The Goddess in Indo-European Heroic Literature

Religion (1984) 14, 107-142

C A T T L E R A I D I N G A N D B R I D E �9 S T E A L I N G

THE GODDESS IN INDO-EUROPEAN HEROIC LITERATURE

Ruth Katz Arabagian

I INTRODUCTION The predominant subject of Indo-European heroic literature is-successful warfare for the winning of wealth and kingdom. This subject, which mirrors the aspirations of Indo-European pastoral society, is most often realized in one of two guises: as a theme of cattle raiding, or a theme of bride stealing. In this paper I will undertake an analysis of these two themes in several Indo- European contexts, concentrating in particular on materials from the ex- tremes of the Indo-European world, India and Ireland. My purpose will be to explore how, through these themes, storytellers assimilated and remodelled the ideology of the peoples conquered by the Indo-Europeans in the course of their migrations throughout Europe and Asia. I am particularly concerned with the pre-Indo-European, figure of the Goddess and what the Indo- Europeans made of her, and the changing.position of women under Indo- European domination.

II CATTLE RAIDING Even before the birth of epic and saga,' one finds the cattle-raiding theme in Indo-European literature: this, at the moment of the .Rg Veda (approximately 1200 BC), that purest and earliest preserved (one might call it 'classic') reflection of Indo-European ideology. The hero of the .Rg Veda is Indra, both storm god and national hero of the lndo-Aryan invaders of northwestern India, whose role is to create and ensure the fertility of his realm, and to conquer its enemies. The most frequent mythic statement of Indo-Aryan success is that Indra killed the evil serpent Vrtra, Vrtra being both he who

0048-721 X/84/020107 + 35502.00/0 (~) 1984 Academic Press Inc. (London) Ltd.

�9 108 Ruth Katz Ambagian

holds back the waters, preventing fertility, Or even world order, from being established, and the embodiment of the national enemies of the Indo-Aryans, the autochthonous 2 inhabitants of the disputed areas, known contemptuously to their conquerors as d~sas, slaves. Indra ' s slaying of V.rtra is not, however, the only mythicization of lndo-Aryan success. Sometimes Indra is said to kill demons witb otber names, who may or may not have been considered identical with Vrtra. In other instances, Indra ' s victory is portrayed as the stealing of cows from an enemy. 3

As Bruce Lincoln has established in Priests, Warriors, and Cattle: A Study in the Ecology of Religion, cattle were of immeasurable importance in Indo-European society:

Their importance transcends their worth in hard economic t e rms . . , for cattle come to play a major role in social transactions. They serve as bridewealth and wergeld, in the belief that only cattle can fully make up for the loss of a valued human member of society. Cattle are in fact an integral part of the community, a n d . . , the social order is thought to include both people andcattle, not merely people. Cattle are the object of intense affection, and it would seem that the greatest desire ofany herdsman is the possession of many cattle.

This longing for cattle has produced an interesting development: the organized theft ofcattle from neighboring tribes. Warfare becomes strictly the quest for cattle, and virtually no other booty is taken. The tribes under study have" become extremely efficient in their raiding, and the military groups that first prompted my interest are, in fact, specialized social organs for the procurement of cattle; their myths, moreover, reflect this prime interest,

In addition to economic, social and emotional importance, cattle have yet another role: they form the very basis of the religious system, for cattle are the sacrificial animal par excellence, and sacrifice is the central r i tual . . .4

Thus the centrality ofthe cattle-raiding theme in the R.g Veda. Indeed, various Vedic gods and goddesses,-including Indra, are themselves characterized, literally or figuratively, as bulls and cows. 5

Strikingly, the freeing of waters and.the release ofcows appear to have been identified with one another in the minds of the Vedic seers. 6 Here is a phenomenon Which will be referred to again later in this paper, and which should come as no surprise to structuralists or adherents of the Parry-Lord theory of oral composition: within the same story framework there is much room for substitution of specific content; in the case just cited, cattle replace their counterpart, water. Although one would be hard-pressed to determine which version of the story predates the other, it is apparent that the cattle- raiding version is more human than the 'dragon-killing' versiofi. When the genres of epic and saga come along and humanize the old myths (this being, by definition, one of their major innovations), the cattle-raiding version of the story is likely to take precedence.

And so it does. In Indo-European heroic literature, the theme of the cattle

Cattle Raiding and Bride Stealing 109

raid continues to have an illustrious history. One may easily think of well known Greek examples, perhaps the most famous of which is that recounted at the beginning ofthe Homeric Hymn to H e r m e s / A s Norman O. Brown points out in Hermes the Thief." The Evolution of a Myth, cattle raiding was considered a respectable pursuit among the Greeks; in support of this contention, he cites the account oflliad XI. 670 ft.8 Interestingly, however, in the areas upon which I have chosen to concentrate in this paper, India and Ireland, heroic literature tends to glorify the defenders ofcattle, rather than the cattle raiders. 9

The outstanding Indian example of a cattle raiding story is to be found in Book IV of the epic Mah~bhdrata. l~ The battle recounted there prefigures the great Kuruksetra war, which is the central focus ofthe epic, with the P~md. avas (particularly Arjuna) and their allies acting as defenders of the Matsya herds against Kaurava raiders. At this point, the cattle raid appears to be portrayed as a confrontation between Ind0-European groups, rather than exclusively between Indo-Europeans and autochthonous peoples. 'l Likewise, the cattle raid is the focus of conflict between different classes within a single group, as illustrated in such stories as that of the struggle between the priest Vasi.stha and the warrior Vi~v~tmitra, recounted in the epic RJrnSyana as well as in the MahSbhSrata.12

But despite the prevalence of the cattle-raiding theme in Indian heroic literature, one must note that the fullest development ofthis scenario is Irish, not Indian; for here the cattle raid becomes the central event of the most important heroic corpus, the Ulster Cycle, as expounded in the Tdin b5 Cuailnge, The Cattle Raid of Cuailnge.

But there was one great bull in Ailill's herd, that had been a calfofone of Medb's cows--Finnbennach was his name, the White Horned--and Finnbennach, refusing to be led by a woman, had gone over to the king's herd. Medb couldn't find in her herd the e~ual of this bull, and her spirits dropped as though she hadn't a single pennyJ ~

This is tile position of Queen Medb, after ~i competition with her husband Ailill, King of Ireland, to ascertain whose wealth is the greatest. Medb, temporarily bested, sets out (surprisingly, with Ailill's help!) to steal from the Ulstermen a bull as excellent in every way as Finnbennach. Medb's cattle raid is the subject ofthe Tdin, which glorifies the Ulster hero Cfichulainn, defender ofthe great Ulster bull, Donn Cuailnge. It will be noted from this example and the preceding ones that that defense ofcattle is a labour typical ofthe Indian or Irish hero of epic or saga, one might say a short-hand designation for heroic work in these two cultures.

