The same constellation figures, under a divinified aspect, with the title Otawa, in the great Finnish epic, the ‘Kalevala.’ Now, although there is no certainty as to the original meaning of this word, which has no longer a current application to any terrestrial object, it is impossible not to be struck with its resemblance to the Iroquois term Okowari, signifying ‘bear,’ both zoologically and astronomically.[[35]] The inference seems justified that Otawa held the same two meanings, and that the Finns knew the great northern constellation by the name of the old Teutonic king of beasts.
[35]. Lafitau, op. cit. p. 236.
It was (as we have seen) similarly designated on the banks of the Euphrates; and a celestial she-bear, doubtfully referred to in the Rig-Veda, becomes the starting-point of an explanatory legend in the Râmâyana.[[36]] Thus, circling the globe from the valley of the Ganges to the great lakes of the New World, we find ourselves confronted with the same sign in the northern skies, the relic of some primeval association of ideas, long since extinct.
[36]. Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. ii. p. 109.
Extinct even in Homer’s time. For the myth of Callisto (first recorded in a lost work by Hesiod) was a subsequent invention—an effect, not a cause—a mere embroidery of Hellenic fancy over a linguistic fact, the true origin of which was lost in the mists of antiquity.
There is, on the other hand, no difficulty in understanding how the Seven Stars obtained their second title of the Wain, or Plough, or Bier. Here we have a plain case of imitative name-giving—a suggestion by resemblance almost as direct as that which established in our skies a Triangle and a Northern Crown. Curiously enough, the individual appellations still current for the stars of the Plough, include a reminiscence of each system of nomenclature—the legendary and the imitative. The brightest of the seven, α Ursæ Majoris, the Pointer nearest the Pole, is designated Dubhe, signifying, in Arabic, ‘bear’; while the title Benetnasch—equivalent to Benât-en-Nasch, ‘daughters of the bier’—of the furthest star in the plough-handle, perpetuates the lugubrious fancy, native in Arabia, by which the group figures as a corpse attended by three mourners.
Turning to the second great constellation mentioned in both Homeric epics, we again meet traces of remote and unconscious tradition: yet less remote, probably, than that concerned with the Bear—certainly less inscrutable; for recent inquiries into the lore and language of ancient Babylon have thrown much light on the relationships of the Orion fable.
There seems no reason to question the validity of Mr. Robert Brown’s interpretation of the word by the Accadian Ur-ana, ‘light of heaven.’[[37]] But a proper name is significant only where it originates. Moreover, it is considered certain that the same brilliant star-group known to Homer no less than to us as Orion, was termed by Chaldeo-Assyrian peoples ‘Tammuz,’[[38]] a synonym of Adonis. Nor is it difficult to divine how the association came to be established. For, about 2000 B.C., when the Euphratean constellations assumed their definitive forms, the belt of Orion began to be visible before dawn in the month of June, called ‘Tammuz,’ because the death of Adonis was then celebrated. It is even conceivable that the heliacal rising of the asterism may originally have given the signal for that celebration. We can at any rate scarcely doubt that it received the name of ‘Tammuz’ because its annual emergence from the solar beams coincided with the period of mystical mourning for the vernal sun.
[37]. Myth of Kirke, p. 146.
[38]. Lenormant, Origines de l’Histoire, t. 1. p. 247.