai, or, as the
Menri say, it is a rope thrown by him which enables him to see everything, and when he perceives that men are doing ill, he starts to roar (this is the thunder), or he has beside him a dragon which is always on the lookout, and when it perceives that anyone is doing evil, it begins to howl (again the thunder) and to send forth spirts of water (lightning); so say the Kenta.3¢ Among other Negrito tribes all this is attributed to Ta Pedn (Tapern, Tapònn). Ta Pedn is omniscient in the sense that he knows what men do, and his omniscience again, like that of Karei, amounts
to seeing
everything. From the sky, where he lives, he does nothing but look down upon the earth, and he sees all the misdoings of men, even those committed in the thick of the forest.37 Among the Menik Kaien and Kenta Bogn, or Kintak Bong, Tapern “‘has two constables, who inform him if any one on earth is committing sins’, and among the Negritos of Lenggong (Upper Perak), “‘the dragon-fly tells him when human beings are committing offences’’.88 The all-seeing omniscience of Ta Pedn is again, like that of Karei, part and parcel of his nature as a sky- and weather-god. Ta Pedn too is the maker of thunder (kaez) and sends lightning, the Kensiu say; thunder (kai) is the rumbling he makes by rolling a large stone in the sky, while “‘a flashing cord which is attached to the stone and winds and unwinds itself is the lightning”’ according to the Kenta Bogn; Tapern lives in a cave in the sky, and when the dragon-fly brings him word of any misbehaviour on the part of mankind, he “‘throws down a huge quartz crystal which goes into the earth, and the waters well up from the hole which it makes and drown the offenders”, say the Semang of Lenggong.39 Thus Ta Pedn,
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or Grandfather Pedn, corresponds exactly to Karei, indeed is Karei himself under another name.*° Among the Batek Nogn, one of the little groups split off from the main body of Negritos and isolated in the south among the Jakudn peoples, the equivalent of Karei is Keto.4! Keto has the sun and moon for eyes, and consequently can see both by day and night. His power of universal vision, like that of Karei or of Ta Pedn, is directed to the
doings of men. The sun is actually called med Keto, that is the eye (med) of day or bright sky.42 However, Keto, as he makes both day and night, sends also not only fair weather but also rain. In a similar manner, among some Negritos of Pahang, Jawait, who “lives in the sky below the clouds, in ‘the eye of heaven’”’ is also the cause of thunder.*? Karei himself presents, alongside his aspect as a weathergod, another which is associated with light and the sun. One of the first pieces of information which Father Schebesta got regarding Karei is that he ‘“‘was the thunder and also the sun’’, and lived above.44 Karei lives in the eastern sky, say the Kensiu and Kenta, in the zone
of light below the sun or on the very axis on which the sun moves (so the Jahai, Kenta and Kensiu). As ““Puluga’s appearance is like fire?’ (Man, p. 89, cf. g2), so Karei’s radiance is like fire, according to Schebesta; if Karei came near men’s huts, they would all be burned to death, the Jahai aver.45 The Sakai, who are neighbours of the Semang but anthropologically different, having a slightly greater stature, a lighter colour and wavy hair, have also the idea of an omniscient Supreme Being: “no statement is made as to his omniscience, except that he invariably knows when man does wrong” (Skeat-Blagden ii, p. 179). The Semai call him Enku, or Bakawa or Badango; the Ple-Temiar call him Enku or Karei; the Ple of Perak have no other name than Karei for him.49 Enku means “‘thunder’’,4?7 and Enku, or Karei, is the maker of thunder and thunderbolt. The thunder is his voice, for as soon as he sees some
sinful deed done, he utters his roar. Lightning is the winking of his eyelids, or else a cord with which he smites the highest trees in order to split them and drink their sap. Enku is thought of also as a bear, among the Semai of the Seran River; in that case, lightning is the tossing of his tawny hair when he opens his mouth to roar (this being the thunder). On the other hand, even among the Sakai the sky-god appears at times to be identified with the sun. This sky-god of the Negritos of the Malacca Peninsula, maker of thunder and lightning, all-seeing, the punisher by means of the weather of human transgressions, is very like the Puluga of the Andamanese Negritos (p. 301). It should be added that Karei, or Ta Pedn, like Puluga, is thought of in the very form and likeness of a hala, or medicine-man.49 Karei is a great magician (hala), who lived on earth
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before he went up to the sky.5° Among the Menri and other Malaccan Negritos, as the Kenta and Kensiu, the term puteu (putto in VaughanStevens) is used to signify a particular category of medicine-men,51 and among the Menri, Karei also is otherwise known as Puteu,5? in other words ‘great wizard’. Among the Menri, certain hala tried, although without success, to kill Karei (Schebesta c’, 15), while according to the Ple (Sakai) their ancestor Ple or Peluig, who was a great hala, trapped Karei and succeeded in killing him, although he then brought him back to life, and another time obliged him to run away up to the sky (zbzd., 19). In like manner Puluga, as we have seen (p. 303), lay open to the wiles of the “dreamers”? or medicine-men. Further, as the cicada is the daughter of Puluga among the Andamanese (above, p. 308), so she is the daughter of Ta Pedn among the Kensiu (Semang).53 Analogously, among the Semai (Sakai), she is the daughter of Enku; when she sings, all must be silent on pain of death, and no one must look at her or speak her name (Schebesta c’, 26). This reverence for the cicada is to be associated with that shown by the Malacca Negritos (and the Sakai) towards other creatures, as the black wasp, dragonfly, some butterflies, the leech, the millepede, certain kinds of birds and snakes, the tiger, monkey, cat, dog and
tortoise; these also must not be troubled nor made fun of in any way, much less tormented or killed, unless the vengeance of Karei is to be called down, i.e. especially storms. This pious attitude towards animals again finds its parallel among the Andamanese (p. 308) and affects even the form of the Supreme Being, inasmuch as Karei, like Puluga again, is actually thought of in bestial shape.54 There is, however, an important difference between the Andamanese Negritos and those of Malacca, namely the following. Among the Semang (and Sakai), to keep off the punishment of Karei or Enku in the above-mentioned cases, and also in case of other offences against tribal life, such as adultery, the doing of the sexual act in the daytime, a father-in-law coming too close to his daughter-in-law, or a son-in-law to his motherin-law, too great familiarity between parent and children, looking at a dog and a bitch coupling, looking at one’s own reflection in broad daylight, obscene speech, touching water with a utensil which has been on the fire, and so forth, a characteristic rite of blood-letting is
practised. At the first rumble of thunder which presages the storm, one or more persons make a little cut with a sharp piece of bamboo or other instrument in one or both their legs, in the region of the calf, and collecting the blood which comes out with the same appliance, they mix it with water in a bamboo vessel. Of this mixture they throw a little on the ground and flick the rest towards the sky in all directions.5° It is only in rare cases that this operation is performed by all the members of the same camp, for instance, among the Menri, if one
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of them has been torn in pieces byatiger, or, among the Sabubn, if
homicide has taken place.5* As a rule it is only a few persons, generally women before men, who perform this ceremony, and especially those who have some sin on their conscience, or a breach of the usages of the tribe. As the tribal rules, positive or negative, go back to Karei, or Ta Pedn, so breaches of them are called “sins against Karei (/awaîd Karei in the Jahai language) or ‘against Enku” (telaid Enku in the Semai speech) as the case may be. That portion of the blood which is poured out on the earth is supposed to go to Manoid or Takel, the wife of Karei, who lives underground. The sprinkling of the blood is usually accompanied by the recitation of some formula in which the sinner calls upon Karei (or Ta Pedn) and Manoid (or Takel) and admits his fault, sometimes specifying it precisely as “the millepede sin, the leech sin, the deer sin, the tiger sin’? among the Menri, or ‘‘the
ant sin’? among the Kensiu. Among the Andamanese there is no trace of this very characteristic rite: for the Philippine Islanders see p. 319. The bloodrite therefore does not belong to an original and primitive culture common to all Negritos and peculiar to them. According to Schmidt and Schebesta, the rite originated among the Semang, who passed it to the Sakai along with the idea of a supreme sky-god who governs the weather, while the conception of an earth-goddess, wife (or mother) of the sky-god, was passed on the contrary from the Sakai to the Semang. The Semang sky-god ought, on Schmidt’s theory of primitive monotheism, to accord no less than Puluga with the ideal type of “monotheistic” Supreme Being postulated as belonging to the most archaic Urkultur. And since the reality is very different, and Karei in his turn is a long way from this ideal, such a distortion ought to be explicable, as in the case of Puluga, as a secondary corruption, due to the prevalence and the superposition of a female deity, properly belonging to matrilineal culture, supposedly that of the Sakai. Now, that the primitive culture of the hunting and food-gathering Semang has undergone the influences due to an agricultural and matrilineal culture is undoubted; their Sakai neighbours were perhaps the agents through which these influences were transmitted, rather than their original owners. If, unlike the Andamanese, the Malaccan Negritos have largely given up the bow in favour of the blowpipe,*’ and, as seems to be the case, they have adopted certain institutions of matrilineal type;58 if, moreover, they have quitted their original speech to take up one of ‘“‘Austro-Asiatic” type, which they share with the Sakai,5 all that goes to show the strength of such influences. It is therefore not surprising that these have had their effects in the religious
sphere also and that to them is due the introduction of a figure so
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characteristically tellurian and ‘“‘matrilineal” as the wife or mother of the celestial Supreme Being whom we find among the Negritos, whereas among the Sakai she is represented by the earth-snake®® or by Ja Puteu, the ‘great sorceress’’ of the underworld among the Ple.61 On the other hand, it is an extremely doubtful hypothesis that there has been any counter-current of influence (from the Negritos to the Sakai), such as is supposed, in the religious sphere, by Schmidt, as regards the figure of the sky-god and the blood-rite. This ceremony, with the recital of the misdeed which accompanies it, is an example of the confession of sins in a primitive form. As I have shown elsewhere®? confession is, among savages, a practice chiefly of women. For this and other reasons I was led to suppose that the confession of sins grew up from a culture of matrilineal type, and this working hypothesis has found support in the course of my researches. This at once gives an implicit presumption in favour of the origin of the blood-rite as practised among the Semang and Sakai in a matrilineal environment, as a rite of elimination by confession. For indeed, as already mentioned, the ceremony of blood-letting among the Semang and Sakai on the occasion of a thunderstorm is performed especially by their women, and in any case by the women first and by the men afterwards, if at all.¢3 To draw one’s own blood, whether from the legs or some other part of the body, as a means of getting rid of sin and of evil contained in the person of the sinner, and hence as a ceremony ‘of confession and penance, is a wide-spread custom in the savage world from Africas4 to America,®® particularly pre-Columbian America.** In form, the closest parallel is to be found among the Totonaks, with an interesting analogy from ancient Greece. The Totonaks drew blood from their tongues, or from their thighs or shins, collected it in their hands and threw it towards the sky, wetting the temple floor with it.67 In ancient Greece, the citizens of Kleonai, a town between Corinth and Argos,
kept public watchers whose business it was to give warning of the approach of a hail storm (yadalodvAaxkes), so that the people might take measures to avert it. These measures consisted of killing sheep or fowls, but failing these, they would prick a finger ‘with a sharp stilus’”’ till the blood came; this “‘sacrifice” was accompanied with certain formulae, 8a, properly songs or chants.98 Still in the ancient Mediterranean world, we find the ceremony of drawing one’s own blood in the religion of the Anatolian Great Mother, both among the fanatici of Ma-Bellona of Kappadokia, the Galli of the Dea Syria in Asia Minor and finally those “‘Karians” who when they took part in the festivals of the goddess Isis in Egypt behaved differently from the native population in that they had the custom of cutting their
foreheads with knives,*° And it is well known that Galli in the service
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of the Anatolian Great Mother, while cutting their forearms and tongues, also used a sort of confession, accusing themselves loudly of some serious offence, probably sexual. In like manner in ancient Mexico, those guilty of sins of the flesh, while boring their tongues,
used to confess their transgressions to Tlacolteotl, the goddess of foulness, who is the same as Toci, ‘‘our grandmother’, Teteo innan, ‘‘the mother of the gods” or Tlalli iyollo, “the heart of the earth” (see p. 407). All this takes us very far from the savage world of the Malacca Peninsula, and yet the Malaccans proclaim their offences in like manner, and these include adultery and other sexual transgressions, cf. above, p. 312, while they draw from their calves the blood intended for their Manoid or Takel who lives in the earth. The distance (by which I mean the historical and cultural distance) grows shorter if the blood-ceremony does not belong to the true primitive culture of this people of hunters and food-gatherers, but was passed on to them, as I think and even Father Schmidt at last admits, from a matrilineal peasant-culture.?° It is a fact that the motif of drawing blood from the person recurs in some Sakai myths of a definitely agricultural type. In the mythology of the Ple, who are Sakai, Peluig or Tata Ple is the heroic ancestor of the tribe who, among other matters, taught the Ple such rudimentary agriculture, or more properly horticulture, Hackbau, as they know. Having cleared and dug over a piece of land, Peluig returned to the plantation thus got ready with his sister Asu, and there made a cut in her breast and scattered all about them the blood which came from her; it became seeds. According to another Ple legend, Enku (Karei) having set fire to Peluig’s plantation, the latter was burned and fell to the ground, the various parts of his body producing each a species of cultivated plants, tobacco from his ears, maize from his eyes, keladi (a kind of tuber) from his knees, sugarcane from his toes and sweet potatoes from his penis. Furthermore, Peluig made a cut in his chest and sprinkled here and there the blood which came out, whereupon it became rice and other kinds of cereals.?! It is this peasant-culture with the earth-worship which goes with it which is the basis of the rite of blood-letting among Sakai and Semang alike. It is true that the blood is thrown at the sky, because the object is to avert a storm sent by the sky-god. But part of the blood is nevertheless intended for the wife, or mother, of the sky-god, who lives in the earth, and meant to ward offa terrestrial disaster no less destructive to the crops, namely the deluge (henweh), the gushing forth of waters from the bowels of the earth, which is the punishment sent by Manoid, or Takel, or from the earth-serpent. Thus, among some Semang tribes, the Jahai, Kenta and Kensiu, the blood drawn from the calf of the leg is poured, although in a smaller quantity, upon the earth before it is scattered towards the sky, and in that case Manoid
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is invoked before Karei or Ta Pedn.72 According to the Kenta, the waters of the henweh pour out from an underground place (sapegn) at the foot of a steep rock, whither the blood intended for Manoid flows. This rock, which is called batu ribn, or batu herem, and is at the
centre of the world, is crowned by a turning disk known as rankel; originally it was fastened to the top of a tree-trunk which rose from the rock until it touched and pierced the vault of the sky. From it hang vines, each ending in bunches of various kinds of fruit. When the turning of the rankel makes one of these vines with the fruit at its end come over the Semang country, that is the time when there is plenty of that sort of fruit in the land. The blood sprinkled towards the sky, in the direction of Karei or Ta Pedn, ascends to the rankel, passes into the vines and serves to nourish the seasonal fruit-crop, especially of red fruits.73
The system is thus seen to be perfect in the harmonious clearness of its structure and the equilibrium of its parts. The blood-rite is, so to speak, the pivot of a bipartite sacral complex, depending upon a system of ideas revolving around the pair, sky-god and earth-goddess. This complex is such an organic whole that it seems also genetically inseparable. But the earth-goddess belongs properly to a matrilineal peasant-culture, and the blood-rite has the same origin. Ought we therefore to conclude that the Semang and Sakai sky-god, as the complementary figure to the goddess and the recipient, with her, of the same blood-rite, also belongs to a matrilineal culture? This would be a deductive conclusion, and we know that deductive conclusions are
apt to be misleading; only positive data count. Now, through the almost inextricable tangle of Negrito and Sakai beliefs, which are even more confused, contradictory and complicated than those of the Andamanese, we can catch a glimpse of a different conception of the sky-god as a figure more or less independent of and foreign to the complex above described. Side by side with Karei or Ta Pedn as husband of the earth-goddess, there is a Karei who, like PulugaBiliku, has a heavenly wife (so according to the Kenta and perhaps the Batek).’7* Alongside of Karei who drinks the blood thrown skywards (as the Batek Nogn believe) or cooks it (so the Kensiu), or smears it on his chest, as the Jahai of Jarum say, there is a Karei who does nothing at all with the blood (so the Sabubn and the Ple of Perak).75 Beside a Karei who is placated at the sight of the spilling of blood, there is another who in some cases inexorably visits the sinner, either with a disease which may end fatally?6 or with some other form of death, such as a stroke of lightning, a tree falling on him, or a tiger rending him.?? On the other hand, the blood-rite is not the only method resorted to for averting storms. Instead of blood, they may throw smoke, or coals from the hearth, at the sky; the Semai (Sakai) shoot
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poisoned darts at it from the blowpipe, while their women toss firebrands in the air, accompanying themselves with curses and a deafening uproar made with bamboo canes.?8 The Andamanese also make use of curses and threats against the stormy sky and burn leaves to keep off a tempest, but on the other hand they do not draw blood from themselves. ‘The Andamanese too have an omniscient sky-god, Puluga, who causes meteoric phenomena and punishes men’s sins, and among these again the foremost place is taken by ill-treating or making mock of certain creatures, exactly as in the case of Karei; the cicada is Puluga’s daughter just as it is the daughter of Karei or Enku. Animalism affects the outward form of Puluga as it does that of Karei, for both alike are sometimes thought of as having the appearance of some beast, while again the idea of Puluga having the shape and likeness of the sorcerer (p. 304) finds its counterpart in that of Karei, and the myth of the killing of Karei corresponds to that of the slaying of Puluga (see above, p. 303), °° However, alongside of these aspects which Karei shares with Puluga, he has one which Puluga lacks, and that is his serving as a comple| mentary figure to that of an earth-goddess, the typical couple, Sky and Earth. This difference in ideology corresponds to another in ritual, the lack of the blood-rite among the Andamanese. This double lack is no matter of chance, for the blood-rite belongs organically to the same complex of which the earth-goddess forms part. In this complex we find the sky-god also as the complementary term of the pair, but only as such. Apart from the divine couple, the sky-god as a solitary figure belongs to a different ethnological climate, to the primitive culture, which the Negritos of Malacca and those of the Andamans shared. It was extremely archaic in its basal structure, being a culture of hunters and food-gatherers, but as already said, it had enriched itself with elements of a less primaeval character (see above, p. 307), by contact with a more advanced culture belonging to the Asiatic mainland. This Negrito culture, already complex, met in the Malacca Peninsula with a matrilineal peasant culture, which resulted in profound modifications extending to the religious life of the Semang and the Sakai. We thus are helped to understand the differences between the relithe gion of the Malaccan Negritos and those of the Andamans (and them, with and ns Malacca Philippines, see below, p. 321). The for geograperhaps before them, the Sakai themselves, were exposed, of agriculcentre great that from es influenc direct to phical reasons, es reached influenc these but a, Indonesi culture, eal matrilin and tural strongly. the Andamanese only indirectly, or at any rate much less earththeir with together got, Semang From Indonesian culture the ical mytholog the e.g., as, such well, as elements goddess, perhaps other turned being e someon of er, charact its in ian chthon ly motif, so typical
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into stone as a divine punishment, whereof we find examples among the Kenta Bogn and elsewhere.®° Karei, as we have said, has a different origin and represents a different tradition, which on the one hand goes back to the very beginnings of the Negritos, on the other connects with the great figures of the continental Asiatic Supreme Beings. These beings have in common a celestial nature, which as we know is also the foundation of their common attribute of all-seeing omniscience. The figure of the Lord of Beasts, with the offering of choice morsels of the flesh of the captured beast which belongs to it, is found neither among the Malaccan Negritos nor those of the Andamans, while, as we shall presently see, it does exist among the Negritos of the Philippines (besides some ethnic groups found here and there among the most primitive inhabitants of the Asiatic mainland). If the proto-Andamanese and the proto-Semang also formerly had such a religious complex as the Lord of Beasts and the attendant offering of the first-fruits of hunting, we must suppose that this primitive sort of a Supreme Being was superseded at some later time by the loftier idea of a supreme sky-god. In its turn, the notion of the sky-god among the Semang, and also the Sakai, changed when it came into contact with the agricultural and matrilineal culture of the neighbouring Indonesia, giving way to the divine pair, sky-god and earth-goddess, with the blood-sacrifice which belonged to it. From the meeting of these different cultural and religious complexes and their various interminglings arose the extraordinary complication and partial contradiction of the beliefs of the different Semang tribes.
(c) THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS The notion of a sky-god is to be found also in the third group of Negritos, those of the Philippine Islands.81 Among the Aeta of the island of Luzon, he is called Kayai, which answers to the Semang Karei or Kaiei (above, p. 310); he is otherwise known as Kadai, Katala or Baya, also as Bayagaw or Banagaw (Cooper 38-40). Like Karei and Puluga, the Aeta sky-god, who lives in heaven in a stone cave or house (i.e. the sky itself, see above, p. 307), is the author of thunder, speaks in thunder, and punishes human transgressions with storms and other meteorological means (Cooper 33-4). As among the Andamanese and the Semang, the objects of his chastisement, besides homicide, adultery, incest and other sexual crimes, also molesting and teasing certain living things, namely the leech and the wasp, are the wrong cutting up of a piece of game, burning bees’ wax, making a noise after sunset, and so on (Cooper 34 foll.). ‘l'o drive away a thunderstorm sent as punishment by the sky-god, the Aeta also practise the drawing of blood from leg, finger etc. Among the Baluga (Negritos of
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the eastern part of Bulacan), when Kadai, the thunder-god, is angry because of an adultery or other offence, and thunder is heard, blood is taken from a cut in the leg, mixed with water and thrown towards the thunder, while a little is dropped on the ground for Kadai’s wife. Usually it is the women who offer blood in this way, but if the storm grows worse, the men do.so too (Cooper 39). The rite is the same as that in use among the Semang, and, again as among the Semang, it is to be connected with a cultural complex in which the idea of the sky-god has been influenced by a culture of the agrarian and matriarchal type (see p. 313f.). Another rite in use among the Negritos of Luzon is that of cutting a small slice of flesh from the body of a beast killed in hunting, ‘before eating or parting with it. This slice is thrown into the air, or stuck, raw or roasted, on a sliver of bamboo which is then fixed to the trunk
of a tree or thrust into the ground, the action being accompanied by certain words, to the effect that this little portion is meant for the powers of the forest, as bein the part belonging to them, in order that they may be content and, since they dispose of the game, allow men on future occasions also to kill some other beast for their sustenance.®? Sometimes the morsel of meat is dedicated to the “‘spirits’’,83 or the “spirits (demonios) of the forest’’,8* or directly to “the forest’’.8> Or again, it is thought of as “‘the earth’s portion”, or “‘the master of the earth’s provision”’.8¢ Usually, the offering is made to a single Being, the only one of his kind, who is thought of as “he who established the earth”, in order that “it may be his pleasure to give wild boars” (or “deer”’);87 or again ‘to him who gives our nourishment’, so that “he may be pleased to give us our nourishment without difficulty’, or “that we may easily find what we need in the world”, or “that he may be liberal in giving us our sustenance??.88 Among the Negritos of the Allak4pan district (N.-W. Kagayàn), and in particular among those of Giba and Kamugàwan, to the south, this Being is known by the name of Bayagàw, or Banagàw.5° Bayagaw is indeed ‘the master of wild pigs’ (c, 563); when an arrow shot by a Negrito does not hit its mark, it is Bayagaw who is protecting the beast. The same holds good for other animals, including fish; when the Negritos can find no fish (they use bows and arrows for fishing also, a, 415),90 it is because Bayagaw is hiding them from their sight (c, 547).
On the other hand, Bayagaw has quite lofty attributes. He is omniscient, invisible, has been from time immemorial and never dies
(c, 563), and lives in heaven, which is where the good go when they die (c, 547, 563).91 According to Father Vanoverbergh and Father Schmidt,92 this Bayagaw is a genuine Supreme Being of pure “monotheistic” type, with the attributes characteristic of and inherent in such a lofty nature as his, creative power, omnipotence, goodness and
320 so on, including
THE ALL-KNOWING all-seeing
omniscience;
GOD and
this most
pure
con-
ception of Deity goes back to the original Negrito religion, before it was polluted by animism of ‘‘Malayan”’ origin. But, this very exalted concept of Divinity, as reflected in His attributes, is not found in connection with Bayagaw except among the Negritos of Giba. Those of Nagan, who ‘live more isolatedly than the other Negritos in general” (d 160), and therefore ought to have preserved the original religious traditions better,93 know nothing of the name of Bayagaw nor of his remarkable attributes. The Negritos of Giba, who are the only ones who know him, are indeed ‘bush’ Negritos, but live in contact with the Iloko, who are agricultural and Christianised Malays.94 This close connection of Negrito groups with Malayan tribes is proved for many other cases, the Negritos of Nagan being in contact with the Isneg, those of Allakapan with the Kalinga,
and so forth. Its effects are especially marked in their material culture (a 198 foll., 406 foll.). The Aeta have even generally dropped their original language and replaced it with that of their non-Negrito neighbours.95 As to their religion, according to Father Vanoverbergh, the Negritos have indeed undergone the influence of their pagan neighbours, their animism, their magic, their shamanism and so on, but not that of the Christian converts. The Negritos of Giba questioned by Father Vanoverbergh were called Grasio, Agàpito and Tosé;
others knew of “Adan”, Eve and the Virgin Mary,96 but all this, he holds, was limited to a mere outward adoption of Ghristian names and expressions. The word Diés, which is in common use (c 550), he takes to be simply another name for their Supreme Being.9? But can we believe that the terminology made its way among them without any penetration by the ideas it represents? In my opinion, we must distinguish, in the figure of Bayagaw, two different ideological complexes, the primitive and the modern, one native and the other of Christian origin.®* Fathers Vanoverbergh and Schmidt (locc. citt.; c 548 foll.) have not made this distinction, and have built up on the foundation of the composite figure of Bayagaw that of the original “monotheistic” Supreme Being of the Negritos. This is therefore an erroneous construction, from which we must subtract all the superstructure of Christian elements, or alterations, amplifications, transformations of primitive elements under the influence of Christian ideas. For the residuum after such subtraction, that is, what remains of Bayagaw when he is stripped of his Christian incrustations, is, besides the figure of the sky-god, also, and more especially, no other than the form of a typical Lord of Beasts, or Lord of the Forest. This is not a One God in any monotheistic sense, but the Supreme Being of the forest and of a forest-religion. He is not Lord of all, in an absolute
sense, but “‘lord of wild pigs” (and of wild fruits, from which also the
THE NEGRITOS
321
forest-dwellers derive sustenance). He is not the Creator of the world, but “he who established the earth”, with the beasts that live on it and the plants which grow from it. He is not omnipresent nor omniscient
nor does he behold from the sky what men do, but himself lives in the woods, and consequently is in a position to know “‘when anyone hides meat in the woods”.99 He is thus a kind of Supreme Being, but one belonging to the earth rather than the heavens.1° (See the Epilogue.) The idea of a Lord of beasts, and what goes with it, the offering of the first slice from a beast killed in hunting, make up an organic religious complex which is perfectly intelligible within the framework of a hunting culture. This complex, which is paralleled among other very archaic ethnic groups on the continent of Asia (see p. 294f.) and other continents (see the Conclusion), is probably due, among the Asiatic Negritos, to the original nucleus of their oldest undivided common culture. It is true that in its complete form it is to be found only among the Philippine Negritos, but certain animal aspects of the Supreme Being of the Andamanese (p. 308) and of the Semang (p. 317) have a claim to be considered as traces of its survival in a time in which the complex itself, as such, had given place to the prevalence of the sky-god. That there was once a religious unity among the Negritos within the framework of a primitive cultural unity (of hunting and foodgathering) anda like unity of language and physique is a priort likely enough. But to get a concrete definition of this supposed original religion we should take into account, not the alleged idea of a “‘monotheistic’? Supreme Being, but the concept of a sky-god, with its distant predecessor, the idea of a Lord of beasts. The religion of the sky-god, developing in the last analysis from that of the Lord of beasts, perhaps not without the concurrence of external influences (see p. 308f.), must go back to the common, proto-Nigritic culture, earlier than the separation of the three groups,1°1 because we find it among all three. The first to break off were the Andamanese, who, remaining isolated in their island abodes, preserved the complete form of the protoNigritic culture better than the rest, for it was hardly touched by influences from without, but subjected to an intense process of differentiation from within. The least archaic, ethnologically speaking, are the Negritos of the Malacca peninsula, who have undergone the influence of the agricultural and matrilineal culture of the protoMalays to a larger extent. The Negritos of the Philippines occupy a position which is ethnologically intermediate, in that while, on the one hand, they are culturally closer to the Semang than to the Andamanese (whether because they remained united to them longer or because they too were exposed, in the abodes they ultimately occupied,
to the same influences from without), on the other hand they have x
322
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
kept, better than the other two groups, the traces of their primitive worship of the Lord of beasts. NOTES 1. Cf. Paul Schebesta, Die Negrito Asiens i (Vienna and Médling 1952), which treats especially of the demographic and somatological problems; the ethnological section will be handled in another volume. 2. Our principal sources of information are the works of E. H. Man, originally pub. in 7.(R.)A.J. 1878, 1882, 1883, 1885, then collected in book form under the title On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands (London 1885, reprinted 1932), and A. R. Brown, The Andaman Islanders (London 1922). These are cited respectively as “Man” and “Brown”, followed by a page reference. ; 3. “When they dig up yams (which belong to Puluga), they take the tuber and replace the ‘crown’ with the attached stem in the ground, and explain this by saying that if they do so Puluga will not notice that the yam has been taken”, Brown 159. 4. Man 85, 90, 91, 97; Brown 152 sqq. 5. Brown, “Notes on the Language of the Andaman Islands”, in Anthropos
ix (1914), p. 40 sq.
6. Oluge means “thunder” in the dialect of Little Andaman, see R. C. Temple, Grammar of the Andamanese Language (Pt. i, Chap. iv of Census Report of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 1902), 26, 44; Brown, in Man, 1910, 3 59qq. Cf. puluke, “to pour with rain”, M. V. Portman, Notes on the Language of the South Andaman Group of Tribes (Calcutta 1898), p. 270. See further A.
Trombetti, “Puluga, il nome più diffuso della divinità”, in Rendiconti delle Sessioni della R. Accademia delle Scienze dell’ Istituto di Bologna, Classe di Scienze morali, Serie 2, Vol. v (1920-1), ““Puluga; origine e diffusione del nome”, in S.M.S.R. iii (1927), pp. 137-43. 7. Brown 145, 198, 206, 367 sq. 8. Bilik is also the general name for any wind except the South-West monsoon, Brown 149. 9. Brown, op. cit., p. 367, n. 1, cf. Folk-Lore xx (1909), p. 266. 10. A, Lang, “Puluga”’, in Man (1910), Nos. 30, 52. 11. W. Schmidt, “Puluga, the Supreme Being of the Andamanese”, in Man, 1910, No. 2, cf. Nos. 38, 47, in controversy with Brown, ibid. 17; Die Stellung
der Pygmdenvolker in der Entwicklungsgeschichte des Menschen (Stuttgart 1913), p- 193 sgq.; ‘“Die religidsen Verhaltnisse der Andamanesen-Pygmàen”, in Anthropos, 1921-2, p. 978 sqq.; Ursprung ii, pp. 50-145, especially p. 74 sq. 12. But after the Deluge, which had put out all fires, the new fire was also stolen from Puluga, Man 08 sq. 13. R. H. Lowie, Primitive Religion (New York 1924), p. 129 sqq., also opposes the “‘monotheistic” conception of Puluga. 14. The name of Puluga also is found applied to two other winds, thought of as his brothers, among the Akar-Bale, Brown 149, cf. Folk-Lore, 1909, p. 260.
15. The various theories are collected by Ake Ohlmarks, Studien zum Problem des Schamanismus (Lund and Copenhagen 1939), p. 256 sg. Cf.
THE NEGRITOS
323
M. Eliade, “Le chamanisme et les techniques de l’extase (Paris 1951). For the priority of male over female shamans, see Uno Harva, Die religidsen Vorstellungen der altaischen Volker (Helsinki 1938), p. 451. 16. The Lhota ratsen, Sema thumomi, Rengma temawa, Ao rachenlar (‘‘extractors of dirt’’); Hutton, Sema Nagas, pp. 214, 230, 334; Mills, Ao Nagas, p. 244, Rengma Nagas, 171. 17. Hanson, The Kachins, p. 132 (“the medium, myithoi, may be a man or a woman’’); Parry, The Lakhers, p. 485 (‘‘a famous woman seer: khazangneipa’’); Shakespear, The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 110 (a zawlnei may be found among “both males and females, but more generally females’’). 18. The Angami Kepenopfii, the Khasi U Blei and Ka’lei Nong Thaw, the Lushei Pathen-Nong jai, the Lakher Pi-leh-pu (cf. Chapter xvii, pp. 290-94). Some Siberian peoples also have the idea of “‘a divine two-sexed shaman embodying in one being a perfect man- and woman-nature. ... In the religion of the natives of the Altai this idea is expressed by the name ‘mother and father of the man’ given to the Supreme Being”, Miss M. A. Czaplicka, Aboriginal Siberia (Oxford 1914), p. 253. 19. Parry, The Lakher, p. 488 sqq. 20. Shakespear, op. cit., pp. 93-5. 21. Kojiki i, 16 (R. Pettazzoni, La Mitologia Giapponese, Bologna 1929, pp. 60-64). 22. In N. Andaman also “the sky (tau) is regarded as being made of stone (rock) and is called tau-meo (the sky-stone)”’, Brown 145. 23. Mills, Lhota Nagas, 172; Ao Nagas, 225. 24. A. Kihn, Berichte iiber den Weltanfang bei den Indochinesen (Leipzig 1935), PP. 22, 34. 25. See my paper, “Io and Rangi”, in Pro Regno Pro Sanctuario (Studies in honour of G. van der Leeuw), Nijkerk 1950, p. 361; also in Essays on the History of Religions (Leiden 1954). 26. Cf. H. A. Bernatzik, Die Geister der gelben Blatter (Munich 1938), p. I4I Sqq. 27. In Anthropos xxvi (1931), p. 212. 28. Cf. R. Heine-Geldern, ‘‘Mutterrecht u. Kopfjagd im westlichen Hinterindien”, in Mitt. d. anthrop. Gesellschaft in Wien li (1921), p. 105 599. 29. The spider also must not be killed, Brown 156. 30. “No forms of worship are to be found among them” (Man 88). “Having no forms or worship, they had no word for ‘prayer’ ” (bid. 50). Their abstaining from eating certain seeds and roots when first they germinate at the beginning of the rainy season, because at that time they are reserved for Puluga (Man 85-6), cannot stand fora sacrifice of first-fruits, even in the “‘passive’’ sense excogitated by Schmidt (Ursprung iu, p. 126). 31. Brown 147, cf. 159. 32. Whereas Taria is nothing but the south-west monsoon, Biliku is not only the north-east monsoon, but every other wind except the south-west monsoon. 33. W. W. Skeat and C. O. Blagden, Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula (2 vols., London 1906). Other authorities for this district are: Ivor H. N. Evans, Studies in Religion, Folk-Lore and Custom in British North Borneo
Peninsula
(Cambridge
1923), p. 134 599. (cited
hereafter
and the Malay
as “Evans
a”);
324
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
Papers on the Ethnology and Archaeology of the Malay Peninsula (Cambridge 1927) (cited as “Evans b”); The Negritos of Malaya (Cambridge 1937) (cited as “Evans c’”’); Father P. Schebesta, Bei den Urwaldzwergen von Malaya (Leipzig 1927) (cited as “Schebesta a”); Orang-Utan: Bei den Urwaldmenschen Malayas u. Sumatras (Leipzig 1928) (cited as “Schebesta 5’); ‘Religiose Anschauungen der Semang”, in Archivf. Religionswissenschaft xxiv (1926), pp. 209-33 (cited as ‘“Schebesta c’’, l.c. xxv (1927), 5-35 (cited as ‘‘c’’’). Schebesta’s definitive work (see n .1) came out too late to be used. For the religion of the Semang, see Father W. Schmidt, Ursprung iii (1931), pp. 146-279, and v (1934), pp. 777799. For the Siamese Semang, besides Evans 6, see Bernatzik, “‘Vorlaufige Ergebnisse meiner Hinterindien-Expedition”’, in Forschungen und Fortschritte, 1938, No. 10; Die Geister der gelben Blatter (Munich 1938), p. 77 sg. A diligent compilation is W. Nippold, Rassen- u. Kulturgeschichte der Negrito-Volker StidostAsiens, I (Stuttgart 1936). 34. Skeat-Blagden ii, 737; it also means “‘sky”’. 35. Schebesta c, 232; ¢’, 15, 243; 4 177 5q.3 Evans }, 13. 36. Schebesta a, 181, 2143 ¢, 215, 232; c’, 15. ‘““Thunderstones” are called batu Karei, Schebesta c, 211, cf. Evans a, 152. 37. Skeat-Blagden il, 209 sqq.; Evans a, 147, b, 23; Schebesta c’, 9, 13;
a, 245. 38. Evans a, 148, b, 23.
39. Schebesta c’, 9; Evans a, 148, b, 23-4, ¢, 145. 40. Some tribes have both Karei and Ta Pedn as two distinct figures. But in this case Ta Pedn is Karei’s son (so the Jahai, Schebesta c, 211, 213, 215) or his younger brother (so the Kenta, Schebesta c, 226, and the Grik Negritos or Sabubn, c, 222; Evans a, 149-50). This is against Schebesta’ s theory (c’, 29, a, 271) that Ta Pedn is the original Supreme Being of the Semang and the maker of thunder, while Karei originally is nothing else than thunder personified. Ta Pedn, like Karei, has Manoid for his wife (so the Kensiu), or Takel (so the Jarum Jahai, Schebesta c’, 7, 14); he too, like Karei, has a ONE brother (Kalcéegn among the Kensiu, Bajaig among the Kenta, Schebesta c’, 8; Evans a, 147). The identity of Ta Pedn and Karei is explicitly vouched for by Kenta and Kensiu natives (Schebesta c, 231, c’, 6). Ta Pedn in the “sacred” speech of the Kenta is equivalent to Karei in “profane” speech, Schebesta c, 228. 4I. Schebesta c’, 17-18, a, 267, b, 190 sgq. They know nothing of Karei, even as a name of thunder, Schebesta b, 216. 42. Skeat-Blagden ii, p. 573. Among the Jahai also med Keto means “the sun” (Schebesta c, 218). Likewise among the Chong Negritos, cut off at the northern end of the peninsula of Siam, the sun is called med ketok and is the dwelling of Moltek, who lives in the sky ‘as high as thunder”, but thunder is produced by Kagi (Evans 5, 12; Schmidt, Ursprung iv, p. 744, v, p. 778 54. thinks Moltek and Kagi are the same). 43. Evans 5, 17, 18, 20. According to the Ple of the Kerlass River, Karei lives on the earth when the sun shines and goes back to the ay when it rains. 44. Schebesta c, 211; cf. Skeat-Blagden ii, p. 202, n. 1, where Ney bold (1839) is quoted for the statement that ‘“‘they [the Negritos} worship the sun” 45. Schebesta a, 181, c, 215.
THE
NEGRITOS
325
46. Schebesta c’, 22-5, 25-7; b, 57, 66, 136. 47. Skeat-Blagden ii, 737, cf. Evans a, 199 (Ungku). 48. Evans a, 198; swearing by the sun is a form of oath which is used among the Sakai of Jeram Kawan (ibid., p. 199), and among the Sakai of the Behrang River (Batang Padang, Perak, ibid., p. 218). Cf. Evans, ““Some Sakai Beliefs and Customs”, 7.R.A.J. xlviii (1918), p. 180. 49. Schebesta, ‘Der Hala- oder Medizinmannwesen bei den Semang auf Malakka”, in Fahrbuch von St. Gabriel, 1926, pp. 253-65; Evans, ““Schebesta on the Sacerdo-Therapy of the Semang”, in 7.R.A.J. Ix (1930), pp. 115-25; Evans c, 190 sqgq. 50. Evans a, 150 (Grik Negritos), c, 208 (Menri). 51. Namely, the “great” as distinguished from the “‘little” hala; according to the Menri the “great” medicine-man, halak puteu, is in communication with Karei, while the muna, or little, hala can communicate only with Karei’s sons. Among the Kenta and Kensiu it is the great hala who diagnoses and cures, whereas the little hala diagnoses only; they are called respectively putew and snahud, Evans c, 206, 208. 52. Schebesta c’,.14-15; Evans c, 208. 53. Schebesta c’, 6, cf. Skeat-Blagden ii, p. 210: “When you hear the noise of the Riang-riang [cicada] in the jungle, that is the voice of Ta Pénn’s children. ... Ta Pénn has four children . . . probably different kinds of insects (cicada, etc.).” 54. Karei as a monkey among the Sabubn, Evans a, 149, Schebesta c, 222; among the Menri, Schebesta c’, 25, 15; among the Ple-Temiar, ibid., 25, 22. Enku as bear (and monkey), Schebesta, ibid., 25-7. 55. Skeat-Blagden ii, p. 204, quoting Vaughan Stevens; Evans a, 141, 151, 199; c, passim (photograph on p. 184); Schebesta c, c‘, passim, a, 181, 190, 210, 243 sqq. (photographs of the rite, pp. 208-9), b, 66 sqq.; 137; same, in Settimana internazionale di Etnologia religiosa, iv Sess. (Milan 1925), Paris 1926, p. 186 sqg.; “Gesellschaft u. Familie bei den Semang auf Malacca”, in Anthropos, 1928, p. 235; Die religiésen Anschauungen der Semangzwergen von Malaya (Disseldorf 1928). 56. In this case, if the storm does not cease after collective blood-letting, the killer is put to death, cut up, and his blood sprinkled in the air. 57. Skeat-Blagden i, pp. 53 5q., 65; Evans ¢, 31, 90, a, 193 N. 3; bigyi Gite motive (adapted) of the arrow-chain (Pettazzoni, “The Chain of Arrows’’, in Folk-Lore xxxv (1924), pp. 151-65), shot from the blowpipe, among the Kaien, who are neighbours of the Kenta (Evans a, 147-8). 58. Inheritance through the maternal line among the Kenta, Schebesta, “Gesellschaft u. Familie bei den Semang auf Malakka”, in Anthropos, 1928, aw’s p. 242; Evans c, 254; service done by the son-in-law in the father-in-l a citt.; locc. Schebesta, and Evans marriage, the after ly immediate household Semang, Siamese the among woman as the “head” of the community (?) Evans c, 30, cf. Schebesta, of. cit., p. 237u. ihr 59. W. Schmidt, “Die Sprachen der Sakai u. Semang auf Malakka en landtaal-, de tot Bijdragen in chen”, er-Spra Verhaltniss za den Mon-Khm
Evans volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indié (1901); Skeat-Blagden ii, pp. 385 s99-; b, 8.
326
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
60. Nanga among the Semai, Schebesta a, 137, c’, 27; Nago is wife of Karei among the Ple, Schebesta a, 65, c’, 20. 61. Schebesta 6, 57 sqq., c’, 22 sq. 62. See my Confession des péchés i (Paris 1931), especially Chapter 1. 63. Schebesta ¢, c’, passim (Jahai, Sabubn, Kenta, Kensiu); cf. Evans c, 171. According to T. J. Newbold, quoted by Skeat-Blagden ii, p. 205, note, only women draw blood. In the Kenta myth of the origin of man, woman comes into being before man, Schebesta c, 230.
64. Reciprocal incision in the neighbourhood of the navel performed by the husband on the wife and the wife on the husband in the Bechuana rite of confession, Rev. W. C. Willoughby, The Soul of the Bantu (New York 1928), p. 226 sqg. 65. Yuchi (blood drawn from forearm and chest), F. G. Speck, “Ethnology of the Yuchi Indians”, in Univ. of Pennsylvania, Anthropological Pubs. of the University Museum i (Philadelphia 1901), p. 114. 4 66. Zelia Nuttall, “A penitential rite of the Ancient Mexicans”, in Archaeological and Ethnological Papers of the Peabody Museum i (Cambridge, Mass., 1904), P. 439 599.; R. Pettazzoni, “La confessione dei peccati nelle antiche religioni americane”, in S.M.S.R. ii (1926), pp. 163-229, cf. Atti del xxii Congresso degli Americanisti (1926), Roma 1928, ii, pp. 277-88; La confession des péchési (Paris
1931), pp. 191-306.
