Female fertility deities
- Related Topics:
- portal tomb
- rock-cut tomb
- passage tomb
- court tomb
- oracle bone
Small female figures, the so-called Venus statuettes, appear for the first time in the Upper Paleolithic Period. In some cases they are very schematically formed, and it is often difficult or impossible to recognize female attributes. In other cases, however, they are naturalistic representations of corpulent women whose secondary sexual characteristics (their breasts and buttocks) were given special prominence, though their faces, feet, and arms were almost completely neglected. Such strong emphasis on the anatomical zones that are related to the bearing of children and nourishing them easily conveys to one the idea of female fertility. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily true of all these small figures.
Ethnological analogies with present-day primitive phenomena offer the equally plausible view that such figures were regarded as the representations of the abodes of spirits whose function was to help and protect, and especially during hunting. They also may have been conceived, among other things, as mothers or rulers of the animals, goddesses of the underworld, helpers during hunting and donators of game, and as sovereigns of the land and other regions and of natural forces, including that of fertility.
No known direct continuum connects these earlier Paleolithic figures to similar ones of the early Neolithic and later periods. In settlements and shrines of these later periods are found large numbers of female figurines of widely differing types. They may have been representations of deities and symbols or, perhaps, votive offerings, somehow connected with female fertility. This can be safely assumed for figurines that show an obvious indication of fertility or are connected with children, and even more for shrines containing figures with sculptured pairs of breasts, and figures on the walls of women in childbirth. Not all female figures can, however, be understood merely as fertility symbols; rather, in many cases they are assumed to be house gods or representations of ancestors, and, especially when appearing in graves, as substitutes for the bodies of maids, wives, and concubines. An appearance of a large number of smaller figures suggests a votive or magical usage.
Shamanism, sorcery, and magic
Shamanism is a rather variable and highly stratified complex of practices and conceptions; characteristic among these are the use of ecstasy, the belief in guardian spirits (who are often in animal form, with the function of helping and guiding the dead on their voyage to the beyond), and beliefs concerning metamorphosis (change of form) and travelling to the beyond. Pictures from the Upper Paleolithic Period indicate the existence at that time of ecstatic practices and of beliefs in protective and helping spirits, which assume the form of birds and other animals. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether shamanism existed in fully developed form at that time. Also, in the course of prehistory, objects appear that may well have belonged to the paraphernalia of shamanism. Noisemaking objects (to drive away evil spirits) are often found in the material remains of the Iron Age and probably are connected with shamanism.
Recent studies stress the religious character of shamanism, though in practice it is related to sorcery and magic. Shamanism is not to be identified with sorcery and magic if they are understood as attempts to manipulate the supernatural through certain human techniques, in contrast with religion, in which man approaches higher beings (gods) in an attitude of supplication. Magic or sorcery thus appears as the opponent of true religion and gains importance when religion declines or is overwhelmed. In fact, magic and sorcery may take over cultic forms and rob them of their religious meaning when this occurs. For these reasons, it is often difficult to decide whether prehistoric phenomena were of religious or magical character.
Magic also can be practiced to a large degree without the use of material objects, and it is, therefore, as hard to grasp archaeologically as true religion. In the interpretation of the art of the Upper Paleolithic, scholars have given great importance to magic because, for example, missiles (spears and arrows) were drawn on the pictures of animals. This has been interpreted to mean that an effort was made to ensure and compel the success of hunters through magical action. But this interpretation is highly speculative, and it remains uncertain what these drawings mean. It is just as difficult to decide whether or not other pictures, sculptures, abstract symbols, amulets, and similar objects were used to make magic in this and later periods.
Evolutionary development
Religion is always closely related to other realms of life, such as economic activities. These relations are partly direct and partly mediated by social forms. The latter are, on the one hand, at least partially dependent on economic conditions; on the other hand, social structures influence the formation of religious phenomena and often serve as models for their elaboration. In a negative sense, then, it is often possible to eliminate certain religious phenomena as inappropriate to a particular society. It is inconceivable, for example, that the religious conception of simple hunters and gatherers included an elaborately organized hierarchy of gods with detailed division of labour between the individual figures. Similarly, it is a mistake to attribute to hunters and gatherers conceptions that are bound up with agriculture and the fertility of fields. In a positive sense, however, certain economic and social conditions will encourage the development of certain corresponding religious conceptions. Animalistic notions will be especially effective in situations where animals play a large role as partners of humans. Nevertheless, the spiritual ties to animals will be considerably different among hunters or agrarian peoples who still find it necessary to rely heavily on hunting for their meat supply as compared with pastoral peoples. In fully agrarian cultures, on the other hand, ideas about the fertility of fields and cultivated plants play an important part; they are connected with other notions about fertility and influence other spheres of life.
