One of the fundamental premises of Gerald Massey’s monumental oeuvre is that Mother-Goddess worship preceded worship of the Father God.
That the Mother & Child came first.
Then the Mother was rejected – often with her progeny – who were then condemned as evil or wicked or deviant.
And with the rise of the idea of Fatherhood – the Male Father-God came to prominence, and thus, as a variation, the Father and Son.
If anything, this is the ultimate and root mantra of all modern Liberalism.
This is the theory behind the Feminist interpretation of the decapitation of Medusa by Perseus.
I find numerous problems with the theories of Massey, though he has a solid foundation for them.
So far, I don’t see any specific reason – or reasons – to think that the earliest worshipped figure of mankind was the Mother-Goddess.
The most primitive men did recognize the role of the Father – the necessity of the Male – and the importance of the “semen virile” – in the process of sexual intercourse, parturition, and birth.
I don’t think there is any primitive tribe which doesn’t understand the importance of the Male.
It may be true that the Father was not clearly identified or discriminated, in the earliest, pre-historic, pre-agricultural stages of human life.
The mother of the child was known – the father wasn’t – because men and women committed fornication indiscriminately, and nobody could tell who the father of the child was.
But would this really matter, to as advanced a city-building civilization as Egypt, which had left this primitive chaos for thousands of years?
WHY would the symbolism of primitive hunter-gatherers be continued in a civilization whose architectural wonders defy all analysis & credibility even 5,000 years later?
The fact that nobody knew who the child of the father was, also evidently points to a time when the concepts of property, ownership, and inheritance, were hazy.
It’s evident to anyone who thinks about it, that Fatherhood is linked to Property, Ownership, and Inheritance – and above all, to an advanced level of civilization itself.
I doubt if Massey deals with these fundamental concepts at all.
The concept of Property already implies the concepts of strength, war {inter-tribal skirmishes & violence}, fighting, hunting, storing, distribution of resources, control over food, demarcation of jobs & responsibilities, and a hierarchy of functions & power.
This in itself points to the indispensable role of the Male, in the evolution of human society.
Human life was not just about mating, pregnancy, and birthing.
The Female generated or birthed, & nourished, life.
But the Male created society.
Who gets the food?
Who keeps it?
How is it distributed?
Who gets to eat, how much?
Who controls its rationining?
Who killed most deer, or bison, or cows, or fish, or birds?
Who plucked the fruit?
Who wove the clothes?
Who made the utensils?
Who protected the tribe from wild beasts?
Such questions – and hundreds like them – lead to the realization that as far as we can think, Men played as important a role in the sustenance, perpetuation, continuity, and protection of human life as Women – indeed, perhaps more important.
Who hacked the trees & cut through forests, in moving from one place to the other?
Who made clothes?
Were the clothes mostly skins?
Where did the skins come from?
From animals?
Who hunted the animals?
Who hunted the most number of animals?
Who led the hunting expeditions into the forests?
Who skinned the animals & tanned their hide?
Where were the hides kept, and how?
Who actually cut & carved the skins?
I find it hard to believe, if one really looks at the most basic operations & problems of primitive life, to think that the earliest worship was that of the Yoni.
There is no religious text which seems to overwhelmingly emphasize the importance of the Womb & the Mother – and it’s idle speculation to say that the Mother had been important, and was later degraded.
Going by strict Darwinian, Primitive logic, the physical strength of the male to protect the tribe {from other tribes, from establishing or snatching control over food & water supplies, over lakes & rivers} – his energy, fearlessness, shrewdness & skill in hunting wild animals for safety, for skins, & for food – his potency to generate more offspring {given the high mortality rates of primitive life} – and his ability at fundamental crafts {building huts, making weapons, weaving clothes, making boats, etc.} – were always of crucial importance – and would have been recognized before any Mother-Goddess or Supreme God had ever been thought of.
Male dominance is evident even in the animal world.
The Female is primary only in the birthing of creatures, and nourishing of the young.
Everything else depends heavily, if not totally & absolutely, on the Male.
Property did not “begin” – it evolved – and it must’ve evolved from the difference in capabilities amongst human beings.
The stronger, more fearless, more agile, more shrewd, more capable, more crafty – would have – sooner or later – been given higher responsibilites – the right to make decisions over & above others – the right to make decisions which affect others –and the control of food & water.
It’s only modern Liberal propaganda which makes Property & Ownership the result of murder, violence, brutality, and greed.
No human society can be conceived, no human society is possible – without a hierarchy of power based on the ability to make decisions {in relation to food, water, clothing, storage, safety} – which in turn is based on competence, intelligence, stored knowledge & wisdom, powers of observation & memory, shrewdness & fearlessness, the ability to strategize & plan & predict, resourcefulness & foresight.
Surely, there has been, is, and will always be, injustice & cruelty in life.
The societies which could not reward intellect & foresight, prudence & judgment, bravery & fairness – over mere violence & brutality – did get wiped out, subjugated, or simply disappeared.
The very fact that a primitive hunting-gathering tribe evolved to the level of complex city-builders, means that sheer brute aggression and dull, banal greed & cruelty WERE NOT encouraged.
It should also be common sense, that advanced astronomical concerns, on which Massey bases most of his arguments – would be a much later development.
The importance of the Hunter-Killer-Hero Chief and the Impregnating-Prolific-Stallion Male was undoubtedly recognized ages before men thought of the Ursa Major creating the first circle in the heavens.
{“The beginning, in mythology, will be shown to consist of figuring time and space by means of the circle, and thus putting a boundary to that which was heretofore the Boundless, the face of heaven being the first dial-plate, or face of the clock on which the circle was drawn.
“My soul is from the beginning, from the reckoning of years,” says the Osirian in the Ritual, and the reckoning of years was the beginning; the first of these being reckoned by the Great Bear and Sothis.
The beginning was Sabean {i.e. star-worship}, and, as it will now be shown, dependent on the revolution of the Seven Stars about the pole.
The Kabalist beginning with Adam-Kadmon, as a male being, is later.
We shall find that all beginning is founded on the female, the Genitrix, not on the Generator.
The first Atum (or Adam) is extant in the Ritual, where she is designated “the Mother-Goddess of Time.”
“The Mother-Goddess of Time,” she who figured the first celestial circle, before Ptah formed his Egg of the sun and moon, as the father of the fathers of beginnings, and who was the ancient Mother of the gods.”
—Chapter 14, A Book of The Beginnings}
Religion was not just about the mystery of birth – it was the about the great problems of sustenance, survival, success, and supremacy.
Not only by the time the Vedic, Sumerian, Chinese, and Egyptian civilizations arose, were the intellectual and spiritual concerns of man way too advanced, but the crude concepts that women could conceive without men – or generally, the female without the male – parthenogenesis – would be deemed absurd.
The importance of the Mother, the Womb, and the Yoni – lay on its symbolism.
The Child emerges from the Mother – this is a fundamental symbol of everything we see around us:
· the flower emerging from the stem of a plant,
· leaves emerging on a bough,
· fruits emerging on branches,
· brances emerging from trees,
· plants emerging from the Earth,
· fountains emerging from the Earth,
· rivers emerging from mountains,
· rain emerging from clouds or heaven,
· the Sun emerging {or rising} from the depths of the Earth or Ocean {same for the Moon}.
The Yoni and the Garbha thus become a symbol of the Emergence of Life & Existence itself.
Re-Birth, Resurrection, Renaissance, Revelation, Manifestation, Efflorescence – all these can be symbolized by the Child emerging from the Mother.
But there is no absolute reason to think that the primitives began with the biological mother-child relationship and then applied it to everything.
Existence is experienced simultaneously.
Nobody first saw the Mother birthing the Child, and then the Fruit growing on the tree – by the time Man could form complex abstractions, both were equally fascinating & well-known processes, reflecting each other, and both symbolizing Birth, or Re-birth, or a New Birth.
{And that’s why there are so many Mother-Son images with the duo sitting beneath a fruiting tree, and/or one of them holding a fruit; or associated with an aquatic plant like the lotus, the beautiful flower that rises from the waters.}
There was no “first” word – and there is no “first” concept.