67. See Peter Martyr,
(1925), p. 15.
De Insulis, 35; cf. Krickeberg, in Bdassler-Archiv ix
68. Seneca, Nat. quaest. iv, 6; Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis vi, 31 (Vol. li, p. 446, Stahlin); cf. my note in S.M.S.R. vi (1930), p. 285. Plutarch, however (Moralia 700e), says the hail was averted by using the blood of a spalax (Spalax typhlus, the blind-rat) and rags stained with menstrual discharge. 69. Tibullus i, 6, 43; Strabo xii, 2, 3 (p. 535)» 3. 32 (p. 557); Lucan i, 565; Plutarch, Sulla 9; Historia Augusta, Commodus 9, 5; Lucian, Lucius 37; Apuleius, Metamorph. viii, 27-8; Herodotos ii, 61. Cf., for the Karians, my Confessione dei Peccati, iii (Bologna 1936), pp. 20-2. 70. Speaking of the blood-rite among the Semang and the African Pygmies of Gabun, which he conceives to be an expiatory sacrifice, he writes (Ursprung Vi (1935), p. xxv): “However, in the final synthesis of the present volume I feel obliged . . . to exclude it [the rite in question] from the oldest religion of mankind and to suppose that even the original culture of the Pygmies did not have it until a matrilineal culture had influenced them. .. . If the analogies adduced by Pettazzoni from the Totonaki and the people of Kleonai also belong to this sphere remains to be shown by a more exact examination on the lines of the cultural antiquity of both, but it is not impossible.” 71. Schebesta 6, 62-64, c’, 19-21. 72. Schebesta c, 218, 231, c’, 10, 15; Evans c, 171. 73. Schebesta c, 229; a, 156, 209 sq.; photograph of the batu ribn facing p. 137. Evans a, 156, c, 185 (photograph of the model of the “pillar of the world” as described by the Kenta, facing p. 188). 74. Schebesta c, 225-26 (the Kenta); Djalai, wife of Kaei, sits with him on a mat in the eastern sky, cf. Jalang wife of Tapern, Evans a, 147 sqq. The Batek Negritos of Pahang, or at least one of them, from Lata Lang on the Cheka river, say the sky-god Jawait, who lives “in the eye of heaven”, “has a wife,
THE NEGRITOS
327
Geles, who lives with him in the sky”; below the earth is a dragon which “produces the welling up of the waters from under the earth”, Evans è, 18. Keto appears to have no wife among the Batek Nogn, see Schebesta c’, 30. 75. Kensiu, Schebesta c’, 12; Jarum Jahai, ibid., 14; Batek Nogn, ibid., 18; Sabubn, c, 223; Ple, c, 23. Skeat-Blagden ii, p. 205, quoting Vaughan-Stevens, say ‘‘Karei makes no use of the blood”, but add: “Ple, however, employs the blood of the Semang in order to create certain red jungle fruits which serve as food for man.” According to the Lanoh Negritos of Lenggong in Upper Perak, it is the Yara-Meng, a female being in the sky, who when very aged, “just skin
and bones”, becomes young again, also the Moon, who takes the blood that is thrown upwards (Evans c, 145-6, 174). 76. Cemam, a sort of kidney disease, cf. Evans c, 183, while pacog is a kind of puncture in the chest, thought of as caused by a splinter of thunder-stone penetrating it (Schebesta c, 221, for the Jahai, cf. a, 62). 77. Schebesta c, 225 (Sabubn), c’, 15 (Menri), etc. 78. By burning wood (Evans 4, 18, the Batek), or thatch from the huts (so the Sakai of Padang Batang, Schebesta.c’, 27). The Jakun also (Skeat-Blagden ii, 297; Schebesta 6, 216), make smoke with leaves or resin. The Ple-Sakai use coals from the hearth,, Schebesta c’, 23; for the firebrands, etc., see G. B. Cerruti, Nel paese dei veleni e fra i cacciatori di teste, ed. 3 (Florence 1936), p. 139. 79. As, in the Andamans, the medicine-men have a different lot from other mortals in the next world (‘their spirits live apart from the spirits ‘of ordinary men and women”, cf. above, p. 305), so in Malacca, according to the Kedah Negritos, “the souls of shamans (belian) proceed to the Island of Fruit Trees, while those of ordinary Negritos go a long way across the sea’ (Evans c, 256). 80. Evans a, 153; 186, c, 173, 233. An Andamanese example is the changing of Biliku (female) into a rock in an Aka-Jeru myth from North Andaman, Brown 198, cf. 90. For Indonesian parallels see W. J. Perry, The Megalithic Culture of Indonesia (Manchester 1918), p. 127. 81. The rich and important material gathered in John M. Garvan’s large MS., ‘‘The Pygmies of the Philippines”’, has not yet been published and I know only what has been extracted from it by the Rev. J. M. Cooper, in “AndamanSemang-Eta Cultural Relations”, in Primitive Man xiii, p. 2 (Washington 1940), pp. 29-47. The results of an expedition of Father Schebesta among the Negritos of the Philippines in 1939-40 are contained in his exhaustive work, Die Negrito Asiens (see note 1). The researches of Father M. Vanoverbergh among the Nagan Negritos of Apayaw district, Mountain Province (1924-6) and of Allakapan, Kagayan Province, are published in Anthropos, and are hereinafter referred to by the letters prefixed to each group. (a) Anthropos
1925,
pp.
148-9, 399-443
(for religion, see p. 434 foll.). (5) Ibid. 1929,
(d) Ibid. 1938, Pp. PP. 3-75, 897-912. (c) Ibid. 1930, pp. 25-71, 527-65. pp. 948-54, 1953; PP. 71-
119-64 (religion, p. 160 foll.). Cf. also ibid. 1936, 104 and Festschrift W. Schmidt (Vienna 1928), pp. 760-3. 82. For northern Luzon, see F. Blumentritt, in Globus xlv (1884), p. 753 Negritos Vanoverbergh, a, 4353 ¢, 547 foll., 563. Western Luzon; W. A. Reed, of Zambales (Manilla 1904), 48. Eastern Luzon; Vanoverbergh, d, 162 the foll. (sometimes several slices are cut, e.g. one from the heart, one from of flesh liver, one from the hide and so on, Vanoverbergh, c, 546; or the piece
328
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
or intestines is subdivided into so many fragments, which are thrown in all directions, Reed, Joc. cit.). Cooper’s article says nothing about this custom, but I find it hard to believe that there are no traces of it in Garvan’s work. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88, 89. go.
Adawag, eastern Kagayan, Vanoverbergh, d, 163, cf. Reed, loc. cit. Kabaritan, Allak4pan district, c, 546. Calabgan, eastern Kagayan, d, 163. Allakapan, c, 544. Nagan, Apayaw, a, 436. Allakapan, ¢, 551. Vanoverbergh, c, 547, 563. Cfr. Nippold, Rassen- und Kulturgeschichte der Negrito-Vélker Stidost-Asiens
(Leipzig 1936), p. 172 foll. gt. Bad men stay on the earth or go beneath it, or are flung into (boiling ?) water (Vanoverbergh, d, 164). 3 92. Vanoverbergh, c, 548-551; d, 160 foll.; Schmidt, Ursprung iii, p. 280
foll.; v, p. 800 foll. 93. Vanoverbergh, in Anthropos (1936), p. 951, etc. 94. “Most of them,” writes Vanoverbergh, c, 562, “lived here and there in places where they could help the Iloko with the rice-harvest.” 95. Vanoverbergh, a, 199; the Allakapan Negritos speak Ibanag, 5, 889; cf. Nippold, of. cit., pp. 361 foll. 96. Vanoverbergh, è, 42; c, 545 foll., 550, 552 foll.; cf. Anthropos (1936),
P. 951, etc. 97. Vanoverbergh, c, 544, cf. Primitive Man vi (1933), pp. 25 foll. 98. The name Bayag4w, itself, in use among the “bush” Negritos (the civilised ones say Dids instead, Vanoverbergh, c, 551), is doubtfully “primitive’, i.e. going back to the original language, now out of use (see above, p. 320), of the Negritos. The text recited at the nocturnal ceremonies of the Negritos of north Luzon and handed down in substantially the same form at Nagan (a, 421), Kabaritan (5, 902), and Kamugawan (Anthropos (1936), p. 952 foll.) is one which, although unintelligible to the Negritos themselves, ought to be a specimen of their original language, although not without an
intrusion of Austronesian forms (Schmidt, Ursprung iii p. 294, cf. Anthropos (1942-5), p. 902); and it does not contain the word Bayagaw, although it is nothing but a prayer to the Supreme Being (Vanoverbergh, a, 441). 99. The statement that Bayagaw not only knows “when someone hides meat in the forest”, but also “when anyone kills his neighbour, when one does wrong” is due to a Christianised Negrito, Vanoverbergh, c, 563. 100. In this connection the discussion relative to the home of Bayagaw, mentioned by Vanoverbergh, c, 547, is informative. His abode in the sky represents the “modern” point of view; that he lives on carth is a statement
founded on the testimony of an old Negrito now dead. His omnipresence is never explicitly attributed to him, for the affirmation of Vanoverbergh, c, 549, that it may be deduced from prayers being addressed to him, is purely gratuitous. Invisibility as an attribute of Bayagaw is asserted by a civilised Negrito of Dios (c, 548). The attribute of goodness “is not expressly attested, but must (sic) nevertheless be presupposed”, Schmidt, Ursprung iii, 315. 101, Cif, Nippold, op. cit., pp. 353, 355 foll.
Chapter XIX
INDONESIA
(a) NIAS HE idea of a Supreme Being or primordial Principle is found in the cosmogonic myths of the island of Nias in various forms. The difference is clearest if we compare the myths of the northern part of the island with those of the south. In the north, a distinction is usually made between an absolute First Principle and a Being who created the world and is the chieftain of the human race. This second concept is represented by Lowalangi, the former rather by Uwu Lowalangi, whom some? interpret as ‘‘first Lowalangi’’, ‘‘first”’ having the meaning of “‘chief”’ or ‘‘ancestor’’ (of the other gods and of Lowalangi himself). Others again take uwu to mean “top”, and interpret Uwu Lowalangi as “exalted Lowalangi’’, i.e. Lowalangi himself with an epithet signifying sublimity.2 Whatever the names may mean, the two ideas are merely the duplication of a single fundamental concept, which is not that of a Creator-God of “‘monotheistic”’ type, but of a Supreme Being in the heavens, who in his elementary form, not yet duplicated, is represented by Lowalangi (/angi=sky). Lowalangi is “omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent’’,? not because these attributes are implicit in his character of supreme God, as the theory of Urmonotheismus postulates, but because they are inherent in his celestial nature itself. Lowalangi’s omniscience is set forth in various phrases which are often on the lips of the natives, as ‘“Lowalangi is looking’’, ‘‘Lowalangi sees when we are cheated’, ““Lowalangi hears my words if I tell a lie’’. His omniscience, like that of so many other sky-gods, has therefore the doings and sayings of men for its object. Besides, his sanctions, like those of many other sky-gods, are enforced by means of the weather. In a myth from the south of Nias, the sinful union of a brother and his sister, from which the human race took its beginning, was punished by Lowalani (the southern form of the god’s name) with torrential rains,t much as, among the Toba-Batak of Sumatra, the incest of Si Dole, granddaughter of the Supreme Being, with a certain magician or medicine-man was in its turn punished with a drought which lasted three years.5 In south Nias, the prevailing figure is that of the great primaeval Mother. In the cosmogonic myths of the south, the coming into being of the universe, instead of proceeding bya séries of “creative” acts on the part of a primordial sky-god, developed through a succession of
THE ALL-KNOWING GOD 390 generative acts of a female being, the Earth. The Earth is thought of as a mother who bears because she is made fruitful by a male principle, and this fructifying principle is the Wind. From the mists of chaos there emerged a rock, which split, and from this rock appeared the primordial Mother, who conceived by the Wind and so became the ancestress of the tribes of gods (Lowalani and his brother Lature, god of the underworld) and of men. Or, the primordial Mother formed the earth from the dirt and excreta of her own body. Or (in a cosmogonic poem handed down among some islanders of Batu who came originally from Nias),7 it was “‘our mother Dao” who gave the earth being by her death, but first, standing on the edge of the abyss, gathered in her bosom the fructifying onset of the winds, and so gave birth to the first pairs, divine and human. ; The theme of the Wind is found again in the northern mythology of Nias. Indeed, in a long cosmogonic narrative which forms part of an ancient funeral hymn in the north of the island, we are told of the origin of the universe from a primordial being called Sihai, who in dying brought into existence the sun from his right eye, the moon from his left, while from his mouth there sprouted a tree of fire and another of smoke, the tree of gold sprang from his throat, and the tree from which men originate came out of his epigastrium. But Sihai in his turn came from Uwu Lowalangi, for he had his beginning from a little mud which Uwu Lowalangi moulded into the shape of a man and brought to life with his breath.8 As already stated *(p. 329), Uwu Lowalangi is one of the forms of the sky-god, and his life-giving breath is the wind. The conception of a sky-god whose essential manifestation is the wind? we have met already in China (Chapter XVI, p. 278), in Assam and in upper Burma (Chapter XVII, p. 290); also in the Andamans we may remember the differentiation of the local sky-
god in Puluga or Biliku and Taria or Teria, the N.-E.
and S.-W.
monsoons respectively (Chapter XVIII, p. 309).10 In another version of the northern myth of origins, the wind (angi) is the breath’of Sihai himself,11 who thus is after a fashion a hypostasis of Uwu Lowalangi, i.e. of the sky-god. In another version again it is said that Sihai, who was born a shapeless lump from the two primordial winds, then got shape from a spirit which made him arms, legs and a head, the head having nine nostrils and nine mouths from which came nine different winds.12 This motif of the winds breathing from the nostrils of Sihai may be brought into relation with that of the two eyes of Sihai which are (see above) the sun and the moon. The motif of two astral eyes reappears unaltered in the Vedic-Brahmanic myth of Purusa, and naturally suggests that it passed from India to Indonesia and by that route went on to the Batak (Semang) of Malacca, whose Supreme Being has
INDONESIA
331
likewise the sun and moon for eyes (Chapter XVIII, p. 311). But the motif itself has a far wider diffusion, for we find it in China in the myth of P’anku,!%« in Japan in that of Izanagi, among the Samoyeds in the figure of Num (Chapter XV, p. 260). It appears also in ancient Egypt in the person of Amun (Chapter II, p. 56), with this addition that in the case of Amun the motif of the two astral eyes is associated with that of the wind blowing from the nostrils, and thus we get the picture of a prodigiously large face, that of the sky-god, the eyes of which are the sun and moan and the breath coming from the nostrils and mouth is the wind, exactly as in the case of Sihai. The same holds good for Izanagi, for according to the Kojiki! he originated not only the Sungoddess (by washing his left eye) and the Moon-god (by washing his right eye), but also to the Wind-god (by washing his nose). On the other hand, we must note that in the myth of Sihai the lifegiving breath of Uwu Lowalangi affects a little figure moulded from mud. In this mud, which is earth, and this breath, which is wind, it is easy to recognise the complex of Mother Earth made fertile by the
wind from the sky-god, or, in the last analysis, the two terms of the cosmic couple which, all over Indonesia, crosses with the concept of the one celestial creative Being. (5) BORNEO The Iban or Sea Dyaks of Sarawak say that unlawful sexual relations (incest) are punished (and therefore must be known) by Petara, who lives in the sky above the clouds and sends rain by way of punishment; in bad weather, to make it clear up, a pair accused of unlawful relations are cast out from the village, while invocations are addressed to Petara.14 Petara is a name of Hindu origin,!5 and the Iban came to Borneo perhaps not more than three centuries ago, arriving from the west, most likely from Sumatra, on the tail of Malay pirates.16 But the motif of weather-punishments for incest, which occurs also on Sumatra and Nias (see above, p. 329), points to. very old origins. The same theme is to be found among the Dusun of British North Borneo, who believe that incest and other immoral relations are punished by destructive floods, epidemics and other disasters brought about by Kinoingan or Kinharingan, who lives in the sky with his wife Sinumundu or Munsumundok and is invoked in oaths.17 According to their myth, Kinharingan and his wife were born from the primal rock and became the ancestors of the human race. They killed their first baby, a girl according to the Dusun of Tuaran, to feed the first men; they cut her up and from her head sprang the coco-nut, from the bones of her arm sugar-cane, her fingers became bananas and her blood paddy (rice).18 Among some of the Dyaks of South Borneo (the Maanjan and their
332
THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
relatives, of the Ot Dusun group) the Supreme Being has a name of Islamic origin, Alata’ala or Hatalla. With the name comes probably his whole group of “‘monotheistic” attributes, omnipotence, eternity and so on, including his power of seeing everything.!9 Far more important and much feared is a spirit called Nanju, who speaks in the thunder, makes lightning by licking with his tongue, and, when angered by some misdeed committed by men, shows his wrath by some kind of disaster caused by fire or water, or by turning the wrongdoers and their dwellings into stone. As this Nanju is superior to the other spirits, and punishes by means of weather-phenomena, he may go back to the primitive idea of the sky-god who knows what men do. It is noteworthy that among the acts which especially displease him is making fun of certain creatures (the cat, the dog and some insects), as in the case of Karei among the Semang and Puluga among the Andamanese, etc. (Chapter XVIII, pp. 308, 312, 318). The various Dyak tribes of Central Borneo are less exposed to infiltrations of ‘modern’ religions. They form a comparatively homogeneous group having a peasant culture and a matrilineal social structure, more or less mixed with patrilineal elements. The Bahau of Mahakam (North-West central Borneo), originally of Apo-Kayan, have a Supreme Being whom they name Timei Tinggei. He lives in the highest heaven with his wife Uniang Tenangan. He is omniscient in the sense that he knows men’s misdoings, adultery for example, which he punishes with bad crops (and so by implitation uses the weather for his punitive measures) and other disasters.2° Among the Kayan there is an analogous Supreme Being, Laki Tenangan, who has a wife, Doh Tenangan. Among the Kenyah the Supreme Being is named Balli Penyalong, his wife being Do Penyalong. The wife of the Supreme Being is worshipped particularly by women.21 Among the Klementan or Kalamantan the Supreme Being, Balli Utong, apparently has no partner, and the same is true of Balli Lutong, the Supreme Being of the Punan.22 The Punan are nomads, do not raise rice, and live by hunting and food-gathering.2 The Klementan also, while under the influence of agricultural tribes, probably go back to the same pre-agricultural substratum. It is therefore, it would seem, the most primitive inhabitants of Borneo, perhaps the first dwellers on the island, who have the idea of a single Supreme Being, whereas the agricultural peoples have a divine pair which, although not exactly Sky and Earth, already involves a dualistic principle.
(c) CELEBES This dualistic principle in its characteristic form of the couple, Sky and Earth, is found again in Celebes among the Alfures of Minahassa, where Lumimuut, the Earth, is made pregnant by the west wind (i.e.
INDONESIA
333
the North-west monsoon), which brings the rains, as a manifestation of Kalangi, ‘the Heavenly One” (/angi means “‘sky””), otherwise known as Muntu-untu, “the exalted’’.24 So among the east-Toradja of Central
Celebes Lai, “the Man” above, is the husband of Ndara, the ‘‘Girl”
on earth,?> while Pue-m-palaburu, the ‘‘fashioner”, appears mainly in ‘the cosmogonic myth. Pue-m-palaburu sees and knows everything, having the sun for an eye, while his servant Indo nTegolili, the “Mother who circles around” the earth and tells him all the evil that men do,
letting nothing escape notice,2¢ punishes the ill-doings of men, is punished (again the weather drought or violent whirlwinds,
is the moon. Pue-m-palaburu sees and especially incest and bestiality. Incest furnishes the means) with prolonged other offences with earthquakes and
landslides, theft and lying with the death of the thief or liar, who is
struck byafalling tree or eaten by a crocodile. Perjury also draws down Pue-m-palaburu’s vengeance, indeed he is invoked in oaths.27 Making fun of certain animals likewise calls’ down mishaps, as violent storms,
floods or the collapse of huts or whole villages,28 as we found also among the Maanjan of Borneo (above, p. 332) and the Andamanese and other Negritos (Chapter XVIII, pp. 308, 312, 318). (d) FLORES In West Flores we find a Supreme Being, Muri Kraeng, the “High chief’’, who ‘“‘sees in secret’’ and punishes sins. Among the natives of Manggerai, Muri Kraeng or Mori Keraeng is thought of as a single and a double being, resulting from the joining of two halves, which are man and wife, that is the sky, /angit, and the earth, alang, respectively male and female; the earth, fertilized by the rain, produces crops and
fruit-trees.22 Among the Riung, Muri Kraeng is invisible, “‘like the wind”, and knows everything that men do; he punishes their offences (adulteries, thefts and so on) with earthquakes and other disasters. Muri Kraeng lives in the sky and has a wife who is also Muri Kraeng. His two-in-one character is expressed in another of his names, Lezo Vulang, that is “Sun-Moon”; “Muri Kraeng, Sky-Earth, Sun-Moon, sees and knows if you have sinned.’?30 Farther east, among the Ngadha, the Supreme Being is called by the Sanskrit name of Deva, but is entirely similar to Muri Kraeng. Deva lives in the sky, the clouds are his throne or his curtain, the rain is his sweat, thunder and lightning are the instruments of his wrath. This celestial nature is the root of his omniscience as regards the actions of mankind. Deva sees and knows everything, notices all that men do, and punishes wicked deeds, particularly incest, either by checking the rain or by making it fall excessively, i.e. by drought or storm, or in
some other way; he is invoked in oaths and curses and punishes perjurers. Like Muri Kraeng, Deva is both one and two, “it is not
334
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
known whether he is a man or a woman”, because he is both man and
woman, both the fertilizing wind and the earth which the wind fertilizes. The wind is his manifestation and a further instrument of his omniscience, because ‘the wind has ears to hear and eyes to see.’?31 In the region of Lio, in Middle Flores, it is Dua Nggae who is credited with seeing and knowing all things. He ‘knows everything”, ‘sees everything”, “knows all men”, is everywhere, and finally nothing that men do escapes his notice and he punishes their transgressions. Dua Nggae is thought of as a primaeval being who is both one and two, but the natives’ notions on this point are very confused and often contradictory. Generally Dua is male and lives in the sky, Nggae is
female and lives in the earth, but sometimes Dua, the sky, is female and Nggae, the earth, is male. Really, apart from superimposed Hinduism (Dua is Deva; he is also called raja) and finally Christianity (Adam and Eve are also found among them), which have obscured the original conception, Dua and Nggae are Sky and Earth, and Dua Nggae is originally the typical pair, in which the two components, Sky and Earth, have lost their individual characters and continue only as terms
of the couple itself, which is thought of as a person and inherits the specific naturistic characters of one and the other of these figures. Aspects of Dua Nggae which result from his nature as a sky-god are his
blue «colour, his residence in heaven, and eyes which are the stars, and so on, and here also belongs his universal vision and knowledge. It should be added that Dua-Nggae is otherwise called«Vula Ledza; ie; Moon-Sun,*2 who is otherwise thought of on occasion as being his servant.8° In East Flores and in the small neighbouring islands of
Solor,
the Supreme
Being is named
Lera-Wulan,
i.e. Sun-Moon,
which does not prevent him having Tana Ekan, the Earth, for his female counterpart.33a (e) THE MOLUCCA ISLANDS On the island of Buru, the figure of Opo geba snulat, “Lord (or ‘Grandfather’?) Maker of Men”, who sees and knows everything, has been so strongly influenced by Islam that he is also known as Opo Lahatala, a corruption of Allah ta’ala.34 But behind him stand Ubun, or Opo, Langi, i.e. Lord (Grandfather) Sky,, closely associated with Uban Sanane, Lady (Grandmother) Earth.35 In like manner, on Ceram, Upu Langi (or Lanite, or Nanite), ‘Lord Sky”, is invoked in
oaths together with Upu Tapene, “Lady Earth”.36 Similarly on Am-
bon, Upu Lanito, “Lord Sky”, or Amaka (Father) Lanito, lives in heaven, where he causes thunder and lightning when he goes to fight against the evil spirits; but, like Upu Langi on Ceram, he lives particularly in the sun, whence he sends the rain to fertilize Upu (or Ina, or Inaka) Ume, “‘Lady (Mother) Earth”. Upu Lanito knows what men
INDONESIA
335
do, and when he sees any misdeed he is wroth. In oaths, Upu Lanito Ume, “Grandfather Heaven and Earth” is invoked, or to translate
more precisely, ““Lord (Grandfather) Sky-Earth”, in other words the couple, Sky-Earth, thought of as one being in two persons. The sky itself is on occasion invoked as Aamina Lanito, ‘Father-Mother Sky??.37 In the Kei Islands we find the doublet Sun-Moon instead of SkyEarth; Duadleera-wulan, “Lord Sun-Moon”, lives in the sky (lanit) and fertilizes the earth with rain at the season of the western monsoon. He is invoked in oaths.38 In the Aru Islands also oaths are addressed to e vulan dya lara, which is literally ‘Moon Lord Sun”, a two-in-one being who sees everything in the sky (Jangi) and on the earth (vava). Dyabu lara, the Sun, fertilizes Dyabu fafa, the Earth, when the western
monsoon Oirata of Kisar; first half
sets in, that being the wind which brings the rain.89 is a village in the south-eastern coastal region of the island it was founded by natives of Timor who immigrated in the of the eighteenth century. In the creation-myth which is
current there, we-find the Supreme Being, in his capacity as creator,
in the form of two in one, named Apna-Apha (or Na-Ha), ‘‘ourmother-our-father”, who is said to have ‘caused the large Sky (Maukou) and the Earth (Huzmau) to be one’’. From their union sprang the world, up to the creation of the human species. Sky and Earth are therefore the primaeval Father and Mother, and the Creator is simply their union, the combination of Mother (Earth) and Father (Sky), hence Apna-Apha. In like manner the Creator is entitled Uru-Wadu, that is ‘Moon-Sun”, this couple being equivalent to Earth-Sky as a summary of the cosmic dualism. All this is shown in the informative study of J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong,*° in which the Creator, “although represented as standing outside and above nature, is nevertheless in different ways identified with or personified by minor mythical figures and natural phenomena’”’. Thus, in the episode of the loves of Mamere and Masamere (the rainbow and the secondary rainbow, conceived as respectively male and female), the ‘old woman of standing” who betrays Masamere’s affair to her brothers is, according to de Jong,*1 a form of the Creator himself, ‘who hears and knows
everything and who directs the destined course of events by interfering at the right moment’’.42 While the cosmic pair Sun-Moon is restricted to the islands of eastern Indonesia where the presence of a Papuan element is to be taken into account, that of Sky-Earth seems to be spread in sundry shapes and forms, as we have seen, all over Indonesia, to say nothing of its still wider distribution in continental Asia and in Oceania (Polynesia, see Chapter XX, p. 344). Father Schmidt has attempted to prove a contamination and obscuration by an eastern solar mythology of an older lunar one preserved in western Indonesia, which
336
THE ALL-KNOWING
GOD
kept closer to the pure original conception of a Supreme Being.** But a ‘‘naturistic’’ interpretation of mythology in the various forms of lunar, solar or meteorological myths and so on is not enough to grasp the full sense of the legends. A myth is something different from a pre-scientific, merely imaginative explanation of the world, a primitive Weltanschauung. Creation-myths do not so much serve to satisfy an intellectual want as form the religious base on which the life of the community rests. ‘‘Naturistic’? interpretations, applied to the mythology of Indonesia, need to be supplemented by a sociological explanation. The cosmic pair with its two constituent elements, Sky and Earth or Sun and Moon, appears to be a reflection of the twofold structure which characterizes the culture of Indonesia. The Sky and the Earth, or the Sun and the Moon, are the mythical representatives of the two halves into which the community is divided sociologically and sometimes also topographically. Oirata, the above-mentioned village on the island of Kisar, has an alternative name, Timur-Warat,
that is to say “East-West (Village)’’, and does indeed consist of two parts, one east and the other west, which probably are related to the ancient phratries or exogamous moieties of the tribe.44 The idea of a Supreme Being or Creator is also rooted in social life. We have not to do with a transcendent Being outside the world, older than any myth and an abstract expression of a monotheistic conception. At Halmahera in the Moluccas the Supreme Being is known as Gikimoi, ‘the One”,45 but mostly unity is not thought of in any absolute sense, but in relation to a duality, that of the cosmic pair of which the Supreme Being is the synthesis or integration. This duality may be the pair, Sky and Earth (like Muri Kraeng) or Sun and Moon (Duadleera-Vulan on Kei, Vulan dya lara in the Aru Islands, Lera Wulan on Solor, Wura Rera in Middle Flores, Ledo no Bulan on
Roti Island). Accordingly, the “Creator” is not a creator in any absolute sense, but simply a begetter, inasmuch as, being a synthesis of Sky and Earth or Sun and Moon, he contains in himself the ideas of a male and a female principle, of father and mother; so much so indeed that at Oirata he is actually called Na-Ha, ‘“‘mother-father’’, or Apna-Apha, ‘our-mother-our-father’’. This union of Father and Mother, Sky and Earth, Sun and Moon, exists alongside of or super-
imposes itself upon the duality of the Sky (or Sun) -Father and the Earth (or Moon) -Mother, in the same way as the unity of the communal organisation stands alongside of and above the two halves composing it.46
INDONESIA
337
NOTES
1. E. E. W. G. Schroeder, Nias: Ethnographische, geographische en historische aanteekeningen en studien (Leiden 1917), i-ii. Cf. W. Miinsterberger, Ethnologische Studien an indonesischen Schopfungsmythen (The Hague, 1939). 2. H. Sundermann in the work cited in n.8; Father W. Schmidt, “Grunlinien einer Vergleichung der Religionen und Mythologien der austronesischen Volker”, in Denkschriften der Wiener Akademie d. Wiss. liii, 3 (1910), p. 74 foll.; same, “Die Mythologie der austronesischen Volker”, in Mitt. d. Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, xxxix (1909), p. 240 foll. 3. H. Chatelin, “Godsdienst en bijgeloof der Niassers”, in Tijdschrift van het Batav. Genoot. van Kunst. en Weten. xxvi (1881), p. 121 foll.; G. A. Wilken, Het animisme bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel (Amsterdam and Leiden,
1884-5), p. 220 foll. (=Verspreide Geschriften iii, 1912, p. 246); A. C. Kruyt, in E.R.E, vii, p. 249; A. W. Nieuwenhuis, in Internationales Archiv S. Ethnographie
(1936), p. 31.
4. Schroeder, Nias i, 524; Miinsterberger, op. cit., p. 31. 5. J. von Brenner, Besuch bei den Kannibalen Sumatras (Wirzburg 1894), pp. 216, 223. 6. Miinsterberger, op. cit., p. 29 foll. 7. W. L. Steinhart, “Niassische Tekesten”, in Tijdschrift voor indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde \xxiv (1934), pp. 326-75, cf. the other analogous text, ibid., pp. 403-40. 8. H. Sundermann, “Kleine niassische Chrestomathie”, in Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsche-Indié, v Ser., Vol. vii, pp. 335-453 (’s Gravenhage 1892), pp. 24 foll., 56 foll. of the separate offprint. Cf. Sunderman, ‘Die Insel Nias u. die Mission daselbst”, in Allgemeine Missions zeitschrift xi-xii (1884) (then Barmen 1905). 9. The name Lowalangi contains according to some the word /angi (sky), according to others, including Schroeder, the word angi (wind). 10. On Nias also, in a version of the myth of the beginnings, we find two primordial winds, one red and the other black, from the former of which springs a tree and from one of the fruits on the ends of its boughs Sihai is born, see Miinsterberger, op. cit., p. 12. In another version there are thirty primordial winds from which spring two trees and Lature originates from one of them, Lowalangi from the other, Modigliani, Un Viaggio a Nias (Milan 1890), p. 614 foll. 11. Chatelin, /oc. cit., note 3. 12. Miinsterberger, op. cit., p. 13. 12a. Mayers, The Chinese Reader’s Manual (Shanghai 1874), p. 174 foll. 13. Florenz, Die historischen Quellen der Shinto-Religion (Gottingen 1919), pp. 28-9; R. Pettazzoni, La mitologia giapponese (Bologna 1929), p. 52. 14. J. Perham, Petara, or Sea Dyak Gods, quoted by H. Ling Roth, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo (London 1896), i, p. 180. 15. Cf. Batara Guru as a name of Siva, the first of the three gods forming the trimurti, among the Toba Batak of Sumatra: Warneck, Die Religion der Batak (Leipzig 1909), p. 4. Mahatara, otherwise called Sangjang Dewata, is Y
338
THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
the Supreme Being of the Dyaks of Kulakapuas in South Borneo, see J. Mallinckrodt, “‘Ethnegraphische Mededeelingen over de Dajaks in de Onderafddeeling Koelakapoeas”, in Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (1924), P- 524 sqq.; Miinsterberger, op. cit., p. 220. 16. B. A. G. Vroklage, Die sozialen Verhdltnisse Indonesiens (Miinster i/W 1020) FERITE 17. Rev. J. Staal, ‘The Dusuns of North Borneo”, in Anthropos, 1925; p. 940, cf. E. Dunn, “Religious Rites and Customs of the Iban”, in Anthropos 1 (1906), pp. 16-17; Evans, Studies in Religion, Folk-Lore and Custom in British North Borneo and the Malay Peninsula (Cambridge 1923), pp. 3 sqg., 15 (“the rainbow is his fighting scarf with which he stopped the rains’), 61. 18. Evans, op. cit., pp. 45-7. 19. H. Sundermann, ‘Religiòse Vorstellungen u. darauf sich griindende Sitten u. Gebràuche der heidnischen Dajak auf Borneo”, in Bijdragen, etc. (cf. note 15), lxxvi (1920), p. 452 sqq. 20. A. W. Nieuwenhuis, Quer durch Borneo (Leiden 1904-7), 1, p. 98 sqq., 102; ‘Das hòchste Wesen im Heidentum”, in hiternationales Archiv f. Ethno-
graphie (1926), p. 39.
21. C. Hose and W. McDougall, in 7.R.A.I xxxi (1901), pp. 125, 189, cf. their Pagan Tribes of Borneo (2 vols., London 1913), passim. 22. Hose and McDougall, in 7.R.A.L., 1901, p. 192 sq. 23. Vroklage, op. cit., p. 54. 5qq. 24. Wilken, Het Animisme (see note 3), p. 227 sq. (=Verspreide Geschrifien, ill, p. 250 sqq.); M. Graafland, De Minahassa (2 vols., Haarlem 1898) i, p. 206 sgq.; J. A. T. Schwarz en N. Adriani, Tontemboansche Teksten (3 vols., Leiden 1907) 11, pp. 236, 240, 371 sqq. 25. A. C. Kruyt, Het Animisme in den Indischen Archipel (’s(eee 1906), p. 469; N. Adriani en A. C. Kruyt, De Bare’s-sprekende Toradja van Midden Celebes (3 vols., Batavia 1911-12; new edit., Amsterdam 1950-1), vol, ii (1951), pp. 3-7; Kruyt, “De To Wana op Oost-Celebes”, in Tijdschrift voor indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Ned. Indié \xx (1930), p. 415. 26. Adriani-Kruyt, op. cit., ii, p. 6. 27. Kruyt, in E.R.E. vii, p. 240. 28. Kruyt, “Measa: eene Bijdrage tot het Dynamisme der Bare’essprekende Toradja en enkele omwonende Volken”, in Bijdragen lxxv (1919), p. 40. 29. Kruyt, Het Animisme (see note 25), 476; H. B. Stapel, “Het Manggeraische Volk”, in Tijdschrift lvi (1914), p. 163; J. A. J. Verheijen, Het Hoogste Wezen bij de Manggaraiers, Wien-Médling, 1951. 30. Father P. Arndt, “Aus der Mythologie u. Religion d. Riunger”, in
Tijdschrift Ixxv (1935), PP- 333, 356 59q., 360.
31. Same, “Die Religion der Nad’a”, in Anthropos, 1929, pp. 817 5499-5 840 sq.; “Deva, das Héchste Wesen der Ngadha’”’, ibid. 1936, p. 894 sqq., 1937; PP. 195 59g.) 202, 352, 358, 374; cf. Arndt,
Nad’a’’, ibid. 1932, pp. 11-64. 32. Cf. Lezo Vulang as a name
1935; p. 360).
“Die
for Muri Kraeng
33. Arndt, “Dua Nggae, das Héchste Lateranensi ili (1939), pp. 141-210.
Wesen
Megalithenkultur
des
(Arndt, in Tijdschrift,
im Lio-Gebjet”,
in Annali
INDONESIA
339
334. Same, Religion auf Ost-Flores, Adonare und Solor, Vienna—Médling 1951. 34. G. A. Wilken, “Bijdragen tot de kennis der Alfoeren van het Eiland
Boeroe”, in Verhandlingen van hat Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen xxxviii (1875), p. 21 sq.; Het Animisme (Leiden 1885), p. 240 sq. (=Verspreide Geschriften iii, p. 267). According to Kruyt, Het Animisme, pp. 466, 474, cf. E.R.E. vii, p. 248 sq., Opo geba snulat is invoked in oaths and ordeals, 35. J. G. F. Riedel, De sluik- en kroeshaarige Rassen tusschen Celebes en Papua (‘s Gravenhage 1886), p. 7 594. 36. Riedel, op. cit., p. 106 sqg.; cf. J. Ròder, Alahatala, Die Religion der Inlandstémme Mittelcerams (Bamberg 1948).
37. Ibid., pp. 54 s99., 84 sq.
38. Wilken, op. cit., p. 150 sg.; Riedel, op. cit., p. 220 sq. 39. Wilken, p. 150 sg.; Riedel, p. 252 sg. 40. ‘“Oirata, a Timorese Settlement on Kisar (Studies in Indonesian Culture, i)”, in Verhandelingen d. K. Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afd. Letterkunde, N.R. xxxix (Amsterdam 1937). 41. Loc. cit., pp. 157-8. But I am inclined to think that the “old woman of standing” is nothing more or less than the Moon. On central Flores (see Arndt, in Annali Lateranensi, iii, 1939, p. 150) the Moon is thought of among the Ngadha as Mata rica (“big'eye”), and so as all-seeing. Cf. the all-knowing Deak Pordjar who lives in the moon according to the Toba Batak (Loeb, Sumatra, p. 77) and Nenak Kebajan or Ja Najek (among the Mantra Jakudn and the Kerau respectively) who lives in the moon and knows the “heart and reins” of everyone, so that no one can deceive her (Schebesta, Orang-Utan, pp. 199201), the Sakai Ja Puteu who looks into the very depths of the human heart (Schebesta, ibid. 59). Also among the Semang of Lenggong in North Perak, who are strongly influenced by the Sakai, the moon is thought of as a woman in the sky, named Jara-meng, who “‘is white and very aged, just ‘skin and bone’, but when she has reached the extreme limits of old age she. becomes young again” (Evans, Papers, p. 24). 42. On Roti Island also the Supreme Being is two in one, Ledo no Bulan, “Sun and Moon”, see Kruyt, “De Roteneezen”, in Tijdschrift van het Batav. Gen. van Kunst. en Wet. lx (1921), p. 266 sqg. On the Solor archipelago the Supreme Being is identified with Lera Wulan, ‘‘Sun-Moon’’, addressed as inak amak (‘my father, my mother”), see Arndt, in Anthropos, 1938, pp. 26, 54. 43. Schmidt, ‘‘Grundlinien’’, etc., in Denkschriften d. Wien. Akad., phil.- hist. KI. liii (1910), “Die Mythologie d. austronesischen Vélker?’, in Mitt. d. anthropol. Ges. in Wien (1909), p. 240 5qq. 44. De Jong, Oirata, pp. 5, 12, 166. Cf. H. Scharer, Die Gottesidee der Ngadju Dajak in Siid-Borneo (Leiden 1946), pp. 21 s49., 175 54445. De Jong in Archiv f. Relig. xxx (1933), pp. 376. 46. The feeling that the group is one exists even where it has been further subdivided, the two halves producing four or eight sections. Such would seem to be the case with the two groups in West Ceram known as Patasiwa and Patalima (Ursiwa-Urlima in the Kei Islands, the Aru and so on), Patalima means the group “of the five’, Patasiwa that “of the nine”, i.e. 44 1 and 841
respectively, the 1 being the unity of the whole group side by sicle with its parts. See O. D. Tauern, Patasiwa-Patalima (Leipzig 1918); E. Stresemann,
340
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
“Religiose Gebrauche auf Seran”, in Tijdschrift Ixii (1923), pp. 305-424; H. Nevermann, ‘“Véolkerkundliche Beobachtungen auf den Molukken”, in Z. f. Ethnologie \xvii (1935), p. 78 sqq.; J. P. Duyvendak, Het Kakean-genootschap, 1926, (see Arch. f. Rel. xxx, 379). The secret society of the Kakihan, which comprises all the males of the Patasiwa hitam (“black Patasiwa”), a subdivision of the Patasiwa, is subdivided into three sections, the head of which bears the title ina-ama (‘“‘mother-father’’). This threefold subdivision also reflects the formula 2+1, the single group by the side of its two parts. Cf. the montja-pat (“five-four”) system in Java and elsewhere, examined by F. D. E. van Ossenbruggen (see Arch. f. Rel. xxv, p. 136 sg.), in relation to the primitive dual structure of the two exogamous unities (W. H. Rassers, ‘Over den zin van het Javaansche drama”, in Bijdragen lxxxi, 1925, p. 311 599.).
Chapter XX OCEANIA
(1) New Guinea
(a) MELANESIA
UNEKAU is the Supreme Being, but not the Creator, among some tribes of the north coast of New Guinea, viz. the Ulau, Suein, and Yakamul, in the district of Aitape; also in neighbouring islands, as Ali, Seléo and Schouten.! He is a sungod, thought of as a gigantic being who daily passes through the sky from east to west; till noon he wears the arms and ornaments in use among the eastern tribes, but at noon he takes them off to assume and wear until evening those of the western tribes. The figure of Wunekau has therefore two different aspects corresponding to the two halves (morning and afternoon) of the sun’s daily course; at night Wunekau goes under the earth. This diversity, when still more emphasized, actually leads to the doubling of this figure,? for we find, alongside of the conception of Wunekau as one, that of two Wunekaus, supposed to be brothers. Every day the elder, who is light-coloured, comes from the east, arrayed in the arms and ornaments of the eastern tribes. At noon he meets his younger brother, who is dark and wears the arms and adornments of the western tribes. They exchange a few words and then part, the younger carrying the sun for the rest of its journey to sunset. In the figures of the two brothers is mirrored not only the difference in costume and character between the eastern and western peoples, of whom the former are more peaceful, the latter more warlike, but also the meteorological difference between the two divisions of the heavens, the east, from which blows the south-east wind, bringing good weather, and the west, which is troubled by the violent north-west wind.® As befits his celestial or solar nature, Wunekau is all-seeing and allknowing. He sees and hears everything; part of his universal knowledge is an acquaintance with the languages of all the peoples over whose countries he passes in his daily course through the sky.4 He notices from above what is happening on earth, and if men behave badly, he punishes them by terrible cataclysms, such as deluges, hurricanes, the sinking of islands into the sea, fires and the like. If anyone steals, Wunekau sees it and punishes him; he is also called upon to find a lost child. Ina story told in Anthropos, 1932, p. 430, of how Wunekau appeared to a woman, he shows himself gorgeously arrayed, having on his head
342
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
a large idol with two faces looking opposite ways. This two-faced figure very likely represents Wunekau himself, and has something to do with the mythical doubling of his figure, mentioned above; on the other hand, we ought not to neglect the elementary datum furnished by the fact that Wunekau is a sungod, for the sun naturally looks every way, and therefore both forwards and backwards,® as Janus
does (see Chapter X, pp. 164ff., 170). (2) Fae In Somo-Somo, one god. His name means among the other deities eight eyes”, this name,
of the Fiji Islands, Mainatavasara is the chief ‘‘the god just come from the slaughter’, but is one called Mataiwalu, i.e. “the god with the we are informed, “indicating his wisdom??.6
(3) New Hebrides The natives of the Island of Pentecost have a very significant and instructive saying. In the mythology of these islanders, the sun-god Tortali marries the daughter of a chief and after the honeymoon, resumes his daily course through the sky, showing himself in all his glory; the sky is bright and cloudless, and the islanders then say Tortalt matai sao muerania, i.e. ‘‘to-day the Sun has many eyes”. This means that he is unusually bright, for lesser or greater brilliance on the part of the sun is expressed by saying he has fewer or more eyes.’ So once again, universal vision, as a vehicle of omniscience, is expressed by an abnormal number of eyes and is the property of a sungod. This is not to say that every figure with four eyes or two heads must needs be a solar deity, but that two heads and four or more eyes are an indication of a presumably solar nature, which calls for and challenges confirmation.
