dance in the presence of the Great Mother, her lions and Attis. | They sometimes appear with the child Dionysus, between whose cult and that of the Mother there was a close affinity. (G. SN.) CORYDON, a town and the county-seat of Harrison county, Indiana, U.S.A., on Indian Creek, about 21 m. W. by S. of Louisville, Kentucky. Pop. (1890) 880; (1900) 16 10. Corydon is served by the Louisville, New Albany & Corydon railway, which connects at Corydon Junction, 8 m. N., with the Southern railway. There are sulphur springs here, and the town is a summer and health resort. Wyandotte Cave is several miles W. of Corydon. Corydon is in an agricultural region, and there are valuable quarries in the neighbourhood; among the town's manufactures are waggons, and building and lithographic stone. Corydon was settled about 1805, and was the capital of Indiana Territory from 1813 to 1816, and of the state until 1824. The convention which framed the first state constitution met here in June 1816. The original state house, an unpretentious twostorey stone building, is still standing. Corydon was captured by the Confederates during Gen. Morgan's raid on the 9th of July 1863. CORYPHAEUS (from Gr. Kopvon, the top of the head), in Attic drama, the leader of the chorus. Hence the term (sometimes in an Anglicized form "coryphe ") is used for the chief or leader of any company or movement. In 1856 in the university of Oxford there was founded the office of Coryphaeus or Praecentor, whose duty it was to lead the musical performances directed by the Choragus (q.v.). The office ceased to exist in 1899. COS, or STANKO (Ital. Stanchio, Turk. Istan-keui, by corruption from Eis Tàv Kŵ), an island in that part of the Turkish archipelago which was anciently known as the Myrtoan Sea, not far from the south-western corner of Asia Minor, at the mouth of the Gulf of Halicarnassus, or Bay of Budrum. Its total length is about 25 m. and its circumference about 74. Its population is estimated at about 10,000, of whom nearly all are Greeks. grove and porticoes; the middle, which is the earliest portion, two or three temples, an altar, and other buildings; and the lower a kind of sacred agora enclosed by porticoes. The precinct had been enlarged and reconstructed at various times. The earliest buildings on the middle terrace probably date from the 6th century B.C. The temple on the upper terrace, with the imposing flight of steps by which it is approached, seems to belong to the 2nd century B.C. when the whole precinct was enlarged and reconstructed. After a destructive earthquake, the whole appears to have been rebuilt by Xenophon, the physician and poisoner of the emperor Claudius. The final destruction was brought about by the earthquake of A.D. 554. Among other things the precinct contains a fountain of water with medicinal properties. It is doubtful whether this water is brought from Burinna, the famous fountain of Hippocrates in the mountain above. History.-Cos was a Dorian colony with a large contingent of settlers from Epidaurus who took with them their Asclepius cult and made their new home famous for its sanatoria. The other chief sources of the island's wealth lay in its wines, and in later days, in its silk manufacture. Its early history is obscure. During the Persian wars it was ruled by tyrants, but as a rule it seems to have been under an oligarchic government. In the 5th century it joined the Delian League, and after the revolt of Rhodes served as the chief Athenian station in the south-eastern Aegean (411-407). In 366 a democracy was instituted. After helping, in the Social War (357-355), to weaken Athenian power it fell for a few years to the Carian prince Maussollus. In the Hellenistic age Cos attained the zenith of its prosperity. Its alliance was valued by the kings of Egypt, who used it as an outpost for their navy to watch the Aegean. As a seat of learning it rose to be a kind of provincial branch of the museum of Alexandria, and became a favourite resort for the education of the princes of the Ptolemaic dynasty; among its most famous sons were the physician Hippocrates, the painter Apelles, the poets Philetas and, perhaps, Theocritus (q.v.). Following the lead of its great neighbour, Rhodes, Cos generally displayed a friendly attitude towards the Romans; in A.D. 53 it was made a free city. In A.D. 1315 it was occupied by the Knights of St John; in 1523 it passed under Ottoman sway. Except for occasional incursions by corsairs and some severe earthquakes the island has rarely had its peace disturbed. AUTHORITIES.