Forlong - Rivers of Life

316
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
however, into the history of this garment, we find that it used to he worn by woman
—matrons, not maids—probably to mark that they were under the care of a male or
Phale, 1 that is an. Adām; or else that they were serving a phallic God, as we know is
the wont of priests in the matter of dress. Afterwards the Pallium became common
to both sexes, and this was at one time the case with the Toga. Eventually the
peculiar feminine dress was the Stole, which, reversing matters, priests and Neophytes
adopted when worshipping a male God, as we still see done all over Europe; though,
by-the-bye, it is difficult to name the sex of the first and third persons of the European
Trinity—Jehovah as well as the Holy Ghost having at one time been feminine.
The characteristic dress or covering of a God or God-like man or of any very holy
object, is a wide and sacred subject, and merits considerable investigation. In very rude
ages the Ikon, Eikèn or picture, was to the multitude. the “very God” himself, as in the
traditional Veronika: any covering which has been thrown over Siva or Pārvati, especially
in their creative capacity, or when thrown over any holy, nay, valued animals
engaged in “the great sacrifice”, or holy act of creation, was highly valued for many
reasons and purposes; especially so in the case of Serpents, the pro-creative act of
which is a very strange phenomenonm and one very rarely witnessed. This fact as to the
garment is stated by Dr C. E. Balfour of Madras, who also gives us detailed evidence
regarding his seeing two holy reptiles in coitu on a moonlight night in his garden in
India, when, he says, they formed the exact and upright shape of the rod of Eskulapius;
the particulars are given in Fergusson’s “Tree and Serpent Worship.” A pallium which
had covered such a “sacrifice” would be valued all over the east, and this is only a feature
of that insane idea which has always made some foolish men and women, if not multitudes,
rush to touch an altar-cloth or priestly garment, as we see down to the present
hour when the red cloak of the cardinal sweeps through cathedral or cloister, and
which was done, it is affirmed, in the case of Jesus of Nazareth, by the poor sick
Gadarenes. See how Mahomedans still aunnally scramble and fight over a shred of the
old Pallium—Kisweh or covering of the Al-Ka-aba of Meka., when that is annually
removed at the Spring solstice, and a fresh one put on. Most of my readers are aware
that the presentation and procession of the Kisweh ,in its magnificent gilded Ark or
Mahmal, and shrouded in a beautiful and costly canopy, is one of the great festivals of
Arabia, Egypt, and Syria. Even Mahomed wrote that the Pilgrim who tonched it,
and he for whom this pilgrim prayed, would be pardoned; and so says “the occasional
correspondent” of the London Times, in the issue of 19th May 1875, writing from
Damascus. The crowds on such occasions grow mad, and struggle and fight but to touch
the prize, whilst an incessant cry resounds along the whole route of the procession,
“Pray for me, O pilgrim, pray for me.” It Would also seem as if in ancient times this
procession was led by nudes like that of Osiris, for to the present hour, the immediate
suite of the Mahmal are “a body of very holy men . . . . . . stripped to the waist,
1 See p. 173, ante.
2 “Clas. Man.,” Lon. 1827, p. 386; Æn. I., 385; Hor. 36, 1.