(b) MICRONESIA In the Catolines the Supreme sky-god is known as Aluelap or Anulap, ‘‘the Great Spirit”, and lives in the highest heaven in a. magnificent house at the top of the firmament, inaccessibly far away, having confided the ruling of the world to his son Lugeleng or Rugeiren, etc.; the name means Centre of the Sky, leng, lang, lin or ren meaning ‘sky’. Lugeleng sees what happens here below and informs Aluelap of all events on earth. If men do ill, the Supreme Being punishes them with death, cataclysms,
floods and other calamities.
For the most
part Aluelap is pushed into the background,? if he does not disappear altogether, and it is Lugeleng who punishes mankind, being himself all-seeing,!° or having in his turn an informant in his son Olefat (Olofad, Olefet, etc.). But signs are not wanting that ‘Aluelap himself can see and know everything, a power having its roots, as usual, in
OCEANIA
343
his celestial or solar nature and expressed by the naive symbolism with which we are already familiar. In the island of Ifaluk in the central Carolines, Aluelòb is a typical dieu fainéant, who does nothing but sleep and always has his eyes shut; Lugeilan informs him of each day’s happenings on earth and when he needs to make him see anything, he has to open Alueléb’s eyes with his hands.11 According to a story told by the natives of Elato, east of Yap Island, it was the star Altair which found a name for Lugeleng, and therefore Eluelap, wishing to reward it, gave it the highest point in the heavens for its station, so that from there it could see everything.12 In this tale Eluelap is thought of as having only one eye, a plain reference to the sun as an eye.!3
In the Pelew Islands the all-seeing power of the sun, who there is identified with the Supreme Being Ugelianged, the “First in the Sky”, is expressed by the idea of a two-faced head.!4 This motif is found applied elsewhere in the inconography of Micronesia no less than that of Melanesia (see above).15 On Nukumanu the Supreme Being is Kasiwa, who lives at the top of the sky and perceives everything from there, “‘he sees and hears all things” and exercises a punitive discipline over the dwellers in heaven, including human souls which come to join him in the sky.16 The Gilbert Islands are the farthest east in all Micronesia, the closest to the Polynesian world, whose cultural influences, indeed, they have felt. On the island of Nauru there is a tale of a being named Damamak,
who has many heads and many eyes. He is called upon to drive away spirits, which are afraid of him because he sees in all directions, having eyes in his forehead, temples and the back of his head.17 He helps men in battle, and likewise assists them to find lost articles.
(c) POLYNESIA In the Polynesian world also the typical formal motifs of the double head and plurality of eyes which indicate all-seeing omniscience are to be found. In the star-myths of the Society Islands, Sagittarius is ‘‘the red star which shines in the evening with two faces’’.18 In the cosmogony of the Cook or Hervey Islands, the third son of Vatea and Papa is Tonga-iti, adored under the name of Mata-rau, “He of the two hundred eyes”, i.e. very sharp-sighted, all-seeing.19 A synonym of mata-rau is maka-walu, ‘‘eight-eyed’’, which in New Zealand is an
epithet of Maui, the principal hero of Maori mythology. The same epithet is applied in Hawaii to Kamapuaa, the opponent of the goddess Pele, who besides his eight eyes has eight feet.21 In a myth of the Island of Oahu, in Hawaii, mata-walu is an epithet of Pea-pea, who stole Maui’s wife. His eight eyes are never all closed in sleep,*? exactly like the hundred
eyes of Argos, of which fifty at a time are open and
THE ALL-KNOWING GOD 344 shut.23 Apart from these various imaginative expressions, the attribute of universal vision belongs, in Polynesia as elsewhere, especially to Supreme Beings. Such is the god Tangaroa (Taaroa, Tanaloa, etc.) on some of the islands, and on Rotuma we find that Tangaloa ‘was supposed to see everything”.24
(d) NEW
ZEALAND
The loftiest conception of the Supreme Being in Polynesia is found in Io or Iho in the Maori religion of New Zealand. Io the exalted, the eternal, the uncreated beginning of all things, is “‘the highest form of the Maori religious belief, the purest concept of a neolithic race’’.25 Io is omniscient (Jo-te-wananga), whether as the fountainhead of the sacral and secret knowledge of the priests or as the all-seeing (Jo-matanuz) and wakeful one (Jo-matakana), whose notice no human action escapes.?é But, lofty though the idea of Io is in religion and speculation, there is no denying that its foundations lie in the nature-worship of a sky-god. Religious and speculative thought have but sublimated Rangi,?% the personified Sky, who, perhaps because of his too transparent adhesion to his naturistic content, never succeeded, any more than the Vedic Dyaus, in becoming a real and genuine deity, but always remained confined to the plane of cosmogonic mythology. In the Maori myth, Rangi, the Sky, is the husband of Papa, the Earth, and lay upon her in an endless embrace untif their children, Tane Mahuta, god of forests, Tangoroa, god of the ocean, Tu-mata-nenga god of: mankind and the rest, parted them by force, thrusting Rangi up to where he is now. To this day, now they are parted, the misty exhalations which rise in the valleys or stand thickly on the hill-tops are the sighs of the Earth, while the drops of dew are the tears shed by the Sky in his lonely nights.2? Though decked out by a luxurious imagination: and coloured with sentimental themes, the myth is as transparent as it well could be. Rangi, the Sky, is the Maori form of the sky-god, and as such corresponds not only, in name and substance, to the Indonesian figures such as Upu Langi, Upu Lanito and the rest (see Chapter XIX), but in substance at least also to the Chinese Tien, the Mongol Tengri and likewise the Vedic Dyaus, the Greek Zeus, the Latin Juppiter and the Germanic Tiu, who are one and all the Sky. The primordial pair, Rangi and Papa, corresponds to Dyaus and Prthivi, as also to Uranos and Gaia. Now it is true that Io is in theory the universal cosmogonic principle, and as such the creator of Rangi, the Sky, and Papa, the Earth, and so indirectly of all the gods in the Maori pantheon; but in the last analysis he is Rangi himself, sublimated and raised to a higher plane. This substantial identity is reflected not only in beliefs but, what is more important, in religion and worship. In this connection the rite of immersion of a newborn child is
OCEANIA
345
particularly instructive; it is performed when a baby is born to a distinguished family.28 The ceremony is celebrated in the name of Io, because Io is the originator of human life: the seed of man originated from Io and the woman was given by Io the power of sheltering it. Every conception repeats the primaeval action28« by which Hine-ahuone, the Earth-formed maid, who was shaped by Tane on the mons Veneris of the Earth Mother in the days of the gods, obtained from Io the breath of life which vitalized her and caused her to conceive. When
it was found, or feared, that a woman of the higher class was barren,
she was conducted by the principal priest of the community to a tapu place, where a mat was spread on the ground, on which she was laid
face upwards; in this state she was compared to the first woman, Hine-ahu-one, and Io was invoked to render her fruitful, even as he had
caused Hine to become the mother of mankind. It was the supernatural power of Io, together with the spirit or soul (wairua) obtained from him, that vivified Hine-ahu-one, and endowed her with the power to bear children; in like manner such power was craved for the present subject. This doctrine, which is clearly set forth by Best in the article above quoted, is readily traced back to the elementary concept of the Sky fertilizing the Earth by means of the wind (for Indonesian parallels, see Chapter XIX). According to the information gathered by Earle (see note 26) during his stay among the Maori in 1827, “‘there is not a wind that blows but they imagine it bears some message” from the Supreme Being. The wind indeed belongs to the sky and is a manifestation of it; according to the inscriptions on the Chinese diviningbones it is the messenger of Ti, see Chapter XVI, p. 278. Among the sons of Rangi and Papa one, and one only, remained true to Rangi after the parting, and that was Tawhiri Matea, god of winds and storms.29 Io, who gave fruitfulness to the first woman when she was made from the earth,8° is a sublimated form of Rangi who fertilizes Papa. Furthermore, during the rite of immersion of the newborn child, at the climax of the celebration, Io was asked to send thunder, and a favourable or adverse prognostication was made according to the quarter from which he sent it (Best, p. 149 sg.). This and other prayers to Io were recited by the chief priest, who stood in water up to his chest in order to avoid all polluting contacts. In fact, in the cult of Io the prayers and hymns addressed to him and the sacred formulae containing his name were always recited.in the open (in the bush), never in an enclosed place. We may compare the Roman oaths by Dius Fidius, which must not be taken sub tecto but always sub diuo (Chapter X, p. 163f.); the Naga are acquainted with a similar usage in oath-taking (see above, p. 194, n. 81).#1 In all these cases the necessity
346
THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
is implied of a direct communication, as it were a cosmic vibration, between earth and sky. On the other hand, the lessons wherein the priests communicated to novices a knowledge of the traditions and other lore concerning Io took place privately, in the “house of wisdom” (whare wananga or whare kura). According to tradition, the god Tane had been given by Io two white shining stones (whatu kura), which were gifted with occult virtues; these were later lost, but their power had been transmitted by contact to a whole series of similar stones, down to those still preserved, under a mat and before a kind of altar, in the House of Wisdom. There,
when the lesson began at daybreak, one of the stones was put by the teacher in the pupil’s hand, while the pupil took the other into his mouth; for the stones had, among other properites, that of sharpening the wits, especially the memory.8? The use of the bright stones for educational purposes is related to the belief that Io himself makes use of a magic stone to know what is going on in the world. Io, ‘the Beyond”, the transcendant being par excellence, lives in heaven, at the highest point of the sky, tiki-tiki-o-rangi, the spot being called Raiatea or Rangiatea.8* He has at his disposal sundry go-betweens and servants (apa) who traverse the cosmic expanses and return to inform him of what is going on in the various parts of the universe.34 When one of these servitors comes to report, Io has only to look at the stone, which lies before him, to see reflected in it in ‘ full detail the matters of which he is informed. The notion of the firmament as a solid vault made of a hard, blue, transparent substance, is quite wide-spread in Polynesia, from the Tonga Islands to Mangaia, from Tahiti to the Marquesas.35 But we have found it among the Andamanese likewise and also the Semang (Chapter XVIII, pp. 307, 310), besides the Lhota Nagas on the Asiatic mainland (see above, p. 307), in China, in the Indo-Iranian world, and also in Africa.354 On this concept of the sky as a vault of rock depends the “stone house” in which the Supreme Being has his heavenly abode, as found among the Ao Nagas (Chapter XVII, p. 288), the Andamanese (Puluga, Chapter XVIII, p. 302), the Malacca Negritos,3* and even among the Australians (Baiame, Chapter XXI, p- 351). This same ideological complex lies behind the use of the bright stones in the cult of Io, because these “‘white stones” or “‘stones of light” (probably quartz crystals) appear to have been thought to have come from the sky,37 much as thunderstones are bits broken off and fallen from the rocky vault of the heavens; this is how they come to reflect what happens on earth and why also they are endowed with powers of reminding and suggesting. So too among the Sea Dyak of Sarawak in Borneo the manang or medicine-men use pieces of quartz known as datu ilau, i.e. “‘light-stones”, in which they see a reflection of
OCEANIA
347
their patient’s soul and thus learn where it is.88 In like manner the hala, the medicine-men of the Malacca Semang, employ quartz crystals (batu Karei, batu cenoî), in which they “see” the patient’s sickness.38a Also among the Arunta of Central Australia the medicine-men use little shining crystals and when anyone aspires to become one of them, they press these crystals on various parts of his body and on his tongue, as though to insert them into his person, or even make him swallow them.?°
NOTES 1. Father Heinrich Meyer, “Wunekau, oder Sonnenverehrung in Neuguinea”, in Anthropos, 1932, pp. 423 sqq., 819 sqQ4., 1933, P. 27 sq9.; W. Schmidt, in Denkschr. Wien. Akad., phil.-hist. KI. liii (1910), pp. 117-19. 2. It is perhaps to be connected also with the double figure of the Moon represented by the two brothers Pisil and Tanawau, see Anthropos, 1932,
Pp. 432. 3. Ibid., p. 455; see pp. 431, 823, for the impregnation of women by Wunekau by means of the wind. 4. Ibid., p. 823 and W. Schmidt, ibid. ii (1907), p. 1056. 5. In a legend from the Admiralty Islands, a “‘devil’? named Po Pekan is credited with having four eyes, see FatherJ. Meier in Anthropos, 1909, p. 356. 6. John E. Erskine, Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific (London 1853), p. 247 sqq.; cf. J. L. Brenchley, Jottings during the Cruise of H.M.S. Curagoa among the South Sea Islands in 1865 (London 1873), p. 180. 7. Father J.-B. Suas, “Mythes et légendes des Nouvelles Hébrides”, in Anthropos vi (1911), p. 902 sg. Ina story told by the natives of Wagawaga, Milne
Bay, British New Guinea, when the Sun closes his eyes this lessens the great heat which was raging on the earth, see C. G. Seligman, The Melanesians of British New Guinea (Cambridge 1910), p. 378. 8. A. Kramer, Truk (Hamburg 1932), p. 319; Inseln um Truk i, pp. 107, 234, 274; H. Damm and E. Sarfert, ibid. ii, p. 190 sqq.; A. Eilers, Westkarolinen i, pp. 65, 225, 351 (on Rugeiren); A. Kramer, Zentralkarolinen i (Hamburg 1937) pp. 143, 278; Damm, ibid. ii, pp. 86, 142, and the other volumes of the Hamburg series, Ergebnisse d. Siidsee-Expedition 1908-1910. 9. E.g. on the island of Aurepik, Damm, Zentralkarolinen ii, p. 142. 10. On Aurepik, see last note. On Lamotrek, Ururulang, another intelligencer of Eluelap, “hears and sees everything”, Kràmer, Zentralkar. i, p. 150. 11. Damm, entralkar. ii, 96. On Polowat also (a small island near Truk), it is Lugeilan who opens Aluelòb’s eyes when the latter wishes to see anything, Damm-Sarfert, Inseln um Truk ii (Hamburg 1935), p. 192. 12. P. Hambruch, Stidseemdrchen (Jena 1927), p. 184. 13. Ibid., pp. 183, 347. In a legend from Pelew a chief climbs up to heaven and steals one of the eyes with which the gods above look down on the earth (E. Semper, Die Palau-Inseln im Stillen Ocean, 1873, p. 195 sqq., ap. Frazer, Anthologia Anthropologica, London 1939, i, p. 156). 14. Kramer, Palau (Hamburg 1926), pp. 335, 343.
348
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
15. Again in the Pelew Islands we find two-faced images of Marael ked, a being who uses his two faces to look simultaneously at two islands lying in opposite directions (Kramer, of. cit., p. 339, plate 19). On Truk and elsewhere a wooden staff used as a commander’s baton by the leader of a fleet of canoes ends in a half-length human figure with two faces. This represents Alulue, god of sailors, der Aluluei der Schiffer, Kramer,
Truk, p. 319, cf. Hambruch,
Nauru ii (Hamburg 1927), p. 267. A female with “two faces, four arms and four legs’? is mentioned in a story from the Ralik Islands: A. Kramer and H. Nevermann, Ralik-Ratak (Hamburg 1938), p. 246. 16. E. Sarfert and H. Damm, Luangiua und Nukumanu ii (Hamburg 1931), P. 331. 17. P. Hambruch, Nauru i (Hamburg 1914), p. 278. 18. J. A. Moorenhout, Voyages aux tles du Grand Océan (Paris 1837), ii, p. 208; cf. R. W. Williamson, Religious and Cosmic Beliefs of Central Polynesia (Cambridge 1933), i, p. 120. The two-faced figure of Sagittarius belongs also to the astrological imagery of the ancient world, being found as early as a Babylonian monument
(kudurru) of about 1200 B.c., see W. Hartner
in Ars Islamica v, 2
(1938), p. 147 59.
19. W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific (London 1876), p. 10 sq. 20. W. D. Westervelt, Legends of Maui, a Demi-God of Polynesia (Honolulu IQ10), p. 83. 21. Ibid., p. 83, cf. A. Fornander, The Polynesian Race (London 1878), i, p. 51 Sg. 22. Westerwelt, ibid., p. 124 sqq. 23. Cf. Fr. Graebner, in Anthropos xiv-xv (1919-20), p. 1105. 24. J. Stanley Gardiner, “The Natives of Rotuma”, in 7.(R.)A.L, 1898, p. 467. 25. E. Best, “The Cult of Io, the Concept of a Supreme Being as evolved by the Ancestors of the Polynesians”, in Man, 1913, No. 57; cf. 7.R.A.L, 1914, p. 127 sgg.; F. R. Lehmann, “Io, die hòchste Gottheit der Maori”, in Ethnologische Studien, i, 4 (Leipzig 1931), pp. 271-92. 26. A. Earle, Narrative of a nine months’ residence in New Xealand in 1827 (London 1832), already knows, on the basis of certain statements by Maori chiefs, that “they believed in the existence of a great and invisible spirit (atua) who keeps a constant charge and watch over them.” 26a. See my paper, “Io and Rangi”, in Pro Regno Pro Sanctuario (in honour of G. van der Leeuw), Nijkerk, 1949, pp. 359-64. 27. Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology? (Auckland 1885), p. 9 sqq. 28. E. Best, “Ceremonial Performances pertaining to birth, as performed by the Maori”, in 7.R.A.I., 1914, p. 127 sgg., from which the above paragraph is taken almost verbatim. 28a. Cf. E. S. C. Handy, “Polynesian Religion’”’, in Bernice P. Bishop Mus. Bull, xxxiv (1927), p. 227 sq. ag. Grey, loc. cit. go. On Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, where Io is again the Supreme Being as in New Zealand, a story is told of his relations with a female, see Lehmann, op. cit., p. 289.
OCEANIA
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31. Among the Rengma, “the swearer stands in the open air when he swears, for he must be between earth and sky”, Mills, Rengma Nagas, p. 150. Cf. Hutton, Sema Nagas, p. 166: “In all oaths it is essential that the swearing should take place between sunrise and sunset, that the sun may see the oath.” 32. Downess, “On the whatu-kura”, in Journ. of the Polynesian Soc. xxix (1920), p. 218 sqq. 33. At Rarotonga, Io is styled ‘‘god of the sky”, “god of the measureless world of the heavens”, Lehmann, op. cit., p. 289. 34. For instance, the two Rongomai. ‘‘They serve as messengers, or rather as supervisors, for they are sent to inspect, and report upon, the conditions of all worlds or realms of the universe,” Best, op. cit., p. 143. 35. W. W. Gill, op. cit. (see note 19), p. 58; Williamson, op. cit. (n. 18), i, p. 91; A. Kihn, Weltanfang bei den Indochinesen, p. 161, quoting Danzel, Sagen u. Legenden der Siidsee-Insulaner, p. 31. 35a. Not only in Madagascar but also in southern Nigeria and the Cameroon, among the Pangwe, as also in north-east Africa among the Wachagga, see H. A. Wieschhoff, “Some Reflections on African Cosmographies”, in
Ethnos iv (1939), PP. 39, 40, 41, 47. 36. Among the Negritos of Lenggong, Perak, Tapern “‘lives in a cave in the sky”, Evans, Papers, p. 23 sqq., cf. Chapter XVIII, p. 310. 37. Or they may be flung to the earth by the sky-god himself, e.g. among the Negritos of Lenggong, Evans Joc. cit. (see last note), Negritos of Malaya, p. 145. Among the Euahlayi of South-east Australia, Boyerh, i.e. Baiame, their Supreme Being, when on one occasion he was entreated to send rain upon the parched earth, “had taken up a handful of crystal pebbles and thrown them from the sky down into the water in a stone basin on the top of the sacred mountain; as the pebbles fell in, the water splashed up into the clouds above, whence it descended as the desired rain”. (Mrs. K. Langloh Parker, The Euahlayi Tribe, London 1905, p. 7). Hailstones are also considered to be “‘thunderstones” or “‘sky-stones” (batu Karei) among the Semang, see Schebesta, Orang-Utan, (Leipzig 1928), p. 67. 38. E. E. Gomes, Seventeen years among the Sea Dyaks of Borneo (London 1911), see the summary in A.R.W. xvi (1915), p. 230. 38a. Schebesta, Bei den Urwaldzwergen von Malaya, 185; Evans, The Negritos of Malaya, 20 sq. 39 Spencer-Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia (London 1899, reprinted 1938), Ppp. 527-9; Spencer, Wanderings in Wild Australia, i (London 1928), p. 268.
Chapter XXI
AUSTRALIA IÈan article byJ. F. Mann, “Notes on the Aborigines of Australia”, in Proceedings of the Geographical Society of Australasia, Special Volume (Sydney 1885), p. 56, the following passage occurs and is worth citing: They believe firmly in the existence of a spirit or being whom
they call
devil-devil, but each tribe has a name of its own for it. This devil-devil is held in great dread by all, and bears a very bad character among them. He is thoroughly
cruel and vindictive, sparing no one, young or old, who happens to come within his reach. He is ever on the watch to entrap the straggler, and whilst he haunts many lonely places during the day, he is everywhere at night. This devil has been variously described. He is supposed to have innumerable eyes and ears, so as to make him to see and hear anything without the trouble of turning his head, etc.; he runs very fast, and having long sharp claws, few escape his grasp.
Here then we have an omniscient being whose universal knowledge is the result of his universal powers of seeing and hearing. Of course this omniscience is not to be understood in the absolute sense; it is
relative, in proportion to the ways and capacities of primitive thought. Mann in fact continues:
One reason given by the blacks for changing their camp is for the purpose of evading this amiable spirit. They think that the devil-devil is certain to discover their position after a few days, so that by moving off suddenly and making a rapid journey to a distant part of their domain, he will be non-plussed for a time.
A similar belief (see above p. 222, n. 3) is to be found among the Andamanese concerning Puluga. Weare not informed by Mann to what tribe this “devil-devil” belongs, but we may discover it indirectly from the word .borah, which he quotes later on, since that belongs to the speech of the Kamilaroi and their relatives the Wiradjuri, Euahlayi and others; it means the initiation-rites of the young men. The tribes of this group all have the idea of a Supreme Being whom they call Baiame. The Rev. Ch. C. Greenway, who “‘has been acquainted with Kamilaroi from his youth”, says in an article in 7.4.1, 1878, p. 242, that Bhaiami, Baiame (or Bhiahmee) “‘is regarded as the rewarder and punisher of men, according to their conduct. He sees all and knows all,
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if not directly, through the subordinate deity Turramiilan.’’ James Manning, in a paper? based upon notes of his own which went back to 1845, wrote that they believe in a supreme Being called Boyma (=Baiame), who dwells in the north-east, in a heaven of beautiful appearance. He is represented as seated on a throne of transparent crystal . . . Grogorally24 is his son, who watches over the actions of mankind.
According to the Euahlayi also, ‘““Byamee’’, who lives in the sky, is informed by an “‘all-seeing spirit’? named Wallahgurunbuan of all that happens on earth.3 While Daramulun (Tarramilan) among the Kamilaroi is the intelligence officer of the Supreme Being Baiame, he is the Supreme Being himself among the tribes of the Murring group (Yuin, Ngarigo, Wolgal, etc.) and as such ‘‘watches the actions of men’’ from heaven. During the rites of initiation, after the extraction of a tooth, the novice was taken to a tree on whose bark was cut a rough figure of Daramulun, and there he was told that Daramulun “‘lived beyond the sky and watched what the Murring did’’.5 Similarly, the tribes of the Kulin group (Wurunyerri, Wotyobaluk, Woeworung, etc.) have for their Supreme Being Bunjil, who observes men and their doings from the sky. A native Woeworung informed Howitts that ‘before the white men
came
to Melbourne”,
while he
was a boy, he was taken by his mother’s brother out of the camp at night, who, pointing to the star Altair with his spear-thrower said, “See! that one is Bunjil; you see him, and he sees you (and what you do down here).” The Kurnai also have the idea of a Supreme Being, known as Mungan-ngaua, i.e. “Our Father”, who sees and governs the doings of men, and once, in wrath at the secrecy of the initiations having been broken, sent a great fire (the Aurora Australis), on which followed a fearful cataclysm whereby almost the entire human race perished; and this is the punishment which still awaits those who are guilty of the same impiety.” All this helps us to understand Mann’s “devil-devil”’. He also knows everything, and that not through any informant but directly, by means of his innumerable eyes and ears, with which he sees and hears everything without having to turn his head. His omniscience, like that of Baiame, Daramulun, Bunjil and Mungan-ngaua, has for its object the doings of men, and none of these can escape his notice. The ‘‘devildevil” therefore is a figure of the same kind as Baiame, Daramulun, Bunjil, Mungan-ngaua and others, i.e. a Supreme Being. And since he belongs to a people of the Kamilaroi group, as already mentioned, we may suppose that he and Baiame are one and the same. It is true that
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THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
Mann, /. ¢., says there is no question ofa Supreme Being, but simply of a ‘‘devil-devil’’; but it is plain that this description of him as a devil is to be referred to the exoteric aspect of his figure, that is to what the uninitiated know of him, his true character being shown to the young men only in their initiation ceremony, whereas the women and children were made to believe in a kind of demon who came to carry off the young men, killed them and then brought them to life again and restored them transfigured, that is to say changed into men; he also went about at night near the camp, emitting dismal howls, which in reality were nothing but the horrifying noises made by the sacred bullroarers whirled in the initiations, which were carried on at that very time. Indeed, the “devil-devil’’, according to Mann, is active especially at night, from which it appears that his original shape, with its innumerable eyes, which give him the power to see everything without turning his head, might well be the exoteric reflection of a supreme sky-god having for eyes the stars which constantly look down on the earth from the overhanging vault of the heavens. Daramulun likewise “‘lived beyond the sky”; Bunjil also dwells in a star (see above); so too Kohin, among some of the Herbert River tribes, is said to have his dwelling in the Milky Way, but to roam about by night on earth as a gigantic warrior, who kills those whom he meets.8 Again, among the Lake Macquarie tribes, Koin is “‘an evil being, seen occasionally by day, but mostly at night. . . he comes when the blacks are asleep, and takes them up, as an eagle his prey icf the “‘devildevil”, who has “long sharp claws” so that “few escape his grasp’’]. This is, as Howitt recognises,® an exoteric belief, i.e. the exoteric aspect of Koin or Kohin, who is really a Supreme Being, of the same kind as Baiame, Daramulun, Bunjil, Mungan-ngaua and their like.10 The ability to hear everything by means of an infinite number of ears must be considered a secondary complement, a parallel to the ability to see everything by means of countless eyes.11 It is an unusual characteristic among the Australian Supreme Beings; elsewhere, in and out of Australia, the essential and primary basis of divine omniscience is the power of universal vision. NOTES 1. R. H. Mathews, “The bora or initiation ceremonies of the Kamilaroi Tribe’’, in 7.A.J. xxiv (1895), p. 411. 2. In Journal and Proceedings of the R. Society of N.S.W. xvi (1882), p. 155 5qq., quoted by A. W. Howitt, Wative Tribes of S.-E. Australia (London 1904), p. 501 sg. Cf. A. Lang, in Folk-Lore, 1899, p. 27. 2a. More correctly Grogoragally, cf. the Wotjobaluk Guragallagali, Kamilaroi guragulla, “the sky”; Schmidt, Ursprung iii, pp. 842, 898.
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3. Mrs. E. Langloh Parker, More Australian Legendary Tales (London 1898), pp. 84-9; A. van Gennep, Afpthes et légendes d’Australie, Pp. 92-9; cf. my Miti e Leggende i (Turin 1948), pp. 416-17..On the (relative) omniscience of Baiame see also Schmidt, Ursprung v (1934), p. 845, who draws on Catherine Stow (Mrs. L. Parker), Australian Aboriginal Legends (Adelaide 1930). 4. Howitt, op. cit., 495.
5. Same, 543, Fig. 31 (p. 538), Fig. 32 (p. 553).
6. Same, in 7.A.I., 1884, p. 193, who says that by another account the star is Fomalhaut; cf. Native Tribes, p. 492. 7. Same, in 7.A.I. xiv (1885), p. 321, cf. Nat. Tribes, pp. 490 sq., 506. 8. Howitt, Nat. Tribes, 498. 9. Howitt, op. cit., p. 497: “Threlkeld [the Rev. L. E. Threlkeld, on whom Howitt draws for information about the Lake Macquarie tribes] repeats what initiated blacks told him, as one of the uninitiated.” Cf. p. 500. 10. R. Sadleir, The Aborigines of Australia (Sydney 1883), p. 15, cites from a traveller who wrote in 1842 the information that two hundred miles from Sydney the natives thought of “God” as a giant living in the clouds, with arms nine miles long and eyes as big as a house, always busied in launching thunderbolts and draining the waters away, to punish men. Among a tribe of Southwest Australia (E. Hassell, ‘Notes on the Ethnology of the Wheelman Tribe of S.W. Australia”, in Anthropos, 1936, p. 704) Gnolum is “a gigantic spirit concerned only with young boys; his eyes were very big and could see anywhere; on sunshiny days they could be seen peering through the tops of the trees; at night he could not be seen unless the moon was very bright, when his eyes could be discerned through the branches of the trees’’. 11, The motif of multiple eyes and ears has many parallels outside Australia. It is enough to mention the Egyptian god with seventy-seven eyes and seventyseven ears (p. 62), the Mithra of the Avesta with 10,000 eyes and 1,000 ears (p. 135f.), the Samoyed Num, whose ears are the stars (p. 260), whereas they are the eyes of Gamab among the Mountain Damara (p. 33) and of Cholas among the Alacaluf (p. 423), and so forth.
Chapter XXII
NORTH (a) THE
AMERICA ESKIMO
ABBREVIATIONS
Knud Rasmussen, a=“‘Intellectual culture of the Iglulik Eskimos”, in Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition VII; 1 (Copenhagen 1929). __—
} =“‘Observations
on the intellectual culture of the Caribou Eskimos”,
ibid. VII, 2 (Copenhagen 1929). c=“The Netsilik Eskimos: Social life and spiritual culture”, ibid. VIII
i (Copenhagen 1931). d=“Intellectual Culture of the Copper Eskimos”, ibid. IX (Copenhagen 1932). e=“The Mackenzie Eskimos”, (edited by H. Ostermann), ibid. X, 2 (Copenhagen 1942). K. Birket-Smith, a=“Ethnography of the Egedesminde District, with aspects
—
of the general culture of West Greenland”’, in Meddelelser om Gronland, (K6benhavn 1924).
— b=Eskimoerne (Kòbenhavn 1927) =Die Eskimos (Zùrich 1948). c=“The Caribou Eskimos’, in Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, V (Copenhagen 1929). —— W.
d=“‘Ueber die Herkunft der Eskimos u. ihre Stellung in der zirkumpolaren Kulturentwicklung”’, in Anthropos (1930), p. 1 ff. » | Thalbitzer, a=“‘Die kultischen Gottheiten der Eskimos”, in Archiv f.
Religionswissenschaft 26 (1928), pp. 364-430. b=“The Ammassalik Eskimo, I-II’”’, in Meddelelser om Granland (K6benhavn 1914-23). Schultz-Lorentzen, ‘Dictionary of the West Greenland Eskimo Language”, in Meddelelser om Gronland, XXVI (Kéòbenhavn 1927). Fr. Boas, ‘The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay I-II”, in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History XV (New York 1907). G. Holm, “Ethnological Sketch of the Angmassalik Eskimo”, in Meddelelser om Gronland (Kòbenhavn 1914). D. Jennes, The Life of the Copper Eskimos (Ottawa 1922). A. L. 'Kroeber, ‘The Eskimo of Smith Sound”, in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History XII (New York 1899). Fr. Barnum, Grammatical Fundamentals of the Inuit Language as spoken by the Eskimo of the Western Coast of Alaska (Boston 1901).
—
ANSE the Caribou Eskimo the novice, to get magic powers, must undergo a hard apprenticeship, living solitary for a certain time in the open. ‘These days of ‘searching for knowledge? are very tiring. .. . True wisdom is only to be found far away from people,
out in the great solitude. Solitude and suffering open the human mind,
NORTH
AMERICA
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and therefore a shaman must seek his wisdom here. The novice receives his special powers by ‘exhibiting’ himself to Hila . . . by letting Hila see and take notice of him. One says “Hila must see you and take notice of you.’ 71 fila is the Caribou Eskimo’s equivalent of sila, which through out the Eskimo world, from Alaska to Greenland, signifies a superna tural
power, or cosmic force spreading through the whole universe. This in a way resembles mana, orenda and the like, but is more specifically related to the sky and atmospheric and meteorological phenomena. Among the Caribou Eskimo hila is all the space above; hila is held up by immens e pillars that stand out at the ends of the world in the four corners of the wind; its uppermost arch is called gildk, ‘the sky’; up in qildk live the sun, the moon and the stars. The hilap inua, the spirit of hila, governs the weather.? The conception of Hila varies from an impersonal force to a personal being. “Everything that man fears from the air is personified in Hilap inua, who can both bring about disaster and . . . avert it.” One
evening when,
as the sun was
setting, the sky flamed red, a
medicine-man of the Padlermiut (a group of the Caribou Eskimo) said to Knud Rasmussen, “A young man has died and is going to heaven, so the Great Spirit is clothing heaven and earth in red festival colours to welcome his soul.’ Rasmussen says elsewhere, “The word Sila in its religious sense is used of a power which is personified in Sila inua, the lord of power, him who possesses power. . . . All tabus have reference to Sila . . . as the demands which Sila makes of men are not strict; he;
perhaps, for that very reason, uses his power to punish all transgressions. He punishes with bad weather, drives the game out of the tribe’s hunting-grounds by means of disease, in short punishes with that kind of ill luck of which people are most afraid.’ For the Iglulik Eskimo of Melville Peninsula, sila is “the spirit of weather or of the universe. . . . Sila is the great, dangerous and divine spirit that lives somewhere ‘up in the air’, out in the universe, between sky and sea, hovering over earth; from there it threatens mankind through the mighty powers of nature, wind and sea, fog, rain and snowstorm. Among the Iglulingmiut and the Aivilingmiut, this spirit is regarded more than all else as a personification of the weather, and therefore, instead of sila, the term persoq is used, meaning snowstorm, or even anore, the wind.”4
As
for
Greenland,
even
the
eighteenth-century
missionaries
remarked, in speaking of the West Greenlanders, that ‘to the air in particular they assign something as it were divine” (Hans Egede).
This “spirit of the air?’ (sillam inua) is called silagicsortoq, ‘‘he who makes fair weather” (Poul Egede) and ‘‘governor of good weather” (Glahn). When men break the tabu-rules laid down by him, he punishes them, and hence is known as Inerterisog, ‘the forbidder”. “The air is getting
356
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
angry” is a phrase in common use. But the air can also send the wind which is wanted, and among the eastern Eskimo the angakut or shamans go to the Lord of the wind to get a given wind to blow and another to stop.®
Among the Copper Eskimo of Coronation Gulf, “the weather, sila, spoken of as a man, but conceived apparently as some mighty power, moves along the sky, and as he walks the sun goes down. .. . Sila, the being who lives in the sky and makes the sun go down when he walks alone . . . is often hostile to human beings and carries one off; but sometimes he is gracious and will cure a sick man by imparting to him some of his own vitality.”’6 In western Alaska sla (sila) means ‘weather, sky, out of doors” (Barnum). According to a shaman of the island of Nunivak in Behring Straits, Sila is “a strong spirit, the upholder of the universe, of the weather, indeed of all life on earth; so mighty that his utterance to men is not audible in ordinary words but through storms, snowfalls, showers of rain, tempests at sea, and all powers of which man is afraid. But he has another fashion of manifesting himself as well, through sunshine, calm, or the play of little innocent children who understand nothing. . .. In good times, Sila has no message for men, he is hidden in his endless nothingness and so remains, as long as men do not misuse their life but show reverence to their daily food. No one has seen Sila; his dwelling is so mysterious that he is at one and the same time with us and infinitely far away.”?? ‘ Sila has another aspect as well, which is of particular interest to us. It is true that sila means ‘weather, air, world”, but it also means “understanding, consciousness’’.8 ‘This word sila,’ says Thalbitzer (a, 391-2), ‘covers two principal significations: (1) open ground out of doors before the house; air, weather, world, and (2) understanding, cleverness. ‘He has Sila’ is as much as to say ‘he has intelligence.’ ”’ Cranz, in his Historie von Gronland (ed. 2, 1770) had already attested the meaning “Silla, der Verstand’’, and in the speech of the Eskimo of western Alaska, slangchagtoa (in Greenland, silagartoîia) means “I think” or “‘I reflect”, according to Barnum. How are we to explain this intellectual and cognitive faculty of Sila, side by side with his character as a power of the sky and the weather? Thalbitzer will have it? that the faculty of knowledge is proper to Sila as a cosmic force, as the power of the spirits of the air, who are possessed of intelligence and will. Father W. Schmidt supposes that it derives from his personal character, because Sila, being a superior and personal being, should have, as such, a superior intelligence and wisdom, joined to that superior power, that omnipotence, which is shown especially in meteorological phendmena.'? But we learn from the evidence produced above that the personality of Sila
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is anything but constant and the conception of him oscillates between the conception of an impersonal cosmic force and that of a personal being. On the other hand, there is no need to credit Sila with a clearcut, developed personality in order to understand the relation between his celestial and meteorologival aspect and his intellectual and cognitive side. It suffices to set this relation alongside of that which has so often been illustrated in the course of our enquiry, between the celestial nature of the Supreme Being and the divine attribute of universal knowledge, or universal vision. If compared with the skygods of other savage peoples, the Eskimo Sila seems but faintly portrayed as a person. Accordingly, the attribute of universal knowledge and universal vision, so typical of these celestial figures, is represented in him merely by a vague power of knowing, directed especially to the (evil) actions of men, that is to say their breaches of tabus and the like. The fundamental fact in the conception of Sila is the feeling of a mysterious presence which broods over mankind, of an invisible power spreading through the universe, which shows itself especially in the atmospheric phenomena; a feeling of open space, of something unimpeded, which means in their case the monotonous and boundless expanse of snow, vanishing into the sky to make a uniform whole, within which man feels himself small, Jost, and mysteriously overlooked.11 Rasmussen speaks of Sila now as a male (Thulefahrt, p. 144), now as female (b, p. 51). It would seem that in Greenland also the two conceptions of this deity are testified to from the eighteenth century on.!2 On the other hand, among the Caribou Eskimo we find another being also, by name Pinga, conceived as both male and female, though generally as female. Pinga literally means “‘he (or she) up there.’’!3 Pinga “‘is a spirit of female form, who abides somewhere in the universe and appears only when there is need of her’’.14 Among the Padlermiut, who are Caribou Eskimo, “‘the guiding power is called Pinga; the one up in the sky”. “In the land of heaven lives Pinga, the woman up there. Nobody knew what Pinga looked like. Nor did they know how she had come up into the sky. . . . If a sick person is to be saved, he must surrender all his goods; these must be carried away and laid on the ground far away from man. They are offered to Pinga. . . . As long as a man has his breath, Pinga, too, will be attentive to him, but when a man’s breathing ceases, Pinga will no longer acknowledge or know him.” When a person dies, the soul ascends to Pinga, who receives it. The spirit of the moon is Pinga’s servant.15 “A sorcerer of the Padlermiut declared time after time that Hila was the same as Pinga. . . . But as soon as he went further into the various functions of these spirits, it was found that . . . Pinga had the especial care of the caribou, whereas Hila represented everything
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THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
found in the air’? (Rasmussen, 5, p. 51). The characteristic of Pinga is therefore her (or his) especial relation to the animal kingdom, and in particular to those animals who are hunted by the Caribou Eskimo, namely the caribou themselves. These are under Pinga’s protection. “The Caribou Eskimo, who have only the caribou to live upon and clothe themselves in, must exercise the greatest caution in handling the killed animal. When a caribou has been killed, everything that is not taken home must be covered up. This applies especially to the entrails, paunch and blood. In these there is a great part of the strongest life of the caribou, and Pinga must not see that this is treated with disrespect’? (Rasmussen, 6, p. 50). Pinga watches over the beasts and does not want too many of them to be killed; Pinga “‘has an eye to all that men do, but especially the manner and fashion in which they handle the game” (Rasmussen, Thulefahrt 142, 144). The Caribou Eskimo, living as they do inland, on the Barren Grounds westward from Hudson Bay, have a widely different culture from that of the coastal Eskimo. They live by hunting, chiefly caribouhunting, whereas the other Eskimo hunt generally the great seabeasts, whales,
seal and so forth. The coastal Eskimo
all have the
conception of a great goddess of the sea who lives at the bottom of it and is the queen of its creatures, who, according to their myth, are sprung from the goddess’s fingers, when she caught hold of the edge of a boat with her hands during a storm, but her father cut her fingers off to save himself, in consequence of which she jumped into the sea, and the sea-creatures were born from the severed bits of her fingers.16 Among the Netsilik Eskimo (Isthmus of Boothia), who are accustomed to hunt both cetaceans and caribou, the goddess of the sea-creatures, Nuliajuq, otherwise known as Kavna (‘she down there”), is the mother of the land beasts too.164 Among the Iglulik Eskimo, Arnàluk takAnàluk, “the woman down there”, also called T'akanakapsàluk, ‘the bad one”, ‘the terrible one down there’’, the mother of the sea beasts,
appears for the most part as ruling over dll the animals hunted either by land or sea; but some say that the caribou have a mother of their own, tuktut ikviat, ‘‘the one with whom the caribou are’’.17
The goddess of sea-creatures appears again as Sedna (perhaps from Sdanvna, “‘she that is down there at the bottom of the sea’’)18 in Baffin Land; as Arnarquagsag, ‘the old Woman”, ‘the majestic Lady”, mistress of the sea animals,!® in western Greenland; as Nerriviq or Nerrivigssuaq, ‘the great meat dish’’,2° among the Polar Eskimo of Smith Sound, and finally, in eastern Greenland, as Sdttwma eeva, ‘‘the
spirit at the bottom of the sea” (Sdsusuma inua in Western Greenland).21 To the west, we find the cult of the goddess again among the Copper Eskimo, where her name is Kannakapfaluk, according to Jennes, her myth being known west of Coronation Gulf also, and as far as Alaska.22
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The mythofagoddess (or god) at the bottomof the sea is to be found also farther west still, among the Asiastic Eskimo, the coastal Chukchee,23
the Koryaks and as far as the Samoyeds at the mouth of the Ob.24 The sea goddess is the chief deity to the coastal Eskimo, because it is she who has the sea-creatures in her power and more or less consents to their capture, on which the life of man depends. According to the Eskimo of Baffin Land, when a beast is killed, its soul goes, or goes back, to Sedna at the bottom of the sea, and she makes it come back
to life in another creature. But first (in the first three days after its death, to be exact), the soul remains joined to the body. If in these three days anyone is guilty of any breach of the tribal customs or offends against any tabu, the soul becomes infected with a kind of fluid or contagion which proceeds from the material of the tabu itself and thence spreads to the person of the wrong-doer and to anyone who comes into contact with him. This fluid makes the soul suffer, and when that reaches Sedna, the goddess is disgusted at it. Then she sends bad weather, which interferes with hunting, while the animals themselves, who are peculiarly sensitive to the presence of the hurtful fluid, will not let themselves be taken by anyone who is tainted with it, and so the hunt meets with no success. It is only when the hunters are free from this wicked fluid that they can catch any game. To avoid the consequences of the tabu-breaking, which might be fatal, the offender must confess and submit to a sort of quarantine which allows the rest to avoid him and escape the results of his fault. If the guigne does not stop, recourse is had to the angakog or sorcerer, for him to discover the cause of the evil, that is to say, what tabu has been broken
and who broke it. When the culprit is identified, he must confess the sin he has committed, but if he obstinately declares that he is not guilty, only his death can appease the offended goddess.?® Among the Iglulik of Melville Peninsula, sins connected with their sex-life are among the most serious and harmful. These include, for a woman, not letting it be known that she is menstruating, or that she has miscarried; for a man unnatural vices, such as performing the sexual act with beasts, dead or living, such as seals, caribou or dogs,
or self-abuse carried out into a lump of earth. Homicide also, so long as it is kept secret, brings harm to the community. A whole system of minute and exact regulations governs hunting, and neglect of them may have the gravest consequences. When the guigne does not cease and the community is suffering from hunger, the angakog calls the
people together and before them all goes into a trance, in which he descends to the bottom of the sea to consult the goddess. In this manner he succeeds in discovering the wrong-doing which has offended her, and when he returns, everyone hastens to confess his sins.?° The sea-goddess indeed knows all the breaches of tabu which have
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been committed. Among the Netsilik Eskimo, “‘the mistress of the animals (Nuliajug, see above, p. 358) lives in a house on the bed of the sea” and from there ‘she notices every little breach of taboo, for she knows everything’’.2? She is therefore all-knowing, but this omniscience is not of the same kind as Sila’s. Sila’s omniscience is substantially a universal power of vision which belongs to his cosmic omnipresence and in the last analysis to his celestial nature. The seagoddess knows indeed, for her part, all violations of tabus and offences against tribal customs, but she knows them by means of the fluid emanating from the substance of the broken tabus, which stains the souls of the slain beasts as it also does those of slain men. Here then we find rather an indirect knowledge. This difference is not purely formal but apparently is an organic part of the framework of Eskimo culture, which, despite the generally uniform character conferred upon it by an Arctic environment and an economic structure based wholly upon hunting, yet shows two clearly distinguishable forms. One is continental and founded upon caribouhunting; the other is of the sea-coast and has for its basis the hunting of the great marine mammals. According to Rasmussen and BirketSmith, the oldest Eskimo culture (‘‘proto-Eskimo”’) is the caribouculture, of which the Caribou Eskimo of the Barren Grounds in the
hinterland of Western Hudson Bay are the continuators and the representatives to-day. This primitive Eskimo culture was transmuted into a coastal (“‘palaeo-Eskimo’’) culture by reaching.the Arctic coast. Then a cultural component of Asiatic origin, blending with the American forms, originated a new coastal (‘‘neo-Eskimo’’) culture, extended from Alaska to Greenland.?8 This historical and cultural pattern applies also to their religion, including the idea of the Supreme Being. The religious complex of the sea-goddess who is Lady of the sea-creatures with the system of tabu?? and the confession of sins, whose Asiatic (Siberian) parallels we have already met,8° is characteristic of the coastal culture, whereas the complex of Sila and Pinga, with the dominant conception of a power
which works behind the forces of the sky and atmosphere, belongs to the continental culture of the interior. It must be understood that in any concrete instance there is no absolute cleavage between the two cultural types, but a variety of forms or intermediate steps which, in their different ways, reflect the multiple interactions and mutual influences of the two cultures. But even where the two cultural forms cross each other most markedly, religious dualism is to be noted.81 Thus among the Netsilik, who are both caribou-hunters and whalers, the goddess of sea-creatures, Nuliajuq (see above) is also the mother of land-animals, but among the Iglulik a distinctibn is generally, though not always, made between the Mother of the caribou (sec p.
NORTH
AMERICA
361 358) and the goddess Takdnakapsdluk, mother of the sea-creatures, who hates the caribou, not having given birth to them.22 The Eskimo of the interior, who are caribou-hunters only, have indeed a deity who protects the caribou, namely Pinga, but Pinga, although thought of as female (see p. 357), still is not the mother of the caribou, and while the goddess of the marine animals lives at the bottom of the sea, Pinga dwells “up above’’, or in the sky, and that is where the beasts go when they are killed, i.e. their souls do so, like those of men also.33
The religious concept of a Lord of beasts was probably the primitive and rudimentary form of a Supreme Being among the Eskimo of the interior, whose life and culture depended wholly on caribou-hunting. To this elementary idea the figures of Sila and of Pinga both go back, although in different ways.?+ With Sila, the celestial and meteorological aspects have been progressively stressed, thus making him a kind of sky-god; Pinga has kept closer to the original connection with animals, though here again this has been overlaid with certain aspects, such as femininity, which are due to the influence of the coastal culture. On the whole, and without wishing to insist too much on the parallelism, it seems to me that the concept of Pinga is morphologically intermediate between Sila and Sedna, and so corresponds to the palaeoEskimo culture, which is ethnologically intermediate between protoEskimo and neo-Eskimo. (5)
INDIANS
OF
THE
NORTH-WEST
PACIFIC
COAST
AND
ITS
HINTERLAND
The idea of a Supreme Being who lives in the sky and knows what goes on in the world is shared by the Tlingit, Haida and Tshimshian, who make up the northern group of the north-west Pacific Coast Indians. Among the Tlingit, who live farthest north, Nas.caki.yéhl, “the principal deity to whom the Tlingit formerly prayed” owns the stars, moon and sun and the daylight, and brought about the deluge.85 In reproving their children they commonly tell them that ‘‘the Maker
is watching them all the time”.86 In one form of their myth concerning the origin of things it is said that “with him, i.e. Nas.caki.yéhl, were two old men”, whose names are “Old man who forsees all troubles of the world” and “He who knows everything that happens”. These are evanescent figures, with no solidity in myth, names rather than characters, nothing more, indeed, than reflections or projections of the Supreme Being in his capacity as omniscient. However much we allow for the: possibility of Christian influences brought in by missionaries, there can be no doubt that the basis of this belief is native. Nas.caki.yéhl means literally “Raven (yéhl) at the head of the Nass’’. Yéhl, the Raven, is the demiurge; it is he who freed
the stars, which were kept shut up in a sack by Nas.caki.yéhl, so that
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GOD
they could mount the sky to give light to the world. One might suppose a contamination between the two figures and suggest that the Supreme Being was thought of as a crow by a reflection from the Crow-demiurge. But the avian character seems deeply rooted in the figure of Nas.caki.yéhl, and his pre-eminent position is apparently due to the fact that “the was merely the king of birds’”’.37 »' Among the Haida of Queen Charlotte Islands, the Supreme Being is known as Sins sganagwa.?8 Sgana is the general word (like Tlingit yek, Algonkin manitu and the like) which signifies “power”, “‘spirit’’, and can be used of anything which has a numinous character; sins has a great variety of meanings, recalling the Eskimo sila (above p. 355£.); it is “day”, “open air”, “weather”, sometimes “sky”, “heaven”. Sins sganagwa therefore may be rendered ‘‘Power (or ‘spirit’) of the shining heavens”. He is above all other spirits, and as a person he is “their aboriginal Zeus’’.89 According to the Haida, one must never think against this ‘Power of the shining heavens”, because he knows everything that people think. In like manner, the Supreme Being of the Tsimshian on the Skeena River is styled SemAgid laxha, “‘the chief (semdgid) above (lax-hd)??.40 In the form Shimayet Lakkah his name appears as early as the work of R. C. Maine, Four Years in British Columbia and Vancouver Island (London 1862), which makes mention of his omniscience;
the Indians believe
‘that he ‘takes great notice of what is going on among men”, and consequently ‘“‘he is frequently angry and punishes*offenders’’. Boas confirms
this: Heaven
watches
the acts of mankind,
and lets their
behaviour determine its own actions. Its punitive measures are carried out by means of the weather. ‘During a snowstorm a man held up a salmon to the sky and cried ‘Shame on you for letting it snow every day!’ This act was punished by snowstorms that continued into the summer, while round about the weather was good.”’41 Among the acts which most displease the Supreme Being (apart from homicide, adultery and so forth) are cruelty to animals and making too much noise, especially at night. Once Heaven was annoyed at some boys who were making too much uproar when playing at ball, and proceeded to send down ‘‘damaged feathers’, i.e. snowflakes.42 We see, then, that the celestial character of the Tsimshian Supreme Being is particularly emphasised, and this is made clear also by certain prayers addressed to him. Praying for fair weather, they say: “Chief, chief (Semagid) ! Look down and see what those under you are doing! Pull up thy foot and sweep off thy face!” (i.e. clear away the clouds from before you). The following is a prayer for calm weather: ‘“‘Hold in thy breath, Chief, that it be calm!” The wind, then, is the sky-god’s breath. The prayer ‘‘Wipe your face, Father, that it may be fair weather”,
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is in use also among the Bella Coola (or Bilqula), Coastal Salish of British Columbia; it is addressed to Senq, the Sun, who is thought of
as “Our Father” (Taata) and adored as their chief god. The Sun is conceived as being an eye, the eyelashes being the rays.43 On the other hand, the deity of the sky, who lives in a higher heaven, is thought of as in female form, Qamaits (“our woman”). This, “‘apparently the one example of a truly supreme being in feminine form in North America’’, +4 is probably to be connected with certain matrilineal features in the North-West culture,45 the influence of which has ‘made its way, probably through the Kwakiutl, to the Coast Salish. “Old Man”, the Supreme Being of the Thompson River Indians and the other Inland Salish of the north-western group (Shuswap, Lillooet and others), is believed to reside on high mountains and to make rain or snow by scratching his backside; occasionally, when it snows, some of the Indians will be heard to’ say “‘the old Man scratches himself as
or, when it rains, ‘‘your Grandfather urinates’’.4¢ According to the Shuswap, when Old Man had finished his work on the earth, he went
up to the sky, whence he now overlooks the earth and sends rain and
snow.47
The Okanagon (Inland Salish, North Eastern group) believe in a mysterious power called “Father Mystery” or ‘Great Mystery”, also called ‘Chief?’ or “Chief above” or ‘Mystery above”, who seems to be the same personage as the ‘Old One” or “Ancient One” of mythology; he was near and far and all around, but the main source of power came from above, and therefore it was believed that he lived in the upper world or in the sun.4 Among the Coeur-d’Aléne (Southern Inland Salish) the chief deity, ““Chief Above’’, was called (as among the Flatheads) Amotken. Amotken was said to live in the highest mountains, whence he looked out over all the earth; he could see all lands and understand what was
required for the benefit of the Indians. Another important deity was the Sun, whereas among the Flatheads (South-Eastern Inland Salish), it would seem that the Sun and the Supreme Being were one and the same. *9
The Klallam Indians of Washington Territory believed the sky to be supreme, and it was a common saying of the old ones to their children, ‘“You must not do wrong or the sky will see you”. According to another informant, they worshipped the sun as their God and prayed to it daily and gave food to it at noon.59 The influences of the North-Western culture is felt less and less the farther south we go, but still makes itself felt among the Klamath River Indians of south-western Oregon, the Lutuami and Modoc. Their K’mukamtchiksh or K’mukamtch,
‘the Old Man of the fore-
fathers” or “the primaeval Old Man”, otherwise called ‘Our Old
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THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
Father”, or “the One on high”, is thought of as having created the world and man, but he shows himself as a tricky, treacherous and low character, as a typical beast god, invested with all the attributes of certain animals, appearing especially under the mask of the sagacious Marten, and being as such the elder brother of Little Weasel. On the other hand, he also shows certain solar aspects, which appear for instance in his struggle against the stormy powers of the sky; thus, he slaughters the Thunders and cuts off the heads of the North and South Winds.51 (c) THE
CALIFORNIANS
ABBREVIATIONS
U.C.P. =University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology (Berkeley, Cal.). Bulletin= Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Smithsonian Institution, Washington). Ann. Report= Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (same). A.A.= American Anthropologist. 3F.A.F.L.=Fournal of American Folk-Lore. Bull. Amer. Mus. = Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History (New York). Anthrop. Papers=Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History (same). Kroeber, Handbook=A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Bull. 48, Washington 1925. È Indian Myths=Same, Indian Myths of South Central California, U.C.P. iv.4 (1907). Loeb, a=E. M. Loeb, The Western Kuksu Cult, U.C.P. xxxiii, 1 (1932). Loeb, b—Same, The Eastern Kuksu Cult, U.C.P. xxxiii, 2 (1933).
California is the classic land of Supreme Beings and of creationmyths. The origin of the world and of mankind from the operative will of a creative Being is a motif which, in sundry particular forms, is common to most of the mythologies of the numerous peoples, differing among themselves in origin, speech and customs, but all alike very backward (they live mainly by hunting and food-gathering), who are scattered from the north to the south of California. Among the Creators there are some especially in central, or north central California, of a quite lofty type, and in them the ideal of a god postulated by the theory of primitive monotheism seems to be realised. But others fall far short of this ideal. Alongside of creators of a quite high anthropomorphic type, such as Gudatrigakwitl among the Wiyot,5* and Madumda or Marumda among the eastern Pomo,53 some are to be found who are thought of as animals, e.g. Eagle among the Shasta properly so called54 (also among the Yokuts and others in southern California)>>
NORTH
AMERICA
365 Silver Fox among the Achomawi and Atsugewi,56 and above all Coyote among the central Pomo of the coast, the coastal Miwok, the Wappo,5? the Patwin,58 while in other cases Coyote is found side by side with the Creator, as his helper or opponent. Other Californian Creators are of lunar character, such as Ketanagai, the Traveller by night, of the
Wailaki,59 Taikomol, the Solitary Traveller, of the Yuki of the interior and the Huchnom,®° Wonomi, He who never dies (i.e., is always born
again, precisely like the moon), among the N.-W. Maidu,*! Haikat among the southern Maidu or Nisenan.¢2 Among the Kato on the other hand the moon-deity is in a subordinate position relatively to the Creator, who is Tcenes, the Thunder.63 Elsewhere also Thunder is the
Creator, for instance Ehlaumel among the coastal Yuki,64 Makila among the northern Pomo.65 As to omniscience, it may be said in general that it does not really figure as an outstanding and constant attribute of the Californian Creators. That they are omniscient does not follow from the evidence,
not even for those who, being forms of Thunder like Tcenes, Ehlaumel and Makila, approach nearest to the type of the sky-god, to whom, as
we know, universal knowledge based ‘upon universal vision properly belongs. The closest approximation to this type is found in Olelbis among the Wintu, or northern Wintun. Olelbis is a celestial Supreme Being. His name literally means “up-in-sitting”’, ‘‘up-in-being” (ol, “up”, el, “in”, bis, “‘sit’’), i.e. ‘‘sitting in the above”, “dwelling on high”, “the who is above’. Another name for him is Pantewintu, ‘Person above?’.88 He lives, indeed, ‘in the ‘central blue’, i.e. in the highest part of the sky”, where he shares his beautiful house Olelpanti hlut, “Up above earth lodge”, with his wife Mem Loimis, ‘Water Woman”. When Mem Loimis is carried off, the dwellers in heaven lack
water. Her kidnapper is Kahit, the Wind, who hides her in a place called Kahi hlut, “lodge of the winds’’. A sling, which Olelbis keeps tied around his head to use at the fitting moment (with his left hand, whence his name Nombhliestawa, ‘‘throwing, or holding, with the left hand’’),®7 is probably the lightning. It is he who makes it rain and snow; he orders that “the cloud people who went north will stay in the North-West, and from them will come snow to people hereafter?. The two old women who are his counsellors are given by Olelbis two dogskins, one white and one black, with which they make rain.88 Thus Olelbis has all the marks of a celestial Supreme Being. As such, it is not surprising that he sees everything: ‘from Panti hlut he sees everything that happens on earth’’, as Curtin states on the strength of the myths collected by him. It is true that these myths are very different from those collected by Mmes. Du Bois and Demetracopoulou.°? Their unusual expressiveness and their remarkable beauty and impressiveness have set some thinking that Curtin had given them a literary
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THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
working-over. Father Schmidt (Ursprung v, p. 204) has defended their genuineness by alleging the unusual talents of the single informant, a native named Norelputus, from whom Curtin got them.’? But we must ask whether we have to reckon only with the talents of Norelputus as an interpreter of the soul of his people or also with the literary abilities of Curtin as a journalist and arranger of the stories for the readers of the New York Sun, in which he originally published them. Olelbis, according to Mrs. Du Bois, ‘was neither omniscient nor omnipotent”, and “as an ethical force, a dispenser of reward and punishment, or as a lawgiver, Olelbis figured not at all’’.’7+ Even Schmidt (op. cit. ii, p. 81) admits that we know nothing of Olelbis as “Jawgiver, guardian and judge, dispenser of rewards or punishments’”’, or as having any sort of influence on the conduct of the Wintun. However, considering what we know about sky-gods in general, there is no reason for denying the omniscience of Olelbis, rooted as that is in the very nature of such beings.72 But it is precisely in Olelbis, sky-god and as such omniscient though he is, that the creative aspect is not equally developed. In like manner among the mountain Nisenan, the Thunder, Yéwau, hears everything, and one must be careful when one speaks, for it is very dangerous to curse before him, since he kills anyone who offends him. But Yowau is not the Creator.73 And in a myth of the north-western Maidu, Thunder notices what is going on between his daughter and her sweetheart, and makes his voice heard at every outstanding point of the
adventure, but here again Thunder is not really the Creator,7* while on the other hand, as we have seen, there are Creators who are thunder-
gods, but it is not said of them that they are omniscient, any more than it is predicated of those other Creators who are lunar deities. The same is found true as regards the Sun. In California as elsewhere the sun is by nature all-seeing and therefore all-knowing. In a Wintu myth recourse is had to the sun (cf. note 72) to learn where a boy is who has been carried off by a woman, just as, in a myth of the Achomawi, to know what has become of Weasel, carried away by Lizard, and in the Homeric hymn to find the whereabouts of Persephone when snatched away by Pluto; for the sun sees everything and consequently knows everything. ““You must know, for you pass over all the world, you see all peoples, you see everything.” ‘Yes, I know everything that happens in the world.”??75 In the same way, among the northern Pomo, the Sun saw everything, having his face always turned towards the earth to see all that occurred, and punished men for their crimes.?6 But in California the Sun is not a being who creates, and
being usually thought of as female, has not generally a position in the foremost rank.?? ‘ This different and inverse position of the Californian Supreme
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Beings as regards creative activity and omniscience has an important reason. Kroeber and Loeb thought that they could find a genetic link between the mythical and religious idea of central California, which is precisely that of a true Creator of the world, and the most important features of the local cult, i.e. the rituals of the secret societies, with
their masks which impersonate spirits and other supernatural beings, the chief of them being Big-Head (Kuksu).78 But on closer inspection it was found that the area within which the idea of a Creator in human form has spread coincides only in part with that of the initiationsocieties.7° Therefore the thesis that the concept of an all-powerful, dignified, anthropomorphic Creator was developed in connection with the Kuksu cult must be given up.8° Nevertheless, it remains an undeniable fact that the figure of the Creator and his worship, in their highest forms, are found in California usually connected with a ritual complex and in particular with the rites of the secret societies, which are organised and managed by the medicine-men.81 This ritual and magical character helps us to understand the complex of ideas itself to which especially belongs the notion of creation and the figure of the Creator. To create is to do something, something like what the sorcerers do, a magical operation like that of the shamans. The Creator is a magician gifted with exceptional powers. Among the Sacramento Nisenan (Southern Maidu), he bears the name of Heikat,
which is applied also to certain shamans who could “‘make weather’’.82 In the creation-myths, the Creator behaves like a magician, joining and parting his hands, sneezing, puffing and singing,83 or merely works by thinking, by the volitional activity of his mind.84 The figure of the Creator properly belongs to the set of religious ideas expressed in the myths of origins. The myth of origins is the ideological foundation of tribal society, the charter on which the whole life of the tribe is based, in its cosmic, social, religious and other
aspects. The story of creation is simply a particular form of the myth of beginnings, starting from the same mental and social need and serving the same ends.*® That the world was made by a spontaneous development of primordial elements or germs or by the deliberate intervention of a personal Being; that mankind emerged ready-made from the womb of the earth or was constructed and shaped by the hand of a Maker—these are but secondary variations of the underlying theme. What is important above all is the existence of a myth concerning the beginnings, a traditional text to be recited at the periodical solemnities of their worship, an account of how the universe began which, when recited, has the power of reproducing the great events which brought that to pass in the dawn of time, and so of assuring the permanence of tribal life, year after year, generation after generation, world without end.
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ALL-KNOWING
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In California more than in most places the story of the beginnings takes the specific shape of a creation-story. The Creator becomes the dominant figure in the sphere of their religious ideas, and the basic theme of the creation of the universe and of man
is fitted, now
to
Thunder or Moon, now to sundry bestial characters, thus giving rise to the miscellaneous types of Creator which we have just examined. The attribute of omniscience has quite different origins and belongs to a totally different set of ideas. It is highly significant that in California especially, as already shown, the Creators are hardly ever said to be omniscient, that attribute belonging rather to beings who are not Creators. All this is hard to bring into agreement with the theory of primaeval monotheism, according to which not only the*attribute of creative power but also that of omniscience and, what goes with it, control of morality (not to speak of goodness, omnipotence, eternity and so on) are all implicit in the primal, monotheistic notion of the Supreme Being, allegedly preserved in its truest form in the Californian, specifically the north-central Californian, religion.8* For this theory postulates, or rather simply assumes, the monotheistic idea as given and including a priori all the highest Divine attributes inherent in it. That may be theoretically and also theologically true, but historically it is not. The attribute of Divine omniscience, as I think can hardly be denied after the proofs adduced in this work,.is founded on naturemyths and usually resolves itself into the universal powers of vision which are part of the nature of sky-gods and the like. As for creative activity, it is precisely in California and among the highest type of its Creators that it becomes patent how radically different their essence is from that of sky- or sungods. In the heterogeneous collection of Californian Creators is reflected, so far as I can see, the heterogeneous history of the culture, racial, linguistic and other, of the Californian world, with all its various com-
ponent elements, original and foreign, underlying and overlying. If the Creators of lunar type are probably to be assigned to a culturecomplex which came from the south,’7 those of celestial type are to be connected rather with the north. We must not forget that in the north, especially the north-west of California we find Déné-speaking peoples, the Hupa, Sinkyone, Kato, Wailaki and others, all nuclei broken off at one time or another from the mass of their respective families, in which the idea of the sky-god is markedly represented, as we shall
see (below, p. 371ff.). It is with these encounters with Déné and Algonkins, more directly than with the remoter contacts with the skygods of the Salish (above, p. 363) and those of the Indians of the northwest coast (above, p. 361f.) that we should connect thé figure of Thunder as a Supreme Being (T’cenes) among the Kato and their kin; and it is
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worthy of remark that the Wiyot’s Gudatrigakwitl also has meteorological aspects,88 to say nothing of the Wintu sky-god, Olelbis. Father Schmidt (Ursprung ii, pp. 299-300, cf. v, p. 15) holds that Thunder, as representing the creative high god, does not belong to the original religious inheritance of these Déné and Algonkin immigrants, but that they borrowed him on the spot from Yuki-speaking peoples belonging to the racial nucleus of more
primitive Californians,
Ur-Yuki, as he
calls them.’ In this quality of Thunder as creative high god, Schmidt finds an argument for his great antiquity among the Californians, as in other archaic regions of other continents. So far as California is concerned, I too am of opinion that Thunder as a form of high god of celestial type with all-seeing and all-knowing powers is indeed ethnologically earlier than the lunar type of Creator; but this does not involve his absolute priority, for we have another and possibly
indigenous type of Creator to consider, that in bestial form, particularly
Coyote. Notoriously, the coyote or prairie-wolf is the most popular figure in the whole folklore of primitive America. In California, he shares in various ways in the task of creation, sometimes helping the Creator, as
among the Wailaki, or acting as his more or less docile assistant, as with the Achomawi and Atsugewi, sometimes appearing as his uncompromising opponent, who frustrates his plans and brings his designs to naught, as in the Wintu mythology and that of the north-western Maidu. In some cases, Coyote is himself the Creator, as among the coast central Pomo, the Miwok and the Patwin. It is to be noted that, as Kroeber puts it,9° “of the two polar cosmogonic personages (Creator and Coyote), the negative one seems to have the older and deeper roots.”’ Thus an Achomawi myth asserts that ‘‘in the beginning all was water, in the clearness a cloud formed and from it the Coyote appeared. A fog then arose from the surface of the water, and from it the creator, Silver Fox, appeared.’’91 In the Atsugewi creation-myth, the two creators appear side by side, but Coyote is mentioned first.92 In Wailaki myths, certain not very edifying characteristics of the Creator, Ketanagai (the Moon), which are typical of Coyote; suggest that “possibly Coyote was the older Creator or benefactor and Ketanagai usurped his evil as well as his beneficent characteristics”.93 Again, in one form of the inland Yuki creation-myth, Coyote is already there when the Creator (Taikomol) ‘in the beginning came into existence as a down-feather”?.94 In yet another myth, belonging to the Costafio of southern California, where Eagle is the Creator, we find a trace of Coyote’s priority.°° Boas has a theory®* that both Trickster and Creator derive from a doubling of the figure of the culture-hero and consequent specialising of the two antithetic attributes, beneficent and maleficent, positive and negative, which co-existed in him; but Dixon AI
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THE ALL-KNOWING
GOD
has already rejected this.9? Coyote’s origin is quite independent of the Creator. He is one of the figures, perhaps the oldest, to whom the motif of creation was attached in California. In that he existed before the creation, before the Creator appeared even, there is a kind of adumbration of his priority to the anthropomorphic figure of the Creator himself. Coyote’s roots go deep into the soil of an archaic hunting-culture, in which the life of man depends on catching the beasts, and therefore upon that being under whose governance the beasts are. The “Lord of beasts” is probably the first Supreme Being in the history of man’s religion, the embryonic form of an idea called to a lofty destiny. Coyote is probably an ancient Lord of Beasts, fallen from the sacred into the profane sphere. The decadence of Coyote came about not so much by internal development as by external causes, which gave the victory to other forms of Supreme Beings. However, in California, these did not prevent him from keeping his ancient supremacy in some cases, when he himself took on the form
of the Creator. And even where he dropped into a secondary position, as the subordinate helper of an anthropomorphic Creator, or as his direct opponent, still, in this more or less decided dualism, the original dignity of Coyote and the alterations which brought about his fall are nevertheless reflected. This conception of the Lord of Beasts as a supreme being, which can be no more than indicated here, of course,®* will assuredly scandalise those who accept the doctrine of primordial monotheism. The fact is that among savages the “‘monotheistic”’ idea is nowhere to be found in its full form and in the plenitude of the divine attributes belonging to it. Genuine Supreme Beings, whether in California, among the Pygmies or elsewhere, correspond to the “monotheistic” ideal only in a more or less imperfect fashion. Father Schmidt’s monumental work is a laborious effort to resolve systematically by ethnological, that is to say historical, methods, these various approximations into degradations or deviations from this primitive ideal. But all the labours of his ethnological learning are compromised from the very start by beginning from a datum which is not historical, namely the presumption, a priori, of the primal existence of this abstract “‘monotheistic”? idea whereof the sundry Supreme Beings are supposed to be deteriorations. Concr¢tely the monotheistic idea in its completeness belongs to the history of European thought, religious, theological and philosophical, under the inspiration of Christianity and having its origins in the Old Testament. “Primordial monotheism” is the monotheistic idea torn from the concrete world of its historical growth and arbitrarily projected into an abstract world of origins.
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(d) THE DENE OR ATHAPASCANS Apart from the Creators among the Déné of northern California (the Wailaki, Sinkyone and Kato) and of Oregon (the Joshua, with their Xovalasi, “‘the Giver”)99 we learn from Father A. G. Morice that the Western Dénés “vaguely believed in a kind of impersonal and undefined Divinity . . . almost coessential with the celestial forces, the cause efficient of rain and snow, winds and other firmamental phenomena.”1°° Among the Carriers, who are Western Dénés, his name was Yuttoere, “That-which-is-on-high”. “To any youth inclined to act obstreperously, a favourite saying of theirs in pre-Christian times was “That-which-is-on-high heareth you.’ ” Similarly, their usual oathformula was “That-which-is-on-high heareth me,” or “I am in the presence of That-which-is-on-high”.101 In these expressions, assuming that they are really free of missionary influences, there is implicit the idea of Yuttoere’s omniscience, due to his power to see (or hear) everything. We must, of course, allow for the intrusion of Christian
ideas; but Christian re-interpretation did no more than develop the native notion ofa god in the sky, a sky-god, in the direction of monotheism (using the word now in its proper sense). The Bulkley Carriers on the river of that name, a tributary of the Skeena, who are the westernmost subtribe of the Carriers, declare that they recognised a “‘superior Being” long before the Europeans penetrated to their country. At Stuart Lake he was called yutarre; at Fraser Lake, yutakki; and by the Bulkley people themselves utakke, all meaning “‘that which is on high’’. He was a typical sky-god, and indeed the Bulkley natives often called him sa, “sky” or “‘sky luminary”. Thunder the natives attributed to the flapping wings of a bird that lived on the top of a mountain; but whenever the sun and sky were obscured by heavy rain or snow they would say utakke nenye (‘Utakke is walking on earth”, concealed in the storm). Whenever, again, the sun was eclipsed, they thought that Utakke was punishing them for some transgression. Sa or Utakke assumed importance when, asa result of the introduction of Christianity, he was identified with the God of the Christian religion and was considered the ultimate power, the ruler of everything on earth and in the sky. In this way the ancient sky-god, belief in whom went back to pre-European days, was raised to the rank of a Supreme Deity.102 It is interesting to observe that these beliefs, and the name Yuttoere, Yutarre, Yutakki etc., are exactly paralleled among the eastern Dénés. Archbishop Alexandre Taché, writing in 1851, says that the Chipewyan, who are Eastern Dénés, believed in a god called Yeddariyé, “the Mighty”, who rewarded and punished. He was also called Niottsi, i.e. Creator, and was supposed to be of enormous stature and able ‘‘de voir et d’entendre du haut du ciel tout ce qui se faisait
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THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
et se disait sur la terre.”’103 He thus was all-seeing and all-hearing. The southern Dénés are represented by the Navaho and Apaches, who are isolated outposts of the main body of Athapascan tribes in their extension to the south.1°¢ In Navaho mythology we find the notion of the Sun as a white-clad horseman, “‘his mocassins and all his
clothing were white”, riding on a white horse.195 Among the White Mountain Apaches, the Sun holds a most lofty position in their religious belief, being almost identified with their Supreme Being, Ruler-ofLife or In-Charge-of-Life, who is the creator of all things and the source of all supernatural power.1¢° The Sun and the Supreme Being share the attribute of universal vision and consequent omniscience. “Every day the sun travels across the sky till noon’ says Goodwin
(see note
106), ‘but from there one of his servants goes down to the west. The sun ascending the sky sees all; from noon on the one who goes in his place reports to him.” In a creation-myth the Sun says to his two boys, “I shall be here watching you. Whatever you do will be known to me.’’107 That the Sun should be credited with universal vision is most natural. In-Charge-of-Life has for his part rather an indirect omniscience depending on meteorological phenomena, which are also the means by which he exercises his punitive sanctions. ‘Certain winds on earth,” says Goodwin, “‘act as spies. Sacrilegious talk and action is promptly reported to In-Charge-of-Life. The most common punishment is sickness or misfortune or being struck by lightning. Some guilty consciences live in dread of the approaching lightning season.” InCharge-of-Life thus possesses the characteristic attributes of a sky-god of the weather-type. ““Some shamans,” to quote Goodwin once more, “state that they have seen In-Charge-of-Life, but only as a passing flash”.
(e) THE ALGONKIN Algonkin (or Algonquin) and Athapascan (or Déné) are linguistic terms which, like “Indo-European” are applied to peoples having a considerable variety of cultures. Between some northern Algonkins, as the Cree and Montagnais, and some of the south, as the Arapaho and Cheyenne, there is as much cultural difference as between the northern Dénés and the Southern Navaho and Apaches (above). On the other hand, the northern representatives of both linguistic families have in common a cultural likeness; as J. A. Cooper puts it, “northern Athapascan culture and northern Algonquian culture ‘are basically one’. Seeing that both the Déné and the Algonkin peoples have expanded from north to south, it is very likely that this comparatively undiffer-
entiated northern culture represents a more primitive stage and that the differentiations which are to be found in the south are partly due to manifold cultural influences affecting Algonkins and Athapascans
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respectively in their’southward march. The western Algonkins especially, coming into contact with the Sioux, were particularly under the influence of prairie culture, whereas their eastern and southern fellows were affected by the agricultural culture of the Iroquois. 1. The Northern Algonkin The Cree, Montagnais and Nascapi, hunting and food-gathering peoples whose habitat is the northern woodland zone, probably the cradle of the Algonkin tribes, are perhaps the purest representatives of the oldest Algonkin culture.1°° John M. Cooper has devoted a study to the Supreme Being of these peoples109 which deals particularly with the Cree of the western coast of James Bay, studied by the author himself, and the Montagnais of its east coast and of northern Labrador,
for whom he relies on information furnished by Miss Regina Flannery and Dr. William D. Strong. Among these Cree the Supreme Being is called simply Manité or Manitu; the name Kichi Manitu could seem not to have conte into use until the arrival of the missionaries, about 1840. The Supreme Being is also known as “Our Father” or “The One who stands”, and furthermore as ‘‘Wooden-shoe Wearer” (more literally “thou who hast the wooden shoes”, i.e. footgear such as white men wear, as opposed to mocassins), a clear indication of recent origin. Apart from the names, the idea of Manitu as a Supreme Being is, according to the information collected by Cooper, undoubtedly origina].110 The Cree Manito is far from corresponding perfectly to the monotheistic conception of a Supreme Being, especially 1n not being a Creator, for nearly all the informants give a plain negative on this point.111 Furthermore, he cares nothing for the worst things which men can do: ‘Wooden-shoe Wearer,” said one informant, “was not angry if an
Indian murdered or stole.’’112 There are acts which arouse the ire of Manitu, but they are offences against the religion and traditional customs of the tribe, or against its vital economic interests. ““One thing wrong was if a man wasted meat; another thing wrong was to carry meat from one tent to another without covering it.” If anyone broke either of these rules, Manitu would punish him.113 He sees when men commit these evil deeds.114 “He could see what the people were doing and was looking down on them . . . People never saw Manitu, but Manitu saw them; they were afraid to do wrong lest he should see them” (Cooper, pp. 48, 61). He is therefore all-seeing, and his relatively universal powers of vision, directed to human actions, ‘are not inherent in the character of a Supreme Being nor organically connected with that of a Creator, but have their roots in Manitu’s nature; and what is his nature? He lives icpemik, “above”, ‘somewhere above” (Cooper, pp. 61-64). He has, in Cooper's opinion, nothing to do with
374
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
the sun, and certain evidences of old authors of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries (Father Marest, Bacqueville de la Potherie, Charles Allemant, Charlevoix) which go to prove the solar nature of the Supreme Being among the Cree of York Factory, on the west coast of Hudson Bay, and of D. E. Price, in 1857, concerning the Naskapi, are of no value. Perhaps, however, these positive testimonies to the existence of a solar deity do’ not flatly contradict Cooper’s negative results, if, as I believe, they are not to be understood
as
meaning that the Supreme Being is exactly and exclusively identified with the orb of day, but that, since he lives in the sky, he manifests himself in the daylight and in the sun,!15 compare, for instance, the Lenape, among whom, according to D. Brainerd in 1745, the Sun was “a great man clothed with day, with the brightest day ... a day of many years, an everlasting day”? (see further, p. 380 and n. 145). On the other hand Manitu is essentially a Master of Life. ‘He was”, according to Cooper, ‘‘emphatically the one who gave the people their food” (op. cit., p. 77). This food, on which the life of these Indians depends, is the meat of the beasts caught by hunting. “The Indians know it was the ‘One who stands’ who supplied all the meat. . . . Manitu sent them dreams to let them know where they could find beaver, caribou and other animals. . . . He would drive the animals
into the traps for them. . . . When any hunt was made successfully, Manitu was thanked for giving the game” (Cooper, pp. 47, 49, 61). It is not for nothing that the most serious offences in the eyes of Manitu were to waste meat and eat it without proper precautions (see above), and also to neglect holding up a piece of meat before eating (Cooper, p. 65). It goes with this that Manitu punished the Indians for these offences regarding food by denying them food, or preventing their hunting being successful. “The Indians were afraid that if they wasted meat, they would lack food and starve. . . . The Indians still believe that if they waste meat or do not use it right they will not have luck in hunting. . . . If the Indians had bad luck in hunting, they would say: ‘We must have done something wrong that has made the “One who stands’ angry? ??,116 Also, the creative activity of Manitu (above, p. 373) has to do with the caribou if with anything. According to a native informant, “‘it is Manitu who made the caribou” (Cooper, p. 48). Also, the celestial aspect of Manitu as Supreme Being seems to be connected with his attribute of Master of Animals. Indeed, if the hunting is to be good, the weather must be fine;117 a hunt which turns out unsuccessful because of bad weather is a chastisement inflicted by means of the weather. David Thompson, who between 1784 and 1807 was living among the Cree of Churchill, York, and inland, and among the more western Cree, writes in the Narrative of his explorations in
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Western America (ed. J. B. Tyrell, Toronto 1916, quoted by Cooper, p- 93), “They believe in the self-existence of the Keeche Keeche Manito (the Great Great Spirit) . . . but they have not the same idea of his constant omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence that we have . . . he is always kind to the human race, and hates to see the blood of mankind on the ground, and sends heavy rain to wash it away.” This commonplace explanation will not prevent us from seeing in the storms sent by Manitu an instrument of his punitive sanction. Among the Montagnais-Naskapi of Davis Inlet and Barren Ground in north-eastern Labrador peninsula, whose main dependence for food is on the migratory caribou, the caribou-god is the chief deity. He is named “giver of food”, or ‘“‘giver of food to hunters”, or ‘grandfather of all’. “He is said to be the supreme God of the people . . . The will of the caribou-god is brought to individuals in dreams. Likewise, individuals acquire songs from the caribou-god by dreaming, and these songs, accompanied by the drum, are sung to bring success in hunting. ... The caribou-god sees all that a man does and knows what he thinks; consequently, if a man does wrong, especially if he violates caribou tabus, he will have bad luck and will probably die soon.’’118 The Montagnais-Naskapi of north-eastern Labrador credit their caribou-god with the universal sight and knowledge which among the Cree of James Bay is an attribute of Manitu. In both cases, the universal vision is directed to the behaviour of men regarding their food, that is the meat of the game they catch, and is presupposed in the god’s punitive measures. In both cases, the Supreme Being is Master of Animals, and his punitive sanction consists in denying men food by preventing them from having success in hunting. Thus once more we do not find universal vision and knowledge to be an attribute inherent in the abstract notion of a Supreme Being, which is so inadequately represented (see above, p. 373) among these north-eastern Algonkins. It is rather organically connected with his celestial aspects. In the case of the Lord of Beasts, these aspects are not original, for they are not inherent in his aninal nature, but acquired, whether by internal development resulting in his being sublimated from a terrestrial to a celestial sphere (see the Epilogue), or by the impact of external influences. In his turn, the Lord of Beasts is not a
secondary specialisation (what Father Schmidt calls an Absplitterung) or degradation in beast-form of a pre-existent Supreme Being of a loftily anthropomorphic type. He is a Supreme Being in his own right, the true and typical Supreme Being of a hunting-culture, which of necessity is entirely dominated by a complex of ideas connected with beasts and entirely given over to a religion which tries to ensure that they shall take these beasts. Here we touch on a point of capital importance for the problem of
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THE ALL-KNOWING
GOD
the primitive form of the Supreme Being. While dealing with the Californians (above, p. 36gf.), we already mentioned the possibility that Coyote, with his two-fold and inconsistent character of demiurge and trickster, of co-worker with or opponent of the Creator, was originally a primitive Lord of Beasts and as such a primitive Supreme Being, though later dethroned and degraded owing to the increasing influence of another Supreme Being of the Creator-type. Among the Algonkin we find that the culture-hero is frequently associated or in competition with the Supreme Being,!!9 and the culture-hero often has himself the characteristic features of an ancient Lord of Beasts. Such is the Ojibwa Manabozho, “Great Rabbit”, who is ‘the elder brother of all the other beasts of the earth’; the Ottawas have their Ussakita or Wisakita, “the great manitou of all animals”, whether beasts or birds.
The Delaware, again, know of Misinghalikum (“Living Mask” or “Living Old Face”), who although not exactly a culture-hero is appointed by the Creator as guardian of the deer and in fact of all the wild animals in the forest.1?° It is true that among the Cree, alongside of the great Manitu who is lord of all beasts (see above) we find inferior manitus set over this or that species of animals.121 In like manner, among the MontagnaisNaskapi we find the Caribou-Man, a man who at a certain moment feels drawn to live with the caribou and ends by becoming their Master,!22 thus probably being a reflexion in folklore of the Master of Animals. When James MacKenzie, in 1808, records a prayer of the Naskapi of the interior of Labrador which says, “‘O"great Master of the animals among the clouds,12 bless us and let us continue to make a good hunt as usual”, we are left in doubt whether the petition is addressed to the Great Spirit, ‘who made the earth and the Naskapees”, or to some lesser spirit, the ‘White Spirit” Kawabapishit, “who made the different kinds of wild animals and distributed them among the Indians in proportion to their merits and the fervency of their prayers” (Cooper, pp. 97 5q.).
2. The Central Algonkin The Central Algonkin live south of the northern woodland zone; some of them already share in the prairie culture, as the Plains Cree and Plains Ojibwa. Among them omniscience, or universal vision, is attributed not so much to Kichi Manitou, the Great Spirit, as to the Sun,124 whom A. Skinner supposes to have been their original Supreme Being. Among the Menomini the Supreme Being, Mat’ Havatuk, seems to have been somewhat influenced by missionary teaching. However, he does not know what happens on earth.125 ; Among the Mascoutens or Prairie Potawatomi, the Supreme Being
NORTH
is Katsi Munito
AMERICA
377 (the Great Spirit), but it is Fire which carries our
words to him; they say that “our Grandfather Fire unders tands us, he
sees what we are doing and knows what we are thinking.’’126 The Foxes, again, consider the Sun all-seeing and all-kno wing. Their Creator, speaking to men, says, “As you now see him (the Sun), he will have known how you live. Whoever shall live evilly will be known by the sun. The man or woman who says anything evil while it is daylight will be known by the sun. You will also be watche d very carefully by night.”127 During the sacred ceremonies especial ly, nothing that is done in the lodges escapes the notice of the manitou s. In the gens festival of the Buffalo Dance, the hide of the White Buffalo , which is stretched on the ground, and the four sacred packs placed about it, oversee all that those present do, say or think, and tell the
manitous, who are “the ones who watch over us as we dance. .-. .