-L. Ross, Reisen nach Kos, &c. (Halle, 1852), pp. 11-29, and Reisen auf den griechischen Inseln (Stuttgart, 1840-1845), ii. 86 ff.; O. Rayet, Mémoire sur l'île de Cos (Paris, 1876); M. Dubois, De Co Insula (Paris and Nancy, 1884); W. Paton and E. Hicks, The Inscriptions of Cos (Oxford, 1891); B. V. Head, Historia Numorum (Oxford, 1887), pp. 535-537; Archäol. Anzeiger, 1905, i.; for coins see also NUMISMATICS: Greek, § "Calymna and Cos." (E. GR.; M. O. B. C.) COSA, an ancient city of Etruria, on the S. W. coast of Italy, close to the Via Aurelia, 4 m. E.S.E. of the modern town of Orbetello. Apparently it was not an independent Etruscan town, but was founded as a colony by the Romans in the territory of the Volceientes, whom they had recently conquered, in 273 B.C. The town was strongly fortified, and the walls, about a mile A considerable chain of mountains, known to the ancients as Oromedon, or Prion, extends along the southern coast with hardly a break except near the island of Nisyros; so that the greatest versant and most important streams turn towards the north. The whole island is little more than a mass of limestone, and consequently unites great aridity in the drier mountain regions with the richest fertility in the alluvial districts. As the attention of the islanders is mainly directed to the culture of their vineyards, which yield the famous sultana raisins, a considerable proportion of the arable land is left untouched, though wheat, barley and maize are sown in some quarters, and melons and sesamum seed appear among the exports. The Cos lettuce is well known. Fruit, especially grapes, is exported in large quantities to Egypt, mostly in local sailing boats. The wild olive is abundant enough, but neglected; and cotton, though it thrives well, is grown only in small quantities. As the principal harbour, in spite of dredging operations, is fit only for smaller vessels, the island is not of so much commercial importance as it would otherwise be; but since 1868 it has been regularly visited by steamers. The only town in the island is Cos, or Stanko, at the eastern extremity, remarkable for its fortress, founded by the knights of Rhodes, and for the gigantic plane-in circuit, with three gates, and seventeen projecting rectangular tree in the public square. The fortress preserves in its walls a number of interesting architectural fragments. The plane-tree has a circumference of about 30 ft., and its huge and heavy branches have to be supported by pillars; of its age there is no certain knowledge, but the popular tradition connects it with Hippocrates. The town is supplied by an aqueduct, about 4 m. in length, with water from a hot chalybeate spring, which is likewise named after the great physician of the island. The villages of Pyli and Kephalas are interesting, the former for the Greek tomb of a certain Charmylos, and the latter for a castle of the knights of St John and the numerous inscriptions that prove that it occupies the site of the chief town of the ancient deme of Isthmos. The most interesting site on the island is the precinct of Asclepius, which was excavated in 1900-1904 on the slope of Mount Prion, about 2 m. from the town of Cos. It consists of three terraces, the uppermost containing a temple, a cypress towers at intervals, are in places preserved to a height of over 30 ft. on the outside, and 15 on the inside. The lower part is built of polygonal, the upper of rectangular, blocks, and the masonry is of equal fineness all through, so that a difference of date cannot be assumed; such a change of technique is not without parallel in Greece (F. Noack in Römische Mitteilungen, 1897, 194). Within the city no remains are visible. The place was of importance as a fortress; it was approached by a branch road which diverged from the Via Aurelia at the post station of Succosa, at the foot of the hill on which the town stood. The harbour, too, was of some importance. In the 5th century we hear of it as deserted, and in the 9th a town called Ansedonia took its place for a short time, but itself soon perished, though it has left its name to the ruins. See G. Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (London, 1883), ii. 245. (T. As.) COSEL, or KOSEL, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province | of Silesia, at the junction of the Klodnitz and the Oder, 29 m. S.E. of Oppeln by rail. Pop. (1905) 7085. It has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, an old château and a grammarschool (Progymnasium). Its industries are of some importance, including a manufactory of cellulose (employing 1200 hands), steam saw- and flour-mills and a petroleum refinery. There is a lively trade by river. The first record of Cosel dates from 1286. From 1306 to 1359 it was the seat of an independent duchy held by a cadet line of the dukes of Teschen. In 1532 it fell to the emperor, was several times besieged during the Thirty Years' War, and came into Prussian possession by the treaty of Breslau in 1742. Frederick II. converted it into a fortress, which was besieged in vain by the Austrians in 1758, 1759, 1760 and 1762. In 1807 it withstood another siege, by the Bavarian allies of Napoleon. The fortifications were razed and their site converted into promenades in 1874. COSENZ, ENRICO (1812-1898), Italian soldier, was born at Gaeta, on the 12th of January 1812. As captain of artillery in the Neapolitan army he took part in the expedition sent by Ferdinand II. against the Austrians in 1848; but after the coup d'état at Naples he followed General Guglielmo Pepe in disobeying Ferdinand's order for the withdrawal of the troops, and proceeded to Venice to aid in defending that city. As commandant of the fort of Marghera, Cosenz displayed distinguished valour, and after the fall of the fort assumed the defence of the Piazzale, where he was twice wounded. Upon the fall of Venice he fled to Piedmont, where he remained until, in 1859, he assumed the command of a Garibaldian regiment. In 1860 he conducted the third Garibaldian expedition to Sicily, defeated two Neapolitan brigades at Piale (August 23), and marched victoriously upon Naples, where he was appointed minister of war, and took part in organizing the plébiscite. During the war of 1866 his division saw but little active service. After the war he repeatedly declined the portfolio of war. In 1881, however, he became chief of the general staff, and held that position until a short time before his death at Rome on the 7th of August 1898. COSENZA (anc. Consentia), a town and archiepiscopal see of Calabria, Italy, the capital of the province of Cosenza, 755 ft. above sea-level, 43 m. by rail S. by W. of Sibari, which is a station on the E. coast railway between Metaponto and Reggio. Pop. (1901) town, 13,841; commune, 20,857. It is situated on the slope of a hill between the Crati and Busento, just above the junction, and is commanded by a castle (1250 ft.). The Gothic cathedral, consecrated in 1222, on the site of another ruined by an earthquake in 1184, goes back to French models in Champagne, and is indeed unique in Italy. It contains the Gothic tomb of Isabella of Aragon, wife of Philip III. of France, and also the tomb of Louis III., duke of Anjou; but it has been spoilt by restoration both inside and out. S. Domenico has a fine rose window. The Palazzo del Tribunale (law courts) is a fine building, and the upper town contains several good houses of rich proprietors of the province; while the lower portion is unhealthy. Earthquakes, and a fire in 1901, have done considerable damage to the town. The ancient Consentia is first named as the burial place of Alexander of Epirus in about 330 B.C. In 204 it became Roman, though it was more under the influence of Greek culture. It is mentioned by Strabo as the chief town of the Bruttii, and frequently spoken of in classical authors as an important place. It lay on the Via Popillia. Varro speaks of its apple trees which gave fruit twice in the year and Pliny praises its wine also. It is the more surprising that in the whole of its territory no in- | scriptions, either Greek or Latin, have ever been found, those that are recorded by some writers being fabrications. In A.D. 410 Alaric fell in battle here and was buried, it is said, in the bed of the Busento, which was temporarily diverted and then allowed to resume its natural course. Cosenza became an archbishopric in the 11th century. In 1461 it was taken by Roberto Orsini, and suffered severely. It was the home of a scientific academy founded by the philosopher Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588). In 1555-1561 it was the centre of the persecution by the Inquisi- COSHOCTON, a city and the county-seat of Coshocton county, Ohio, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Tuscarawas and the Walhonding rivers, with the Muskingum river, and about 70 m. E.N.E. of Columbus. Pop. (1890) 3672; (1900) 6473 (364 foreignborn); (1910) 9603. It is served by the Pennsylvania, the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis (controlled by the Pennsylvania), and the Wheeling & Lake Erie railways. The city is built on a series of four broad terraces, the upper one of which has an elevation of 824 ft. above sea-level, and commands pleasant views of the river and the valley. It has a public library. Coshocton is the commercial centre of an extensive agricultural district and has manufactories of paper, glass, flour, china-ware, cast-iron pipes and especially of advertising specialities. The municipality owns and operates its water-works. Coshocton occupies the site of a former Indian village of the same namethe chief village of the Turtle tribe of the Delawares. This village was destroyed by the whites in 1781. The first settlement by whites was begun in 1801; and in 1802 the place was laid out as a town and named Tuscarawas. In 1811, when it was made the county-seat, the present name was adopted. Coshocton was first incorporated in 1833. COSIN, JOHN (1594-1672), English divine, was born at Norwich on the 30th of November 1594. He was educated at Norwich grammar school and at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was scholar and afterwards fellow. On taking orders he was appointed secretary to Bishop Overall of Lichfield, and then domestic chaplain to Bishop Neile of Durham. In December 1624 he was made a prebendary of Durham, and in the following year archdeacon of the East Riding of Yorkshire. In 1628 he took his degree of D.D. He first became known as an author in 1627, when he published his Collection of Private Devotions, a manual stated to have been prepared by command of Charles I., for the use of the queen's maids of honour. This book, together with his insistence on points of ritual in his cathedral church and his friendship with Laud, exposed him to the suspicions and hostility of the Puritans; and the book was rudely handled by William Prynne and Henry Burton. In 1628 Cosin took part in the prosecution of a brother prebendary, Peter Smart, for a sermon against high church practices; and the prebendary was deprived. In 1634 Cosin was appointed master of Peterhouse, Cambridge; and