It is not possible to trace any such concept, when nothing was written or recorded.
It’s more likely that the first words pertained to broad abstractions like “source” – that, from which another thing emerges – rather than specifically the vagina/womb – and those words were applied to the female organ.
In other words, there’s no convincing reason to think that the word “Yoni” {or example} emerged mysteriously, first, in human consciousness, which meant “womb” – which was THEN, LATER, applied to Ocean, Earth, Tree, Mountain, Cloud, Heaven, Intellect etc.
It is simply impossible to find or know any such chronological development or progression of words & concepts.
I also think it’s important to understand that given the totality of the human reproductive experience, the Mother was a symbol of the visible, tangible, comprehensible Source.
The Father was not known concretely, specifically & individually – but he definitely was to be assumed – the parturition & birth couldn’t happen without him – thus, the Father, from the very beginning, SYMBOLICALLY, was the invisible, unseen, unknown, “spiritual” or “intellectual” Source.
To split up the two, is an affront to the simplest human experience.
The mystery of the Father was always the greater mystery, and the greater problem.
He’s there, but nobody knows who.
Hence, the mother is so often depicted alone with the child – and the real Father is nowhere to be seen.
Hence, the father is always a “god”, or the God.
The Mother was always more concrete, more visible, more “material”, more “gross”, more measurable – the Father was comparatively more abstract, more immaterial, more subtle, more indefinable.
Just like all life came from mother and father, the whole universe came from a union of the Male and the Female – the Liṅga and the Yoni – and these were, together, reverenced and held in awe from the oldest pre-civilizational, pre-historic times.
In over 15 years, nothing has made me accept the idea that the primitives thought the Mother was the first & supreme, and that the role or importance of the Man was not known, or not acknowledged, or not important – that the Mother-Blood was anterior and superior to the Masculine-Seed.
This is one of Massey’s fundamental contentions.
There is absolutely no evidence to support this in any text whatsoever.
It is one of his greatest errors.
Food, water, hunting, & taming animals came first.
{Cooking, weaving of clothes & baskets, pottery {vases, utensils, jars}, making of ornaments & jewels, building hutments & habitations, somewhat later – though all such statements are ultimately ridiculous.}
Astronomy came later.
Astronomy obviously rose at a higher stage of civilization, and must’ve been associated with more complex agriculture: with the sowing of seeds and harvesting of the crops, which makes knowledge of rainfall, flood, frost, snowfall, and the seasons, necessary.
Even then, astronomy was of comparatively secondary importance – ploughing, sowing, planting, carpentry, pottery, fishing, and animal-herding were important in themselves, and have been written into all ancient symbols & figures.
In this sense, yes, the Bull and the Cow, which are primarily agricultural animals, must’ve come “after” the Lion-Lioness or Deer-Hind or Serpent – but I’m still inclined to think that highly simplistic, primitive concepts were irrelevant, by the time man started creating a more coherent, abstract, intellectual religion.
Both categories of animals must’ve been known for thousands of years before the texts {which we know today} had been composed.
Who would, in trying to create a new cult today, ever try to palm off the notion of Parthenogenesis?
It may exist in nature, but it’s hardly relevant.
Massey gives an astonishing amount of important information in his obsession to prove his theories, but while the information itself is priceless, the theory is wrong.
There was never a “Mother” cult which was superseded by a “Father” cult.
Even before established patriarchy, the role of the male was understood.
It will be understood by any adult observer of nature, and without question, by an agriculturist who breeds cows, buffaloes, sheep, goats, and horses.
Patriarchy was established even before agriculture as can be seen in every primitive tribe extant, in any part of the world, but it became entrenched with agriculture.
It was established primarily as a means of identifying the Father.
Who is the father of the child?
In the most primitive times, nobody could tell.
The woman could have sex with any man, any time, any where.
That the woman was the mother of the child was the fact most ascertainable {if not perfectly & absolutely} – but the human father’s identity remained a mystery.
That’s the root of matrilinear succession, and the weird ideas of incestuous marriage.
Evidently, property emerged before patriarchy, but by the nature of reality, led to patriarchy.
In matrilinear succession, one knows who deserves to inherit the property of the parent – here, only the mother – because one knows who the mother is.
If son mated with mother, or brother with sister, it was all because those relations were actually identifiable.
They were blood & flesh – their relationship could be known with maximum certainty –
and hence, would have best claims over property.
These customs have survived till date, where people are allowed to marry first cousins from the mother’s side, or the maternal uncle, because the relationship between Mother and Child is the most definite – most unambiguously identifiable.
Nobody could be absolutely sure who the Father was.
Thus, inheritance couldn’t be determined with confidence on the basis of Fatherhood.
But with the growing complexity of human society, the structure of economics and politics, Patriarchy became inevitable.
Property was identified by the Male, because he protected, built, and expanded it.
He fought the wars, brought the loot, controlled the lakes or rivers or waters, controlled the source of food & hence the food supply – he cut the trees, made the house constructions, laid the roads, built the carriages & chariots, domesticated the bull & horse & sheep & goat, tamed the camel & bison & yak – he entered the jungles, climbed the mountain, crossed the rivers, & voyaged into the ocean whether for pearls or for fish.
There was no quest for “dominance” in all this – it was the natural progression of things – of man emerging from a mere, dull, static beasthood.
As human beings started realizing their own inner potential to explore the world, and use natural resources around them to make a better life, the role of the Male increased.
The more advanced human civilization became, the more important the role of the male in the creation & continuity of Property – and in the nature & type of Property itself.
Earlier property might’ve meant the pile of deer or hare brought in from the hunt – later, it was the road, the granary, the chariot, and the horse-stable.
Hence, the shift from matrilineal succession to the patrilineal was natural.
Why would a man build ships, enter dangerous seas, voyage into the unknown, brave tempests & hunger & death, and travel to distant lands, and build an elaborate commerce – only to pass on all that he worked for – to somebody else’s son???!!!
Do note that the stakes involved in a highly primitive society {with no coherent religion, with minimal complexity} were much, much lesser.
Men were less important, because they accomplished much lesser.
{Yet, the male was just as important, if not much more important, than the female, even in the most primitive society, because hunting must’ve been a prerogative of men; and the role of man in begetting children is obvious to the most primitive folks.}
An advanced civilization NECESSITATES the dominance of the Male.
As human constructivity, creativity, and culture, advanced – it was necessary that he who built & created had right over what was built & created.
That’s how property-succession shifted from the woman to the man.
But this was not possible without imposing a million restrictions on the woman, because society had to be absolutely sure, that a particular child was the offspring of THAT man, and not just any man.
By the numerous impositions on the sexual freedom of women, mankind just made sure that the Father was identified with certainty.
Otherwise a man may never know whose son or daughter he’s bringing up, whom is he looking after, whom is he fighting & fending for, and to whom is he supposed to pass on his property.
That is a very broad outline, and can be qualified in many ways, and many questions maybe raised – but I think it’s correct.
One should not confuse symbols with what was symbolized.
I do not think that the Mother-goddess was earlier.
But sexual “freedom” was.
The “sexual mysteries” and “fertility rites” must have been, again, later developments, not the fundamental primitive ones.
They involve “magic”, occultism, and rather complicated views about reality, about bodily substances & excretions, none of which are obvious to a primitive forest or cave-dweller.
They are in no way fundamental to survival, sustenance, and success.
In the sexual mysteries, yes, the importance of the Female-Source must’ve been very high, but there’s no reason to think that “The Goddess” reigned supreme.
What kind of sexual or fertility rite can one have, without the male?
Again, in the ancient homosexual mysteries, where is the importance of the female?
These were a later development, in great city-cultures.
Ancient, but certainly not primitive pre-agricultural cultures.
Homosexuality is, if anything, several steps removed from primitivity, because it abjures the importance of the union of the Male & Female for the continuation of life.
The “Goddess” worshipping cults with the dancing Bacchantes & Maenads, with women leaping & shouting hysterically, and men castrating themselves and dressing themselves as women, was the penultimate development.
These are typically phenomenon peculiar to rich cities, where a considerable degree of safety, security, ease, comfort, and wealth, has been achieved.
