Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

vni] The Daimon-Snake 269
Greeks. It is, Dr Frazer 1 says, a common belief among the Zulus (
and other Caffre tribes that the dead come to life and revisit their
old homes in the shape of serpents. Such semi-human serpents
are treated with great respect and often fed with milk. Among
the Ba-Ronga 2 the snake is regarded as a sort of incarnation of an
ancestor and is dreaded though never worshipped. A native
pursuing a snake that had got into the kitchen of a missionary
station accidentally set the building on fire. All the neighbours
exclaimed that the fire was due to the SDake, and the snake was
the chiko-nembo or ghost of a man who was buried close at hand
and had come out of the earth to avenge himself. If a dead man
wants to frighten his wife, he is apt in East Central Africa to
present himself in the form of a snake. Among the Bahima of
Eukole 3 , in Uganda, dead chiefs turn into snakes, but dead kings
into lions.
If the snake then is the symbol or vehicle of the dead man
how can he also be a ' daimon of fertility ' ? The two aspects are
incompatible, even contradictory—death and life are not the
same, though mysticism constantly seeks to blend them. Which
then does the snake represent, death or life ? Is he a good
daimon of life and fertility or an evil daimon of mortality and
corruption ?
Fortunately, a story told us by Plutarch 4 leaves us in no doubt
as to the significance of the snake and its relation to the dead
man. After Cleomenes of Sparta had fled to Egypt and there
died by his own orders, Ptolemy, fearing an insurrection, wished to
dishonour the king's body and ordered it to be impaled and
hung up.
A few days after, those who were guarding the impaled body saw a huge
snake (bpaKovra) wound about the head and hiding the face so that no bird of
prey should light on it. Thereupon a superstitious fear fell on the king and
such a dread that it started the women on various purification ceremonies,
inasmuch as a man had been put to death who was dear to the gods and of
more t/ian mortal nature. The Alexandrians came thronging to the place
and saluted Cleomenes as a hero and the child of the gods, till the learned
men put a stop to it by explaining that as oxen when they putrefy breed bees,
1 Adonis Attis Osiris 2 , p. 73.
2 H. Jumod, Les Ba-Ronga, 1898.
3 J. Eoscoe, The Bahima, Journal of Anthrop. Inst, xxxvu. (1907).
* Vit. Cleom. xxxix. ...oi iraXouoi fidXtara ruv ^wv rbv dpaKovra roh rjpwcriv
awipKeiwaav.