and (210) Asteropœus is called “river-born,” because the son of Pelegon, who “to broadly flowing Axius owed his birth.” Remembering the belief of certain tribes of Indians (supra, [p. 137]) that they were “created under the water,” which I have construed to mean, that they were created on the other side of the Deluge, so we may take in a similar sense the traditions of these Homeric heroes that they were “river-born;” and does the expression, son of Pelegon (compare “son of Prometheus,” supra, [p. 232]), imply more than that he was the descendant of Phaleg, or, if not in the line of descent, the descendant of progenitors who had retained the tradition that Phaleg was so called, “because in his days the earth was divided”?—Gen. ch. x. 25. Compare ancient Welsh ballad (Davies’ “Mythology of British Druids,” p. 100)—
“Truly I was in the ship
With Dylan (Deucalion), son of the sea....
When ... the floods came forth
From heaven to the great deep.”
[213] The name for river in the Chitral or Little Kashghar vocabulary (Vigne, “Travels in Kashmir”) is river = sin; also in the Dangon, on the Indus, voc. (id.) river = sin; in the Affghan (Kalproth) the sea = sind. Sindhu is the Sanscrit name for river (Max Müller, “Science of Lang.,” 1st series, 215); and has also its equivalent in ancient Persian. In Danish, river or lake = so; in Icelandic, sjor (sjo); in Bultistan, touh; German, see; English, sea; in Kashmir, sar = marse; Icelandic, saus. Compare Rivers Saar, Soane, Seine, Irish Suir; perhaps also Esk and Usk (Vigne, “Trav. in Kashmir”). Horse = shtah, in Bultistan. Has not so analogy with eau, augr (Chittral), water? Sara = water in Sanscrit (Max Müller, “Chips,” ii. 47); Sanscrit, vari, more generic term for water; Latin, mare; Gothic, marie; Slavonic, more; Irish and Scotch, muir (id.) Compare Chinese “ma” = horse; Mongol, “mon” = horse; German, machre; English, mare. Conclusion, either there is the same word for horse and water in certain languages, which may have occurred in the way of secondary derivation from these “mysteries,” or if so means water, then “So-sin” may only be a reduplication, as in the names of some of our rivers—e.g. Dwfr-Dwy = water, of Deva = Dee-river (Archæol. Journal, xvii. 98). Bryant (“Myth.” ii. 408) says “The ἱππος, hippus (horse), alluded to in the early mythology was certainly a float or ship, the same as the ceto.” There is, moreover, the analogy in the Latin of aqua and equus. Another Sanscrit word for water, “ap” (Max Müller, Sc. of L., 103) has analogy with the Greek ἱππος = horse. It appears (Sc. of L., 2nd series, p. 36), that the Tahitians have substituted the word “pape” for “vai” = water; but both words “pape,” to ap, “vai,” to vari, seem to have analogies to Sanscrit as above. Plato (“Cratylus,” c. 36, Sc. of L., 1st series, p. 116) mentions that the name for water was the same in Phrygian and Greek. At p. 235, 1st series, Mr Max Müller says that Persian Harôya is the same as Sanscrit Saroya; which latter “is derived from a root ‘sar’ or ‘sri,’ to go, to run; from which ‘saras,’ water, ‘sarit,’ river, and ‘Sarayu,’ the proper name of the river near Oude.”
Here at any rate in the Sanskrit “sar,” to run, we may, if the above conjecture is rejected, start the words “horse” and “water” from a common root.
[214] Compare (Klaproth, “Mem. Asiat.” ii. 12)—Eng. ox; Mongol, char; Hebrew, chor; French, charrue (plough.) Klaproth, ii. 405, “Les cheveux en Thou Khin (whom he identifies with the Turks) portaient le nom de Sogo ou soko; cest le même nom que le Turc sâtch ou sadg.” Can it have affinity with Chinese sa (Chinese szu = bœuf sauvage); German, säen; Swedish, sá; French, semer; English = to sou; Peruvian, sara = maize; also French, coudre, to sow with English corn; Sanscrit, go; High German, chus; Sclavonic, gows (Max Müller, “Chips,” ii. 27); and Kashmir and Dongan, gau; Icelandic, ku? In Affghan a bull = sakhendar and soukhandar. In the extinct Tartar Coman (vide Klaproth) ox = ogus or seger = Turkish, okus; Sanscrit, oukcha; German, ochse. Plough = Sanscrit, sinam; Irish, serak; Persian, siar. Horse = asp, Persian; ess, Sclavonic = English ass; and in Chittral on Indus (vide horse or bull used in ceremonies on banks of Indus, infra) horse = astor. (Has not tor here affinity with taureau.) Corn = Aslek (Kirghish) and Ashlyk (?) Turkish. Max Müller (Science of Language, p. 231), says—“Aspa was the Persian name for horse, and in the Scythian names, Aspabota, Aspakara, and Asparatha, we can hardly fail to recognise the same element.” Also, p. 242, “The comparison of ploughing and sowing is of frequent occurrence in ancient language.” Eng., plough; Sclav., ploug = Sanscrit, plava, ship = Gk. πλοιον, ship. “In English dialects, plough is used as a waggon or conveyance. In the Vale of Blackmore, a waggon is called a plough, or plow, and Zull (A.-S., syl) is used for aratrum.”—Barnes, “Dorset Dialect,” p. 369, ap. Max Müller.
[215] Compare the procession in the Panathenæa and Dionysia, supra, [p. 248].
[216] “Eight men representing eight buffalo bulls,” in Mandan celebration, “took their positions on the four sides of the ark or ‘big canoe.’”—Catlin, p. 17. “The chief actors in these strange scenes were eight men with skins of buffaloes,” &c. p. 16. Four images were suspended on poles above the mystery lodge, p. 8.