animals-of-creation.htm

The Animals of Creation

comments by Patrick C. Ryan (3/15/98)

Part One

PREFACE

Three fundamental principles are incorporated into these essays on the Proto-Religion:

A. man's earliest fears were his earliest deities — the powers/ phenomena of nature which awed him: (1) water/birth/rebirth (Venus, primeval ocean); (2) danger from other animals, injury/conflict (Mars, Draco); (3) storms/cold/weather/power (Jupiter, sky); (4) warmth, fire/hearth/society/justice (Sun); (5) sexuality/fertility/potency (Moon); (6) the future/knowledge/afterlife (Mercury, Milky Way [axis mundi]); (7) old age/death (Saturn, earth); (8) and undefined evil (comets);


1. as man sought to understand the world in which he lived, he began to group phenomena based on commonly perceived characteristics;


a. a major classification was based on common color: e.g. the redness of blood, arising from injury, was connected to the red planet, Mars; the glistening white of water was connected to the pearly sheen of Venus;

b. another major classification was based on similarities of form: e.g. the slit-iris of the lion was connected to the twin crescents of the moon; the mane of the horse was connected to the corona of the sun;

c. as a result of these processes, each power/phenomenon of nature was associated with a suite of animal(s) including bird(s)/fish, insect(s), plant(s), and planet/cosmic phenomenon;




B. the earliest conceptions of ancient religion were concrete and based on the common sense of experience;


1. an application of this principle is that when the powers of nature subsequently began to be associated with creatures which, it was thought, exemplified some fundamental characteristic; only naively appropriate creatures (at least to these early thinkers) were chosen;


a. an example is the water-buffalo, which was chosen to be an animal representative of the deity of the heavenly primeval ocean;

b. another example is the selection of a wading water-bird, the crane, to exemplify the the same;

c. we may compare these assignments to those of the weather-deity, whose animal was the ram, suggested by the thunderous claps made by male sheep butting horns during rutting season; and whose bird was the woodpecker, whose loud taps also suggested the growling of thunder;

d. the names assigned to deities were prosaically straightforward: Sumerian In-anna(k), "rush of the sky", for the axis mundi (Inanna); Egyptian Hw.t-Hr, "house of the sky", for the sky-goddess Hathor;

e. we should not expect to nor do we find subtle associations based on mystical reveries when we have discovered the oldest names;


2. the corollary of this principle is, that when we come across an association between a deity (power/phenomenon of nature) and a creature or a name for a deity, the appropriateness of which is not immediately apparent, we should suspect that the association is mistaken: the result of relatively late conflation through syncretism or of sterile priestly speculation;

3. the importance of these associations is that the identity of the creature or planet associated with a deity can help us to identify his original nature and function.




C. although, because of conflation, the animal and planetary associations we find attested may not be original, the meaning (when it can be determined) of the divine name is primary evidence for the earliest function of a deity; this means that, when we can determine it, we should expect to find simple descriptive, naively appropriate epithets, the interpretation of which is immediately suggested, that do not necessitate involved mystical allusions to interpret.

COMMENTS

1. PRIMEVAL OCEAN <> VENUS

Crane - Water-Buffalo

Sumerian

This bowl depicts a very long-necked bird along with the swastika motif, which we confidently connect with the Circumpolar Regions revolving around the North Star. Although the depiction does not definitely identify the bird as a crane, comparison with other traditions makes it highly probable.

We have seen above the imagery of the water-buffalo combined with water (the celestial ocean) and Lahmu, representing clouds.

There is also a considerable amount of additional evidence to link the water-buffalo and the primeval ocean in Sumer.

To begin with, a tablet of purportedly pre-flood Sumerian kings exists, begins with the name Alulim (Hallo/Simpson 1971, p. 29-32), which I analyze as consisting of alu, "residence (of)" + (a)lim, "water-buffalo"; the second sign composed of the elements "power(ful)" + "water" + "face" . Each of these kings had an impossibly long life span that identifies them as mythical personages a priori. When we compare Alu-lim with the deity we came across in Creation-1, the Hurrian Alalu, and furthermore, notice the Sumerian god Alla, about whom not much is definitely known (but who is undoubtedly a creator-god; alla is written with a sign depicting a wood-working tool = "[the] *carver"); and finally consider the so-called ‘bison' ("gud-alim"), a well-known decorative motif. Under these circumstances, it seems highly plausible to suggest that the Sumerian deity of the primeval ocean, Alu-lim, the "Residence of the Water-Buffalo", had a water-buffalo as his animal avatar. Egyptian

-Hapy, bull-substitute for water-buffalo; hippopotamus/crocodile?

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Chinese

"The ‘Boy of the White Crane' is a kind of demiurge, an attendant of the gods who lives in the palace of ‘jade emptiness'".

(Eberhard 1996, p. 75)

When we also know that Chinese jade/nephrite was almost certainly the equivalent of Mesopotamian lapis lazuli (for which the Egyptians substituted turquoise/malachite; Hathor [Hwt-Hr{w}], the Egyptian sky-goddess, was nb.t mfk3.t, "lady of turquoise/malachite"), bluish stones symbolizing the heavens, and that the "supreme god in Chinese popular religion" is Yù-huáng[-dà]-dì, "Jade-emperor-big-supreme (-being)", it seems relatively certain that "jade emptiness" must refer to the formless primeval ocean; and that the crane is the associated bird.

(Eberhard 1996, p. 154)

"The connection between the ox and water is of very long standing . . . Often these ‘bulls' were in fact water buffalo."

(Eberhard 1996, p. 223)

2. DRACO <> MARS

Snake

Greek

3. SKY <> JUPITER

Ram - Owl - Woodpecker - Griffin

For "owl", see Addendum to World Tree above.)

Greek

NOTE

The tradition which asserted that the Sun and Moon were eyes of the sky-god had an important result: since the eagle was the creature of the sun, and the lion the creature of the moon, a composite lion/eagle, a griffin, became a symbol of the sky-god.

4. SUN

Horse - Eagle - Raven - Venomous Snake - Spider - Bee

Greek

Here we see an Assyrian representation of the sun-horse. Alone among the Mesopotamian gods, the sky-god Utu is usually depicted as having sunbeams projecting around his body as seen here:

We believe that the horse was associated with the sun because its waving mane while running suggested the ever-present halo around the sun.

The Sumerian sun-god, Utu, is reported to have had a charioteer named Bu-ne-ne; and almost every reader will know of the Greek myth of Phaétho:n, the "son" of the sun-god, whose horse-drawn chariot went out of control. Phaétho:n, "Radiant", is, of course, only an epithet of the sun itself.

We have indicated that we believe Athene is essentially a solar-goddess. Greek Athe:nâ is a feminine form of the base *athe:n, which, we assert, is distantly cognate with Sumerian et-an[n]a(k) (probably better: *ad- an[n]a(k)), "strong one of the sky", the eagle.

The eagle was the bird of the sun from its custom of flying very high and diving with the sun at its back — to a terrestrial observer thus seeming to come from the very sun itself.

This name for the eagle as a symbol of the sun has had very wide currency. We may notice, first of all, West Semitic ?-d-n, "lord", which yields the famous Syrian Adonis, thought by many to be a dying sun-god, who developed from a seasonal deity of the axis mundi like Sumerian Dumuzi.

The fact that the root does not exist in Arabic leads me to suspect that the West Semitic meaning of "lord" has developed from an original use as a title of the "sun-eagle"; and "sun" is known as a royal title in the Mideast. Also, it is probably no coincidence that the Sumerian sign which reads UD, "sun", also has the reading of adan.

In addition, the Sumerian combination of A-2.MUSHEN ("strong" + "bird"), is read erû, and means "eagle". Sumerian A-2 is the same sign which is read ed/t.

Hurrian mythology confirms a connection between the eagle and sun as well. According to Hurrian myth, when the sun-god wishes to find the missing Telepinu (a Dumuzi-type god), he sends an eagle, and then a bee, another creature of the sun.

The spider, bee and venomous snake were associated with the sun based on the perceived connection between the painful boils of sunburn and the stings of spiders and bees and and bites of snakes.

In Egypt, we find the connection with an eagle and venomous snake partially confirmed by the very common picture of the winged sun-disk with uraeus.

On this evidence, it can hardly escape our notice that the sun was called by the name Aten (Jtn), which, according to the tables of correspondence developed in the Proto-Language section, would correspond to Semitic ?-d-n (Hebrew ?ado/ôn(ai), "lord"), and Sumerian *Ad-an[n]a(k) as well as Greek Athe:nâ (conjectured, because of the final circumflex accent, to be derived from *Athe:naía).