I I I BRIDE STEALING It is now time to turn to the bride-stealing version of wealth-winning in

110 Ruth Katz Arabagian

Indo-European heroic literature. In the Indo-European symbolic universe, women, like cattle, represent prosperity, and to state it simply, along the structuralist lines set forth above (Part II), a woman can take the place of a cow without changing the basic story. 14 Such a substitution is not inappropri- ate, as cows commonly constitute the Indo-European bride price and dowry (see above, Part II). Like the theme of cattle raiding, the theme of bride stealing in Indo-European heroic literature appears to reflect actual practice. 15 It is noteworthy that this practice catches the imagination so powerthlly that echoes ofit persist in ritual even when the actual practice is no longer sanctioned by society. 16

Nonetheless, bride stealing is not a central motif in the .Rg Veda itself. A peculiar combination offactors appears to be responsible for the omission. In the first place, the women stolen by the Vedic Indo-Aryans were non-Aryan, ddsa women. These figure in the .Rg Veda as slave girls (sometimes, but by no means always, accepted as wives), 17 and evidently their stories are not considered important enough to retell. This fact is consistent with the .Rg Veda's generalized lack of concern with the feminine: although goddesses are named frequently, romances are not a subject ofgreat interest; for example, 'Amorous adventures are entirely absent from the exploits of Indra in tile RV. '18 What references to bride stealing one may find in the .Rg Veda are therefore briefand" ambiguous to modern eyes. Tile single .Rg Vedic story which is sometimes interpreted as a case of bride stealing, the story of Vimada and Kamadyfi, is presented in a totally ambiguous manner, it being stated "merely that the A~vins brought Kamadyfi to Vimada on their chariot. 19 Equally unclear, thoug.h suggestive,, is .Rg Veda IV. 17.16:

Eager for booty, craving strength and horses, we singers stir Indra, the strong, for friendship,

Who gives the wives we seek, whose succour fails not, to hasten, like a pitcher to the fountain. 2~

On the other hand, the Aryan woman is presented in the Rg Veda as a free soul--surely not one to be caught up in a brlde-stealing scenario--having a say, for example, in the choice of her own husband; 21 one even seems to catch here an early glimpse of the later epic notion of svayamvara (self-choice) Of a man by a woman (see below, Part VII) . 22 In the case of the Vedic goddesses, the prerequisites for the substitution of woman for cow seem to be present, for example, in the fact that the wealth represented by cattle (prim.'irily in milk and butter) is personified by a female, I!fi (Nourishment). 23 As Indra, along with other Vedic gods, is frequently characterized in the R.g Veda as a bull (see above, Part I), he might easily have been perceived as winning wives for himselfin the form of the cows he stole. Such identifications, however, appear


not to bave been followed to their logical conclusions, in which conquered wealth would be personified as a stolen woman.

A clearer suggestion ofbride stealing as a mythic motif is to be found in tile Brfihmanas, texts which are thought to be slightly younger than the Vedic hymns. In these texts, which are elaborate manuals on the performance of Vedic sacrifice, Vfic (Speech) is personified as a female who chooses ultimately to dwell, presumably as a wife, with the gods rather than the demons (possibly, the d&as), her original husbands. The conflict over Vfic is presented as an episode in the enduring god/demon competition which is tile dominant tbeme of Indian mythology, appearing in the Br~hmanas primarily as a competition for possession of the sacrifice. Whoever possesses Vfi.c possesses the power behind the sacrifice, thus prosperity: in her passage over to the gods, Vfic is bringing them prosperity at the expense of the demons.

The Vfic of this often repeated and retold episode of tile Br~thmanas 24 is perhaps too independent a figure to permit her story to be categorized as a tale ofbride stealing; it is, rather, an 'elopement': each group tries to persuade Vfic verbally to adhere to itself, and she eventually makes a decision. The point of Vfic's making her own choice must be an important one, for in other versions of tile god/demon dispute the sacrifice tends to be a passive pawn. Only as V~c is the sacrifice an independently powerful force--and female. Indian epic continues to develop the tale jr/st recounted, substituting for Vfic the more generalized Hindu goddess of prosperity, ~ri. 25

As is to be expected, Indian epic also includes humanized versions of the bride-stealing theme. As in tile case of cattle raiding, the theme passes at this point into a wholly Indo-Europeanized context. In fact, the Mahdbh&ata finds bride stealing to be an acceptable method ofwinning a wife: ' . . . the students of the Law hold that that bride is the best who is carried offby force. '26 Arjuna wins his fourth wife, Subhadrfi, the sister of his friend K.rs.na, by adbuct ion-- with K.rs.na's help! 27 The Mahdbh&ata also mentions the fact that Krs.n.a himself won his bride, Rukmini, in this manner, although this episode is not part ofthe epic action. 28 Likewise, Bhisma steals Amb~, Ambik~t, and Amb~li- k~ as wives for his step-brother, Vicitravirya. 29

As Arjuna's theft of Subhadr~ indicates most clearly, the Mah~bh&ata looks upon bride stealing as a sort of marriage test, a proof of manhood, tlle culmination ofan initiation, similar in this respect to bow bending, resorted to to win a bride elsewhere in Indian epic literature (the heroines of the Malfibl~rata and R&n~yana, Draupadi and Sit~, are both married after such tests of their respective suitors).3~ The unmarried girl acquired either by bow bending or bride stealing becomes a happy 31 and appropriate 32 wife. Among those stolen brides mentioned above, the single exception to this rule is Amba, who objects to being abducted for Vicitravirya because she had promised herself previous- ly to another man.


Treated quite differently, however, is the abduction of a woman alread) married. As is well known, this theme is extremely important in the Indian epic corpus, insofar as it supplies the central story line for both great Indian epics, Here is the very theme known to the West through the lliad: the great war fought over the abducted wife, Helen. In the Mah~bharata, this scenario is somewhat disguised: this epic seems to tell of an insulted wife, rather than an abducted wife. What is actually stolen is the kingdom of the Pfin.dava brothers, not their joint wife, DraupadL The enemy (the Kaurava brothers, cousins of the Prin..davas) tried to take Draupadi too, 33 however, and the Prin..davas fight to avenge her as much as to regain the kingdom; 3~ one might say that the insult to her punctuates the theft of the realm, that the two events are interchange- able. In the R?tm~yan.a, the abduction scenario is clearer: Sit.~, R~ma's wife, is stolen by the demon R~vapa, and recovered only after a 10ng search and war. In addition to these central actions, a sort of reduplication has abduction of married women also st~pply sub-episodes for the two epics: besides being insulted by the Kauravas, Draupadi is nearly carried off by Jayadratha in Book III of the MahSbhdrata; 35 and Sita's abduction in the Rdmd.).an.a is mirrored by that of the wife of Sugriva, the monkey king. 36

There is no question that in these cases sympathy is on the side of the rightful husband (or, in Draupadi's case, husbands); nor does the stolen wife" ever evidence the least bit ofcooperation with her captors. The Kauravas are the villains of the Mahdbhdrata, notwithstanding the fact that recognition of human complexities on the part of the composers of this epic permits them a broad show ofsympathy for even the evil side. In the Rdmdyana, the conflict between good and evil is delineated even more clearly; the abductor is a demon, and the fight to regain Sita is the hero's battle against absolute wrong. 37

The Irish heroic literature, on tile contrary, shows no such unwavering respect for marriage. Irish saga boasts an entire category known as 'Elope- ments' ('Aithid'), in which married or betrothed women, more forceful even than the V~c of the Brhhma.nas, not only agree to run away with particular heroes, but actually initiate the liaisons. Furthermore, the sympathy of the text is, in each case, on the side of the abductor, not the cheated husband.

The best known Irish Elopement is that of Derdriu and the sons of Uisliu, which is considered a foretale of the Tdin bd Cuailnge. 3a Here Derdriu, who has been promised to Conchobor, King of Ireland, since her birth, actually forces Noisiu, the eldest son of Uisliu, to abduct her, by threatening him with the worst of Irish sanctions, satire, if he refuses to comply. The idyll of Derdriu with Noisiu and his brothers in the forest before Derdriu's tragic return to Gonchobor strongly resembles those of Draupadi with the P.~n.davas and Sit~ with R~ma and his brother Laksmana, in the MahrbhSrata and RSmSp'ana respectively, but with a difference: in the Irish case, the idyllic affair is an illicit


one! But that Noisiu is admired by the author(s) of the text is made absolutely clear by the inclusion of Derdriu's long poems about him, thrown as accusa- tions in C0nchobor's face:

I fall Ulster's warriors were gathered on this plan, Conchobor, I would gladly give them all for Noisiu, son of Uisliu . . . . 39

and so forth. In their book Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales, Alwyn and Brinley Rees cite two other major Celtic Elopements, the Irish sto W of Gr~iinne from the Fenian cycle, and the Welsh sto W of Tws tan and Esylh, with its prototypes and paral!elsJ ~ They point out that in general the Derdriu and Noisiu model holds true: the abductor is presented most sympathetically. 41 Also discussed in Celtic Heritage is the Irish story ofl~tafn. 42. Although this tale is classified by the Rees brothers as a 'Wooing' rather than an 'Elopement' , parts of it certainly fit the Elopement pattern. Here too one finds the abductor treated with great sympathy; in fact, in this case the abductor, Midir, is really the origina ! husband of the stolen bride!

