Ophiolatreia
Chapter 4
It seems more than probable that this singular effigy, like that last described, had its origin in the superstition of its makers. It was perhaps the high place where sacrifices were made on stated or extraordinary occasions, and where the ancient people gathered to celebrate the rites of their unknown worship. Its position and all the circumstances attending it certainly favour such a conclusion.
The same is true of a work in the form of a cross, occupying a like situation near the village of Tarlton, Pickaway County, Ohio. From these premises, we are certainly justified in concluding that these several effigies had probably a cognate design, possessed a symbolical significance, and were conspicuous objects of religious regard, and that on certain occasions sacrifices were made on the altars within or near them.
The only structures sustaining any analogy to these are found in Wisconsin and the extreme North-West. There we find great numbers of mounds bearing the forms of animals of various kinds, and entering into a great variety of combinations with each other, and with conical mounds and lines of embankments, which are also abundant. They are usually found on the low, level, or undulating prairies, and seldom in such conspicuous positions as those discovered in Ohio. Whether they were built by the same people with the latter, and had a common design and purpose, it is not undertaken to say, nor is it a question into which we propose to enter.
It is an interesting fact that amongst the animal effigies of Wisconsin, structures in the form of serpents are of frequent occurrence.
Some years ago, Mr. Pigeon, of Virginia, made drawings of a number of these, and he stated that near the junction of the St. Peter's with the Mississippi River were a large number of mounds and monuments, consisting---1st, of a circle and square in combination, as at Circleville, in Ohio, the sole difference being a large truncated mound in the centre of the square, as well as in the centre of the circle, with a platform round its base; 2nd, near by, the effigy of a gigantic animal resembling the elk, in length one hundred and ninety-five feet; 3rd, in the same vicinity, a large conical mound, three hundred feet in diameter at the base, and thirty feet in height, its summit covered with charcoal. This mound was surrounded by one hundred and twenty smaller mounds, disposed in the form of a circle. Twelve miles to the westward of these , and within sight of them, was a large conical truncated mound, sixty feet in diameter at the bottom, and eighteen feet high, built upon a raised platform or bottom. It was surrounded by a circle three hundred and sixty five feet in circumference. Entwined around this circle, in a triple coil, was an embankment, in the form of a serpent, two thousand three hundred and ten feet in length. This embankment, at the centre of the body, was eighteen feet in diameter, but diminished towards the head and tail in just proportion. The elevation of the head was four feet, of the body six feet, of the tail two feet. The central mound was capped with blue clay, beneath which was sand mixed with charcoal and ashes.
Mounds arranged in serpentine form have also been found in Iowa, at a place formerly known as Prairie La Porte, afterwards called Gottenburgh. Also at a place seven miles north of these on Turkey River, where the range was two and a half miles long, the mounds occurring at regular intervals. Twenty miles to the westward of this locality was the effigy of a great serpent with that of a tortoise in front of its mouth. This structure was found to be one thousand and four feet long, eighteen feet broad at its widest part, and six feet high; the tortoise was eighteen by twelve feet.
Mr. Pigeon gave accounts of many other structures, tending to illustrate and confirm the opinions advanced respecting the religious and symbolical character and design of many, if not all, the more regular earth-works of the Western States. Thirty miles west of Prairie Du Chien, he found a circle enclosing a pentagon, which in its turn enclosed another circle, within which was a conical truncated mound. The outer circle was twelve hundred feet in circumference, the embankment twelve feet broad and from three to five feet high. The entrance was on the east. The mound was thirty-six feet in diameter by twelve feet high. Its summit was composed of white pipe-clay, beneath which was found a large quantity of mica in sheets. It exhibited abundant traces of fire.
Four miles distant from this, on the lowlands of the Kickapoo River, Mr. Pigeon discovered a mound with eight radiating points, undoubtedly designed to represent the Sun. It was sixty feet in diameter at the base, and three feet high. The points extended outwards about nine feet. Surrounding this mound were five crescent-shaped mounds so arranged as to constitute a circle. Many analogous structures were discovered at other places, both in Wisconsin and Iowa. At Cappile Bluffs, on the Mississippi River, were found a conical, truncated mound, surrounded by nine radiating effigies of men, the heads pointing inwards.
