Forlong - Rivers of Life

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Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
ative energies male and female, for the womb is always winged; see the Concha Veneris
in the hands of Siva and Sica, page 129, where the imaginative Hindoo seems to have
anticipated anatomy by disovering what some describe as the “butterfly wings” of the
womb. But to return to Pisci-olatry.
The fish is univlersally worshipped in all lands as the most fecundative of all
creatures; and where most valued, the superstitious have offered it in sacrifice to their
gods refusing to eat or injure it. Many a time have I travelled through a poor and
barren country where it was all mankind could do to live, and seen rivers and lakes
teeming with fine fish which I dared not touch, or only so by stealth as night came on,
much to the annoyance of my followers and myself, and the detriment of the people;
for so do priests lay upon us burdens grieveous to be borne in the name of their gods,
making the poor cry out “is religion a blessing?” We find Phenicians, Kelts, and
Syrians specially mentioned as holding the fish in the greateat reverence, and at
different periods of their history not eating it. The hill tribes towards the sources of
the Indus have the same ideas. The Phenicians picture Dagon and Dorketo, the gods of
Gaza and As-Kal-on, as Fish-gods, or perhaps we should say a fish-god and goddess, for
we know they were also Astartian Deities. Kuthera and Kupros (Cyprus), as shrines of
Aphrodite, vied in the worship of this fruitful Kubele, and Syria held her great northern
shrine of Hierapolis most holy to Venus as the Fish-goddess; Cadis, Ko-des, or Gadir-
Gades, had Herakles on one side of her coins and a fish or Lunette on the other; whilst
Syracuse, or rather Soora-koos, and Soosa alike held their finny multitude sacred to
Fertility. In these days we can imagine what a privation and curse these faiths here
were to the poor, and indeed to humanity. The fish was sacred to Christ, and is common
on Christian Catacombs, yet so confused were men regarding faiths, that Dean
Stanley tells us he then found, not only the fish, but Pan and Orpheus, with epitaphs
to the gods of the grave. (E. Races II. 429). The reader should note how Ko and
Soorya—solar terms, occur in the above names; the roots Ko, Go, Ga, Do, Da, De,
point to the same source.
In my Plate V., Fig. 4, I have given the Boodhist piscine mode of representing the
Sanskrit-Aryan idea of Ananta or Eternity, where the serpent, see p. 49, appears with
tail in mouth. The two fish are curved upwards, apparently kissing, or at least holding
up their heads to the Phallic symbols. The same idea of eternity or perpetuity of species,
is probably meant by the kissing of the Tortiose and fish-looking Lizard behind the
right heel (note this strange and constantly recurring word), of the large statue of Mercury
or Hermes (the Lingam-god) given by Montfauçon as Plate XXXVI. of the supplement
to his Antiquities; where the tortoise is seen stretching forth his head out of his
posthe, towards the large and curiously shaped head of a creature whose serpentine tail we
see in rear. In my Plates IV. and V. will be seen European and Western coins of men
riding dolphins under trees and on arks, which are more indecent than Easterns would
permit in their public records. The Western Sun-god is seldom so coarsely pourtrayed
as the Eastern, thus the latter shows a man passing through an oval in the form