More generally, the Wooings provide the Irish counterparts to the Indian tales of the abductions of Rukmini and Subhadra, mentioned above: they are stories of the hero's initiation. In general, these Wooings tell of the hero's winning of a beautiful young maiden, for himselfor another, from a hostile or literally demonic father or parents. Often, however, this bride winning is not an abduction at all; rather, the hero earns the girl by pqrforming certain difficult tasks: such is the case, for example, in the sto W ofthe original winning of l~tafn for Midir, 43 which may be compared in this respect to the more famous (because proto-Arthurian) Welsh sto W of Kulhwch and Olwen. 44 In other cases, the Wooings more clearly delineate a bride-stealing theme: such, for example, is the sto W of Cfichulainn's winning of his wife Emer, like the sto W ofDerdriu a foretale of the Tdin:

He reached Forgall's rampart and gave his salmon-leap across the three enclo- sures to the middle ofthe fort. In the inner enclosure he dealt three strokes at the three groups of nine men. He killed eight men at each stroke and left one man standing in the middle of each group. They were Emer's three brothers, Scibar and Ibor and Cat. Forgall sprang away in flight from (]dchulainn out across the fort's rampart, but he fell and killed himself. Cfichulainn caught Emer and her foster-sister, and their weight in gold and silver, and leaped again with the two girls across the triple ramparts and hurried on with shrieks rising around them on every sideJ 5

Wooing heroines often encourage or even advise their suitors: again, Emer provides a particularly clear example, conversing with Cfichulainn in riddles, and challenging him ultimately to prove himself by stealing her. 46 The audi-

114 Ruth Kalz Arabagian

ence's sympathy is enlisted in these stories on the side of the hero who is proving himself by winning a wife; nor does the happy bride ever reject her captor:

. . . her attitude towards her father is strangely ambivalent. She refuses to be abducted until his preposterous terms have been fully complied with, but she can then contemplate his death with the most unfilial indifference. Alternatively, she and her bridegroom, sometimes aided by her enchanted mother, elude the pursuing father in a magic flight. 47

If one were to look to other areas of Indo-European expansion, examples of the bride-stealing theme might be multiplied almost ad infinitum. Even the Indian and Irish examples alone, however, suggest the range 0fpermutations which this theme has undergone.

IV THE LEADING LAD Y AS GODDESS ' . . . [B]ride-stealing in epic was mythic before it became heroic and historical. '4s Certainly, the Indian examples offered above support this contention, as Vfic (~ri) gives way chronologically to Rukmini, Subhadfft, Draupadi, and Sitfi. In fact, the connection is more than a matter ofhistorical interest; rather, an identity is recognized between tile humanized version and the goddess prototype. Sometimes the epics themselves are specific on this point. One may look first, in this regard, to the case of Draupadi, who is actually said to incarnate the goddess gri. 49 This identification being noted, one notes too that it is reflected in the epic story line,as a whole, as well as in certain of its details: for example, in the fact that Draupadi, as mentioned above, seems to embody her husbands' kingdom, that is, their wealth and prosperity. In fact, in attempting to understand the motivation behind Draupadi 's polyandry in the epic, it is necessary to admit that she is molded almost as much to serve as a symbol of Prosperity as to be a human character. Sitfi, too, is said to incarnate gri (specifically under gri's alternate name, Laksmi): in the Critical Edition of the Rdmd)'an.a, this identification is implied, as SitS?s husband, R~ma, incarnates the husband of ~ri, Vis.nu, 5~ and Sita herself is called a divinity (devaM), 51 and compared with divinities; 52 it is specified in an interpolated passage. 53 Rukmini, as the wife of another of Visnu's incarnations, Krsna, is likewise a ~ri figure according to an interpolated passage of the Mahdbhdrata, 5~ and later materials. 55 Subhadrfi is not a wife of Vis.nu, but she is his sister. Tha t being God's sister means divinity for Subhadrft herself is not mentioned explicitly in the ~llah~bhffrata; but this natural consequence does emerge later, as in the medieval worship at Puri of Subhadra with her brothers Krs.na (asJagann~tha) and Balar~ma, as part of a Vaisnava trinity. The meaning of 'Subhadr~' (Most Auspicious, Fortunate) is so similar to the meaning of~r i ' as to suggest an identity between these two


figures, and examples from other corners of the ancient world corroborate the idea that the sister and wife o f a god may actually be one and the s am eY In sum, then, at least four of the most important stolen brides of Indian epic may all be identified as ~ri (Prosperity), or a closely related figure.

Who is ,the Irish equivalent of Prosperity, and is she reflected in the stolen brides of Irish literature? It has often been noted that the Indian Prosperity has her counterpart in the Irish goddess Flaith, whose name may be translated as 'Sovereignty. 's7 That is, India and Ireland have both preserved what seems to hav e been a proto-Indo-European image (it can also be noted elsewhere in the Indo-European world): 58 the King's prosperous sovereignty, his power, is represented as a powerful goddess, to whom he is married, or with whom he sleeps. The Indian version ofthis conception is reflected in such statements as the following:

That same sacrifice was afterwards performed by Daksha P~rvati; and even to this day these (descendants of his) the D~kshfiyanas are possessed of the royal dignity: royal dignity he, therefore, here obtains, whosoever, knowing this, performs that sacrifice: let him, therefore, perform that sacrifice.., thereby Fortune (sr~) is (wedded) to him without a rival wife and undisturbed, s9

- - a n d it has already been pointed out that Draupadi 's marriage to the P~ndava brothers is a reflection of Prosperity's role. In the Irish context, many tales are told about would-be kings who encounter Sovereignty, and either do or do not win her favour; these are particularly the complex of Irish tales about the 'loathly bride, '6~ who, when kissed by the future king, becomes a desirable young maiden. 6t

In attempting to equate the heroines ofthe Irish bride-stealing tales with the Irish figure of Sovereignty, the usual distinction between Elopements and Wooings must be adhered to. In both types ofstory, the heroines' resemblance to Sovereignty is easier to suggest than prove, but in the Elopements the similarities are particularly pronounced. The most notable features in this connection are the great power ofthe heroine, reflected in her imposition ofher choice upon the hero, and her idyll with the hero in a forest setting, which parallels tile forest home of the 'loathly bride. 'G2 On the other band, a major difference in tone must be noted: to marry Sovereignty is a most positive act, while to go off with an Elopement heroine invariably leads to dire results. As reflected particularly in the figure of Derdriu, the Elopement heroines embody something of the demonic:

� 9 the child screamed in her womb and was heard all over the enclosure. At that scream everyone in the house started up, ready to kill . . . .

Cathbad [a druid] placed his hand on the woman's belly and the baby wriggled under it.

'Yes,' he said, 'there is a girl there. Derdriu shall be her name. She will bring evil. '63


The Wooing heroines may generally be identified as more than human figures, and in this respect they are like goddesses. But even more explicitly than the Elopement heroines they come from demonic backgrounds, as referred to above (Part I I I ) .

