[30] E.A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians (London, 1904), vol. I, pp. 282–92.
[31] Kalika Puraṇa, I (translated in Heinrich Zimmer, The King and the Corpse, edited by Joseph Campbell, The Bollingen Series XI, Pantheon Books, 1948, pp. 239 ff.).
[32] Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad, 1.4.1–5. Translated by Swami Madhavananda (Mayavati, 1934). Compare the folklore motif of the transformation flight, pp. 183–84. See also Cypria 8, where Nemesis “dislikes to lie in love with her father Zeus” and flies from him, assuming the forms of fish and animals (cited by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power in the Indian Theory of Government, American Oriental Society, 1942, p. 361).
[33] Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, 2.2.5.
[34] Zohar, i, 91 b. Quoted by C.G. Ginsburg, The Kabbalah: Its Doctrines, Development, and Literature (London, 1920), p. 116.
[35] Taittirīya Upaniṣad, 3.10.5.
[36] The mythologies of the American Southwest describe such an emergence in great detail, so also the creation stories of the Kabyl Berbers of Algiers. See Morris Edward Opler, Myths and Tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians (Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, vol. XXXI, 1938); and Leo Frobenius and Douglas C. Fox, African Genesis (New York, 1927), pp. 49–50.
[37] George Grey, Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race, as Furnished by Their Priests and Chiefs (London, 1855), pp. 1–3.
[38] Theogony, 116 ff. In the Greek version, the mother is not reluctant; she herself supplies the sickle.
[39] Compare the Maori polarity of Mahora-nui-a-rangi and Maki, p. 232.
[40] S.N. Kramer, op cit., pp. 40–41.
[41] Prose Edda, “Gylfaginning,” IV–VIII (from the translation by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, The American-Scandinavian Foundation, New York, 1916; by permission of the publishers). See also Poetic Edda, “Voluspa.”
[42] “The Epic of Creation,” Tablet IV, lines 35–143, adapted from the translation by L.W. King, Babylonian Religion and Mythology (London and New York: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. Ltd., 1899), pp. 72–78.
[43] See Dante, “Paradiso,” XXX–XXXII. This is the rose opened to mankind by the cross.
[44] Book of Genesis, 3:7.
[45] George Bird Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892, 1916), pp. 137–38.
[46] J.S. Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders (London, 1840), vol. I, p. 17. To regard such a tale as a cosmogonic myth would be as inept as to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity with a paragraph from the nursery story “Marienkind” (Grimm's Fairy Tales, No. 3).
[47] Harva, op cit., p. 109, citing S. Krašeninnikov, Opisanie Zemli Kamčatki (St. Petersburg, 1819), vol. II, p. 101.
[48] Harva, op cit., p. 109, citing Potanin, op cit., vol. II, p. 153.
[49] P.J. Meier, Mythen und Erzählungen der Küstenbewohner der Gazelle-Halbinsel (Neu-Pommern) (Anthropos Bibliothek, Band I, Heft 1, Münster i. W., 1909), pp. 15–16.
[50] Ibid., pp. 59–61.
[51] “The universe does not on the whole act as though it were under efficient personal supervision and control. When I hear some hymns, sermons, and prayers taking for granted or asserting with naïve simplicity that this vast, ruthless cosmos, with all the monstrous accidents which it involves, is a neatly planned and personally conducted tour, I recall the more reasonable hypothesis of an East African tribe. ‘They say,’ reports an observer, ‘that although God is good and wishes good for everybody, unfortunately he has a half-witted brother who is always interfering with what he does.’ That, at least, bears some resemblance to the facts. God’s half-witted brother might explain some of life’s sickening and insane tragedies which the idea of an omnipotent individual of boundless good will toward every soul most certainly does not explain.” (Harry Emerson Fosdick, As I See Religion, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1932, pp. 53–54.)
[52] Harva, op cit., pp. 114–15, quoting W. Radloff, Proben der Volksliteratur der türkischen Stämme Süd-Siberians (St. Petersburg, 1866–70), vol. I, p. 285.
Figure 65. Tlazolteotl Giving Birth (carved aplite with garnet inclusions, Aztec, Mexico, late fifteenth–early sixteenth century a.d.)
CHAPTER II
The Virgin Birth
1. Mother Universe
The world-generating spirit of the father passes into the manifold of earthly experience through a transforming medium — the mother of the world. She is a personification of the primal element named in the second verse of Genesis, where we read that “the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” In the Hindu myth, she is the female figure through whom the Self begot all creatures. More abstractly understood, she is the world-bounding frame: “space, time, and causality” — the shell of the cosmic egg. More abstractly still, she is the lure that moved the Self-brooding Absolute to the act of creation.
Figure 66. Nut (the Sky) Gives Birth to the Sun; Its Rays Fall on Hathor in the Horizon (Love and Life) (carved stone, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. first century b.c.)
In mythologies emphasizing the maternal rather than the paternal aspect of the creator, this original female fills the world stage in the beginning, playing the roles that are elsewhere assigned to males. And she is virgin, because her spouse is the Invisible Unknown.
The Kalevala (“The Land of Heroes”) in its present form is the work of Elias Lönnrot (1802–1884), a country physician and student of Finnish philology. Having collected a considerable body of folk poetry around the legendary heroes Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, Lemminkainen, and Kullervo, he composed these in co-ordinated sequence and cast them in a uniform verse (1835, 1849). The work comes to some 23,000 lines.
A German translation of Lönnrot’s Kalevala came under the eyes of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who thereupon both conceived the plan and chose the meter of his Song of Hiawatha.
A strange representation of this figure is to be found in the mythology of the Finns. In Runo I of the Kalevala[1] it is told how the virgin daughter of the air descended from the sky mansions into the primeval sea, and there for centuries floated on the everlasting waters.
Then a storm arose in fury,
From the East a mighty tempest,
And the sea was wildly foaming,
And the waves dashed ever higher.
Thus the tempest rocked the virgin,
And the billows drove the maiden,
O’er the ocean’s azure surface,
On the crest of foaming billows,
Till the wind that blew around her,
And the sea woke life within her.[2]
For seven centuries the Water-Mother floated with the child in her womb, unable to give it birth. She prayed to Ukko, the highest god, and he sent a teal to build its nest on her knee. The teal’s eggs fell from the knee and broke; the fragments formed the earth, sky, sun, moon, and clouds. Then the Water-Mother, floating still, herself began the work of the World-Shaper.
When the ninth year had passed over,
And the summer tenth was passing,*
From the sea her head she lifted,
And her forehead she uplifted,
And she then began Creation,
And she brought the world to order,
On the open ocean’s surface,
On the far extending waters.
Wheresoe’er her hand she pointed,
There she formed the jutting headlands;
Wheresoe’er her feet she rested,
There she formed the caves for fishes;
When she dived beneath the water,
There she formed the depths of ocean;
When towards the land she turned her,
There the level shores extended;
Where her feet to land extended,
Spots were formed for salmon netting;
Where her head the land touched lightly,
There the curving bays extended.
Further from the land she floated,
And abode in open water,
/>
And created rocks in ocean,
And the reefs that eyes behold not,
Where the ships are often shattered,
And the sailors’ lives are ended.[3]
But the babe remained in her body, growing towards a sentimental middle age:
Still unborn was Väinämöinen:
Still unborn the hard immortal.
Väinämöinen, old and steadfast,
Rested in his mother’s body
For the space of thirty summers,
And the sum of thirty winters,
Ever on the placid waters,
And upon the foaming billows.
So he pondered and reflected
How he could continue living
In a resting place so gloomy,
In a dwelling far too narrow,
Where he could not see the moonlight,
Neither could behold the sunlight.
Then he spake the words which follow,
And expressed his thoughts in this wise:
“Aid me Moon, and Sun release me,
And the Great Bear lend his counsel,
Through the portal that I know not,
Through the unaccustomed passage.
From the little nest that holds me,
From a dwelling-place so narrow,
To the land conduct the roamer,
To the open air conduct me,
To behold the moon in heaven,
And the splendor of the sunlight;
See the Great Bear’s stars above me,
And the shining stars in heaven.”
When the moon no freedom gave him,
Neither did the sun release him,
Then he wearied of existence,
And his life became a burden.
Thereupon he moved the portal,
With his finger, fourth in number,
Opened quick the bony gateway,
With the toes upon his left foot,
With his knees beyond the gateway.
Headlong in the water falling,
With his hands the waves repelling,
Thus the man remained in ocean,
And the hero on the billows.[4]
Before Väinämöinen — hero already in his birth — could make his way ashore, the ordeal of a second mother-womb remained to him, that of the elemental cosmic ocean. Unprotected now, he had to undergo the initiation of nature’s fundamentally inhuman forces. On the level of water and wind he had to experience again what he already so well knew.
In the sea five years he sojourned,
Waited five years, waited six years,
Seven years also, even eight years,
On the surface of the ocean,
By a nameless promontory,
Near a barren, treeless country.
On the land his knees he planted,
And upon his arms he rested,
Rose that he might view the moonbeams,
And enjoy the pleasant sunlight,
See the Great Bear’s stars above him,
And the shining stars in heaven.
Thus was ancient Väinämöinen,
He, the ever famous minstrel,
Born of the divine Creatrix,
Born of Ilmatar, his mother.[5]
2. Matrix of Destiny
The universal goddess makes her appearance to men under a multitude of guises; for the effects of creation are multitudinous, complex, and of mutually contradictory kind when experienced from the viewpoint of the created world. The mother of life is at the same time the mother of death; she is masked in the ugly demonesses of famine and disease.
The Sumero-Babylonian astral mythology identified the aspects of the cosmic female with the phases of the planet Venus. As morning star she was the virgin, as evening star the harlot, as lady of the night sky the consort of the moon; and when extinguished under the blaze of the sun she was the hag of hell. Wherever the Mesopotamian influence extended, the traits of the goddess were touched by the light of this fluctuating star.
A myth from southeast Africa, collected from the Wahungwe Makoni tribe of South Rhodesia, displays the aspects of the Venus-mother in co-ordination with the first stages of the cosmogonic cycle. Here the original man is the moon; the morning star his first wife, the evening star his second. Just as Väinämöinen emerged from the womb by his own act, so this moon man emerges from the abyssal waters. He and his wives are to be the parents of the creatures of the earth. The story comes to us as follows:
Maori (God) made the first man and called him Mwuetsi (moon). He put him on the bottom of a Dsivoa (lake) and gave him a ngona horn filled with ngona oil.* Mwuetsi lived in Dsivoa.
Mwuetsi said to Maori: “I want to go on the earth.” Maori said: “You will rue it.” Mwuetsi said: “None the less, I want to go on the earth.” Maori said: “Then go on the earth.” Mwuetsi went out of Dsivoa and on to the earth.
The earth was cold and empty. There were no grasses, no bushes, no trees. There were no animals. Mwuetsi wept and said to Maori: “How shall I live here?” Maori said: “I warned you. You have started on the path at the end of which you shall die. I will, however, give you one of your kind.” Maori gave Mwuetsi a maiden who was called Massassi, the morning star. Maori said: “Massassi shall be your wife for two years.” Maori gave Massassi a fire maker.
In the evening Mwuetsi went into a cave with Massassi. Massassi said: “Help me. We will make a fire. I will gather chimandra (kindling) and you can twirl the rusika (revolving part of the fire maker).” Massassi gathered kindling. Mwuetsi twirled the rusika. When the fire was lighted Mwuetsi lay down on one side of it, Massassi on the other. The fire burned between them.
Mwuetsi thought to himself, “Why has Maori given me this maiden? What shall I do with this maiden, Massassi?” When it was night Mwuetsi took his ngona horn. He moistened his index finger with a drop of ngona oil. Mwuetsi said, “Ndini chaambuka mhiri ne mhirir (I am going to jump over the fire).” [This sentence is many times repeated in a melodramatic, ceremonial tone — Translators.] Mwuetsi jumped over the fire. Mwuetsi approached the maiden, Massassi. Mwuetsi touched Massassi’s body with the ointment on his finger. Then Mwuetsi went back to his bed and slept.
When Mwuetsi wakened in the morning he looked over to Massassi. Mwuetsi saw that Massassi’s body was swollen. When day broke Massassi began to bear. Massassi bore grasses. Massassi bore bushes. Massassi bore trees. Massassi did not stop bearing till the earth was covered with grasses, bushes, and trees.
The trees grew. They grew till their tops reached the sky. When the tops of the trees reached the sky it began to rain.
Mwuetsi and Massassi lived in plenty. They had fruits and grain. Mwuetsi built a house. Mwuetsi made an iron shovel. Mwuetsi made a hoe and planted crops. Massassi plaited fish traps and caught fish. Massassi fetched wood and water. Massassi cooked. Thus Mwuetsi and Massassi lived for two years.
After two years Maori said to Massassi, “The time is up.” Maori took Massassi from the earth and put her back in Dsivoa. Mwuetsi wailed. He wailed and wept and said to Maori: “What shall I do without Massassi? Who will fetch wood and water for me? Who will cook for me?” Eight days long Mwuetsi wept.
Eight days long Mwuetsi wept. Then Maori said: “I have warned you that you are going to your death. But I will give you another woman. I will give you Morongo, the evening star. Morongo will stay with you for two years. Then I shall take her back again.” Maori gave Mwuetsi Morongo.
Morongo came to Mwuetsi in the hut. In the evening Mwuetsi wanted to lie down on his side of the fire. Morongo said: “Do not lie down over there. Lie with me.” Mwuetsi lay down beside Morongo. Mwuetsi took the ngona horn, put some ointment on his index finger. But Morongo said: “Don’t be like that. I am not like Massassi. Now smear your loins with ngona oil. Smear my loins with ngona oil.” Mwuetsi did as he was told. Morongo said: “Now couple with me.” Mwuetsi coupled with Morongo. Mwuetsi went to sleep.
Figure 67. The Moon King and His People (rock pain
ting, prehistoric, Zimbabwe, c. 1500 b.c.)
Towards morning Mwuetsi woke. As he looked over to Morongo he saw that her body was swollen. As day broke Morongo began to give birth. The first day Morongo gave birth to chickens, sheep, goats.
The second night Mwuetsi slept with Morongo again. The next morning she bore eland and cattle.
The third night Mwuetsi slept with Morongo again. The next morning Morongo bore first boys and then girls. The boys who were born in the morning were grown up by nightfall.
On the fourth night Mwuetsi wanted to sleep with Morongo again. But there came a thunderstorm and Maori spoke: “Let be. You are going quickly to your death.” Mwuetsi was afraid. The thunderstorm passed over. When it had gone Morongo said to Mwuetsi: “Make a door and then use it to close the entrance to the hut. Then Maori will not be able to see what we are doing. Then you can sleep with me.” Mwuetsi made a door. With it he closed the entrance to the hut. Then he slept with Morongo. Mwuetsi slept.
Towards morning Mwuetsi woke. Mwuetsi saw that Mo-rongo’s body was swollen. As day broke Morongo began to give birth. Morongo bore lions, leopards, snakes, and scorpions. Maori saw it. Maori said to Mwuetsi: “I warned you.”
On the fifth night Mwuetsi wanted to sleep with Morongo again. But Morongo said: “Look, your daughters are grown. Couple with your daughters.” Mwuetsi looked at his daughters. He saw that they were beautiful and that they were grown up. So he slept with them. They bore children. The children which were born in the morning were full grown by night. And so Mwuetsi became the Mambo (king) of a great people.
But Morongo slept with the snake. Morongo no longer gave birth. She lived with the snake. One day Mwuetsi returned to Mo-rongo and wanted to sleep with her. Morongo said: “Let be.” Mwuetsi said: “But I want to.” He lay with Morongo. Under Morongo’s bed lay the snake. The snake bit Mwuetsi. Mwuetsi sickened.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces Page 32