Men are no longer judged by their ability to fight & face danger, to kill & to loot, to slaughter & to destroy, to build fortifications & towers, to risk death & torture.
Invasions & wars are less of a problem, hence, a man’s value in society is not gauged by his heroism or bravery or courage to fight, to defend, to hunt, to kill, to slaughter, to resist.
If not decadence, this is simply a much later stage in human development.
The LAST development is that of the ascetic, the renunciate, the Yogi, the Śramaṇa or Jina, the Taoist or Pythagorean, the Stoic or the Therapeutae or the Christian — who talks about renunciation, desirelessness, peace, universal compassion & forgiveness, vegetarianism, abdication of sex, and abandonment of property.
This can only develop in a culture which has reached its acme of development, riches, ease, and security.
Such a culture can AFFORD “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”, castrated men dancing around in diaphanous robes, monks meditating in mountain caves, and ascetics who won’t kill ants.
Such men would be rejected, and considered absolutely useless, even dangerous, in a primitive society, or in the earlier stages of culture, where survival was impossible without the male ability to hunt, fight, and kill.
Coming back to the Mother-Goddess-Yoni worship, no doubt woman was seen as a symbol of Nature, of {Cyclical} Time, and Periodicity – but there’s no reason to think of Woman as the primary object of worship out here.
On the contrary, the image of the menstruating woman was perhaps secondary, in the sense that she represented the higher, broader idea of periodicity in nature, which otherwise is difficult to represent symbolically.
And one wonders how often, and in what way, was “periodicity” represented anyway.
Massey’s persistence, in trying to trace just about every name & word & even concept, to the Mother-womb, to the Yoni, to the Female-blood, to the Maternal-source, is interesting & valuable, but not convincing.
The Ship was important, not as a Womb, but as a Ship – as something which helped man navigate chaotic waters with no markers or boundaries – as something which sustained him in the most dangerous, inhospitable & unfriendly environment {miles & miles of water} – as something which helped him overcome the great mortal fear & barrier of the sea – as something which brought him rich supplies of foods & goods.
Yes, it might be imaged as a womb – because it is a container, a hold, a protecting envelope – and it might be associated with a feminine deity – but this is simply conceptual logic – not the overarching importance of the female in itself.
Just like the spear was likened to the phallus, the vase was likened to the womb.
{So may the soup-spoon be the phallus, and the soup-bowl, the yoni.}
So the Ship may be likened to a “Mother”.
In thinking up the name of a ship, men might’ve instinctively sought a word with feminine associations.
If they looked for a word to denote the ship, it’s likely they sought a word with feminine connotations.
The Ship may be said to hold & protect the sailor, like a womb bearing & protecting a foetus.
The Mother being naturally indulgent, forgiving & pampering, they sought similar feminine-maternal powers to protect and help them everywhere, especially on the seas where life was in perpetual danger.
This does not mean that the Mother-Goddess was worshiped earlier, and overthrown by the Patriarchal Father-God.
This has never been the case.
{And the Ocean has invariably been associated with Male figures from the very beginning – whether the Egyptian Nu, or the Sumerian Enki, the Babylonia Abzu, Indian Varuṇa, or Greek Poseidon.
It would make very good sense to propitiate the Male Ocean-God to avert all disasters.}
Moreover, most words associated with the womb, the vulva, the “pudendum muliebre” seem also associated with the phallus, the testicles, the scrotum, and the glans.
There is not a single word, which Massey attributes to the Feminine Source, which does not also apply to the Male.
Also, on the basis of his own data, all the words which he seeks to trace to Egypt, and thence, to Inner Africa, are equally traceable to India.
I do not mean this as a rejection of his theory.
That all world culture & civilization came from Africa, seems to be highly probable.
But this is neither proven, nor provable, in my humble opinion.
What Massey does – and herein lies his great value – is that he gives out all the connections which, in the ultimate analysis, undercut his own theory.
For instance, he makes much of the Egyptian words khent-khentu, which, he says, is the origin of the Sanskrit word “Sindhu”.
The various meanings of this word he gives are, for example:
khent, inner, interior, concealed.
khent, to contain.
khent, joy, delight, circumstance of a festival.
khent, feminine interior.
khent, pudendum, matrix, womb.
khents, inner part or place, feminine interior.
Thus, in his book A Book of The Beginnings, he writes:
“In Egyptian Khentu is the Interior, variously applied.
It is the inner land, the lake country.
It is also the name of the womb, the human birthplace.
The Khen (Eg.) is the Semitic Gan, the Arab Al-Jannat for the Garden of Eden.
{In Sanskrit, the word for garden is kānana, which is obviously related.
Since we know that “g” interchanges with “b” & its cognates like “v”, the word “vana” is, infact, a permutation of this Semitic “gan” or Egyptian “khen”.
As the Monier-Williams Dictionary tells us, “vana” means:
“
· a forest,
· wood,
· grove,
· thicket,
· quantity of lotuses or other plants growing in a thick cluster
(but in older language also applied to a single tree)”.
While it doesn’t exactly mean “garden”, these concepts are all ultimately related & interchangeable {like the boat/vase/container/house – and womb}.
As is well known, it is used for “grove”, for e.g., in the word tapovana – “the grove of penance”, i.e. a grove where austerities were practiced by retreating ascetics.}
Khen or Khentu is the Garden in Egyptian, just as our southern county Kent is called the Garden of England.
Khentu also means delight.
{In Sanskrit, kanta means Joy, Happiness.
Sk. kānta “desired, loved, dear, pleasing, agreeable, lovely, beautiful” – also, “any one beloved, a lover, husband”.
These linguistic associations can be extended, but on another occasion.}
Thus in Khentu, according to the Egyptian language, was the garden of delight, the pleasure-place, Paradise, Eden, or celestial birthplace of the mythos.
Khentu being the interior, the matrix, Kheptu is the hinder thigh, as the place of outlet to the north, where the hinder thigh still denotes the birthplace figured in heaven by the constellation Ursa Major.
These are the south and north of the African motherland as named in Egyptian; the Khepta-Khentu, Hapta-Hendu, or Sapta-Sindhu of the Celestial Heptanomis.”
The Sanskrit associations can be multiplied.
For instance, the Sk. kāṇḍa means “a private place, privacy”, so akin to the Egyptian khent.
This is usually rooted in the concepts of the human private parts, whether as the private parts were meant to be covered & hidden – or that sexual activities were private & hidden from public view – or that sexual issues were supposed to be dealt with discreetly, in private.
But the fundamental consonantal cluster, knt, doesn’t just refer to the female privies.
In Tamil,
· kaṇṭan means “a husband, a warrior, a lord, a superior”
· kaṇṭi means “male buffalo”
· keṇṭan is “a robust, stout man”.
In Kannada,
· gaṇḍu means “strength, manliness, bravery; the male sex, a male, man”
· geṇḍā is “husband”
· geṇḍu is “male”
· gōnde is “a bull, an ox”
In Tulu,
· gaṇḍu means “male, valiant, stout”
In Telugu,
· gaṇḍa means “male”
· gaṇḍu means
è “bravery, strength, the male of the lower animals”;
è “Brave, heroic, great, large, stout”;
è “Male”
· ganḍuḍu means “a courageous man, a hero”.
In Kota,
· gaṇḍ means “male”
In Malayalam,
· kaṇṭan is “the male, especially of the cat”
· kiṇṭan is “a stout, bulky man”.
Even in the Malto language of the Chota Nagpur Plateau,
· geṇḍa means “male”.
None of this is derivable from the “pudendum muliebre”.
In Mongolian dialect, the roor gendü means “male of animals”, which we find, in
· Written Mongolian: gendü(n)
· Khalkha: gendǖ “male lynx, leopard”
· Buriat: gende “male sable”
· Kalmuck: gendṇ
We see that the “Dravidian” is reflected as far away as Mongolia.
This doesn’t mean that feminine connotations are not possible.
But it’s impossible to link the consonantal cluster with the female exclusively, and hold it to be prior.
In Indo-European languages, this cluster – and the associated kn {khn, gn, jn} – is associated most conspicuously with the word gander, i.e. the male goose.