Indeed no matter how many men there are inside in the gens festival, they will not be unknown to the manitous’ thought. . . . As regards those who had committed a murder, it was impossible for them to act uprightly (in the dance). . . . Again, in the place where there was worship, it was impossible for them to fool the people... It was impossible for them to deceive that white tiny-hoof sacred pack. That is the one who was made to watch by the White Buffalo. . . . It is impossible for anyone to do anything in secret and hide it. . . . It is impossible for that white tiny-hoof sacred pack not to know about the people. Even if one did something far off, it would know about him when the time came to worship the White Buffalo sacred pack,”?128 There is, however, one of the manitous whose power of seeing all
things, although directed to the persons and actions of the cult, does not spring from the mystical atmosphere which extends over this sacral world, but has quite other roots. In certain texts dealing with the different rites celebrated by the Fox (the Buffalo Dance, the
Summer Festival, and the festivals of various Sacred Packs), we often find mention of a manitou named Anenagi tayapiwa‘ciga. This name is variously translated, with more or less close approximation to its fundamental significance, “he who dwells in the smoke-hole, he who lives with his face in the smoke-hole, he whose face presses through the smoke-hole, he who lives peeping through the smoke-hole, he who lies with his eyes peeping through the smoke-hole, he whose eyes bulge through the smoke-hole”’.12° The smoke-hole is an opening in the top of the lodge through which passes the tobacco-smoke, the high sacral value of which is well known. The manitou who haunts the smoke-hole (or who bends over it, or whose eyes protrude through it) is a celestial being; ‘“‘this manitou represents the sky’? (Michelson, Bull. 95, p. 175). As such, he sees, hears and knows everything, at least everything which goes on in the sacred lodge. “He shall go and
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THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
be where they have their smoke-hole; he shall go there and watch (their) life from both sides; he carefully observes unto whom (of the manitous) men turn their thoughts; he shall there watch over whatever they think . . . and he shall have the power of knowing all their thoughts, all their inmost thoughts.” The universal vision and knowledge of this manitou are those of the sky as it broods over the world and the sacred lodge which represents it; ‘his breath is as large as the sky’’,99 ¢¢ “his breath has been made the size the sky is as it hangs’’.19° 3. The Western Algonkin Since the Western Algonkin are fully within the circle of the prairie culture, it is especially hard to distinguish between those elements of their religion which go back to the original nucleus and the secondary ones due to their new cultural environment. The Gros Ventres (Asina, North-West Algonkin) have a notion of the Supreme Being which resembles that of the Northern Algonkin in some respects. He lives “above”, is not thought of as maker or creator (these functions belonging rather to Nihant, the Earthmaker, who is their culture-hero and Trickster), but is primarily the “‘giver of food and the one to whom above all they appeal for success in the food quest’’. On the other hand, “the Supreme Being is quite definitely interested in the moral, social and civic order, . . . is offended by grave breaches of it and punishes them. If a man were charged with a grave crime he would point upward and say: ‘Ne Nanatc (archaic name of the Supreme Being, meaning doubtful) is listening to what I say, and I say what you are saying about me is not true’.’’131 Among the Blackfeet, who are also North-Western Algonkin, the Sun is credited with the power of seeing everything, and ‘he watches everyone’’.182 For the Blackfeet, the Sun is the Supreme Being, but we know already that universal vision does not depend upon that exalted rank. Indeed, among the Arapaho, who are South-Western Algonkin, the Sun is not the Supreme Being, but none the less sees everything. He is thought of actually as an eye, the eye of day. The word used for ‘‘sun’”’ means literally “‘snow eye’, that for ‘“‘“moon”’ being ‘night eye’’. In the symbolism of the so-called sun-dance, the chief priest represents the sun and the priestess the moon; he sees everything all day long and she all night long.133 Among the Cheyenne, again South-Western Algonkin, the idea of the Supreme Being varies between Heammavihio, the ‘Chief above”, and the Sun.134 In the Great Medicine Dance, the so-called Sundance, the Supreme Being, ‘‘Great Medicine of the Above”, is represented by the central post of the lodge in which the ceremony takes place, and during the rites the eyes of those taking part are turned alternatively towards this post and towards the sun, “The celebration
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is attended—it is said—by an abundance of good water and good
breath of the wind, which is the same as the breath of the Medicine
Spirit who regards all things,’135
4. The Eastern Algonkin Whereas the Western Algonkin have been influenced, in.religious as
in other matters, by the prairie peoples, namely the Siouy, those of the
east and south for their part were particularly open to the influences of the Iroquois with their agricultural and matrilineal civilisation, 136 Iroquois influence is especially marked among the Lenape or Delaware, who, like the Cheyenne, have matrilineal descent. The Lenape have a Supreme Being, Ketanitowit, or Great Spirit, also called Chief Manitou,
Creator,
‘He
who
owns
us”, ‘four Common
Father” 137
The great annual festival, held every autumn and lasting twelve days and twelve nights, was especially consecrated to him. It took place among the Unami or Oklahoma Lenape as well as among the Minsi (Munceys) or Ontario Lenape, in the Big House, a rectangular building which was used only for this ceremony. It was built of rough logs, with a roof pierced by two great smoke holes, which corresponded to two hearths on the floor. A large central post, supporting the roof, was conceived as prolonging itself beyond and above the roof, until it touched “the twelfth or highest heaven above the earth, where the Great Spirit resides”. It was adorned with “‘two large carvings of the human face, one facing east and one west. The right side of each face was painted red, the left black”.138 Ten other posts were arranged along the inside walls of the Big House, three on each of the long and two on each of the short walls by the door; these also had carved on each a human face, half red and half black.139 According to Harrington, these represented twelve messengers of the Great Spirit, corresponding to the twelve heavens. Father Schmidt (Ursprung v, pp. 492 S99-, 497) would see in the two faces of the central post the Sun and Moon respectively as ancestors of the whole human.race. He imagines that the two faces in question are one red and the other black, whereas in reality each is half red and half black, so being both like each other and like the faces on the other posts, except that they are at a higher level than the latter. Speck holds that they both represent the Great Spirit, and that they are two for a merely external reason (or “‘architectural”, as he puts it), to meet the necessity of having the Great Spirit visible from both sides, i.e. to those who are east and west of the central post. But perhaps it is not so much a matter of seeing the Great Spirit from either side as of indicating that he can see both ways, and so, theoretically at least, in all directions.!4° In other words,
the two faces on the central pole might be a naive expression in imagery of universal vision.141
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GOD
We must remember that everything in the Big House, both the way it is built and the cult-ceremonies which take place in it, has a transcendental significance. As the building in its entirety stands for the whole universe—here we may find an analogy, e.g. in the ancient shrines of Mithraism142—the roof representing the vault of heaven, the floor the surface of the earth, the four walls the four cardinal points, the eastern door sunrise and so beginning, that to the west sunset and therefore ending, so the White Path, an oval design traced in white on the floor from one door to the other and followed both ways (east to west and the reverse) by the dancers, is the symbol of human life as it develops not only during the twelve days of the ceremony, but symbolically also during the twelve months of the year,143 and throughout the succession of the years, always under the eyes of the manitous and the Great Spirit. Here we may remember an old testimony to the effect that the Lenape consider the sun all-seeing.14+ Others of the older authors inform us, though we must not take them too literally (above, p. 374), that the Lenape Great Spirit is simply the sun.145 But even this perhaps does not exhaust the meaning of the two faces on the central pole, regarded as representations of the Great Spirit. Speck, quoted by Schmidt (Ursprung v, p. 877), draws attention to the latent presence in the Big House among the Ontario Lenape of a dualistic idea, expressed in the parallel and complementary réles of the two sexes in the performance of the liturgy. There are three male and three female assistants. The fire eastward from the central post is under the charge of the men, that to the west, of the women. One door “belongs”? to the men, the other to the women. The two drumsticks which come into play during the last four days and are again decorated with a carved face, half red and half black, are one male and the
other female, the latter having two knobs representing the breasts,146 and so on. It is likely that this sexual polarity is present likewise in the two faces on the central post, the one looking east being connected in thought with the male element, that turned west with the female. It is true that the two faces are alike, but each is divided into two parts, the one half being red and the other black, and here again there probably is mirrored the same principle of sexual dichotomy, for black is the male, red the female colour147. Here we may find a reflection of the dual structure of the tribe.148 This structure was indeed in force among the Foxes (above, p. 377) and other Algonkin peoples, as the Sauk, Kickapoo, Prairie Potawatomi, likewise among Sioux peoples, as the Osage, Omaha and Iowa.149 Among the Winnebago, the two exogamous moieties into which the various clans and their name-giving animals were divided were called respectively “that above” (sky and birds) and “that below” (terrestrial and aquatic animals).150 Among the Aztecs the Supreme Being was thought of as one and two,
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AMERICA
381
Ometecutli-Omeciuatl, “Lord-Lady of the dyad”, otherwise known as Tonacatecutli-Tonacaciuatl, ‘‘Lord-Lady of our flesh”, or again as Tota-Tonan, ‘‘Our-Father-our-Mother’”. Yet another name was Eztlaquenqui-Tecolliquenqui, ‘‘Blood-red—coal-black” (Ch. XXIII, p- 406). This contains an obvious reference to the colour-symbolism of red and black, which is so important in Lenape ritual!51 and among other Algonkins, as the Arapaho, see n. 147. It must be added that the divine pair Ometecutli-Omeciuatl lives above the nine, or thirteen, heavens of the Aztec universe,152 as the Lenape Great Spirit lives in
the highest of their twelve heavens. 5. The Southern Algonkin The figure of the primaeval Great Mother, the Earth, recurs not only among the Lenape, who also have descent in the female line, but among their kinsfolk the Mohicans and some Central Algonkin, such as the Foxes, Sauk, Menomini and Objibwa.153 Among the Shawnee of Oklahoma, are Southern Algonkin and have patrilineal descent, the Creator is thought of actually as being female: ‘the Li. or Great Spirit is usually spoken of as a woman,
Our Grandmother
Paabothkwe”
(Harrington,
The Lenape,
p. 20). The Shawnee were divided into five tribes; within each of these individuals were divided, according to their personal names, into various animal ‘‘denominations”, as Turkey, Tortoise and so forth. Membership in a given “‘denomination”’ was not a matter of heredity, but assigned together with the personal name to each individual at the moment of his birth. If the baby was sickly and did not thrive, that was a sign that his name was ill-chosen and a ritual change of name
followed. In a prayer to Water to “‘wash off” the old name, the following-words occurred: ‘The Creator put you here, Grandfather Water, in this world for this purpose, for you to take care of your grandchildren, the people, as long as the world exists, as long as the sun rises and Mother Earth remains. The Creator knows everything that is happening all the time. . . . The Creator will be glad of this. She will know about it, because the Creator knows everything that happens
day and night, all over the world.”?154 The attribute of omniscience
assigned here, unusually, to Mother Earth, does not belong properly to her because she is earth, nor is it inherent in her function of Creator. Among the Iroquois, who are matrilineal, Mother Earth is not thought of as omniscient. If she is so among the Shawnee, who were
in particularly close relations with the Iroquois Seneca, this must mean that among them she took the place of a male Algonkin Supreme Bcing and inherited the attribute of omniscience from him.155
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ALL-KNOWING
GOD
(f) THE IROQUOIS Whereas the Athapaskans and Algonkin expanded from north to south (see above, p. 372), the Iroquois did so on the whole in the opposite direction, so far as we know.15¢ The collision of such a culture as theirs, they being matrilineal tillers of the soil, with so utterly different a way of life as that of the Algonkin originally was gave rise to a miscellaneous process of cultural crossings. The religious conceptions of the two peoples, again, were very different, although they showed some common elements. The fundamental idea of the holy or ‘‘numinous’’, which is expressed in Algonkin by the word manitou, finds its Iroquois equivalent in the notion of orenda or oki.157 The word oki or ukt belongs more especially to Huron terminology and religious thought; the Hurons are northern Iroquois (in the ethnological sense; historically, they were deadly enemies), living on the banks of the St. Lawrence. They formed a confederacy from about 1600 on, and then were partly incorporated in the Wyandot.158 As the semasiology of manitou (from ant, aneu) leads us apparently to the fundamental meaning of “that which is on high”, or “‘superior’’ in a spatial and cosmological sense, then in a religious sense also,159 so the fundamental meaning of ok: would seem to be “that which is on high’’.16° And, as among the many manitous there is one who is above all the rest because he is the manitou of the sky, so there is an oki superior to all the rest, the Oki of the heavens. Jacques Cartier in the Relation of his second voyage to Canada, in 1535, mentions a belief of the natives in a divine being called Cuduagni, who told them “le temps qu’il doibt faire”. This name is synonymous with Anduagni, and both names are nothing but approximate renderings of Gendwanion and Ondwanion, two words of the Mohawk tongue which mean “the day is often fair” and “the weather is often good.”161 The Mohawks are one of the Five Nations which made up the Iroquois league, founded about 1570, the other four being the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca tribes; the Tuscarora joined later. Oke or Okeus is mentioned by John Smith and William Strachey (1608 and 1612 respectively) as the ‘“‘chief God” of the natives; from the Christian point of view, he is “the Divell’’. He lives in the sky and “strikes their ripe corn with blastings, storms and thunder clapps” (Strachey).1¢2 Oke always has his eyes open for human actions, the violent weather phenomena being the means he employs to punish those who are guilty of any evil; he, “ooking into all men’s actions and examining the same according to the severe scale of justice, punishes them.” (Strachey). All this is found again in Father Brébeuf’s Relation, written in 1636 and referring explicitly to the Hurons. “‘Ils s’adressent a la Terre, aux Rivieres, aux Lacs, aux Rochers dangereux [deen tor tire
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various 0X2, or lesser deities], mais surtout au Ciel. ... Ils ont recours au
Ciel presque en toutes leurs necessitez. . . . Ils s'imaginent dans les Cieux un Oki, c’est a dire un Demon, ou une puissance qui regle les
saisons
de l’année,
qui tient en bride les vents,
et les flots
de
la
mer,’’163 The oversight exercised by this Oki of the sky was particularly applied to oaths and treaties concluded between men, which implies that he possessed the power of knowing what went on in the world and more especially of understanding what men thought and hearing what they said. “Ils redoutent mesme son ire, et l’appellent a tesmoin pour
rendre leur foy inviolable, quand ils font quelque promesse d’importance, ou passent quelque accord ou traitté de paix avec l’ennemy.
Voicy les termes dont ils se servent. . . . ‘le Ciel entend ce que nous
faisons aujourd’hui’; et croyent apres cela que s’ils venoient à contrevenir a leur parole, ou a rompre cette alliance, le Ciel les chastieroit
infailliblement.” (Brébeuf, p. 160). Again, p. 162: “Ils croient encore que le Ciel est courroucé quand quelqu’un se noye, ou meurt de froid [in other words, that these deaths, being due to the state of the weather, are a punishment inflicted by the ‘Sky’]; il faut un sacrifice pour lappaiser.” And, on p. 164: ‘‘S’ils manquent a cette ceremonie, ils regardent toutes les mauvaises dispositions de l’air et tous les sinistres accidens qui leur arrivent par apres comme autant d’effets de sa
colére.” Thus once again, we find that this omniscience, which is applied to the doings of mankind and more especially to the giving of their
word and the concluding of agreements, together with its natural complement, the infliction of punishment by means of the weather, turns out to have its roots in the celestial nature of the Supreme Being, ‘the Sky”. The Sun is sometimes associated with the Sky; that is to say, the sky by day with its luminous aspects is associated with the weather-sky and its violent aspects. We read in the Relation of Father Raguenau1®4 that “ils s’adressent au Ciel, en lui faisant hommage et prennent le Soleil 4 tesmoin de leur courage, de leur misere et de leur innocence. Mais sur tout dans les traitez de paix et d’alliance avec les Nations estrangeres, ils invoquent le Soleil et le Ciel comme arbitre de leur sincérité, qui void le plus profond des coeurs, et qui est pour venger la perfidie de ceux qui trahissent leur foy.’’ Universal vision is still an attribute of the Sun even when he appears in mythology as subordinate to the Supreme Being; for instance, in a Seneca myth, where Haweniu,165 son of the ‘‘Father of the people in the Above?’ says, “The Sun is my messenger. Each day he brings me news. Nothing from east to west escapes his eye. He has just told me of a great war raging between your people and another nation.’’166
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ALL-KNOWING
GOD
(g) THE SIOUX Among the Dakota also, universal vision is a prerogative of the Sun. We have the testimony of G. Bushotter, a native Dakota of the Teton tribe, that ‘‘they prayed the Sun and they thought that with his yellow eye he saw all things.’’167 Their oaths were taken in the name of the Sun, who was appealed to not so much as seeing but as hearing everything, to judge by the formula “‘As the Sun hears me, this is so”’.168 The Oglala, who are a division of the Teton Dakota, consider the Sun (Wi) as chief god; but his power comes from Skan (or Skan-Skan, or Taku-Skan), the Teton Zeus, in other words the Sky, whom their medicine-men call To (the Blue One). In the Oglala theogony, Skan and Tate (the Wind) form a pair older than Wi,and Hanwi (Hanwi being the moon, literally the Night Sun).169 Skan is the real Supreme Being, the Great Spirit (Nagi Tanka), arbiter of the living and judge
of the dead.17° In their theology, Wakinyan, the Thunder, is older than Skan and all other gods. But Thunder, or the Thunders, in the plural, who often is found in Dakota mythology as the servant of the “Great Spirit’’, inflicting punishment on his behalf with thunderbolts and other meteoric means,172 is nothing but another form of Skan, the Sky, in the exercise of his punitive sanction. Among the Crow also, the Sun is connected with oaths: “the oaths sworn to establish a claim to disputed war honours were addressed to the sun.’’172 n Similarly, the Ponka, who are Sioux of the Dhegiha group, celebrated a ‘““ceremony of conferring honours”, in which those who aspired to deck themselves with some distinguishing badge, such as a feather or a design in paint, for brave deeds which they had done, must give an account of their achievements in the presence of the whole camp, standing in front of a ‘‘war bundle”. The owner of the bundle would warn them that they were not speaking to him, but to Thunder, and therefore, if they did not tell the truth, would certainly be punished before the year was up. “I appear before you”, he would say, ‘as a representative of Thunder, whose loud voice you hear. Whatever words are to be spoken by you must be in strict accord with the truth, so that the wrath of the Thunder may not fall on anyone. Any words spoken without regard for the truth will bring on the speaker death by the stroke of lightning, or he will be gored by a bull, or bitten by a snake, or in some way his life will suddenly cease.”” The candidates would answer: ““Thou god Thunder, who standest before us, hear the words I am about to give you before the people. . . . I speak the truth.’’173 This ceremony, then, corresponds to that of the Crows, save that here Thunder is invoked, in the other ceremony the Suns The alternative Thunder and Sun reduces, as we have found to be the case elsewhere,
NORTH AMERICA 385 to the two alternative aspects of the Sky. Thunder, as among the Ponka, knows everything because he represents the stormy sky and punishes with the thunderbolt; the Sun, among the Crow, knows everything because he represents the bright sky.
(A) THE CADDO In his book, Views of Louisiana, together with a Journal of a Voyage up the River Missouri in 1811 (Baltimore 1816), H. M, Brackenridge thus
describes (p. 168 sg.) a ceremony of the Arikara Indians. “As we drew near the medicine lodge or temple, we saw in front of the entrance, or door, a number of young girls tricked out in all their finery of paint, beads, and dresses of the antelope, agalia, or deer skins, red or white . + + their robes were richly ornamented with porcupine quills, stained
of various colours, and with fringes, or borders, of silvery ermine. We
observed a cedar bough fixed in the earth on the top of the lodge. Prizes of beads, vermilion, and scarlet cloth were exhibited ; and the old men who live in the temple to the number of five or six, now proclaimed, as I was informed, that whosoever amongst the young girls of Arikara had preserved unsullied her virgin purity, might then ascend the temple and touch the bough, and one of the prizes would be given to her; that it was in vain to think of deceiving, for the Manitoo or Spirit, knowing all things, even their secret thoughts, would most certainly reveal the truth.” This rite very closely resembles the one which we have seen in use among the Ponka and Crow (p. 384) for the bestowal of military honours. For an Arikara girl, to preserve her virginity is an achievement equivalent to the brave acts accomplished by the Ponka and Crow warriors. In both cases the candidate makes a declaration, which must keep to the truth, on pain of bringing down the punishment of the Supreme Being, whose omniscience there is no escaping. The act of touching the cedar bough, in the Arikara girls’ ceremony, is very significant, for according to the Pawnees, another people of Caddo speech, related to the Arikara (cf. p. 386), cedar is “one of the trees that Tirawa (their Supreme Being) made on this earth”, and is never struck by lightning.174 It is probable that the Arikara’s all-knowing Supreme Being uses the weather as his instrument of punishment, in one way or another. The Arikara, Pawnee, Wichita and Caddo proper, or Hasinai, are peoples of Caddo speech, prairie-dwellers forming three separate groups, as it were three islands in the midst of the ocean of Siouxspeaking peoples. The Caddo have in common with the latter certain typical features of prairie culture, while in other details, as the growing of maize and matrilineal descent, they share in the culture of the south east area, which is agricultural and has mother-right. To this they originally belonged. Their mythology is to a large extent astral.175 BI
THE
386 Among the Wichita to down from eyes, which
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
Pawnee, who live between the Arikara to the north and the the south, the stars are thought of as divine beings who look the sky.17¢ Sometimes they are conceived as being actually cannot see in the daytime, but only by night. ‘Long time
ago,” says a myth of the Skidi Pawnee, “Tirawa [the Supreme Being]
wanted to give certain bundles to the people, and through these bundles human sacrifices were to be made to the Morning-Stars, and more particularly to the Great Star. Tirawa did not know how he could reach the people directly, so he consulted the two Morning-Stars, and asked if they could transform themselves into old men and go down to earth and live somewhere near the people, take certain things in a bundle and hang them up ina lodge that he would give them. Being stars, they were not to see in the daytime, but were.to be blind, though they were to see at night. . . . They consented. . . . So these stars were transformed into human beings, and they were blind in the day, and could: see in’ the night./27? The Sun also can see everything.178 But the Sun does not occupy a pre-eminent position in their religion, the chief figure of which is Tirawa,17° or Tirawa atius, the Father of all, who resides ‘“‘above the
clouds, in the blue dome of heaven, about the great circle in the (Tirawahut) where the lesser powers dwell, and from there bends kindly glance upon the earth and the men who are occupied in celebration of the sacred ceremonies held in his honour and who
sky his the say
‘Father, you see us’.??180 In one festival, known as hako, the celebrants
said that “from the east the flashes of the eyes of Tirawa come darting through the air upon us and upon the sacred objects”. This hako is one of the chief ceremonials in the Pawnee religion. It develops in a sequence of twenty rites, one after another, divided between various days and nights.181 Its object is the increase of children, represented by a small boy in the celebration. All the rite is permeated by a dualistic sexual symbolism having a cosmic basis. The male and female cosmic forces are symbolised by day and night, sun and moon, the heavens and the earth, the eagle and the ear of corn. The male element is represented by a stick painted blue, that being the colour of the sky; the female, by one painted green, since that is the colour of the earth. To the green-painted stick are tied feathers of the (male) white eagle, to the blue-painted one feathers of the brown (female) eagle. A sacred corn-cob,
which
stands for the earth, has its end coloured
blue,182
because that is the sky’s colour, and from the sky comes the fecundating power. In the culminating ceremony of the consecration of the boy, his face is painted with a curving blue line running from cheek to cheek across his forehead; this stands for the vault of heaven, where Tirawa lives. A straight line running from his forehead down to the tip of his nose represents the breath of Tirawa, i.e. the wind. In another
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ceremony of the hako, feathers are let fall on the boy’s forehead, because these represent the clouds, which are near Tirawa’s region. One of the hymns, sung while the celebrants, standing close together and turned
eastwards, watch for the first gleam of dawn in the sky, runs thus:
“Awake, oh Mother, from sleep. Awake! The night is far spent. The signs of dawn are now seen in the east, whence cometh new life. .
A child from Night is now born; Tirawa, father on high, on Darknes s
moving, brings Dawn.”
During the ceremonial performance of the
hako, the use of water for other than ritual purposes
is forbidden;
otherwise, a storm would be caused, whereas it is important that the sky should remain clear and free of clouds, to prevent any barrier intervening between the worshippers and the supreme Powers (cf. the cult of Iho among the Maori, Chapter XX, p. 345).183 In the Pawnees’ religious consciousness, Tirawa has reached an unusual height. ““We say Tirawa atius, the Father above, but we do not think of Tirawa as a person. We think of Tirawa as in everything” (Fletcher, The Hako, p. 217). When in speaking of Tirawa they use the pronoun “‘he”’, this does not imply any determination of his sex; on the other hand, “‘it” could not be used, for Tirawa is a person (zbzd., p. 107). But, however sublimated Tirawa may be in Pawnee theology,
he nevertheless, as we have seen, preserves clear signs in cult of his
character as a sky-god. As in the case of the Algonkin ‘Great Spirit”,
and so forth, or the Maori Iho, we find once more the Heaven, the sky-Being184 to be the original and fundamental datum, from which,
with the aid of additions and suggestions from without, of various prevenience and kind, the transcendental nature of the Supreme Being
has been evolved.
Another prairie people is the Kiowa, who are distinct in language from the Caddo and the Sioux alike. ‘The greatest of the Kiowa gods is the sun; by him they swear.’’185 (1) THE SOUTH-EAST The Sun was the great god of the Natchez of Louisiana. The members of their ruling aristocracy boasted descent from him, and consequently were called ‘‘suns”’, their chief, who was the supreme authority of their theocratic absolutism, being the Great Sun. Their descent was traced in the female line.186 The solar religion and the temple belonging to it, in which the holy fire continually burned and the remains of departed rulers were kept, were common to the neighbouring peoples, whether of the same linguistic group (Muskhogean), like the Taensa and Houma, or of the Tunica group, like the Tunica proper, the Yazoo and others, or of other groups again, like the Chitimacha. But the old evidence which we have from French authors of the seventeenth
388
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
and eighteenth centuries indicates that the chief deity was not the sun in the astronomical sense of the word, but rather a sky-god, who therefore, as god of the daylight sky, was a god of the sun as well, but was also god of the weather, and above all of lightning, which, like the sun itself, was represented on earth by the fire.187 If by any mishap the holy fire in the Natchez temple went out, a terrible punishment from the Sun’ was to be expected; this might show itself in the form of a fearful hurricane (see Le Page du Pratz, 1758). To rekindle the sacred flame, fire must be stolen from another temple of the Sun, “‘that fire must be carried away by violence and blood be shed over it, unless on the way lightning was seen to fall on a tree and set fire to it, that then they might spare themselves the trouble of going further to take this fire’ (Du Pratz). For this and other reasons, Swanton is inclined to suppose the Supreme Being of the Natchez to be “‘a sky deity resident in or connected with the sun??.188 Among the Creek, again, who are of the Muskhogean family, “the supreme deity bore a rather close relation to the sun, but was not quite equivalent to it. The supreme being was known as Hisagita-imist, ‘the preserver of breath’, or Ibofanga, ‘the one sitting above’. The fire was his representative on earth, and the fire spirit seems to have been in some measure his messenger. Thunder, including lightning, was mythically conceived as a being in human form, but Adair (1775) seems to identify him with Hisagita-imisi.”189 In the Chickasaw religion likewise (the Chickasaws are Muskhogean), ‘there was a supreme being living in the sky world and connected with both sky and sun, and manifested on earth in fire’’.19° Similarly, the conception of a sky-god and an association with the sun is found among the Choctaws. “It seems clear,” says Swanton, ‘that the aboriginal Choctaw entertained a belief in a supreme deity who, if not identical with the sun, was closely associated with and acted through that luminary and that he was represented on earth by fire.” A native missionary, Israel Folsom, declares that “they believed in the existence of a Great Spirit, and that he possessed supernatural powers and was omniscient’’.191 Our best account of Choctaw religion, that of the Rev. Alfred Wright, furnishes various names by which their Supreme Being was known. Of these, and also of others given by sundry old writers, “‘the only name which we may set down with confidence as aboriginal Choctaw is Hushtahli, compounded of hashi, ‘sun’ and tahlz, ‘to complete an action’... . It may have had the significance of ‘culminated or noon-day sun’ [cf. the Chitimacha Kutnahin, see below]. . . . Cyrus Byington192 has Hashtahli for the Great Spirit, ‘the governor of the world, whose eye is the sun’, from which ‘we may perhaps infer that the being so designated was celestial rather than solar’.” According to Swanton, Wright says that the sun was represented
NORTH
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as looking down upon the earth, and as long as he kept his flaming eye fixed on any one, the person was safe, but as soon as he turned away his eye, the individual died. On returning from a successful expedition, the war-leaders acknowledged that it was through the influence of Hushtahli, or the sun, that they were able to find the right path which led them to victory and returned them safely to their homes. In ancient times fire, as the more striking representation of the sun, was considered as possessing intelligence, and as acting in concert with the sun. The fire and the sun were supposed to have constant intercourse with each other, and the fire acted the part of an informant to the sun. And it was an ancient saying of theirs, that if one did anything wrong in the presence of the fire, the fire would tell the sun of it before the offender could go the length of his extended arms.193 In the religion of the Chitimacha, who lived west of the Mississippi, the principal deity, whom they worshipped in the dance-house with a special ceremony, was Kutnahin, i.e. the noonday Sun. As often happens to solar gods, Kutnahin sometimes is represented in myths as a traveller (ohcumd) and combines features of the culture hero with those of the Trickster. According to Martin Duralde, who wrote an account of their religion about the beginning of the nineteenth century, they recognised a Great Spirit, or Creator of all things, called Thoumé Kené Cacounche, or Cawuche, ‘who has neither eyes nor ears but who sees, understands and knows everything’. Making all due allowance for the infiltration of missionary ideas, we can readily see behind this ‘Great Spirit” the figure of Kutnahin, as being not so much the sun in particular but a sky-god.194 On the other hand, “there is evidence that the sky deity of the Chitimacha, like the corresponding deity of the Yuchi and Cherokee, was originally feminine”’.195 The sun itself was thought of by the Chitimacha as being a woman, the wife of the moon. We must not forget that the Chitimacha reckoned descent in the female line and women were therefore in a superior position to men. Among the Tunica also, with whom the Chitimacha seem to be connected so far as language goes, Gatschet alleges that the sun was female, while an old piece of evidence (from La Harpe, in the eighteenth century) tells us that “their household gods are a frog and afigure of a woman which they worship, thinking that they represent the sun’’.196 As for the Cherokee, they belong to the Iroquois family (cf. p. 382ff.), whose matrilineal culture we have already found reflected in the idea of the Supreme Being among other peoples influenced by them, as the Shawnee (above, p. 381), the presence of a matrilineal culture, or substratum, is quite clearly to be found in all the south-eastern cultures.
390
THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
(j) THE PUEBLOS AND THE SOUTH-WEST “The Zufi,” says Mrs. Bunzel, ‘‘are as much preoccupied with the origins and early history of their people as were, for instance, the ancient Hebrews.” The Zufii story of origins is a story of emerging from underground. At Keres (Eastern, Pueblos, New Mexico), mankind emerged from Shipapu, the deepest of the four underground caves, the dwelling of the Earth Mother; from there infants today are born and thither go the dead.197 This Earth-Mother (who is also mother of the game), known as Iyatiku at Acoma, Utset at Sia and by other names elsewhere, is the nearest Pueblo approach to a Creator. The sun was a secondary creation in Keresan mythology, while in that of Tewa, Isleta and Jemez he does not appear at all in the legend of the emergence from underground. On the other hand, according to the Zuni, one of the Western Pueblos, he existed before mankind
came forth and it was he who brought their emergence about. In this world there was no one at all. Always Sun came up; always he went in. No one in the morning gave him sacred meal; no one gave him prayer sticks; it was very lonely. He said to his two children, ‘‘You will go into the fourth womb”, and accordingly they went into the bowels of the earth, where their message from the Sun was proclaimed in the thick darkness. It ran: “Our Father Sun knows everything, but none gives him prayer-sticks or sacred meal or shell.’’198 The Sun is not the Creator in any Pueblo myth, except one recorded
at Oraibi, among the Hopi of Arizona. He is “Our Father”, but not
in the sense that he is our progenitor. Thus he is the source of life for the Zufii, “life” and “daylight” being the same word, tekohana, from
te, time or space, and kohana, white.199 Accordingly, the Zufii (and the
Hopi) have a more developed sun-cult than other Pueblos. The pekwin (literally “speaking place’’), the high priest of the Sun, the keeper of the
calendar, the ‘‘speaker’ or ‘‘crier’’ of the solstice ceremonies, from which
all other ceremonies are dated, is the most revered and the most holy man in Zuni.?? But even at Zufii Sun is not a supreme being; he is, however, all-knowing, as above said. F. H. Cushing and Mrs. Stevenson credited the Zufii with a most exalted idea of a Supreme Being. According to them, Awonawilona was the name of the Creator, ‘a supreme life-giving bisexual power who is referred to as He-She”, the highest expression of a barbarian theodicy and a concept of a sublimity almost Hegelian.?°1 But it would seem that dwonawilona is merely the generic term for any being of importance to whom prayer is addressed. “This term,” says Mrs. Bunzel, “Mrs. Stevenson erroneously interprets as referring to a bisexual deity, creator and ruler of the universe. Thé term is never used in this sense, nor was I able to find any trace of such a concept
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391
among them. The confusion seems to be due to the fact that the missionaries have hit upon this term as the nearest equivalent to ‘God’, The Zufiis, accordingly, always translate the term ‘God’. When asked if dwonawtlona is man or woman, they say ‘Both’, of course, since it refers to a great class of supernaturals.’’2°? This is also the opinion of Miss Parsons. The proper meaning of dwonawilona, however, is ‘“keeper of roads”, ‘the one who holds our roads”, i.e. lives, or as Cushing puts it, “keeper of the paths (of our lives)”. As Miss Parsons points out, a similar god occurs among the White Mountain Apache, who are neighbours of the Zufii; he is called In-Charge-of-Life; cf. above, p. 372. In my opinion the generic sense of dwonawilona does not exclude the possibility that, as in the case of manitu, okt, wakan and similar terms, there may have existed the idea of one supreme Awonawilona, which, however much it may have been influenced by Christian ideas, yet could go back ultimately to a native concept.?9% As to the notion of Awonawilona being a bisexual principle, a sort of ‘““He-She”’, we perhaps ought to bear in mind the analogous cases already pointed out (pp. 336, 380£.), showing such a figure to be the projection of the integral unity of the tribe, composed as it is of two parts, sexual or social. Thus “‘the chiefs of Pueblos religious societies, who form in every town a sort of council, are referred to as ‘fathers’ or ‘mothers’, or as ‘fathers
and mothers’,”2°¢ and among the Pueblos, as elsewhere, we find the
community divided into two halves. This is especially true of the eastern Pueblos, for instance at Isleta, but it recurs, although not in the same form, among the Keres, and in a still more worn-down condition, among the western Pueblos (the Acoma and Zufii) likewise. 205 NOTES
1. Rasmussen, b, pp. 51, 54, 55Words”, 2. Same, pp. 22, 51; cf. K. Birket-Smith, “Five Hundred Eskimo 1928), London, and agen (Copenh iii in Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition PP. 35> 49. Rasmussens Thulefahrt (Frankfurt a/M 1926), pp. 134, 144. . Rasmussen, a, pp. 62, 71 594. . Thalbitzer, a, pp. 384, 390 599. . D. Jennes, 179, 189; Rasmussen, d, pp. 36, 192 59.
. Rasmussens Thulefahrt, p. 508 sq. ry, p. 2153 . K. Birket-Smith, a, p. 433; cf. Schultz-Lorentzen, Dictiona is rather “he , silakipog ”; sensible silatuvog, “he has good understanding, is senses”’ his back gets ‘he stupid’; silagtorpog, g der Gottesidee iii, p. g. Thalbitzer, a, p. 392; W. Schmidt, Der Ursprun 506 54. 657; and Schmidt’s reply in : oe Cf. Thalbitzer in Anthropos xxvii (1932), PUrsprung vi, p. 562 59. OO QUI ON
392
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
11. Cf. J. Gabus, Vie et coutumes des Esquimaux Caribous (Lausanne 1944), Pp. 199 sq. 12. Thalbitzer, a, p. 390 sq. 13. Birket-Smith, a, p. 439. 14. Rasmussens Thulefahrt, p. 144. 15. Rassmussen, bd, pp. 48 sq., 79. 16. See my Miti e Leggende, Vol. iii (Turin 1953), p. 26 sqq. 16a. Rasmussen, c, pp. 85, 179, 224 sqq., cf. b, p. 48. 17. Rasmussen, a, pp. 62, 67 sqq., 71, 195. 18. F. Boas, “The Central Eskimo”, in 6th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington 1888); ‘The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay”’, in Bull. of the American Museum of Natural History xv (New York 1907). 19. Birket-Smith, a, p. 439; Thalbitzer, a, p. 393. > 20. A. L. Kroeber, ‘The Eskimo of Smith Sound”, in Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. xii (New York 1900), p. 317; cf. Rasmussen, a, p. 70. 21. Thalbitzer, a, pp. 401-4. 22. F. Boas, in Journ. Am. Folk-Lore vii (1894), p. 205. 23. W. Bogoras, The Chukchee (New York and Leiden 1904-9), p. 315 sq. 24. K. Donner, Bei den Samojeden in Sibirien (Stuttgart 1926), p. 106. 25. Boas, Eskimo of Baffin Land i, p. 120 sqq. 26. Rasmussen, a, pp. 94 5qq., 124 sqq., 133 sqqg. Cf. R. Pettazzoni, La confession des péchés (Paris 1931), p. 62 sqq. 27. Rasmussen, ¢, p. 266 sqq. 28. H. P. Steensby, Om Eskimokulturens Oprindelse (Kébenhavn 1905); Rasmussens Thulefahrt, p. 169 sqg.; T. Mathiassen, “Archaeology of the Central Eskimos’’, in Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, iv (Copenhagen 192 DB same, ‘“The Question of the Origin of Eskimo Culture”, in Amer. Anthropologist XXxli (1930), p. 591; Birket-Smith, 4, pp. 9, 210, 226, 232, d, p. 1 sqq.; same, “The Question of the Origin of Eskimo Culture: a Rejoinder”, in Am. Anth., ibid., p. 608; same, Die Eskimos (Zirich 1948), p. 221 sqq. Thalbitzer, in Anthropos (1932), p. 656 ff., is not inclined to recognise the Caribou Eskimo’s district as the cradle of Eskimo culture, but agrees that their culture is of an archaic character. 29. Among the Umingmaktormiut (a group of Copper Eskimo), the great malevolent woman Arnakaps4luk is the source of all tabus, Rasmussen, d, 24.
30. Sins (of men) confessed to the medicine-man in Alaska, Thalbitzer, a, Pp. 413, n. 1; confession of sexual sins on the Aleutian Islands, Pettazzoni, La confession des péchés i, p. 44; women in childbirth confess before an idol of the Earth among the Yurak-Samoyeds, ibid., p. 58, see p. 267. 31. The two forms of hunting must be practised separately and at different times; it is only in spring that they can be engaged in together. Among the Netsilingmiut it is the woman who cuts up seals, while it is the man who cuts up caribou, Rasmussen, ¢, p. 113. Caribou trails are subject to very strict tabus, and among the things which must be kept away from them are especially sealskins and the skins and tusks of walrus, Rasmussen, 5, p, 48. Among the Eskimo of the Mackenzie river (Rasmussen, e, p. 57) fresh-caught salmon and caribou meat should not be put on the table together,
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393
32. Rasmussen, a, p. 67. 33. There is no trace of a belief that caribou are born of Pinga in the way that the sea-creatures were born of the fingers cut off from the goddess of the sea. The caribou are on land and live in their own way; Pinga knows of them, but lets them do as they please. Only the souls of caribou which are killed, like those of men also, go to join Pinga ‘‘up above”, Rasmussen, a, p. 66, 2, pp. 49
foll., 56, 79; Thulefahrt, pp. 140, 142. 34. To the reindeer Eskimo, Sila ‘‘is beyond doubt the primitive universal principle, who once, when the Eskimo were not yet become a coastal people dependent on the sea, was the most important spirit, on whom all their religious beliefs depended’’, Rasmussen, a, p. 73. 35. J. R. Swanton, “Tlingit Myths and Texts”, in Bull. Amer. Ethnol. 39 (Washington 1909), pp. 3 5gq., 120 sqq. 36. Swanton, ibid., pp. 80, 81, 92. 37. Same, ‘Social conditions, beliefs and linguistic relationship of the Tlingit Indians”, in 26th Annual Report of the Bureau of Am. Ethnol. (Washington 1908),
P. 454. 38. Same, “Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haida (the Jesup North Pacific Expedition)”, in Memoirs Am. Museum of Nat. Hist. v, 1 (New York and Leiden 1905), p. 13 sq. 39. H. B. Alexander, North American Mythology (Boston 1916), p. 272. 40. F. Boas, “Tsimshian Mythology”, in 31st Annual Report (Washington 1916), see especially pp. 445 sqq., 543 5g. Also written Laxhagé, Boas, Tsimshian Texts (Bull. 27, Washington 1902), p. 94. 41. Same, Tsimshian Myth., p. 443. 42. Same, Tsimshian Texts, pp. 86, 94. 43. Same, “Mythology of the Bella Coola”, in Mem. Am. Mus. of Nat. Hist. ii (New York 1898), pp. 27 59.; 29; 34; cf. p. 126. 44. Alexander, op. cit., p. 273. Cf. the “Evening-Sky Woman” of the Tsimshian, Boas, Tsimshian Texts, p. 193; cf. 242. 45. ‘Among the Tsimshians, as among the Tlingit and Haida, descent is purely maternal”, cf.Boas, Myth. of Bella Coola, pp. 48, 122 sq. 46. J. A. Teit, “The Thompson Indians of British Columbia” (ed. F. Boas), in Mem. Am. Mus. of Nat. Hist. ii, 4 (New York 1900), pp. 341, 375- Teit is of opinion that, despite Christian influences, the idea of the Old Man is genuinely native, cf. his “Traditions of the Thompson River Indians”, in Memoirs of the Am. Folk-Lore Society vi (1898), p. 109, n. I 56, also Mythology of the Thompson Indians (New York and Leiden 1912), p. 320, and Boas, Tsimshian Mythology, p. 618. 47. Teit, The Shuswap (Jesup N. Pacific Expedition, ii, 7), New York and Leiden, 1908, p. 597. in 48. Same, “The Salishan Tribes of the Western Plateaus” (ed. F. Boas), sqq. 289 p. 1930), ton 45th Annual Report (Washing 49. Teit, op. cit., p. 184, cf. p. 383. Indians of 50. Rev. Myron Eells, “The Twana, Chemakum and Klallam an Institution Smithsoni the of Regents of Report Annual in y”, Territor ton Washing for 1887, i (Washington 1889), p. 673. Oregon”, in 51. A. S. Gatschet, “The Klamath Indians of Southwestern
394
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
Contributions to North American Ethnology ii (Washington 1890), 1, p. Ixxix sqq.; 2, pp. 138-40; Kroeber, in Univ. of Calif. Pubs. in Am. Archaeology and Ethnology, iv, 4 (1909), p. 182 sq. 52. Kroeber, Handbook, p. 119; same, ‘Wishosk Myths”, in 7.A.F.L. xvili (1905), p. 96; “Wiyot Folklore”, ibid. xxi (1908), p. 39; G. A. Reichard, “Wiyot Grammar and Texts”, in U.C.P. xxii, 1 (1925), p. 17553. Loeb, “The Creator Concept among the Indians of North Central California”, in A.A., 1926, p. 489; J. de Angulo and W. R. Benson, “The creation myth of the Pomo Indians”, in Anthropos, 1932, p. 261 foll. (7.A.F.L., 1935, p. 203 foll.). Cf. Loeb, Pomo Folkways, in U.C.P. xix, 2
(1926), p. 369.
i
54. Dixon, “Shasta Myths”, in 7.A.F.L. xxiii (1910), p. 18; Sapir, Yana Texts, m U.C.P: ix. 1 (1910), pp. 76, 915 209, etc: 55. Kroeber, Handbook, pp. 510 foll. (Yokuts), 472 (Costafio), 549 (Salina). 56. Kroeber, ibid., p. 315; R. B. Dixon, ““Achomawi Myths”, in 7.A.F.L. xxii (1909), p. 286; same, ‘““Achomawi and Atsugewi Tales”’, ibid. xxi (1908), p- 170; De Angulo, “La psychologie religieuse des Achomawi”, in Anthropos, 1928, p: 583. 57. Loeb, A.A. xxviii (1926), p. 475; same, a, p. 101; H. E. Driver, ““Wappo Ethnography”, in U.C.P. xxxvi, 3 (1936), p. 217. Loeb, a, p. 113, 119; J. de Angulo, L.S. Freeland, ‘‘Miwok and Pomo Myths”, in 7-A.F.L. xli (1928), p. 232 foll.; Kroeber, Indian Myths, p. 202; cf. E. W. Gifford, Miwok Myths, in OCHE, pal 8 (2919), p p. 312. 58. St. Powers, Tribes of California (Washington 1877), p. 227; Kroeber, Indian Myths, p. 177; Loeb, 6, pp. 214, 223; Kroeber, The Patwin and Their Neighbours, in U.C.P. xxix, 4 (1932), p. 303 foll. n
59. Loeb, a, p. 73.
60. Kroeber, Handbook, pp. 206, 216; same, “Yuki 1932, p. 307; Loeb, a, p. 56.
Myths”,
in
go
61. Loeb, 4, p. 157 foll.; R. B. Dixon, ‘System and Sequence in Maidu Mythology”, in 7.A.F.L. xvi (1903), p. 32; same, “Maidu Myths”, in Bull. Amer. Mus. xvii. 2 (1902), p. 37 foll.; same, “The Northern Maidu?”,: ibid. xvii. 3 (1905), pp. 250 foll., 334, n. 2. Cf. Schmidt, Ursprung v, pp. 99-100. 62. Loeb, db; p. 157; cf. Bosi Tribes of California, p. 339 foll. 63. Kroeber, Handbook, p. 154; P. E. Goddard, Kato Texts, in U.C.P. v, 3 (1909), p. 184 foll.; Loeb, a, pp. 23 foll. Nagaitcho also among the Sinkyone, G. A. Nomland, “‘Sinkyone Notes”, in U.C.P. xxxvi, 2 (1935), p. 170. 64. Gifford, ‘Coast Yuki Myths”, in 7-4.F.L. 1 (1937), p- 117; same, “The Coast Yuki”, in Anthropos (1939), pp. 362, 367. 65. Loeb, a, pp. 3-4; same, Pomo Folkways, p. 301. 66. J. Curtin, Creation Myths of Primitive America (London 1899), p. xxx; Kroeber, Handbook, p. 362; Indian Myths, p. 176; Cora Du Bois, Wintu Ethnography, U.C.P., 1935, p- 72. 67. Curtin, op. cit., p. 23. 68. ‘“They hang out two skins, first the white, then the black skin, and when clouds enough have gone from them, they take the skins into the sweat-house again, and from these two skins comes all the rain to pedple in this world.” Curtin, op. cit., p. 23.
