Bes—Photo W.A. Mansell & Co.
Sacred Animals
From the many sources whence comes our knowledge of ancient Egypt there is to be gathered a most comprehensive survey of the great extent and influence which animal-worship attained to in that country. It prevailed there from the earliest times and was far older than Egyptian civilization. That much of it is of totemic origin cannot be gainsaid, an origin to be found among the pre-dynastic tribes whence sprang the Egyptian people.
The inspiring cause of animal-worship was undoubtedly at first nothing more or less than fear, with an admixture of awesome admiration of the creature's excelling power and strength. Later there developed the idea of animals as typifying gods, the actual embodiments of divine and superhuman attributes. Thus the bull and the ram, possessors of exceptional procreative energy, came to represent gods of nature and the phenomena of yearly rejuvenescence, as is stated by Wiedemann: "The generative power in the animal was identical with the force by which life is renewed in nature continually and in man after death." Throughout Egypt the bull and the cow, the latter as typifying fertility, were worshipped as agricultural gods.
Again, to the Egyptian mind, incapable of abstract thought, an immaterial and intangible deity was an impossible conception. A god, and more so by reason of his godhead, must manifest and function in an actual body. The king was believed to be an incarnation of a god, but he was apart and only one, and as the Egyptian everywhere craved the manifestation of and communion with his gods, it thus came about that incarnations of deity and its many attributes were multiplied. Certain animals could represent these to a greater degree than man, though of course to Egyptian thought man was the standard by which all in the universe was to be measured and weighed. The gods were but little greater than men; they were limited, and might know death. Their immortality was only acquired by the power of transmigration from one body to another, escaping human death by transference to successive forms and a renewal of the life force.
The symbolism of the Egyptian religion is mostly expressed by means of animals. Thus the god of the dead is spoken of as a jackal, the water-god as a crocodile, while the sky is a cow, the sun a falcon, the moon an ibis. Because of this exaltation of certain animals whole species were held as sacred, and this led to the many strange ideas and customs amongst the Egyptians mentioned so often by classic writers, as, for instance, considering a man fortunate who was eaten by a crocodile. When these animals died their owners mourned as for a relative, and the greatest care was taken in the disposal of their remains. Cows were held in such veneration that their bodies were cast into the sacred waters of the Nile, and a bull was buried outside the town, its horns protruding above the ground to mark the place of interment. Other instances might be adduced.
