Tbegear. — Polynesian Knoioledge of Cattle. 453 



to him." Again, "bull's noon" is an old English expression 

 for "midnight."* 



In the creation, as spoken of in the Bundahish, the Cow is 

 cut in two. This is the Cow called in the Avesta the Geush 

 (Yasna 29), answering to the Sanscrit Gaiis and the Greek 

 Gaca as aj)plied to Earth. According to the Gatha Ushta- 

 vaiti, the "Cutter of the Cow" is the term applied to the 

 Creator.! This is the cosmic Cow spoken of in the ancient 

 Welsh poem : " Without the stall of the Cow, wdthout the 

 mundane rampart, the world will become desolate." Loki, 

 the Scandinavian deity of evil, had to dwell as a cow eight 

 months on earth. In Assyria the most ancient Bull was an 

 image of the Swallower in the mouth of Hades, the nether 

 world, which swallows up the sun as a two-headed Bull. In 

 Phenicia the god of the beginnings was the consort of Bau, 

 the Void. In Egypt the i?azt (Bo?) was the opening of the 

 tomb, the abyss. In Finland Pohja was "the place of 

 spirits." Pluto, the god of the lower world, received the 

 black ox as a sacrifice. In the Vedic rites of burial 

 {Ghijasutras) a black cow accompanied the dead, and, the 

 animal being slain, the corpse was wrapt in the hide before 

 cremation. In the Brahmanas the death-river is called 

 Vaitarani : in this the souls of the wicked are engulfed ; but 

 the good souls come to the land of the Pitris (Fathers) if a 

 black cow is sacrificed at the funeral and another twelve days 

 after death. In Scandinavia, when souls arrived at the death- 

 river {Giull), the soul of the dead man, if in life he had given 

 cows to the poor, was met by these cows and safely ferried 

 over. In the Norse legends of Creation the cosmic cow 

 Authumbla licked the salty ice-rocks and produced the first 

 giants, BiJrr and Burl. I 1 have one direct proof of the actual 

 expression of "night" and "cow" being the same in meaning, 

 where, in the Eig Veda, the horses of Indra are " bright as 

 suns, who lick the udder of the dark coio, the nigJit."^ 



I must return again to the cattle-deity subject when treat- 

 ing of the word "cow;" but I think I have quoted sufficient 

 evidence to show that the bull (or ox, or cow) was used con- 

 stantly in ancient times as a personification of the Abyss, of 

 Death, of Darkness, and of the generative power passing from 

 darkness into the birth of life — from po, the night, into ao, the 

 light. 11 



* Wright's " Provincial Diet." and Charnock's " Glossary of Essex.'' 

 Hawaiian lean = midnight, 

 t See Haug, I.e., 165. 



I Maori jm, night ; pouri, darkness (?). 

 § See Max Muller, " Chips," vol. ii. 



I I Cf. Hebrew aor, light. Aor, aur, &c,, were names of an ancient deity 

 of the atmosphere in Asia. 



