Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
unwittingly offended, by climbing to the top of the karn to get a better view of the
country; he afterwards made not a few propitiatory kotows.” It would, no doubt;
have fared much worse with him who ventured to climb on to that “JAHVEH-NISSI”
upon the slopes of holy Sinai, than it did with Kora and his company, or poor Uzzah
who tried to steady the toppling-over “ark of the testimony.”
We would like very much to know the meaning of the Mongolian name of Tengri-
Obo. The latter part is very serpent-like, and occurs among a race of determined
Serpent or Dragon-worshippers. Dr Bushell says, at page 84, that “OBO is a kairn
covered with ragged streamers of silk and cotton tied to sticks,” so that is may signify
“a Serpent-shrine.” Tengri may be related to Tenar, Tenaris, the thundering Jove
of Kelts and Romans, &c., or more likely, he is the great founder of Japan, “TENSIO-
Dai-Sin, or TENSIO the god of light whose temple was called NAIKOO,” 1 which I take
it is in Sanskrit Naga, and in various idioms Nak, Nakoo, Nagoo, &c. Tensio
has a cavern near his temple, where he is at times hid, “when no sun or stars
appear.” He is the “fount of day,” his priests are called Kanusi and they occasionally
exhibit Tensio as a great deity sitting on a cow, which may make him Osiris
and Siva; anyhow, in TENSIO we have the Sun, for “Japan is the kingdom of
CHAMIS, whom we hold to be the same as SCIN, the origin of all things”—the words
of a Japanese emperor to the Portugese viceroy in 1585. 2 The result is thus the same
in Mongolia, Japan, and Ireland, viz., that the erect object, whether wood or stone, is the
Sun-stone. the Akro-polis, or Jahveh-nissi, or god, the pole of fertility, which connects
the Sun and Phallus. The Polus or Nissi on an altar, mount, or karn of stones etc.,
is a polis on an Akro, or Akro-polis, which in time came to mean a place or city
around which tribes congregated and built. We must take our stand here, even should
students of modern Greek object to polij being poloj, Latin polus, a pole, for all
Eastern travel shows us that the shrine of a god, who at first is always the obelisk, or
“standard,” or “creating one,” is the centre of all old cities—just as fine old trees
became sacred centres, this from Mamre to Vienna!
In this case. the wandering Edumeans had, by means they believed of their Phallic
god, gained victory over the great Am-el, Ham-el, or Sun-worshipping tribes, under
the shadow of Dio Nissi’s Mount Sinai, and this by holding up the wonder-working
“rod of God” or Elohim (Exod. xvii 9), for he was a deity of Thyrsi, Kaducei, and
such emblems, and would be appropriately called the Jahveh-nissi, or “Lord of the
standard.” The victory was obtained not by the skill, numbers, or bravery of Israel,
but only by Moses standing erect, or sitting on a stone on the top of a hill, holding up
this baton with both hands, which he did, till so tired that Aaron and Hur put him
down on a stone and “stayed up his hands” till sun down. One is thus led to con-
nect the scene with solo-phallic lore, and with men who used to stand on the Phallic
1 Holwell’s Myth. Dic., 108.
2 Do., 109, and Bryant, iii. p. 553.
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