452 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



language by passing from the solitary hunter stage into the 

 gregarious pastoral stage. Everywhere in the ancient stories 

 (except in Hebrew, as we understand it), " Cow of Heaven," 

 "Bull of Heaven," "Primeval Ox," "Cow of Earth," 

 "Mother-cow," "Goddess-cow," "God-bull," &c., are met 

 with in prayer and praise. If Darkness was the first deity, 

 holding the generative power (as among the Maoris), then this 

 person was certainly called "the Bull" in the oldest Aryan 

 religious hymns. The Zend Avesta, the sacred books of the 

 ancient Persians ("fire-worshippers" though we call them), 

 contain many allusions to this bovine first principle. " Hail, 

 holy Bull ! Hail to thee, beneficent Bull ! Hail to thee who 

 makest increase ! " &c.''' " Up, rise up, thou Moon, that dost 

 keep in thee the seed of the Bull ! "f "To the only created 

 Bull.":|: In the Persian mythology Geush urvd, "the uni- 

 versal soul of earth," means literally the " soul of the 

 cow." (See Haug on Gatha Ahunavaiti, in " Essays on 

 Sacred Language of the Parsis," p. 148.) Concerning Egypt 

 we find that ' ' the Great Mother in her primordial phase 

 was the 'Abyss in Space,' and the earliest recorded begin- 

 nings of time are with the Bull and the Seven Cows."§ 

 In Greece the same idea prevailed. The Argolic name 

 for Dionysius as the Sun-god was " Bougenes " (Ox-sprung). 

 He is called " bull-faced " in the Orphic Hymn. Tauropolos 

 is " the Kosmos considered as alive and animated, replete 

 with motive life-power. This is the kosmogonic bull-cow." 

 " The Bull : This animal in its widest symbolical sense repre- 

 sented the active energising principle of the universe." || 

 This bears out the idea of Pictet as to the prominence the 

 cow or bull took in the myths as well as the lives of the 

 Aryans and men leading the primitive life.H 



Is this Bo (Irish bo, Latin bos, &c.), of the primeval Bull, 

 the primeval Bo or Pa, the " night " of the Maoris ? Dark- 

 ness was connected with the idea of the black Bull before the 

 powers of Pear and Night had been succeeded by the powers 

 of Light — before the great Sun himself became " the Bull of 

 Heaven." In our own English sayings we find "The black 

 ox has trodden on his foot "*'■' — meaning, " Trouble has come 



* " Vendidad," Fargard xxi. 

 t Id. 



I Sirozah i. 



§ See Massey, " Natural Genesis," ii., 4. 



II "The Great Dionysiak Myth," Brown, pp. 42 and 137. 



•I " Ce fait re(,'oit une nouvelle evidence de ce que I'aninial domestique, 

 source de tant de bienfaits, etait rattache par toute sorte d'images et de 

 mythes aux phenom^nes de la nature et aux croyances religieuses." — 

 Pictet, " Les Origines Indo-Europeennes," ii., 87. 



** " Diet. Phrase and Fable," p. 94. 