Stone Age cultures
Lower or Early and Middle Paleolithic
The oldest burials that attest to a belief in life after death can be placed in the period between about 50,000 and 30,000 bce. The earliest evidence of human activity in any form, on the other hand, goes back more than 1,000,000 years. Yet, since religious conceptions are not always bound to material objects, and since there is evidence that truly human beings existed even during early Paleolithic times, it is inadmissible to infer that earliest man had no religion from the mere fact that no identifiable religious objects have been found.
A study of very simple hunters and gatherers of recent times shows that several religious conceptions generally considered to be especially “primitive” (e.g., fetishism) hardly play an important part, but rather that, among other things, the supposedly “advanced” conception of a personal creator and preserver of the world does play an important part. Such a belief could never be discovered by examining archaeological sources—the material remains—and hence cannot be ruled out for the Early Paleolithic Period. Whether or not the sacrifices in that era involved divine creators or preservers or other beings can only be a matter of conjecture. Features of animalism, magic, and various other views and practices may have played a role, but probably less so than in later epochs.
Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic
The animalistic features encountered in the art of the Upper Paleolithic Period were most likely only a part of the religion that existed at that time. Among present-day “primitives” the animalistic realm often occupies only a lower sphere of what can be considered religious, and beyond and above that sphere are still other notions about gods. Practices concerning the resurrection of animals and the preservation of species evidently also played an important part and were closely tied to animalistic conceptions. The corresponding rituals clearly took on a special significance in relation to bears and became the basis for the bear ceremonies that were later widely diffused. Although shamanism may have been initiated somewhat earlier, it was now evident, at least in some of its aspects.
The realm of hunting was primarily a masculine sphere; nevertheless, it also includes in religious phenomena the feminine aspect, as symbols of female fertility (and probably also of female deities) demonstrate.
Proto-Neolithic and Neolithic
The characteristics of early religion were continued but transformed in the proto-Neolithic and Neolithic periods. Shamanism developed, especially among the pastoralists of central and northern Asia. Animals, viewed as the hypostases (essences) of higher beings, especially the eagle or falcon and the raven, became highly significant in shamanism. Animalistic conceptions continued and often assumed the proportions of a true animal cult. Hoofed animals, especially sheep and oxen, played an important part as sacrifices, and bulls particularly assumed a leading role; they seem to have been relegated to the masculine sphere. Horses appear as domesticated animals and as sacrifices only toward the end of the Neolithic Period. They may have been connected with a heavenly divinity, as later evidence suggests.
In the early period of agriculture, before the full development of the Neolithic Period, deposits of human skulls appear that suggest the presence of ancestor cults. A spiritual identification between humans and plants apparently played a predominant part in conceptions connected with headhunting and cannibalism. The death of a god was often considered a prerequisite to the appearance and prospering of the plants, and this mythical event was repeated through human sacrifice that was either accompanied by or replaced by animal sacrifice.
At an early stage, in addition to an agricultural connection with the earlier feminine aspects, the masculine aspect appears in the form of portrayals of sexual union and, perhaps, of the “holy wedding,” or sacred coupling, as well as in portrayals of couples and families. Among the material remains, however, the direct representation of the male element recedes sharply, yet perhaps the symbol of the axe and probably also that of the bull may indicate the male element. This dualism of the masculine and feminine aspects can possibly be interpreted in terms of father sky and mother earth, and in their union as a couple by which they become parents of the world. In the early civilizations, the conception of a supreme being or a heavenly god (which cannot clearly be recognized either in pictures or in other material objects) plays a minor role. That does not mean, however, that such a conception is necessarily of recent origin but rather that it probably existed at an early period in places where there was no literate tradition (predominantly among pastoral cultures).
Civilizations
The decisive factors that brought about the early civilizations were the new kinds of economic and social organization, the large-scale exploitation of human energy, the formation of ruling classes, hierarchical organization, and the administrative division of labour. Under such conditions polytheism, which had undoubtedly been nascent before, could develop fully. The social order is mirrored in the conception of city and state gods and of a hierarchically organized “state of gods” with a division of labour. The concentration of power and people in one place, in contrast with the wandering of earlier nomadic cultures, enabled fixed central shrines to become influential. Yet the old traditions continued, and not least among them, that of animalism, in the form of conceptions about a ruler of the animals, animal cults, and similar phenomena. Female fertility figures remain generally prominent, such as the Great Mother and the Earth Mother.
Karl J. Narr The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica