The Evolution of the Dragon. Grafton Elliot Smith
par M. Brede-Kristensen (Ægypternes forestillinger om livet efter döden, 14 ss. Kristiania, 1896) du ka égyptien, jette une vive lumière sur notre question, par la frappante analogie qui semble exister entre le sens originaire de ces deux termes ka et fravashi" (p. 58, note 4). "La similitude entre le ka et la fravashi a été signalée dejà par Nestor Lhote, Lettres écrites d'Égypte, note, selon Maspero, Études de mythologie et d'archéologie égyptiennes, I, 47, note 3."
In support of the view, which I have submitted in Chapter I, that the original idea of the fravashi, like that of the ka, was suggested by the placenta and the fœtal membranes, I might refer to the specific statement (Farvardin-Yasht, XXIII, 1) that "les fravashis tiennent en ordre l'enfant dans le sein de sa mère et l'enveloppent de sorte qu'il ne meurt pas" (op. cit., Söderblom, p. 41, note 1). The fravashi "nourishes and protects" (p. 57): it is "the nurse" (p. 58): it is always feminine (p. 58). It is in fact the placenta, and is also associated with the functions of the Great Mother. "Nous voyons dans fravashi une personification de la force vitale, conservée et exercée aussi après la mort. La fravashi est le principe de vie, la faculté qu'a l'homme de se soutenir par la nourriture, de manger, d'absorber et ainsi d'exister et de se développer. Cette étymologie et le rôle attributé à la fravashi dans le développement de l'embryon, des animaux, des plantes rappellent en quelque sorte, comme le remarque M. Foucher, l'idée directrice de Claude Bernard. Seulement la fravashi n'a jamais été une abstraction. La fravashi est une puissance vivante, un homunculus in homine, un être personnifié comme du reste toutes les sources de vie et de mouvement que l'homme non civilisé aperçoit dans son organisme.
"Il ne faut pas non plus considérer la fravashi comme un double de l'homme, elle en est plutôt une partie, un hôte intime qui continue son existence après la mort aux mêmes conditions qu'avant, et qui oblige les vivants à lui fournir les aliments nécessaires" (op. cit., p. 59).
Thus the fravashi has the same remarkable associations with nourishment and placental functions as the ka. As a further suggestion of its connexion with the Great Mother as the inaugurator of the year, and in virtue of her physiological (uterine) functions the moon-controlled measurer of the month, it is important to note that "Le 19e jour de chaque mois est également consecré aux fravashis en général. Le premier mois porte aussi le nom de Farvardîn. Quant aux formes des fêtes mensuelles, elles semblent conformes à celles que nous allons rappeler [les fêtes célébrées en l'honneur des mortes]" (op. cit., p. 10).
But the fravashi was not only associated with the Great Mother, but also with the Water-god or Good Dragon, for it controlled the waters of irrigation and gave fertility to the soil (op. cit., p. 36). The fravashi was also identified with the third member of the primitive Trinity, the Warrior Sun-god, not merely in the general sense as the adversary of the powers of evil, but also in the more definite form of the Winged Disk (op. cit., pp. 67 and 68).
In all these respects the fravashi is brought into close association with the dragon, so that in addition to being "the divine and immortal element" (op. cit., p. 51), it became the genius or spirit that possesses a man and shapes his conduct and regulates his behaviour. It was in fact the expression of a crude attempt on the part of the early psychologists of Iran to explain the working of the instinct of self-preservation.
In the text of Chapters I and III I have referred to the Greek, Babylonian, Chinese, and Melanesian variants of essentially the same conception. Söderblom refers to an interesting parallel among the Karens, whose kelah corresponds to the Iranian fravashi (p. 54, Note 2: compare also A. E. Crawley, "The Idea of the Soul," 1909).
In the development of the dragon-myth astronomical factors played a very obtrusive part: but I have deliberately refrained from entering into a detailed discussion of them, because they were not primarily the real causal agents in the origin of the myth. When the conception of a sky-world or a heaven became drawn into the dragon story it came to play so prominent a part as to convince most writers that the myth was primarily and essentially astronomical. But it is clear that originally the myth was concerned solely with the regulation of irrigation systems and the search upon earth for an elixir of life.
When I put forward the suggestion that the annual inundation of the Nile provided the information for the first measurement of the year, I was not aware of the fact that Sir Norman Lockyer ("The Dawn of Astronomy," 1894, p. 209), had already made the same claim and substantiated it by much fuller evidence than I have brought together here.
In preparing these lectures I have received help from so large a number of correspondents that it is difficult to enumerate all of them. But I am under a special debt of gratitude to Dr. Alan Gardiner for calling my attention to the fact that the common rendering of the Egyptian word didi as "mandrake" was unjustifiable, and to Mr. F. Ll. Griffith for explaining its true meaning and for lending me the literature relating to this matter. Miss Winifred M. Crompton, the Assistant Keeper of the Egyptian Department in the Manchester Museum, gave me very material assistance by bringing to my attention some very important literature which otherwise would have been overlooked; and both she and Miss Dorothy Davison helped me with the drawings that illustrate this volume. Mr. Wilfrid Jackson gave me much of the information concerning shells and cephalopods which forms such an essential part of the argument, and he also collected a good deal of the literature which I have made use of. Dr. A. C. Haddon, F.R.S., of Cambridge, lent me a number of books and journals which I was unable to obtain in Manchester; and Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie, of Edinburgh, has poured in upon me a stream of information, especially upon the folk-lore of Scotland and India. Nor must I forget to acknowledge the invaluable help and forbearance of Mr. Henry Guppy, of the John Rylands Library, and Mr. Charles W. E. Leigh, of the University Library. To all of these and to the still larger number of correspondents who have helped me I offer my most grateful thanks.
During the three years in which these lectures were compiled I have been associated with Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, F.R.S., and Mr. T. H. Pear in their psychological work in the military hospitals, and the influence of this interesting experience is manifest upon every page of this volume.
But perhaps the most potent factor of all in shaping my views and directing my train of thought has been the stimulating influence of Mr. W. J. Perry's researches, which are converting ethnology into a real science and shedding a brilliant light upon the early history of civilization.
G. ELLIOT SMITH.
9 December, 1918.
[1] "The Influence of Ancient Egyptian Civilisation in the East and in America," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, January-March, 1916.
[2] Nathan Söderblom, "Les Fravashis Étude sur les Traces dans le Mazdéisme d'une Ancienne Conception sur la Survivance des Morts," Paris, 1899.
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT.
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Fig. 1.—Early representation of a "Dragon" compounded of the forepart of an eagle and the hindpart of a lion (from an Archaic Cylinder-seal from Susa, after Jequier) 79
Fig. 2.—The earliest Babylonian conception of the Dragon Tiamat (from a Cylinder-seal in the British Museum, after L. W. King) 79
Fig. 3.—Wm. Dennis's drawing of the "Flying Dragon" depicted on the rocks at Piasa, Illinois 94
Fig. 4.—Two representations of Astarte (Qetesh) 155