The prominent feature of a hero across different mythologies are the mysterious circumstances surrounding his birth. They are born in difficult circumstances and are brought up in a different family than their own. At one point in his life, the hero becomes aware of his true parentage.
Otto Rank belonged to the innre circle of Freud's admirers and in this work, rank applies the psycho-analytic theory of Freud to these myths, making this one of the first attempts at psycho-analytic interpretation of mythologies. This became a cottage industry thereafter.
The heroes Rank examines are Sargon, Karna, Lohengrin, Moses, Perseus,Telephus, Romulus, Hercules, Gilgamesh, Paris, Jesus, Tristan, Siegfried, Cyrus and of course Oedipus.
Rank briefly describes the legends surrounding the heroes and then gives his interpretation of myths. The list is not particularly exhaustive and is notable for complete exclusion of any female heroes. Heroines like Atalanta, Semiramis and Shakunthala too have the similar themes surrounding their births. One flaw of psycho-analyis was the insignificance of female psychology and this study reveals the lacuna quite early on.
As I was reading about the Amazons, I stumbled on this piece by Florence Mary Bennett on the net. It's there on Bulfinch's mythology and on sacred texts as well. A scholary dissertation on the religious beliefs of Amazons, it searches for the extensive references of Amazons in classical literarture, wherever they are mentioned in regards to their religious beliefs.
The list is comprehensive as Bennett searches through the maze of classical references, she finds many instances to the religious practices of Amazons. theier main object of worship seems to be a baetylic or aniconic form of Mother Goddess, similar to the famous Phrygian Goddess Cybele whose baetyl was transferred to Rome to ward of Hannibal's attacks.
Amazons are said to have worshipped pre-eminently at the Artemesium of Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of classical antiquity. As Bennett searches the various Goddesses that Amazons said to have worshipped, she draws a common characteristic: they were all war-goddesses. Even Goddesses known for other attributes like Aphrodite seem to have war function.
Bennett then examines the male gods that Amazons were said to have worshipped and this is where she leads into hornet's nest. All the male gods seem to have an effeminate characteristic to them and this leads into the area of Corybantes, Curetes and Dactylii.
Bennett's thesis then is that Amazons were initially a cult of worshippers of a war-like Mother Goddess, just like the Corybantes and others, who probably cut off their breasts in the heat of worship. This gave them a fierce repuatation and whenever later classical writers met women warriors, they referredd to them as Amazons.
The treatise was written in 1913, so some of the intital discussion about the war-like goddess is somewaht dated but when Bennett steers into the cultic angle, the discussion gets complicated and fascinating. I thought her conclusion was a bit too pat but this is still remains a fascinating read.
Amazons. Who hasn't heard of these fearless nation of women warriors? Hippolyta, Penthesilea and other immortal names? They have forever scarred people's imaginations as brave women, fierce but graceful, dangerous and sexy at the same time. A women-hating, homosexual English poet called Shakespeare even used an Amazon heroine to portray a brutish, marm-like dyke to vent his spleen.
According to ancient Greek legends, they were supposed to be a nation composed of entirely women who were trained for war and fearless in waging it. They were so committed to bravery that they even burned their right breast off so that it will be easier for them to us e abow and arrow. Only women were allowed in their society but to prevent them from dying up, they would kidnap hapless men from neighbouring countries, get pregnant and breed girl children. They even marched right up to Athens, to claim their queen who had been fisked by the upstart Theseus.
The myths are clear and consistent and you have to remember that even Homer was accused of being a fabulist until Schliemann found Troy or remains of a city that could be Troy. If so many other Greek traditions have been found to be true, they why not this, one of the most persistent and colorful of all legends? And its not just Greeks. They appear in mythic traditions across "three continents", as Sacred-texts.com site puts it.
The ruse of women burning their right breast is remarkably used in Silappadikaram, a Tamil Epic, where this act becomes the apotheotic climax. This epic is set in Kaveripattanam, a big port connected to the rest of the world through sea. Even though the herione in the epic is a housewife and not a martial warrior, remember merchants were the surest way of transmission of tales in the ancient world. And the tales of handsome warriors being forced to impregnate a nation of women are a legion, to be found in various chivalric literatures.
People who looked for the original Amazons have generally considered Sarmatians as the most likely candidate for them. This is a little known Scythian tribe whose men were accused of being ruled over by women. This particualr accusation too has been repeated for Scythian protoypes wherever they appear in legends, whether in Indo-Iran or in Greece. So much so that an archealogist, who first stumbled on a few Sarmatian inscriptions in Asia Minor would joyfully exclaim that he had found the Amazons.
But, beautiful and fierce, this nation of warrior women remains elusive as ever.
Philistines. If you have ever read Bible, you must be familiar with the name. Yet who were these people? They are now generally thought to be of Indo- European origin and spoke an Indo_European lanaguage. For more on this, see below. You might have seen a series called Lost Tribes currently airing on television. I thought this week we'd rather dig through the colorless term called "Indo-Europeans" and find those lost tribes who still animate our thoughts even though they have vanished from history for thousands of years.
Philistines first appear on Egyptian insciptions as Prst, part of a naval confederacy that more or less simultaneously raided all the known empires back then. The Hittites, the Mitanni, the Myceneans and the Egyptians, some of the most glorious empires that ever were known. Of them only Egypt would survive the raids of these unknown raiders. Of the twelve or so tribes which comprised the confederacy, one was mentioned as PRST. After supplying the vowels it could be read pereset, pulasati and other forms.
These raiders then seized the Canaanite lands and established control in five cities: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron, Gath and Ashdod. Thecities would be called Pentapolis and the people gradually known as Philistines. They would remain visible in history for the next few centuries until finally subjugated by the Babylonians.
It is an immensely important time in history, if you measure the impact in terms of the effect on mental landscape. Men all over the world have not been able to shake of the impact of those times.
When Philistines were increasing their hold on Canaanite lands, the Hebrews too appear in history, locked in a struggle for the same territory with these people. It is also possible that the Hebrews themselves were dislodged from Egypt (if they were ever there) by the Sea People attacks. A major part of Old testament was authored in such a context.
The Philistines were also instrumental in eclipsing the beautiful Mycenean civilization that was thriving on Crete. Yes, it is from the continued memory of Crete that the legends of the minotaur , the bull-headed prince locked up in a maze called labyrinth, would germinate and grow.
One version of their name, Pulasati, is remarkably similar to Pulsatya, the father of Ravana in the Indian epic Ramayana. It has been conjectured that the Ramayana might preserve the distant echoes of those times.
From Wiki, I got to know another important tidbit of information. The Phjilistines had a monopoly on iron-smithing. The use of iron in war was first accomplished in Hittite empire, so that might have surivived in the people who deposed them. Wiki says that this is apparent in the Goliath legends. That is not the only legend which is based on iron. A significant portion of relgious mythology was affected by the arrival of iron. Remember the terms like golden, silver and bronze ages. These are eras before iron was discovered and both large scale destruction and large scale clearing of forests and settling was made possible. Iron is almost unanimously represented as evil. In Hindu mythology, we are living in Kali Yuga, a time of evil and general dissolution. It generally corresponds to changes wrought in by Iron.
Bible, Ramayana and the Greek legends: three mythic traditions central to our own consciousness. They were all shaped by the actions and memory of Philistines. They also have survived in our language. No small achievement for a people who remained in history for about five centuries and then disappeared completely.
One of the great discoveries of nineteenth century was the fact that a lot of human languages from Latin to Sanskrit were so closely related that they could be counted as one family. This eventually came to be known as the Indo-European family. Further studies revealed that the people who spoke these languages also shared a remarkable similarity in religion, mythology and general culture. Were they at some point in time one people who latter differentiated into many peoples?
The people who made these connections at the time were European and white and they saw in this remarkable unity, a chance to find the original Aryan ancestors and the original home of the white race. It also gave rise to remarkable range of mysticism around the globe, not the least the attraction Aryanism had for the nazis. This inevitably lead to nativist reaction in many parts around the world; most importantly, in India where an Out of India theory developed.
For all the vicissitudes in scholarship from those early neo-grammarians to the anthropologists of today, the question refuses to go away. The current claimant to the throne is the so called Kurgan hypothesis proposed by Zimbuthas. The Indo-Europeans were supposed to have originated in the Kurgan culture, in Ukrainian steppe.
There is certainly no dispute that there is a deep affinity among a widespread cultural and linguistic artefacts and that this affinity is remarkable. What I found unusual is that the affinity continued even when the supposedly single race differentiated into many peoples. For example, Zeus and Indra, both of them patriarchal thunder storm gods, became equally concupiscent at the fag end of their careers before being supplanted by younger gods. Why such an ignoble demotion for both of them? This similarity in the fate of the gods is perhaps an indication that more than a common heritage, we may also share a common imagination.
Lewis then describes how the growth in trade brought about growth in banking, an advantage that the Muslim world still enjoys:
The growth of large-scale trading and enterprise gave rise during ninth century to a development of banking.... Despite many attempts to stabilise the relative value of the metals of which they were made, and the Sarraf, or money-changer, came to be an essential feature of every Muslim market. In the ninth century, he developed into a banker on a large scale, no doubt supported by wealthy traders with money to invest. We hear of banks with a head office in Baghdad and branches in the other cities of the Empire and of an elaborate system of cheques, letters of credit etc, so developed that it was possible to draw a cheque in baghdad and cash it in Morocco. In Basra, the main centre of the flourishing eastern trade, we are told that every merchant had his bank account and that payments in the bazaar were effected only by cheque and never in cash.........
But, still more astonishing is the impact on literature:
The flourishing commercial life of the time was reflected in its thought and literature, where we find the upright merchant held up as an ideal ethical type. Traditions attributed to the Prophet inlcude such statements as " In the day of Judgement the honest truthful Msulin mechant will take rank with the martyrs of the faith", "The truthful merchant will sit under the shadow of the throne of God on Day of Judgement,"..... The Caliph Umar I is most improbably quoted as saying, " There is no place where I would be more gladly overtaken by death than in the market place, buyin and selling for my family." The essayist Jahiz in an essay entitled "In praise of mechants and in condemnation of officials" remarks that the approval of God for trading as a way of life is proved by His choice of the trading community of Quraish for his Prophet. The literature of the time includes portraits of the ideal upright merchant and much advice on the investment of money in trade.....
The self-consciousness implicit in such sayings probably indicates that this was a new way of life for the Muslims and the Arabs and hence, religious interpretation was necessary. It may also mean that there was a threat to this way of life.was a threat to this way of life then and that's why so much importance
And indeed there was. The glorious epoch also spawned a myriad revolts and the emergence of many sects like Ismailis who all would practise "communism of property and women." Most progressives would warn you about reactionaries. It occured to me that progressivism, socialism, communism, one of those isms are the true reactionary idealogies that crop up every time there was a burst of wealth and trade. Nothing like a full crop to attract a swarm of locusts.
Earlier, I had written about capitalism in ancient Assyria. There was a burst of trade and capitalism in the same part of the world in a totally different epoch. The time is eighth century, the place is Baghdad.
From Bernard Lewis's book, Arabs in History:
The trade of Islamic Empire was of vast extent. From the Persian Gulf ports of Siraf, Basra and Ubulla and, to a lesser extent, from Aden and the Red Sea ports, Muslim merchants travelled to India, Ceylon, the East Indies and China, bringing silks, spices, aromatics, woods, tin and other commodities, both for home consumption and for re-export. .....
In Scandinavia, and especially in Sweden, scores of thousands of Muslim coins have been found bearing inscriptions dating from the late seventh to the earliy eleventh centuries, showing the period of efflorescense of Islamic trade. many finds of coins along the course of the Volga confirm the evidence of literary sources as to an extensive trade between the Islamic Empire and the Baltic via the Caspian, the Black Sea and Russia. .......
With Africa, too, the Arabs carried on an extensive overland trade, the chief commodities which they imported beging gold and slaves......
Apparently, even then capitalism had to contend with the Big Government and Petty Bureaucracy. Here's Lewis:
If the industry recieved some encouragement from the State, amingly from fiscal reasons, trade was not so helped, and even in such matters as the maintenance of roads the State seems to have done very little to promote commerce. The merchants were compelled to wage a constant struggle against the ever-encroaching bureaucracy. The economic action of the State was at first limited to a general ban on specualtion in vital food stuffs--nopt very effectively enforced-- and to the work of the Muhtasib, an urban official whose task it was to superintend the markets..... At a later date the State began to intervene more directly in commerce, even attempting to trade in and monopolise certain commodities for itself.
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