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69. Cora Du Bois and Dorothy Demetracopoulou, ‘“Wintu Myths”, U.C.P. XXVill, 5 (1931), pp. 286, 290. 70. Cf. Kroeber, Indian Myths, p. 175. 71. Du Bois, op. cit., in n. 66, p. 72. 72. It is to be understood that the omniscience of Olelbis is a relative one, cf. my art., “‘Allwissende hòchsten Wesen bei primitivsten Vélkern’’, in A.R.W. XXIX, 3-4 (1931), p. 229 foll. Olelbis does not know where his wife Mem Loimis is when she is carried off by Wind (‘He knows everything, he sees everything, but he did not know she was here’’) and has to be told by the son of Sanihas (Daylight), whose name was Sanihas Yupchi, “the archer of daylight’? (Curtin, p. 56). 73. Ralph L. Beals, Ethnology of the Nisenan, U.C.P. xxx, 6 (1933), p. 381. 74. R. B. Dixon, ‘Maidu Myths”, in Bull. Am. Mus. xvii, 2 (1902), p. 67 foll. 75. Curtin, op. cit., pp. 56, 237 sq. 76. Loeb, Pomo Folkways, p. 227. 77. In California too, stars are the eyes of the sky, Kroeber, “Wishosk Myths”, in 7.A.F.L. 1908, p. 39. The polestar is the eye of Madumda, the eastern Pomo Creator, always watching over his people, Loeb, op. cit., p. 228. 78. Kroeber, Handbook
Concept
among
pp- 467-93.
(1925), pp. 182, 364 f., 371; Loeb, ‘The
the Indians of North
Creator
Central California”, in A.A.
1926,
79. The Kuksu cult is missing among the Wiyot, Wintu and North-eastern Maidu, who all have a creator of the ‘high god” type; conversely, the Patwin Creator is zoomorphic, although they are supposed to be the “‘hotbed”’ of that cult; the Miwok, who also practice it, regard Coyote as the Creator. Generally speaking, the Kuksu cult is of little importance in southern California. 80. Kroeber, The Patwin and their Neighbours, U.C.P. xxix, 4 (1932), p. 303; cf. Schmidt, Ursprung u, p. 314. 81. Kuksu got the initiatory rites from the Moon, who is the Creator. As first man and first initiator, Kuksu is the Moon’s representative on earth, and shares the Moon’s nature, that is to say the cycle of waxing and waning, disappearing and appearing again, which in a man means continual renewal of youth and rising again from the dead, see Loeb, a, p. 107, cf. “The Creator Concept”, in A.A. (1926), p. 469, n. 7. In the myth given by Powers, Tribes of California, p. 294, Woannomik (Wonomi) comes down among men at night to teach them the initiation-dances and these dances which he instituted can be performed by night only, cf. Schmidt, Ursprung ji, pp. 156, 178. 82. Among the Yuba River Maidu, Aika was the name of a “dreamer” who went about with Wonomi, the Supreme Being, on his wanderings. Loeb, 4, p. 179; Kroeber, The Valley Nisenan, U.C.P. xxiv, 4 (1929), p. 274. 83. Dangel, in S.M.S.R., 1927, p. 41 599. cf. Atti del xxii Congresso degli Americanisti (Rome 1926), i, p. 500. Silver Fox sings in Achomawi and Taikomol (Inland Yuki) myths, Anthropos (1908), p. 584; (1932), p. 907, etc. 84. Realisation by mere act of volition, in other words creation ex nihilo, is in fact not an exclusive prerogative of a Creator of the higher kind. Coyote is credited with it among the Coast Central Pomo (Loeb, in A.4., 1926, p. 476), also Gatswokwire, the culture-hero in Wiyot or Wishosk mythology (Kroeber, in 7.A.F.L., 1905, p. 96: “he was foolish. He made women pregnant
396
THE ALL-KNOWING GOD
by his supernatural power . . . sometimes he thought about a woman ‘I wish you were pregnant’, and then she was pregnant”). ì 85. See my lecture ‘Mythes des origines et mythes de la création”, in Proceedings of the 7th Congress for the History of Religions (Amsterdam 1951), pp. 67-78. ise Cf. R. Dangel, “Der Schòpferglaube der Nordcentralcalifornier”, in S.M.S.R., 1927, p. 38. 87. Among the “southern” elements is the two-class structure of society, which is not to be found in northern California, but only among south central (Miwok, Yokut, Mono) and southern tribes. Kroeber, Handbook, pp. 446, 453; etc., cf. E. W. Gifford, Miwok Moieties, U.C.P. xii, 4 (1916); Dichotomous Social Organization in South Central California, ibid. xi, 5; Clans and Moieties in Southern California, ibid. xiv, 2. The Miwok divide all nature in to a water-half and a land-half, which are supposed to correspond to the-Kikua and Tunuka moieties among them. The Lotasuna and Kosituna, i.e. Frog people and Blue Jay people, are synonomous with these. 88. Cf. Kroeber, “Wishosk Myths”, in 7.A.F.L., 1905, pp. 95, 98, where Gudatrigakwitl says: “This sort of cloud will make rain; this kind will make snow; when there is this kind it will be very warm”, and makes a snowstorm in winter by shaking his head, the snow coming from his hair. 89. See S. Klimek, “The Structure of the Californian Indian Culture”, in U.C.P. xxxvii, 2 (1935), with Kroeber’s Preface. 90. Kroeber, Handbook, p. 182. gt. R. B. Dixon, in A.A. vii (1905), p. 607 sqq.; F.A.F.L., 1908, p. 159. 92. Same, ‘“Achomawi and Atsugewi Tales”, in 7.A.F.L., 1908, p. 170. 93. Loeb, Western Kuksu Cult, p. 73. 4 94. Kroeber, “Yuki Myths’’, in Anthropos (1932), p. 907, cf. Indian Myths, U.C.P. iv, 4 (1907), p. 184. 95. Same, Indian Myths, p. 191 sqq., cf. Handbook, p. 472. 96. “Traditions of the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia”, in Memoirs Am. Folk-Lore Soc. vi, p. 7. 97. “The Northern Maidu”, in Bull. Amer. Mus. xvii, 3 (1905), p. 336. g8. See my Preface to Miti e Leggende. i (Turin 1948), pp. xiii sg., and my paper “Verità del mito”, in S.M.S.R. xxi (1947-8), p. 114; also Essays on the History of Religions (Leiden 1954), p. 11ff. 99. L. Farrand and L. J. Frachtenberg, “Shasta and Athapascan Myths from Oregon”, in 7.A4.F.L. xxviii (1915), p. 224 sqq. 100. Father A. G. Morice, The Western Dénés, in Proc. Canadian Inst., grd Series, No. vii (1888-89; Toronto 1890), p. 157. Cf. Hastings, E.R.E. iv, p. 639: “In the West the nature of this ruling principle was not very clear, though it was generally recognised as the great controller of the celestial forces—wind, rain, and snow.” 101. Morice, in E.R.E. iii, p. 228 sg. So also among the Hare Indians, who are eastern Dénés, there is a creator god, Inkfwin-wetay, “He who sits on the zenith” (ibid., from Petitot). 102. D. Jennes, The Carrier Indians of the Bulkley River (Anthropological Papers No. 25, in Bull. 133 of the Bureau of Am. Ethnol. Washington 1943) >
PP. 539, 546 59.
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397
103. John M. Cooper in Primitive Man vi (1933), p. 85. 104. Cf. E. Sapir, “The Na-Dene Languages”, in Am. Anthrop, xvii (1915),
p- 558.
105. P. E. Goddard, “Navajo Texts”, in Anthrop. Papers of the Am. Museum of Nat. Hist. xxxiv, 1 (1933), p. 153 sgg. This forms an interesting parallel to the white horse and white rider, both solar, common to many historical and proto-historical peoples of the ancient East and of barbarous Europe, see Chapters xi, xill, xiv. 106. G. Goodwin, White Mountain Apache Religion, in A.A. xl (1938), 26: “Almost, if not entirely, of equal position is the sun. There is confusion as to whether he and In-Charge-of-Life are not one and the same, and they are occasionally mentioned as such. True, the sun is the accredited source af most of the things which come from In-Charge-of-Life. . . . But mythology does account for the creation of the sun.” See also ibid., 24, 27. 107. P. E. Goddard, Myths and Tales from the White Mountain Apache, in Anthrop. Papers of the Am. Mus. of Nat. Hist. xxiv, 2 (1919), p. 101. 108. Cf. W. D. Strong, ‘Cross-Cousin Marriage and the Culture of the Northeastern Algonkin”, in A.A. xxxi (1929), p. 277 599-; “A Stone Culture from the Northern Labrador and its relation to the Eskimo”, ibid. xxxii
(1930), p. 126 599.
109. J. M. Cooper, “The Northern Algonquian Supreme Being”, in Primitive Man vi (1933), pp. 41-111. 110. For the Montagnais-Naskapi, see Fr. G. Speck, Naskapi, the Savage Hunters of the Labrador Peninsula (Norman 1935), P- 35 599111. Cooper, pp. 43, 69, 76. Cooper concludes: “On the whole, it seems more likely that the Supreme Being was conceived of as master rather than maker.” 112. Cooper, p. 77, cf. pp. 49, 69. 113. Cooper, loc. cit., pp. 46 59-5 49, 58. The same is true of the Montagnais, ibid., pp. 71, 79. As for the Eskimos, see p. 356. 114. ‘What is killed they did not carry uncovered. .. . The Manitu will see it; when the meat is carried abroad it is always covered over so that Manitu would not see them taking it away” (Cooper, pp. 44, 49). 115. But also in the moon: “They acknowledge a Superior Being who they say lives in the sun and moon” (Price); “sun and moon” also in La Potherie and in David Thompson’s Narrative of his Explorations in Western America, 1784-1812, cited by Cooper, p. 93. t 116. Cooper, pp- 47, 53, 69, cf. 79 (death of a child supposed a punishmen
sent by Manitu). 117. Cf. the Penobscot (Eastern Algonkin) myth of Gluskabe and the wind xlviii in F. G. Speck, ‘Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs”, in 7.A.F.L.,
(1935); P. 40.
e
118. Cooper, p. 73, cf. Strong, in A.A. xxxi (1929), p. 285: “The main deity is the Caribou god, whom they believe to be angry with them.” and the 119. For the motive of a competition between the Great Spirit 186, 180, pp. 1928), ton (Washing Report Annual 43rd Speck, culture-hero see the second and in 7.4.F.L, xxviti (1915), p. 61. The first instance is Wawenok, Micmac.
398
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
120. Radin-Reagan in 7.A.F.L. xli (1928), p. 68; P. S. Rasles, The Jesuit Relations, Vol. lxvii, p. 158; Harrington, Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape (New York 1921), pp. 32, 36, 98, 147; Speck, A Study of the Delaware Indians’ Big House Ceremony (Harrisburg 1931), p. 37 544. 121. Among the Thompson River Cree we find separate manitos set ‘as guardians and guides of every genus of birds and beasts, each Manito having a separate command and care, as one the Bison, another the Deer, etc.”
(Cooper, p. 93).
122. Speck, Naskapi, p. 76 sqqg. Again, among the Naskapi of Davis Inlet and Barren Ground, the caribou god, the real Supreme Being, has another being alongside of him, Nitan, who is “‘the chief of the caribou” and lives in the caribou house (dtiwitciap), a mythical mountain in north-eastern Labrador, believed to be the home and source of all caribou (W. D. Strong, cited by Cooper, p. 73); cf. Atihkwatcahk as name of the Caribou-Man among the Cree of James Bay, Cooper, pp. 48, 64. 123. Cf. Cooper, p. 100, quoting a letter of Father Z. Lacasse (1878) on Naskapi religion, in which the caribou says to man: “Tu tueras mon corps, mais mon ame repassera dans le corps d’un autre caribou fagonné par l’ombre qui plane au-dessus des foréts et qui veille sur la destinée de la nation des caribous.”” 124. Cf. Schmidt, Ursprung ii, p. 779. Among the northern Saulteux (Ojibwa), K’tchi Manitu, otherwise Kadabénjiget, is Supreme Being and “Owner of Owners”, ‘Lord of the Universe”, but it is only ‘by implication’ that he is said to possess intelligence, omnipotence and presumably omniscience, according to A. I. Hallowell, Empirical Aspects of the Northern Saulteux Religion, in A.A. xxxvi (1934), 403. For the Sun, see A. Skinner, in Bull. of the Pub. Museum of the City of Milwaukee, v, 1 (1923), p. 34 sqg. (the Sauk), vi, 1 (1924), p. 46 (the Prairie Potawatomi or Mascoutens), and in Anthrop. Pap. Amer. Mus. xili (1913), p. 79 (the Menomini). 125. Skinner, ‘Medicine Ceremony of the Menomini”, in Indian Notes and Monographs iv (New York 1920), pp. 24-83; J: W. Hoffman, “The Menomini Indians”, in 14th Annual Report (1896), p. 76. Cf. Schmidt, Ursprung ii, p. 562. 126. Skinner, The Mascoutens or Prairie Potawatomi Indians, i, in Bull. Mus. of Milwaukee vi, 1 (1924), p. 163. 127. T. Michelson, Notes on Fox mortuary customs and beliefs, in goth Ann. Rep. Bureau Am. Eth. (Smithsonian Inst. Washington 1925), p. 403. 128. Same, The Mythical Origin of the White Buffalo Sacred Dance of the Fox Indians, ibid., pp. 219, 231, 241, 243, etc. 129. Same, Contributions to Fox Ethnology, i, Bull. 85 Bur. Am. Eth., pp. 29, 87, 91, 110, 114, 123, 127, 145, 146, 148; same, ii (Bull. 95, Chicago 1930), PP. 13; 19; 25 599-; 63; 93, 95, 99, 152, 175, etc. 130. Same, in Bull. 85, pp. 110, 127, etc.; Bull. 95, pp. 27, 63. 131. J. M. Cooper, “The religion of the Gros Ventres of Montana”, in Annali Lateranensi iv (1940), pp. 97-115, especially pp. 106, 107, 114; he defines their religion as “‘a dominant dynamic theism but not monotheism”, p. 115. 132. W. McClintock, The Old North Trail, or Life, Legends and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians (London 1910), p. 500; cf. Clark Wissler and D. C. Duvall, Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians, in Anthrop. Pap. Am. Mus. ii, 1 (New
NORTH AMERICA
399
York 1908), pp. 7 sgq.; G. B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales (New York 1893), pp. 100 sg., 149; J. Maclean, “Blackfoot Mythology”, in 7.4.F.L. vi (1893), p. 165; R. Dangel, ‘“Napi der Alte”, in S.M.S.R. viii (1932), pp. 23-35133. G. A. Dorsey, The Arapaho Sun Dance, in Field Columbian Museum Pub. 75, Anthrop. Series iv (Chicago 1903), p. 205, n. i; cf. A. L. Kroeber, The Arapaho, in Bull. Am. Mus. xviii, 2 and 4 (1904-7); G. A. Dorsey and A. L. Kroeber, Traditions of the Arapaho, in Field Col. Mus. Pub. 81, Anth. Ser. v (Chicago 1903). 134. Grinnell, The Cheyenne Indians, their History and Ways of Life (New Haven, London and Oxford 1923), ii, p. 88 sqgg. Grinnell reports the opinion of a Cheyenne that the sun, the moon and Heammavihio are all the same. 135. G. A. Dorsey, The Cheyenne, ii: The Sun Dance, in Field Col. Mus. Pub. 103, Anth. Ser. ix. 2 (Chicago 1905), p. 186. Cf. The Cheyenne, i: Ceremonial Organisation, ibid. 99, Anth. Ser. ix. 1 (Chicago 1905); A. L. Kroeber, “Cheyenne Tales”, in 7.A.F.L. xiii (1900), pp. 161-90; G. B. Grinnell, ‘Some
Early Cheyenne
Tales”, in 7.A.F.L. xx (1907), pp.
189-93, xxi
(1908), pp. 269-320; “The Cheyenne Medicine Lodge”, in A.A. xvi (1914), pp. 245-56; “The Great Mysteries of the Cheyenne”, ibid. xii (1910), pp. 542-75: 136. J. Loewenthal, Die Religion der Ostalgonkin (Berlin 1913). 137. M. R. Harrington, “Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape”, in Indian Notes and Monographs, Heye Foundation (New York 1921), p. 18 sqq.; cf. “A Preliminary Sketch of Lenape Culture”, in A.A. xv (1913); P. 208 5qq.3 F. G. Speck, “A Study of the Delaware Indians’ Big House Ceremony”, in Pub. Pennsylvania Hist. Commission II (Harrisburg 1931), p. 81 599. 138. Harrington, Relig. and Cerem., Plates v, vi and p. 83, fig. 6. 139. Harrington, op. cit., p. 84, fig. 7: Cf. A.A. (1913), p. 219, fig. 44. 140. There were not two but four faces carved on the central pole according to R. C. Adams, “Notes on the Delaware Indians”, in U.S. Census 1890, ap. Harrington, of. cit., p. 119. 141. The notion of a two-faced being is found also in Cheyenne folklore in face the figure of a double-faced kidnapper of babies or little girls. He has one in front or before and one behind, which combine to defend him from assaults
rear, while leaving him open Tales”, in 7.A4.F.L. xiii (1900), the same motif is found in the 142. R. Pettazzoni, I Misteri
to flank attacks. See L. Kroeber, ‘Cheyenne p. 184, cf. pp. 174-6. Ibid. xliii (1990), p. 436, folklore of the Oglala Dakotas. (Bologna 1924), p. 249.
143. Cf. the twelve heavens. Harrington (p. 130, fig. 15 b) shows a specimen
forming part of of the sticks, twelve in number, also painted red and black, as raising the while cries twelve uttered ion congregat the ; the sacred apparatus sticks towards the central pole and so forth, see Speck, pp. 22 599-; 61. 1655), 144. A van Donck, Beschrijvinge van Nieuw Nederland (Amsterdam 1913), P- 55p. 76, quoted by J. Loewenthal, Die Rel. d. Ostalgonkin (Berlin as saying: “Others 145. Harrington, p. 22, quotes Brainerd, writing in 1745, made by him.” imagined the sun to be the only deity, and that all things were . Harrington, Lenape) Ontario or (Minsi a 15 fig. 146. Harrington, p. 130,
p. 102, fig. 11 (Oklahoma Lenape).
147. Harrington, Rel. and Ceremonies of the Lenape, 140 5q.: “The carved
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GOD
heads of the drumsticks meant that human beings were giving thanks; the lengthwise painting of the sticks, half black and half red, implied that men and women were together in thankgsiving, the black representing the warriors, the red the women.” There is a like symbolism in the Arapaho sun-dance; the coiffure of the women is decked with red beads, the colour of the earth being red, while that of the men has blue beads, since that is the colour of the sky, see G. A. Dorsey, Arapaho Sun Dance (1903), p. 74 599. 148. W. Jones, in Bull. 125 of Bur. Am. Ethnol., p. 80. 149. T. Michelson, in goth Annual Report (1925), p. 548. 150. P. Radin, The Winnebago Tribe, in 37th Annual Report (Washington 1923), p. 185. Similarly, among the Osage and Omaha, “‘the tribe was divided into two parts, one to represent the sky and the other the earth”. Fr. La Flesche, The Osage Tribe, in 36th Ann. Report (1921), pp. 48, 51, 43rd Ann. Report (1928), p. 30; A. Skinner and Fr. La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, in 27th Ann. Rep. (1911), p. 215 sqq. Cf. J. Haekel, ““Totemismus und ZweiklassenSystem bei den Sioux-Indianern”, in Anthropos (1937), p. 797 sqq. For California, see above, n. 87. 151. The mask of Misinghalikum, Lord of Beasts, whose cult likewise belonged to the great yearly Lenape festivals, was also painted half red and half black, Harrington, of. cit., p. 33. 152. E. Seler, Codex Borgia i, p. 78 sq., ii, p. 292 sqq. 153. J. Loewenthal, Die Religion d. Ostalgonkin, p. 60 sqg.; D. G. Brinton, The Lenape and their Legends (Philadelphia 1885), p. 136 sqq.; W. Jones, “Ethnography of the Fox Indians”, in Bull. 125 Bureau of Am. Ethnol., p. 20, cf. 7.A.F.L., xxiv (1911), pp. 210, 215; A. Skinner, “Sauk Texts”, in WALD: xli (1928), p. 150; T. Michelson, “Menomini Tales”, jn A.A. xili (1911), p. 68 sgg., cf. Skinner, Anthrop. Papers Am. Mus. xiii (1915), p. 219 SQ].3 Hoffmann, The Midewiwin or Grand Medicine Society of the Ojibwa, in 7th Annual Report, p. 147 sqq. 154. C. F. and E. W. Voegelin, “Shawnee Name Groups”, in 4.A. xxxvii (1935), p. 627. There is also a Shawnee myth, much worked over under Christian influence, in which the creation of a new race of mankind, especially of redskins, after the flood, is due to an old woman, in whom survives the ancient concept of a female Creator, see J. Spencer, “Shawnee Folk-lore”, in F.A.F.L. xxii (1909), p. 319. 155. C. F. Voegelin, “The Shawnee Female Deity”, in Yale Univ. Pubs. in Anthropology, No. 10 (1936); A.A., 1944, pp. 370-75. 156. Cf. W. N. Fenton, “Problems arising from the historic north-eastern position of the Iroquois”, in Essays in Hist. Anthrop. of N.A. pub. in honour of Jf. R. Swanton (Washington 1940), p. 159 sqq. 157. J. N. B. Hewitt, “Iroquoian Cosmology ii’, in 43rd Ann. Report (1928), p. 608. 158. C. M. Barbeau, Huron and Wyandot Mythology (Canada Department of Mines, Geological Survey, Memoir 80, Anthropolog. Series 11, Ottawa 1915), p. 8 sgq.; “Supernatural Beings of the Huron and Wyandot?, in A.A. xvi (1914), p. 288 sgg.; cf. H. Hale, “Huron Folk-Lore”, in 7.A.F.L., 1888, : 1889, 1891. 159. J. H. Trumbull, in Bull. 25 of Bur. of Am. Eth. (1903), Pp. 49, 269, 323.
NORTH
AMERICA
401
160. Jesuit Relations, Vol. xiii, p. 270, note. eh J. Loewenthal, Rel. d. Ostalgonkin, p. 83, cf. Ztschr.f.Ethnol. xlv (1913), p. 69. 162. Captain John Smith, A Map of Virginia, with a Description (etc.), in Travels and Works of Captain Fohn Smith, ed. E. Arber (Edinburgh 1910), Vol. i, p. 75; cf. The General Historie of Virginia, etc. (London 1629); W. Strachey, The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia (Hakluyt Society, Vol. vi, 1849). Cf. A. Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion? i (1906), p. xxxii sq.; R. Pettazzoni, Dio i (Rome 1922), p. 307. 163. Father Jean de Brébeuf, Relation de ce qui s’est passé dans le Pays des Hurons en Vannée 1636 (The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610-1791, Vol. x, ed. R. G. Thwaites), p. 158 sqq. 164. Father Paul Raguenau, Relation de ce qui s'est passé en la mission des Pères de la Compagnie de Fésus aux Hurons, pays de la Nouvelle France és années 1647 et 1648 (Fesuit Relations, Vol. xxxiii), p. 224 sq. 165. Cf. Huron Hamendiju, Iroquois Rawenniio, “the great good master”, “probably an early adaptation of the European God”, according to Barbeau, Huron and Wyandot Mythology, p. 10, 301, n. I. 166. A. C. Parker, “Iroquois Sun Myths”, in 7.A.F.L. xxili (1910), p. 477. Cf. Barbeau, in A.A. xvi (1914), p. 304 sq. 167. J.O. Dorsey, A Study of Siouan Cults, in 11th Annual Report (1894), p. 450. 168. S. R. Riggs, Ta-koo Wah-kon, or the Gospel among the Dakotas (Boston 1869), quoted by Dorsey, op. cit. 169. W. D. Wallis, ‘‘Beliefs and Tales of the Canadian Dakota”, in 7.A4.F.L. xx (1907), p. 40; cf. Dorsey, Study of Siouan Cults, p. 449; R. Pettazzoni, Miti e Leggende iii (Turin 1953), p. 360 sqq. 170. J. R. Walker, The Sun Dance and other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota, in Anth. Paps. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. xvi, 2 (New York 1917), pp. 81, 155, 161. 171. Martha W. Beckwith, “Mythology of the Oglala Dakota”, in 7.4.F.L. xliii (1930), p. 414; Wilson D. Wallis, The Canadian Dakota, in Anth. Paps: Am. Mus. xli, 1 (1947), pp. 25, 81 sq. 172. R. H. Lowie, The Religion of the Crow Indians, in Anth. Paps. xxv. 2 (1922), p. 318. 173. Alice C. Fletcher and Francis La Flesche, The Omaha Tribe, in 27th Ann. Report (Washington 1911), p. 439 sqq. 174. G. B. Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Stories (London 1893), p. 126. 175. Alice C. Fletcher, “Star Cult among the Pawnee’, in A.A. (1902), p. 130; ‘Pawnee Star Lore”’, in 7.A.F.L. (1903), p. 10; G. A. Dorsey, Traditions of the Arikara (Washington 1904), p. 3 5qq.; Mythology of the Wichita (Washing-
ton 1904), p. 5 599.
1
176. Dorsey, Traditions, p. 60; The Pawnee Mythology i (Washington 1906), Pago: 177. Dorsey, Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee (Boston and New York 1904), . 52 qq. 2.8.CE. R. Dangel, “Der Hochgott der Caddo-Gruppe”, in S.M.S.R. v
(1929), p. 194. CI
402
THE ALL-KNOWING
GOD
179. Dangel, “Tirawa, der héchste Gott der Pawnee”, in Arch. f. ReligionsWiss. XXV1i (1929), p. 113 544. 180. Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Stories, pp. 117, 272, 355; Dorsey, Pawnee Mythology, p. 123. 181. Alice C. Fletcher The Hako, a Pawnee Ceremony, in 22nd Ann. Report, Pt. 2 (Washington 1904), pp. 28 sg., 64. 182. See Fletcher, op. cît., Plate lxxxvili. 183. Fletcher, op. cit., pp. 17 599., 32, 44 599-, 233, 265, 280 sqg., 322. 184. Dangel, in S.M.S.R., loc. cit., p. 205 sgg., and before that R. Pettazzoni, Dio i (Rome 1922), p. 285. 185. J. Mooney, Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, in 17th Ann. Report (Washington 1898), p. 237. 186. W. C. MacLeod, ‘Natchez Political Evolution”, in A.A. xxvi (1924),
p. 201 599.
;
187. In Natchez, oiia, “fire”, otia-chill, “‘the sun’’ (as the supreme fire), cf. coyocop, “‘a spirit’’, Coyocop-chill, the Great Spirit, Supreme Being (Swanton, in Bull. 43, 1911, p. 168). 188. J. R. Swanton, Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico, in Bull. 43 (Washington 1911), pp. 174, 171 5q.3 cf. The Indians of the South-eastern United States, Bull. 137 (Washington 1946), p- 779. See also Swanton, “Sun worship in the South-east”, in A.A. xxx (1928), p. 206 sgg.; R. Dangel, in S.M.S.R. (1929), p. 208 sqg. In like manner, contrary to the evidence of Father Gravier (1700), who lists separately a sungod, a fire-god and a sky-god among the chief deities of the Tunica, Swanton observes that “elsewhere we find the sun, fire and heaven represented by a single deity” (Bull. 43, p. 319; Bull. £37, p. 781). Cf. Mary R. Haas, “The Solar Deity of the Tunica”, in Paps. Mich. Acad. of Sci., Arts and Letters xxvili (1942), p. 531 sqq189. Swanton, in A.A. xxx (1928), p. 207, Bull. 137, p. 773. 190. Jbid., p. 776. 191. Same, Source Material for the social and ceremonial life of the Choctaw Indians, in Bull. 103 (Washington 1931), p. 197. 192. C. Byington, A Dictionary of the Choctaw Language, in Bull. 46 (Washington 1915), p. 148. 193. Rev. A. Wright, in Missionary Herald (1828), ap. Swanton in Bull. 103,
PP. 195 599., cf. Bull. 137 (1946), p. 777.
194. Thunder, besides the sun, moon and so on, is alleged to have been made by Kutnahin; see Swanton, in Bull. 43 (1911), PP. 349 59+) 352 59-5 356 5q.; Bull. 137 (1946), p. 781; Frances Densmore, A search for songs among the Chitimacha Indians, in Bull. 133 (Anthrop. Papers No. 19, Washington 1943), p. 12. 195. Swanton, in Bull. 137, p. 781. 196. Same, in Bull. 43, p. 318; Bull. 137, p. 780; Mary R. Haas, loc. cit. 197. Ruth L. Bunzel, ui Origin Myths, in 47th Ann. Report Bur. Am. Ethnol. (Washington 1932), p. 547; Elsie Clews Parsons, Pueblo Indian Religion (Chicago 1939), pp. 182, 210, 212, 243, 316, 963 544. 198. Parsons, op. cit., pp. 212, 218; same, “The Origin Myth of Zufii”, in F.A.F.L. xxxvi (1923), pp. 135 s49.; Mrs. Bunzel, op. cit., p. 584 sgg.; Ruth Benedict, 7 and also from Asia to North and South America. The complex of the Lord of animals is one of the characteristic elements of this primitive culture and of its religion. The Lord of animals is not the reflexion of a transcendent Supreme Being. He, who assists man in the hazardous adventure of hunting, so full of the unknown and of dangers, who shows him the tracks of the game among the Bushmen,** makes them go into the traps among the northern Algonkin,5° opens the hunter’s eyes to see them among the Damara® and makes him aim straight to hit them among the Pygmies, or guides the arrow to the desired mark arhong the Bushmen,*? he and no other is himself man’s
Supreme Being, for on him depends, day by day, man’s existence, since he has man’s life and death in his hand. The primitive notion of the Supreme Being is no abstract a priori idea but rises in men’s thoughts from the very conditions of human existence; and since these conditions vary in the different phases and forms of primitive culture, the form of the Supreme Being varies accordingly within these phases. The Supreme Being, who in his archetypal projection into the myth of the beginnings of things,®? is the creator who guaranteed once and for all the stability and continuance of the universe, is in real every-day life he who on all occasions takes care of the essential necessities for mankind. As in farming cultures the Supreme Being is Mother Earth, because man’s sustenance comes from the earth, and as in pastoral communities he is Father Sky, since it is from the sky that there comes the rain to make the grass, which is needful for the pasture of the cattle and therefore for human life, spring up and grow, so in a hunting-culture the Supreme Being is and the Lord of animals, because on him depends the capture of game man. for consequence vital of is which hunt, the result of the of It is true that in hunting-cultures we also find another form we as do, to have We Supreme Being, the supreme all-seeing sky-god. cal have already said (p. 441) with two essentially different ideologi ground, the towards say, to so looking, one the es, and religious complex Lord with that is towards the forest, where the beasts live and their
looks down them, and the other towards the sky, whence the sky-god
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THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
on the doings of men and puts into force his weather-sanction. But it is well known that hunting cultures, like farming cultures, are manifold in form, and their different forms can be schematically grouped into an inferior type, consisting in nothing but the capture of game and food-gathering, and a superior one, in which the method of hunting is more advanced.63 Within this typological scheme are inscribed the two religious complexes, that of the Lord of animals and of the skygod; the former is the Supreme Being of the more primitive hunters and food-gatherers, the latter of the more advanced hunters. We must now see what is the historical and concrete relation between the two opposite poles of our schema. One thinks involuntarily of a line of development which, on the common basis of a hunting-culture, would connect the Lord of animals as the Supreme Being of a lower and more primitive phase with the all-seeing sky-god as the Supreme Being of a higher and more advanced one. It is not hard to discern the lines of thought which may have governed this development. Among the Efé and Bakango Pygmies of the Ituri, the Supreme Being, Epilipili, Mungu, or whatever he may be called, is called upon to send fine weather, when a hunting-party is planned, with the same ceremony as is used to stop bad weather, great fires sending up to the sky dense clouds of smoke.s4 The reason is that bad weather hinders hunting, because it prevents the hunters from finding the game, following it up, hitting it and so forth. “In order to hunt well and live happily”, said an Iglulik Eskimo, to Rasmussen, “man must have calm weather” ;*5 and he added, “Why this constant succession of blizzards and this needless hardship for men seeking food for themselves and those they care for? Why? Why?” From this acute anxiety for their existence comes forth a moral consciousness. Sila sends the bad weather as a punishment; he is himself in some way the bad
weather, for Sila, like Num,
means
also weather in general.66 Bad
weather, which hinders hunting, is a penalty imposed by the Lord of animals who is on his way to become a sky-god. This has nothing to do with evolutionism. We do not assume a single constant line of development, starting from an original plurality of masters, or “chiefs” or ‘‘fathers’’ of the individual species of creatures (so Zelenin), and passing in time through a reduction to three leading figures, one for each of the elemental “kingdoms” of land animals or quadrupeds, creatures of the air (birds) and those of the sea (fish), till it leads to the unifying concept of a single Lord of all animals®? who in his turn develops at last into a'sky-god. Nor on the other hand do we assume the opposite idea, which is a sort of reversed evolutionism, of the Lord of animals being a hypostatisation (as Father Schebesta has it) or an Absplitterung, as W. Schmidt calls it®8 or secondary derivation of some sort of a “monotheistic” and transcendental Supreme
EPILOGUE
447
Being, creator and father of the universe and consequently of animals as well.69 With more especial regard to the relation between the Lord of animals and the sky-god, we do not assert that the idea of the latter could not have arisen even independently of the former, nor exclude the possibility that the idea of bad weather hindering hunting may in one case or another have helped to incorporate the Lord of animals who rules the hunt in the figure of a pre-existing sky-god, governor of the resources of the weather, or to superimpose the latter on the former. All this can be better cleared up by further researches definitely directed to the Lord of animals, who at present is continually attracting more attention from students and seems destined to open new horizons in the history of religion in primitive times. It remains now merely to draw conclusions as regards the divine attribute of omniscience and its origins. If the Lord of animals was the earliest Supreme Being, he possibly was endowed with that magical omniscience which is characteristic of animals (see Introd., p. 3f.), but not with the attribute of divine omniscience as we have defined it. Divine omniscience is not, for instance, that of the bears and beavers who see, hear and know everything in the opinion of some Salish tribes of the north-west, Coeur-d’aléne and Okanagon.” If anything, it is rather of the sort which other Salish tribes, those of the north-east, the Sanpoil and Nespelem, attribute to stormy weather, when they say that the weather knows everything that is said about it.” Divine omniscience, which is universal vision, and in order to know, that is, to see, must have light; which is directed to the actions of mankind and has for its complement a power to punish by means of the weather ; this omniscience is the peculiar property of the sky-god, is born with him and grows with him. Thus the divine attribute of omniscience originates in hunting-culture at its more advanced stage and from those distant beginnings attends the sky-god throughout the course of his later history down to the present day. Behind the omniscience of the Christian God lies historically the .omniscience of Yahweh, and behind Yahweh is historically the sky-father of pastoral cultures, himself eventually the heir of an all-seeing sky-god of hunting peoples. From the sky-god, the attribute of omniscience passes to his specialised weather-forms, such as Wind, Thunderbolt and Thunder, and to his astral representatives, such as Sun and Moon. The Sun, as a
heavenly body, naturally can see and therefore knows everything, and may be so thought of in any historical or cultural environment whatsoever. But as a Supreme Being, which apparently he is especially in the environment of a totemistic culture and in manifest connection with hunting-culture, the Sun shares the celestial nature of the sky-god,
448
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
and ultimately his punitive activity by means of the weather. In true farming cultures the Supreme Being is not the Sun nor the sky-god, but Mother Earth, who has not the attribute of omniscience, or, if she
has it, gets it only by reflexion from a sky-god (cf. p. 13). Farming cultures, with their peculiar cult of the great EarthMother and their characteristic tendency to attribute a leading position to women, develop, so to say, along a female line, being oriented quite differently from those which, starting from huntingcultures, in which the male plays the leading part, pass into pastoral cultures predominantly patriarchal. But the two lines, starting as they do from the same original nucleus, in which the activities of the two sexes, the hunting of at least the larger game being the men’s task, while the gathering of wild fruits is more especially entrusted to the women, are still complementary and do not yet form mutually exclusive alternatives as do the breeding of cattle and the tilling of the soil, turn again and meet in the composite higher cultures, in which Father Sky is worshipped alongside Mother Earth, yet traces of the most ancient Lord of animals are not wholly wanting.72 And it is in this advanced phase of culture that we meet for the first time with portrayals of the divine attribute of omniscience, which finds expression in the iconographic motif of many-headed figures. In the proto-historic culture of the Indus, this feature does not belong to the figure of the mother goddess, although such figures are not wanting, for instance, among the antiquities of Mohenjo-Daro,7? but, in certain
seals from that site, to a seated male personage (Fig. 10), which has three or perhaps four heads, each looking a different way, and is surrounded by four animals, perhaps one for each direction. There are good reasons (cf. Chapter VII, p. 124) for seeing in this many-headed figure a divine forerunner of the Vedic Siva pasupati, the Lord of cattle (cf. Lat. pecus). But pasu in the Rg-Veda means also a wild animal,’4 and among the creatures which surround the three-headed figure on the seal reproduced in our Fig. are the tiger and the rhinoceros, which assuredly were not domesticated beasts. The manyheaded deity of Mohenjo-Daro is probably an ancient Lord of animals, transformed into an overseeing sun-god, protector of the fertility of Nature in general and that of animals in particular (see above, p. 115, for a Hittite parallel). As the Indus civilisation is earlier than the coming of the Aryas, who were the bearers of a pastoral culture, it follows that the art-motif of plurality of heads is of pre-Indo-European origin,?5 although it makes its way later into the Vedas and the post-Vedic religious tradition (see Chapter VII, p. 125). It goes back to the great civilisations which flourished in India and the Near East before the Indo-European expansion. Applied perhaps originally to the Sun, as a naive symbolic
EPILOGUE
449
expression of his universal vision and knowledge, the motif of multiple heads is widespread in the East and in Europe, from Cilicia to Gaul, from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, and is always applied by preference to the figure of a sun- or sky-god, as still shown as late as the decorative repertory of Persian metallurgy in Muslim times (Fig. 7
NOTES 1. Max Miiller, Anthropological Religion (Gifford Lectures delivered before the University of Glasgow in 1891), London 1892, p. 82, “The Lesson of Jupiter??. ) 2. W. Koppers, Der Urmensch und sein Weltbild (Vienna 1949), p. 241. 3. P. A. Talbot, Peoples of Southern Nigeria ii (London 1926), p. 39. 4. H. B. Alexander, North American Mythology (The Mythology of all Races x, Boston 1916), p. 273. 5. P. G. Peekel, Religion und Zauberei auf dem mittleren Neu-Mecklenburg (Minster i/W 1910), p. 5. 6. The ending -ffi is a feminine suffix, see J. H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas (London 1921), p. 180 sq. 7. R. H. Lowie, Primitive Religion (New York 1924), p. 46 sqq. Cf. the Allmother Earth, Masakomekokin, alongside the Great Spirit among the Menomini, Potawatomi, Sauk, Ottawa and other Algonkins (Schmidt, Ursprung ix, p. 834 sg.), Nungui (Mother Earth) alongside Cumbanama among the Jivaros (A. Métraux, Hdb. of S. Amer. Indians iii, p. 626, R. Karsten, “The Religion of the Jibaro Indians”, in Boletin de la Academia Nacional de Historia iv, 10-11, Quito 1922, pp. 2, 8 cf the offprint, same, “The Headhunters of Western Amazonas”, in Societas Scientiarum Fennica, Commentationes humanarum litterarum viii, Helsinki 1935, M. W. Stirling, ‘Hist. and ethnograph. material on the Jivaro Indians”, in Bull. 117 of the Bureau of Amer. Ethnol., Smithsonian Inst., Washington 1938); Maisò beside Enore among the Paressi of Matto Grosso (Métraux, op. cit. iii, p. 359 sg.). On the Peruvian Pachamama and his survival at the present day, see Métraux, in 7ourn. de la Soc. des Américanistes
(1935), P. 328.
8. K. Th. Preuss, Forschungen zu den Kagaba (St. Gabriel 1926-27 = Anthropos 1919-26), p. 64 sgqg., “Die hòchste Gottheit ben den kulturarmen Volkern’’, in Psychologische Forschung ii (1922), pp. 167-73. 9. V. Petrullo, ““The Yaruros of the Canapanaro River’’, in Anthrop. Papers 11, Bull. 123 Bur. Am. Eth., Smithsonian Inst. (Washington 1939), p. 241. 10. Métraux, Hdb. i, p. 350. 11. The Chamacoco are almost wholly hunters and food-gatherers, but their most southerly group, the Tumereha, unlike the rest, practise agriculture, and it is likely that the absence, save for some few traces, of this art is of secondary
origin, the result of unfavourable local conditions. In an environment better suited to farming, agriculture still is practised among other peoples of the Gran Chaco, such as the Moro and the Guarafioca, as it already was among the ancient Zamuco, see Métraux, Hdb, i, p. 250. Among the Yaruro again, who FI
450
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
live solely by hunting and food-gathering, the lack of agriculture may perhaps be of secondary origin. 12. Chronica de la Santa Provincia del Santissimo Nombre de Jesus de Guattemala, Chapter vii; the passage is the motto of S. G. Morley’s work, The Ancient Maya? (Stanford 1947). 13. The omniscience of Paabothkwe, Our Grandmother, among the Pawnee (she “knows everything that happens, day and night, all over the world’’) goes back, not to the Iroquois Earth-Mother, from whom Pabotkwe is derived, but to an ancient Algonkin sky-god, upon whom she is superimposed, see Chapter XXII, p, 381. In like manner the omniscience of the Pawnee Atira, the EarthMother, who ‘‘knows all places and the acts of all inen” (H. B. Alexander, North American Mythology, Boston 1916, p. 91), comes from that of Tirawa, the supreme sky-god, with whom Atira is conjoined in an inseparable pair, cf. the Konyak Naga’s Gawang, “‘Earth-Sky’’, who knows and sees everything, and the like powers of the pair Ometecutli-Omeciuatl in ancient Mexico, etc., above, p. 406. 14. “Bei den echten alten Pflanzenvélkern ist die Himmelsgottheit entweder iiberhaupt nicht vorhanden oder eine véllig unbedeutende Nebenfigur im religidsen Bereich”, A. E. Jensen in Paideuma v (1930), 42. Cf. Fr. Kern, in Anthropos, 1929, p. 179. 15. Cf. L. von Schroder, Arische Religion i (Einleitung. Der altarische Himmelsgott, das hòchste gute Wesen), Leipzig 1923. 16. Frazer, Worship of Naturei (London 1926), p. 105. This extension of the horizon of research was the most valid part of the programme of the Gesellschaft fiir vergleichende Mythenforschung which was founded at Berlin in 1906, cf. P. Ehrenreich, Die allgemeine Mythologie und ihre ethnologischen Grundlagen, (Leipzig 1910). 17. For this historical revaluation of the comparative method, the reader is provisionally referred to my article, ‘“Les deux sources de la religion grecque’’, in Mnemosyne cioa p. 1 sqg.; cf. my Religione nella Grecia antica, 2nd ed.