This is also how we get the words “gent” and “gens”.
In Old English,
· ganra is the male goose.
In Middle English, this becomes
· gandere, gandir, etc.
In Greek,
· khen means goose,
and this ties in to the Sanskrit haṃsa or hansa.
In Tamil,
· kanru means “a calf, colt, etc., the young of the buffalo, cow, mare, camel, bos graven, bos grunniens, elk, deer, and elephant”
· kuṇṭai means “a bull, an ox”
In Kannada,
· gōnde means “a bull, an ox”
In the Kolami-Gadba dialects,
· kōnda means “bull”, “bison”, or “bullock”.
What is more, the “khent-khentu” connection with the womb & private parts is again found in Dravidian languages:
In Tamil,
· kuṇṭi means “buttocks, rump; bottom (as of a vessel), end of a fruit or nut opposite to the stalk”
In Malayalam,
· kuṇṭi means “buttocks, posterior, bottom of a vessel”
In Kolami-Gadba dialect,
· kuṇḍ means “anus”
In Kannada,
· kuṇḍe means “anus, buttocks”.
Is there any reason to think that the Indian, and particularly the Dravidian, did NOT come first, and Egypt did NOT get this from the Far East?
Massey’s fascinating, intriguing data opens whole new doors to the investigation of origins, but unfortunately, they don’t necessarily work in the direction he wants to lead us in.
It shouldn’t have to be emphasized that it’s not just the female who has reproductive organs, excretory organs, or buttocks, or stomachs, or interiors.
The males have them too, and in the same region.
They are as necessary to sex, impregnation, birth, generation, and procreation, as the “pudendum muliebre”.
Massey gives some very interesting information in his monumental, penultimate work, The Natural Genesis {Section 10, Volume 1}:
“The Kabalists have preserved a tradition of Paradise being situated in an equatorial land, where the days and the nights are of equal length.
A rabbinical geographer of the 15th century says it is evident from the words of the learned that there is a Paradise on a certain portion of the earth’s surface, and that four rivers issue from it.
It is declared by those learned that Paradise is localized under the middle line of the world, where the days are always of equal length.
This mythical mount, which was localized in so many places, was identified by Milton with
“Paradise under the Æthiop line,
By Nilus’ head, inclosed with shining rock,
A whole day’s journey high.”
— Paradise Lost, Bk. 4, Verse 281.
...
If any actual river be meant by the Gihon (...) which flows from the primal seat of mankind through all the land of Æthiopia, it must be the Nile.
Moreover, it is the Nile river which was placed in the planisphere as the river of the division, the Iarutana, or Eridanus, named from tana (Eg.) to divide.
Virgil makes the Nile rise in India, but that is not the India of to-day.
The words India, Hendu, and Sindha are three modified forms of Khentu, Egyptian name for the south, the southern and interior land.
It is noticeable that Camoens always calls the people of India Gentoos, not Hindus.
To the Egyptians Khentu was the interior land that lay south, and the country of Khentu or Ganda (U-ganda) is on the line of the equator 0° 0´, 32° 45´ east, where, if anywhere on earth, the first garden was planted on the summit of the world, and the animal attained to human consciousness.”
Massey is NOT giving enormous amounts of information, out here.
To trace “Sindhu” to “Khentu” is one piece of sophistry!
Let us say, that Uganda is said to come from the Proto-Bantu word “ganda”, which is said to mean “clan, family, home, village”.
This is not only related to the Sanskrit word “janatā” – “a number of men, assemblage of people, community, subjects, mankind” – but also to a whole range of Indo-European and Dravidian words.
Thus, we find {information taken from Wiktionary}:
· Finnish: kunta (gen. kunnan) “community”
· Estonian: kond (gen. konna) “society, community”
· Saam (Lapp): gǫd’de (N) “family, relations”, koint (T)
· Mordovian: końd́ä, kuńd́ä (M) “friend, comrade”?
· Mansi (Vogul): khā̊nt (T), χā̊nt (N) “army, army; war”,
χōnt (KU), kōnt (P) “war, war army”
All these are related to the Sanskrit “jana, janita, janitṛ or janitā, jantu” etc.
In Proto-Hellenic,
· genetis is “origin, source”,
This in turn is related to words like “kin”, “genital”, “genesis”, and “pro-genitor”.
Thus, in
· Old English cynn is “family, generation, offspring, pedigree, kin, race, people, gender, sex”
· North Frisian kinn, kenn is “gender, race, family, kinship”,
· Middle Low German kunne is “gender, sex, race, family, lineage”,
· Danish køn is “gender, sex”,
· Swedish kön is “gender, sex”,
· Icelandic kyn is “gender”.
Is there any absolute reason to think that the word “Uganda” is rooted in Africa – since the root-words and root-meanings can be found as far away as Scandinavia and South India?
The fundamental root “kn”– in both Sanskrit, and Dravidian languages – is related to the basic concept of “offspring” or “child”, and hence, is related to the family of words pertaining to the generative i.e. reproductive organs, the thing generated, birth, the child, gender, procreation, love, desire, pleasure, fire, burning, raining, and flooding.
The relation between concepts should be grasped.
Thus, the Proto-Germanic “kuni”, which means “family, kin”, becomes, in Old High German, “kunni” or “chunni”, which means
“gender,
kind,
kinship,
family,
tribe,
people,
rank,
state”.
A related word is the Finnish “kunnia”, which means “honor”& “glory”, from “family honor”, from “family”.
The Finnish “kunta” becomes “municipality, commune, local political division”, and “kingdom”, in a very broad, abstract sense.
Thus, the Proto-Bantu ganda – “clan, family, home, village” – is related to various meaning-groups, related to the source & seat of generation {phallus, womb-vulva, posteriors, the private parts etc.}, and that which is generated, i.e. the child, the young, the tender {the small, the short, etc.}, and thence, all the generated, i.e. the offspring, thence, the family, the kinsmen, the tribe, the clan, etc.
If you get hold of one idea, you will be inevitably led to the other.
Thus, in Sanskrit, “janus” means:
“birth, production, descent
‘nativity’
birthplace
creation
genus, class, kind”
Sanskrit “jantu” means:
“a child, offspring
a creature, living being, man, person {the sg. also used collectively e.g. sarva j°, ‘everybody’ Śak. v, 5/6 ; ayaṃ jantuḥ, ‘the man’}
a kinsman,
a servant,
any animal of the lowest organization, worms, insects.”
And Sanskrit “janitva” means:
“the state of a wife”,
“father”, as well as
“parents”.
These words are, without any doubt, related to Massey’s Egyptian khent-khentu etc. and related African words.
The Proto-Bantu ganda has to be understood in the same sense, and is directly related to words as far away as Finland.
Thus, “clan, family, home, village” are related to “child, the young, younger, youngest, small”.
Thus, in Malayalam,
· “kannu” is “young of cattle (esp. buffalo calf), young plantain trees around the mother plant”;
In Kannada,
· “kanda” is “a young child, male or female” {Kittel’s Kannada-English Dictionary}
· “kandu” is
è “young child”
è calf,
è young plantain trees around the mother plant;
è foetus of beasts”
· “kanti” is “a cow that has calved”
In Sanskrit,
· “kanī” is “girl, maiden”, and
· “kanīyas” is “younger, a younger brother or sister, younger son or daughter”
· “kaniṣṭha” is “the youngest, younger born”.
These are not unrelated at all.
In Egyptian,
· “khenu” is “‘the crier’ – i.e. the baby, child”
In Tamil,
· “kuñci” is “anything small; young bird, chicken”,
In Malayalam,
· “kuñci”, “kuññu” is “young, small, infant”,
In Kannada,
· “kunni” is “young of an animal, esp. a young dog”,
In Sanskrit,
· “kuṇaka” is “a young animal just born”.
Thus, while the tracing of everything to Inner Africa is a tempting and powerful proposition, that may not necessarily the case.
The origin could have been anywhere.
The fundamental roots, words, and concepts, are same almost all over the world.
How can one detect where did it all start?
Massey takes words from all over the world, and then takes them from Egypt, and tries to show that they all come from Egypt.
