American Academy of Religion

Death: Myth and Ritual Author(s): Adele M. Fiske Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Sep., 1969), pp. 249-265 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1461655 . Accessed: 16/11/2011 05:12
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Death: Myth and Ritual

ADELE M. FISKE

In myths of the ancient Near East death is conceived not as annihilation but as a continued existence. This existence is minimal, static, a fixed mirror-image of life, existence underground, dark and silent, lost and "wandering," hungry and thirsty. Sometimes there is a second death, or a possible paradise.1Distinction must be made between survival in the world of the living by memory or by posterity, and survival on a plane of existence beyond mortal life and what Gaster calls "punctuality." This distinction implies a further one between "life," - presence on earth with bodily functions - and mere "existence,"2 like rock or stone.s Beliefs about the unknown fate of the dead illustrate the function of myth, translating the real and punctual -into terms of the ideal and durative, projecting ritual procedure to the plane of the ideal situation.4 Rituals of kenosis rather than

those of plerosisrelate to death, especially the mortification and purgation elements in the seasonal pattern.5The concept that to a primitive community life is not a consistent progress from birth to death, but "a series of leases annually or periodically renewed" is illuminating.6 Rites of kenosis (emptying) "portray and symbolize the eclipse of life and vitality at the end of each lease," which is usually related to the seasonal variation in the Syro-Palestinian year, a dry and wet season.' Moreover, what declines and is revivified is the total corporate unit, the but it does not exclude, howtopocosm,s ever, the positive aspect, the plerosis rites. As Eliade points out, all rituals have a common element, an initiatory essence, death followed by "resurrection."' Initiation is death and rebirth, to end and to be perfected, a paradox expressed in an ancient confusion between the words teleisthai and teleutan.Y'The

1 Cf. E. Bendann, DeathCustoms, Analytic an Studyof BurialRites,New York: AlfredA. Knopf, 1930, pp. 57-61, 282. and SThis outlook seems to rest on a clear distinctionbetween existence life. I am indebted to ProfessorT. H. Gaster for this observation. . Cf. deathimageryin Greek poetry. See Robert F. Goheen, The Imagery Sophocles' of Princeton: Princeton University "Antigone,"a Study of PoeticLanguageand Structure, Press, 1951, pp. 37-41, 109; Antigone (823-33) likens herself to Niobe (Iliad XXIV. 602-617). Also see RichmondLattimore, Themesin Greekand Latin Epitaphs,Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962, p. 175. 4 Theodore H. Gaster, Thespis,Ritual, Myth and Drama in the AncientNear East, 2nd rev. ed., New York: Doubleday& Company,1961, p. 24. 6 Ibid., pp. 23, 26. 6 Ibid., p. 23. 8 Ibid., p. 24. SIbid.,p. 132, n. 28. ArchaicTechniques Ecstacy,trans. by W. R. Trask, of ' Mircea Eliade, Shamanism, BollingenSeries LXXVI, New York: PantheonBooks, 1964, p. 64. 10Gaster, Thespis, cit., p. 57. op. 249

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ADELE M. FISKE

schemeof the initiationceretraditional whether into a tribe, a secret monysociety, or as a shaman- is suffering, in death, and resurrection, an ecstatic ascent to experienceof dismemberment, The the sky, descentto the underworld." of life after death would seem concept existenceof to be a projection another to these initiatoryexperiences. Whenthereis a death,the wholegroup is concerned in a "religious state,"made "sacred"by contagionwith the dead. It Hence abstentions required: is forare biddento speak his name, to go to the Men placehe died,to speakto strangers. must keep silence, save for groans,cut their hair andtheir beard,smearclay on face or body, beat, burn and lacerate themselves. All these actions are attributed the deadin mythsof the next to life.12 funeral The ritual itself,a technique, as James says, "to deal with the mysterious and disturbingphenomenonof often includes the following: death,""3 the eyes and mouth of the dead are closed--i. e., he is in darkness and silent- his bodyis washedandanointed, but he is not "purified." Pure water is outsidethe door for purification of kept those defiledby the dead. The water is The procesnot for the deadthemselves. sion that carriedthe body to the grave in Greece was often silent, a custom enforced law.14 Laws also forbade by any violentexpression grief,tearing of cheeks, beatingbreastsand head, even "singing But these are vestiges of the poems."'5

rites of initiatory "death" still found in primitive peoples. Eliade enumeratessome in a list similarto Durkheim's: (1) seclusion in the bush or forest in a larval existence that assimilates the candidates to the dead whose limitations they must observe, not using their fingers, for example; (2) to be daubed with ashes, "covered with dirt" and dust or hidden under masks; (3) a symbolic burial; (4) a symbolic descent to the underworld; (5) a hypnotic sleep from narcotics; (6) ordeals of torture and amputations.1" The severity of primitive mourning with its cruel abstinences and self-torture leads Durkheim to ask why the dead man, presumably a loved member of family or tribe, imposes such torments. He interprets it as a collective reaction against a common danger and psychological shock." If, as Gaster suggests, the rites concern the whole topocosm, the ritual, even though not in this case seasonal, may still express the state of suspended animationof the whole society and environment. Moreover the participation of the living in the world of the dead makes the latter knowable; death itself is now interpreted as a rite of passage to a new mode of existence, both for the group and for the individual who has died.1sAs the initiation ceremony is often one of rebirth, or rather as rebirth is its final stage, this concept also is transferred to the dead who, like the "one about to die," is a neophyte, "newly planted," reborn to new life.19 Rites of mourning

1xEliade, op. cit., pp. 33-34. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, New York: Collier, 1961, pp. 435 ff. 13 E. O. James, Myth and Ritual in the Ancient Near East, New York: Praeger, 1958, p. 31. 14 Erwin Rbhde, Psyche, The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality Among the Greeks,
12 Emile

London: Routledgeand Kegan Paul, reprint, 1950, p. 163.

16 Eliade, op. cit., p. 64. 17
18 19

15Ibid., p. 164, cf. Plutarch, Solon, 21. Durkheim, op. cit., pp. 444-446. Eliade, op. cit., p. 510. Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., p. 43.