Probably no one will hesitate in ascribing the work just described, some extraordinary significance. It cannot be supposed to be the offspring of an idle fancy or a savage whim. It bears, in its position and the harmony of its structure, the evidences of design, and it seems to have been begun and finished in accordance with a matured plan, and not to have been the result of successive and unmeaning combinations. It is probably not a work for defence, for there is nothing to defend; on the contrary, it is clearly and unmistakably, in form and attitude, the representation of a serpent, with jaws distended, in the act of swallowing or ejecting an oval figure, which may be distinguished, from the suggestions of analogy, as an egg. Assuming for the entire structure a religious origin, it can be regarded only as the recognised symbol of some grand mythological idea. What abstract conception was thus embodied; or what vast even thus typically commemorated, we have no certain means of knowing! Analogy, however, although too often consulted on trivial grounds, furnishes us with gleams of light, of greater or less steadiness, as our appeals to its assistance happen to be conducted, on every subject connected with man's beliefs. We proceed now to discover what light reason and analogy shed upon the singular structure before us.
Naturally, and almost of necessity, the egg became associated with man's primitive idea of creation. It aptly symbolised that primordial, quiescent state of things which preceded their vitalization and activity---the inanimate chaos, before life began, when "the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." It was thus received in the early cosmogonies, in all of which the vivification of the Mundane Egg constituted the act of creation; from it sprang the world resplendent in glory and teeming with life.
Faber says---"The ancient pagans, in almost every part of the globe, were wont to symbolize the world by an Egg. Hence this symbol is introduced into the cosmogonies of nearly all nations, and there are few persons even among those who have not made mythology their study, to whom the Mundane Egg is not perfectly familiar. It was employed, not only to represent the earth but also the Universe in its largest extent." (Origin Pagan Idol., Vol. I, p. 175)
"The world," says Menu, "was all darkness, undiscernible, undistinguishable, altoghether in a profound sleep, till the Self-Existent, Invisible God (Brahm), making it manifest with five elemtents and other glorious forms, perfectly dispelled the gloom. Desiring to raise up creatures by an emanation from his own essence, he first created the waters, and inspired them with power of motion; by that power was produced a golden egg, blazing like a thousand stars, in which was born Brahma, the great parent of national beings, that which is the invisible cause, self-existent, but unperceived. This divinity having dwelt in the Egg through revolving years, himself meditating upon himself, divided into two equal parts, and from these halves he framed the heavens and the earth, placing in the midst the subtil ether, the eight points of the world, and the permanent receptacle of the waters."
The above is Maurice's translation. Sir William Jones renders it:---"The sole, self-existent power, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, first, with a thought created the waters, and placed in them a productive seed. That seed became an egg, bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams, and in that egg ws born himself, in the form of Brahma, the great forefather of all spirits."
Aristophanes, in his Comedy of the Birds, is thought to have given the notions of cosmogony, ancient even in his days. "Chaos, Night, black Erebus, and wide Tartarus first existed: there was neither earth, nor air, nor heaven; but in the bosom of Erebus black-winged Night produced an Aerial Egg, from which was born golden-pinioned Love (Phanes), and he, the Great Universal Father, begot our race out of dark Chaos, in the midst of widespreading Tartarus, and called us into light."
We find this conception clearly embodied in one of the Orphic fragments, the Hymn to Protogones, who is equivalent to Phanes, the Life-giver, Priapus, or Generator.
"I invoke thee, oh Protogones, two-fold, great, wandering through the ether;
Egg-Born rejoicing in thy golden wings;
Bull-faced, the Generator of the blessed and of mortal men;
The much-renowned Light, the far celebrated Ericapæus;
Ineffiable, occult, impetuous all-glittering strength;
Who scatterest the twilight cloud of darkness from the eyes,
And roam'st through the world upon the flight of thy wings,
Bringing forth the brilliant and all-pure light; wherefore I invoke thee, as Phanes,
As Priapus the King, and as the dark-faced splendour,---
Come, thou blessed being, full of Metis (wisdom) and generation come in joy
To thy sacred, ever-varying mysteries."
We have, according to these early notions, the egg representing Being simply; Chaos, the great void from which, by the will of the superlative Unity, proceeds the generative or creative influence, designated among the Greeks as "Phanes," "Golden-pinioned Love," "The Universal Father," "Egg-born Protogones" (the latter Zeus or Jupiter); in India as "Brahma," the "Great Parent of Rational Creatures," the "Father of the Universe;" and in Egypt as "Ptha," the "Universal Creator."
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