Page 38 - Studio International - May 1974

man then regarded himself-as the fish- allegory of the damned. The fish as an -
reincarnated. Such totemism recurs in other Egyptian soul symbol is therefore the more
primitive and pagan societies. Australian remarkable.' 2
aborigines believe that men are changed to The fisher god as a teacher of wisdom is
fishes after their death and they are forbidden reflected in other folklore; for example, in
as food. The African tribes of Wamka, Irish lore he is the sacred fish To Feasa',
Wakemba, Galla and Somali believe that their the Salmon of Wisdom. He who eats the fish
dead become snakes and regard the fish as a becomes the wisest in the world. Another Irish
kind of snake. The metamorphosis of one tradition refers to Connla's Well, surrounded
animal into another is a familiar artistic motif. by nine hazel trees whose fruits drop into the
The contradictions in the image as a potent water and are eaten by the salmon. The fruit
spiritual motif are mentioned by Jung : is red, and the salmon by eating the fruit
(Top) Pieter Breugel the Elder
`The ambivalent attitude toward the fish become covered with red spots and turn
Big fish eat little fish 1557
in pre-Christian times is an indication of its Etching (possibly after Bosch) wonderfully wise. This Irish 'Salmon of
double nature. It is unclean and an emblem of Coll : Metropolitan Museum, New York Wisdom' bears parallels with the Babylonian
hatred on the one hand, but on the other it is an (Bottom) Hieronymus Bosch shark gods, Lahmu and Lahamu, the first
Triptych, Temptation of St Anthony (detail) 1505/6
object of veneration. It even seems to have divinities from the depths of the Abyss.
Oil on panel, 51¾ x 21¾ in. (right panel)
been regarded as a symbol for the soul if we Coll : Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
are to judge by a painting on a late Hellenistic The Greek fish
sarcophagus. The mummy lies on a lion-shaped Eisler postulates that the invention of the
bier and under the bier are the four Canopic most abominated fishes, which was said to have Greek alphabet may have been derived from
jars, the lids representing the four sons of devoured the phallus of Osiris after he had the fisher priests of the Pre-Hellenic
Horus, three of them with animal heads and been dismembered by Typhon (Set). Barbel sanctuaries, for the fisher god Hani was the
one with a human head. Over the mummy was sacred to Typhon, who is that part of the special patron of the Babylonian scribes.
there floats a fish instead of the usual soul bird. soul which is passionate, impulsive, irrational The neo-Babylonian priests worshipped
It is clear from the painting that the fish is an and truculent. Because of their voraciousness, Oannes who may have reappeared in Greek
oxyrhynchus, or barbel, one of the three fishes were regarded in the middle ages as an mythology as Orpheus:
224