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cannot be repulsed." He is Atum in his sun disc, he is Re, rising on the eastern horizon. "I am yesterday, while I know tomorrow." "Yesterday" is Osiris, the yesterday of death is the god of the dead; "tomorrow" is rebirth with the everrising son, the accession of Horus to the rule of Osiris his father."23 No assimilation to the gods is found, however, in the cults of Tammuz, Adonis, or Attis, although they seem superficially to be like that of Osiris.24Survival, save in Egypt and sometimes also there, is only in terms of memory achieved, either by leaving a "name," a monument, or children. In the Akkadian version of Gilgamesh, the hero, facing death, says: "Should I fall, I shall have made me a name.... A (name) that endures I will make for me!"25 A more sophisticated memorial is recommended to the Egyptian: "Make monuments... for the god. That is what makes to live the name of him who does it.... Make thy monuments to endure according as thou are able. A single day gives for eternity, and an hour effects accomplishment for the future."26 The praises offered to the honored dead and the gods of the necropolis "become a remembrance for the

seem to determine certain characteristics attributed to the soul and perhaps are not unrelated to the idea that it survives the body. To explain the rites, to account for mourning, the dead came to be thought of as having a prolonged existence beyond the tomb; this also may have inspired the desire to survive in memory.20 This paper will first briefly consider the general character of existence after death as expressed in myths of the ancient Near East; then it will consider certain specific aspects of this existence in relation to ritual. Any positive existence after death is in a vicarious life, the memory of family or state; for the conscious individual who dies, there is nothing. An apparentexception is the search for personal salvation in the after-life that led to attachment to an "eternal life-giving entity." Ancient Egypt is the earliest example, with its technique based on the principle of ritual assimilation.21Immortality is secured by "assimilation" to the immortal ones, the gods. The dead are juxtaposed with the creator-god, Atum, in the Book of the Dead, thus achieving some form of a renewed creation of life.22 The dead man says: "I am he among the gods who

Durkheim,op. cit., p. 448. in Studies theConcept Salvation, S. G. F. Brandon, TheSaviour ed., of God,Comparative Manchester:ManchesterUniversity Press, 1963, p. 18. 22 AncientNear EasternTexts ed. Relatingto the Old Testament, James B. Pritchard, Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1950), p. 3, 1500-1000 B. C. version. (Abbreviated in furthernotes as ANET.) 23 Ibid., p. 4; also n. 8, 9, 10. Therefore like Atum the dead man's life will endure
20 21

"millions of millions (of years). When all else is destroyed and returns to chaos, Osiris

in the land of the dead, and those identifiedwith him, escape destruction."The Pyramid Dynasties texts, appliedfirstto the pharaoh only, thento queensandby the Eleventh-Twelfth (21st century B. C. and after) to "worthy nonroyalpersons,"also identify the dead man with Osiris and Horus: "O Atum, the one here is that son of thine," Osiris, whom thou hast caused to survive and live on. He lives - (so also) this King Unis lives. He does not die - (so also) this King Unis does not die, He does not perish- (so also) this King Unis does not perish."Ibid., p. 9, 32. "The Ritual Techniquesof Salvationin the Ancient Near East," 24 S. G. F. Brandon, in The SaviourGod,op. cit., pp. 28-29.
25

ANET, p. 79.

26 Ibid.,

p. 416.

252 future,for all who come to pass by."'27 "Enrich houseof the West; embellish thy This same thy place of the necropolis." text adds later: "a good characteris a remembrance."28 an ethical variation on the old theme.The deadman,speaking as Osiris, says: "My heiris healthy,my tomb endures; they are my adherents In (still) on earth."2' the MiddleKingdom betweena manandhis soul, the dialogue man promisesthat, if his soul will allow him to commit suicide, he will give a shelterover its corpse,with friends,relatives and an heir to make the offerings and stand by the grave. The soul, in answer, warns against abnormal death, whose telling a parableof a fisherman are children lost on the lakeanddevoured crocodiles.The fisherman's by daughter is unmarried; does not weep for her, he although"thereis no comingforthfrom the West for her," but for her unborn in children "broken the egg, who saw the face of the crocodile-god beforethey had There is a worse fate (even) lived!"30 than lack of properburial,i. e., a total non-existencebased on the distinction betweenperpetuation identityand the of of physicalcontinuation life. There is no life at all for the children, the "soul" but can be remembered. The more survivors mournone the to to better, according the shadeof Enkidu in the story of Inannaand Gilgamesh. The fateof the manwith one or two sons
27

ADELE M. FISKE

is missing from the tablet, but the man with three sons "drinks much water," the heart of the man with four rejoices; the man with five, "Like a good scribe, his arm has been open, he brings justice to the palace"; the man with six rejoices in heart "like him who guides the plow"; the man with seven is "as one close to the gods." There is obviously a hierarchy here of increasing blessedness in quantitative survival. The man whose body lies unburiedfinds no rest in the nether world, but what is it precisely that finds no rest? Achilles cries: "then somethingof us does survive even in the Halls of Hades" after the vision of his dead friend (Iliad 23.103-104). Is it only his own memory and sense of obligation to perform the funeral rites? The origin of the concept of the "soul" first as life-force, then as dual, life-soul and image-soul, or in even more complex forms, will not be discussed here.31 There is no return from death. The Mesopotamiangods who are said to bring the dead back from the underworld in fact merely preserve the life of those on the point of death.32 "Salvation" means the cure of sickness in this life.33 The eschatology of early Greece as well as of Babylonia was foreign to any ideas of resurrection of the individual; "the individual was only a link in the chain of the generations."34 The return of the dead at seasonal festivals was in terms of
Ibid., pp. 417-418. Ibid., p. 406.

Ibid., p. 33, cf. n. 1.

28

31For the misery of the unburied,see Samuel Noah Kramer, Sumerian Mythology, a Study of Spiritualand LiteraryAchievement the Third MilleniumB. C., New Yorkin Evanston:Harper & Row, 1961, pp. 36-37. The theme is familiar in Greek literature (Patroclus,Antigone's brother, etc.); see Fustel de Coulanges,The AncientCity, Part I. For the concept of soul, see Erwin Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, New York: Abrams,n.d., burialbut also suicideor virginity keeps souls dangerously pp. 10-13. Not only inadequate attachedto their bodies (p. 12). See below, p. 19, "duration" and "seconddeath." 32 Theodore H. The Interpreter's Gaster, "Resurrection," Dictionary the Bible, New of York-Nashville:AbingdonPress, 1962, IV, 40. 33Brandon, 29; ANET, p. 369. p. 84 Martin P. Nilsson, GreekFolk Religion, New York-Evanston: Harper & Row,
1961, p. 60.

29 Ibid., p. 9.

3o

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Until we (too) may travel to the places where they have gone.38 The gods are, in fact, deaf to man's cry: "The Weary (of Heart) [i. e., Osiris] hears not their mourning, and wailing saves not the heart of a man from the underworld."Therefore make holiday now, you will never come back.39 The Goddess Inanna is asked why she has come to "the land of no return," following the road "whose traveller returns not."40 The Akkadian version amplifies the briefer Sumerianstatement: To the Land of no Return, the realms of [Ereshigal],

the community.3 When "life" emerges from the underworld, it is in a cosmic sense, as the rising of the sun or the Nile brought forth from the underworld for the maintenance of the people; the sacred river enters into the Underworld and comes forth above, "loving to come forth as a mystery."36 "I am while I am," one text says ambiguously.37 The Egyptian secular songs repeat the ancient lament: What are their places now? As though they had never been! There is no one who comes back from (over) there, That he may tell their needs, That he may still our hearts,

