Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/557

Rh shows the implied meaning which otherwise appears but rarely. It is found, though, as the designation of an ithyphallic form of the sun-god. Moreover, āa with the same determinative serves to designate the donkey, which was considered lascivious above all animals. The donkey is in the first place an evil animal, an embodiment of the companions of Set, the adversary of Osiris; but some notes also point to a connection of the animal with the sun-god (for instance, "Book of the Dead," ch. 40, p. 135, l. 40). In the medical papyrus at Leipsic, the word āa signifies a disease, which has not yet been explained. .....

The point of this creation myth on which interest in it principally rests is the peculiar origin of Shu and Tefnut. The oldest reference to a creation of this nature by masturbation is found in the inscriptions of the pyramids of the 6th dynasty, i. e. about 3,000 B. C.:

"Tum became an onanist at Heliopolis. He enlarged his phallus with his hand, he gave himself pleasure with it. There were born the twins Shu and Tefnut." In the "Book of the Dead," there is a passage which is frequently quoted in the Theban texts, referring to Ra indulging in self-pollution. In the ritual books of Osiris, Amon-ra, Tum, Ptah, and lais from the time of Seti I. it is said of Tum: "thou flowest out as Shu, thou trickiest out as Tefnut." A pantheistic hymn of Hibis from the time of King Darius says: "The gods emanated from thee, Amon. Thou flowest out as Shu, thou trickiest out as Tefnut, to form for thyself the nine gods in the beginning of creation; thou art the twins of the two lions" i. e. Shu and Tefnut. Somewhat later is a text from Edfu, written down in the time of the Ptolemys, in which the god Amon-Ra of Choïs is addressed in this way: "Thou art the one god who became two gods, the creator of the egg, who begot his twins," i. e. again Shu and Tefnut.

Among all these references to our myth, the first one quoted is the most important, not only on account of its high antiquity, but because it speaks only of the birth of Shu and Tefnut, and does not yet connect the emanation of Shu with the verb ashesh, or that of Tefnut with tef, tefen, both signifying "to emanate, to flow out." It thus appears that the development of the myth was not ætiological for the