Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/163

MYTHOLOGY 151 king describes himself as the child of Sky and Earth. He also somewhat obscurely identifies himself with Osiris. We thus find Osiris very near the beginning of what is known about Egyptian religion. This being is rather a culture-hero, a member of a non-natural race of men like Qat or Manabozho, than a god. His myth, to be after wards narrated, is found pictorially represented in a tomb and in the late temple of Philae, is frequently alluded to in the litanies of the dead about 1400 B.C., is indicated with reverent awe by Herodotus, and after the Christian era is described at full length by Plutarch. Whether the same myth was current in the far more distant days of Mycerinus, it is, of course, impossible to say with dogmatic certainty. The religious history of Egypt, from perhaps Dynasty X. to Dynasty XX., is interrupted by an invasion of Semitic conquerors and Semitic ideas. Prior to that invasion the gods, when mentioned in monuments, are always repre sented by animals, and these animals are the object of strictly local worship. The name of each god is spelled in hieroglyphs beside the beast or bird. The jackal stands for Anup, the hawk for Har, the frog for Hekt, the baboon for Tahuti, and Ptah, Asiri, Hesi, Nebhat, Hat-hor, Neit, Khnum, and Amun-hor are all written out phonetically, but never represented in pictures. Different cities had their different beast-gods. Pasht, the cat, was the god of Bubastis ; Apis, the bull, of Memphis ; Hapi, the wolf, of Sioot ; Ba, the goat, of Mendes. The evidence of Hero dotus, Plutarch, and the other writers shows that the Egyptians of each district refused to eat the flesh of the animal they held sacred. So far the identity of custom with savage totemism is absolute. Of all the explanations, then, of Egyptian animal-worship, that which regards the practice as a survival of totemism and of savagery seems the most satisfactory. So far Egyptian religion only re presented her gods in theriomorphic shape. Beasts also appeared in the royal genealogies, as if the early Egyptians had filled up the measure of totemism by regarding them selves as actually descended from animals. With one or two exceptions, " the first (semi-anthropo morphic) figures of gods known in the civilized parts of Egypt are on the granite obelisk of Bezig in the Fayyum, erected by Usertesen I. of Dynasty XII., and here we find the forms all full-blown at once. The first group of deities belongs to a period and a district in which Semitic influences had undoubtedly begun to work." l From this period the mixed and monstrous figures, semi-theriomorphic, semi-anthropomorphic, hawk-headed and ram-headed and jackal-headed gods become common. This may be attri buted to Semitic influence, or we may suppose that the process of anthropomorphizing theriomorphic gods was naturally developing itself ; for Mexico has shown us and Greece can show us abundant examples of these mixed figures, in which the anthropomorphic god retains traces of his theriomorphic past. The heretical worship of the solar disk interrupted the course of Egyptian religion under some reforming kings, but the great and glorious Eamesside Dynasty (XIX.) restored " Orus and Isis and the dog Anubis " with the rest of the semi-theriomorphic deities. These survived even their defeat by the splendid human gods of Rome, and only " fled from the folding star of Bethlehem." Though Egypt was rich in gods, her literature is not fertile in myths. The religious compositions which have sur vived are, as a rule, hymns and litanies, the funereal service, the " Book of the Dead." In these works the myths are taken for granted, are alluded to in the course of addresses to the divine beings, but, naturally, are not told in full. As in the case of the Vedas, hymns are poor sources for the 1 This extract, with much of what goes before, is from a paper read to the Royal Literary Society by Mr Flinders Petrie. study of mythology, just as the hymns of the church would throw little light on the incidents of the gospel story or of the Old Testament. The "sacred legends" which the priests or temple servants freely communicated to Hero dotus are lost through the pious reserve of the traveller. Herodotus constantly alludes to the most famous Egyptian myth, that of Osiris, and he recognizes the analogies between the Osirian myth and mysteries and those of Dionysus. But we have to turn to the very late authority of Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride) for an account, confessedly incomplete and expurgated, of what mythology had to tell about the great Egyptian "culture-hero," "daemon," and god. Osiris, Horus, Typhon (Seth), Isis, and Nephthys were the children of Seb (whom the Greeks identified with Cronus) ; the myths of their birth were peculiarly savage and obscene. Osiris introduced civilization into Egypt, and then wandered over the world, making men acquainted with agriculture and the arts, as Pund-jel in his humbler way did in Australia. On his return Typhon laid a plot for him. He had a beautiful carved chest made which exactly fitted Osiris, and at an entertainment offered to give it to any one who could lie down in it. As soon as Osiris tried, Typhon had the box nailed up, and threw it into the Tanaite branch of the Nile. Isis wandered, mourn ing, in search of the body, as Demeter sought Persephone, and perhaps in Plutarch s late version some incidents may be borrowed from the Eleusinian legend. At length she found the chest, which in her absence was again discovered by Typhon. He mangled the body of Osiris (as so many gods of all races were mangled) and tossed the fragments about. Wherever Isis found a portion of Osiris she buried it ; hence Egypt was as rich in graves of Osiris as Nama- qualand in graves of Heitsi Eibib. The phallus alone she did not find, but she consecrated a model thereof ; hence (says the myth) came the phallus-worship of Egypt. Afterwards Osiris returned from the shades, and (in the form of a wolf) urged his son Horus to revenge him on Typhon. The gods fought in animal shape (Birch, in Wilkinson, iii. 144). Plutarch purposely omits as "too blasphemous " the legend of the mangling of Horus. Though the graves of these non-natural beings are shown, the priests (De Is. et Os., xxi.) also show the stars into which they were metamorphosed, as the Eskimo and Aus tralians and Aryans of India and Greeks have recognized in the constellations their ancient heroes. Plutarch re marked the fact that the Greek myths of Cronus, of Dionysus, of Apollo and the Python, and of Demeter, "all the things that are shrouded in mystic ceremonies and are presented in rites," "do not fall short in absurdity of the legends about Osiris and Typhon." Plutarch natur ally presumed that the myths which seem absurd shrouded some great moral or physical mystery. But we apply no such explanation to similar savage legends, and our theory is that the Osirian myth is only one of these retained to the time of Plutarch by the religious conservatism of a race which, to the time of Plutarch, preserved in full vigour most of the practices of totemism. As a slight confirma tion of the possibility of this theory we may mention that Greek mysteries retained two of the features of savage mysteries. The first was the rite of daubing the initiated with clay. 2 This custom prevails in African mysteries, in Guiana, among Australians, Papuans, and Andaman Islanders. The other custom is the use of the turndun, as the Australians call a little fish-shaped piece of wood tied to a string, and waved so as to produce a loud booming and whirring noise and keep away the profane, especially women. It is employed in New Mexico, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. This instrument, the KWVOS, 2 Demosthenes, lie Corona, p. 313, KO.I Ka.0a.ipuv TOI>S TOV^VOVS /CCU d.TrOfJ.d.TTli}! T(j5 TT7JiS KO.I TOIS TTlTVpOlS.