Gaster, Thespis,op. cit., p. 44. pp. 370-371; cf. p. 370, n. 12. The goddess Inannabelieves Father Enki will "surely bring me to life," when she goes down to the land of death (ANET, p. 54). When she does ascend from the nether world, her corpse having been restored to life, "verily the dead hastenaheadof her." But these are not ancestralspirits, they are ghosts, evil spirits (Gaster, Thespis,op. cit., p. 59), "smalldemonslike the spear shafts and large demons.., .walked at her side." (ANET, p. 56). They, like Ereshigaland Nergal, rulers of the underworld,are bearersof death, deities of pestilenceand ascend only to carry off the gods to destruction(ANET, p. 57; Walter Adison Jayne, The HealingGodsof Ancient New Haven: Yale University Press, 1925, p. 104). Civilizations, for the King Meri-ka-re."In Egypt the gods are 38 ANET, p. 416: "The Instruction immortal;Re, "uniquein nature," passes eternity above (ANET, p. 367). But in many literary texts is expressedthe hope of securingan "eternalhappiness"for the individual who has died, the ordinaryindividual, the king alone as in earliertimes (ANET, p. 34). not After the death of the body, the dead man would come into unrestrictedpossessionof his essential self, in a state of beatitude (Gaster, "Resurrection,"Interpreter's Dictionary, IV, 39-43). Like other ancient peoples, the Hebrews believed that the dead continued to exist but in a minimal form of existence without memory or experience of God's presence (Gaster, "Dead, the Abode of the," Interpreter's Dictionary the Bible,I, 787-788). They of "were defunct, not deceased" (Ibid.). The Akkadian,Sumerian,Hittite, and Babylonian texts have a more clearly defined attitude toward life after death: There is none. The underworld"existence"is not worthy to be called "life." "Who, my friend, is superior to death?Only the Gods (live) foreverunderthe sun. As for mankind,numbered their are days; whateverthey achieveis butthe wind!" (ANET, p. 79: Akkadian Epicof Gilgamesh). The Sumerianversion of Gilgamesh also gives no hope of desirableimmortality.Enlil, father of the gods, has not destinedthe hero for eternal life but for kingshipand heroism (ANET, p. 50).
15

18 ANET,

38 ANET, p. 467. ol KaiAbvTEsin Homer. 4oIbid., p. 54.

39Ibid., p. 467. "Weary" (wrd'ib) is a common term for the dead; cf. Greek

254
To the dark house, the abode of Irkal [la], To the house which none leave who have entered it, To the road from which there is no way back.41 Enkidu uses the same words of the house The gods kept life and the road of death.42 for themselves; "death for mankind they set aside."'4 In the Ugaritic tale of Aqhat, the goddess Anath tempts the youth with immortality if he will give her his bow: Ask for life, O Aqhat the youth. Ask for life and I'll give it to thee. Ask for deathlessness, and I'll bestow it on thee. I'll make thee count years with Baal With the sons of El shalt thou count

ADELE M. FISKE

burden of creation,47to be brought to an end by death and trouble.48The fate of mankind is to become like Enkidu, to lie down and rise no more, to turn to clay, to be devoured by worms.49 Utnapishtim "who joined the assembly of the gods in search of life," could give no help to Gilgamesh when he came to ask "about life and death."50There is not one who fails to reach the plane of death."1 What then is the relation of the living to the dead as expressed in ritual? This consideration will be limited to some aspects of fasting, solitude, transformation (or inversion) and apotropaism.
FASTING

Death itself is insatiable hunger; the dead hunger and thirst. Sheol is an "inmonths.44 satiable demon with wide-open throat, answers scornfully: "Further life gaping jaws."52 It is interesting that the Aqhat - how can mortal attain it?"' 4Life, says same terms describe death and the seven a Hittite prayer, is bound up in death and fertility gods. The gods are "a lip to death in life. "Man cannot live forever; earth, a lip to heaven, so that there enter the days of his life are numbered." their mouth the fowl of heaven and fish Regretfully it adds that grievous sickness of the sea."53Of death it is said: "Its one would not be so hard to bear "were man lip (is stretched) upward to the sky,/ to live forever." Sickness is the foretaste Its other (downward) to the nether of death."4Man's destiny is to bear the world./ Baal will descend into its maw
41 Ibid., 42

p. 107.

Ibid., p. 87. In the myth of "Gilgamesh,Enkidu and the Nether World," when Enkidu,as Gilgamesh'sservant,goes down to the underworldto bring back his master's pukkuand mikku(drumand drumstick),he is seized not by demons or by Nergal but by the netherworld itself. This myth or one like it is depictedon seals reproduced Kramer. by In one the goddess Inannastandson a mountainnear a tree, the hulupputree perhaps;the sun-godrises out of the lower regions; Gilgameshholds a bow. In anotherthere are two mountains(the Sumerian meansnetherworld), one containing burning a word for mountain god, the other god holding a bull-manby the tail. In a third, a deity emerges from the underworldand a god or Gilgameshis choppingdown a bent tree whose arch makes a form enclosinga goddess and the emerginggod (Kramer,pp. 34-35). mountain-shaped 43ANET, p. 90, Akkadian. 44Ibid., p. 151. 45 Ibid. 46Ibid., p. 400. 48Ibid., p. 385, Lamentto Ishtar. 4 Ibid., pp. 99-100. Ibid., pp. 95-96. 49Ibid., pp. 91, 88. o0 51 Egyptian,Singerwith Harp, ANET, p. 34. 52 Prov. 1:12; Isa. 5:14; Hab. 2:5. Cf. Gaster, "The Dead," Interpreter's Dictionary. 53Cyrus H. Gordon, "CanaaniteMythology" in Mythologies the Ancient World, of ed. Kramer,New York: Doubleday, 1961, p. 189.

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whom I loved has turned to clay," said Gilgamesh.88 The vision of death is so dreadful that Enkidu does not wish to describe it; his "body is devoured by vermin and filled with dust."89 All has turned to ashes,70 as at Ishtar's descent, dust spread over "door and bolt," i. e., over the dwellings of men who no longer go in or out.7' Death's filth is deep and everlasting;12 it reeks with the stench of bird-droppings, decayed fish, stagnant pools, reedy marshland,crocodiles.73Enki sends the food and water of life to revive Inanna's corpse by Kurgarru and Kalaturru, two sexless creatures that he forms from dirt. Enkidu is told not to wear clean clothes in his descent, not to anoint himself with oil, not to wear sandals.74The gods whom Inanna visits with her grim escort of demons all sit in the dust, dressed in dirt, humbling themselves to avoid being carried away to the
underworld."7

go down into its mouth, (like food)."''4 The soul is hungry;65 its shadowy existence depends on the offerings made it of food and drink.568 The demons that followed Inanna were beings that do not know food or water, that do not eat sprinkled flour or drink libated water.57 But the human dead must eat dust and clay.58 The soul that has no one to offer it libations, "no one to tend it," must eat "lees of pots, crumbs of bread, offal of the street."59 The famine that came when Telipinu hid himself not only made hills, trees, pastures barren and springs dry, but created famine for men and gods, a famine like death itself so that even a great banquet could not satisfy their hunger and thirst.e0 Thirst accompanies hunger.8' "I was parched and my throat was dusty. I said: 'This is the taste of death.' " Death is described as a "field of thirst" by Babylonians; Egyptian dead pray for water; the Orphic tablets direct the soul to cool springs.62 Related to hunger and thirst is the image of dust, dirt. "Dust is their fare and clay their food."83 Death himself, Mot, devoured mud in the underworld.64 This diet or lack of life-giving food explains their constant thirst and languor.65 The dwellings of death are desert land.88Ar4 Mawdt is the Arabic term for discarded waterless land; as in Latin, sterile soil is said to have died.6' The dead themselves are earth: "My friend
64Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., p. 206.

These concepts reflect a ritual preenactment of death, to avert the reality. The concept of descent to the underworld, either to bring back the soul of a sick man or to escort the soul of the dead to the realm of death is found in shamanist ritual.7' Fasting, connected with marriage and initiation as well as with mourning, expresses an "occlusion of personality," an evacuation of the former self; it is the hunger and thirst attributedmythically to the dead." It further represented for the

66 ANET, p. 405. Isaac Mendelssohn,Religionsof the AncientNear East, New York: Bobbs-Merrill LiberalArts, 1955, p. xviii.
56

6' ANET, p. 405.

11
61

58
62

Ibid., p. 87.

Ibid., p. 99.

60 Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., p. 303.

Isa. 5:13. ANET, p. 106. 65Ibid., pp. 203-204.

63

Gaster, Thespis, cit., pp. 204, 185. op.

Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., pp. 213-214. Ibid., p. 131, n. 17.

64 66

Ibid., p. 132. Cf. below, note 155. 6s ANET, p. 91.

67

70Ibid., p. 82.
72

69 Ibid., pp. 98-99.

71

ANET, p. 107.

Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., p. 204. r4 Kramer, p. 35. 76Eliade, op. cit., p. 203.

73ANET, p. 406. 16 Ibid., pp. 95-96. " Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., pp. 29-30.

256 topocosm the intercalary periods that are, as the dead are conceived to be, outside time, vacant days of suspended animation.7s Such were the Thesmophoria of late October, the nine-day fast held in Cyprus, the fast of Demeter Chloe at Athens, the April fast for Ceres in Rome, etc.'9 The Hebrew term for fasting bears out this sense of constraint, restraint of personality. The Jewish fast from the seventeenth of Tammuz, to the ninth of Ab in midsummer is borrowed from the Babylonian cult of Tammuz, according to Gaster. Teshrit was the "lenten period" of the Babylonian New Year.so The dead were thought to be weary, languid, weak, for this is what the fasting initiate experiences. Before becoming a shaman, a candidate must be ill for a long time, tortured by the shaman ancestral souls, until he becomes and remains inanimate, his face and hands blue, his heart scarcely beating.8' Sometimes the fast from food is so severe that he falls unconscious and awakens to find his body sore all over.82 These long fainting spells and lethargic sleeps obviously are symbolic death.83The earliest burials of prehistoric man show bodies in the position of rest, like the Neanderthal youth whose head rests on a pillow of flint flakes.84Osiris, with whom the Egyptian dead was identified, is told: "Wake up, Osiris, stand up thou Weary One!"-18 Ibid., pp. 26, 28-29.
80

ADELE FISKE M. a ritual phrase.85This unconscious state is prolonged for a ritual period of seven days andnights, or three days andnights.86 There is another myth-approach to death in which the hungry dead (in Buddhist belief there is a special hell for "hungry ghosts," preta) are fed and therefore "live." Life in the next world is thus idealized chiefly by the Egyptians, in symbolic terms taken from ordinary existence, especially food and drink. The dead sail on the canals, plow, thresh and reap in rich fields surroundedby waterways.'7 There is the pool of the kha-birds, there are the fields of giant barley, there are the south winds.88 There are trees, two sycamores of turquoise (green), groves of jewel-fruited trees, bearing cornelian and lapis.89 Water and grain are sources of life, symbols of life; wind is the breath of life, perhaps, as the Indian cosmic pr.a and apina; birds are the bird-souls of the dead.90 Trees are the symbols of paradise where the tree of life grows with its fruits, here described as jeweled, elsewhere golden, as in the garden of the Hesperides. The tree is also the support of the cosmos, the post on which Shu, the air god, lifted the heaven separating it from earth, as in the Vedic myth where Brahma is the wood and the tree, and heaven is supported on posts, skambha.91 However, the plant that rewards 79Ibid., p. 27. Eliade,op. cit., pp. 43-44. 88 Ibid., p. 53.

Ibid., pp. 30, 27-28. 82 Ibid., p. 84.

84

81

86 Brandon,
86

James,op. cit., p. 32.

op. cit., p. 22, Pyr. 2092a-2093b. See above, note 39.

87 James,op. cit., p. 218. Eliade,op. cit., p. 44. 88 ANET, p. 33. 89 heavens. Ibid., pp. 33, 89, Gilgamesh.A commonfeaturein Paradise,also in Buddhist 90 See

Gaster-Frazer, New Golden Bough, p. 151 and additional notes; G. Weichert,

des Seelenrugel (1902); H. Grapow, Die bildlichen (1924), 93 f. Ausdriicke Aegyptischen

So also in Christian hagiography, e. g. Gregory of Tours, Dial. IV, 10; St. Benedict's

sister Scholastica;Polycarp, etc. Medieval Celtic Romancesoften portraysouls as singing birds on the trees of Paradise.Thornton Wilder refers to this in a passageof The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
91A. A. MacDonell, Vedic Mythology, Strassburg: Tribner, 1897, p. 11.

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flash, but he who reaches the West is welcomed as "safe and sound.""95 The dead man becomes "a living god," with power to judge and punish sin; he stands in the bark of the sun; he is a man of wisdom."9 In two Egyptian texts death is desired. The "Eloquent Peasant" longs for the coming of death as a thirsty man craves water, as a nursing child desires The suicide sees death as release: milk."97 It is recovery from illness, going out into the open after confinement, sitting under an awning on a breezy day, the end of rain and clearing of the sky, returning home after an absence; it is the fragrance of myrrh and of lotus blossoms.9" The dialogue on human misery remarks with some acerbity, "if you look, people are uniformly dull." Mankind lacks true understandings and to plan evil is unavoidable for men.99 There is no one to speak to; all are hostile. Life is so limited, "a circumscribedperiod: (even) the trees must fall."100 Songs "in the ancient tombs" magnify life on earth and belittle the necropolis, but this is wrong! "Why is it that such is done to the land of

Gilgamesh's search for life, "a plant apart, whereby a man may regain his life's breath,"only restores vigor and youthto the living,not life to the dead.92 Plantsas life hereandnow are suggested by the story of Enki, who, havingfilled ditcheswith water from his phallus,and applesand presenting gifts of cucumbers, semen into the womb of grapes, pours Utta, the fair lady, who brings forth eight sacredplants,the "tree"plant,the "honey"plant, the roadweedplant, the thorn,the caper,the cassiaandtwo plants whose names are lost. Because Enki devoursthem, he is cursed;the "eye of life" will not look upon him; the eight deities that are eventuallyborn for his healing may be related to these eight plants.93 that the conviction of Nilsson remarks held by a happierlot in the underworld the Eleusinianinitiates sprangfrom an ideathatthe other ancientandworldwide life is a repetitionof this life, a mirror Death becomeseven more deimage.94 sirablethan life. What is done on earth is "a kind of dream"that passes in a

92ANET, p. 96. 98 Kramer,op. cit., pp. 58-59. One is Ninkasi, goddess of strong drink and therefore perhapsa vegetationdeity; anotheris Ningishzida,an underworld god (ANET, pp. 39-41; cf. p. 40, n. 54). Food and water are the source of life and energy. So in the next life, to be "an effective spirit in the beautifulWest" i. e. to be able to go up and down in the necropolis, even to be in the retinue of Osiris, is the result of "being satisfiedwith the food of Wen-nofer (Osiris)." The deadcan then come forth from the tomb by day, assume any form he wishes, play draughts,sit in the arbor,come forth as a "living soul" (ANET, p. 3). In the story of Adapa,a mortalis offered the breadof life, the water of life that is the food of the gods andthat would make him too a god. Fooled by Ea, Adaparefusesthe breadand water: "Thou shalt not have (eternal) life! Ah, per(ver)se mankind!" cries Anu Ishtaris sprinkledwith the water of life from the "lifewaterbag" kept in triumphantly. the underworld, thus restoredto life (ANET, p. 108; Kramer,p. 87). In the Sumerian and version Enki sends the food of life and the water of life to be sprinkledsixty times on Inanna'scorpse (Kramer,p. 87). 4 Nilsson, p. 59. Paradisehas not only the sweet water, the cropbearingfields, as above, but it is also, in Gilgamesh,a pure, clean bright land, "Dilmun,"where there is no sickness, old age nor death; no ravens, ittidu-birds,lions, wolves or wild dogs (ANET, pp. 37-38; cf. n. 8). 96ANET, p. 34. 96 Ibid., p. 407. 98 91Ibid., p. 410. Ibid., p. 407. 100 99Ibid., pp. 439-440. Ibid., pp. 405-406.

258 eternity, the right and true, without errors? Quarrelling is its abomination and there is no one who arrays himself against his fellows." This happy dream of the after-life, however, remains rooted in this life and its best moments.0"' Ritual often involved banquets, communion feasts that united the whole community, living and dead, mortals and gods. They would nourish their common life on a common food. From this may have derived the idea of the food of immortality. The dead partake of food which gives the "gods" their immortality. The gods, it is to be noted, always have special food for this purpose - nectar and ambrosia,the food of life in the Adapa myth, the trees in Eden. The returnof the dead in Babylon was always connected with funerary offerings.102 So too the Persians on the feast of Tirajan, the Mandaeans in the New Year month of Tishri, the Greeks on the Anthesteria, the Romans on the Parentalia and the Lemuria. In Babylon the dead "ascended" to eat of the sacrifice.103When, as on the Anthesteria, the dead were thought to swarm up into the world of the living, the days were unclean and temples were closed.'04For while the recent dead were more feared and the long-dead were more revered, the presence of both was always considered to upset the balance of society.'05 A distinction must be made

ADELE M. FISKE

between food for the former and feasts at which the latter return. The ancestral dead merely symbolize the continuous communion of the topocosm: "Our founders are with us in spirit."'06 Thus the ritual united the actual present community with the "ideal and durative" one.
SOLITUDE AND WANDERING

The abode of the dead is hidden; the dead are described as "those secret of place."'0' They themselves are veiled of face.'08 The location, when conceived of as a common dwelling of the dead, is sometimes below, sometimes in the north, sometimes in the east or west, but always remote, "yonder." Inanna sets her mind to descend to the "great below," a space beneath the surface of the earth.109The "universe" in Sumerian terms is an-ki, "heaven-earth,"the above and the below. Kur or ki-gal is the nether-world, the empty space between the earth's crust and the primeval sea, to which the skygoddess Ereshkigal had been carried off to be its queen. The "river of the underworld" is "man-devouring."110 The hero also lay in his grave at the place where he was venerated,sometimes acting as malevolent, more often as a helpful spirit."' The early Greeks accepted this simultaneous abode of the dead in tombs (the body) and in a common underworld (the

101 Ibid., p. 33. Panofsky distinguishes"prospective"from "restrospective"ideas of the next life. The formerare earlier,magicaland for the dead; the latter developlater and are to comfort the survivors (p. 16). Cf. Gardiner,Attitudeof the AncientEgyptiansto Deathand the Dead,Cambridge,1935, p. 32. 102 Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., pp. 46, 64. 103 Ibid., p. 44. 104 R6hde, p. 168. See also Jane Harrison,Prolegomena the Study of Greek to Religion, New York: Meridian,1960, pp. 32-51. 105 Eliade,p. 207. 106 Commentof Dr. Gaster. 107 DicANET, p. 32; cf. n. 2. Cf. Gaster, "Dead, Abode of the," The Interpreter's tionaryof the Bible,op. cit., I, 787-788. 108 109 Ibid., p. 105. Ibid.,p. 53. 110 111Nilsson, pp. 8-9; 18-19. Kramer,pp. 41, 76, 38, 46.

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"shade"). Egyptian texts speak of "the Hades."4 The foreshadowing of death horizon dwellers," a term later changed comes to Gilgamesh when he sleeps in a from akhtiu to akhu, "effective person- land that is dark with shadows of dusk.'15 alities," i. e., the blessed dead who dwell In Enkidu's dream he sees the House of Darkness where there is no light, the far away.112 In the papyrus of Ani, a dead man asks "house where dwellers are bereft of Atum about the land of burial: "O Atum, light.., .and see no light, residing in what is it? I am departing to the desert, darkness."'11In the Hittite epic, "Kingthe silent land!" Atum's reply describes ship in Heaven," Alalus is dethroned by the land of the dead: it has no water, Anus: "down he went to the dark no air, "deep, deep, dark, dark, bound- earth.""' The sun-god goes down each less, boundless," there is no sexual night to the underworld,118 the dead yet When Baal dies, he pleasure, no bread and beer; instead do not see his face.119 there is "a blessed state," and "peace of too is placed "in the holes of the numinous heart."113We have here many of the dead, even in the earth."120The dead, elements of death: departure, hunger and like the night, are veiled and cannot see.121 Death is silence. At night, the image of thirst, dryness, darkness, silence and alienation. death, the people are quiet, the night is Death is darkness. As Sheol in Job veiled, the holy places are quiet and (10:20-21), so the Greek idea of the dark.122When the sun sets, "the land other world was of a dark and gloomy is in darkness, in the manner of death."
12 ANET, p. 33. These giant horizon dwellers, nine cubits (over fifteen feet) in height, reap in the barley fields of Re, "by the side of the EasternSouls." The sun is gloriously reborn every morning; so too a mortal who has left this world is reborn for eternalhappiness the other world. The entranceinto paradiseis signifiedby the eastern in horizon: "going in and out of the Easterndoors of Heaven among the followers of Re. I know the EasternSouls." Re issues from the centraldoor in the east. So in the Pyramid Texts. Under the influence of Osirian doctrine this shifted in the 6th Dynasty to the West. See J. Vandier, La Riligion 1gyptienne(1949), p. 95. This is explainedin the Book of theDeadas the augustdoor, the Field of Reeds which bringsforth food for the gods who surround shrineof the sun-god.The door is also the "doorof the liftings of (the air-god) the Shu,"i. e., the lifting of heavenfrom earth,thus creatingspace;it is the door of the Underworld, the door from which the creator Atum goes forth in the East. It is east, and has a north and a south: in the south is the pool of the khu-bird, the north the waters of the in ro-fowl; its wind is southerly,its currentnorth (ANET, p. 33; cf. n. 2). Amon, the AllLord, who is both present and absent in heaven and the underworld,presides over the East (ANET, p. 368). In the westerndarkness,the westerndoors of heaven,thereis danger from a dragonwho turnsits eye on Re; the god mustbe savedby Seth so that he may cross and the underworld be rebornin the morning.Man too must be saved from the deadly eye of a serpent. A magic charm protects the dead buried in the ground, by enablingit to "know the Western Souls." Acquaintance"would facilitate the receptionof the dead in the next world" (ANET, pp. 12, 10, n. 2). To reach the west is to attain "the place of settling down, the guide of the heart;the West is home" (ANET, p. 405). The isles of the blest at "the ends of the world" are usuallylocatedin the west (Rihde, pp. 55-79). 11 ANET, p. 9. 114 Nilsson, op. cit., p. 115. 11s ANET, 17
119 121