The clearest humanized reflection of the goddess of Sovereignty in Irish heroic literature is not a stolen bride at all; rather, she appears, in the Tdin, as Medb, mentioned in Part I I of this paper.

My father gave me a whole province of Ireland, this province ruled from Cruachan, which is why I am called 'Medb of Clruachan.' And they came from Finn the king ofLeinster, Rus Ruad's son, to woo me, and from Coirpre Niafer the king of Temair, another ofRus Ruad's sons. They came from Conchobor, king of Ulster, son of Fachtna, and they came from Eochaid Bec, and I wouldn't go. For I asked a harder wedding gift than any woman ever asked before from a man in Ireland- the absence ofmeanness and jealously and fear.

IfI married a mean man our union would be wrong because I 'm so full ofgrace and giving. It would be an insult ifI were more generous than my husband, but not ifthe two of us were equaiin this. Ifmy husband was a timid man our union would be just as wrong because I thrive, myself, on all kinds of trouble. It is an insult for a wife to be more spirited than her husband, but not if the two are equally spirited. IfI married a jealous man that would be wrong, too: I never had one man without another waiting in his shadow. 64

This is Medb's often-cited identification of herself as Sovereignty. 6s ( 'You're a kept man, ' she tells her husband, Ailill.) 66 The leading lady ofthe Tdin, like the leading lady of the Mahdbhdrata, is thus a humanization of Sovereignty/ Prosperity. But this lady is not a stolen bride; rather she is herselfa thief: a cattle raider!

V WHO IS PROSPERITY~SOVEREIGNTY? I will argue in this section of my paper that the figure of Prosper i ty/ Sovereignty is an Indo-European version o fa pre-Indo-European fertility or 'Mother ' Goddess. Thi~ Goddess was a well known figure in the traditions of early agricultural (and poss ib ly pre-agricultural) societies, throughout Europe and Asia, and possibly world-wide; she apparently represented the female potency which, in combination with the male, caused life on earth to appear and flourish. 67 She seems often to have been thought ofas stronger, or at least more enduring, th.an the male power which mated ~yith her, conceived ofas a dying and rising, o r 'yea r god', 68 figure. In that she rel~resented both the life and death of this figure, she was viewed as beautiful and terrible at the same time. 69 The Goddess existed in pre-Indo-European times, yet as noted above, such classic Indo-European literature as the .Rg Veda does not emphasize her; the evidence ofthe .Rg Veda suggests that she was not deemed central to tile official priestly ideology. Soon, however, she emerged, I would argue, as V~tc/~ri, Flaith, and their humanized reflections in heroic literature. 7~

Cattle Raiding and Bride Stealing l 17

I would suggest that this emergence took place as a result of the confrontation between the Indo-Europeans and the autochthonous agricultural peoples whom they conquered. My model for this encounter is that between the Indo-Aryans and the Indus Valley people in northwest India. 71 The heroic literature which emerges among the Indo-Europeans after this encounter is no longer 'classic' Indo-European literature, but rather a hybrid, just as the religion which emerges (Hinduism, for example) combines Indo-European and autochthonous traits. 72 The Goddess figure seems to be one of the most important autochthonous contributions to the new mixture, both religious and literary. Indo-European heroic literature demonstrates that she was too striking to be ignored: she must be incorporated, and as a major character!

As documented most clearly in the Indian case (because of the availability of the Vedic records), ~hen the Indo-Europeans descended upon the autochthonous agriculturalists of the regions they were bent to conquer, they were contemptuous, and very likely merciless. One thing is certain, however: they did not manage to wipe out the autochthonous religion. Just why the autochthonous religion was able to survive has not been explained adequately. Was it because the Indo-Europeans were religiously tolerant? One possible explanation might be intermarriage with locals (see above, Part I II); their autochthonous wives, then, would have kept the old religion alive. The Athar- va Veda (approximately 900 BC), with its many passages regarding women, records the intrusion of the feminine into the Vedic corpus. 73 With regard to surviv~il of the Goddess figure per se, the Irish texts offer an explanation couched in mythic terms:

Having defeated tile Tuatha D6 Danann [in mythic terms, the autochthonous inhabitants of Ireland], the Sons of Mil [mythic name for the final conquerors of Ireland] 74 set out towards Tara [the Irish capital]. On their way, they encoun- tered the three divine eponyms of Ireland, Banbha, F6dla, and Eriu, and each of the three won from them.a promise that the island would bear her name. 75

Many specific characteristics of Prosperity/Sovereignty and her reflections in heroic literature suggest direct continuity with the Goddess of Fertility: most outstandingly, ofcourse, her sexual alliance with her chosen male. Note how Medb, in the Tdin, dallies with Fergus even while married to Ailill, demonstrating a sexual license common to fertility cults 76 (one thinks, too, in this regard, of a later Medb figure, the Wife of Bath). 77 The Irish Elopements add an additional dimension to the argument offered here: their reluctant lovers seem to be accurate reflections of the dying and rising god figure associated with the Mother Goddess, and the Elopement heroines seem to have the sexual drive of the Goddess herself. 78 On the other hand, even the most faithful of the bride-stealing heroines, the married Indian women, de- monstrate their connection with the Goddess of fertility: Sit~, whose name


means 'furrow,' born from the earth in a ritual ploughing, and returned to tile earth at tile end ofher human life; Draupadi, whose epith/~t 'Krs.nfi' ('the black one') may refer to the blackness ofthe earth or tile chthonian powers. 79 Other Indian examples whicb come to mind in tbis connection are the names of Subhadrfi (Most Auspicious), noted above (Part IV), and ofAmba, Ambikfi, and Ambalikfi (literally, the three 'Mothers').8~

One interesting corollary ofthe identification suggested in tiffs section ofmy discussion has to do With the fact that bulls and cows have long served as symbols or embodiments of tile God/Goddess couple. 81 Even the Indo- Europeans knew this symbolism (see above, Part II). Thus tile structural interchangeability of brides and cattle ill Indo-European heroic literature reveals its deeper meaning: both cow (with bull as her consort) and bride are Goddesses.

VI INDO-EUROPEAN REMODELLING OF THE GODDESS At first, stolen cattle and brides were symbols of the struggle between tile Indo-Europeans and the autochthonous peoples, but as the Indo-Europeans absorbed tile autochthons, tile conflict became their own internal struggle. It was in the course ofthis historical process that the Goddess was transformed.

How, then, did Indo-European influence remodel tile autochthonous God- dess figure? In simplest terms, the Indo-Europeans imposed a male-centered warrior ideology on tile agricultural ideology whi6h they overtook. This id.eology emphasized active heroism; for example, as may be seen from the .Rg Veda (see above, Part I), fertility was now explained as a result ofmale heroic activity, raiher than passive compliance with the natural cycle. 82 In short, the male hero replaced the dying and rising god. The fertility bull was now a man praised for his bull-like strength. 83 The story of male heroic action, particularly male initiation, begins to dominate the literature at this juncture. This fact can already be noted in the Rg Veda; later it results in tile birth and flowering ofnew heroic genres: epic and saga. The pre-Indo-European fertility Goddess serves literally as the battleground upon which tile confrontation between Indo-European and autochthonous ideologies takes place.

The Goddess may take a number of different roles in tile reinterpreted story pattern; these may be ranged on a spectrum, divisible into three major sections. 8~ Firstly, as Prosperity/Sovereignty, she is almost her old self, decid- ing tile fate of the male, as his Wife and his Death. The only major difference between Prosperity/Sovereignty and the Mother Goddess in her'pre-Indo- European form is that Prosperity/Sovereignty's purpose seems to be an ultimate transference ofher power to her chosen husband. One mlght say that she serves as his initiator. But.note the Elopement heroines, who are clearly to be placed in this category: here the transference of power has gone haywire, so that tile chosen initiatory hero dies tragically and is never reborn.


