Clemens says the snakes were caressed in representations of the loves of Zeus in serpentine form. The great savage example is that of "the snake-dance of the Moquis," who handle rattle-snakes in the mysteries without being harmed. The dance is partly totemistic, partly meant, like the Thesmophoria, to secure the fertility of the lands of the Moquis of Arizonas. The turndum or is employed. Masks are worn, as in the rites of Demeter Cidiria in Arcadia.
The Snake-Dance of the Moquis. By Captain Jobn G. Bourke, London, 1884.
Pausanias, viii. 16.
5. This last point of contact between certain Greek and certain savage mysteries is highly important. The argument of Lobeck, in his celebrated work Aglaophamus, is that the Mysteries were of no great moment in religion. Had he known the evidence as to savage initiations, he would have been confirmed in his opinion, for many of the singular Greek rites are clearly survivals from savagery.
But was there no more truly religious survival? Pindar is a very ancient witness that things of divine import were revealed. "Happy is he who having seen these things goes under the hollow earth. He knows the end of life, and the god-given beginning." Sophocles "chimes in," as Lobeck says, declaring that the initiate alone LIVEin Hades, while other souls endure all evils. Crinagoras avers that even in life the initiate live secure, and in death are the happier. Isagoras declares that about the end of life and all eternity they have sweet hopes.
Fragm., cxvi., 128 H. p. 265.
Splendida testimonia, cries Lobeck. He tries to minimise the evidence, remarking that Isocrates promises the very same rewards to all who live justly and righteously. But why not, if to live justly and righteously was part of the teaching of the mysteries of Eleusis? Cicero's evidence, almost a translation of the Greek passages already cited, Lobeck dismisses as purely rhetorical.
Lobeck's method is rather cavalier. Pindar and Sophocles meant something of great significance.
De Legibus ii. 14; Aglaophamus, pp. 69-74.
Now we have acknowledged savage survivals of ugly rites in the Greek mysteries. But it is only fair to remember that, in certain of the few savage mysteries of which we know the secret, righteousness of life and a knowledge of good are inculcated. This is the case in Australia, and in Central Africa, where to be "uninitiated" is equivalent to being selfish. Thus it seems not improbable that consolatory doctrines were expounded in the Eleusinia, and that this kind of sermon or exhortation was no less a survival from savagery than the daubing with clay, and the , and other wild rites.
Making of Religion, pp. 193-197, 235.
We have now attempted to establish that in Greek law and ritual many savage customs and usages did undeniably survive. We have seen that both philosophical and popular opinion in Greece believed in a past age of savagery. In law, in religion, in religious art, in custom, in human sacrifice, in relics of totemism, and in the mysteries, we have seen that the Greeks retained plenty of the usages now found among the remotest and most backward races. We have urged against the suggestion of borrowing from Egypt or Asia that these survivals are constantly found in local and tribal religion and rituals, and that consequently they probably date from that remote prehistoric past when the Greeks lived in village settlements. It may still doubtless be urged that all these things are Pelasgic, and were the customs of a race settled in Hellas before the arrival of the Homeric Achaeans, and Dorians, and Argives, who, on this hypothesis, adopted and kept up the old savage Pelasgian ways and superstitions. It is impossible to prove or disprove this belief, nor does it affect our argument. We allege that all Greek life below the surface was rich in institutions now found among the most barbaric peoples. These institutions, whether borrowed or inherited, would still be part of the legacy left by savages to cultivated peoples. As this legacy is so large in custom and ritual, it is not unfair to argue that portions of it will also be found in myths. It is now time to discuss Greek myths of the origin of things, and decide whether they are or are not analogous in ideas to the myths which spring from the wild and ignorant fancy of Australians, Cahrocs, Nootkas and Bushmen.