Mooooo! The Milky Way, Mother's Milk, Cows and Creation

I've been wanting to write this up ever since last week, when I posted about the ancient Egyptians and the "ox leg" i.e., Big Dipper symbolism they used in their religious iconography as well as their astronomy and simultaneously.  Unknown to each other, Mr. Don in the meantime posted the most amazing photograph of an Old Europe religious sanctuary at Random Round-up.  One-half of the pair of icons in that Neolithic sanctuary is a model of a cow's (ox) head with horns.  Shades of Hathor!

I was so taken with that image that I emailed Mr. Don about it and spouted off about possible connections between Egypt and Old Europe via cow worship!  I don't think he took me seriously, or my email may have put him to sleep.  So, I was gearing up to do some research today when, lo and behold, after I posted here earlier today the entry from Barbara Walker's wonderful The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets about "Convent" - that one was sure an eye opener to yours truly, by the way, geez, I hapened to flip the page over and there is was, an entry on -- COW! 

First, a brief return visit to the November 14, 2010 Random Round-up at Goddesschess - honestly, we did not plan this!  Here is a photo of the reconstructed sanctuary at Parta at the Banat Museum.  Unfortunately, I am not clear by the description whether the "ox" is the female, or the other figure is the female -- the description of the reconstruction is rather ambiguous: 

The monumental statue has been reconstructed based on some fragments discovered, unfortunately very few fragments – thus, fragments of the shoulder of the statue have been very well preserved, the belly of the feminine statue (the Mother statue), the ear and the a part of the ox’s muzzle – based on these fragments the reconstruction of the ox was possible; the feminine statue, because no fragment of the head was kept it was built based on some analogies.



Reconstruction of the Parta sanctuary, at
Banat Museum.

Barbara Walker in her truly remarkable Encyclopedia did all of the research for me.  This is what she wrote under "Cow:"

Goddess Hathor giving sustenance
to young Horus, Temple of Hathor,
at Dendera, Egypt.

Perhaps the most common manifestation of the Great Mother as Preserver was the white, horned, milk-giving Moon-cow, still sacred in India as a symbol of Kali [how about that, Mr. Don, ha!]  Egypt revered Mother Hathor as the heavenly cow whose udder produced the Milky Way, whose body was the firmament, and who daily gave birth to the son, Horus-Ra, her Golden Calf, the same deity worshipped by Aaron and the Israelites: "These be the gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." (Exodus 32:4).

The name of Italy meant "calf-land."(1)  This country too was the gift of the Milk-giver, whom Etruscans called Lat, Arabs called Al-Lat, Greeks called Latona, Lada, Leto, or Leda.  She ruled Latium, and gave her milk (latte) to the world.

All Europe was named after the Goddess as a white Moon-cow, whom the Greeks mated to the white bull incarnation of Zeus.  Her alternative name was Io, "Moon."  Under this name she was presented in classic mythology as a rival of Hera, but patriarchal writers were always setting different manifestations of the same Goddess at odds with one another, posibly on the principle of divide and conquer.  Hera herself was named Io, ancestress of the Ionians.  In her temple on the site of Byzantium she appeared as teh same lunar cow, the Horned One, wearing the same crescent headdress as the Egyptian Cow-goddess.(2)

Herodotus said the milk-giving Mother Hera-lo-Latona was the same as Egypt's Buto, "an archaic queen of the Lower Kingdom."(3)  The holy city of Buto, Egypt's oldest oracular shrine, was known to the Greeks as Latopolis, "city of Lat."(4)  Of course Buto, or Lat, was only another name for Hathor, or Isis, or Mut, or Neith: all represented "the great cow which gave birth to Ra, the great goddess, the mother of all the gods ... the Cow, the great lady of the south, the great one who gave birth to the sun, who made the germ of gods and men, the mother of Ra, who raised up Tem in primeval time, who existed when nothing else had being, and who created that which exists."(5)

The Cow as creatress was equally prominent in myths of northern Europe, where she was named Audumia; she was also Freya, or a Valkyrie taking the form of a "fierce cow.(6)  A semi-patriarchal Norse myth tried to attribute the creation of the world to the giant Ymir, whose body and blood made the universe.  But he was not the first of creatures.  The Cow preceded him, for he lived on her milk.(7)

Earlier myths showed the universe being "curdled" into shape from the Cow's milk. In India, many still believe literally the creation myth known as Churning of the Sea of Milk.(8)  The Japanese version said the primordial deep went "curdlecurdle" (kowororkoworo) when stirred by the first deeities, to make clumps of land.(9)  The ancient near east thought human bodies too were curdled from the Goddess's milk.  One of her liturgies was copied into the Bible: "Has thou not poured me out as milk, and curled me like cheese?" (Job 10:10).