(Turin 1953),P
18. Gace 1119.
a“Thor und Maui”, în Anthropos xiv-xv (1919-20), pp. 1099-
19. Cf. A. Titius, Die Anfange der Religion bei Ariern und Israeliten (Studien zur systematischen Theologie, xvi, Gottingen 1934, pp. 10 sqq., 31 5qq.). 20. I. Lévy, in Rev. hist. relig. cx (1934), p. 33 sqq., cf. E. Dhorme, La religion des Hébreux nomades (Brussels 1937). a1. Cf. B. Balscheit, Alter und Aufkommen des Monotheismus in der israelitischen Religion, Beiheft 69 zur ZATW (Berlin 1938). 22. Cf. A. Vincent, La religion des Fudéo-Araméens d’Eléphantine (Paris 1937),
p. 105 sq. 23. N. Sdéderblom, Das Werden des Gottesglaubens? (Leipzig 1926), p. 278 sq. 23a. Cf. the ““Mountain-god” as the principal deity in the religion of the pre-Mosaic Hebrews and Canaanites, W. F. Albright, From Stone Age to Christianity, ed. 2 (Baltimore 1946), p. 186. 24. Among the Hamites also “the sky-gods are mostly weather-gods and are enthroned on cloud-capped mountains”, Baumann, Schépfung u. Urzeit, p. 391. 25. Cf. W. Krickeberg in Zeit.f. Ethnol. lxvi (1934), p. 315.
EPILOGUE 451 26. Cf. R. Dussaud, L’@wvre scientifique de Renan (Paris 1951), pp. 28, 43 54. 27. Baumann, op. cit., p. 391: “Die Mythik der hamitischen Kultur ist ausgesprochen célar (uranisch) and vor allem atmosphàrisch.” 28. Father F. Azais, “Etude sur la religion du peuple Galla”, in Reo. d’éthnographie et des traditions populaires vi (1925), p. 113: “Le peuple galla a été et reste encore monothéiste. Ce peuple a été préservé, par un concours de circonstances extraordinaires et inconnues, du naufrage des traditions primitives au sujet du Dieu unique, qui a englouti les peuples chamites qui l’entourent.” 29. F. Kern in Anthropos, 1929, p. 179, thinks that the emphasis laid on the meteorological aspect of the Wettergott in mixed farming and pastoral cultures, as contrasted with the serene aspect of the sky-god (Himmelsgott) in those genuinely pastoral, is due to agricultural influences. 30. Father W. Koppers, “Konnten Jagervélker Tierziichter werden ?”’, in Biologia Generalis viii (1932), p. 179 sqq.; Schmidt, “Zu den Anfangen der Herdentierzucht”, in Zeitschr. f. Ethnol. lxxvi (1951), pp. I-41. 31. Fr. Graebner, Das Weltbild der Primitiven (Munich 1924), pp. 144, n. 4, 147, n. 68. 32. This certainty which he expressed so categorically in 1912 and again in 1926 (Ursprung i, Historisch-kritischer Teil, Miinster i/W 1912, p. 220; ed. 2, 1926, p. 273: “So kann es nicht mehr zweifelhaft sein: die Tasmanier verehrten ein Héchstes gutes schépferisches Wesen’’) might be said to have lessened with Father Schmidt, for the Tasmanian Supreme Being does not in fact appear in the positive and constructive part of the work, neither in Vol. iii, which is given over to the Religionen der Urvélker Asiens und Australiens (1931), nor in vi, which contains the Endsynthese der Religionen der Urvòlker (1935). The animistic nature of the figure of Tiggana marrabona, which I pointed out in my article, ‘La religiosità dei Tasmaniani”, in Rivista di Antropologia, 1913, seems to have been made more, not less, probable by the linguistic material adduced in greater abundance by Father Schmidt; see W. Schmidt, Die Tasmanischen Sprachen, Utrecht-Anvers (1952). 33. As late as 1947 Father Schebesta wrote in Zaire (February Number, p. 184): “On n’insiste pas ici sur le nom de Tore, qui peut avoir été emprunté aux Nègres.” 34. Father Paul Schebesta, Die Bambuti-Pygmden vom Ituri, ii, p. 3: Die Religion (Brussels 1950), pp. 159 s99., 208 sgg., 214 sqq., 220, 222 sqg. On the ceremonies for getting rid of bad weather (columns of smoke and leaves and ashes sent skywards) with an invocation of the Supreme Being, see ibid., p. 70 sqq. 35. Schebesta, op. cit., p. 58. In like manner among the Bakango Pygmies the Supreme Being sends storms and makes it thunder and lighten, and so forth, ibid., p. 70. 36. Ibid., pp. 208, 213; on p. 70 it is stated that the storm-deity and the bushand hunting-deity are the same. 37. According to Father Schebesta, of. cit., iii, p. 217 and passim, the Lord of animals (Wildgott, Fagdgott) is the early hypostatisation (Erdgott, Buschgott, Waldgott) of the Supreme Being, parallel to another and celestial hypostatisation of him which is more especially lunar, the Mondgott. But this evanescent
452
THE ALL-KNOWING
GOD
Supreme Being, who according to Schebesta himself has no name (‘der namenlose Vatergott”), who has no cult and no myths, and counts for nothing in real
life, existing only in his hypostases (‘man ware geneigt den Buschgott als das Héchste Wesen aufzufassen”, p. 219), is rather a postulate of the theory of primordial monotheism than a concrete reality. Indeed, Schebesta is obliged to place him even further off than the primitive Pygmy culture in one yet more primitive, a hypothetical, proto-African culture, pre-Pygmy and pre-Negro. From this he supposes he passed into the Pygmy culture alone, not into that of the Negroes, in the shape of the Lord of animals. To this urafrikanisches Kulturgut Schebesta again attributes the magical ideology which he has at last accepted as the undeniable foundation of the whole religious world of the Bambuti, including the religion of the Supreme Being (‘‘Gott ist der gròsste Magier”, op. cit., p. 226). 38. Father P. Trilles, Les Pygmées de la Forét Equatoriale’ (Paris 1933), p- 78 599. 39. H. Baumann, Afrikanische Wild- und Buschgòtter, in Keitschr. f. Ethnologie lxx (1938), pp. 210 sqq., 213. 40. “Er erscheint auch in der gefirchteten Windhose” says Baumann, loc. cit. 212. We may compare Limudini among the Nyamwesi, who is Lord of animals and of the forest, the creator of the various sorts of animals and the
inventor of their names, and his favour is sought to get good hunting and the like. He too appears in the whirlwind of a hurricane, W. Blohm, Die Nyamwezi
(Hamburg 1933); p. 185 599.
41. C. G. and B. J. Seligman, The Veddas (Cambridge 191 I), pp. 30 594; IZ1 599., 150 544., 213 5qy., 284. Cf. von Eickstedt in Atlantis ii (1930), p. 88 sqq. Father Schmidt thinks it at least probable that Kande Yaka is “an old . Supreme Being”, Ursprung iii, p. 326 sq., cf. vi, p. 507. 42. P. Heinrich Meyer, Wunekau oder Sonnenverehrung in Neuguinea, in Anthropos, 1932, pp. 823 sq., 844. 43. L. Frobenius, Ailantis, xi (Jena 1924), pp. 66, 176. Cf. my Muti e Leggende i (Turin 1948), p. 251. 44. A. Gahs, “Kopf-, Schadel-, und Langknochenopfer bei Renntiervòkern”, in Festschrift W. Schmidt (Vienna 1928), pp. 231-68. “Der Name [IlibemBerti] ist nur ein Attribut des Num”, ibid., p. 239, cf. p. 241. 45. A. Friedrich, “Die Forschung iber das frithzeitliche Jagertum”, in Paideuma ii, 1-2 (1941), pp. 20-43, based on the study by D. K. Zelenin, Kult ongonov v Sibiri (Moscow Academy of Sciences 1936). Cf. A. Dirr, “Der kaukasische Wild- und Jagdgott’’, in Anthropos, 1925, pp. 139-47. 45a. S. M. Shirokogoroff, Psychomental Complex of the Tungus (London 1935), p. 126 sgg.; Schmidt, Ursprung x (1952), P. 545 599. 46. U. Harva, Die religidsen Vorstellungen der altaischen Volker (Helsinki
1938), P. 391 59.
47. Bogoras, Chuckchee Mythology (Leiden and New York 1912), pp. 86 sq., 100 Sq., 162 sqq. 48. “So ist Pinga tatsàchlich nur eine ‘Bezeichnung’ des Sila”, Gahs, Joc, cit., p. 257. 49. An interesting Eskimo-Algonkin parallel is the following. Among the Caribou Eskimo, when a caribou is killed, the blood and entrails must be covered up (Knut Rasmussen, Thulefahrt, Frankfurt a/M 1926, p. 142).
EPILOGUE
453
Likewise, among the Montagnais, one of the things which displease the “Lord of life” is to carry meat (other than frozen rabbits) outside the tent without covering it, which it is not necessary to do inside the tent (Cooper in Primitive Man,
1933; PP. 47, 58, 62, ID
50. John M. Cooper, “The Northern Algonquian Supreme Being”, in Primitive Man vi (1933), p. 73. On p. 98 we find a prayer collected by James Mackenzie in 1808: ‘Great Master of animals among the clouds, bless us, and
let us continue to make a good hunt as usual.” 51. Cooper, op. cit., p. 93. 52. R. H Lowie, Hdbk. of S. American Indians iii (Washington 1948), p. 48. (Th. Koch-Griinberg, Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern Nordwest-Brasiliens, Stuttgart 1923, p. 176 sqq.). 53. J. C. Tello, “Viracocha”, in Inca i (1923) (p. 593, Fig. 87, winged Jaguar on star-sprinkled background). Cf. R. Larco Hoyle in Hdb. S. Amer. Ind. ii (Washington 1946), p. 171 sqq. 54. M. Gusinde, Die Yamana (Médling bei Wien 1937), pp. 1049 sqq., 1069, 1308. Cf. J. Cooper, Hab. S. Amer. Ind. i, p. 103, ‘W. the owner of the food animals and plants”; O. Zerries, Wildgeistvorstellungen in Stidamerika, in Anthropos xlvi (1951), p. 157, and now his book, Wild- und Buschgeister in Siidamerika (Wiesbaden 4954), p. 35 sqq. 55. Zerries, ibid., p. 151. 56. Cf. Chr. von Fiirer-Haimendorf, “Die Hochgottheiten der Ao- und Konyak-Naga von Assam”, in Mitt. d. Ges. f. Vòlkerkunde viii (1933), p. 29. 57. Baumann, in Xeitschr. f. Ethnol. lxx (1938), p. 239. 58. V. Lebzelter, “Die religidsen Vorstellungen der Khun-Buschmànner”, in Festschr. W. Schmidt, p. 409. 59. Cooper in Primitive Man, 1933, p. 49. 60. Vedder, in Africa, 1930, p. 186: “Er (Gauab, das H. Wesen) éffnet dem Jager die Augen, dass er das Wild sieht. . . . Er zeigt der Sammlerin die fruchtbaren Stràuche” u.s.w. 61. Schebesta, Bambuti, p. 253; Lebzelter, loc. cit. 62. See my communication to the Amsterdam Congress of 1950, ‘*Mythes des origines et mythes de la création”, in Proc. of the 7th Congress for the hist. of religions (Amsterdam 1951), p. 67 sqq., also in Essays on the Hist. of Rel. (Leiden
1954), p. 24ff.
63. Cf. S. Lagerkrantz, Beitràge (Stockholm 1938). 64. Schebesta, Bambuti-Pygmaén 65. Kn. Rasmussen, Intellectual 1929), P. 5566. Rasmussen, Thulefahrt, p.
zur Kulturgeschichte der afrikanischen Fagdfallen
vom Ituri iii, p. 70 sq. Culture of the Iglulik Eskimo
(Copenhagen
144; Sila “straft mit schlechtem Wetter”.
Among the Achomawi and Atsugewi of northern California, “the hunters must not use the common terms for the ordinary foods or the various places
they passed, as to do so would bring bad weather” Anthropologist x, 1928, p. 212).
(R. B. Dixon, in Amer.
67. O. Zerries, in Anthropos, 1951, p. 146 sqg. CL. A. E. Jensen, Alpilios u. hult bei Naturvòlkern (Wiesbaden 1951) p. 170: “Bei den dlteren Jagern scheint es im wesentlichen nur einen Herrn aller Tiere gegeben zu haben”
(my italics).
454
THE
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
68. Schmidt, Ursprung iii, pp. 545; 552 599. The conception is parallel to that of the sky-god (Himmelsgott) as a specialised form of a super-celestial Supreme Being. On this point compare what I have written in A.R.W. xxix (1931), P. 235 599. 69. If anything, we may perhaps say that it is precisely the Supreme Being, in his quality as a sky-god, who “detaches himself” from the Lord of animals, shedding the bestial aspects more and more and progressively emphasising the celestial aspects. But this line of development, which extends beyond the hunting-cultures to the great figure of the sky-father in the pastoral-cultures, and beyond those again, is not a uniform one. The Lord of animals does not fully disappear, and the more he does blot himself out when absorbed by the sky-god, the livelier he becomes on his own behalf asa distinct figure, better and better defined in his bestial aspects, alongside of a Supreme Being more and clearly defined in his celestial ones. Baumann himself, cited by Zerries in Anthropos, 1951, pp. 157-8, writes: “‘Festzuhalten ware immerhin, dass neben dem Tierherrn als Hypostase eines Hochgottes in den alten Jagerkulturen auch ein vom letzeren vollig unabhangiger Herr der Tiere auftreten kann.” This may be the case with Jilibeambaertje among the Samoyed, so far as he is distinct from Num (p. 443), with Pinga as distinguished from Sila among the Eskimo of the interior (p. 358), with Yehl, the Raven, alongside of Nas.caki.yéhl among the Tlingit (Chapter XXII, p. 361), with Nitan, the Caribou-Man, alongside with the Caribou-God among the Montagnais-Naskapi (J. Cooper in Primitive Man, 1933, p. 73; cf. F. G. Speck, Naskapi, Norman 1935, p. 82 sq.), to say nothing of sundry other Algonkin figures, demiurges subordinate to the Supreme Being, in whom it is easy to detect an ancient Lord of animals, such as Nenebozho-Manabus, the Great Rabbit, among the Ojibwas, who is “the elder brother of all the beasts of the earth”;Ussakita-Wisakita-Wisekedjak among the Ottawas and others, ‘“‘the Great Manitu of all beasts’; Misinghalikum among the Lenape, entrusted by the Creator with the guardianship of deer and all forest beasts (cf. Chapter XXII, p. 376). See also Schmidt, Ursprung ix (1949), p. 833 sqg. The same holds good for Coyote among the north central Californians. He appears at times as a demiurge, alongside the Supreme Being, as his co-worker in creation, or again as his opponent and adversary, but certain indications go to show that anciently he enjoyed priority over the Creator, in other words that he once had the status and rank of a Supreme Being who himself created. From this position it would seem that he fell owing to the prevalence of a new Supreme Being, and was degraded to his present function of a jester, trickster and deceiver, the position usually given him in folklore (Chapter XXII, p. 370; cf. my Miti e Leggende i, Turin 1948, pp. xiii foll., and Proc. of the 7th Congress for the hist. of relig., 1950, Amsterdam 1951, p. 76 sqg.). Iktomi again, the Great Jester among the Teton Dakota, appears to be a degenerate Lord of animals. When Skan, the Supreme Being, doomed him to live for ever on earth hated of men and despised of the gods, Iktomi burst out laughing, because, he said, at all events he had the birds and beasts left to, rule over, and with them he would live, speaking their tongue and amusing himself at mankind’s expense. (J. R. Walker, The Sun Dance and other ceremonies of the Oglala Division of the Teton Dakota, Anthrop. Papers of the Am. Mus. of Nat. Hist. xvi, 2, New York 1917, p. 164 sqq.).
EPILOGUE
455
Among the Assiniboin also Inktomi, as they call him, appears as a creator, see R. H. Lowie, The Assiniboine, Anthrop. Papers iv, 1 (New York 1909), p. 101. In Africa again, among the Edo of Benin, Osanoha, ‘Osa of the bush”, the creator of animals, is the enemy of the supreme sky-god, who created man, see N. W. Thomas, Anthrop. Report on the Edo-speaking peoples of Nigeria (London 1910) i, p. 24 599. 70. J. A. Teit, The Salishan Tribes of the Western Plateaus (45th Annual Report, Washington 1930), pp. 184, 291. 71. V. F. Ray, The Sanpoil and Nespelem, Salishan peoples of North-eastern Washington (Univ. of Washington Pubs. in Anthrop. v), Washington 1932, peers: 72. A. E. Jensen, Mythos und Kult bei Naturvòlkern (Wiesbaden 1951), p. 170, finds in the Homeric Proteus (Od. iv, 404 sqq., 450 sqq.) traces of an ancient Lord of seals (Herr der Robben). I am fully persuaded that the complex of the Lord of animals survives in several mythological figures of the ancient world, both classical and oriental, as I propose to show in another context. Here I will do no more than cite the study by Jaqueline Chittenden, ‘““The Master of Animals”, in Hesperia xvi (1947), pp. 89-114; cf. A.F-A. lii (1948), pp. 24-33, in which Hermes is interpreted as a Lord of animals. A potnios theron already appears alongside the fotnia theron in the ancient Minoan cult, see M. P. Nilsson, The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion? (Lund 1950), p. 513 594. 73. Sir John Marshall, Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization, i (London
1931), P. 49 599.
74. Ibid., p. 54. 75. This is rightly seen by W. Kirfel, Die dreikopfige Gottheit (Bonn 1948). Less happy is his attempt to make an ideological and genetic distinction between those instances of plurality of heads which are limited to three and those which have four or five, and to assign them respectively to two different culture-horizons. It is plain that three, four and the other numbers are nothing but differentiated forms of plurality (see Chap. VII, p. 128); that is the fundamental datum, the summum genus, we might say, to which the particular species all belong.
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INDEX Absalom, Bp. of Lund, 235 Acagua, 417 Acholi, 38 Ackerman, Phyllis, 149 Acomawi, Atsugewi, 453 n.66 Adad, 77, 114 Adam of Bremen, 234, 242 Adhibudda, 126 Adityas, 10, 121 Aeschylus, 148, 151, 155, 156 Aeta, 318 ff. Agamemnon, 145 Agdistis, 267 Agni, 10, 17, 122 agonium, 166 Ahriman, 134 Ahura Mazdah, 132 ff., 138, 145, 437 Air (aér), 10 fi, 78, 153 ff. Aither, 10, 155 Ajok, 38 Aka-Bea, 301 Akan, 12 Akar-Bale, 301 akitu, 80 Akposo, 36 Alakaluf (Alikhoolip, Halakwulup),
423
Alata’ala (Hatalla), 322 Alexander the Great, 190 n.43 Alfures, 11, 332 Algonkin, 9, 372 ff., 382 Alhou, 289 Ali, 140
Allah, 5, 42, 437 Alviah and Arvakr, 233 n.84
Altair, 7, 343
Aluelap (Alueléb, Anulap, Eluelap),
7, 8, 342 f.
Alus, 218 n. 120 Amaka Lanito, 334 Amakhosa, 34 Amaseia, 96 n.40 Amaterasu, 4, 7 Amaunet, 55, 71 n.96 Amenophis IV (Amen-Hotep, Ikhnaton), 9, 58, 62, 66 n.6 Anima Lanito, 335
Amitabha, 126
Amon (Amun), 7, 10, 11, 12, 15, 55 ff.,
64, 78, 331 -Ra
(Ré), 16, 50, 55, 56, 58, 61, 62
Amoten, Amotken, 363 Anahuac, 408 anauatl, 414 n.30
Anaxagoras, 153 Anaximenes, II, 153 Andamanese, 15, 29 n.30, 301 ff. Andersson, J. G., 282
Ananagi, 377 angakut, angakog, 356, 359
Angami Naga, 434
Angel of death, 111 of the Lord, 109 Anna, 42 Antevorta, 168
anthropomorphism, 1, 244, 276, 279 Antiochos of Kommagene, 185 Anu, II, a ff., 84, 157 0.14 anxiety, ‘ “existential” » 25, 4.46 An-yang, 278 Ao Naga, 11
Apache, 9, I1, 21, 25, 372; 391
Apapocuva, 421 Apiaca, 420
Apna-Apha, 13, 335, 336, 408
Apollo, in Anatolia, 182; in Gaul, 197; in Thrace, 179 ff.; Archegetas, 186; Bozenos, 182; Derron, 181; Geikethienos, 181; Hyakinthos, 152; Kisaludenos, 182; Lairbenos, 182; Oteudanos, 181; panoptes, 156; patrios, patroos, 186; Sitalkes, 181; Skodrenos, 181; Staraskenos, 181; tetraotos, 17; thyraios (propylaios, stropheus), 165; Zelaenos, 181; Zerynthios, 181 A-Pucikwar, 305 Apuleius, 8 Araona, 420 Arapaho, 372, 378
Araucanians, 18, 418 Arca-kercis, 423 Archilochos, 147
THE
458
ALL-KNOWING
Ares, 183 Argos (city), 152, 181 Argos (panoptes), 17, 110, I51 f. Arikara, 19, 385 f. Aristophanes, 154 f. Aristotle, 148 Arkona, 235 ff. Aroueris, see Hr-wr Arrian, 150 Artatama, 116 Arnak, see Caribs Aryaman, 121 Asarhaddon, 91 Asklepios, Aesculapius, 91, 179
Asdouletos (theos), 188, 189 n.1I
Batek, 7, 311, 330 Baumann, H., 294, 445 Bavay, vases from, 200, 205 Ba-Venda, 34 Ba-Vili, 35 Bayagaw (Banagaw), 319 f.
Asis(ta), 8, 39, 64
Assur, 17, 80, 84 Asteria, Asteropeia, 160 n.43, Atharva-Veda, 5, 107, 149 Athapaskans, 371 f. Athena, 152 Athenodoros of ‘Tarsos, 150
Begja, 40
Aton (Aten), 61, 62, 66 n.6 Atira, 450 n.13 attributes of deity, 1 ff., 19,624 elles
368, 425, 434 ff.
126 f.,
A-Vemba, 34
Avesta, 108 Avila, Fr. Francisco de, 418
Avnolu, 419 Awonawilona, 390 f. Azande, 38 Azrael, see angel of death
Ba‘al, 91; Ba‘al king of Tyre, ibid.; Ba‘al-hamman, ibid.; Ba’alSamem, (Be‘elSamen), g1 f. Baba Buada, 420 babe, kamennye baby, 248 f. Babinza, 6
Babylonians, 77 ff. Bachama, 11, 37
Bacqueville de la Potherie, 374 Badango (Bakawa, Enku), 311
Ba-Fioti, 35 Bahau, 15, 332 Baiame, 14, 346, 350 ff. Ba-Ila, 19 Ba-Kaonde, 19 Bakawa, see Badango Balli Lutong, 332; B. Penyalong, ' ibid.; B. Utong, ibid. Bambuti, 31, 440, 441 Bantu, 54 ff. Bapende, 45 n.35 Baria, 42 Ba-Kwiri, 36 Baldur, 222 Ba-Ronga, 34 Batak, Toba-, 329
Asena, 35 Ases, see Vans Asgard, 221 Ashanti, 6
Atum, 52 Aurelian, 9 Aurora australis, 351 Avalokitesvara, 17, 28 n.12, 266
GOD
Bel (Marduk), 80 Belenus, 217 n.114 Bella Coola (Bilqula), 8, 363 Beltirs, 262 benediction, Latin, 182, 197 Bes, 17, 59 ff., 89, 410, 152 Best, E., 345, 348 n.25 Bhaga, 121 Bifròst, 225 Biliku (Bilik, Bilika), 302 ff. Bissing, F. W. von, 73 nn.130, 134 Bithynians, 20, 186 Blackfeet, 378
blowpipe, 313, 317
Boa, see Buga Bodhisattvas, 126, 139, 266 Boghaz-kòi, 116 Bohuslan, 226
bones, divinatory 277 f. Boni, 32 Boreas, 10, 17, 78, 93 n.7, 153 f. Bororo, 6 Botocudos, 21, 421 Bottiger, C. A., 152 Bove, G., 424 Brackenridge, H. M., 385 Brahma, Brahman, 7, 17, 122, 125, 285 n.37 Brainerd, D., 399 n«145 Brébeuf, Fr. J., 382
INDEX bronzes, early Chou, 278 Brown, A. R., 301 ff., 322 n.2 Buddha, 125 ff., 266 Buddhism, 17, 125 ff., 142 Buga (Boa), 263, 282 Bunjil, 351 f. Bunzel, Mrs. R. L., 390 Buryats, 262, 266 Burkhan, 261 Bushmen, 32 f., 442 Bushotter, G., 384 Byington, Cyrus, 388
Chitimaca, 9, 16, 387, 389 Chocktaws, 8, 10, 388 Chokosses, 8 Chons, 63
Chou, 277 ff. Chronos-Kronos,
Camaxtli, 410 Camulus, Camulodunum, 209, 218 n.126 Canaan, 107 Caporetto, 245 Cardea, 169 Caribbean Sea, 438 caribou, 374 ff. Caribs, 3 Carmenta, Carmentis, 168; Carmentalia, ibid. Carna, 168 f.
Carriers (Déné), 16, 371
218
Cerulli, E., 41, 47 n.59, 48 nn.61, 64, 6 chain of arrows, 325 0.57 Chanu-Daro, 130 n.22 Charlevoix, Fr. F. X. de, 374 Chavannes, Ed., 277 Chekov, A., 25 f. Cherubim,
10, 17, 109 f.
Cheyenne, 9, 169, 379 Chibchan, 417 Chickasaws, 388 Chipewyans, 16, 371
91;
Mithraic,
206, 215 n.72 Comani (Polovci), 254 n.46 comparative mythology, 436 confession of sins, 29 n.26, 51, 267,
313 f£., 359, 360, 407
Confucius, 275 f. Conibo, 419 continae, 235, 251 n.8 Cooper, J. M., 372 ff.
Cora, 6, 404, 405
Costafio, 369 Courant, M., 279 Covella, Juno, 168 Coyote, 8, 25, 365, 369 f.; and the Creator, 369 f., 454 n.69; as Lord of Animals, 370, 376
Cree, 15, 373, 375» 376
n.114
Cherokee, 169
90,
72 n.125, 95 n.30 Chrysippos, 150 Chuckchee, 443 Chu-Hsi, 276 cicada, 301, 308 (Andamanese), 312 (Sakai) classes, exogamous, 380, 396 n.87; see dual structure Clement of Alexandria, 1, 63 Coeur-d’Aléne, 8, 363 columns, “‘Juppiter’’ or ‘“‘giant’’, 202,
Caddo, 385 ff. Caelestis, Dea, 91 Cagn (Kaang, Kaggen), 442 Calchaqui, 418
Cartier, Jacques, 382 Cashinawa, 6, 420 Caspi, 423 Castrén, M. A., 257, 265 caturanika, 17, 125 cauldron, magic, 228 n.29 Cayuga, 382 Cerneboch, 238 ZII: n.23, Cernunnos, 209,
459
Creek, 388 Creel, H. G., 279 Creuzer, G. E., 23 Crow, 20,'384 crystals, quartz, 346 Cuaiguerry, 417 Cuculkan, 411 f. Cucumatz, 411 f. Cuduagni, 382 Cuevas, 416 cult of trees and springs, 245 culture-hero, 376 Cuna, 15, 416 Cunama, 42 Cunobelinus (Cymbeline), 209 Curtin, J., 365 f. Cushing, F. H., 390 Cushites
(Kushites), 5, 6, 40 {f., 65 Cynics, 149 f.
460
THE
ALL-KNOWING
Dagda, 221 Dahaka, 18
daimon, demon(s), 149, 150 Dakota, 3, 15, 384, 454 n.69; see also Teton Daksa, 121 Dama, Damara, 6, 16, 33
Damamak, 18, 343 Damkina, 78 Dandan-Uilik, 139 Dankali, 40 dance, buffalo (Fox), 377; Sun-, 378 Daramulun (Turramulun), 14, 351 f. darkness, 28 n.17, cf. night DaZbog, 223 Dea Syria, 314 Delaware, 171, 376; see also Lenape Delphoi, 12 Demeter, 5, 13, 155 Demetracopoulou, D., 365 IDE neo ze
Dengdit, 38 Derron, 180 deva, daeva, deus, 229 n.41
Deva, 333
“devil-devil’’, Australian, 350 ff. Devi, 128 Diaguite culture, 418 Didinga, 38 Dike, 147 Dinka, 15, 38 Diodorus Siculus, 17, 62 Diogenes, the Cynic, 149, 158 n.24; of Apollonia, 10, 154 Diolele, 416 Dionysos, 185, 187 Dios, 320
Dis Pater, Gaulish, 199, 223 Dius Fidius, 19, 163 f., 240 divinities, cat-shaped, 431 n.62, 444; Olympian, 145 ff.; planetary,
202 ff.
‘ Dixon, R. B., 369
Djagga, Chagga, 8, 35
Djuok, 10, 38 Do Penyalong, 332 Doh Tenangan, 332 Donar (Thor), 221 Donn, 199 f., 223 dreamers, see shamans Druids, 199 Duadleera-wulan, 335
Dua Nggae, 7, 12, 334
GOD
dualism, ethnic, social and religious, 184; historical and cultural, in China, 281 Du Bois, C., 365 Dusun, 331 Dyabu lara and Dyabu fafa, 335 «Dyaks, 931 £. Dyaus, 6, 9, 118, 265 Dyavaprthivi, 119, 434
Dzingbe, 36
Ea, 4, 78, 80, 84, 104, 145, 221
Eagle, 364, 369
ears, abnormal number of, 16 ff.; 62
(Sun), .17 (Apollo, Zeus), 34 (Leza), 35 (Kalunga), 80 f. (Marduk), 135 (Mithra), 260 (Num), cf. 269, 350 (Australian “devil-devil’’) ; see also hearing Ebbo, 234 ff. Echidna, 18 Edda, 220, 221 Edo, 4 Efe, 31
Egede, P., 355
Eickstedt, E. von, 307 Eidothea, 4, 145 Ekoi, 4 Ee 80 A El-Amarna, 107 Elagabalus, 9 El ’elyon, 94 n.194 El-Kronos, 92, 151 elohim, “spirits of the dead”, 109
Eluelap, see Aluelap i emergence of mankind, 390 Endor, “witch” of, 4, 109 Enki, 78, 80; -Ea, 82 Enku, 311, 315; see also Badango Enlil, 9, 10, 17, 19, 56, 77 f., 80, 84,
115, 153
Enuma elish, 80 f., 82, 170
Epicharmos, 148 Epicureans, Epicurus, 1, 1 50 Epilipili, 31 Eratosthenes, pseudo-, 181 Erob, 32 Erytheia, 200 Erzans, 256 ESetevuarha, 435
Eskimo, 15, 25, 169, 354 ff. ESmun, 92 È eternity, attribute of, 24, 431 n.53
INDEX Ether, see Aither
Euhablayi, 350 f. Euripides, 148, 150 Eusebios, 17 evolutionism, 1 f., 446 Evreux, Yves d’, 420
Ewe, 6, 25, 36 extraction, ritual, of blood, 312 ff. (Semang), 314 (Greeks), 318 (Aeta), 315 (Mexicans, Ple), 326 nn.64 (Bechuana), 65 (Yuchi), 407 (Mexico), 414 n.18 (Maya); of teeth, 351 (Australia)
eye(s), of Dike, 150; of Ninurta, 78; of Yahweh, 97 ff.; of Zeus, 145
ff.; alternately open and shut, 151 (Argos), 57 (Amun), 64 (Kneph-Agathos Daimon), 343 (Pea-pea); large, 16, 83 (idols from Brak); multiple, 17 (Isis), 36 (Olorun), 62 (Osiris, the stelae), 63 (Egyptian Sun), 80 (Marduk), 83 (Sardinian bronzes), 111 (Satan, Azrael), 119 (Varuna), 120 (night sky), 136 f., 138 (Mithra), 139 (Sao8yant), 151 (Argos), 342 (Tortali), Tonga-iti, (Damamak, 343. Maui, Pea-pea), 350 (Austrascattered “‘devil-devil’’); lian over whole body, 10, 17, 59 ff. (Bes Pantheos), 110 (cherubim), 111 (Satan, Azrael), 151 (Argos), 405 (night sky); third eye on forehead, 122 f., 128; see also and sun stars, omniscience,
moon
Ezekiel, 10, 109 Farnell, L. R., 1 Seralis exercitus, see Wild Hunt Fides, 163 Finno-Ugrians, 257 ff. fire, 10, 122 (Agni), 303, 387, 410 Fitzroy, R., 424 f. Flannery, Miss R., 373 Foxes, 377, 380 Frazer, Sir J. G., 436 Frederick Barbarossa, 222, 223: Freya, 221 Fuegians, 422 ff., 439 Furlani, G., 82
461
Ga-speaking peoples, 36 Gaels, 199 Gahs, A., 267, 268
Galla, 6, 40, 439
Gallehus horns, 224, 225, 248, 250 Galli (priests of Kybele), 314
Gamab, 12, 16, 33 Ganesha, 123 Gasparini, E., 255 n.59 gates, numinosity of, 176 n.83 Gathas, 133 ff. Gatswokwire, 395 n.84 Gaunab, 32 Gawang, 13, 16, 289, 296, 408, 442 Ge (Earth-goddess), 12; and Uranos, 408 Ge (Brazilian tribe), 421
Geb, 52, 434
Gennaios, Genneas, 93 n.6, n.58 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 209 Geryon, 200 Gatae, 188 Ghimira, 42 Giangerò, 40 Giants, 221, see also columns
192
Gikimoi, 336 Gileamberte (Jilibeambaertje, Ilibem-
Berti), 443, 454 n.69
Gilgamesh, 84 Gindri, 46 n.45 Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, 262 Goajiro, 15, 21, 416 Gods of the (Hittite) king, 116 gold as solar symbol, 249 Gor(u), 44 n.22, 442 Graebner, Fr., 437, 439 Great Spirit, 379 (see Kichi Manitou), 384 (Dakota), 387, 388 (Choctaw), 389 (Chitimacha). Great Sun’ (Natchez), 387 Great Vehicle, 126 Greenway, Rev. Ch. C., 350 f. Gressmann, H., 107, 437 Grogorally (Grogoragally), 351
Gros Ventres, 15, 378
gryphons, 249
Guatemala, 435 Gudatrigakwitl, 364, 369 Gudiella (Hadiya), 41 Gulltopp, 225 Gundestrup vase, 210 n.17, horns, 224
224;
THE
462
ALL-KNOWING
Gurdon, P. R. T., 292 Gusinde, M., 423, 426 Hadad, 22
Hadiya, see Gudiella Hahn, E., 439 haehe, sjaadai, 260 Haida, 19, 361, 362
Haikat, 365, 367 hako (Pawnee festival), 386 hala, 311 ff. Hamadan, 141 Hamites, 40 ff., 65 f., 438 f. Hananim (Tchon), 287 n.80 Han Fei-tse, 276 Hanus, I. J., 241 Ha’o, 41 Harachte, 52, 54 Harappa, 123 Harpokrates, 52, cf. 60 Harrington, M. R., 379 (H)arasaphes, 72 n.117 Harsiese, 52 Hr-irtj, Hr-mrtj, Harmenti, 52, 60, GIO Hr-Sm8w (Horus the Eldest), 53, 54 Hartland, E. S., 2, 14 Hartner, W., 142 Harueris (Hr-wr), 52, 54 Hasinai, 385
Hat-hor, 49, 51, 54, 63, 66
Hatsikan, 18, 404 Hattusilis, 116 Haush (Manekekn), 423 Haweniu, 383 Heammavihio, 378 Hearing, universal, 15 ff., 31 (Epili-
pili), 34 (Leza), 35 (Mulungu,
Kalunga), 37 (Nyankupon), 38 (Mboli), 78 (Ea), 80 (Marduk), 99 (Yahweh), 135 (Mithra), 149 (‘‘the gods”, “‘deity’’), 155 (Helios), 225 (Heimdall), 257 (Torem), 258 (Ort-iki), 260 (Num), 273 ff. (Shang-Ti, Tien), 289 (Gawang), 329 (Lowalangi), 341 (Wunekau), 343 (Kasiva), 350 (the ‘‘devil-devil’’), 366 (Yowau), 371 (Yuttoere), 383 (Oki), 384 (Sun among the Dakota), 389 (Kutnahin), 404 (Hatsikan), 422 (Temaukel); see also ears heaven(s), see sky
GOD
Heimdall, 225 Hekataios, 62 Hekate Prothyraia, Propylaia, 165 Helike, 157 n.9 Helios, 5, 8, 12, 20, 62, 90, 155 Helmold, 234 Hempel, J., 107 Hntj-irtj (Chentj-irtj, Mechentj-irtj), 52 ff. Heqo (Yero), 42
Herakleitos, 154 Herbord, 234 Herero, 33
Hermes, as Lord of Animals, 455 n.72; and Mithra, 185; psychopompos, 185, 199; Thracian, 272 ff. herms, 186, 196 Heros (Thracian), Heron, 178 ff., see also Argos panoptes Hesiod, 9, 146, 155 Hike, hike, 67 n.13 Hila, see Sila
Hinduism, 17, 122 ff. Hine-ahu-one, 345 Hintubuet, 434 Hippokrates, 16, 154
Hippon, 154
Hisagita-imisi (Ibofanga), 388 Hittites, 19, 115 ff. Ho-Kuan-tse, 276 Homer, 145 ff. horse(s), 265; black, 235, 240 (Triglav), 270 n.12; free, 263; prophe-
tic, 229 n.37,
235,
238, 239
(Slavs, Teutons); sacred, 235, 239 f. (Slavs), 239 (Massagetai);
solar, 239; (Svantevit), white or 22004025
white, 236, 239, 265 270 n.13 (Voguls); black, 222 (Odin), ML?
Horus (Hr), 7, 9, 15 ff., 56, 59 f., 63;
child, 60, 61; on crocodiles, 60; see also Hr-wr, Hr-smsw, Hrtjirtj, Har-achte, Harsiese Hosios Dikaios, 182
Hottentots, 32 ff. Howitt, A., 351 Huaxtecs, 407 Hubeane, 34 Huchnon, 18 Huichol, 4, 6, 9, 405, 410 Huilliche, 418 Huitzilopochtli, 407, 408
INDEX Hunrakan, 21, 411 hunting, success or failure in, 359, 374; 375; 431 1.53, 442; 443, 444,
445, 446, 452 n.40
Hurons, 382 hurricane, 34, 76, 411, 421 Husiatyn, 247 Tana luna, 170
ianualia, 169 ianus geminus, Quirinus, also Janus
165, 170, see
Iban, 331 idols, Slav, 234 ff.; Ugrian, Samoyed, 260 f. Igigi, 78, 80
258;
Iglulik, 359, 360
I(h)o, 15, 344 ff., 387
Ijaw, 434 Ijca, 434
Iktomi, 454 n.69 Ilefo (among Edo), 4 Ilhuicatecutli (Ilhuicateotl)—Ilhuicaciuatl, 406 Illyrians, 180 Tloko, 320 Imana, 12, 32, 35 immersion,
ritual, of Maori
344 f.
infant,
i
463
Izanagi, 7, 331 Izanami, 7 Jahai, 310 f. Jainism, 125 ff. Jakudn, 311 Janus, 17, 81, 164 ff., 225; as god of beginnings, 165; as sun-god, 167; astral associations, 167 ff.; Curiatius, 176 n.83; as god of time, 167; etymology of name, 166 ff.; at Philadelphia, 96 n.40; Janus-head on Keltic coins, 208 f.; Patricius, 223; Punic, 92. See also two-faced deities. Ja Puteu, 314 Jarovit (Gerovit), 246 Jazirat ibn ‘Umar, 141 Jehoiada, 107
Jivaro, 449 n.7
Jochelson, W., 268
Josselin de Jong, J. P. B. de, 335 Julian the Apostate, 20
Juno, 168 Jupille, vase from, 201 Juppiter, 6, 15, 19, 20, 162 f., 166,
344, 433; 436
Jwok, 12, 38
inactivity of Supreme Being, 24, 343
Kaang (Kaggen), see Cagn
Inahitelan (Ginagitelan), 263 Inanna, 79 Incas, 9, 417 Indo-Europeans, 184, 265
Kadai, see Bayagaw Kaffa, 42 Kakasbos, 182, 191 n.57 Kakihan society, 340 Kalchas, 3 Kalangi, 11, 333 Kalunga, 35 Kamapuaa, 18, 343 Kamilaroi, 18, 350 f. Kande yaka (Vedda), 442 Kant, E., 26 Karai Kasang, 19, 292 f. Karatepe, inscription from, 90 Karei (Kaiei, Kagei), 5,14, 15, 310ff.,
(Alueléb), 410 (Mexico)
Indra, 17, 121 interpretatio ecclesiastica, 241 ff.; Graeca, 182, 183, 185, 199, 223; Romana, gt f., 198 f., 205, 207, 208, 223 Inti, P’onkaw, 417
Io daughter of Inachos, 152 Ireland, 200
Iroquois, 16, 21, 379, 381, 382 f. Ishmael, 112 n.18 Isis, 32; 7oAvdPOahuos,
17, 189 n.21 Islam, 140 Islavin, WI., 261 Israel, Israelites, 97 ff., 437 Issedones, 255 n.51 Ishtar, 78 Itzama, 9, 412 iugum, 177 n.83 Iyatiku, 390
Kachin, 19, 292 f.
315 ff., 318
Karentia (Korenica, Garz), 237 f., 243 f. Karjalainen, K. F., 257 Karsten, R., 3 Karuskaybe, 420 Kasiwa, 16, 343 Katkuyen (Tamukuyen), 38
235,
464
THE
ALL-KNOWING
Kavna, 358 Kawabapishit, 376 Kayai (Kadai, Katala, Baya), 318 Kazarov, G. I., 188 n.1 ff., 252 n.21 Kelts, 286 ff., 224 (Danubian) Kenta, 310, Kepenopfi (Ukepenopfù), 291, 434 Kerberos, 18, 186 Keres, 390 Ketanagai, 365, 369 Ketanitowit, 379 Keto, 7, 311 Kettu, 79, 157 n.14 Kenta Bogn (Kintak Bong), 310 Ketriporis, 195 n.93 Khasis, 291 f. Khauna, see Gaunab Khazang, Khazangpa, 293 Khmef (Kamef), 75 n.173 Khnum, Knuphis, ibid. Khormuzda, 261, 266 Khub, 32 Kichi Manitu, 373, 376; see also Great Spirit, Manitu Kindiga, 43 n.20 Kinharigan (Kinoingan), 331 Kiowa, 387 Kirfel, W., 125, 128, 455 n.75 Kisaluda, 182 Klementan, 332 K’mukamtchiksh (K’mukamtch), 363 Kneph (Agathos Daimon), 64 Knytlinga saga, 235, 247 Koh-i-Khwaja, 140 f. Ko(h)in, 352 Konde (Ngonde), 34 Konyak Naga, 16 Koppers, Father W., 425, 449 n.2 Koryaks, 263 f., 267, 269, 359 Kot (Kwoth); Nuer deity, 10, 38 Kratinos, 10, 152, 154 Krickenberg, W., 426 Kritias, 149 Krobyzoi, 188 Kroeber, A. L., 367, 369 Kronos (El), 17, 89 ff. (Saturn), 90 Kubu, 308 Kuksu, 367 Kulia, 35 Kulin, 351
Kuma, 434
Kurnai, 351
GOD
Kutnahin, 389 Kwakiutl, 363 Kwan yin, Kwannon, Kybele, 5, 13, 267
127
Lacasse, Father Z., 398 n.123 Lady (Lord) of Animals, 295 (Potnia theron), 358 ff. (Sedna, Nuliajuk, Kavna), cf. 443, 360 (Mother of the caribou); 297, 308, 321, 370,
375 £., 441 ff; 319 ff. (Aeta), cf.