More actively, the Goddess may become tile object of the hero's wrath, an :nemy whom he turns against. As such, she may represent the autochthonous :eligion, which the Indo-Europeans were out to conquer, or more generally a ~'emale power which tile male hero defies in claiming fertility power for himself. 85 Such a version of the Goddess is more terrible than beautiful, although as always she is very powerful. The dying and rising god turned hero gets to take his revenge upon her. So as to be a suitable enemy, the female figure so treated is often assigned warrior attributes and an army. Or was tile warrior woman figure invented as the autochthonous traditions' powerful defense against tile Indo-European ideology: an insistence that their Goddess is a warrior too? In any case, as a character in heroic literature tile Goddess is, though Powerful, doomed to eventual defeat, Such a figure is Medb, whose very power itself is turned against her in the Tdin's Indo-European version of her story: she loses her war to win Donn Cuailnge because her period comes upon her in the midst of battle, because of her fertility! s6 In fact, she would never have had to fight at all had not the bull Finnbenach left her herd 'refusing to be led by a w o m a n . . . ' (see above, Part 1I). 57

Interestingly, the Indian tradition provides a parallel to the Medb figure which allows the scholar to observe the process of transformation even more clearly. This figure is ArabS, the bride-stealing victim mentioned above, Part III. When Bhisma's theft of Amb5 interferes with her own choice of a husband, ultimately leading her chosen husband to reject her because her honour has been soiled, 88 she turns into a fury who is satisfied only by rebirth as a male warrior, sworn to kill her abductor. Thus is Amba transformed into the warrior ~ikhandin, worthy to confront Bhisma in battle.

Thirdly, the Goddess may become an object of male initiatory action, the prize won by the male in battle; this is the role of the Goddess in the bride- stealing scenario which most clearly parallels the Indo-European cattle- raiding story. The culmination o. f inale initiation is bride winning. The marriage which crowns male initiation achieves the same result as the hierosgamos (divine marriage) of the agricultural rel igions--fert i l i ty--but the woman is now ideally the man's subordinate. Furthermore, once won, she must be defended against those who would steal her away. Thus, according to this development, tile male, not the female, is portrayed as the stable and enduring figure: now the Goddess dies and rises, not the god! Such a scenario empha- sizes the wifely qualities of the Goddess figure, while the threatening and powerful enemy against whom the hero must fight is portrayed as a male. 89 As when cast in the role ofenemy, the Goddess as wife is only halfofherself: in this case only the beautiful - now turned somewhat demure - half.

There are, however, levels ofdemureness. Draupadi, for example, a l though but a pale reflection ofthe Goddess's strength, is rnuch stronger than Sitfi. She herself cannot act, but note how she harangues her husbands, exhorting them to find the strength to win back their kingdom:


There is no more time to ply the Kurus with forgiveness; and when the time for authority has come, authority must be employed. The meek are despised, but people shrink from the severe: he is a king who knows both, when their time has come. 90

She also appears to possess the evil eye. m In fact, Draupadi is too strong actually to be stolen: her own words win her freedom, ifnot that ofthe kingdom which she represents; she saves her husbands, and is able to remain with them while they are exiled from their realm. 92 In the case of Sit~, on the other hand, the Goddess has been swallowed up completely by the Indo-European sto W pattern of the initiatory dragon fight, as in Indra 's battle with Vrtra, referred to in Part I I o f this paper; she is absolutely defenseless. The Irish Wooing heroines a r e m o r e like Draupadi than Sit~. Emer, for example, with her knowledge ofriddles, is practically a magician; and her rare outburst of anger against Cfichulainn in the course of their continuing marital life may be compared to Draupadi ' s harangue against the Pfindavas. 93 Furthermore, Emer and other Wooing heroines, as well as Draupadi herself, seem to serve as helper figures for their respective suitors and husbands.

From the preceding discussion it will be apparent that although examples for all three categories may be found in both the Indian and Irish heroic literatures, Irish examples dominate categories 1 and 2. These categories, I ' would argue, are indicative of a Goddess figure who has maintained some of her autochthonous power, even in the Indo-European reworking. Nor can any Irish figure be found in category 3 who is as weak as the Indian Sitfi. Most striking, too, among the Irish examples, is the hdstility with which these heroines are regarded: even the relatively weak Wooing heroines are semi- demonic.

Perhaps the basis ofthis hostility may best be understood by a consideration ofthe figure of Medb in the Tdin. The Tdin makes fun of Medb for her failure as a warrior; also for her supposed deviousness and greed. Yet perhaps all this satirization of Medb is in itself an indication of its own reverse side: an admiration of Medb, even a fear of her. Until her ultimate failure, at least, Medb is a powerful figure, a leader of armies, a ruler of men. The best indication of all that the epic composers are in awe of Medb and what she represents is the fact that they are not able to involve her in a bride-stealing scenario. (In this respect she differs greatly from her co-inhabitor ofcategory 2, Amba.) Thus cattle raiding, not bride stealing, remains the major subject of the Tdin, her stow; Goddess and cattle are divided from one another. Strong, yet not too strong to satirize: this is the position of the Goddess in the Irish heroic literature. The Goddess of Indian epic literature is a weaker character. One must conclude that the Indo-European ideology has taken over more strongly in India than in Ireland. 9~

The preceding discussion has centered upon the humanized version of the


Goddess as leading lady in Indo-European heroic literature. It is noteworthy that this literature also affords some glimpses of the Goddess in her divine form, as incorporated into the Indo-Europeanized pantheons which provide back-drops for the various epics and sagas. In tile Indian and Irish contexts, these glimpses corroborate the findings presented here. Typically Indian is Indr~ni, Indra's wife, who when solicited by Nahusa, who has stolen Indra's kingdom and thinks he deserves his wife, resists approximately as much as Draupadi does in the same situation: she trembles and laments, yet ultimately helps Indra effect a plan (of his, not hers) to topple the enemy. 95 Typically Irish is the Morrfgan, who threatens Cfichulainn in the forms of eel, wolf, and cow because he refuses her sexual advances: powerful, but an object ofscorn. 96

VII POETIC I M A G E R Y AND SOCIAL R E A L I T Y One may now ask the following question: does the stronger Goddess figure of Irish, as opposed to Indian, heroic literature indicate that at the time this literature was composed Irish women enjoyed a higher social position or more power than their Indian counterparts? One may only speculate upon the answer to this question. In so doing, one finds it to be divisible into two halves, which I shall discuss separately in this section ofmy paper.

First, does a society's recognition of a strong Goddess figure necessarily imply that it accords a position of power to its women? Here the answer must be negative, insofar as many exceptions to such a rule may be cited. In fact, the clearest exception is India itself. As Indian society developed in the post-epic period, the Goddess figure flourished; for example, as the wa?rior Devi and as R~dhfi, Krsna's new favourite. Veneration of cattle continued to characterize Hinduism'. ~7" Tile old ideology of Sovereignty was mirrored in the burgeoning image of any given Goddess as the ~akti (power) of her spouse-God. But by most standards, Indian women did not enjoy the same high status. Notewor- thy, for example, is their lack of-independence in classical Indian drama and dramatic theory, which apportions all heroines among the categories of 'one's own' (the wife of the hero), 'another's, ' and 'common property' (courtesans). 9a One may even suggest that the Goddess was able to attract unalloyed praise precisely because mortal women had ceased to be much of a threat to men. 99

This point brings us to the second half of the original question: were the women of Ireland in fact more powerful than those of India in the period under discussion? Here, I believe, an affirmative answer is indicated. Firstly, histo- rians tend to support such a contention regarding the Celtic world in gen'eral, largely on the basis of reports, including reports of female warriors, from travellers who went there during Roman timesJ ~176 Secondly, Irish saga's attitude of mingled hostility arid awe towards its Goddess heroines reflects more than an Indo-European reaction against the autochthonous religions: it


reflects hostility and awe towards women in general. This deep-seated emo- tion suggests that women were really threatening in Irish society: that they enjoyed a certain power.