From a purely linguistic point of view, the words could have come from anywhere.
Maybe the Africans themselves came from somewhere else, maybe the Far East?
Last but not the least, is this interesting passage from A Book of The Beginnings:
“There is no more universal name for the genitrix than this which is derived from her image, the
§ Quen (Heb. ), the hollow receptacle, the nest,
§ Kona (Mao.) pudendum,
§ Kenau, Khent or Hunt (Eg.) the matrix;
§ Chhen (Chinese),
§ Cant (Welsh),
§ Quiente (Eng.),
§ Gene (Vei),
§ Gons or Cons (Cornish),
§ Kuns (Mandan),
§ CON (French),
§ Knai, (Dayak),
§ Kunam (Bathurst, Aust.),
§ Chaan (Favorlang),
§ Yoni (Sanskrit).
The Kun or Kivan of heaven is the
§ Queen of Heaven,
§ Swedish QVENNA, and
§ HEAVEN itself
has the same name as this Queen or Kivan.
The image of jealousy, denounced by Ezekiel, is the Qaneh.
It was worshipped in a lewd and idolatrous manner, and was placed to the north, the seat of the great mother.
This image answers by name to Kivan and Ken, who was human first and celestial afterwards.
The Qen ... “set among the stars.”
“Record not beginnings,” says the anxious prophet, but these beginnings are of paramount interest to the sociologist; they reflect the most primitive thought.
...
In Phoenician CHANNA was a title of Astarte or Caelstis, the Queen of Heaven.
The Hebrew deity Herself is also said to be the Qana.
“Jehovah, whose name is Qana.”
...
{Reference is to the passage from Exodus 34.14: “For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name [is] Jealous {Qanna}, [is] a jealous God.”}
...
And this is none other than the goddess Kun, worshipped in the wilderness, the naked goddess also called
· Katesh,
· Ken or
· Kennen,
the snake-goddess, who in Egypt was a form of Thermutis, the mother Taur.
The very divinity, who, according to Josephus, brought up Moses, and who as Tharuis, became his wife.”
All this seems traceable to the Sanskrit “jan” and the Proto-Indo-European “ǵenh₁”.
We have already seen a range of Dravidian words, in which this consonantal-group is associated with the posteriors, anus, & buttocks – in other words, the seat, the hind, the rear, & the privies – i.e. the birthplace – and also with the new-born, the child, offspring, infant, young of animal.
The tracing of “yoni” to the Egyptian “khen” is as bad as tracing the Sanskrit “sindhu” to the Egyptian “khentu”.
An Egyptian source for everything is certainly unprovable on purely linguistic grounds.
Also, I simply have to repeat that there’s enough evidence to show that these words are equally applicable to the Male.
The very roots to which Massey traces the word “Queen” are the same, to which we can trace the word “King”.
Most importantly, everything Egyptian can be found in India.
This is the most uncomfortable point, to be made.
According to Gerald Massey, everything came from Inner Africa, via Egypt.
According to him, the Mother and the Child were the first, great objects of worship.
According to him, the Mother and Child were first imaged by the Great Bear constellation and the Dog-Star Sirius {called Sothis}.
In Egypt, this Goddess was called Khept, Ta-Urt {read Taweret, nowadays}, or Apt.
Her son, was Sut {the great adversary of later Egyptian religion} or Sevekh or Seb, and in Greek terms, Cronus.
These two were the first “gods” of mankind.
This all started in Africa.
The Goddess was the Great Bear or Ursa Major – which “later” becomes the Saptarṣi in India.
Her Fatherless Son was the Dog-Star Sirius.
This Son becomes the impregnator and “Bull” of his own mother.
The “Father” had not been recognized yet.
The importance of the Dog-Star consisted in its relation to the flooding of the Nile, which was the source of all life, fertility, nutrition, and prosperity, of Ancient Egypt.
“The land of Egypt was reborn annually as the product of the waters was added layer by layer to the soil.
3 months inundation and 9 months dry made up the year.
The 9 months coincided with the human period of gestation, a fact most fruitful in suggestion, as everything seems to have designedly been in this birth-place of ideas.
{Even if the Nile-inundation did not last 3 months, the human gestation period would be 9 months, anywhere & everywhere.
I’d also like to note that even in India, Monsoon, or the season of rainfall, lasts 3 months.}
They dated their year from the first quickening heave of the river, coincident with the summer solstice and the heliacal rising of the Dog-star.
{Strangely enough, this coincides with the onset of Monsoon in India.}
The Nile not only taught them to look up to the heavens and observe and register there the time and tide of the seasons, but also how to deal with the water by means of dykes, locks, canals, and reservoirs, until their system of hydraulics grew a science, their agriculture an art, and they obtained such mastery over the waters as finally fitted them for issuing forth to conquer the seas and colonise the world.”
—Chapter 1, A Book of The Beginnings
The first worship was the worship of the stars – which he calls “Sabean”.
Then came the worship of the Moon – the “Lunar” phase.
And last of all came the worship of the Sun – the “Solar” phase, with which the “Father” god, and Male-dominance, and Patriarchy rose in earnest.
The first Mother, and her Son, were overthrown, and became the evil, the wicked, the adversaries – for which he uses the term “Typhonian”.
Also, according to his own logic – which can be quite compelling – there were two halves of the world – for the Inner Africans.
The northern half is denoted by the word “Khepta”.
The southern half is denoted by the word “Khentu”.
This “Khepta-Khentu” becomes “Hapta-Hendu” in Persian, and “Sapta-Sindhu” in Indian-Sanskrit.
“Khent, the Egyptian name of the south, is the type-word for going back.
Khent means to go back, going back, and going up, at the same time that khebt is the hinder part and the place of going down.
This may be said to be merely solar.
But Khent the southern land, the name for farthest south, which can now be traced as far as Ganda (the U-ganda), means
· the inner land,
· the feminine abode,
· the birthplace,
and
· the lake country.”
—Chapter 1, A Book of The Beginnings {division by bullets not in the original text}
The lake or water-body association is also not exclusively African.
In Tamil,
· kuṇṭam is “deep cavity, pit, pool”
· kuṇṭu is “depth, hollow, pond”;
In Kannada,
· kuṇḍa, koṇḍa, kuṇṭe mean “pool, pond”;
In Telugu,
· guṇṭa means “a pond, a tank”
· kuṇṭa means “pond”.
All this ties in with the Sanskrit kuṇḍa {“a bowl-shaped vessel, basin, bowl, pitcher, pot, water-pot”}, a point which Massey does note – though he doesn’t deem it important.
“The Hebrew name of the divining cup or עיבג {probably ghabiya}, by which Joseph is said to have divined, is rendered by κόνδυ {seems like kóndy} in the version of the Seventy.
This, as the name of the cup, is also found in Persian and Arabic, and in the Sanskrit kundra, a bowl-shaped vessel, or an aperture for water or fire; the Two Truths.
This vessel is used in certain Hindu ceremonies for drinking out of, and it was carried in the procession described by Apuleius.
It represented the self-conspicuous image of fontal nature alluded to in the Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster, ‘Invoke not the self-conspicuous image of nature, for you must not behold these things before your body has received the purification necessary to initiation.’
Wilson, in the Asiatic Researches, says, the kunda was fashioned in the shape of a lotus, the type doubly feminine, the flower that bore the seed within itself, which was therefore adopted as the emblem of the Virgin Mother of mythology.
Both Athenaeus and Iamblichus
According to Norden, in recent times the lotus on the water was represented by the dish, cup, or κόνδυ, placed on the water for divination, just as the dish was employed for the same purpose at Shadar, in the Isle of Lewis.
Kunda {i.e. Kuṇḍā} is a particular name of the goddess Durga, relating to the vessel, cup, or κόνδυ, which was very primitive as the type of fontal nature.
· Kunda {i.e. Kuṇḍa}, in Sanskrit, is the name of the number nine.
The cup is the
· Egyptian knau,
· Maori kona, the mother-emblem.
With the feminine terminal t, this is
· the khent (Eg.) or hunt;
· English quiente;
· Greek, κόνδυ,
· Sanskrit, kunda.
Kento, in Basunde and Musentando, is the type-name for the female.
