The Water Symbol Its Origin and Transformation

The Water Symbol Its Origin and Transformation We shall drain the well full of water, That never is exhausted, never faileth. Rig Veda, x.101.5 and Taittiriya Samhita iv.2.5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. John 15:5 Introduction The use of undulating or zigzag lines to represent water is a symbol of some antiquity and is well known to art historians and archeologists. Although clearly meant to represent the ripples or waves that appear on moving water or other liquids, these wavy lines have an older but not unrelated provenance involving fertility and procreation. This paper will investigate the history of this motif in Europe and Asia and explain how the shift from Paleolithic to Neolithic culture gradually changed its meaning. M’s, W’s, Zigzags and Undulating Lines Herbert Kühn believed that M and W marks that appear on Egyptian and ancient Greek pottery were signs for water, and by association, for fertility.1 He extended this interpretation to include the zigzag lines that often appear on the Neolithic banded pottery of Central Europe, a tradition that continued into the Bronze Age and Halstatt periods. That these markings occur on vessels certainly cannot be due to chance, since vessels were made for the express purpose of containing fluids—water or milk—and it would be natural for people to have decorated them with the spell for ‘water,’ in the desire to have them always full.2 A few examples, among the many that exist, will illustrate this motif.3 1. 2. 3. Herbert Kühn (1895-1980) was a prehistorian who taught at the University of Mainz and was the author of a number of popular works including On the Track of Prehistoric Man (1955) and The Rock Pictures of Europe (1967). See the appendix to Carl Hentze’s Mythes et Symboles Lunaires, p. 245. Examples in Figures 1 and 2 are taken from Carl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter, Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art. Illustration sources are provided in Volume 1, Book 4. Page 1 Figure 1: M and W symbols Number Description 730 Painted cup from the Middle Helladic period, Corinth, Greece. 731 Painted pottery sherd, Hui Tsui, T’ao Sha Hsien, Kansu, China. Figure 2: M and W symbols, continued. Page 2 Number Description 710 Painted sherd, Tepe Moussian, Iran, Bronze Age. 711 Painted pot sherd, Yumuk Tepe (level 23) southern Turkey. 713 Painted pot sherd, Rana Ghundai, red-on-red slip, Pakistan. 714 Painted pot sherd, Rana Ghundai, red-on-red slip, Pakistan. Figure 3: Greek Geometric Vase, Rhodes (Ashmolean Museum) The convention of representing water with a zigzag lasted well into Classical times as evidenced by this Graeco-Egyption zodiacal figure from Egypt (Figure 4). Figure 4: Aquarius Figure, Dendera, Egypt (A.D. 25) Page 3 The American art historian, Carl Schuster (1904-1969) assembled his own examples from modern China to show the persistence of the design.1 Figure 5: The water symbol in modern China Schuster's initial publications centered on traditional design motifs that he found preserved on textile fragments he had collected in western China during the 1930s. These textiles were homemade items of white cotton, embroidered in blue thread with a simple cross-stitch, generally household linens that had been passed down from one generation to the next. While the textiles themselves were not very old, the designs were, having been preserved by endless imitation. Eight of these textiles are shown here. The figure at the bottom left is a design on a rickshaw cover and the bottom middle figure is a more sophisticated Chinese embroidery design made for city dwellers. The last example is a European Neolithic pottery sherd. Writing in 1936, Schuster was supporting the comments of Kühn with his own Chinese examples, but he had yet to understand the full significance of the symbolism. Evidence for the antiquity of the water symbol in China can be seen on a pot from the Neolithic Dawenkou Culture (4200–2500 B.C.) (Figure 6). 1. See “A Prehistoric Symbol in Modern Chinese Folk Art” in Man, Volume XXXVI, (December, 1936), pop. 201-204. Page 4 Figure 6: Painted Water or Wine Vessel, Dawenkou Culture, China (4200–2500 B.C.) The Vase of Plenty Another Chinese example photographed by Schuster (Figure 7) depicts a related aspect of the water symbol that is crucial to understanding its history. One of the favorite and most frequent motives of this western Chinese design repertory is that of a vessel (bowl, pot or vase) with a plant growing in it; the shapes of the vessels and the species of the plants are of course various, but mythologically all of the plants may be reasonably regarded as variants of the widespread type, the ‘Tree of Life’. One may suppose that the vessels from which these plants are represented as growing are conceived as containers of the fluid element essential for their growth.1 Figure 7: Zigzag ornament on carved representation of a flower vase 1. Ibid., Schuster, p. 201. Page 5 The art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877–1947) discussed this matter at length in his important work, Yaksas: Essays in the Water Cosmology. He noted that the full vessel (purna kalasa, punna ghata) was one of the commonest symbols in Indian art, employed by all sects throughout India and Indonesia and appearing in other cultures as well. The full vessel is depicted both by itself or carried by a deity such as Sri-Laksmi. Figure 8: Full vases 51a Amaravati, India (A.D. 200) 51b Borobudur, Java (A.D. 800) D. Figure 9: Sri-Laksmi on and among lotuses rising from a full vessel. Mathura, India (A.D. 2nd century) Page 6 Thus, the form is essentially that of a flower vase, containing a never-failing source of water with an ever-living vegetation or tree of life.1 The offering of such a vase expresses the wish that the recipient will enjoy health, wealth, and a long life. The Vedas are full of prayers requesting an increase in children, cattle, horses and food. The motif of the full vase has a long history in India starting with the Sunga Empire (187 B.C to 78 B.C.) but there is ample reason to suppose it was old by then, and not exclusively Indian. Mesopotamian examples features globular vases held by seated or standing deities. According to Langdon (Semitic Mythology, 95) the Sumerian flowing vase, often with a plant springing from it, represents the water of life belonging to Anu, who may correspond, in Sumerian and Babylonian mythology, to Ahura Mazda and Varuna.2 Of particular interest is Figure 10, connected everflowing vases, built from a common Sumerian symbol of a vase with two rivers flowing from it. It has much older antecedents as we will see later. Figure 10: Sumerian motif of connected overflowing vessels The Water Cosmology The symbolism of water assumes a particular importance in Neolithic times and is clearly related to the growth of agriculture. Drought is a constant worry for farmers, particularly in areas like the Middle East, where agriculture began. Life is everywhere associated with water or other liquids (sap, tears, semen, oil, fat, marrow) while aging and death are associated with dryness.3 More specifically, these ideas are part of an ancient “water cosmology,” a term coined by Robert Hume (1877–1948) in his introduction to The Thirteen Principal Upanishads. …from the primeval Waters arose the Plants, from Plants all other beings, in particular the gods, men, and cattle. Rasa, as an essence of the Waters, or as sap in trees, is variously identified with soma, amrta, semen, milk, rain, honey, mead (madhu) and liquor (sura). There is a cycle in which the vital energy passes from heaven through the waters, plants, cattle and other typically virile or productive animals and man, thence ultimately returning to the waters.4 1. 2. 3. 4. Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, p. 162. Ibid., p. 165 , ft. 7. See R. B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought, pp. 66-7, 118, 229-233, 261-263, 272-274, 473-474 and passim. Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, p. 110. Page 7 That all creation starts in the waters is fundamental belief common to many early cultures, found in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1.2). The antiquity of this idea is stressed by Coomaraswamy: In the Vedas, the belief appears in the form of an old popular theory, for which are substituted the successively more philosophical concepts of Space Cosmology, of a belief in the origin of the world in Non-being, in an origin of the world from Being, and finally in the conception of Brahman (the Absolute) as world-ground. The Water Cosmology, it is true, persists side by side with, and linked with these deeper views, even in post-Vedic literature; but it is typically not a creation of the Vedas and seems to belong to an even older stratum of ideas than that which is developed in the Vedas. The Water Cosmology is part of an older pagan Neolithic culture concerned with fertility and abundance, along with a belief in fairies and earth spirits. In this view, there is no personal consciousness underlying the world but only a supreme deity who embodies the powers of nature, which can also reveal itself in local manifestations such as tree or water spirits of good or bad character. The asura Varuna, an older Indian deity supplanted by Indra, is a god of the living waters as well as a king, dispensing justice to his people. The penalty for sin is drought, one of Varuna’s fetters. In the Vedas, prayers and offerings are addressed to Varuna asking for release from drought and from the frozen streams of winter. Varuna belonged to that older stratum of culture that preceded the development of theological and metaphysical speculation. It would appear to me, in any case, that as genius of living waters, fertility and justice, and as a great king, Varuna belongs almost entirely to a settled order of things, to a city state and peasant culture of immemorial antiquity; that on the dark chthonic side of things, with its seasonal festivals, ritual eroticism, and possibly human sacrifice, the whole complex of ideas connected with Varuna and Aditi, gandharvas, yaksas, and so forth, points backward to a great pacific culture evolved with the beginning of agriculture, and flourishing from the Mediterranean to the Indus, rather than to the priestly invention of later warlike peoples, such as the Persians and Indo-Aryans.1 Varuna is the lord of nature and of the seasons and is mentioned in connection with both the celestial waters and with the dispensation of justice. in ancient India and many of the cultures of Near East it was believed that the very order of nature was threatened by the king’s physical and moral health. If the king did not fulfill his duties, the rain would not fall and the crops would not grow. The Plant Style In the Rig Veda, Varuna is also described as the “root of the Tree of Life” and elsewhere as unborn and recumbent upon the back of the waters, where a tree springs from his navel. The same formula is applied to Prajapati, Brahman, and Narayana (Vishnu).2 1. 2. Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, p. 114. Ibid., p. 116. Page 8 Figure 11: Birth of Brahma from a lotus, Elura (8th century A.D.) Figure 11 depicts the birth of Brahma from a lotus springing from the navel of Narayana (Vishnu-Anantasayana). The lotus and other plant forms such as trees are of particular symbolic importance in this iconography which Coomaraswamy termed the “Plant Style” and which he believed to be the supporting iconography of the Water Cosmology.1 We are then in possession of two distinct sources, each equally permeated through and through by the concept of the Water Cosmology. One of these is the Vedas; the other the Plant Style in the decorative art of the earliest monuments, and its later and even modern survivals.2 The lotus rests on the water which represents, in this context, the earth or ground, the source of all wealth. The water holds the germ of existence, the “Unborn,” one of the early names for Purusa, Prajapati, Brahman, or Narayana. The Unborn is referred to in the Vedas as follows: a great yaksa in the midst of the creation, lying upon the sea in penance; therein are set whatever gods there are, like the branches of a tree round a trunk.3 The term yaksa appears in many contexts and refers generally to Brahman or other universal deities, tutelary deities of kingdoms or clans, deceased ancestors, or local tree spirits of good or bad character. In general, the yaksa represents the immanent Spirit that dwells within each being. Yaksas are associated most closely with vegetation, fertility, and the Water of Life. They are part of the older stratum of ideas we are discussing here, later absorbed into the more speculative and abstract conceptions of Hindu and Buddhist theology. Varuna himself is qualified as a yaksin.4 Yaksas may be either male or female (yaksi) or depicted as productive couples (mithuna) (Figure 12). In the Satapatha Brahmana (ix.4.1.2-5) we read that “From Prajapati, when dismembered, couples went forth...birth originates from a mithuna.” It should be noted that a similar idea can be found in Genesis (1.27) where Adam 1. 2. 3. 4. Quite early, Buddha was represented as a Great-Wisdom-tree (Maha-bodhi-rukkha) and tree shrines (cetiya) were set up where worshippers could leave offerings and as a support for contemplation. See Coomaraswamy, Elements of Buddhist Iconography, p. 4. Coomaraswamy, Yaksas., p. 100. Atharva Veda (x.7.38) Rig Veda (vii.88.6) Page 9 Figure 12: (Left) Yaksa with lotus in hand (Right) Yaksa and Yaksi, Thanesar, India, 2nd Century B.C. Page 10 is described as both male and female.1 There are abundant examples from the tribal world for this first man and first woman, often depicted in the form of Y-posts with one male head and one female one.2 Yaksas may be worshipped as local deities and are often associated with water or trees. Women seeking children make offerings to the spirit of the tree. Shrines may take the form of wishing trees, surrounded by bags of money and pots of liquid. Such tree shrines are common in Hindu and Buddhist art. One of the earliest symbols of Buddha was the tree shrine and Maya Devi is depicted as holding a tree branch during his nativity, making her a kind of yaksi. Figure 13: Banyan Wishing Tree with Pot and Money Bags, Besnagar, India (3rd Century B.C.) One point needs to be clarified. The worship of local deities in India and elsewhere has generated a lot of confusion and many writers, both academic and popular, have referred to these practices as “nature worship” or “polytheism” when they are simply local manifestations of the one Deity. The same may be said for the varying names of the gods which are simply aspects of the One who contains them all. “As he is approached, so he becomes.” The apparent diversity is a product of the human condition. Coomaraswamy liked to compare local deities to an electrical branch circuit. You can plug an appliance in anywhere and it works. It’s all the same current. Nor is this “animism” in the sense of an arbitrary will attributed to some natural object. It is a metaphysical rite that must be performed according 1. 2. See Coomaraswamy, “The Trantric Doctrine of Divine Biunity, in Lipsey, Collected Works, vol. 2, p 231-240.The zodiacal figure we call Gemini was originally a productive pair and not twins, an interpretation that seems to have arisen in Graeco-Roman times. In medieval illustrations, Gemini is sometimes depicted as a man and woman. See Carl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter, Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art, vol 2, book 1. Page 11 to established rules in order that the power therein be used properly. It is normally the role of the priest to ensure that these rites are performed in the customary way. It should also be made clear that while yaksas are invisible, they can manifest themselves in a visible form on the human plane, a form that may be beautiful or frightening. Their appearance often takes the form of a sudden luminosity or radiance from which the word yaksas itself may be derived.1 From the metaphysical perspective, the invisibility and visibility of the yaksas reflects the dual nature of the Brahman—in a likeness and not in any likeness. The Brahma-tree or Brahma-Yaksa is the unseen source or root of the tree while its growth reflects the radical possibilities of manifestation. Another image common to the Plant Style is the lotus rhizome. A rhizome is an underground stem or runner that puts forth new shoots and roots. In the case of the lotus, the rhizomes develop in the mud beneath the water and the shoots emerge from the water and bear flowers. The flowers sit on top of the water, protected by a layer of gel on the underside. The lotus (padma nidhi) is represented as a source of wealth and is carried by Kubera, a god of wealth and leader of the yaksas, or by water-born deities such as Sri-Laksmi who is depicted holding a lotus flower (padma-pitha).2 Figure 14: Dwarf Yaksa and Lotus, Bharhut, India, (150–175 B.C.) The lotus can be depicted: rising from a vase of plenty and/or forming a vegetative meander [Figure 15] springing from a vase, a conch, a makara’s jaws, a yaksa’s mouth [Figure 14], or a yaksa’s or Vishnu’s navel...3 1. 2. 3. A. K. Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, p. 10. The luminosity is also reflected in the fact that the tree may also be represented as a kind of Sun pillar, separating heaven and earth. Compare the birth of Venus who rides on a shell on the surface of the ocean. According to Hesiod, Venus was conceived when Chronus castrated his father, the God Uranus, whose severed organs fertilized the sea. The elements in this myth are part of the complex of ideas discussed here involving water and fertility. A. K. Coomaraswamy, Yaksas, p. 136. A makara is a leviathan (sea monster). Page 12 Figure 15: Yaksa with Budding Rhizome, Amaravati, India (c. A.D. 200) The lotus is another version of the Tree of Life with the rhizomes serving in place of branches. Tree and Water Spirits The Plant Style is closely connected with mythologies involving tree or water spirits. As we’ve seen, yasksas, or more often, yaksis, are associated with trees and plants. Women who desire children visit sacred trees or tree shrines to leave prayers and offerings. We have also seen how Buddha’s mother, Maya Devi, gave birth standing, while holding a tree branch. It was believed that the spirit lived within the tree, and the Plant Style iconography depicts the tree, the tree spirit, or both. Most tree spirits are female, part of an ancient tradition connecting women and plants both in regard to fertility and to healing.1 1. The survival of these ideas as late as the Renaissance may be what underlies some of the rather strange illustrations of women and plants in the mysterious Voynich manuscript, which has never been deciphered. Page 13 There is no motif more fundamentally characteristic of Indian art from first to last than is that of the Woman and Tree. In early salabhanjika sculptures, (Bharhut, Bodhgaya, Sanci, Mathura and Amaravati) the female figures associated with trees are voluptuous beauties, almost nude, but always provided with the broad jewelled belt (mekhala) which appears already on pre-Maurya terra-cotta figurines of fertility goddesses, and which the Atharva Veda vi.133.5 tells us was a long-life (ayusya) charm, (cf. the “girdle of Aditi,” AV iv.1.5). Figure 16: Culakoka Devata, from Bharhut, on an Elephant Vehicle (c. 2nd century B.C.). Yaksis are often depicted wrapping a leg around the tree or holding a branch in one hand (Figure 16). Dr Coomaraswamy noted the erotic connotations of these gestures and pointed out that the Sanskrit word lata means both “creeper,” “vine” and “woman”. Readers may be more familiar with the Greek dryads who presided over trees, woods and groves. European folklore has many analogies to offer with these older ideas and representations—too many to be pursued here. The connection between trees and human fertility is very old as we shall see later. The idea of conception by the eating of fruit, still current in Indian folklore, presents a phase of this idea in which the reproductive potency of a tree or tree spirit is evidently the supposed active agency.1 1. Coomaraswamy, Yaskas, p. 126, ft. 25. Compare Eve in the Garden of Eden. Page 14 Women are also associated with water, the source of life. The Plant Style has many depictions of yaksis in the guise of water goddesses or nymphs, often standing on mythical animals associated with the sea, like the makara, fish-tailed horse (jala-turaga), and water elephant (jalebha), along with water plants like the lotus. Figure 16 (water elephant) and Figure 17 (water horse) provide two examples.1 Figure 17: Drawing of a Pilaster, Yaksi on Water Horse Vehicle (2nd Century B.C.) Many of these animal forms are common throughout European folklore such as the winged horse (Pegasus). So too are water nymphs. In Porphyry’s De Antro Nympharum, the Naiades are associated with generation and birth and souls are described as attracted to moisture in the same way as plants depend on moisture for survival.2 European folklore is also familiar with the undine or water spirit (for example, the mermaid or merman), depicted here in Figure 18. 1. 2. Animal vehicles normally assume three forms: aqueous or subterranean, terrestrial, and celestial. Thus we have water elephants, earth elephants, and cloud elephants, and similarly, sea horses, earth horses, and celestial horses. Conversely, in Greek mythology, the Land of the Dead is dry or without water. Page 15 Figure 18: Merman with Double Fish Tail and Elephant Ears, Mathura, India (A.D. 100) Soma and the Water of Life Another important aspect of the water symbolism is Soma (the Iranian Haoma) which is represented iconographically as a plant, tree, or vessel from which such a plant is growing. The vessel is described as an inexhaustible font or fountain containing a Plant or Tree of Life. Soma is also conceived as a fluid, mixed with blood, akin to the sap in trees or the ichor of a dragon or other reptilian creature.1 These ideas are expressed in a variety of ways and are not restricted to Indo-Iranian cultures. • In the Sumerian mythology, the Plant of Birth and bread and water of immortal life are in the highest heaven, the abode of Anu. • In India, Soma is a “person” as well as a plant, food or Water of Life of the gods, most particularly of Indra and Varuna who is referred to as “the wise guardian of the amrta” (RV ix.95.4).2 Soma is guarded by dragons and hidden “in the rock,” which is to say, in the other world, not accessible to mortals. • In ancient Greece, the source of life is Dionysus, the son of Semele, who is poured out as wine in libation to the gods that men may enjoy wealth and prosperity. • The Hebrew Tree of Life represents the same complex of ideas. • Suftung’s “Mead,” a blood sacrifice, is won by Odin in the Germanic version. • In the Celtic version the source of life is a Vessel of Plenty or other talisman won by the hero, as it is in the Grail legend. • In Christianity, Soma is the “living water” (John iv.10-14) and the “bread” (John vi.5051). • Chinese and East Asian mythology tells of an “Elixir of Life” that assures immortality. The elixir is associated with gold and other precious metals. The Western alchemical tradition is based on the same idea. In the Vedic Soma ritual, a day-long affair, a libation is offered to the gods while the correct verses are chanted. The remaining liquid is drunk by the attendant priests and the sacrificer. 1. 2. The equation with a snake is related to the fact that snakes shed their skins periodically and are “reborn”. The Sanskrit amrit means “immortality, ” conceived as a nectar. The word is related to the Greek “ambrosia.” Page 16 Soma is described as made from the stalks of a plant which is pressed between stones and the juice filtered through sheep’s wool and then mixed with water and milk. Several Soma pressing are required, each dedicated to a different deity. Cakes made of grain are also eaten. The exact nature of the Soma plant does not matter a great deal since this is a ritual intended to reenact what the gods do. The Soma that men consume is always distinguished from the Soma of the gods. As Dr. Coomaraswamy notes: Of whom the Brahmans understand as Soma, none ever tastes, none tastes who dwell on earth” (RV x.85.3-4) and “It is metaphysically (paroksena) that he obtains the drinking of Soma, it is not literally (pratyaksam) partaken of by him (Aitareya Brahmana vi.31).1 Further, other related practices employ wine, mead, or grain alcohol for the same purpose. The act of pressing or grinding, whether of the plant or the grain used to make the cakes, is of some importance. The plants are being sacrificed and they are treated accordingly. There is an analogy between the Soma mill and the wine press. The British folk song “John Barleycorn” preserves this symbolism. There were three men Came from the west Their fortunes for to tell, And the life of John Barleycorn As well. They laid him in three furrows deep, Laid clods upon his head, Then these three man made a solemn vow John Barleycorn was dead. The let him die for a very long time Till the rain from heaven did fall, Then little Sir John sprang up his head And he did amaze them all. They let him stand till the midsummer day, Till he looked both pale and wan. The little Sir John he grew a long beard And so became a man. They have hired men with the scythes so sharp, To cut him off at the knee, The rolled him and they tied him around the waist, They served him barbarously. They have hired men with the crab-tree sticks, To cut him skin from bone, And the miller has served him worse than that, For he's ground him between two stones. They've They've And thy They've 1. wheeled him here, they've wheeled him there, wheeled him to a barn, have served him worse than that, bunged him in a vat. A. K. Coomaraswamy, The Door in the Sky, p. 151. Similarly, in the Avesta there are two Haoma trees, heavenly and earthly, the white and the yellow, respectively. Page 17 They have worked their will on John Barleycorn But he lived to tell the tale, For they pour him out of an old brown jug And they call him home brewed ale. The grain is given a human character, reflected in language when we talk of grain “beards” (awns). Among the ancient Greeks the head was associated with the seed of life and likened to a plant. Homer speaks of men as “corn stalks” that are reaped in battle.1 The grain is threshed, husked, winnowed, and ground. In the kneading and cooking the sacrificial cake (purodasa) acquires the animal qualities of hair, skin, flesh, bone, and marrow, and “the Man whom they offered up becomes a mock-man” (kimpurusa). The cake becomes the sacrificial animal, and contains the sacrificial essence of the former animal victims. It can hardly be doubted that, like our “gingerbread men,” the cake was made in the shape of a man.2 These ideas are part of the water cosmology discussed earlier. The essence of the grain or fruit (rasa) is the life force which must be distilled from it in the form of liquor or other spirituous or intoxicating substances; the reason whiskey is referred to as the “water of life.”3 The point of the Soma sacrifice is that the gods require periodic rejuvenation, accomplished through a ritual that also ensures the well-being of the sacrificers. The rejuvenation is related to the rebirth of the plant world in the Spring. While the Supreme Deity may possess eternal life, the gods need to be rejuvenated periodically and poor man can only survive in his descendants by means of sexual reproduction. This is why the theft of Soma is associated with sin, generally of a sexual nature, as the illness of the Fisher King in the Grail legend, who is “wounded in his loins” from some unnamed sin. In folklore, all attempt to steal the secret of immortality fail. Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden. Eve eats the apple which, like Soma, is the distilled essence of the tree, resulting in the loss of Paradise. Sexual desire produces the created world but it is a falling away from Eternity. Immortality survives as a religious quest that can only be accomplished during a man’s lifetime through identification with God; but man is still fated to die. As St. Augustine put it, “Once a man is born, he never gets over it.” The Origins of the Water Symbol I have strayed a bit from the topic in order to provide the necessary context for understanding the water symbol since so many related ideas and stories were once associated with this single image. We no longer respond to these associations nor are we surrounded by all of the reinforcement this complex of ideas once received from language, architecture, dance, song and ritual. The pieces of Humpty’s shell must be handled one at a time if we hope to put him back together again. The images we have examined were never meant to be decorative but served to make the objects they adorned ritually effective. They reinforced traditional beliefs, passed down from the earliest times and across many cultures. They formed a visual theology, like the medieval cathedrals; a web of relationships, a “symmetry of silent assumptions” as the anthropologist 1. 2. 3. See Onians, The Origins of European Thought for many other examples, pp. 113-115 and passim. Coomaraswamy, Selected Papers: Metaphysics, p. 112. Alcohol was used for communion with the gods by many American Indian groups. The use of intoxicants in religious ceremonies is found world wide. Page 18 Edmund Carpenter termed it, functioning as memory devices in which a single image was capable of evoking the whole. Paleolithic Evidence Paleolithic evidence for this motif is not lacking and examples have been described either as water symbols or as a geometric signs (zigzags or multiple zigzags, M’s and W’s). Given what we have seen in the first half of this paper, the assumption that zigzags are related to water is reasonable though it can be risky to project an idea backward in time given that symbols take their meaning from their context. Figure 19: Incised pebble fragment, Grotta Romanelli, Italy (Upper Paleolithic) A limestone pebble fragment from the Grotta Romanelli (Figure 19) is typical of many of these early renditions. If we compare it with a later example from the Iberian Neolithic (Figure 20), we note that many of the zigzags are multiplied and that they are often divided by a vertical line in the middle. This turns out to be an important diagnostic feature. Figure 20: At the risk of complicating the matter, we could offer innumerable examples from the tribal world such as Figures 21 and 22, from Australia. Page 19 Figure 21: Aborigine carved message stick, Cape York, Australia Figure 22: Aborigine carved shield, Murray River, New South Wales, Australia Notice again, the same dividing line down the middle. And one more example, an undated petroglyph from California (Figure 23) with a central line dividing a stack of zigzags. Figure 23: Petroglyphs, Petroglyph Point, Tulelake, California We don’t know what Paleolithic peoples used to carry water, perhaps gourds or skin bags, but these designs are on other kinds of objects and surfaces, which should tell us that the significance extends beyond water or other liquids. Page 20 Carl Schuster It was the American art historian, Carl Schuster, who decoded this symbol and placed it within a broader social context. His efforts were ignored during his own lifetime and the demise of the humanities in our time may preclude any further understanding of these matters. In his own words: I have been undergoing a "change of life," in this sense: my work has suddenly branched out and is growing so rapidly and luxuriantly that it is simply becoming impossible to keep up with it and with everything else too. It is extremely exciting: I have at last begun excavating a vein of incalculable richness. To try to get down to earth: I have the clue, at last, to one of the central symbols of all human cultural history, which explains the survival of traditions from at least Upper Paleolithic times through all subsequent cultures.1 Schuster was interested in traditional symbolism and his initial work in China in the 1930s had familiarized him with the water symbol, as we noted earlier in this paper. He was well aware that it was cross-cultural and very old. It took him another twenty years of detective work to recognize its true significance as one remnant of a system of interlinked human figures that formed part of man’s oldest iconography. He published his initial findings in Brazil in 1956 under the title, “Genealogical Patterns in the Old and New Worlds.” Its goals seemed modest enough for a work of such importance. The purpose of this paper is to call attention to a type of design which occurs among various peoples in both hemispheres, and to offer an explanation of its form, which may at the same time account for its surprisingly wide distribution. Designs of this type are made up of a series of human bodies joined by their arms and legs in such a way as to form an endlessly repeating “all-over pattern” (Muster ohne Ende).2 Schuster believed that Paleolithic peoples developed a system for illustrating their ideas about genealogy. Not a kinship system — which depicts actual relations — but an idealized system linked to certain cosmological ideas. The resulting designs were used to decorate the body, clothing, and tools. Their function was to clothe the individual in his/her tribal ancestry. The basic units of the system were conventionalized human figures, linked like paper dolls, arm to arm to depict relation within the same generation, and leg to arm to depict descent. Linked together, these human bodies formed patterns, often of astonishing complexity. 1. 2. Carl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter, Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art, vol. 1, bk. 1, pp. 42-43. Carl Schuster, “Genealogical Patterns in the Old and New Worlds,” p. 7. Page 21 Figure 24: Schematic rendering of basic genealogical elements To depict descent, the leg of one human figure is linked to the arm of a lower, adjacent one. Figures can also be linked if the adjacent figure is inverted.1 The linkage serves to fuse the limbs to create an overall pattern. The notion is that people grow out of one another in the manner of plants grown from a cutting. This may seem strange to us but it essentially metaphoric and what we consider “figures of speech” were once “figures of thought” as R. B. Onians and others have shown. Figure 25: Descent Figures can also be linked horizontally, arm to arm and leg to leg, to depict relationships within a single generation (Figure 26). 1. The inversion may reflect exogamous marriage, where a man marries into another group, which in turn may relate to cross-cousin marriage in a matrilineal system. We know that in some traditional societies, a child and his grandfather have a special relationship since they belong to the same moiety and the child may be regarded as his grandfather reborn. Page 22 Figure 26: Relationship in a single generation If we remove the heads from these patterns, bearing in mind that the figures represent ancestors and not living people, we are left with what is referred to as “geometric art,” most familiar to us as decorative motifs like hourglass figures, diamonds, St. Andrew’s crosses, meanders, and spiral patterns, which appear in the traditional art forms of many cultures throughout the world. These patterns are in fact figurative and have no roots in geometry despite their later devolution into decoration. They once had meaning to their makers. Figure 27: Linked ancestor figures Our earliest evidence for this symbolism is also our earliest verified instance of human artwork, found in the Blombos Cave in South Africa and dating from about 80,000 B.C. (Figure 28). Page 23 Figure 28: Red ocher with inscribed hour-glass figures, Blombos Cave, South Africa There are many aspects of this genealogical iconography but I will concentrate here on those from which the water symbol is derived. Interested readers can consult the Wikipedia entry on Carl Schuster for further references. Stacked Ancestors Another variation of these basic genealogical units is the use of stacked ancestors to represent a lineage, seen in another common Paleolithic image, the “plant form” as most scholars have referred to it (Figures 29 and 30). Abbé Breuil called the Mesolithic Mas d’Azil figures like those depicted in Figure 31, “pine-tree men”. Hugo Obermaier juxtaposed them with a group of Neolithic petroglyphs from Spain, a number of which have human-like heads (Figure 32).1 Schuster reasoned these were stacked ancestor figures with the founder of the group at the top, similar to a totem pole. Figure 29: Painted motif, Almeria, Spain (Neolithic) 1. Hugo Obermaier, Fossil Man in Spain, New Haven (1925). Page 24 Figure 30: Drilled design on amber pendant, Denmark (Mesolithic) Figure 31: Painted pebbles from Mas-D’Azil, France (Mesolithic) Page 25 Figure 32: Iberian petroglyphs (Neolithic). They weren’t plant forms or feather forms or even “fish bones” as they are sometimes referred to by Pacific Island peoples, but a common tribal motif based on a analogy with the plant world. Figure 33: Ramiform designs It is worth pointing out that these “ramiforms” as Schuster called them (Figure 33), if carved out of wood, can serve as ladders, as they do in some cultures (Figure 34). A person climbs to heaven generation by generation, back to the original ancestor of the group or tribe, at the top. This is also the form of some mnemonic devices, originally used to remember ancestors, by calling out names as each generation is fingered (Figure 35). Page 26 Figure 34: Metoko notched post, Zaire Figure 35: Mnemonic device, Kogi, Columbia. The “hocker” or squatting figure is connected in the same way, and is the origin of our stacked M’s and W’s (Figure 36). The dividing line, where it appears, is a common spine. Page 27 Figure 36: Multiple bodies with and without a common spine These headless hockers, severed at the waist and lacking a spine, were arranged in columns to represent generations (Figure 37). They are among the most common of all genealogical patterns and it is appropriate that they should come to represent the Water of Life given their association with plant life, genetic linkage, and continuity. In this way, they formed a connection between the older ‘geometric’ art and the later Plant Style. The symbolism remained intact even though its figurative origin was forgotten. Figure 37: Hocker figure multiplied and abbreviated As Edmund Carpenter wrote: “What distinguishes genealogical patterns from mere representations of human figures is the continuous limbs. These can only be symbolic; nothing like them exists in nature.” These linkages can be depicted in any number of ways, from netting and basketry to people holding hands while dancing, but the most common is the equation of plants and human limbs The Neolithic Transition Art begets art and the new must build on the old. Neolithic cultures continued using these older genealogical patterns, sometimes in debased form, attributing related but new meanings to them. The designs were originally developed from garment manufacture and were applied first to clothing and body tattooing. As a mark of social identity, they could be put on anything. Pots were often designed in the shape of human beings and were similarly clothed; but even where no anthropomorphism was intended, the pots were clothed, decorated in sections much like the panelized clothing from which the designs derived.1 Neolithic cultures provide many examples such as the cultures of the Danube Valley (Cucuteni, Tripol’ye) where genealogical patterns appear frequently.2 1. 2. See Carl Schuster, “Skin and Fur Mosaics in Prehistoric and Modern Times,” in Festscrift fur Ad E. Jenson, pp. 559-610, 1964. See The Lost World of Old Europe. The Danube Valley, 5000–3500 B.C. Edited by David W. Anthony, Princeton University Press, 2010. Page 28 Figure 38: Cucuteni Pot Stand (4050-3900 B.C.) Figure 39: Cucuteni Lobate Vessel, (3900-3700 B.C.) Several more examples (Figures 40 and 41) from 3rd millennium Northern Europe. Page 29 Figure 40: Pottery vessel, Denmark, 3rd millennium Figure 41: Pottery vessel, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, 3rd millennium. Page 30 More revealing still is the painted and engraved wall-slab from a Megalithic tomb in Germany (Figure 42) which is meant to represent a garment design. The seam lines are imitated at the edge of each panel. The intent is heraldic and the purpose was to memorialize the wearer of the garment who would have been someone of importance. Figure 42: Wall-slab from a Megalithic tomb, Gohlitzsch, Meresburg, Germany Did Neolithic artists understand the meaning of the images they were using? This is a difficult question to answer since all cultures reuse forms that once had different meanings. This is particularly true in language. The predominant use of zigzag designs on pots and jars suggests that by late Neolithic times, the meaning of the zigzags had shifted to a related but more restricted idea of fertility and procreation involving water and other liquids. But examples like Figure 42 are clearly part of the older tradition. Here the Paleolithic pattern is preserved including the association with garments, free of any connections with water. In tribal cultures, remote from the more technologically developed civilizations of the East and West, the older genealogical system survived in varying forms and degrees.1 To reinforce the point without venturing further into the lengthy topic of clothing design, a single example must suffice, one of the a series of small Paleolithic figurines carved from mammoth ivory from Mezin, in the Ukraine (Figure 43). 1. In rare cases, such as the Asmat of West Irian and some aboriginal groups in Australia, the meaning survived into the 19th and 20th century. Page 31 Figure 43: Mezin figurine and schematic of design, Gravettian, Ukraine. The female depicted is wearing a compartmented design made from panels of fur, with a number of different genealogical patterns engraved on it. The designs are not well delineated, as is often the case on cave walls and mobiliary objects. Schuster reasoned that these were drawn or carved by men, who knew the designs but were incapable of rendering them with any exactitude. They were the work of women who cut and designed the garments.1 On the other hand, the Sumerian overflowing-vase design we saw earlier that combines multiple vases linked by wavy water symbols (Fig. 44) surely indicates the reuse of older forms within a new context. The design resembles a genealogical diagram in which human figures in the form of vases—the body as “vessel” being a common analogy—are linked by water symbols in place of arms and legs. 1. See Carl Schuster, “Skin and Fur Mosaics in Prehistoric and Modern Times,” in Festschrift fur Ad E. Jenson, Munich, 1964. Page 32 Figure 44: Sumerian motif of connected overflowing vessels The multiplication of links (here depicted as rivers) is another aspect of the genealogical iconography meant to indicate a multiplicity of ancestors. Some older forms will provide the background for the symbolic connection between bodies. Figure 45: Detail of wall painting, Letreros cave, Almeira, Spain (3000–4000 BC) Abbé Breuil described the design in Figure 45 as “the representation of a mother with her progeny, a sort of female Tree of Jesse—in which the human elements are sometimes reduced to a triangle or thickened chevron.”1 The arm-to-head links show that the artist was not comfortable with the design since the true pattern is arm-to-leg as we see in a pottery fragment from the pre-Homeric site of Tiryns (Figure 46). 1. Personal communication with Carl Schuster, 4.25.55. See Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art, vol. 1, book 4, p. 952, nt. 13. Page 33 Figure 46: Painted pottery bowl, Tiryns, Greece The framework for the stacked limbs—that represent multiple generations—is formed by a series of linked human figures connected arm to leg. Examples of this particular pattern could be multiplied indefinitely. Figure 47 is a design on an Australian skin robe. Figure 47: Detail from the panel of an Australian opossum skin robe Page 34 Here are two lines of descent, one within the other, one way to indicate marriage between two moieties. Some Conclusions Nothing comes from nothing and all art has a history. The designs we find in Neolithic times are derived from older images. Since we have no writing from these early periods, the continuity of tradition reveals itself best in graphic images, which do survive and which express ideas. Even where the meanings change, the forms preserve a certain amount of the meaning often because the change is gradual and the old and the new exist side by side. But the changes are equally important as they reflect changes in lifestyle. What was once a social iconography became a more generalized statement about fertility and procreation centered around plants and water. This was the result of the Neolithic revolution and the attendant breakdown of tribalism in many parts of the world. The older images and ideas continued to be in use among tribal peoples in later periods. Though realistic images of plants are virtually unknown in Paleolithic art, the importance of the tree as a genealogical metaphor was preserved in the powers attributed to plants and water in Neolithic cultures. The tree survives as a religious symbol representing the unseen presence of the Deity whose offspring reveal themselves as branches, roots, or flowers (Figure 48). Figure 48: The Tree of Jesse Page 35 Bibliography Coomaraswamy, Ananda K, Guardians of the Sun-Door. Edited by Robert Strom. Fons Vitae Press, Louisville, KY (2004). Coomaraswamy, Ananda K, Selected Papers Vol. 2: Metaphysics. Bollingen Series, LXXXIX, Princeton University Press (1977). Edited by Roger Lipsey. Coomaraswamy, Ananda K, The Door in the Sky. Princeton University Press (1997) Coomaraswamy, Ananda K, Yaksas: Essays in the Water Cosmology. Edited by Paul Schroeder. Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts, New Delhi. Oxford University Press (1993). R.B. Onians, The Origins of European Thought. Cambridge University Press, 1951. Carl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter, Social Symbolism in Ancient and Tribal Art. The Rock Foundation (1986-1988) 3 volumes. Carl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter, Patterns That Connect. Abrams Press (1996). Carl Schuster, “Genealogical Patterns in the Old and New Worlds.” Revista Do Museu Paulista, Nova Série, vol. X (1956/58), São Paulo, Brazil. This article was also printed separately as a booklet under the same title. Mark Siegeltuch, The Thread-Spirit, Fons Vitae Press (2011) Page 36