in 1640 he became vice-chancellor of the university. In October of this year he was promoted to the deanery of Peterborough. A few days before his installation the Long Parliament had met; and among the complainants who hastened to appeal to it for redress was the ex-prebendary, Smart. His petition against the new dean was considered; and early in 1641 Cosin was sequestered from his benefices. Articles of impeachment, were, two months later, presented against him, but he was dismissed on bail, and was not again called for. For sending the university plate to the king, he was deprived of the mastership of Peterhouse (1642). He thereupon withdrew to France, preached at Paris, and served as chaplain to some members of the household of the exiled royal family. At the Restoration he returned to England, was reinstated in the mastership, restored to all his benefices, and in a few months raised to the see of Durham (December 1660). At the convocation in 1661 he played a prominent part in the revision of the prayer-book, and endeavoured with some success to bring both prayers and rubrics into completer agreement with ancient liturgies. He administered his diocese with conspicuous ability and success for about eleven years; and applied a large share of his revenues to the promotion of the interests of the Church, of schools and of charitable institutions. He died in London on the 15th of January 1672. Cosin occupies an interesting and peculiar position among the churchmen of his time. Though a ritualist and a rigorous enforcer of outward conformity, he was uncompromisingly hostile to Roman Catholicism, and most of his writings illustrate this antagonism. In France he was on friendly terms with 1 See John Evelyn's Diary (Oct. 12, 1651). Huguenots, justifying himself on the ground that their nonepiscopal ordination had not been of their own seeking, and at the Savoy conference in 1661 he tried hard to effect a reconciliation with the Presbyterians. He differed from the majority of his colleagues in his strict attitude towards Sunday observance and in favouring, in the case of adultery, both divorce and the re-marriage of the innocent party. He was a genial companion, frank and outspoken, and a good man of business. Among his writings (most of which were published posthumously) are a Historia Transubstantiationis Papalis (1675), Notes and Collections on the Book of Common Prayer (1710) and A Scholastical History of the Canon of Holy Scripture (1657). A collected edition of his works, forming 5 vols. of the Oxford Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, was published between 1843 and 1855; and his Correspondence (2 vols.) was edited by Canon Ornsby for the Surtees Society (1868-1870). 66 COSMAS, of Alexandria, surnamed from his maritime experiences Indico pleustes, merchant and traveller, flourished during the 6th century A.D. The surname is inaccurate, since he never reached India proper; further, it is doubtful whether Cosmas is a family name, or merely refers to his reputation as a cosmographer. In his earlier days he had sailed on the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, visiting Abyssinia and Socotra and apparently also the Persian Gulf, western India and Ceylon. He subsequently became a monk, and about 548, in the retirement of a Sinai cloister, wrote a work called Topographia Christiana. Its chief object is to denounce the false and heathen doctrine of the rotundity of the earth, and to vindicate the scriptural account of the world. Photius, who had read it, calls it a commentary on the Octateuch" (meaning the eight books of Ptolemy's great geographical work; according to some, the first eight books of the Old Testament). According to Cosmas the earth is a rectangular plane, covered by the vaulted roof of the firmament, above which lies heaven. In the centre of the plane is the inhabited earth, surrounded by ocean, beyond which lies the paradise of Adam. The sun revolves round a conical mountain to the north-round the summit in summer, round the base in winter, which accounts for the difference in the length of the day. Cosmas is supposed by some to have been a Nestorian. Although not to be commended from a theological standpoint, the Topographia contains some curious information. Especially to be noticed is the description of a marble seat discovered by him at Adulis (Zula) in Abyssinia, with two inscriptions recounting the heroic deeds and military successes of Ptolemy Euergetes and an Axumitic king. It also contains in all probability the oldest Christian maps. From allusions in the Topographia Cosmas seems to have been the author of a larger cosmography, a treatise on the motions of the stars, and commentaries on the Psalms and Canticles. Photius (Cod. 36) speaks contemptuously of the style and language of Cosmas, and throws doubt upon his truthfulness. But the author himself expressly disclaims any claims to literary elegance, which in fact he considers unsuited to a Christian circle of readers, and the accuracy of his statements has been confirmed by later travellers. The Topographia will be found in Migne, Patrologia Graeca, lxxxviii.; an edition by G. Siefert is promised in the Teubner series. See H. Gelzer, Kosmas der Indienfahrer," in Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie, ix. (1883) and C. R. Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography, i. (1897). There is an English translation, with introduction and notes, by J. W. McCrindle (1897), published by the Hakluyt society. COSMAS, of Prague (1045-1125), dean of the cathedral and the earliest Bohemian historian. His Chronicae Bohemorum libri iii., which contains the history and traditions of Bohemia up to nearly the time of his death, has earned him the title of the Herodotus of his country. This work, which his continuators brought down to the year 1283, is of the highest value to historians in spite of the fact that its reputation for disingenuousness and credibility has been greatly affected by the critical attacks of J. Loserth (Studien zu Cosmas von Prag, Vienna, 1880, &c.). The work was first published at Hanover in 1602, from the imperfect Strassburg codex. A perfected edition was brought out at the same place in 1607; this was reprinted, with notes by C. G. Schwarz in I. B. Menckenius, Scriptores rer. Germ. (3 vols., Lips., 1728-1730). It is included in Pelzel and Dobrowsky, Script. rer. Bohem. i. pp. 1-282, after collation with Dresden MS., edited very fully by R. Köpke in Mon. Germ. Hist. Scrip. ix. 1-132, and repeated in Migne, Patrol. lat. clxvi. pp. 55-388, and in Fontes rer. Bohem. ii. (1874), 1-370 (Latin and Czech), by W. WI. Tomek. See A. Potthast, Bibliotheca Hist. Med. Aevi. COSMATI, the name of a Roman family, seven members of which, for four generations, were skilful architects, sculptors and workers in mosaic. The following are the names and dates known from existing inscriptions: Lorenzo (born in the second half of the 12th century). Jacopo Adeodato Giovanni (1231 and 1235). (1231-1293). (1294). (1296 and 1303). Their principal works in Rome are: ambones of S. Maria in Ara Coeli (Lorenzo); door of S. Saba, 1205, and door with mosaics of S. Tommaso in Formis (Jacopo); chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum, by the Lateran (Cosimo); pavement of S. Jacopo alla Lungara, and (probably) the magnificent episcopal throne and choir-screen in S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, of 1254 (Jacopo the younger); baldacchino of the Lateran and of S. Maria in Cosmedin, c. 1294 (Adeodato); tombs in S. Maria sopra Minerva (c. 1296), in S. Maria Maggiore, and in S. Balbina (Giovanni). The chief signed works by Jacopo the younger and his brother Luca are at Anagni and Subiaco. A large number of other works by members and pupils of the same family, but unsigned, exist in Rome. These are mainly altars and baldacchini, choir-screens, paschal candlesticks, ambones, tombs and the like, all enriched with sculpture and glass mosaic of great brilliance and decorative effect. Besides the more mechanical sort of work, such as mosaic patterns and architectural decoration, they also produced mosaic pictures and sculpture of very high merit, especially the recumbent effigies, with angels standing at the head and foot, in the tombs of Ara Coeli, S. Maria Maggiore and elsewhere. One of their finest works is in S. Cesareo; this is a marble altar richly decorated with mosaic in sculptured panels, and (below) two angels drawing back a curtain (all in marble) so as to expose the open grating of the confessio. The magnificent cloisters of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, built about 1285 by Giovanni, the youngest of the Cosmati, are one of the most beautiful works of this school. The baldacchino of the same basilica is a signed work of the Florentine Arnolfo del Cambio, 1285, cum suo socio Petro," probably a pupil of the Cosmati. Other works of Arnolfo, such as the Braye tomb at Orvieto (q.v.), show an intimate artistic alliance between him and the Cosmati. The equally magnificent cloisters of the Lateran, of about the same date, are very similar in design; both these triumphs of the sculptor-architect's and mosaicist's work have slender marble columns, twisted or straight, richly inlaid with bands of glass mosaic in delicate and brilliant patterns. The shrine of the Confessor at Westminster is a work of this school, executed about 1268. The general style of works of the Cosmati school is Gothic in its main lines, especially in the elaborate altar-canopies, with their pierced geometrical tracery. In detail, however, they differ widely from the purer Gothic of northern countries. The richness of effect which the English or French architect obtained by elaborate and carefully worked mouldings was produced in Italy by the beauty of polished marbles and jewel-like mosaics-the details being mostly rather coarse and often carelessly executed. An excellent account of the Cosmati is given by Boito, Architettura del medio evo (Milan, 1880), pp. 117-182. COSMIC (from Gr. κóσuos, order or universe), pertaining to the universe, universal or orderly. In ancient astronomy, the word "cosmical" means occurring at sunrise, and designates especially the rising or setting of the stars at that time. "Cosmical physics" is a term broadly applied to the totality of those branches of science which treat of cosmical phenomena and their explanation by the laws of physics. It includes terrestrial magnetism, the tides, meteorology as related to cosmical causes, the aurora, meteoric phenomena, and the physical constitution of the heavenly bodies generally. It differs from astrophysics only in dealing principally with phenomena in their wider aspects, and as the products of physical causes, while astrophysics is more concerned with minute details of observation. 5 great dragon-myth (see DELUGE). The Iroquois are in advance of the Algonkins; their creator-hero has no touch of the animal in him. Above the waters there existed a heaven, or a heavenly earth (cf. Mexico, Babylonia, Egypt), through a hole in which Aataentsic fell to the water. The broad back of a tortoise (cf. § 6) on which a diving animal had placed some mud, received her. Here, being already pregnant, she gave birth to a daughter, who in turn bore the twins Joskeha and Tawiscara (myth of hostile brothers). By his violence (cf. Gen. xxv. 22) the latter killed his mother, out of whose corpse grew plants. Tawiscara fled to the west, where he rules over the dead. Joskeha made the beasts and also men. After acting as culture-giver he disappeared to the east, where he is said to dwell with his grandmother as her husband. 3. Mexican. The most interesting feature in the Mexican cosmology is the theory of the ages of the world. Greece, Persia and probably Babylon, knew of four such ages. The Priestly Writer in the Pentateuch also appears to be acquainted with this doctrine; it is the first of four ages which begins with the Creation and ends with the Deluge. The Mexicans, however, are said to have assumed five ages called suns." The first was the sun of earth; the second, of fire; the third, of air; the fourth, of water; the fifth (which is the present) was unnamed. Each of these closed with a physical catastrophe. The speculations which underlie the Mexican theory have not come down to us. For the Iranian parallel, see § 8, and on the Hebrew Priestly Writer, Gunkel, Genesis 2, pp. 233 ff. 8 COSMOGONY (from Gr. κóσμos, world and yiyveolaι, to be born), a theory, however incomplete, of the origin of heaven and earth, such as is produced by primitive races in the myth-making age, and is afterwards expanded and systematized by priests, poets or philosophers. Such a theory must be mythical in form, and, after gods have arisen, is likely to be a theogony (0tós, god) as well as a cosmogony (Babylonia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Polynesia). I. To many the interest of such stories will depend on their parallelism to the Biblical account in Genesis i.; the anthropologist, however, will be attracted by them in proportion as they illustrate the more primitive phases of human culture. In spite of the frequent overgrowth of a luxuriant imagination, the leading ideas of really primitive cosmogonies are extremely simple. Creation out of nothing is nowhere thought of, for this is not at all a simple idea. The pre-existence of world-matter is assumed; sometimes too that of heaven, as the seat of the earth-maker, and that of preternatural animals, his coadjutors. The earthmaking process may, among the less advanced races, be begun by a bird, or some other animal (whence the term "theriomorphism "), for the high idea of a god is impossible, till man has fully realized his own humanity. Of course, the earthforming animal is a preternaturally gifted one, and is on the line of development towards that magnified man who, in a later stage, becomes the demiurge. Between the two comes the animal-man, i.e. a being who has not yet shed the slough of an animal shape, but combines the powers- natural and preter-"philosophers" of Peru declared that he desired no temples or natural-of some animal with those of a man. Let us now sacrifices, no worship but that of the heart. This is conceivable; collect specimens of the evidence for different varieties of cos- Maui, too, in New Zealand had no temple or priests. But most mogony, ranging from those of the Red Indian tribes to that probably this deity had another less abstract name, and the of the people of Israel. horrible worship offered in the one temple which he really had under the Incas, accorded with his true cosmic significance as the god of the subterranean fire. Viracocha too had a cosmic position; an old Peruvian hymn calls him "world-former, world-animator.”10 2. North American Stories.-Theriomorphic creators are most fully attested for the Red Indian tribes, whose very backwardness renders them so valuable to an anthropologist. There is a painted image from Alaska, now in the museum of the university of Pennsylvania, which represents such an one. We see a black crow tightly holding a human mask which he is in the act of incubating. Let us pass on to the Thlinkît Indians of the N.W. | coast. A cycle of tales is devoted to a strange humorous being called Yehl or Yelch, i.e. the Raven, miraculously born, not to be wounded, and at once a semi-developed creator and a culture hero. His bitter foe is his uncle; the germs of dualism appear early. Like some other culture-heroes, he steals sun, moon and stars out of a box, so enlightening the dark earth. These people are at any rate above the Greenlanders, but are surpassed by the Algonkins described by Nicholas Perrot in 1700, and by the Iroquois, whom the heroic Father Brébeuf (1593-1649) learned to know so well. The earth-maker of the former was called Michabo, i.e. the Great Hare. He is the leader of some animals on a raft on a shoreless sea. Three of these in succession are sent to dive for a little earth. A grain of sand is brought; out of it he makes an island (America?). Of the carcases of the dead animals he makes the present men (N. Americans?). There is also a Flood-story, an episode in which has a bearing on the 1 Cf. Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, chaps. vi., vii., "The Making of a Goddess and of a God." 2 See Ratzel, Hist. of Mankind, ii. 147-148; Breysig, Die Entstehung des Gottesgedankens (1905), pp. 10-12. 3 See Chamberlain, Journ. of American Folklore, iv. 208-209 (analysis of Perrot's account); Brinton, Myths of the New World, pp. 176-179; Breysig, op. cit., pp. 15-20. 4 On Michabo see Brinton, op. cit. (1876), pp. 176 ff., Essays of an Americanist (1890), p. 132. This scholar holds that "Michabo has properly nothing to do with "Great Hare," but should be translated "the Great White One," i.e. the light of the dawn. The Algonkins, however, thought otherwise, and the myth itself suggests a theriomorphic earth-maker. 4. Peruvian.-In Peru, as in Egypt, the sun-god obtained universal homage. But there were creator-gods in the background. A theoretical supremacy was accorded by the Incas to Pachacamac, whose worship, like that of Viracocha, they appear to have already found to have already found when they conquered the land. Pachacamac means, in Quichua, "world-animator." The He was connected with water. A third creator was Manco Capac (" the mighty man "), whose sister and wife is called Mama Oello, "the mother-egg." Afterwards, the creator and the mother-egg became respectively the sun and the moon, represented by the Inca priest-king and his wife, the supposed descendants of Manco Capac." Dualistic tendencies were also developed. Las Casas 12 reports a story that before creation the creator-god had a bad son who sought, after creation, to undo all that his father had done. Angered at this, his father hurled him into the sea. We need not suspect Christian influences, but the parallelism of Rev. xx. 3, Isa. xiv. 12, 15, Ezek. xxviii. 16 is obvious. 5. Polynesian.-Polynesia, that classic land of mythology, is specially rich in myths of creation. The Maori story, told by Grey and others, of the rending apart of Rangi (= Langi, heaven) See Schoolcraft, Myth of Hiawatha (1856), pp. 35-39; and cf. the myth of Manabush, analysed in Journ. of Amer. Folklore, iv. 210-213. The latest explanation of Joskeha is "dear little sprout," and of Tawiscara, the ice-one," while Aataentsic becomes "she of the swarthy body." Hewitt, Journ. of Amer. Folklore, x. 68. Brébeuf (1635) says that Iouskeha gives growth and fair weather (Tylor, Prim. Cult. i. 294). 44 See Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients, p. 121, I; Winckler, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament3, P. 333. 8 Réville, Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 129. Garcilasso el Inca, Comment. de los Incas, lib. ii. c. 2; cf. Lang, The Making of Religion, pp. 262-270. 10 Réville, p. 187. 11 Réville, p. 158. Garcilasso (lib. i. c. 18) says that Manco Capac taught the subject nations to be men,' and also founded the imperial city of Cuzco (= navel). 12 De las antiquas gentes del Peru (ed. 1892), pp. 55, 56. and Papa (earth) can be paralleled in China, India and Greece, and more remotely in Egypt and Babylonia. The son of Rangi and Papa was Tangaloa (also called Tangaroa and Taaroa), the sea-god and the father of fishes and reptiles.1 In other parts of Polynesia he is the Heaven God, to whom there is no like, no second. In Samoa he is even called Tangaloa-Langi (Tangaloa = heaven). And if he is the sea-god, we must remember that there is a heavenly as well as an earthly ocean; hence the clouds are sometimes called Tangaloa's ships. It is true, the popular imagery is unworthy of such a god. Sometimes he is said to live in a shell, by throwing off which from time to time he increases the world; or in an egg, which at last he breaks in pieces; the pieces are the islands. We also hear that long ago he hovered as an enormous bird over the waters, and there deposited an egg. The egg may be either the earth with the overarching vault of heaven or (as in Egypt-but this is a later view) the sun. The latter received mythical representation in that most interesting god (but originally rather culture-hero) Maui, who, in New Zealand practically supplants Tangaloa, and becomes the god of the air and of the heaven, the creator and the causer of the flood.2 Speculation opened the usual deep problem; whence came the gods? It was answered that Po, i.e. darkness, was the begetter of all things, even of Tangaloa. 6. Indian.—India, however, is the natural home of a mythology recast by speculation. The classical specimen of an advanced cosmogony is to be found in the Rig Veda (x. 129); it is the hymn which begins, "There then was neither Aught nor Naught!" 3 Another such cosmogony is given in Manu. It is "the selfexistent Lord," who, " with a thought, created the waters, and deposited in them a seed which became a golden egg, in which egg he himself is born as Brahma, the progenitor of the worlds." The doctrine of creation by a thought is characteristically Indian. In the satapatha Brahmana (cf. DELUGE), we meet again with the primeval waters and the world-egg, and with the famous mythological tortoise-theory, also found among the Algonkins (§ 2) antique beliefs gathered up by the framers of philosophic systems, who felt the importance of maintaining such links with the distant past. 5 7. Egyptian.-In Egypt too the systematizers were busily engaged in the co-ordination of myths. They retained the belief that the germs of all things slept for ages within the dark flood, personified as Nûn or Nû. How they were drawn forth was variously told." In some districts the demiurge was called Khnumu; it was he who modelled the egg (of the world?) and also man." Elsewhere he was the artizan-god Ptaḥ, who with his hammer broke the egg; sometimes Thoth, the moon-god and principle of intelligence, who spoke the world into existence. A strange episode in the legend of the destruction of man by the gods tells how Ra (or Re), the first king of the world, finding in his old age that mankind ceased to respect him, first tried the remedy of massacre, and then ascended the heavenly cow, and organized a new world-that of heaven.' 8. Iranian. The Iranian account of creation 10 is specially interesting because its religious spirit is akin to that of Genesis i. From a literary point of view, indeed, it cannot compare with the dignified Hebrew narrative, but considering the misfortunes which have befallen the collection of Zoroastrian traditions now represented by the Bundahish (the Parsee Genesis) we cannot reasonably be surprised. The work referred to begins by 1 See especially Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, vi. 229-302; Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific; Schirren, Wandersagen der Neuseeländer; also an older work (Sir George) Grey's Polynesian Mythology. i. 2 See Schirren, op. cit., pp. 64-89. 3 J. Muir, Metrical Translations, pp. 188-189. 4 J. Muir, Sanscrit Texts, iv. 26. 'See Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 340; Primitive Culture, 329; Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, pp. 85 f. See Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. 127; also Brugoch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Ägypter. 7 See illustration in Maspero, p. 157. 8 See Maspero, pp. 146-147. • Maspero, pp. 160-169. 10 See ZOROASTER, and cf. Ency. Bib., " Creation," §9; astrianism," §§ 20, 21. describing the state of things in the beginning; the good spirit 11 9. Phoenician and Greek.-Phoenician cosmogonies would appear, from the notices which have come down to us,12 to have been composite. The traditions are pale and obscure. It is clear, however, that the primeval flood and the world-egg (out of which came heaven and earth) are referred to. See Ency. Bib., Creation 87; Phoenicia § 15; Lagrange, Religions sémitiques, pp. 351 ff. Greek cosmogonies (the orientalism of which is clear) will be found in Hesiod, Theog. 116 ff.; Aristophanes, Birds, 692 ff.; cf. Clem. Rom., Homil. vi. 4. See Miss Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, chap. xii. " 'Orphic Cosmogony.' 10. Babylonian and Israelitish. Of the Babylonian and Israelitish cosmogonies we have several more or less complete records. For details as to the former, see BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN RELIGION. With regard to the latter, we may notice that in Gen. ii. 4b-25 we have an account of creation which, though in its present form very incomplete, is highly attractive, because it is pervaded by a breath from primitive times. It has, however, been interwoven with an account of the Garden of Eden from some other source (see EDEN; PARADISE), and perhaps in order to concentrate the attention of the reader, the description of the origin of " earth and heaven "as well as of the plants and of the rain, appears to have been omitted. In fact, both the creationstories at the opening of Genesis must have undergone much editorial manipulation. Originally, for instance, Gen. i. 26 must have said that man was made out of earth; this point of contact between the two cosmogonic traditions has, however, been effaced. The other narrative, Gen. i. 1-ii. 4a, is a much more complete Cosmogony, and since the theory of P. A. Lagarde (1887), which ascribes it to Iranian influence (see § 8), has no very solid ground, whereas the theory which explains it as largely Babylonian is in a high degree plausible, we must now consider the relations between the Israelitish and Babylonian cosmogonies. The short account of creation first translated in 1890 by T. G. Pinches is distinguished by its non-mythical character; in particular, the 11 West, Pahlavi Texts (S.B.E.), vol. i., introd. p. xxiii. We need not deny that, late as the Bundahish may be as a whole, the traditions which it contains are often old. 12 Fragments of older works are cited by Philo of Byblus (in "Zoro-Eusebius, Praep. Evang. i. 10) and Mochus and Endemus (in Damascius, De primis principiis, c. 125). |