The root of "cow" was Sanskrit Gau, Egyptian kau or kau-t.  Goddess-names like Gauri and Kauri also designated the yonic cowrie shell.(10)  Brahman rebirth ceremonies used either a huge golden yoni or an image of the Cow-mother.  "When a man has for grave cause been expelled from his caste, he may be restored to it after passing several times under the belly of a cow."(11)  The Egyptian Goddess as birth-giver typically wore a cow's head or horns, as she offered her breasts with both hands.(12)  As the nursing mother who gave each Egyptian his secret soul-name (ren), she was entitled Renenet, the Lady of the Double Granary, a reference to her inexhaustible breasts.(13)  The bovine enzyme rennet, used even in antiquity to curdle milk, was also sacred to her.

A favorite Roman emblem of the Goddess was the Cornucopia, Horn of Plenty: a cow's horn pouring forth all the fruits of the earth.  The cow was honored as the wetnurse of humanity, and her image is still inadvertently invoked to this day as an expletive Holy Cow, or a perjorative Sacred Cow.

Notes:

1.  Thomson, 50.
2.  Elworthy, 183, 194.
3.  Larousse, 29. 
4.  Herodotus, 106.
5.  Budge, C.E. 1, 457-58, 463.
6.  Turville-Pette, 256.
7.  Larousse, 248.
8.  O'Flaherty, 274.
9.  Campbell, Or. M., 467.
10.  Waddell, 404.
11.  Frazer, F.O.T., 220-22.
12.  Neumann, G.M., pl. 9.
13.  Larousse, 38; H. Smith, 24. 



The Narmer Palette, c. 3500 BCE, Egypt.  Note the presence of Hathor at the top of both the front and reverse sides.

The Cow Jumped Over the Moon

See the post immediately below on the latest issue (Volume 19) of the Asia Institute Bulletin.  In it is an article:

Almut Hintze, The Cow That Came from the Moon: The Avestan Expression māh- gaociθra-

Synopsis:  It is argued that the syntactic combination of ciθra- with the ablative case in the Avesta warrants the meaning "origin, offspring" and that such meaning is also present in the phrase māh- gaociθra- "the moon that holds the seed of the animal." This and other evidence indicates that the Middle Persian myth about the lunar origin of the numerous animal species on earth goes back to the Avesta.

I don't think I would try to read the article based on the synopsis, which sounds extremely technical and way beyond the bounds of my knowledge, but the underlying premise about an ancient Persian/Avestan tale that relates the creation of animals with the Moon - that fascinates me.  The first thing that sprang into my mind when I read the title of the article was "the cow jumped over the Moon."

Yeah, I'm crazy.  Bear with me. Do you remember the old nursery rhyme  - Hey diddle diddle - this is how I remember it:

Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the Fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the Moon,
The Old Dog laughed to see such Craft,
And the Fork ran away with the Spoon.

(See Wikipedia for few other versions of the rhyme, along with discussion of the rhyme's possible meaning.)

Some free association in Goddesschess style - feel free to join in:

I see a pattern of pairs that may hold a deeper meaning, in other words, the sum of the whole is greater than its parts:

diddle - diddle
cat - fiddle
cow - Moon
dog - craft
fork - spoon (or dish - spoon)

Could this be a "spell," a formula hidden in "code" that is very very old?

There are some other associations that immediately come to mind:

Line drawing of the Narmer Palette, c. 3500-3400 BCE,
Naqada, ancient Egypt.  She's across the top on the front
and reverse sides, with cow ears and horns.  Her
iconography is extremely old.

cat - dog: opposites; light/dark, ying/yang
cat: associated with witchcraft; ancient Egyptian goddesses (Hathor, Bast)

cow: Hathor, India
cow: milk, food, mother

Craft: witchcraft; wizardry; old magic

dog - Moon: dog howling at the Moon, crying for his mate
dog: ancient game pieces were often called dogs
dog: companion of the Triple Goddess in her death aspect, harbinger of death, bringer of knowledge and insight, faithful companion

Moon: long associated with the Triple Goddess, and with female power, menstruation, creation - birth, death (blood), soma, the Elixir of Eternal Life
Moon: Wife/Mother of the Sun

fiddle: ancient stringed instrument of any sort for making music

fork - spoon/dish - spoon: eating, offering, ritual, feast/festivity

You get the idea...

Is "diddle" really a reference to illicit sexual activity? Could it have some other meaning, something older that has fallen out of usage and collective memory? Or was it simply added somewhere along the line in order to rhyme with "fiddle?"

Could "Craft" be an oblique reference to witchcraft?

"Catgut" was used to string ancient and not so ancient musical instruments. I'm not kidding - check out these definitions of "catgut:"

Catgut is a type of cord that is prepared from the natural fiber in the walls of animal intestines. Usually sheep or goat intestines are used, but it is occasionally made from the intestines of a hog, horse, mule, pig or donkey. ...
Wikipedia

A popular name for classical guitar strings.
www.guitarlessons.net/musicterms.shtml

I looked at the Wikipedia entry on "catgut" and found the following information:

The name neither implies nor derives from any association with cats.

The word catgut may have been an abbreviation of the word "cattlegut". Alternatively, it may have derived by folk etymology from kitgut or kitstring -- the word kit, meaning fiddle, having at some point been confused with the word kit for little cat. According to legend, string makers of the 17th century deliberately misled people to believe that the strings were made of cat intestines in order to protect their industry, as any association with cats was superstitiously believed to be extremely bad luck, and to be avoided at all cost.

For a long period, catgut was the most common material for the strings of harps, lutes, violins, and violas, as well as other stringed musical instruments, as well as older marching snare drums; however, most musical instruments produced today use strings with cores made of other materials, generally steel or synthetic. Gut strings are the natural choice for many classical and baroque string players, and catgut strings are still most commonly preferred in concert-tension pedal/grand and some lever harps because they give a richer, darker sound as well as withstanding high tension within low alto, tenor and high-bass ranges.

Sacred implements including bowls, platters, vials, pitchers and serving/mixing implements of all sorts, made out of all kinds of materials, have long been associated with the preparation of sacrifices to the goddesses and gods in ancient religious traditions. 

Fiddle brought to mind the ancient stringed musical instrument the lyre, which can be found (I believe) in Sumer, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, and ancient Greece.  Probably other places, too - ancient China?  So often one forgets about China and places to the far east of the Mediterranean in discussing herstory.  For instance, this blog that explores the meanings of words associated with the zodiac - in this case, the lyre - connects it to the concept of a tortoise shell.  That's fine - but it's all western analogies cited.  The tortoise shell in ancient China represented the mathematical basis of the first perfect 3 by 3 magical square, the Lo Shu, which may be incorporated into the ancient Chinese game liubo, which many Chinese scholars say is the predecessor of Xiang Qi -- Chinese Chess. All sides of the Lo Shu magic square sum to 15, and it is very very old, between 5000 and 6000 years old.  Perhaps as old as the Horns of Hathor.  And we should not forget what has been called the most ancient preserved zodiac in the world: that carved into the ceiling of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera.  Note: I cannot add graphics at the moment, something to do with Google Blogger maintenance, I believe.  If I remember tomorrow, I will add the necessary pics then.

Okay - so, putting it all together, could the old nursery rhyme actually be an incomplete and imperfectly remembered rendition of a very old spell -- tradition -- that had to do with making offerings of some kind to a deity?  Or a recording, in code, of the steps involved in making such an offering? 

Probably some brilliant graduate student has already written a paper on the subject :) 

The Hind of Hinds - Continued

I want to relate a couple of very interesting "hallucinations" I had last night that are related to the material above and – well, you’ll see where this goes -- I’ve mentioned in earlier posts about how I tend to have hallucinatory "dreams" – not sure what to call the state, exactly, it tends to happens in that area where I’m half awake, or not quite asleep. Last night, or I should say, early this morning, it was between 2 and 3 a.m. when I am prone to wake up these days – anyway, I did my usual, wake up, roll over, look at the clock, roll back to settle into the pillows and I saw what, for the life of me, appeared to be the outline of a bear sitting in my wing chair by the south window. Now darlings, I knew it couldn’t possibly be a bear sitting in my chair, not at 2 in the morning, but it was quite distinctly the outline of a bear, even after I shook my head and blinked my eyes a couple of times and tried to "wake up." It was still there. I laid back down and watched it for awhile; it’s head was moving! It didn’t occur to me until I was having my morning coffee that it was moving in a barely perceptible nodding motion. I was totally stumped as to why this hallucination would not go away even though I thought I was almost fully awake; I fell back asleep – perhaps it was 10 minutes later while continuing to look at the "bear in the chair." It’s a bit hard to explain – this half-baked/half-awake thought process, but since the bear did NOT attack me, I KNEW it was an hallucination, not the real thing (forget about the logic of how a bear would happen to get into a locked house without any noise, happen to wander upstairs into my bedroom, and happen to sit in my chair quietly waiting for me to "wake" up), and so I wasn’t afraid to try and fall back asleep, only annoyed that whatever it was wouldn’t go away. As often happens in these post-menopausal times (women of a certain age in the audience will know exactly what I mean), I then proceeded to wake up about every 45 to 55 minutes for the next couple of hours – sometimes this happens until the alarm goes off at 6 a.m., but last night/early this morning it only happened two more times, and so I was able to get in a last couple of hours of "quality" sleep before the alarm went off. Anyway, when I next awoke, I turned my head and crinked my neck up just to get a look and sure enough, the bear was still sitting in the chair by the window on the south wall. Damn! And still ever so slightly nodding it’s head. I could see it distinctly because my south window overlooks a street light perhaps 50 feet away, and it casts enough light through the curtains to cast eerie shadows inside my bedroom (cue spooky music….) Hmmmmm. Then I rolled over toward the west wall and caught a glimpse of something that set my heart to pounding – a giant serpent! I nearly leaped out of bed -- Of course it wasn’t a giant serpent, it was my "pharmacy" style floor lamp that I have sitting next to the computer hutch, but to my half-awake eyes it took on the form of a gigantic hooded cobra. Hmmmm, a bear and a snake? Very weird. Someone must be trying to tell me something, I thought, as I settled back into my pillows and went back to sleep. OKAY! A bit of back story. The serpent I understand because for the past couple of weeks delion and I have been nattering back and forth about things Egyptian, etc. and I’ve been refreshing my memory by checking out information on Uadjet, the serpent tutorial Goddess of "Upper" (Southern) Egypt, very ancient, who also represents the Sun God (Ra/Re) and, in one of her aspects, is also His Sacred Eye. So the lamp-turning-into-cobra makes sense, in a "dream" way. But the bear? Now, mind you darlings, this all happened before I ever cracked open Walker’s Woman’s Encyclopedia today and copied out the information on "Arabia" published above. As it so happens, when I first opened the book, I came upon an entry of Atalanta: Amazonian huntress, the best athlete in Calydon. As an infant, Atalanta was suckled by Artemis herself, in totemic form as a She-Bear. When she grew up, she took part in the famous hunt of the Calydonian Boar and drew first blood, pausing only to kill two centaurs who tried to rape her on the hunting field. Ah ha! Bells went off in my head. Artemis was the bear! But not only a bear, Walker links her to the "Hind of Hinds" (Hind al-Hunud): "Many Koreshites remained faithful to the Goddess and to their queen, Hind al-Hunud: the Hind of Hinds, similar to the title of Artemis" – but I didn’t know that until I read and then posted the entry on Arabia from The Woman’s Encyclopedia today! So – my admittedly amateur interpretation of my "waking dreams" is that the Goddess (in bear and serpent forms) approve/approved my intent/plan to post more about the ancient battle queens here – even before I knew I was going to do it. Well, they are goddesses, they can "see" the future! A couple notes. Based on what I read in Walker, Fatima, the putative daughter of Mohammed, is a "sister" of the ancient Egyptian cow-goddess Hathor. One of Fatima’s titles is "Red Cow," and Fatima shares many other titles and attributes with Egyptian Hathor. Hathor was also considered a moon goddess, because her horns formed a "crescent" moon. Hmmm, where have we seen that symbol before? Oh yeah, on the flags of many countries where Islam is the majority religion. Hmmm….