GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 123 



of Freyr ; Demeter and Hera, sisters and intimates of 

 Zeus in fact, it brings us face to face with shadows 

 of what were once typical goddesses of the mother-age. 



(3) The second idea of the sexual relationship to 

 which we now pass is associated more directly with the 

 very primitive custom of pounding food in the primitive 

 mill a pestle and mortar. Even here the idea appears 

 not to be unassociated with the rubbing or bruising 

 idea involved in kindling with fire-sticks. The bald 

 sexual notion occurs in trudere, in the term ram for male 

 sheep and in Swabian rammeln. The root, however, to 

 which I would draw special attention is the Teutonic 

 hi, hij, hiw, or, with a guttural attached, hi/g and heg. 

 Other Aryan forms of this word are Sanskrit ski, ksi, 

 thus ks'is is a dwelling, k'sitis is a house, and the place 

 of residence ksd. The root ksi' denotes to hew, thrust, 

 delve, ram, and so is applied to any agricultural operation. 

 To break up the land is, however, to take possession of it, 

 and so the root rapidly takes the significance of owning 

 and ruling. The cognate Latin is civis, a citizen, and 

 all the words involving city and civil must be traced 

 back to the same origin. The civis was, there is small 

 doubt, originally a member of the primitive kin-group 

 or civitas, from which all social or civil rights arose. 

 Taking ram as the primitive meaning of hi, we have it 

 primitively used (i.) for words of sex, (ii.) for tilling the 

 land, (iii.) for driving in stakes, and so founding a 

 dwelling. These three meanings, even in early Teutonic 

 words, pass one into the other and stand as synonyms. 

 The goddess of love, or, perhaps better, of fecundity, is 

 the goddess of agriculture and also of the hearth. The 