In Zulu Kaffir, cunda is mystically the ‘woman's word.’
The cup imaged the fountainhead of all kenning or knowing and thence of divining, because the mother was the revealer of the Two Truths of time and period, pubescence and gestation, in relation to reproduction.”
—Chapter 12, A Book of The Beginnings
There is absolutely no reason to derive words from other parts of the world by the “feminine terminal t” which is applicable only in Egypt.
To examine this issue would take a lot of time – I give this information for what it’s worth.
We have already seen that in Dravidian India, the similar-sounding words are all associated with Male, more than the Female.
Rather, the same words apply to both the male and the female.
Even if the world emerged from inner Africa, I see no reason to connect “Khepta-Khentu” with “Sapta-Sindhu”.
Khepta-Khentu” refers to two divisions of the Earth, or the Heavens.
Sapta-Sindhu means Seven Rivers or Seven Floods – or the Seven Seas.
These are the seven rivers released by Indra, in the Ṛg Veda.
The meaning is entirely philosophical.
To identify “seven” rivers is possible almost anywhere, in any part of the world.
There is nothing geographical in this.
Nor am I aware that India was called “Sapta-Sindhu”.
These are not two distinct realms: in this term, Sapta is not an independent realm, and Sindhu another, like “Rome Paris” or “Germany France” or “North South” or “Asia Europe” or “Heaven Earth”.
Nor, that “Sindhu” has anything to do with the South.
Apart from that, while all this information is very useful, and should be studied assiduously, I cannot accept Massey’s stellar-lunar-solar progression of human worship.
It is not even remotely rational, to think that human beings first worshipped the Stars, and NOT the Sun and the Moon – and THEN started worshipping the Moon – and THEN the Sun.
All celestial bodies have existed simultaneously throughout the entirety of human existence, and human beings have been seeing them all function & wheel & light up the skies – ever since mankind has existed.
Is it possible that human beings worshiped the Great Bear and the Moon, and NOT the Sun, and could not fathom its importance??
This is Massey’s weakest point.
And when did the importance of the Great Bear ever diminish?
In a certain sense, the Sapta-Ṛṣi continue to be as important, if not more important, than the Sun, in the Post-Vedic Indian mind.
The importance of the Ursa Major never suffered any decline, in India, at least.
I do not want to dismiss his ideas ad hoc and en masse: he seems to be referring to a cult which interspersed the earliest primitive worship and the Patriarchal creeds which we have inherited.
Take for instance that the word “Chandra”, in Sanskrit, is also used for “Number One”.
Albeit an isolated & scanty fact, on the face of it, this seems be point to a time when the Moon was considered to be more important than the Sun, or to be prior to the Sun – otherwise why would the same word be used for the Moon and for “number one”?
Or consider for instance that in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, we read that the realm of Moon is ABOVE the realm of the Sun – higher above and more distant from the Earth {2.7}:
“The solar orb is situated a hundred thousand leagues from the earth; and that of the moon an equal distance from the sun.”
But there is no actual reason to think that the Moon was ever considered more important, or greater, or superior.
Without getting into the esoteric Paurāṇika conceptions, even in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa the Moon is not superior to the Sun.
It cannot be emphasized enough – and it stands up to both common sense and the most rigorous analysis – that the Sun is the largest, most prominent, most impacting, and most unavoidable luminary in the human sky.
The Moon doesn’t give half as much light.
The fact is so obvious, so glaring, that it cannot escape the smallest child.
Human life is simply not possible without the Sun.
It’s not possible that the oldest worship of mankind was focused on stars or planets.
The cyclical nature of the rising & setting, growing & diminishing Sun itself is the greatest, most visible, most inescapable symbol of Time & Periodicity.
This is followed by the waxing & waning, the disappearing & reappearing Moon.
Even if the Sun was seen as Female, and Mother, it has to be the oldest object of worship.
To enunciate, and systematically refute, all Massey’s theories, would be an enormous task, which cannot be taken up in one post, or even one book.
Massey has himself written thousands of pages on his ideas.
I have attempted to take just one example – his use of the word “khent” – and show that his theories, while close to the mark, considerably miss it.
Yet, it is a veritable mine of interesting information, and the best guide I know of, for the Out-of-Africa hypothesists and Mother-Goddess worshippers
He is right about the Jehovah-Qanah.
The concepts of “wrath” and “jealousy” are ultimately traceable to sexual desire & heat, to the rising of sexual desire & the craving for intercourse –and to fire, to lighting up, to getting inflamed, to burn up, to be enkindled.
Indeed, I think in some cases “wrath” and “jealousy” are misleading euphemisms.
“And He putteth forth a form of a hand, and taketh me by a lock of my head, and lift me up doth a spirit between the earth and the heavens, and it bringeth me in to Jerusalem in visions of God, unto the opening of the inner gate that is facing the north, where [is] the seat of the figure of jealousy that is making jealous,
and lo, there the honour of the God of Israel, as the appearance that I saw in the valley.
And He saith unto me, ‘Son of man, lift up, I pray thee, thine eyes the way of the north.’
And I lift up mine eyes the way of the north, and lo, on the north of the gate of the altar this figure of jealousy, at the entrance.”
— Ezekiel 8:1-5
The figure or image of “jealousy” was the figure or image – or some representation – of the sex-force, of sexual passion, of sexual generation, and the sexual mysteries.
In other words, the Liṇga, or the Yoni, or some associated image – like a man or woman with legs spread wide, and displaying the engorged phallus or the gaping vulva.
It “provokes jealousy” or “makes jealous”, as in it provokes lust, or arouses sexual passion.
But Qanah, or Kana, is relatable to Sanskrit and Dravidian words.
“Wrath” and “Jealousy” are, like the sexual impulse & fervour, like Lust and Passion in general, linked to the concepts of fire and burning.
The arousal of sexual desire, the sudden upsurge of anger, the bursting out of jealousy within the soul, and the raging of passion in the body, are all rooted in, and related to, Fire or Heat, or the sudden upsurge of heat, or uprising of flames fed with fresh fuel, or kindling or outbreak of fire.
One “burns” with passion or envy or rage.
One is “inflamed” with hatred or lust.
One’s eye “flashes” with rage.
The blood rushes into the face, and it becomes red, with anger.
God is said to be a “consuming fire”, like Revenge, Anger, or Greed.
The fundamental concepts all pertain to Fire.
Also, Jealousy is a form of anger or wrath.
In Tamil,
· kaṉalu means “To be hot, to glow–as fire, fever, the sun in a slight degree; to burn; to be angry, to be displeased, to show signs of anger”
· kaṉal is “fire”, and
· kaṉaṟṟu is “To heat gently, to impart heat (by direct rays, &c.); to burn”
· kan_ali is sun, fire.
Similarly, in Telugu,
· kanalu is “to be angry, burn, give pain; anger”; and
· kanaru is “to grow angry; anger”.
In Kannada,
· kanal is “to burn; to chafe; to be angry; wrath, anger”.
Lighting up, setting on fire, enkindling, to burn, to glow, to become red & luminous – all these have strong sexual connotations {“the flame of desire”; “the fire of lust/passion” etc.}, and while they do refer to the onset of menstruation in the female, and the outflow of red blood – there is no way the concepts can be restricted to the feminine period.
The arousal of sexual passion, the flooding of heat throughout the body, the tumescence of the reproductive organs, the onrush of the lust to mate & procreate – the mystery of the desire to beget & be impregnated – all this – in the sexual-mystery cults – applied to both sexes.
It is not just the female who is found with spread legs, exhibiting her gaping vulva & clitoris – but also the males, mostly holding their erect phalluses, often in all sorts of acrobatic postures, displaying their anuses, self-fellatiating, and masturbating.
Evidently with enormous pleasure: they are invariably laughing, smiling, happy figures.
The sexual cult was both heterosexual & homosexual.
In establishing the austere patriarchy which rose in opposition to the riotous, orgiastic ancient sex mysteries, the worshippers of Jehovah evidently carried forward the fundamental associations, but changed the appearance and the outward meaning.
Christianity did the same, metamorphozing Mary Magdalene into Virgin Mary – but nevertheless retaining the Magdalene in a subdued, subordinated form.
The original “Whore of Babylon” was simply Mary Magdalene.
“I am a jealous God” – means, from the original sex-cult point of view – “I am the god of sexual, generative, procreative, prolific heat & fire”.
The great sexual mysteries of old plumbed the occult depths of sexual attraction and energy, and not just the menstruating female, though she probably played a very big role in many mysteries, or in some of them.
But by no stretch of reason is it possible to dissociate the Male from anything.
The word “fascinate” itself comes from Latin fascinum, “a charm, spell, witchcraft” – as well as “a phallus-shaped amulet worn around the neck as a preventive against
Witchcraft was synonymous with Penis.
The blood rushes not only out of the vulva, but also into the phallus – the mere sight of the opposite sex causes sexual arousal {in many cases, of the same sex} – and this was one of the primary mysteries of creation, multiplication, & generation.
Massey is, without admitting it, an advocate the Ancient Sexual Mystery Cult, or indeed, the Cult of the Great Prostitute-Mother.
In a certain sense, he’s a materialist.
His views belong to the school which believed that the whole world is created – rather, is an emanation – purely of “Matter” – i.e. Primordial Matter or Nature – and that there is no substrate to the universe which can be called Spirit or Soul.
In India, this would mean that there is no Puruṣa, only Prakṛti.
The world emerges from the Ocean of Mūlaprakṛti.
Primordial Matter or Nature was symbolized by the Woman, by the Ocean/Waters, by Night/Darkness.
The emergence of the universe from the Primitive Chaos was imaged by the Son of the Single Mother.
This seems to be the fundamental premise of Massey.
The Female, the Mother, was the Source out of which a new form of existence emerged – like the rivulet from the mountain, or plant from the ground, or fruit from the tree, or mountain from the ocean, or lotus from the lake.
She divided – her substance divided – in giving birth to new life.
Note that the Male doesn’t divide, in the generative-procreative process.
The integrity of his body remains intact.
The Female reflects the Lawfulness, the Structured-ness in Nature – the cyclical nature of time, the periodicity of the seasons – more faithfully than the Male – through Menstruation & Parturition.
The Female is subject to fixed law, and can’t escape it, without altering her identity in the most fundamental way.
Everything in Nature is cyclical – and this is reflected in the biological processes of the female, rather than the male.
That’s why, the Female is Time itself.
Thus, the earliest human worship focused on the Mother as Time, as Periodic & Cyclical Time.
Cronus, who was identified with the Dog-Star, is also Time – or rather, the teller or announcer or representative of Cyclical Time – because the Dog-Star announced the periodic rising & flooding of the Nile.
In Egypt, the Goddess was represented first by the hippopotamus or crocodile, and later by the lioness or cow.
Through this, he tries to establish that the earliest conceptions came from Inner Africa, where human beings knew & saw the hippopotamus & crocodile.
I find the rest of Massey’s theories hazy.
In India, Sūrya is Time.
Sūrya creates the Saṁvatsara, or the Year – and is Kāla.
How can Time NOT be associated with the Sun?
How could humans not first associate Time with the rising & setting of the Sun and the Moon?
Yet, Massey insists that the original object of adoration as the representation and Maker of Time, was the Great Bear, which created the first circle – the first revolution – in the skies.
Until his final great monumental work, Ancient Egypt The Light of the World, he doesn’t pay attention to the Pole-Star itself, around which the Great Bear revolves.
His idea is that the importance of the number Seven, in Nature, comes from the seven stars of the Great Bear.
{I will come to his shifting from the Great-Bear—Dog-Star hypothesis to the Pole-Star—Lesser-Bear hypothesis later.}
I’m inclined to think these are rather sophisticated, later developments of human culture.
{Not to mention, I can’t convince myself that man determined time, seasons, periods, and the cyclicity of time from the Great Bear, and not from the Sun and Moon.}
By the time men had started developing astronomy, there was no question of NOT worshipping the Sun, or NOT knowing the role of the Male-Father in the generation of life.
By the time man decided to worship the Mother as the Great Bear who initiated the starry revolutions in the Sky, he was already intellectually self-aware enough, to think of concepts such as the Buddhi, Manas, Ahaṁkāra, Prāṇa, and Jīva.
If anything, these would come first.
The phallus & the womb would be seen in man-made objects or natural entities, rather than in the constellations.
Above all: Man was first intrigued by, and worried about, temperature & humidity, light & darkness, day & night, wind & fire, food & water, hunger & thirst, rain & famine, storm & flood, clouds & trees, lightning & thunder, beasts & birds, reptiles & insects, stones & herbs, fruits & flowers, hills & caves, earthquakes & volcanic eruptions, Sun & Moon, and scarcity & abundance – than circles & squares in the sky.
The Sun and Moon have the most important, direct, and greatest impact on the basics of human life.
{Massey has to revert to the Dog-Star because it was important for the Egyptians, who depended on the inundation of the Nile.
It wouldn’t be that important elsewhere.
In India, the Pole-Star {Dhruva} and the Ursa Major are, infact, as important as the Sun.}
The fear of death from animals, from eating certain types of plants {from poisoning}, the fear of death from all sorts of diseases & from insect-bites, was probably the greatest fear of the most primitive men.
The fear of being killed by rival tribes – or generally by other human beings – was the next.
He who controlled the elements – he who controlled food & water – he who dominated space {pastures, hunting grounds, forests, etc.} & resources – he who could kill & tame birds, beasts & reptiles – he who could fight & defeat his enemies – he whom no one could harass or intimidate – he who could cure diseases with herbs – was supreme.
This is reflected in the symbolism of all ancient texts, particularly the Ṛg Veda.
One doesn’t have to go to Egypt, or inner Africa, for this – though, I’ll repeat, it might have all come from inner Africa as well.
I’m not against the African hypothesis.
But we find humans worshipping the Wind, the Cloud, the Tree, the Mountain, Fire, Lightning, Thunder, Sky, Rain, Rivers, the Ocean, the Earth, the Tempests, the Milch-Cow, the Bull, the Sun, the Moon, Water, Dawn, Sunlight, Moonlight – and all this is perfectly natural, logical & universal.
Indeed, that the symbols employed in the Ṛg Veda are truly ancient is demonstrated by the comparatively lower importance given to animals like the Lion and the Elephant.
The Bull, Cow, Horse, Goat & Sheep are the most important animals in the Saṁhitās, because they are the most useful.
The Deer is useful as food & hide.
What use are the Lion or Tiger to anybody?
They’re basically glamorous – symbols of power, majesty, and beauty – like the hawk or falcon or eagle – of no use to the cattle-herder, the farmer, or the shaman.
Indeed, the bird is far more commonly used in the Vedas than the lion & elephant – perhaps because man has always been fascinated with the phenomenon of flight – and it images all phenomenon that moves swiftly in the air or in the skies – Sun, Moon, Stars, Lightning, Thunder, Clouds etc. – as it does the Spirit, the Mind, Desire, etc.
In an agricultural or pastoral society, the elephant is of less importance.
You don’t need elephants to build huts, even big ones – but yes, to carry large stones to build huge temples, or as symbols of royal power & opulence.
We see an astonishing surge in the importance given to the lion & elephant by the time the Rāmāyaṇa was composed – because the Rāmāyaṇa is the product of a fully-blossomed & highly advanced city-building culture.
To what extent the Ṛg-Vedic world possessed big cities, fortifications, and towers, is not easily determinable: but that’s the topic for another discussion.
The images it employs are overwhelmingly those of a pastoral-agricultural society, which has still not settled down fully.
But the Ṛg Veda is a rather strange book – and the Vedic seers were more selective in their imagery than the Paurāṇika seers who adopted the whole wide field of nature in their ample symbolisms.
Point is, none of the entities identified above, are specifically Male or Female.
They can be both, or neither, or either.
Heaven & Earth, Sun & Moon, Wind & Water, Tree & Mountain, Day & Night, Thunder & Lightning, Space & Light, are not precisely gender-specific.
The Ancients actually figured them in many different ways, but there seems to be no predilection for the Female or the Mother, because there is no specific reason or such preference.
If anything Male Energy, Potency, Radiance, Health, Strength, Bravery, Impetuosity, Speed, Agility, Fearlessness, Fearfulness, Generosity, Gumption, and Martial Heroism, were not just important, but NECESSARY for life.
All this is significant, because Massey’s theory that the Pre-Historical God of mankind was the Creatrix, the First Maker of the Circle in the Undefined Chaos of Heaven, while profoundly interesting & worthy of scrutiny – remains unconvincing.
This is, if anything, a LATER development – and a feature of the Great Mother-Prostitute-Goddess-Sex cult – but still very ancient, and not in conformity with the evolving patriarchy.
Subsequently, he modified his own theory, but was still wrong, because it is obvious, to common sense, that the Sun & the Moon, Fire & Wind, Cloud & Rain, River & Mountain, and Heaven & Earth came first, and these are amply proven by the Vedas.
I will attempt to show, adopting the very logic used by him, that the origins of world civilization may with equal validity, be traced to the Far East.
To wrap up.
Gerald Massey is a maverick intellectual of the 19th century, who accumulated a stupendous quantity of data from all over the world, to show that the origins of human culture & civilization, lie in Inner Africa.
He seems to never have been accepted into the mainstream historical scholarship, because he persistently refused to accept the “Aryan-Race” model as separate and distinct from the “Semitic” and the “Egypto-African”.
He has written 3 massive tomes – A Book of The Beginnings, The Natural Genesis, and Ancient Egypt: The Light of The World – in order to prove his theories – alongside many other works & articles, full of curious information and intriguing insights.
There is some shift in his theories, from the first two books mentioned above, to the third, but broadly, his ideas are consistent.
Albeit highly muddled, repetitive, and unstructured, he piles up thousands of pages worth of data to demonstrate that all words, concepts, and images, which can be found in any culture in the world, can be traced to Egypt, and through Egypt, to Inner Africa.
From Inner Africa humans migrated northwards to the Nile, and established the Egyptian civilization, which he considers to be the oldest of ancient, highly developed civilizations.
From Egypt, humans fanned out to the rest of the world, and took with them African-Egyptian concepts, words, and symbols, which went on to the form the earliest beliefs & cults of all people, as well as names of their races, rivers, and places.
The earliest worship was based on the starry revolutions of the night-time sky, and not the rising & setting of the Sun.
Gerald Massey is actually a radical and revolutionary of his times.
He was an ardent Darwinian – he seemed to be passionate about Gnosticism – and he tried to base all his ideas on a strict understanding of Evolutionism.
Though he does articulate some views which would be considered “racist” today {basically, drawing comparisons between Inner Africans and higher apes found in Africa}, he actually isn’t a racist.
He never hates Black people: on the contrary, he almost despises the Whites.
But given that he accepts that Man evolved from higher apes – he accepts the theory that this development happened in Africa.
This is not racism, this is a scientific truth, for him.
Indeed, his views tantamount to a major assault on all racist, White-Supremacist theories.
They evolved or originated nothing new at all.
He completely rejects the Bible, and all monotheistic, patriarchal religions, as revealed truths – and at best treats them as later developments.
1,500 years of Western thinking, tracing everything to Mesopotamia, Noah & his 3 sons, and Abraham, is categorically rejected by him.
It should be understood that this perspective held centerstage well into the 19th century: everything was considered to be a development from Ancient Semitic culture.
In the 19th century emerged the “Aryan” model, which was maintained alongside the Semitic model.
Europeans increasingly saw themselves as “Aryans”, who had developed the Greek & Roman cultures, and subsequently, the Christian-European.
European culture was seen to be an amalgamation of the two basic, original cultures – “Aryan” and “Semitic”.
There is a painful uneasiness & fundamental flaw in all this because Christianity stems from Judaism which was a Middle-Eastern, Asian, Semitic creed, and the 19th century Europeans didn’t want to be seen beholden to the Semites, or unoriginal in any way.
There was an increasing obsession with Greeks & Romans, who were seen as Whites, and were glorified above & over everyone else in the world.
Egypt, which had been very important even in the late 18th century, fell of out favour.
19th century Europeans had some fascination with India, which was condescendingly & graciously allotted a small share in a majestic “original” Blonde-
Massey rejects all such theories, and doggedly looks for one root, one source, of all races, of all creeds, and of all cultures – and he looks for it in Africa.
This in itself makes him a Black Sheep, a rebel, a sore spot, of his times.
He has never been accepted by the mainstream, and nobody talks about him.
And yet, his theories are precisely the theories accepted, or at least propagated, widely, nowadays.
The Father-worshipping cult, he says, is not the original – the Mother-worshipping was.
The oldest object of worship was the single, unwed Mother-Goddess, who was imaged by the constellation of the Great Bear or Ursa Major.
It is, of course, not as simple as that, but that’s a crucial point in his theory.
The Father ousted the Mother – the Male usurped the position of the Female – who, with her brood, became the demons, devils, Satans, and wicked, evil adversaries, the enemies of the Gods, of the Father-cults.
Gerald Massey makes the most valiant effort I know, to trace every idea from every part of the world, to Egypt and Africa.
For this alone, he deserves the respect of every Freethinker.
While the Out-of-Africa hypothesis is a very strong one – I find it difficult to accept his Mother-Goddess-worship and Ursa-Major theories.
His monumental endeavour in re-establishing an understanding of the origins of human culture & civilization on a strictly Darwinian-Evolutionist-
I know nobody who has accomplished what he has accomplished.
For this alone, I do salute Gerald Massey.
Yet, I am compelled to disagree with him.
To sum up all my disagreements, and everything said above in a few succinct points:
1. I do not think that the Mother or the Female was ever held superior to the Father or the Male.
2. It is only in the realm of symbolism – and symbolism of an advanced type – that the Mother could be more prominent, because the Mother would always be the visible image of the Source, of Emergence, of the actual Birth & Generation of things, of Periodicity, and of Time.
3. However, these do not appear to be the most important concerns of primitive man – survival in the wilderness, hunting & herding, subjection to the elements, mastery over nature, dominance over warring tribes, taming of animals, cure of diseases, etc. – these would be.
4. All these basal facts of human life don’t lead us to any particular prominence of the Female or the Mother.
5. I see the most primitive ancient worship as an integration of the Male & Female aspects of existence – to put it in human biological terms, the Liṅga as well as the Yoni.
6. Mother-Goddess worship appears to be a somewhat later phenomenon.
There are “magical” and occult aspects associated with menstruation, sexual desire & energy, sexual passion & libido, which were later, more intellectual concepts.
What Massey calls the “Typhonian” cult, appears to me, not to be the original worship of mankind, but a later sexual-mystery cult, which was, indeed, overthrown by the Patriarchal creeds.
The worship of “Time” itself seems to be a far more sophisticated concept than
“Earth”, “Sky”, “Rain”, “River”, and “Food”.
The “Typhonian” cult was a development of “sex magic” – and emerged in the agricultural stage of human life.
It dealt with the reproductive & excretory organs, bodily secretions & substances, and was intricately bound with complex magical & astrological theories, by now lost to all mankind.
This isn’t remotely primitive.
And though the female might’ve played a very important role in this cult, she was by no means supreme.
Even by the time human society was agricultural, the role of the Father was well-established.
The role of the Male in the evolution of human civilization increased with the development of civilization, in the growth & evolution of the nature of property – it was evident & obvious even before the agricultural stage – and it’s unconvincing that the Female ever dominated over the Male in any advanced civilization.
If she did, she did so after incorporating all male characteristics within herself.
7. I also can’t accept his theory that the original worship of mankind was based on the revolution of the stars, and not the rising & setting of the Sun and Moon.
His theories are not altogether baseless, but again, I think he’s founding his ideas on later developments.
8. Last but not the least, the voluminous information proffered by Massey indeed, helps in opening other doors to other vistas: a lot of what he says is vital, important and correct — and fortunately, also helps us to trace the origins of mankind, not to Egypt, not to Inner Africa, but to the Far East.
But strictly speaking, no such “origins” can be proven – all this remains speculation about probabilities :)
