A study of Navajo symbolism - Free History Ebooks

NOTES ON CORRESPONDING SYMBOLS: WHEELWRIGHT^5from Silla in Korea with tree and antler decorationsthat indicate Siberian connections.An Indus Valley seal of about 3000 B.C.from Mohenjodaro (reproduced by Coomaraswamy,pi. VI, fig. 22) shows a male hornedgod sitting cross-legged — a prototype of thegreat god Shiva of the later Hindu religion —with four beasts around him and two deer athis feet. Warren's translation (p. 46) of theaccount of the birth of the Buddha from theintroduction to the Jataka, tells how theBrahma angels delivered the newly-born child"to the four guardian angels, who receivedhim from their hands on a rug which wasmade of the skins of black antelopes, and wassoft to the touch, being such as is used onstate occasions." It might be noted that inIndia deer are shown on either side of theWheel of the Law, and be recalled that Buddhareceived enlightenment in the Deer Park.In Greece deer were sacred to Apollo atDelphi, as well as to Aphrodite and to Artemis.Actaeon, who surprised Artemis while bathing,was punished by being turned into a stagwho was torn to pieces by his own hounds.Kerenyi mentions (p. 146) an older tale inwhich Actaeon approached Artemis disguisedin the pelt of a stag, her favorite animal, anda later version in which Artemis, when Actaeonattempted to rape Semele, threw a stag'spelt over his shoulders. There seems generalagreement, however, that the unfortunateActaeon was torn to pieces by hounds.The stag was used as a symbol of abundancein the earliest Celtic art, probably before theCelts arrived in Europe. In the west theHorned God, Cernunnos, is most readilyfound through the study of Roman and pre-Roman monuments in Gaul, where this antlereddeity is usually seated cross-legged, andoften accompanied by a ram-headed serpent,or a woman holding a cornucopia. Some ofthese representations go back to the fourthcentury b.c. Such figures have been variouslyinterpreted as personification of night, death,evil or the generator of fecundity. The Romanscalled him Dis Pater, and said that theCelts believed they were descended from him.Alexandre Bertrand (Bober, pp. 21-22) suggestedthat the cross-legged way of sittingcame from India, where it was adopted forthe Buddha about the end of the first millenniuma.d. Although this position is representedin Graeco-Egyptian terra cotta figures,in objects from Cyprus and other circumambientregions affected by the east, it is notused in Greek art.The Gundestrup cauldron (Bober, fig. 3)from the La Tene culture in Jutland showsCernunnos holding a torque in his right hand,and a ram-headed serpent in his left. Nexthim is a stag with five-tined antlers identicalto those of the god. A relief in the museumat Reims (Bober, fig. 13) shows Cernunnos asa bearded old man, with cow horns, with atorque about his neck, holding a bag of acorns,seated cross-legged between Apollo and Mercuryabove a bull and a stag. Similar HornedGods are familiar in Scotland, France, Scandinaviaand South America. At Meigle in Scotlandthere is a composite horned figure withthe head of a bull, a human body with serpentinelegs terminating in fish tails, whoseuplifted hands grasp snakes, flanked bv a boarand a wolf. It will be recalled that SaintMungo of Glasgow made fields fertile byharnessing a wolf and a stag.According to the mediaeval bestiaries, thehart or the stag was said to be the deadlyenemy of dragons or serpents, for he fed onthese to restore his health and to get materialfor a crop of new antlers. Thus this animalcame, in the allegory of the bestiaries, totypify the destruction of evil by Christ.Deer served numerous pious purposes inthe western Middle Ages. For example, suchan animal with a light between its horns meta nun on the Nethberg, the highest hill westof Zurich, and guided her down to the sitewhere the Frauemunster was built in a.d. 853.St . Hubert, while hunting, was convertedthrough meeting a deer bearing the image ofthe crucified Christ between its horns, as onemay see over the entrance to the chapel atAmboise, in a painting by the fifteenth centuryGerman Master of Werden in the NationalGallery in London, and elsewhere. AChartres window shows the similar conversionof St. Eustache. Deer bearing crosses are alsofamiliar in Egypt and South America. Anotherfifteenth century painting in the NationalGallery in London shows St. Giles succoringa wounded deer in his arms.In Ireland there is the curious incident of