122

120 Gaster, Thespis, cit., p. 215. op. ANET, p. 105; Mendelssohn, cit., p. 215. op.

p. 48. Ibid., p. 120. Ibid., p. 9.

16
118

Ibid., p. 87. Ibid., p. 400.

ANET, p. 391.

260 Men sleep with headswrapped "nor up, sees one eye the other." Darknessis a shroud,the earth is in the stillness of death,for the sun, the creator,is resting. "When thou has risen they live, when When Inanna thou settest, they die."123 descends into the underworld,as the are seven ordinances taken from her she is told to be silent, not to questionthe Enkidu rites of the netherworld.124 going to retrieve the drum of Gilgameshis warnednot to cry "or a 'cry' will seize "their you."125 The dead are dumb,126 words were silenced, they themselves stoodstill."127 They arethe "silentmen," This deathis the "silentland."128 silence can be dreadfulas when "stillness is pouredout" at the descent of Ishtaror vision of the Underas in the Akkadian world: "thenetherworldwas filledwith terror; before the prince lay utter stillness.'"129 Silenceis linked with quiet and rest. This can have positive connotations. The Death is "the day of mooring."'13 Egyptiantomb in the desert valley is theplacewherehe hashisrest.131 Quietude is the happylot of the dead,a fulfillment. They are stilled from tumult, released Yet from the cares of this world.132 the The ideaof rest also impliesweakness.133 dead are pale, powerlessshadows,withDeath weakens vital enerout vigor.'34
123

ADELE M. FISKE

They are weary of strength,136 gies.135 without sense or feeling, phantomsof mortalswhose weary days are done.137 Telipinuburieshimself;fatigueovercame him.13s Enkidu, facing Humbaba and death, found that his hand had become limp and weak; he and Gilgameshwere like weaklings.139 thou Weary One, "O O wearySleeper... Weary is the Great So One," says a CoffinText.14" too the humbledead are weary ones, the soul is inert.141 Gilgamesh'sdeath is described the as ascending mountainand lying on the bed of Fate, the multi-colored couch. He, the great leader,now lies and rises not.142 in Aqhat'spowerlessness deathis his explained: bloodhas pouredout like sap, his breath escaped like wind, his soul like vaporor smoke from his nostrils.143Hittite goddessesof the underworld, Istustayaand Papaya,are seen in the green forest "sitting and bowing The down."'14 "cryof the netherworld," to avoid which Enkidu must observe ritual silence, is "for her who is lying, for her who is lying,/ The mother of the god Ninazuwho is lying..."145 Deathis also homeless The wandering. dead are "moored,"and yet they are "thewandering dead,the fleeting ghosts." Burialmeans "takinga man out of his house, (so that) he is left on the hillA in side."'46 man, who is experiencing
Ibid., p. 55. Nilsson, p. 115.

Ibid., p. 370.

124
126

125 Kramer, p. 35. 127Ibid., p. 82.

128 Ibid., pp. 366, 375. See p. 366 n. 15 and 375 n. 5: "silent men" might mean the submissiveor humble. 129 Ibid., pp. 107, 110. Cf. Ps. 94.17; 115.17.

ANET, p. 22; see n. 44. pp. 33, 7 n. 1. 134Ps. 88:4, 5. 13as Job 3:17.
130

131

Ibid., p. 420.

132 Ibid.,

1as Nilsson, op. cit., p. 115. 1as Cf. Durkheim, op. cit., p. 78.
137 Gaster, 139 ANET,

138 Ibid., p. 303.

140 Brandon, op. cit., p. 26.
142

141 ANET, p. 405.

143

Thespis, op. cit., p. 205. p. 82.

G. Guterbock, "Hittite Mythology," Mythologiesof the Ancient World, op. cit., p. 149.
145

144Hans

Ibid., p. 51.

Ibid., pp. 152-153.

Kramer, cit.,p. 35. op.

146

ANET, pp. 389, 405.

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life the anguish death,has lost all his the earthwith dustandasheson his head, of and prays: "let me wander by El in the mourninggarb, lacerating strength about,. . let me campin the fields,hunt himself and wandering,and by Anath, These aspectsof wandering.149 Mot, the god of death alongthe highways."147 death that express the cutting off, the himself, whose name means death, the gulf that yawns betweenthe living and god of all that lacks life and vitality, is the dead,are also foundin ritual. described wandering as over the countryThe descentto the underworld desolation behind him.150 usually side,andleaving involvespassing sevensuccessive These journeysreflectthe wanderings of through levels, such as met by Inannaor Ishtar shamans over field and wood during at the gates of the nether world or initiation.151 in the Initiations are usually held in dark Gilgamesh his wanderings: mountains guarded by scorpion-men whose caves or underground, in solitary or glance is death; the twelve-leaguepass places, as the dead dwell in their tombs or tunnelof dense darknessthroughthe or in some common chthonicrealm.152 mountains;the garden of jewels; the The candidates keepsilence,as do mournto ale-wife,Siduri"whodwells by the deep ers and as the dead are supposed do. the who sea";Urshanabi boatman brought The Egyptian ritual of "opening the him over the Waters of Death; Utna- mouth"was, it would seem, the applicaof pishtim the Faraway; and finally the tion to the deceased the rite thatmarks depths of the sea where he found and the end of initiation.They can againsee pluckedthe plant of youth. His failure and breatheand act, in the way peculiar seems to have been in falling asleep, a to them.153 Mot, god of death,dwells in at a crucialmoment,when silent lands, the sun-scorched desert or death-symbol, had said to him, "Up, lie darkregions the underworld.154 of Mawat, Utnapishtim not down to sleep for six days andseven an Arabic cognateof Mot, meansdead him like a mist soil that remainsarid, sterile.155 morA nights."But sleep fanned and he slept till the seventh day. He tuary liturgy tells Osiris to awake and recognized this sleep as death, "The stand up and "shake the dust from Bereaver,"that had laid hold of his thee."156 members.The second fatal error was, not sleep, but a bath in a well whose TRANSFORMATION water was cool. While he bathes, a off a Death is transformation. serpentcarried the plant,"whereby Gilgamesh man may regain his life's breath."148 knows that Enkiduis really dead only even withoutsuchstagesis a when he sees a worm fall out of his Wandering ritualact.The deathof Baalwas mourned nose.157 transformation often into The is by Latpan,the god of mercy, sittingon a bird form. Enkidudreamedthat a foe,
147 Ibid., pp. 438-440.
148

thatsignifies the death, tomb? entering

Ibid., pp. 94-96. Is it too far-fetchedto see here a symbol like baptism,immersion,

149 Gordon,op. cit., p. 211. Gaster, Thespis, cit., p. 125. 150 op. 152 'u Eliade,op. cit., p. 423. Ibid., p. 47. Brandon, cit., p. 22. 153 op. 154 Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., p. 125. 5s Ibid. 156 Brandon, op. cit., p. 22. see 15' ANET, p. 91. For "transformation," below, n. 189.

262
with darkenedface and eagle talons, overpowered, submerged, transformedhim.1s8 He beheld the house of the dead, who are clothed like birds, with wings for garments.159 The Egyptian bi soul was bird-shaped with human head. Kha-birds and ro fowl dwell in the land of the dead.160 In the Sumerianmyth of Enlil and Ninlil, Enlil has three metamorphoses in which he begets three netherworld gods. As the gate-keeper of the underworld he begets Meslamtaea or Nergal, king of the underworld. As the "man of the boat" he begets a third deity whose name is lost.1"' These are anthropomorphic, not theriomorphic, transformations. On cylinder seals Inanna is represented as winged; on the same seal a vulture-like bird may represent the South Wind that damaged her huluppu tree. Other seals show birdmen, one tied by the feet and flung over a god's shoulder, another led to trial before

ADELE M. FISKE

Enki. An underworld dragon is also winged.162 Part of the transformationof death is the loss of distinction and rank. This is not always the case; often the dead continue in the state they had in life, as Achilles lords it over the shades. Yet because there is no permanence, the epic of Gilgamesh sees levelling as common to the sleeping and the dead: "how alike they are!" Commonerand noble rest without distinction,163 inequality is "stilled."164 The rich men who built granite tombs and pyramids have offering-stones as bare as the poor men, whose bodies are abandoned on the dike.s65 The other world is conceived by some primitive peoples as an inverted image of this world. Everything there happens in reverse. A ritual expression of this may be the epagomenal period between the expiration of the old lease on life and the

15s Ibid., p. 87. 160 James,op. cit., pp. 213-214;

161 162

159 Ibid. ANET, p. 33. See also Panofsky, p. 13.

Kramer,op. cit., p. 43. Kramer, op. cit., plates VII and XIX, pp. 32, 60, 78. Cf. also the devouringof Aqhat by vultures (griffins) and the recovery of his body from them (Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., p. 364). In initiationsmaster and disciple are sometimestransformed into hens. Birds in fact are a common symbol of the shaman'sor sorcerer'spower of flight. To become a bird shows that one possesses power even while alive to journey to the sky and beyond it. To know the languageof the birds is to have the gift of prophecy.Shamansoften are said to fly like birds, to perch in trees. Again one recalls St. Joseph of Cupertinowho had an embarrassing (for his brethren)penchantfor suddenlyflying up into trees, or to the roof of the church;similartales are told of the IraniansaintQutb ud-dinHaydn (Eliade,pp. 57. 98, 126, 131, 157-158, 194, 206, 402).
163ANET, p. 405. 164 Egyptian
165 The

texts, ANET, p. 7.

concept of transformation may involve judgmentfollowed by punishmentor a dismemberment apart from any judgment."A man remainsover after death," says the Instructionfor King Meri-ka-re. His deeds are placed beside him in heaps, as a legal exhibit. One who has done no wrong "shall exist yonder like a god" (ANET, p. 415). The idea of punishment the next world that took such strong hold on popularimaginain tion in fifth and fourthcentury Greece (Nilsson, op. cit., pp. 118-119) and in Europeever since is singularlylacking in the texts edited by Pritchard.A Hades for evil-doersis however found, accordingto Wilson for the first time, in a twelfth century B. C. manuscript: Osiris says, "As to the land in which I am, it is filled with savage-facedmessengers... I can send them out and they will bring back the heart of anyone who does wrong, and (then) they will be here with me!" (ANET, p. 16). Mesopotamianbelief shows traces

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passage. When the body of the dead is washed, it is not to purify, but to reanimate. The water for purification, as we saw above, was kept outside the room to prevent evil spirits entering or getting out, as spirits cannot cross water. But the bathing of corpses may be to "invigorate" them with primal essence, the idea underlying baptism. This bath is the bath of Re, the sun-god, daily reborn from the life-giving water. The bath of Gilgamesh in the cool well is therefore ironic, for it caused him to lose the plant of life. The taboo connected with death links it with rites of purgation, expelling of evil and demons.1s9Graves and tombs are "holy" and may not be entered, as we see in the final scene of "Oedipus at Colonus." It is often part of a ritual to expel ancestral ghosts. On the last day of the Anthesteria a rite exorcised the Keres; on the Lemuria in Rome, the paterfamilias banished the 0 ancestors: Manes exitepaterni.17 Death conceived either in terms of cyclic or linear time involves the problem of duration. What happens to the "soul" that survives?17' In the Egyptian texts there is a "spell for not dying a second time."'72 The same idea is implied in the words: "Thou hast not departed dead, thou hast departed living." Later in this same document "to die" is distinguished

inauguration of the new. This is often celebrated by a reversal of the customary order of society, a suspension of ordinary activities, sometimes a temporary rule of slaves over their masters.166During the time of Baal's eclipse in death there was an interregnum of this nature. The temporary king must be strong and powerful, however, and 'Ashtar was rejected because he was too small to fit Baal's throne.16' May this concept be behind the idea, mentioned above, that in the land of the dead there is no more class distinction, that "sceptre and crown must tumble down"? The only distinction in the Gilgamesh dream of death was in the number of sons surviving to feed the dead, not in rank or achievement, still less in virtue. Related to this may be the idea of forgetting. In the Odysseythe dead were mindless and with no memory, fluttering aimlessly, like birds or bats, until they drank the blood. The aim of ordeals and rituals in shamanism is to make the candidate forget his or her past life. On his return to the community, he is looked upon as a revenant. Morphologically this resembles the rites for secret societies and other forms of initiation.168 All transitional stages carry taboos; so death has its taboos as a special rite of

of a judgment theory, as in the constellationLibra,calledthe "scalesof the dead" (Gaster, "Resurrection," IV, Interpreter's Dictionary, 41). An Akkadianvision of the Netherworld shows monstrousbeings, the death god with a serpent-dragon head and humanfeet; the and "Upholderof Evil" with a bird-head wings. Whether the fact that other monstersalso had replaced parts, so to speak, indicates dismemberment and substitutionof superior members has not, to my knowledge, been considered. "Remove Hastily," the boatman of the underworld,has the head of a Zu-bird,the hands and feet of some other being; anotherhas an ox's head and humanhandsand feet; the evil Utukku, a lion's headandthe Zu-bird'shandsand feet; "All That is Evil" has two heads,one the headof a lion (ANET,
pp. 109-110).

167 61. Ibid., pp. 216-219. n. 72. 168 Eliade,op. cit., pp. 64-65; 362, Gaster, Thespis,op. cit., p. 61. 169 170o Ibid., p. 45. 171 Gaster, "Resurrection," Cf. Interpreter's op. Dictionary, cit., IV, 39. See above, n. 31. 172ANET, p. 9.
166 Gaster, Thespis, op. cit., p.

264

ADELE M. FISKE

death" interpreting it A from "to perish."173 charmto save a of this "second by an into involvesa ritual as its conquest, entrance life and deadmanfroma serpent thatmakesthe deadan akh,an "effective escapefrom ultimatedeath. In other where concept happy a of afterlife, being."The phrasein this text, "living words, or deadsoul"mighthavethissameidea.174 Elysian fields,the islesof the west, etc. When wild and savage animals were is found,it derivesfromthe desireto the themso on depicted the walls of tombsthey were drive deadaway,to appease and drawnincomplete lackingsomeessen- that they will stay away,andlater,it them and tial part, lest they be dangerous the cameto mean to giving happiness In for deadmen.175 the "Visionof the Nether peace,hoping the samefor oneself. who is in the world As the end of the suffering ritual and World,"the dreamer him of the dead, sees the king of death, deathof the initiated brings a new to with Nergal, approach kill him.176 Perhaps life in his tribeor community, new here the dreamer not considered is so dead poweranddignity, too mencameto of but merely trappedalive in the under- conceive thefinalstageof thatriteof In that death. world.177 the Egyptian text the ba passage we callactual in A second death a rebirth thenext or and ka survive, the ka especially being eithervital force, protecting sustain- life doesnot implyeither resurrection and of in ing the "soul," or the second self.178 the bodyor reincarnation the Hindu sense.The Vedicconcept The "Disputeover a Suicide"indicates or Buddhist of a distinction between a man and his survival very like that of the early is i. "soul," the man opts for death but Egyptianand Babylonian, e., being in survivaland well-beingto his supported existence sacrificial feedpromises by The C"soul.",,79 ing by one'sdescendants. complaint The idea of a seconddeathor of death with whichthe Bhagavad beginsis Giti in death would seem derived from the justthat if the battle fought all is and second-burial will no rites, which often arekilled,the "Fathers" receive funerary mark the change from the period of more offerings.182 Survival only or is in and in mourning fear of the deadexpressed chiefly one'sson.Rebirth one'sown in fasting, self-torture,silence, etc., to son who thus becomes one's fatheris the transformation the dead into a expressed atransmission of in ritual.183 One's beneficent ancestral spirit. A funeral own sacrifices also builtup a kind of with sacrifices a purification reserve the nextlife, foodor energy, and in banquet of the house may be the custom,180 svadha, by this one wouldget some or and or cremation, other ways of makingthe kindof otherbody.When one's store return of the dead impossibleand yet failedor if one lacked then any svadha, the somewhat "food for appeasing spirit.The aimis to banish onebecame, grimly, the soul.'8'The assimilation the dead, the gods"andwent backto the world of originally the king, with unchangeable cycle as rain etc., dying repeatedly, cosmic beings, the circumpolar stars or punarmrtya. the Brahmania In the period, the sun-god,or identification with a god sacrificer becomes moreimportant than suchas Osirismay be another of expression thegodsandknowledge the riteswas
17"Ibid., p. 32.

177 Cf. Gaster, "Resurrection," Interpreter's Dictionary, cit., IV, op. 179Ibid., p. 405. 17s ANET, p. 431.
180

175 Jayne, op. cit., p. 18.

176

174Ibid., p. 12.

ANET, p. 110.

40.

182 Kaushi.

Eliade, op. cit., pp. 208, 210. Up. 2.15.

181

Rohde,op. cit., pp. 19, 21.

183 Bhagavad Gita 1.42.

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the chief source of continuedexistence If in a body formedby sacrifices.18 you to yonder world not having escaped go death,you are still fetteredandmustdie This againandagain.185 is almostthe later in doctrine whichthose"who Upanishadic know" never returnwhereasthose who merely sacrifice,give alms, practiceausterity, do "return."The former go to the Sun and through the Sun to the Brahma loka;those who do not know go to the moon (soma)andbecomefood for to the gods, returning the elementsand beingbornagain.'?8

world are "extraordinarilyperfected" and must not be questioned, even by the goddess.187 To have contact with the as dead signifies to be dead oneself,188 they found to their cost. Ritual is the way to cope with this, and from the ritual the mythical representations of death's characteristics seem to derive. To sum up: because the basic seasonal and initiation rites are composed of phases of suffering, death and resurrection and rebirth, mythology, in transposing the rite from the "actual and punctual"level to the durative and transcendent, applied to the dead, collectively and individually, the same experiences: ordeals of fasting, isolation, CONCLUSION silence, wandering, transformation, and As Inannaand Ishtarare told in their eventually an emergence into a new descentto death,the rites of the nether- existence of greater power and freedom.1s8

184SatapathaBrahmana, 11.2.6.13; 2.3.3.5 ff.; 10.3.1.9, ff. etc. 185 SB 2.3.3.5 ff. 18s BU 6.2. 188 187 Kramer, op. cit., pp. 91-92. Eliade,op. cit., p. 84.
189 Cf. Evans-Wentzintroduction to The Tibetan Bookof theDead,New York: Oxford University Press, 1960: "To those who had passedthroughthe secret experienceof premortem death, right dying is initiation, conferring.., .the power to control consciously the process of death and regeneration"(p. xiv). Jung in his commentaryon the text calls it "a way of initiation in reverse"; to understandthe original initiation experienceit is Its necessary to reverse the sequenceof the BardoTh6diol. real purposehowever is to enlightenthe dead, whose supremevision occurs right at the beginning;"what happensafterward is an ever-deepeningdescent into illusion and obscuration,down to the ultimate of degradation new physicalbirth." (pp. xlix-li). of Jung calls the belief in the supratemporality the soul the rationalbasis for the cult of the dead; its irrationalbasis is in "the psychologicalneed of the living to do something for the departed."(p. 1). He also sees the aim of initiationto be a "reversal"or transformationof the living that is, for the dead, projectedinto a "Beyond" (p. xl). In this Buddhisttext, of course, all the experiencesare self-created,whether for good (Dharmaor K3yastate of perfect enlightenment) for evil (the karmicillusionsof the Chinyid state).