Page:Psychology of the Unconscious (1916).djvu/444

 a scene where a mystic wrapped in a mantle, drawn over his head, was led to Silen, who holds the "[Greek: li~chnon]" (chalice), covered with a cloth. The covering of the head signifies death. The mystic dies, figuratively, like the seed corn, grows again and comes to the corn harvest. Proclus relates that the mystics were buried up to their necks. The Christian church as a place of religious ceremony is really nothing but the grave of a hero (catacombs). The believer descends into the grave, in order to rise from the dead with the hero. That the meaning underlying the church is that of the mother's womb can scarcely be doubted. The symbols of Mass are so distinct that the mythology of the sacred act peeps out everywhere. It is the magic charm of rebirth. The veneration of the Holy Sepulchre is most plain in this respect. A striking example is the Holy Sepulchre of St. Stefano in Bologna. The church itself, a very old polygonal building, consists of the remains of a temple to Isis. The interior contains an artificial spelæum, a so-called Holy Sepulchre, into which one creeps through a very little door. After a long sojourn, the believer reappears reborn from this mother's womb. An Etruscan ossuarium in the archæological museum in Florence is at the same time a statue of Matuta, the goddess of death; the clay figure of the goddess is hollowed within as a receptacle for the ashes. The representations indicate that Matuta is the mother. Her chair is adorned with sphinxes, as a fitting symbol for the mother of death.

Only a few of the further deeds of Hiawatha can interest us here. Among these is the battle with Mishe