595. Spiegel: “Erân. Altertumskunde,” Vol. II, p. 193. In the writings ascribed to Zoroaster, Περὶ Φύσεως, the Ananke, the necessity of fate, is represented by the air. Cumont: Ibid., I, p. 87.
596. Spielrein’s patient (Jahrbuch, III, p. 394) speaks of horses, who eat men, also exhumed bodies.
597. Negelein: Ibid., p. 416.
598. “Fight,” she said, “and fight bravely, for I will not give away an inch nor turn my back. Face to face, come on if you are a man! Strike home, do your worst and die! The battle this day is without quarter ... till, weary in body and mind, we lie powerless and gasping for breath in each other’s arms.”
599. P. Thomas a Villanova Wegener: “Das wunderbare äussere und innere Leben der Dienerin Gottes Anna Catherina Emmerich.” Dülmen i. W. 1891.
600. The heart of the mother of God is pierced by a sword.
601. Corresponding to the idea in Psalm xi:2, “For lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.”
602. K. E. Neumann: “The Speeches of Gautama Buddha,” translated from the German collection of the fragments of Suttanipāto of the Pāli-Kanon. München 1911.
603. With the same idea of an endogenous pain Theocritus (27, 28) calls the birth throes “Arrows of the Ilithyia.” In the sense of a wish the same comparison is found in Jesus Sirach 19:12. “When a word penetrates a fool it is the same as if an arrow pierced his loins.” That is to say, it gives him no rest until it is out.
604. One might be tempted to say that these were merely figuratively expressed coitus scenes. But that would be a little too strong and an unjustifiable accentuation of the material at issue. We cannot forget that the saints have, figuratively, taught the painful domestification of the brute. The result of this, which is the progress of civilization, has also to be recognized as a motive for this action.
605. Apuleius (“Metam.,” Book II, 31) made use of the symbolism of bow and arrow in a very drastic manner, “Ubi primam sagittam saevi Cupidinis in ima praecordia mea delapsam excepi, arcum meum en! Ipse vigor attendit et oppido formido, ne nervus rigoris nimietate rumpatur” (When I pulled out the first arrow of fierce Cupid that had entered into my inmost breast, behold my bow! Its very vigor stretches it and makes me fear lest the string be broken by the excessive tautness).
606. Thus the plague-bringing Apollo. In Old High German, arrow is called “strala” (strahlen = rays).
607. Spielrein’s patient (Jahrbuch, III, p. 371) has also the idea of the cleavage of the earth in a similar connection. “Iron is used for the purpose of penetrating into the earth ... with iron man can ... create men ... the earth is split, burst open, man is divided ... is severed and reunited. In order to make an end of the burial of the living, Jesus Christ calls his disciples to penetrate into the earth.”
The motive of “cleavage” is of general significance. The Persian hero Tishtriya, who also appeared as a white horse, opens the rain lake, and thus makes the earth fruitful. He is called Tîr = arrow. He was also represented as feminine, with a bow and arrow. Mithra with his arrow shot the water from the rock, so as to end the drought. The knife is sometimes found stuck in the earth. In Mithraic monuments sometimes it is the sacrificial instrument which kills the bull. (Cumont: Ibid., pp. 115, 116, 165.)
608. The result is doubtful: the body borne down by the weight of the forest is carried into empty Tartaros: Ampycides denies this: from out of the midst of the mass, he sees a bird with tawny feathers issue into the liquid air.
609. Spielrein’s patient also states that she has been shot through by God. (3 shots:) “then came a resurrection of the spirit.” This is the symbolism of introversion.
610. This is also represented mythologically in the legend of Theseus and Peirithoos, who wished to capture the subterranean Proserpina. With this aim they enter a chasm in the earth in the grove Kolonos, in order to get down to the underworld; when they were below they wished to rest, but being enchanted they hung on the rocks, that is to say, they remained fixed in the mother and were therefore lost for the upperworld. Later Theseus was freed by Hercules (revenge of Horus for Osiris), at which time Hercules appears in the rôle of the death-conquering hero.
611. This formula applies most directly to dementia praecox.
612. See Roscher: s. v. Philoktetes, Sp. 2318, 15.
613. When the Russian sun-hero Oleg stepped on the skull of the slain horse, a serpent came out of it and bit him on the foot. Then he became sick and died. When Indra in the form of Çyena, the falcon, stole the soma drink, Kriçanu, the herdsman, wounded him in his foot with his arrow (“Rigveda,” I, 155; IV, 322).
614. Similar to the Lord of the Grail who guards the chalice, the mother symbol. The myth of Philoctetes is taken from a more involved connection, the Hercules myth. Hercules has two mothers, the benevolent Alcmene and the pursuing Hera (Lamia), from whose breast he has absorbed immortality. Hercules conquered Hera’s serpent while yet in the cradle; that is to say, conquered the “terrible mother,” the Lamia. But from time to time Hera sent to him attacks of madness, in one of which he killed his children (Lamia motive). According to an interesting tradition, this deed occurred at the moment when Hercules refused to perform a great act in the service of Eurystheus. As a result of the refusal, the libido, in readiness for the work, regressed in a typical manner to the unconscious mother-imago, which resulted in madness (as to-day), during which Hercules identifies himself with Lamia (Hera) and murders his own children. The delphic oracle communicates to him the fact that he is named Hercules because he owes his immortal fame to Hera, who through her persecution compelled him to great deeds. It can be seen that “the great deed” really means the conquering of the mother and through her to win immortality. His characteristic weapon, the club, he cuts from the maternal olive tree. Like the sun, he possessed the arrows of Apollo. He conquered the Nemean lion in his cave, which has the signification of “the grave in the mother’s womb” (see the end of this chapter). Then follows the combat with the Hydra, the typical battle with the dragon; the complete conquering of the mother. (See below.) Following this, the capture of the Cerynean doe, whom he wounded with an arrow in the foot. This is what generally happens to the hero, but here it is reversed. Hercules showed the captured Erymanthian boar to Eurystheus, whereupon the latter in fear crept into a cask. That is, he died. The Stymphalides, the Cretan bull, and the man-devouring horse of Diomedes are symbols of the devastating powers of death, among which the latter’s relation to the mother may be recognized especially. The battle for the precious girdle of the Amazon queen Hippolyte permits us to see once more very clearly the shadow of the mother. Hippolyte is ready to give up the girdle, but Hera, changing herself into the form of Hippolyte, calls the Amazons against Hercules in battle. (Compare Horus, fighting for the head ornament of Isis, about which there is more later. Chap. 7.) The liberation of Hesione results from Hercules journeying downwards with his ship into the belly of the monster, and killing the monster from within after three days labor. (Jonah motive; Christ in the tomb or in hell; the victory over death by creeping into the womb of the mother, and its destruction in the form of the mother. The libido in the form of the beautiful maiden again conquered.) The expedition to Erythia is a parallel to Gilgamesh, also to Moses, in the Koran, whose goal was the confluence of the two seas: it is the journey of the sun to the Western sea, where Hercules discovered the straits of Gibraltar (“to that passage”: Faust), and with the ship of Helios set out towards Erythia. There he overcame the gigantic guardian Eurytion (Chumbaba in the Gilgamesh epic, the symbol of the father), then the triune Geryon (a monster of phallic libido symbolism), and at the same time wounded Hera, hastening to the help of Geryon by an arrow shot. Then the robbery of the herd followed. “The treasure attained with difficulty” is here presented in surroundings which make it truly unmistakable. Hercules, like the sun, goes to death, down into the mother (Western sea), but conquers the libido attached to the mother and returns with the wonderful kine; he has won back his libido, his life, the mighty possession. We discover the same thought in the robbery of the golden apples of Hesperides, which are defended by the hundred-headed dragon. The victory over Cerberus is also easily understood as the victory over death by entrance into the mother (underworld). In order to come to his wife Deianira, he has to undergo a terrible battle with a water god, Achelous (with the mother). The ferryman Nessus (a centaur) violates Deianira. With his sun arrows Hercules killed this adversary, but Nessus advised Deianira to preserve his poisoned blood as a love charm. When after the insane murder of Iphitus Delphi denied him the speech of the oracle, he took possession of the sacred tripod. The delphic oracle then compelled him to become a slave of Omphale, who made him like a child. After this Hercules returned home to Deianira, who presented him with the garment poisoned with Nessus’ blood (the Isis snake), which immediately clung so closely to his skin that he in vain attempted to tear it off. (The casting of the skin of the aging sun-god; Serpent, as symbol of rejuvenation.) Hercules then ascended the funeral pyre in order to destroy himself by fire like the phœnix, that is to say, to give birth to himself again from his own egg. No one but young Philoctetes dared to sacrifice the god. Therefore Philoctetes received the arrows of the sun and the libido myth was renewed with this Horus.
615. Apes, also, have an instinctive fear of snakes.
616. How much alive are still such primitive associations is shown by Segantini’s picture of the two mothers: cow and calf, mother and child in the same stable. From this symbolism the surroundings of the birthplace of the Savior are explained.
617. The myth of Hippolytos shows very beautifully all the typical parts of the problem: His stepmother Phaedra wantonly falls in love with him. He repulses her, she complains to her husband of violation; the latter implores the water god Poseidon to punish Hippolytos. Then a monster comes out of the sea. Hippolytos’ horses shy and drag Hippolytos to death. But he is resuscitated by Aesculapius and is placed by the gods with the wise nymph, Egeria, the counsellor of Numa Pompilius. Thus the wish is fulfilled; from incest, wisdom has come.
618. Compare Hercules and Omphale.
619. Compare the reproach of Gilgamesh against Ishtar.
620. Spielrein’s patient is also sick from “a snake bite.” Jahrbuch, III, p. 385.
621. The entirely introverted patient of Spielrein uses similar images: she speaks of “a rigidity of the soul on the cross,” of “stone figures” which must be “ransomed.”
I call attention here to the fact that the symbolisms mentioned above are striking examples of Silberer’s “functional category.” They depict the condition of introversion.
622. W. Gurlitt says: “The carrying of the bull is one of the difficult ἆθλα” (services) which Mithra performed in the service of freeing humanity; “somewhat corresponding, if it is permitted to compare the small with the great, with the carrying of the cross by Christ” (Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” I, 72). Surely it is permissible to compare the two acts.
Man should be past that period when, in true barbaric manner, he haughtily scorned the strange gods, the “dii minorum gentium.” But man has not progressed that far, even yet.
623. Robertson (“Evangelical Myths,” p. 130) gives an interesting contribution to the question of the symbol of the carrying of the cross. Samson carried the “pillars of the gates from Gaza and died between the columns of the temple of the Philistines.” Hercules, weighted down by his burden, carried his columns to the place (Gades), where he also died according to the Syrian version of the legend. The columns of Hercules mark the western point where the sun sinks into the sea. In old art he was actually represented carrying the two columns under his arms in such a way that they exactly formed a cross. Here we perhaps have the origin of the myth of Jesus, who carries his own cross to the place of execution. It is worth noting that the three synoptics substitute a man of the name of Simon from Cyrene as bearer of the cross. Cyrene is in Libya, the legendary scene upon which Hercules performed the labor of carrying the columns, as we have seen, and Simon (Simson) is the nearest Greek name-form for Samson, which in Greek might have been read Simson, as in Hebrew. But in Palestine it was Simon, Semo or Sem, actually a name of a god, who represented the old sun-god Semesch, who was identified with Baal, from whose myth the Samson myth has doubtless arisen. The god Simon enjoyed especial honor in Samaria. “The cross of Hercules might well be the sun’s wheel, for which the Greeks had the symbol of the cross. The sun’s wheel upon the bas-relief in the small metropolis at Athens contains a cross, which is very similar to the Maltese cross.” (See Thiele: “Antike Himmelsbilder,” 1898, p. 59.)
624. The Greek myth of Ixion, who was bound to the “four-spoked wheel,” says this almost without disguise. Ixion first murdered his stepfather, but later was absolved from guilt by Zeus and blessed with his favor. But the ingrate attempted to seduce Hera, the mother. Zeus deceived him, however, allowing the goddess of the clouds, Nephele, to assume Hera’s form. (From this connection the centaurs have arisen.) Ixion boasted of his deed, but Zeus as a punishment plunged him into the underworld, where he was bound to a wheel continually whirled around by the wind. (Compare the punishment of Francesca da Rimini in Dante and the “penitents” by Segantini.)
625. Cited from Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, Jahrgang II, p. 365.
626. The symbolism of death appearing in abundance in dreams has been emphasized by Stekel (“Sprache des Traumes,” p. 317).
627. Compare the Cassius scene above.
CHAPTER VII
628. A direct unconstrained expression of sexuality is a natural occurrence and as such neither unbeautiful nor repulsive. The “moral” repression makes sexuality on one side dirty and hypocritical, on the other shameless and obtrusive.
629. Compare what is said below concerning the motive of fettering.
630. The sacrilegious assault of Horus upon Isis, at which Plutarch (“De Isis et Osiris”) stands aghast; he expresses himself as follows concerning it. “But if any one wishes to assume and maintain that all this has really happened and taken place with respect to blessed and imperishable nature, which for the most part is considered as corresponding to the divine; then, to speak in the words of Aeschylus, ‘he must spit out and clean his mouth.’” From this sentence one can form a conception of how the well-intentioned people of ancient society may have condemned the Christian point of view, first the hanged God, then the management of the family, the “foundation” of the state. The psychologist is not surprised.
631. Compare the typical fate of Theseus and Peirithoos.
632. Compare the example given for that in Aigremont: “Fuss- und Schuhsymbolik.” Also Part I of this book; the foot of the sun in an Armenian folk prayer. Also de Gubernatis: “Die Tiere in der Indo-Germanischen Mythologie,” Vol. I, p. 220 ff.
633. Rohde: “Psyche.”
634. Porphyrius (“De antro nympharum.” Quoted by Dieterich: “Mithraslit.,” p. 63) says that according to the Mithraic doctrine the souls which pass away at birth are destined for winds, because these souls had taken the breath of the wind into custody and therefore had a similar nature: “ψυχαῖς δ’ εἰς γένεσιν ἰούσαις καὶ ἀπὸ γενέσεως χωριζομέναις εἰκότως ἔταξαν ἀνέμους διὰ τὸ ἐφελκεσθαι καὶ αὐτὰς πνεῦμα καὶ οὐσίαν ἔχειν τοιαύτην—(The souls departing at birth and becoming separated, probably become winds because of inhaling their breath and becoming the same substance).
635. In the Mithraic liturgy the generating breath of the spirit comes from the sun, probably “from the tube of the sun” (see Part I). Corresponding to this idea, in the Rigveda the sun is called the One-footed. Compare with that the Armenian prayer, for the sun to allow its foot to rest upon the face of the suppliant (Abeghian: “Der armenische Volksglaube,” 1899, p. 41).
636. Firmicus Maternus (Mathes., I, 5, 9): “Cui (animo) descensus per orbem solis tribuitur, per orbem vero lunae praeparatur ascensus” (For which soul a descent through the disc of the sun is devised, but the ascent is prepared through the disc of the moon). Lydus (“De mens.,” IV, 3) tells us that the hierophant Praetextatus has said that Janus despatches the diviner souls to the lunar fields: τὰς θειοτέρας ψυχὰς ἐπὶ τὴν σεληνικὸν χόρον ἀποπέμπει. Epiphanius (Haeres LXVI, 52): ὅτι ἐκ τῶν ψυχῶν ὁ δίσκος [τῆς σελήνης] ἀποπίμπλαται. Quoted by Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” I, I, p. 40. In exotic myths it is the same with the moon. Frobenius: Ibid., p. 352 ff.
637. “The Light of Asia, or The Great Renunciation” (Mahâbhinish-kramana).
638. One sees upon corresponding representations how the elephant presses into Maya’s head with its trunk.
639. Rank: “The Myth of the Birth of the Hero,” translated by W. White.
640. The speedy dying of the mother or the separation from the mother belongs to the myth of the hero. In the myth of the swan maiden which Rank has analyzed very beautifully, there is the wish-fulfilling thought, that the swan maiden can fly away again after the birth of the child, because she has then fulfilled her purpose. Man needs the mother only for rebirth.
641. Indian word for the rustle of the wind in the trees.
642. Means sound of the waves.
643. An introjection of the object into the subject in the sense of Ferenczi, the “gegenwurf” or “widerwurf” (Objektum) of the mystics Eckart and Böhme.
644. Karl Joël (“Seele und Welt,” Jena 1912) says (p. 153): “Life does not diminish in artists and prophets, but is enhanced. They are the leaders into the lost Paradise, which now for the first time becomes Paradise through rediscovery. It is no more the old dull unity of life towards which the artist strives and leads, it is the sentient reunion, not the empty but the full unity, not the unity of indifference but the unity of difference.” “All life is the raising of the equilibrium and the pulling backwards into equilibrium. Such a return do we find in religion and art.”
645. By the primal experience must be understood that first human differentiation between subject and object, that first conscious placing of object, which is not psychologically conceivable without the presupposition of an inner division of the animal “man” from himself, by which precisely is he separated from nature which is at one with itself.
646. Crêvecoeur: “Voyage dans la Haute Pensylvanie,” I, 362.
647. The dragons of the Greek (and Swiss) legends live in or near springs or other waters of which they are often the guardians.
648. Compare the discussion above about the encircling and devouring motive. Water as a hindrance in dreams seems to refer to the mother, longing for the mother instead of positive work. The crossing of water—overcoming of the resistance; that is to say the mother, as a symbol of the longing for inactivity like death or sleep.
649. Compare also the Attic custom of stuffing a bull in spring, the customs of the Lupercalia, Saturnalia, etc. I have devoted to this motive a separate investigation, therefore I forego further proof.
650. In the Gilgamesh epic, it is directly said that it is immortality which the hero goes to obtain.
651. Sepp: “Das Heidentum und dessen Bedeutung für das Christentum,” Vol. III, 82.
652. Compare the symbolism of the arrow above.
653. This thought is generally organized in the doctrine of pre-existence. Thus in any case man is his own generator, immortal and a hero, whereby the highest wishes are fulfilled.
654. Frazer: “Golden Bough,” IV, 297.
655. “Thou seekest the heaviest burden, there findest thou thyself” (Nietzsche: “Zarathustra”).
656. It is an unvarying peculiarity, so to speak, that in the whale-dragon myth, the hero is very hungry in the belly of the monster and begins to cut off pieces from the animal, so as to feed himself. He is in the nourishing mother “in the presexual stage.” His next act, in order to free himself, is to make a fire. In a myth of the Eskimos of the Behring Straits, the hero finds a woman in the whale’s belly, the soul of the animal, which is feminine (Ibid, p. 85). (Compare Frobenius: Ibid, passim.)
657. The carrying of the tree played an important part, as is evident from a note in Strabo X, in the cult of Dionysus and Ceres (Demeter).
658. A text on the Pyramids, which treats of the arrival of the dead Pharaoh in Heaven, depicts how Pharaoh takes possession of the gods in order to assimilate their divine nature, and to become the lord of the gods: “His servants have imprisoned the gods with a chain, they have taken them and dragged them away, they have bound them, they have cut their throats, and taken out their entrails, they have dismembered them and cooked them in hot vessels. And the king consumed their force and ate their souls. The great gods form his breakfast, the medium gods his dinner, the little gods his supper—the king consumes everything that comes in his way. Greedily he devours everything and his magic power becomes greater than all magic power. He becomes the heir of the power, he becomes greater than all heirs, he becomes the lord of heaven, he eats all crowns and all bracelets, he eats the wisdom of every god, etc.” (Wiedemann: “Der alte Orient,” II, 2, 1900, p. 18). This impossible food, this “Bulimie,” strikingly depicts the sexual libido in regression to the presexual material, where the mother (the gods) is not the object of sex but of hunger.
659. The sacramental sacrifice of Dionysus-Zagreus and the eating of the sacrificial meat produced the “νέος Διόνυσος” the resurrection of the god, as plainly appears from the Cretan fragments of the Euripides quoted by Dieterich (Ibid., p. 105):
(Living a blameless life whereby I became an initiate of the Idaean Zeus, I celebrated the carnivorous banquet of Zagreus, the wandering herdsman of the night.)
The mystics took the god into themselves by eating the uncooked meat of the sacrificial animal.
660. Richter: 14, 14.
661. Thou boy eternal, thou most beautiful one seen in the heavens, without horns standing, with thy virgin head, etc.
662. Orphic Hymn, 46. Compare Roscher: “Lexicon,” sect. on Iakchos.
663. A winnowing fan used as cradle.
664. A close parallel to this is the Japanese myth of Izanagi, who, following his dead spouse into the underworld, implored her to return. She is ready, but beseeches him, “Do not look at me.” Izanagi produces light with his reed, that is to say, with a masculine piece of wood (the fire-boring Phallus), and thus loses his spouse. (Frobenius: Ibid., p. 343.) Mother must be put in the place of spouse. Instead of the mother, the hero produces fire; Hiawatha, maize; Odin, Runes, when he in torment hung on the tree.
665. Quoted from De Jong: “Das antike Mysterienwesen.” Leiden 1910, p. 22.
666. A son-lover from the Demeter myth is Iasion, who embraces Demeter upon a thrice-ploughed cornfield. (Bridal couch in the pasture.) For that Iasion was struck by lightning by Zeus (Ovid: “Metam.,” IX).
667. In a sunless place.
668. Descend into a sunless desert place.
669. Descent into a cave.
670. See Cumont: “Textes et Monuments,” I, p. 56.
671. “Mithraslit.,” p. 123.
672. For example upon a Campana relief in Lovatelli (“Antichi monumenti,” Roma, 1889, I, IV, Fig. 5). Likewise the Veronese Priapus has a basket filled with phalli.
673. Compare Grimm: II, IV, p. 899: Either by the caressing or kissing of a dragon or a snake, the fearful animal was changed into a beautiful woman whom the hero wins in this way.
674. The mother, the earth, is the distributor of nourishment. The mother in presexual material has this meaning. Therefore St. Dominicus was nourished from the breasts of the mother of God. The sun wife, Namaqua, consists of bacon. Compare with this the megalomanic ideas of my patient, who asserted: “I am Germania and Helvetia made exclusively from ‘sweet butter’” (“Psychology of Dementia Praecox”).
675. He who achieved divinity through the womb.
676. He who achieved divinity through the womb; he is a serpent, and he was drawn through the womb of those who were being initiated.
677. The golden serpent is crowded into the breast of the initiates and is then drawn out through the lowest parts.
678. O Fœtus, he who is in the vagina or womb.
679. Compare the ideas of Nietzsche: “Piercing into one’s own pit,” etc. In a prayer to Hermes in a London papyrus it is said: ἐλθέ μοι, κύρίε Ἑρμῆ, ὡς τὰ βρέφη εἰς τὰς κοιλίας τῶν γυναικῶν (Come to me, Lord Hermes, as the foetus into the womb of the mother). Kenyon: “Greek Papyrus in the British Museum,” 1893, p. 116; Pap. CXXII, Z. 2 ff. Cited by Dieterich: Ibid., p. 97.
680. Compare De Jong: Ibid., p. 22.
681. The typical grain god of antiquity was Adonis, whose death and resurrection was celebrated annually. He was the son-lover of the mother, for the grain is the son and fructifier of the womb of the earth as Robertson very correctly remarks (“Evangelical Myths,” p. 36).
682. De Jong: Ibid., p. 14.
683. On a certain night an image is placed lying down in a litter; there is weeping and lamentations among the people, with beatings of bodies and tears. After a time, when they have become exhausted from the lamentations, a light appears; then the priest anoints the throats of all those who were weeping, and softly whispers, “Take courage, O initiates of the Redeemed Divinity; you shall achieve salvation through your grief.”
684. Faust:
685. As an example among many, I mention here the Polynesian Rata myth cited by Frobenius: Ibid., pp. 64–66: “With a favorable wind the boat was sailing easily away over the Ocean, when Nganaoa called out one day: ‘O Rata, here is a fearful enemy who rises up from the Ocean!’ It was an open mussel of huge dimensions. One shell was in front of the boat, the other behind it, and the vessel was directly between. The next moment the horrible mussel would have clapped its shells together and ground the boat and occupants to pieces in its grip. But Nganaoa was prepared for this possibility. He grasped his long spear and quickly plunged it into the belly of the animal so that the creature, instead of snapping together, at once sank back to the bottom of the sea. After they had escaped from this danger they continued on their way. But after a while the voice of the always watchful Nganaoa was again to be heard. ‘O Rata, once more a terrible enemy rushes upwards from the depths of the ocean.’ This time it was a mighty octopus, whose gigantic tentacles already surrounded the boat, in order to destroy it. At this critical moment, Nganaoa seized his spear, and plunged it into the head of the octopus. The tentacles sank away limp and the dead monster rose to the surface of the water. Once more they continued on their journey, but a yet greater danger awaited them. One day the valiant Nganaoa called out, ‘O Rata, here is a great whale!’ The huge jaws were wide open, the lower jaw was already under the boat, and the upper one over it. One moment more and the whale would have devoured them. Now Nganaoa ‘the dragon slayer’ broke his spear into two parts, and at the moment when the whale was about to devour them, he stuck the two pieces into the jaws of the foe so that he could not close his jaws. Nganaoa quickly sprang into the jaws of the great whale (devouring of the hero) and looked into its belly, and what did he see? There sat both his parents, his father, Tairitokerau, and his mother, Vaiaroa, who had been gulped down into the depths of this monster. The oracle has come true. The voyage has come to its end. Great was the joy of the parents of Nganaoa when they saw their son. They were convinced that their freedom was at hand. And Nganaoa resolved upon revenge. He took one of the two pieces from the jaws of the animal—one was enough to make it impossible for the whale to close his jaws and so keep a passage free for Nganaoa and his parents. He broke this part of the spear in two, in order to use them as wood to produce fire by rubbing. He commanded his father to hold one firmly below, while he himself managed the upper one, until the fire began to glimmer (production of fire). Now when he blew this into flames, he hastened to heat the fatty part (heart) of the belly with the fire. The monster, writhing with pain, sought help swimming to the nearest land (journey in the sea). As soon as he reached the sandbank (land) father, mother and son walked onto the land through the open jaws of the dying whale (slipping out of the hero).”
686. In the New Zealand Maui myth (quoted by Frobenius: Ibid., p. 66 ff.) the monster to be conquered is the grandmother Hine-nui-te-po. Maui, the hero, says to the birds who assist him: “My little friends, now when I creep into the jaws of the old woman, you must not laugh, but when I have been in and come out again, from her mouth, then you may greet me with jubilant laughter.” Then Maui actually creeps into the mouth of the sleeping old woman.