[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

lest one of them should enter the animal and cause it to gore him. An animal, therefore, was not feared or
worshipped for its own sake, but because it was liable to be possessed by a good or evil spirit.
The difference between good and evil spirits was that the former could be propitiated or bargained with, so
that benefits might be obtained, while the latter ever remained insatiable and unwilling to be reconciled. This
primitive conception is clearly set forth by Isocrates, the Greek orator, who said: "Those of the gods who are
the sources to us of good things have the title of Olympians; those whose department is that of calamities and
punishments have harsher titles. To the first class both private persons and states erect altars and temples; the
second is not worshipped either with prayers or burnt sacrifices, but in their case we perform ceremonies of
riddance".
"Ceremonies" of riddance are, of course, magicalceremonies. It was by magic that the Egyptians warded off
the attacks of evil spirits. Ra's journey in the sun bark through the perilous hour-divisions of night was
accomplished by the aid of spells which thwarted the demons of evil and darkness in animal or reptile form.
In Egypt both gods and demons might possess the same species of animals or reptiles. The ox might be an
incarnation of the friendly Isis, or of the demon which gored the peasant. Serpents and crocodiles were at
once the protectors and the enemies of mankind. The dreaded Apep serpent symbolized everything that was
evil and antagonistic to human welfare; but the beneficent mother goddess Uazit of Buto, who shielded
Horus, was also a serpent, and serpents were worshipped as defenders of households; images of them were
hung up for "luck" or protection, as horseshoes are in our own country even at the present day; the serpent
amulet was likewise a protective agency., like the serpent stone of the Gauls and the familiar "lucky pig"
CHAPTER V. Racial Myths in Egypt and Europe 45
 EGYPTIAN MYTH AND LEGEND
which is still worn as a charm.
In certain parts of Egypt the crocodile was also worshipped, and was immune from attack; in others it was
ruthlessly hunted down. As late as Roman times the people of one nome waged war against those of another
because their sacred animals were being slain by the rival religious organization.
Here we touch upon the tribal aspect of animal worship. Certain animals or reptiles were regarded as the
protectors of certain districts. A particular animal might be looked upon by one tribe as an incarnation of their
deity, and by another as the incarnation of their Satan. The black pig, for instance, was associated by the
Egyptians with Set, who was the god of a people who conquered
and oppressed them in pre-Dynastic times. Horus is depicted standing on the back of the pig and piercing its
head with a lance; its legs and jaws are fettered with chains. But the pig was also a form of Osiris, "the good
god".
Set was identified with the Apep serpent of night and storm, and in certain myths the pig takes the place of
the serpent. It was the Set pig, for instance, that fed upon the waning moon, which was the left eye of Horus.
How his right eye, the sun, was once blinded is related in a Heliopolitan myth. Horus sought, it appears, to
equal Ra, and desired to see all things that had been created. Ra delivered him a salutory lesson by saying:
"Behold the black pig". Horus looked, and immediately one of his eyes (the sun) was destroyed by a
whirlwind of fire. Ra said to the other gods: "The pig will be abominable to Horus". For that reason pigs were
never sacrificed to him. Ra restored the injured eye, and created for Horus two horizon brethren who would
guard him against thunderstorms and rain.
The Egyptians regarded the pig as an unclean animal. Herodotus relates that if they touched it casually, they
at once plunged into water to purify themselves. Swineherds lost caste, and were not admitted to the
temples. Pork was never included among the meat offerings to the dead. In Syria the pig was also "taboo". In
the Highlands, even in our own day, there survives a strong prejudice against pork, and the black pig is
identified with the devil.
On the other hand, the Gauls, who regarded the pig
as sacred, did not abstain from pork. Like their kinsmen, the Ach�ans, too, they regarded swineherds as
important personages; these could even become kings. The Scandinavian heroes in Valhal feast upon swine's
flesh, and the boar was identified with Frey, the corn god. In the Celtic (Irish) Elysium presided over by
Dagda, the corn god, as the Egyptian Paradise was presided over by Osiris, there was always "one pig alive
and another ready roasted". Dagda's son, Angus, the love god, the Celtic Khonsu, had a herd of swine, and
their chief was the inevitable black pig.
In The Golden Bough, Professor Frazer shows that the pig was tabooed because it was at one time a sacred
animal identified with Osiris. Once a year, according to Herodotus, pigs were sacrificed in Egypt to the moon
and to Osiris. The moon pig was eaten, but the pigs offered to Osiris were slain in front of house doors and
given back to the swineherds from whom they were purchased.
Like the serpent and the crocodile, the pig might be either the friend or the enemy of the corn god. At sowing
time it rendered service by clearing the soil of obnoxious roots and weeds which retard the growth of crops.
When, however, the agriculturists found the
Snouted wild boar routing tender corn,
they apparently identified it with the enemy of Osiris it slew the corn god. The boar hunt then ensued as a
CHAPTER V. Racial Myths in Egypt and Europe 46 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]