SUN WORSHIP — SPINDEN 457 



help man because they are his double in spiritual and intellectual 

 qualities while also possessing their own personal skills which they 

 willingly teach to man if properly approached by a shaman. In 

 this way the pelican becomes a fishing god and the lion a hunting 

 god. It is the shaman who gets in touch with these animal deities 

 and who manipulates the transference to them of the spirits of the 

 dead. It is the shaman who by disguises and medicines can convert 

 liimself into the animal invoked. 



When man first turned from hunting to farming, he found himself 

 more and more exposed to those vagaries of climate that we call 

 weather. Too much or too little sunshine or rain during the grow- 

 ing season spelled failure for his crops ; too early or too late planting 

 brought other misfortunes. The result was that the old masters of 

 all magic, the shamans who had laid ghosts, and who overcame 

 disease and looked after the game supply, were now given new jobs 

 in crop protection. It seems that the help of the dead was asked 

 in the matter of germinating seeds. It seems that female figurines 

 became fetishes of fertility coercive on Mother Earth. It seems that 

 the movements of the sun and stars were studied and astronomical 

 facts were discovered which greatly enhanced the prestige of suc- 

 cessful shamans. It seems that animal gods became specialized as 

 totems, as district protectors, as patrons of crafts, as weather ani- 

 mals, as personalities for stars and planets. 



Also an assured food supply let populations increase and gave 

 time for arts and ceremonies. Pottery, replacing basketry, gave a 

 new vehicle for design, magical or decorative as the case may be. 

 According to a theory now coming into vogue, the agricultural civi- 

 lizations of the Fertile Crescent did not really begin on the flood 

 plains of the Euphrates or the Nile but on the hills of Elam, Anato- 

 lia, Palestine, and Libya. Here there had been, first of all, a gather- 

 ing of wild crops. Perhaps some plants were tamed in situ in 

 natural gardens, others by hand planting in irrigated fields. Then 

 the lowlands were occupied, but only after considerable progress 

 had been made in the upbuilding of concepts of divinity on the one 

 hand and sacred leadership on the other. The part which astronomy 

 played was doubtless great as is indeed hinted in predynastic pottery 

 designs found in the lowest Chalcolithic ^ levels in western Asia. 

 Sacred animals, trees, stars, suns, and sometimes patterns that may 

 involve a concept of the world or the universe are found here. 

 Among comparable Egyptian remains sacred animals are prevalent ; 



* The Cbalcolltliic Is the cultural equivalent of the Neolithic of northern and western 

 Europe but may fall considerably earlier on the time scale. Native copper, which does not 

 mean a metal age because there Is no smelting, sometimes leads to the designation 

 Eneolithle. Actually the word Chalcolithic is applied to early remains with accomplished 

 flint chii)ping distributed from the Mediterranean to the Indus. 