Finally, although most will consider the connection untenable, we should mention Nordic Idun (Idhun), whose golden apples, the eating of which gave eternal youth to the gods, remind us of the sun. The myth concerning her has Loki abducted by a huge eagle, who is the disguised giant Thiassi. To obtain his release, he must promise Thiassi to help abduct Idun and steal her golden apples, which he does. Again, Thiassi takes her away while in eagle guise. Of course, Idun is finally realeased. What is interesting, is in the Lay of Harbard, Thiassi is called "Allvaldi's son", i.e. "the son of the all powerful one", a rather impressive name for a giant. And, in Odin's Ravens' Song, Idun is called Ivaldi's ("ruler of everywhere [í-]?") child.

I suggest that we are dealing with an original Idun in eagle form, whose golden apples are emblems of her solar nature, and that Thiassi is but another aspect of the sun (perhaps from IE *diwesi-, "daylike"); and that they are both offspring of the sky-deity.

Like many sun-deities, her functions have been conflated with the seasonal variations once represented by the World Tree; and another myth has Idun falling from the heavens to the underworld, whence she, like Inanna, inexplicably refused to depart.

(Guerber 1895, pp. 100-106)

Within this setting, we can now more plausibly identify the elements in the myths of Athene that point to her original solar identity.

Athene invented the "horse-bridle, the chariot"; we have seen above that the horse is attested as the animal of the sun as early as Neo-Assyrian times. In addition, Graves suggests (1959, I, 171 [48. Boreas, 1]) that "Athene Polias ("of the city") . . . may have (originally) been Athene Po:lias (cf. Greek pó:los, "foal") — Athene the Filly, goddess of the local horse cult"; and to this I subscribe.

Áreia, a title of Athene, is normally translated as "the warlike one" on account of Ares, the Greek god of war but, if we consider the root from which it (Ares) is ultimately derived, *ar(e)i-, the basic idea of which is "good" in the special sense of "fitting", it may preferably be translated as "the ordering one", i.e. "the one that produces a fitting result", an appropriate title for a solar deity with the function of social order and justice. Though the name of the Areopagus, the hill of the high court of justice in Athens, is usually derived from Ares, it may well be appropriately derived from title of the sun-goddess, Athene. And it is said that, ". . . in a criminal trial at the Areopagus, she always gives the casting vote (Graves 1959, I, p. 96 [XXV, a, Athene's Nature and Deeds])" in the event of a tie.

Though Athene is usually considered a virgin, one myth suggests that at some time she may have been considered the mother of Erichthonius, a half-man, half-snake, like his reputed father, Kékrops, which we derive from Greek kírkos (from IE ki-kro- ), "circle", and ó:ps, "face", an appropriate name and creature (venomous snake) for the sun. Cecrops' daughters, Herse ("dew") and Pandrosos ("all dewy"), further substantiate his ties to the phenomena associated with the morning sun; and his third daughter, Aglauros (interestingly, his wife's name is Agraulos [sic!], an obvious metathesis;

This Erichthonius (whose name is probably to be derived from *eri-, "he who raises [himself] up" [cf. Greek erétho:, "raise, increase"] + khthó:n, "earth" = "he who raises himself from the earth", a fitting name for an aggressive snake-god), also known as Erechtheus became the fourth king of Athens, instituted the worship of Athene, and was finally placed by Athene in the skies as Auriga, the Charioteer — thus uniting the snake and horse symbolism for the sun.

In addition, because of the lacy fingers of dawn, the sun was associated with weaving; and through weaving, with the spider. Another myth tells of the skilled weaving woman, Arachne (Greek arákhne:, "spider's web"), of whom Athene became jealous. Arachne, frightened, hanged herself; and Athene, obligingly, turned her into a spider.

"In Bantu folklore Spider is definitely associated with the sun. (Leach 1984, p. 53)"; and "in all ages spiders have been looked upon as friends of man (Leach 1984, p. 1074)."

"Spider Man and Spider Woman are Navaho supernaturals or Holy People who taught Earth People how to weave."

Leach 1984, p. 1074

Uttu is the name of the Sumerian goddess of weaving (written with three signs: "god" + "stake (shuttle?)/weave" + "cloth"). "Since the same sign is also used sometimes to write the word for ‘spider', it is possible that she was envisaged in the form of a spider spinning a web."

(Black and Green 1996, p. 182)

The name of the Sumerian sun-god is Utu; one of his epithets, "long-armed", could correlate with an early spider identity. There seem to be indications that the preferred weapon of Utu is the net, which would also support an arachnid connection.

However, in view of Ares' symbol (the burning torch), Ares himself may, at origin, be a sun-god whose protection of justice was narrowed to the determination of truth by ordeal of arms.

Although the horse came relatively late to Egypt, there are indications that an equine, the ass, took its place.

"Elsewhere (xl. 1 ff.), Apep is called . . . 'm '3w, i.e. ‘Eater of the Ass' . . . ; the Ass referred to here is, of course, Ra; the Ass was regarded in one aspect as a solar animal because of his great virility."

(Budge 1969, II, p. 246)

It is my opinion that the archenemy of Ra, Apep (Egyptian '3pp) is to be analyzed as '3, "ass" + *pp, "*fly" (cf. Egyptian py, "flea"), so that, taking a small liberty, Apep is the "horse-fly", the scourge of a tranquil horse-herd; for which the epithet "eater of the ass" is but hyperbole.

Chinese

"On the oldest stone reliefs that have come down to us the raven is already depicted as the creature . . . of the sun."

(Eberhard 1996, p. 247)

Since Greek kórax means both "raven" and "crow", it will not be amiss to mention a detail in a myth of Athene, who changed the color of the raven from white to black

(Graves 1959, I, p. 97 [XXV, e, Athene's Nature and Deeds])

Presumably, the connection was between a "black" bird and the charring heat of the sun (and fire).

In connection with the sun and Athene, we might look at the myth of Daedalus (which I analyze as derived from dáïos, "burning" + da:lós, "firebrand"), a solar figure. Daedalus, who grew jealous of his nephew Talos (cf. thalukrós, "warm, glowing" [from IE *dhel-, "illuminate, bright"]), takes him to the roof of Athene's temple, and toppled him over the edge. Now, "Talos is said by Hesychius to be a name for the Sun (Graves 1959, I, p. 317 [XCII, 7., Daedalus and Talos])". Daedulus makes wings of eagle feathers for his son, Icarus, who flies too near the sun, and falls into the sea while Daedalus flies on.. It appears to me probable that these are stories weaving themes around the sun, blending familiar elements of Athene, eagle, and fire; while the fall of Talos and Icarus reminds us of the leap of the mother of Aglauros and two sisters of Aglauros from the Acropolis {swoop of the eagle?} (Graves 1959, I, p. 97 [XXV, d, Athene's Nature and Deeds]).

Finally, we should mention the Chinese symbolism of the spider, called zhi(-); the identical word, written with another sign, means "weave". It is not too difficult to see a possible basis for the "rising-sun" design of Japan in the spider's web.

In a well-known Chinese myth, the Spinning Damsel (zhi[-]-nü[^]) and the Cowherd, she flies up to the sky with a feather-robe, connecting the spider and bird solar themes.

(Eberhard 1996, p. 272)

In another Chinese myth, the goddess of silk-making, which, of course is a weaving process, is called: "Mâ Tóu Niáng, "Horse-head-woman", which suggests again a connection with the sun, weaving, and the horse.

(Eberhard 1996, p. 265)

continue to Part Two

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allen, Richard Hinckley. 1963. Star Names - Their Lore and Meaning. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

Black, Jeremy and Green, Anthony. 1996. Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. Austin. University of Texas Press.

Bonnet, Hans. 1971. Reallexikon der ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter

Budge, E. A. Wallis. 1969 [1904]. The Gods of the Egyptians - or Studies in Egyptian Mythology. 2 vol. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.

Eberhard,Wolfram. 1996. A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols — Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought. London/New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul

Graves, Robert. 1959. The Greek Myths. 2 vol. New York: George Braziller, Inc.

Guerber, H. A. 1895. Myths of Northern Lands. New York/Cincinnati/Chicago: American Book Company

Hallo, William W. and Simpson, William Kelly. 1971. The Ancient Near East - A History. New York etal.: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc.

Jacobsen, Thorkild. 1970. Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

Jacobsen, Thorkild. 1976. The Treasures of Darkness - A History of Mesopotamian Religion. New Haven and London: Yale University Press

Leach, Maria (editor). 1984. Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Myhtology, and Legend. San Francisco etal.: Harper & Row, Publishers

Seyffert, Oskar. 1995. The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Religion, Literature, and Art. New York etal.: Random House (Gramercy Books)