Bayagaw; 294 ff. (Africa, Assam) ; 374 ff. (Algonkin) ; 308, 318, 441 (Andamanese); 33, 442 (Bushmen); 369 f. (Californians, cf. Coyote); 295 (Caucasians);
31, 440
(Efe);
357
f, 443
(Eskimo, cf. Sedna); 427 (Fuegians, cf. Watauineiwa); 296
(Lakhers); 295, 442 (Nagas); 33, 297, 441 f. (Pygmies); 443 (Samoyeds);441 (Semang); 443 (Sib-
erians); 442 (Veddas) Lai and Ndara (Celebes), 333 Lakhers, 293, 296 Laki Tenangan, 332 L’Allemant, Ch., 374 Lang, Andrew, 2, 14, 23, 302
Lango, 11, 38
x
Latsapa, Litsaba, 290 Lature, 330 Lear, King, 209 Lebaia, 181 Lehmann-Nitsche, R., 418
Lenape, 9, 379 ff.
Leto, Letopolis, 53, 69 n.63 Lera-Wulan, 334 Leza (Lesa), 12, 16, 19, 34 Lezo Vulang, 333 Lha-mo, 128
Lhota Nagas, 295 Lieh-tse, 276 lightning, see thunderbolt Likube, Likuwe, 35 Limudini, 452 n.40 linga, 123 lion, 141, 180 Lipit-Istar, 77 Little Vehicle, 126 Loeb, E. M., 367, 426 Lolo, 283 ‘ Lovisato, G., 424 Lowalan(g)i, 11, 15, 16, 329 ff.
INDEX Lubanga, 38 Lucian of Samosata, 150
Masarwa
Lucina, 168
Lugeleng, 342 f. Lulumoy, 18, 417 Lumbholz, C., 412 nn.5, 6 Lumimuut, 11, 332 Lungkitsumba (Lungkijingba), 289 Luo, 10, 38 Lushei-Kuki, 3, 293. Lykkeios (Lyppeios), 180
465
Masai, 6, 7, 11, 39, 41, 65 Masakomekokin, 449 n.7
(Tati), 32
Masi, 417 Massagetai, 255 n.52 Matacos, 422 Mataiwalu, Mata-walu, Maka-walu, 11,
18, 342
Mata rica, 8, 339 n.41 matres, 214 n.52
‘‘matriarchate’, Naga, 291; 292 Mats Havatuk, 376 Mattiwaza, 29 n.37, 120
Ma-Bellona, 314 Maanjan, 331
Khasi,
Maui, 343
Mawu, 36
Maedi, 188
Magicians, 221; see also shamans, sorcerers magic, Pygmy, 42 n.9 Mahummed, 437 Maidu (Nisenan), 365 ff. Maine, R. C., 362 Maisò, 449 n.7 Maitreya, 126, 139, 142 Mallos, coinage of, 89 f., 169 f. Mallowan, M. E. L., 82 Mamere and Masamere, 335 Man, E. H., g01 ff. Manabozho, 376 Manetho, 71 n.97
Max Miller, F., 265, 433, 436, 437
Manggerai, 333
Menant, J., 81 Mé-nyi-mo, 283 Meri-ka-ré, 49
manito (manitu), 15, 19 (Great M. of Arikara), 373 ff., 382, 385, 444 Mann, J. F., 350 ff. Manning, J., 351 Manoid (Tekel), 313, 315, 324 n.40 mantis, praying, 43 n.20 many-headed deities, 17, 242 ff, 448; see also three-headed, twofaced, and cf. ears, eyes
Maori, 344 ff., 387
Mapuche, 418 Marduk,
151
Mareigua
9, 17, 79 ff., 89, 104,
(Mareiwa,
Maleiwa),
125,
21,
416 Marest, Father, 374 Maret Khmakniam, 421 Mars (planetary god), 202 ff.; Halamardhus, 229 n.42 Marshall, Sir J., 124 ff. Marumda (Madumda), 7, 364 Maruts, 121 GI
Maximus of Tyre, 180 Mazdah, 133, 137; see also Ahura Mazdah Mazdaka, 143 n.21 Mboli, 38 MacKenzie, J., 376 Mé, 283 Me)chentj-irtj, see Hntj-irtj Melgart, 91 Mem Loimis, 365 Meng-tse, 275 Menomini, 376 Menri, 312
Mercurius, Mercury, Germanic, 222,
230#n17: Gaulish, frog il; matutinus, 199; Visucius, 20îd. Me-ti, 275 Mexicans, Mexico, 404 ff., 411 f. Miao, 282 Michelson, T., 377 mihr, 138, cf. Mit(h)ra Milky Way, 40, 256, 352 Millsy Jin Pe, 201
Minahassa, 11 Mimir, 221 Misinghalikum, 376, 400 n.151
Mitanni, 19 Mit(h)ra, Mithraism, 9, 17, 19, 108, 119 f., 134 ff., 180, 185, 206, 223, 224, 225, 231 nn.61, 62, 380 Mitra-Varuna, 15, 119 f., 138 missionaries, Danish, 355 Mixcouatl, 410
THE
466 Modimo, 34 Mohenjo-Daro,
ALL-KNOWING
GOD
Nascapi, 11, see also Montagnais
£7, 123 ff., 142, 268,
448
moieties, exogamous, 339 n.46 Moksha, 256 f. Molina, J. I., 419 Mollgelu, 419 Moltek, 324 n.42 Moluche, 418 Mongols, ‘Turko-, 261 ff. monotheism, 1 ff., 5, 148, 261, 262; primitive (Urmonotheismus), 2 f.,
23, 31, 65, 302 f., 313, 319, 328, 335, 364, 368, 370, 425, 433 f., 439 f.
Montagnais, 373 ff., 443 f. moon, 7, 43 n.10; Arapaho, 378; Californians, 176 n.79, 365; Celebes, 333; Chitimacha, 389; Dakota, 384; as eye, 7 f., 339 n.41; eye of night, 8, 51; Germans, 226; male, 389; Selene,
156; as nocturnal sun, 51; and Thot, 51; Old Woman in, 339 n.41. See also Carmenta, Carna, Jana, Haikat, Ketanagai, Nagaitcho, Selene, Taikomol, Thot, Wonovni Mopia, 296 Mordvins, 3, 11, 16, 256 f. Monachus Prieflingensis, 234 ff., 347 monsoons, 302, 305, 309, 330 Morice, Father A. G., 396 n.100 Moses, 437 Mo-so, 283 Mossi, 8, 37 Mowat, R., 207 .Mulungu, 16, 35 Munduructi, 15, 420 Mungan-ngaua, 351 Muntu-untu, 333 Muri Kraeng (Mori Keraeng), 11,
333 £.
Murring, 351 Mursilis, 116 Musonius Rufus, 150
Natchez, 9, 22, 387 f., 417 Naua-Gauab, 442 Navaho, 372 Ndengei, 71 n.111 Ndo, 282 Negritos, 901 ff., 440 ff. Ne Nanatch, 15, 378 Neith, 71 n.96 Nenéchen, 18, 419 Nenak Kebajan (Ja Najek), 339 n.41 Nenémapun, 419 Nergal, 9, 84 “‘Nestor’’, chronicle of, 241 net, of Shamash, etc., 79, 86 n.42 Netsilik, 360 New Year, 92 Newton, Sir Isaac, 1
Ngadha, 10, 11, 15, 20, 333 Ngai (Engai), 6, 75-11, 39 £, 64 Nguruhi (Nguluwi, Nguruwi), 12, 35 Nias, 11, 15,929. 1991 Niederle, L., 241 nierika, 410 Niflheim, 222
night, sent as punishment by Puluga, 306 Niloto-Hamites, 5, 38 ff., 65 Ningal, 86 n.35 Ninlil, 77, 88 n.79 Ninsubur, 84 Ninsun, 84 Ninurta, 78, 82
Nirvana, 125 f. Nisenan (Maidu), 3, 15, 365 ff. Nongjai, 293 Nonorùgami, 405 Nordenskiold, E., 426 Nsambi, Nyambi, see Nyame Nuer, 10, 38
Nuliajuq, 360
Num, 6, 7, 9, 16, 259, 264, 265, 267, 443 Numkympoi, 260, 261 Nun-Naunet, 55 Nut, 51, 52, 53, 66, 406, 434
myth(s), 336; creation-, 24, 336, 367, Nyalich, 15, 38 369; of beginnings, 24, 337 n.10,
367
mythology, comparative, 433, 436 Nao, 42
Nas.caki.yéhl, 361 f.
Nyam-Nyam, see Azande Nyame (Onyame, Nyambi, Nzambi),
6, 19, 35, 36 f.
Nyamuzinda, 32008 Nyamwesi, 35, 452 n.40 Nyankupon, 16, 36 f.
467
INDEX (Diolele),
Nyongmo, 36 Nzeanzo, 12, 37 oaths and treaties, 12, 19 f., 91 (Hannibal), 106 (Yahweh),
116, 120,
145 ff. (Greece), 183 (Thracians), 185 (Persians), 194 n.81 (Nagas, of. 345), 212 n.31 (Cimbri), 222 (Quadi), 357 (Mordvins), 262 (Mongols). In name of Aer, 154; arms, 222; Dengdit, 38; Deva, 20, 333; Dius Fidius, 163; the Erinyes, Ge, Uranos, Zeus, the Rivers, 12, 156 n.5; Helios, ibid. and 155 f.; Juppiter, 19, 20, 163 f., 240; Kinoingan (Kinharingan), 331; Leza, 19; Lungkitsungba (?), 297 n.5; Ndo, 282; Nzambi, 19; Oki, 20, 383; Pue-m-palaburu, 20, 333; Sancus, 79; Semo Shamash, 162; Shang-ti, 273, 275; Sun, 20, 155, 257 (Mordvins), 384 (Dakota, Crow), 387 (Kiowa); Sun and Moon, 20, 335 (Indonesia), 405 and 412 n.6 (Tarahumare, Tarascos); Styx, 12, 156 7.5; Tengri, 19, 262; Thunder, 384 (Ponka); Tien, 275; Titans, 156 n. 5; Upu Langi, Upo Lanito, 20, 335 (Indonesia); Waaqa, 20, 40; Zeus Horkios, 19, 145; in Pindar, 147. See also omniscience Obasi, 28 n.17 Obatala, 13 Obdorsk, figurine from, 266 Obotrites, 234 ochpaniztli, 407 Odin (Wotan), 4, 220 ff.; one-eyed, 221; traveller, 222, 223; “bipolarity” of, 227 Odrysians, 187 Odudua, 13 offences, punished by Supreme Being, gor, 303 ff. (Puluga), 312 ff. (Karei), 318 (Bayagaw), 331 (Petara, Kinoingan or Kinharingan), 333 (Pue-m-palaburu,
, 355 f. Deva), 334 (Dua Nggae) (Sila), 358 (Pinga), 362 (Sema-
gid laxha), 373 f. (Manitu, cf. 444), 411 (Tezcatlipoca), 416
1%
420
(Karusakaybe),
421 (Maret Khmakniam), 422 ff. offering, of first slice of meat to Supreme Being, 298 n.10 (Lichaba), 295, 442 (Gawang), 319,
321, 374, 444 (Manitu),
442
(Khmyum, Kande Yaka), 443 (Num). Not Andamanese, 308,
nor Semang, 318 Ohlmarks, A., 225
Ojibwa, 376 oionopolos, 3 Oirata, 335 Oki (Oke, Okeus), 15, 16, 20, 382 f. oko-paiad, oko-jumu, 304 Olefat (Olofad, Olefet), 342
Olelbis, 365 ff. Olorun, 8, 36 OlnikwA 224 Oluga, see Puluga Ometecutlin-Omeciuatl, 381, 405 ff, 412 292 (Alhou), 289 omnipotence, (Karai Kasang), 329 (Lowalangi), 431 n.53 (Watauineiwa) omnipresence, 11 f. (Wind), 13 (sky), 34 (Leza), 35 (Mulungu, Nguluwi, Imana), 36 (Nsambi), 38 (Jwok), 57 (Amun), 78 (Enlil), 78, 154 (Aer), 97 ff. (Yahweh), 121, 153 (Vata), 149 (“gods” generally), 153 (Boreas), 256 (Skaj, Ski), 289 (Alhou), 292 (Karai Kasang), 329 (Lowal-
357, angi), 334 (Dua_Neggae), lipoca)
360 (Sila), 409 (Tezcat omniscience, visual, 1, 3, ff. 9 ff, 14 ff., 22 ff., 34 ff.,; of. ears, eyes, hearing. Cognisant of human actions, 79 (Shamash), 96 ff. (Yahweh), 118 (Varuna), 119 (Ahura 133 (Mitravaruna), Mazdah), 144 ff. (Zeus), 147 (Dike), 162 (Juppiter), 310 ff. (Karei, Ta Pedn), 329 (Lowal(Pue-m-palaburu, 333 angi), Deva), 341 (Wunekau), 351 i (Australia), 382 f. (Oki), 409 (Tezcatlipoca), 437 (Yahweh), 447. Ascribed to animals, 3, 447;
to aquatic deities, 4 (Muses, Sirens, Proteus, Eidothea), 78, 145, 221 (Ea); to ghosts and the
468 omniscience—cont. dead, 3, 220, generally) ; to characteristic cluding gods
THE
ALL-KNOWING
284 n.17 (“spirits”
sorcerers, see below; of sky-gods (inof heavenly bodies and weather), 5 ff., 10 ff., 14 ff., 24, 447; not of earth-deities, 12 f., 435. Indirect (through an intermediary or informant), 33, 146, 262, 310, 346, 351. Magical or oracular, 4, 12, 124, 50,104, 109, 126, 145, 220 f., 228 n.29, 360, 447. Can perceive thoughts of men, 19, 36 (Nsambi, Mawu), 37 (Nyame), 38 (Jwok, Lubanga), 51 (Thot), 76 (Enlil), 79 (Shamash), 97 ff. (Yahweh), 115 (Hittite sungod), 121 (Adityas), 133 (Ahura Mazdah), 147 (Zeus), 149 (“the gods”), 292 (Karai Kasang), 362 (Sins Sganagwa), 375 (caribou-god), 383 (Sun), 385 (Manitu), 409 (Tezcatlipoca), 422 (Temaukel); and words, see hearing. Relative, 14, 107, 301, 395 n.72. Denied by the impious, 98, 100, 102 (Yahweh), 136 (Mithra). See also wakefulness, weather Omohikane, 4 Ona-Selknam, 15, 19, 422 f. Opo geba snulat (Opo Lahatala), 334 ordeal, 12 orenda, 382 orisha, 36 Orpheus, Orphism, 7, 16, 155, 181, 185 Ort-iki, 258 Osanqha, 455 n.69 Osiris, 17, 52, 62 Ostiaks, 250, 257 ff. Ottawas, 376 , Otto of Bamberg, 234 ff. Ovambo, Aandonga, 35 Ovid, 164 Oviedo, G. F. de, 416
Paabothkwe, 381 Padlermiut, 357 Padmapani, 28 n.12, 127 Pagreus, 93 n.7 Pagrika, 93 n.7
GOD
Paionians, 180 pair, cosmic ‘(Sky and Earth, Earth and Sky): Dua Neggae, 334; Dyavaprthivi, see s.v.; Gawang, 13, 290; Kalangi and Lumimuut, 332 f.; Karei and Manoid, 313; Obasi Nsi and Obasi Osaw, 434; Rangi and Papa, 344; Tirawa and Atira, 450 n.13; Upu Lanito and Upu Ume, 334. See also Sun-Moon Paneboi, 255 n.53 Pangaion, Mt., 181, 185 P’anku, 7, 331 Panops, Panopeus, 160 n.43
Papa, 18, 343 ff..
Paressi, 449 n.7 Parsis, 251 n.4 Parsons, Elsie Clews, 391 Parvati, 123 Pascal, B., 26 Patalima and Patasiwa, 339 n.46 Paulus Diaconus, 221 Pawnees, 6, 385 ff., 450 n.13 Pea-pea, 18, 151 Pehuence, 418 pekwin, 390 Peluig, 315 Perdikkas, 181 Perkunas, 265 s Persephone, 155 Perun, 249, 265 Petara, 21, 331 petrifaction, 317 f. Pherekydes, 17, 151 Philemon, 11, 154 Philip II of Macedonia, 208; Phili V, 180 Philon of Byblos, 17, 89 ff., 170 Phoinix of Kolophon, 150
piay, 3
Picunche, 418 Pijao, 417 pillars with carved faces, 219 n.134 Pi-leh-pu, 300 n.41 Pillan, 419 Pindar, 8, 147
Pinga, 357 f., 360 f., 443
Pinodhem, 57, 62 Pioki, 8, 419
planets, deities of, 141; on planetary vases, 200 ff.
Plato, 16, 149
|
INDEX Plautus, 146 Pleseraneo ira: Pleiads, 7, 39, 418 Plutarch, 17, 62, 150 Podaga, 245 polarisation, sexual, 380 polytheism, 1, 2, 5, 437 f. Polovci, see Comani Pomo, 7, 364 ff.
Ponka, 15, 21, 384 P’onkaw, 417 Po Pekan, 347 n.5 Popul Vuh, 412 Porenut, 18, 237 ff. Porevit, 18, 237 ff. Porphyry, 151 Porrima, Prorsa, 168, see Antevorta Porta Carmentalis, 176 n.83; Triumphalis, 177 n.83; see gates Poseidonios, 226 Potawatomi, 376 f. potnia, potnios theron, 455 n.72 Prajapti, 7 prophets, Hebrew, 105 ff. Proteus, 4, 145, 221, 455 n.72 providence, divine, 1, 150 (Epicureans deny, Stoics maintain); see also Plutarch Prthivi, 118 Prove, 245 Prussians (Prutheni), 240 Psalms, g7 ff. Psammetikos I, 59 Reali, oi. 17,102) £. Pueblos, 390 f. Pue-mpalaburu, 8, 11, 20, 333 puithiam, 3 Puluga (Biliku, Oluga), 5, 15, 21, gor ff. Punan, 332 Puntan, 7 Purekamekran, 421 Purgine (-pas), 256 Purusha, 7, 122, 330 ; Pygmies, Pygmoids, 439 ff.; African, 8, 16, 30 f.; Asiatic, 437 ff., see Negritos. Their languages, 440. Malay influence upon, 320 pyramid texts, 68 n.44 Pythia, 12
Quadi, 222 Qamata, 34
469
Qamaits, 363, 434
Quetzacouatl, 408 ff.
Ra (Ré), 49 ff., 116; Ra (Ré)-Har-
achte, 52, 54, 55, 58
Raguenau, Father, 383 Raiatea (Rangiatea), 346
rain, 34, 36, 38, 39, 72 n.114, 444
rainbow, 34 (Leza), 44 n.22 (Kmvum, cf. 442), 109 (Yahweh), 225
(Bifròst), 256 (Ski), 259 (Num),
424 f. (uatana) Raluwhimba, 34 Ramses II, 116; Ramses III, 49
Rangi and Papa, 11, 70 n.93, 344 f. Rasmussen, Knut, 355 ff., 446 Ras Shamra, 90, 91, 108, 170
red and black, 379 ff. (Lenape), 381 (Aztecs, Arapaho), 406 (Mexicans), 409 (Tezcatlipoca) 410 (Xiuhtecutli) Redigast, Riedegost, 234, 239, 242 Redirii (Retharii, Riaduri), 234, 242 f. Reinach, S., 196, 204, 207 reindeer, 265; white, as sacrificial victim (Koryaks), 263
Rethra, 234, 239, 246, 247, 253 n.34
Reuben, 112 n.18 Rhea, 13, 52 Rider, divine, 182, I91 n.57, 192 n.58, 194 n.88, n.gI, 195 n.93, 222 ff. Many-headed, 179 ff.; solar, ibid.; Thracian, 178 ff., 223 rites, of augury for the year, 236 (horn), 240 and 252 n.21 (round loaf) Riuba, 35
Riung, 333
Rivimbi (Luvimba, Raluwhimba), 34 ruach,«10, 11
Rudra, 124 Rigen, 234 ff. Rugievit, 18, 237 ff. runes, 224, 225 Rurema, 32 Rustum, 140 Ruaw, 8
Sabazios, 182
Sabeu, 294 Sadhanamala, 139 saeculum frugiferum, 91 Safwa, 35 Sahagun, Frey Bernardino de, 409 f.
470
THE
ALL-KNOWING
Sakai, 311 ff. Sakti, 123, 128 Salish, 9, 363 Saturn, 90, 204. Samoyeds, 6, 9, 18, 27n.3, 250, 259 ff., 268 Sams ’olam, 90 Samuel, ghost of, 4 Sanchuniathon, 89 sanctuaries, Slav, 234 ff., 245 f. Sancus (Semo), see Dius Fidius Sandawe, 43 n.20 Sanihas, 395 n.72 Safike, 257, 259 Santacruz, Don Joan de, 418 Saosyant, 17, 139 ff. Sarasvati, 122 Sardinia, 83 Satan, III Satapatha-Brahmana, 7 Satis, 51 Saturn(us), 90 (planet), 91 f. (god) Saturnalia, 92 Saul, 4 Saxo Grammaticus, 334 ff. Schebesta, Father, 31, 311 ff., 441 Schindler, Br., 277 Schmidt, Father W., 2, 23, 31, 268,
302 f., 313, 315; 319 f., 385, 356, 366, 369, 370, 379, 439
Schuchhardt, C., 235, 246 Schweitzer, B., 224 Schwenck, K., 241
Scythians, 184 Sedna, 27 n.8, 358 f., 361, 443 Selene, 8, 156, cf. Moon Selknam, see Ona-Selknam
Semagid laxha, 11, 362 Semai, 311 Semang, 7, 310 ff. Seneca (Iroquois tribe), 382, 383 Septimius Severus, 9! serpent, 4; ram-headed, 198 Sesostris I, 53 Set, 116 Sethos I, 49 Seuthes, 187 Seyrig, H., 192 n.58 shamans, shamanism (sorcerers, medicine-men), 3, 304 ff. (oko-fumu, oko-paiad; Andamanese), 312, 325 N.5I
GOD
Shamash, 8, 15, 19, 79 Shambala, 16, 35
Shang, 278 ff. Shang-ti, 15, 19, 273 ff. Shasta, 364 Shawnee, 381 Sheol,
103
Shilluk, 11, 38 Shinto, 4 Shipapu, 390 Shiva, see Siva Sibylline oracles, 1 Sidama, 6, 41 f. Si Dole, 329 Sidi 7 LI 990 Sila, 21, 25, 355 f£., 443; Sila-Pinga, 15, of. Pinga Silver Fox, 365, 369, 395 n.83 Simeon, 112 n.18 Sin (Babylonian god), 8, 78 f. Sins sganagwa, 19, 362 Sinumundu (Munsumundok), 331 Sioux, 379, 380, 384 f. Sipylon, the ‘“Niobe? of, 268 Sitalkes, 187 Sityingo, 295 Siva, 17, 122 ff., 448; cult of, 142 sjaadai, see haehe Skaj, 12, 16, 256 ff.
Skan (Skan-Skan, “Taku-Skan), 384 Skanda, 123 Skinner, A., 376 skulls, gilt, as drinking-cups, 255 n.53
sky, sky-god, 5, 25 f., 149, 155, 265, 433. Blue, 55 (Egypt); female, 55 (Nut), 66 (Hat-hor), 294 (Sabeu), 389 (Chitimacha); many-storied, 263 (Koryaks), 266 (Ural-
Altaics, Zoroastrians, etc.), 298 (Nagas), 381, 406 (Aztecs); night-, 53 f. (Egypt), 120 (India),
151 (Greece), 405 (Mexico); red and black, 33 (Hottentots), 39 (Masai), 40 f. (Cushites), 64 (Africans), 379 ff. (Lenape), 381 (Aztecs), 406 (same); as solid vault, Aeta (318), Africa, etc. (346), Andamanese (307), Australia (351; Baiame), Chinese, etc. (307); weather-, 30, 32, 34,
91, 388
Slavs,
169,
234
ff.; contacts
Germans, 235°
with
INDEX
471
Sleipnir, 222 societies, secret, see Kuksu Séderblom, N., 23, 277 Sokrates, 16, 149, 158 n.24
372 (Navaho), 374 (Cree), 377
Songinyu and Songperinyu, 290 f. Sophia, Gnostic, 104, cf. Wisdom Sophists, 148 Sophokles, 147 f., 167, 179 Sozon, 182 Speck, F. G., 379, 380 Sron-btsan-sgam-po, 128 Stade, B., 108 stars, as ears, 260 (Num); as eyes of the dead, 6, 33; eyes of sky- (god), 6 f., 40 (Ngai), 54 (Nut, Hathor), 138 (Mitra-Varuna), 146
dall), 240 (Semo Sancus), 372 (Apache). As Algonkin Supreme Being, 376 ff. As god of time and eternity, 90 (El “father of years’), see Janus. As god of beginnings, 165 (Janus), 167 (Helios), 171 (Lenape). Female, 366 (Californians), 389 (Chiti-
Solon, 147 Somali, 40 Son of Man, 17
f., 153 (Argos), 159 n.37, 334
(Dua Nggae), 386 (Pawnee), 395 n.77 (Californians), 405 (Mexico), 418 (Viracocha), 423 (Cholas) ; falling, 34, 40, 44 n.27; morning (and evening), 404 f.; pole-star, 395 n.77; as sparks, 10; as spirits of dead, 6. Starzev, G. A., 267 Stein, Sir Aurel, 140 stele of Dexileos, 178; from El-Ferzol, 192 n.58; from Hamah, ibid.; Metternich, 61; from Senon, 208; of ‘Svantevit”, 248; of the Thracian Rider, 178 ff. steppe, emotional effect of, 25 f. Stettin, 18, 235, 246, 248
Stoics, 150 Strachey, William, 382 Strong, William D., 373 structure, twofold tribal, 380 (Algonkin, Sioux), 391 (Pueblos), 396 406 California), (S. n.87 (Mexico), 413 n.17 (America generally) Su, 55 f. Subiya, 34 Suila, 262
macha). Judge and avenger, 21 f., 79 (Shamash), 114 (Hittites), 155 f. (Helios), 186 (Bithynians), 384 (Crow), 405 (Tarahumare); see also Oaths. Nocturnal, 61, 227, see below, traveller. Organ
of sight, 13, 121, 155, 343, 3785
of the sky, 79, 121, 155; of the earth, 13; of the universe, 13, 138; of Ngai, 38; of Wa’a, 41; of Ha’o, ibid.; Ré, 49 f.; Varuna, 119; Zeus, Apollo-Helios, 155; Seng, 363; Pioki, 419. Threeheaded, 140. Traveller in heaven, go (Mallos), 169 f. (Janus), 185 with n.78, 342 (Tortali), 389 (Kutnahin); cf Arvakr and Alsvidh, Rider. Universal vision of, 49 (Ré), 115 (Hittites), 155
(Helios), 366 (California), 377 (Foxes), 378 (Blackfeet), 380 (Lenape), 383 (Iroquois), 384 (Dakota) Sun and Moon, 333 (Muri Kraeng), 335 (Moluccas), 405 (Tarahumare). As eyes of sky-god, 6, 7, 51 ff. (Horus, Ré), 55 (Nut), 56 (Amun), 260 (Num), 311 (Keto), 330 (Sihai), 331 (Izanagi), 352 (Baiame?). Suppiluliuma, 120 Supreme Beings, passim, see especially
2 ff., 31 ff., go1 ff., 336, 344 ff,
Suk, 6 Summanus,
(Central Algonkin). As ancestor of kings, 183 ff. (Thracian “Hermes”), 199 (Gauls; Dis Pater, Donn), 222 f. (Saxons), 223 f. (Odin), 223 (Sol Indiges, Janus patricius, etc.), 225 (Heim-
169, 171 n.1, 240
sun (-god), 49 ff. (Egypt), 180 (Paionians), 197 ff. (Gaul), 226 (Germans, Bronze Age), 255 n.52 (Massagetai), 366 (Californians),
434 ff. Bisexual, 323 n.18 (Siberians), 336 (Apna-Apha), 390 (Awonawilona), 411 f. (Cucumatz), 333 f. (Deva), 334 (Dua
Nggae),
290
(Gawang),
291
THE
472
ALL-KNOWING
Supreme Beings—cont. (Kepenopfi), 333 (Muri Kraeng), 419 (Nenechen), 405, 412 (Ometecutli-Omeciuatl), g00 n.41 (Pi-leh-pu), 302 ff. (Puluga-Biliku), 357 (Si-laPinga), 290 (Songinyu-Songperinyu), 405 (Tota-Tonan), 291, 299 n.23 (U Blei Nong-thaw); cf. pair, cosmic, Sky and Earth, Sun and Moon. ‘Creators, 31 (Tore), 103 (Yahweh), 256 (Skaj), 257 (Torem), 289 (Alhou, Lungkitsungba, Gawang), 291 (Kepenopfii), 293 (Karei Kasang), 361 f. (Nas.caki.yéhl), 364 (Californian gods), 371 (Déné), 374 (Manitu), 408 (Tonan-Tota), 416 f. (Caribbean gods), cf. pair, cosmic.
330,
Female,
359
13,
(Sedna),
267,
294,
363, 434
(Qamaits), 381 (Paabothkwe), 390 (Iyatiku, Utset), 434 (Hintubuet), 435 and 450 n.13 (Earth-goddess); ef. terrene deities, pair, cosmic. Sky-gods, see Buga, Dyaus, Heimdall, Imana, Juppiter, Mawu, Mé, Mitra-Varuna, Ndo, Ngai, Nyame, Olelbis, Perkunas,
GOD
Tamukuyen, 38 Tane Mahuta, 344 ff. Tangaroa, 344 Tao, Taoism, 276 Ta Pedn (Tapern, Tapénn), 310 ff. Taquatu (Tokuatu), 423 Tara, white and green, 28 n.12; yellow, blue, red, 127 Tarahumare, 6, 20, 405 Taria (Daria, Deria, Teriya), 309 Tarascos,
15, 20
Tarvos Trigeranus, 212 n.31 Tasmanians, 308, 439 f. Tatéx, 404 f. tattooing, 184, 193 n.69 Taulipang, 444 Tauth (Taaut, Thouth), 89 Tawhiri Matea, 11, 70 n.93, 345 Tayàu, 405 Tcenes, 365, cf. Thunder Tefnut, 51 Telmessos, 182 Temaukel, 15, 19, 422 f. Tencteri, 231 n.63 Tengri, 6, 20, 261 ff., 344 ‘Terminus, 160 n.40, 164 terrene deities (Mother Earth, pri-
mordial
Mother, etc.), 5, 261,
267 f., 294, 314 ff, 329 f., 331,
390, 407 f., 427, Supreme Beings, cosmic Teryzoi, 188 Tesup, 115 f. hor), 294, 389, 405, 434. Sky- and Teteo innan, 407 sun-deities, 34, and cf. Sun. TherTeton (Dakota), 3, 8, iomorphic, 308, 312, 321, 369 f., Tetewan, 405 441 ff. Tezcatlipoca, IO, 12, teams 426 Surya, 8, 9, 121 Susunowo, 7 Thabion, 89
434 f., see also female ; pair,
Perun, Rangi, Safike, Sila, Skaj, Tengri, Tien, Tore, Torem, Tororut, Yumo, "Zeus: of. Sky. Skygoddesses, 55 (Nut), 66 (Hat-
Svantevit, 18, 169, 223, 325 ff. Swanton, J. R., 388 Sweno of Denmark, 248
Tabulae Ignuuinae, 169 Tacitus, 226, 245 Taikomol, 365, 395 n.83 Takanakapsaluk, 358 Takel, 324 n.40 Talbot, P. A., 36 Talmud, 17, 111 Tamei Tinggei, 332 Tamfana, 245
384 15, 19, 21, 408
Thado (New Kuki), 293 Thagimasadas, 185 Themis, 147 Thersites, 184 Thevet, A., 420
theophanies of Yahweh, 108 Thietmar, 234 ff.
_Thompson, David, 374 Thor, 224
Thot, 4, 8, 50 f., 63, 89, 104
thunder, 23, 263 .(Buryats), (Koryaks), 292 (Kachin), (Klamath River Indians),
264
364 384
INDEX thunder—cont. " (Oglala, Ponka, Crows), 418 (Peruvians), 420 (Cashinawa, Nambicuara, Apiaca, Tapirape, Tupi-Guarani), 423 (Tierra del Fuego). As supreme sky-god, 365 (Californians; ef. Tcenes), 385 (Sioux), 419 (Mapuche-Huilliche). As his voice, 31 (Epili-
pili), 34 (Leza), 39 (Ngai), 56,
64 (Amun?), 256 (Ski), 290 (Songinyu), 301 f. (Puluga), 310 (Karei), 311 (Enku), 318 (Bayagaw). Two-faced, 18, cf. twofaced deities thunderbolt (lightning), 14, 20 f., 31,
34, 38 f., 145, 149, 164, 293,
gor f., 310 f., 365, 410 thunderstones, 289 (Konyak), 290 (Sema Nagas, Rengma Nagas),
291 (Angami Nagas), 346, 349 n.37 Ti, 11, 278, cf. Shang-Ti Tiahuanaco, 18, 418 Tiamat, 80, 82
Tien, 6, 9, 12, 15, 19, 273 ff., 278 ff£., 281 tigillum sororium, 176 n.83 Tiggana marrabona, 440 Timaulk, 423 Timilhou, 289 Tirawa, 11, 385 ff.
Tjarnaglofi, 237, 247, 249
tlachieloni, 410 f. Tlagolteotl, 315, 407 Tlingit, 7, 361 toad, 290 Toba-Batak, see Batak; Toba Pilaga,
422 Toci, Teteo innan, Tlalli iyollo, 315,
407
tokoy ricog, 417 Tonacatecutli-Tonacacinati, 405 Tonan-Tota, Tota-Tonan, 405, 408 Tonga-iti, 343 Toradja, 8, 11, 15, 20, 333 Tore (Thole, Tere, Tule, Thora), 16, Siete AAOnt. Torem, 9, 16, 257 ff. Tororut, 6, 39 Tortali, 18, 342
totemism, 287 n.83 Totonaks, 314
473
Trausoi, 188
triple head, see omniscience, visual triple-headed figure, on coins of Kusan, 124; of Christian devil, 323 n.67; on Gallehus horn, 18, 226, 248; of Hekate, 195 n.g1; Keltic (Gaulish), 196 ff., 223; of Lumuloy, 4177; at Mohenjo-Daro, 123 ff.; of sun, on Gulistan vase, 141; in Thrace, see Rider; of Triglav, see s.v.; tryanika, 125; Weesakko, 261. See also Kerberos
Triglav, 18, 169, 223, 235 ff. Trikasbos, 182 trimurti, 122, 124, 125
Trinity, Christian, 229 n.35 triplication of divine figures, 231 n.62, alleged Mithraic trinity;232 n.72, Odin, Thor, Freyr; n.76, Odin, Tyr, Thor (‘‘Nordic trinity’’) Tròi, 287 n.80 Troisdorf vase, 204 Trumai, 420 Trundholm, 226
Tshi, 16, 36 Tsikeo, 295 Tsimshian, 11, 15, 21, 361 Tsossa (Tsuossa, Tsose, Tuossa), 42 Tsuki-yomi, 7 Tsuni-Goam (T’sui-Goab), 32 Tuatha-De-Danaan, 228 n.29 Tu-matanenga, 344 ‘Tumereha, 435 Tungus, 263, 282 f. Tunica, 389 Tupan, 420 Tupinamba, 420 Turko-Mongols, 261 ff. Tustratta, 116
two-faced or -headed deities; Argos, 17, 151; in Babylonia, 17, 81; Boreas, 17, 153; Cheyenne, 399 n.141; Oglala Dakotas, ibid.; El-Kronos, 90; Gaulish Kelts, 207 ff.; Lenape, 380; Mallos, coinage of, 90; Marduk, (?), 81; Micronesia, 343 (Ugelianged); Nenechen, 18; Slavs, 238; Society Islands, 343; Thunder, 18; Wonekau, 18, 342. Cf. Janus Tylor, E. B., 2, 265
Typhon, 18 Tyr, 221 {,
THE
474
ALL-KNOWING
uatana, 425
U
Blei Nong-thaw (Ka’lei Nongthaw), 291 f. Ubun (Opo) Langi, 334 Ugarit, 90 Ugelianged, 170, 343 Ugra (Siva), 124 Ugro-Finns, 9, 257 ff., 264 ff. Uitoto, 6 Uniang Tenangan, 332 Unkulukulu, 34 : Upu Langi (Lanite, Nanite), 15, 20, 334, 344 Uppsala, pagan temple at, 246 U Pyrthat, 293 Ural-Altaics, 264 ff. Uranos, 12, 17, 147, 151, 159 nn.36, 37 urfeta (=orbis, orbita), 169 urigallu, 80 Urkultur, 302, 305, 307 (Andamanese),
313, 326, n.70, 440
Uruk, 124 Uru-Wadu, 335 Usmu (Isimud), 82 Ussakita (Wissakita), 376 Uto, 51 Vafthrudnir, 221 Vairocana, 126 vajapeya, 240 Vajrayana, 139 Valdemar of Denmark, 235 Vanoverbergh, Father M., 319, 320, 327 n.81 Vans and Ases, 222, 225 Varuna, 5, 9).10,115,) 17;919;) 107, 118 f., 121, 125, 134, 145 vases, planetary, 17, 200 ff., 232 n.67; from Bavay, 200; from Jupille, ibid.; from Troisdorf, 201; from Tournay, ibid.; from Maintz, 215 n.76; from Gundestrup, 224 Vata, 121 Vatea, 18 Vayu, 7, 10, 121 Vedas, 10, 118 ff. Vedda, 440, 442 Venjamin, 260 f., 265 Vico, G. B., 22 f. Vilemvoe, Vilpepilvoe, 419 Vinili, 221
GOD
Viracocha, 7, 9, 21, 418, 424 Vishnu, 122 visvavedas, 10, 118, 119, 121 f. Vladimir, canon of gods of, 255 n.50 Voguls, 257 ff. Voluspa, 225 Vula Ledza, 334 Waa, 8, 41
Wa-Hehe, 35 Waigats, 250, 260 Wailaki, 365 Wainwright, G. A., 65 Waka, 32 wakefulness, perpetual, of Adityas, 121; of Ahura Mazdah, 133; of Argos, 151; of Cholas, 423; of El-Kronos, 89; of Mitra (-Varuna), 119 f.; of Pea-pea, 343; of Sraosa, 143 n.15; of Yahweh, 99 Walamo, 42 Wa-Nyika, 16 Waqa (Waq, Waqayo, Usaga, Wuaka), 6, 8, 20, 40 f., 64, 439 Watauineiwa, 425 weather, bad, ritual to avert, see extraction of blood; interferes with hunting, 446. As sanction employed by Supreme. Being, 20 ff., 31 (Tore, Epilipili), 34 (Leza), 37 (Nyankupon, Wende), 57 f. (Amun), 108 f. (Yahweh), 145 f. (Zeus), 163 (Juppiter), 262 f. (Tengri), 275 (Shang-ti, Tien), 289 f. (Gawang; does not always punish with unfavourable weather), 310 ff. (Karei, Ta Pedn), 318 (Bagayaw), 329 (Lowalangi), 331 (Petara), 332 (Tamei Tinggei), 333 (Pue-mpalaburu, Dava), 341 (Wunekau), 342 (Lugeleng), 351 (Mungan-Mngaua), 355 (Sila), 362 (Semagid laxha), 372 (InCharge-of-Life, Apaches), 374 f. (Manitu), 375 (caribou-god), 382 f. (Oki), 384 (Skan, Wakinyan, Thunder), 385 (Tirawa?), 388 (Natchez sungod), 410 (Tezcatlipoca), 416 f. (Mareigua?) (Viracocha), 419 (Pillan), 420 (various S. American skygods), 421 (Maret Khmakniam),
INDEX weather—cont. 422 (Gran Chaco sky-god), 423 (Caspi and other Fuegian gods), 424 (Curspic), 425 (Watauineiwa) week, days of, 202 ff., 222, cf. planets Weesakko, 18, 250, 261 Wendé, 8, 12, 37 f. Wends, 234 wheel, as solar symbol, 169, 197, 237 (round loaf), 240 (same, also urfeta, q.v., orbes aenet)
Wi, 384
Wichita, 385 Wienecke, E., 219 n.134, 241 ff. Wild Hunt, 220, 222, 223
wind, 10 ff., 55 ff. (Amun), 56, 77 f. (Enlil), 153 ff (Boreas), 220 (Odin?), 290 (Lichaba), 365 (Kahit), 420 (Baba Buoda). As breath, sigh, etc. of Supreme Being, 7 (Purusha), 11, 39 (Ngai), 11, 256 (Skaj), 11, 362 (Semagid Laxha), 11, 386 (Tirawa), 11, 330 (Lowalangi, Sihai), 11, 57 (Amun), Four winds, 57, 72 n.115, 80 (also seven), 110. Fertilises the earth, 11, 330 345 (Celebes), 332 (Nias), (Maori). Manifestation of sky-
god, 11 f., 55, 289, 334; his
or informant, 11 f., 37, 278, 290. Omnipresent, 11 f.,
messenger
38, 57, 78, 121, 154. Gf. Air
Winnebago, 380 Wintu, 9, 365 f., 369 Wisakita, see Ussakita Wisdom (hokhma) of Yahweh, 103 f. Wiyot (Wishosk), 6, 364, 369 Wonekau, 9, 11, 15, 16, 18, 21, 170,
341 f., 442 f., 445
Wonomi, 365, 395 n.81 Wotan (Woden), see Odin Wright, Rev. A., 388 wu-wei, 2776 Wyandot, 382
475
Xenophanes,
1, 16, 148
Xenophon, 149 Xiuhtecutli, 10, 410 xoanon of Zeus, 152 Xovalasi, 371 Yaccyma, 424, 430 n.41
Yahgan (Yamana), 21, 424 ff. Yahweh,
5, 10,
15,
19, 58, 97 ff.,
133, 145, 409, 437; 438, 447
Yaksa, Taksini, 128
Yakuts, 262, 269 Yao, 283 Yaruro, 449 n.1I1
yazata, 134
Yeddariye, 16, 371 Yero, 6, 42 Yerugami, 405 Yin and Yang, 290 Yokuts, 364 Yoruba, 13, 36 Yowau, 366 Yucatan, 412 Yukaghirs, 267, 269 Yuki, 365 Yumo, 264 Yuttoere (Yutarre, Yutakki, Utakke),
15 f., 371 Zamuco, 449 N.II Zarathustra, 132 ff., 437 Zedher, 60 Zeirene, Aphrodite, 191 n.49 Zenon, 150 Zeus, 6, 11, 12, 15, 19, 56, 145 ff,
344, 433; 436 f.; Herkeios, 152;
Horkios, 12, 19, 20; Ktesios, 160 n.40; Larisaios, 152, 171 N.I1; Meilichios, 152; Panoptes, 152; tetraotos, 17; “lesson of”, 433 Ziu (Tiv, Tyr), 221 f. Zodiac, 141 Zoroastrianism, see Zarathustra; 266 Zuarasic (Zuarasiz), 223, 234 f., 238 f., 242, 246 Zulu, 34 Zuni, 390 f.
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SAINT PETER’S COLLEGE ENGLEV WOOD
CLIFFS CAMPUS,
1920
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