This power is perhaps reflected in Irish saga's recognition of the possibility ofelopement among m,'irried women. Indian epic knows no such theme--no t , at least, in connection with its humanized charac te rs - -nor can it conceive of its heroines consorting with their captors. Draupadi, as mentioned earlier (Part I I I ) , remains with her husbands, although the story patter n might be better served by her loss along with that ofthe kingdom. Site's chastity while in captivity is mythically guaranteed by a curse, but even so the gossip of the people leads to her being rejected by Rfima in the end (she then retires to a chas temonas t i c life), t~ Anyone who consorts with a married woman in Indian epic is seen as a devil who must be purged. Irish saga, on the other hand, evidences admiration for the lovers ofits Elopement heroines.

Ireland also places much greater emphasis tlmn does India on a bride's own choice of her groom, as witness the figures of Medb and the Elopement heroines. In India, by epic times the vestigal notion of the sva.yamvara (see above, Part I I I ) is giving way (even where the old name is preserved) to an heroic bow-bending contest. 1~ Here, too, one observes the sva)'amvara suc- cumbing to a bride-stealing theme: Ambfi, Ambikfi, and Ambfilikfi are stolen " by Bhisma from what was to be their svayamvara, and Krsna recommends the theft of Subhadrfi to Arjuna in the following terms:

The baron's marriage is the bridegroom choice [Jva.yamvara] . . . But that is dubious . . . since one's own sentiments have no influence on the outcome. Forcible abduction is also approved as a ground ofmarriage for barons who are champions, as the Law-wise know. Abduct nay beautiful sister by force, for who would know her designs at a bridegroom choice? I~

The deterioration of the.svayamvara marks at the least a deterioration in the ritual position of women in India under Indo-European domination. What- ever its Indo-European roots (see above, Part I I I ) , the notion of the bride's self-choice also seems to reflect tile Goddess's self-choice of a spouse in the pre-Indo-European period. Such a self-choice, reflected in the activities of the Indo-European Prosperity/Sovereignty figure, x~ is suggestive of matriliny: the woman is the donor of the power to the man. At least one humanized heroine of Irish heroic l i t e ra tu re - -Medb- - s t iU claims such power) ~ In India, the idea has been modified seriously. Even the heroine of a true svayamvara does not make her chosen husband the king of the realm, since kingship, in these cases, is patrilineal. The heroines of false svayamvaras (i.e., bow-bending contests or bride stealings) are, ofcourse, even more caught up in patriliny.

Finally, Irish saga presents a much greater variety offemale characters than


does Indian epic: besides those already mentioned, some of the most memor- able are the warrior-teacher Sc~thach, the warrior Aife, and Medb's seductive daughter Finnabair. Evidently, the options open to women are conceived more broadly in the Irish context than the Indian.

The indicators just outlined suggest that the position of women in the Ireland which produced heroic literature may have been superior to that of women in epic India. Ifsuch is indeed the case, it would seem that where the Indo-European ideology took over more completely, the position of women declined more radically. In this connection, it is necessary to turn once again to the relatively high position of women reflected in 'classic' Indo-European literature, mentioned in Part i l i , above. One can only suggest that the deterioration of women's status was not inherently Indo-European, but was rather an insidious result of the Indo-European/authochthonous encounter; something related to the clash of differing cultures(one valuing the feminine more highly than the other), the master-slave relationship of conqueror and conquered, and the pride attendant upon military victory.

VII I E X T E N D I N G C O N C L U S I O N S

I have suggested in the preceding discussion that the Indo-European takeover of India and Ireland resulted in both ideological and social changes, conduc- ' ing to the degeneration 0fthe female position in these areas. In concluding this paper, I would like first to emphasize that all points made with regard to Indian and Irish heroic literature might be paralleled with examples from elsewhere in the Indo-European world. Helen has, in facl, already been

ment ioned (Part III) as a Greek parallel to Draupadi and Sitfi. It is perhaps less obvious, but equally true, that tile story of Penelope is the story of a stolen or nearly-stolen bride. Nor is Helen the only stolen woman in tile Iliad; for the

w r a t h of Achilles is set in motion by the thefts of Chryseis and Briseis. An even closer parallel to Sitfi, stolen by a demon, is Andromeda of the

Greek Perseus and Andromeda legend. Androfiaeda, in turn, draws our atten- tion to the fairy-tale theme of the princess threatened by a dragon, whom the hero must rescueJ ~ The female version of thedragon in fairy tales is the fairy-tale witch, well exemplified by, among others, the Russian figure of Baba Yaga. It is not surprising, then, that Baba Yaga's initiatory hut in the forest closely parallels the habitation of Celtic Sovereignty.

Such Greek heroines as Ariadne 1~ and Medea offer parallels to Celtic Wooing heroines. Note, too, tile interesting case ofthe daughters of Leukippos:

Leukippos.. . a descendant of Perseus, had two daughters, Hilaeira and Phoebe, who were betrothed to the two sons ofAphareus, Leukippos' brother. But Kastor and Polydeukes carried them off. Either for this reason, or as a result of a quarrel during a cattle-raid, the sons of Aphareus . . . attacked them. 108

[italics mine]


Or the case oriole:

Either before or after his marriage with Deianeira, Herakles fell violently in love with Iole, daughter of Eurytos king of Oichalia. Her father and brothers, however, would not let him have her, and to make matters worse, Herakles in a fit ofmadness, hurled one of them, Iphitos, from the walls of Tiryns, whither he had come to look for some lost cattle . . . . Finally, he set out against and took Oichalia, and carried off Iole . . . . 109 [italics mine]

Another example of a Greek stolen bride is, of course, Persephone, the dying and rising Goddess par excellence (see Part VI). She provides a dimension which has not been noted in either the Indian or Irish examples discussed in this paper: through her example, the grief experienced by an abducted unmarried woman and her mother is expressed. In comparison with the stories ofother bride-stealing heroines, that of Persephone shows itself to be or reflect a female (autochthonous?) reaction to the bride-stealing scenario. In other Indo- European cases, the unmarried woman's fury may be explained in a different manner. To cite just one example, Skj~ilf of the Icelandic Ynglinga Saga, a heroine nearly as powerful as Medb herself, kills her abductor not just to get away from him, but also, it appears, to avenge the murder of her father during the abduction. I l0 The case of Skjfilfleads to the examination ofother Germa- nic examples; thus Joseph Fontenrose on just one branch of that tradition:

� 9 in the Nibelung sources every step ofthe way can be seen, from the beautiful but wicked demoness, the Vti'lkyrie, who lures the hero to his doom through the demoness who fails in love with the hero, or who is fortzed by him, the Valkyrie Brynhild, to the dragon-rapt maiden, Krimhild, whom the hero rescues.~lt

Yugoslav epic likewise presents many examples ofbride stealing or attempted bride stealing.llZ And the celebrated abduction of tile Sabine women by Romulus and his followers serves as an example out ofRoman 'history'.ll3

Some of the figures mentioned here have been identified explicitly by scholars as humanized Goddesses.ll4 I trust that the analysis offered in the preceding discussion has indicated the further demotion implicit in such humanization.

Some Indo-European parallels having been noted, one also notes that the parallels do not end here. Turning to the Semitic world, one observes tile following: Ti '~mat and Kingu of the Babylonian Creation Epic are remarkably similar to Medb and Ailill, Hebrew Hochmah provides a close parallel to Indian Vfic; 115 Deborah seems to reflect tile superimposition of warrior themes upon a 'Mother ' figure; ll6 the pre-Islamic razzia (basically', a camel raid) parallels the Indo-European cattle raid. ! 17 Abduction is not so central a theme here (though note the stories of Sarah [Genesis XII . 11-20 and Genesis XX] 118 and Rebecca [Genesis XXVI. 7-11] and the tragic tale of Dinah [Genesis IX. 34]), l l9 but the same transition from dying and rising god to hero

CaUt~ Raiding and Bride Stealing ! 25

god found in the Indo-European world may be traced in such Semitic figures as Marduk and Baal. 12~ In this connection, one type of female figure appears in the Semitic world who is little represented in Indo-European heroic literature: the female who helps the hero not merely by advice or moral support, but by active fighting, the best example being Baal's sister Anat. 121

It is possible that the Indo-European and Semitic ideologies were originally one; and mutual influence is certain. But I would like to suggest that the trends outlined here are not limited to the geographic areas focused upon in this paper; rather, they are universally human and might be discovered in all regions through which pastoralists with warrior ideologies have moved- -and that means world-wide. It appears to be a question of similar ecological conditions creating similarly patterned societies and mythologies, z22 Non- Indo-European examples, therefore, may shed light upon the questions raised with regard to Indo-European cases in this paper. Very helpful in this respect is Peggy Reeves Sanday's study Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality. Some of her observations relate directly to the issue at hand, for example:

One wonders how often in human history groups of migrating males have endeavored to find a new place for themselves. The oppression ofwomen may be an outcome of taking wives in the new land and regarding them as part of the force they must continue to control in order to survive. Or, men and women may migrate together into an arid environment that forces people to concentrate their ritual energies on finding and renewing the sources ofgrowth. Once a stance of control and manipulation is adopted, it is not easily abandoned. 123

Meggitt suggests that the Enga [of New Guinea] equate femininity with sexual- ity and peril because wives are acquired from neighboring groups who are in competition for the same resources. The Enga have a saying, 'We marry the people we fight.'t24

And:

Azande history begins with the exodus ofthe Ambomu, who must have been so organized that conquest and incorporation were possible. The evidence suggests that the Ambomu moved more as a group of warriors tban as related families. They migrated with the male and not the female part of their aboriginal culture. Azande women are more like slaves and enemies than partners in a similar cultural tradition. This is understandable if the Ambomu migrated as a group of hunters who were forced to learn agriculture and to take wives from the peoples they conquered, t25

The observations just quoted address the question of the encounter between autochthons and immigrants. Of equal interest'are Sanday's comments regarding the migrating groups themselves. In sum:


� 9 in favourable environments and in autochthonous cultural conditions, sexual equality (or symmetry) flourishes, whereas in unfavorable environments or in the face ofcuhural disruption (measured by the experience of recent migra- tion), mythical male dominance or sexual inequality prevailsJ 26

Citing the examples of the Comanches and Cheyennes of the American Great Plains, Sanday also suggests that tile cultural antecedents of a given migrating group may be quite influential with regard to that group's attitude towards women: the status of Comanche women was very low,127 while that of Chey- enne women was somewhat higher, 128 presumably because tile Comanches were orginally hunters and gatherers, 129 tile Cheyennes originally farmers, with 'well-developed female social and ritual principles. '13~ (Thus, the Cheyennes combined the traits of autochthons and migrants within one group.) 131

The Plains Indians deserve further investigation, as one group which parallels the Vedic Indo-Aryans in many ways. These Indians were horse herders, who used their horses to hunt buffalo. Their culture was thus a cross between a hunting culture and a herding culture. They had not domesticated buffalo (cattle), nor was the domestication of the horse their own invention: ho r ses had been brought by Europeans, revolutionizing the lives of the Native Americans in the seventeenth century. It may be suggested, therefore, tlmt the Plains Indians represented a less advanced stage of economic development than the Indo-Aryans, but were tending in the same direction. (Their natural development was, of course, thwarted by the encroachment of European settlers.)

I t is striking that horse and buffalo play the same role in Plains Indian culture as cattle play alone in the Indo-European context. 132 Other similarities between the two cultures include the constant raiding activity (horse stealing being the pr imary raiding objective of the Plains Indians)133 and the warrior ethic, more or less.demeaning to women. It is striking, too, ahhough not surprising, that the Feminine serves Plains Indian heroic lore in much the same way as she serves Indo-European heroic literature: often in league with the autochthons, she is the hero's foil, the Other. Many Indo-European heroic motifs are paralleled in the folklore of the Plains Indians: in particular, quests of various types. 134 One even finds a myth of the primordial freeing of the buffalo by tile culture hero, just as Indra freed the cows. 135 As in the Indo- European world, so too among the Plains Indians, bride stealing has been �9 4ssimilated into themes ofcatt le raiding. Compare these two passages:

The Comanche taking a guarded horse was a ghost. There are instances on record of Comanches stealing hobbled and guarded mounts ofsoldiers. Colonel Dodge says that a Comanche could crawl into a 'bivouac where a dozen men were sleeping, each with a horse tied to his wrist by the lariat, cut a rope witbin six feet of the sleeper, and get away with the horse without waking a s o u l . '136


'Tonight, I'll go in to see what I can do,' said the second Comanche. When the lights were out in the cabin, he crept forward. He entered the little house and found the rancher and his wife sleeping together in their bed. With all the stealth he would have used in untethering a picketed horse before the lodge ofan enemy chief, he lifted the sleeping women from the side of her unsuspecting husband. Without waking her, he brought her to the side of his friend. Together they took her back to the main camp. The People said this was the greatest coup of all. No Comanche had ever done anything like that before! 137

In Plains Indian myth and legend, bride stealing often entails the abduct ion of a woman by an animal. Such animal tales are paralleled in Indo-European popular lore; 138 however, Indo-European heroic literature has, for the most part, adopted human characters (the fairy-tale a tmosphere o f the Rdmd.j'ana providing an isolated exception to this rule). I t may perhaps be suggested that the Plains Indian tales show more kinship with a hunt ing and gather ing milieu than a pastoral milieu. It is noteworthy that the same structural slot as is filled by the autochthons in Indo-European heroic literature is often filled here by the hunted animal, particularly, Of course, the buffalo. Thus one hears of abduct ion by buffalo 'husbands '139 and of a 'piqued buffalo-wife'--in this case, forcibly married by a human m a n - - w h o cannot long be contained, and eventually runs away. 14~ There are als0 animal husbands of other types, the most interesting for the purposes of this paper being serpents, who might be seen as r ep resen t ing - - i f one were to draw parallels with other parts o f the ,;vorld - -agr icu l tu ra l i s t au toch thonsJ 41 (V.. rtra himself was a serpent , ahi.) Some- times a woman cheerfully submits to her abductor (seducer). 142 Sometimes she is able to escape from him by her own devices. 143 At other times, she must depend upon heroic and /o r animal a i d ) 44

I f t he Indo-European example may be taken as a model, one would expect to find that under pas tora l /nomadic influence, the Goddess did not die out completely, but merely was transformed. 145 This expectation is fulfilled even in the case o f the misogynous C v m a n c h e s :

Next, after the sun, the earth was worshipped as a Mother because it was the receptacle and producer ofall that sustains life. The earth was thought ofas the mother of man and animals) 46

Tile women in some of the Plains Indian tales may be a goddess too; certainly this applies to tile piqued buffalo wife: 'She led them to a herd of buffalo and they made a rich killing. They were aware that the strange woman was the cause o f t h e i r success . . . ,147 One also notes a matri l iny/sovereignty motif among the Plains Indians:

M o o n e y . . . cites a Cheyenne myth attributing tl~e creation ofthe tribal council to a captive woman. Her husband had been a chief in her former tribe and she taught the Cheyennes its governmental organization. Gr innel l . . . records a


version in which a Cheyenne girl is taken captive by the Assiniboines. After a number of years she returns to the Cheyennes and tells them how the Assini- boines govern themselves; the Cheyennes, who are impressed with her account, adopt the Assiniboine system. The fact is, however, that the Assiniboines never had a tribal council anything like that ofthe Cheyennes. 148

At a later stage ofreligious development, however, the figure of the Goddess became so weak that official religion relinquished her almost entirely; this, worldwide, is theJudaeo-Chris t ian-Is lamic stage of male-oriented monotheism. Was this monotheism simply a further development o f the nomadic ideology, or does it represent a completely new development? The fact that the Pentateuch is built upon an 'epic' base would serve as an argument in favour of the former assertion. 149 On the other hand, the fact that in most instances monotheism had to be imposed artificially from the outside argues in favour of the second assertion. With regard to the position of women in this context, ttie following hypothesis may be advanced: tile recognition of a powerful Goddess may not guarantee a powerful position to women in a given society, but the exclusive recognition of a male God appears to guarantee that women will be weak. The reaction of Christianized heroic literature (for example, tile chansons de geste and tile Arthurian romances) to the further retreat of the Goddess under Christianity must remain a topic for future research.

R U T H K A T Z ARABAGIAN is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion, Florida State University, where she is currently engaged in research on Indian religions and Women and Religion.

Department of Religion, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.

NOTES 1 I follow the terminology used by H. Munro Chadwick and Nora Chadwick in The

Growth of Literature, 3 vols. (1932-40; rpt. Cambridge: University Press, 1968), in which the term epic refers to heroic poetry and saga to heroic literature in prose.

2 Throughout this discussion I use the term 'autochthonous' to refer to those who were alreadysettled in an area when the Indo-Europeans entered it, no matter where they might have come from originally.

3 See, for example, R.g Veda 1.11.5, 1.32.12, I1.14.3, 1II.30.10, etc. etc. Note that other Vcdic gods are also portrayed as cattle thieves occasionally, for example, Agni and Soma in R.g Veda 1.93.4 and Brhaspati in .Rg Veda X.68.

4 Bruce Lincoln, Priests, Warriors, and Cattle: A Study in the Ecology of Religions (Ber- keley, University of California Press, 1981), pp. 7-8.

5 Examples are numerous. For instance: The Heifer hath brought forth the Strong, the Mighty, the

unconquerable Bull, the furious Indra. The Mother left her unlicked Calf to wafider, seeking himself

the path that he would follow. (Rg Veda IV. 18.10)


O tawny Bull, thus showing forth thy nature, as neither to be wroth, O God, nor slay us,

Here, Rudra, listen to our invocation. Loud may we speak with heroes i n assembly. (R.g Veda 11.33.15)

The Rudras' Mother, Daughter of the Vasus, centre of nectar, the Adityas' Sisterm

To folk who understand will I proclaim it--injure not Aditi, the Cow, the sinless. (Rg Veda VIII.90.15)

(As translated by Ralph T. H. Griffith in The Hymns of the R gveda: Translated with a Popular Commentaly, 4th ed., Chowkhambha Sanskrit Series, Vol. 35, 2 vols.. [Varanasi: Chowkhambha Sanskrit Series Office, 1963].)

6 See, for example, Arthur Anthony Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (1898; rpt. Delhi, etc.: Motilal Banarsidass, 1974), pp. 59-60. The connection is at least metaphor- ical; to quote just one example, R.g Veda 1.61.10 (trans. Griffith):

Through his own strength Indra with bolt ofthunder cut piece-meal Vrtra, drier up ofwaters.

He let the floods go free, like cows imprisoned, for glory, with a heart inclined to bounty.

For detailed discussion of this issue, see A. Venkatasubbiah, 'On lndra's Winning of Cows and Waters,' Zeitschri~ der Deutschen Morgenl~ndischen Gesellschafi, 115 (1965), 120-33.

7 Lines 17ft.: Born with the dawning, at mid-day he played on the lyre, and in the evening

he stole the cattle of far-shooting Apollo on the fourth day of the month; for on that day queenly Maia bare him. So soon as he had leaped from his mother's heavenly womb, he lay not long waiting in his holy cradle, but he sprang up and sought the oxen of Apollo . . . .

The Sun was going down beneath the earth towards Ocean with his horses and chariot when Hermes came hurrying to the shadowy mountains of Pieria, where the divine cattle of the blessed gods had their steads and grazed the pleasant unmown meadows. Of these the Son of Maia, the sharp-eyed slayer of Argus then cut off from the herd fifty loud-lowing kine, and drove them straggling-wise across a sandy place, turning their hoof-prints aside.

(As translated by H. G. Evelyn.-White in Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, Loeb Classical Library [1914; rpt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press and London: Heinemann , 1974], pp. 365-69.)

8 Brown, Norman O., Hermes the Thief; The Evolution of a Myth (1947; rpt. New York: Vintage-Random House, 1969), p. 5.

9 Though if Lincoln is correct, even active raiding of the cattle ofothers was looked upon as defensive rather than offensive, a fully justified repossession ofone's own property (Priests, p. 132).

10 Mah~bh~rata IV.29-61. (all Mah~bhffrata references are to the Critical Edition.) See Heino Gehrts, Mah~bh~rata: Das Geschehen und seine Bedeutung (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1975), pp. 215, 222 If., for the suggestion that this episode is modeled after the mock cattle raid which was one event in the Vedic royal consecration ritual. Through this action, the king claimed 'the Indra power'; see Johannes Cornelis Heesterman, The Ancient Indian Royal Consecration: The Rff-

jas~ya Described According to the Yajus Texts and Annotated ('S-Gravenhage: Mouton, 1957), p. 129.


1 i Unless, indeed, tile Pfind.ava brothers' polyandrous marriage somehow identifies them as non-Aryan; thus, for example, E. Washburn Hopkins, 7he Great Epic of lndia: lts Character and Origin (New York: Scribner and London: Edward Arnold, 1902), pp. 376 and 400 and Johann Jakob Meyer, Sexual Life in Ancient lndia: A Study in the Comparative tlistoo~ of lndian Culture (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1971), p. 108. But compare Sadashiv A. Dange, 'Tile Pandava Riddle (Birth and Mar- riage in a New Light)',Journal of the University of Bombay, NS 26, No. 2 (1959), 176:

It is this confusion that has caused many scholars to doubt tile Aryan origin of the Pfndavas; but on seeing clearly through the whole mist, we can understand how ha'sty it is to call them non-Aryans . . . .

Dange argues that the Pfindava polygamy may be explained by the family's peculiar political circumstances.

12 Rdmd.)'ana 1.50 ft., etc. (All R~mfyana references are to the Critical Edition.) This story is discussed by Lincoln in Priests, pp. 143 ft. Compare the story ofthe conflict between RfimaJfimadagnya and Arjuna Kfirtavirya, Mahdbhdrata, I I I. 116. ! 9 ff., e t c .

13 ThomasKinsella, The Tain: Translated from the bish Epic Tdin Bd Cuailnge (1969; rpt. London: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 55.

14 For discussion ofsuch a substitution in tile Iranian tradition, see Lincoln, Priests, pp. 108-09. That women and cattle are frequently grouped together as booty is particularly clear from examples such as the following passage from the Tdin (Kinsella, pp. 116-17):

Mac Roth came to Cfichulainn again and said they would give him the noblest women and all tile milkless cattle out of their phmder if he would stop " using his sling against them at n ight - -he might kill as he chose by day.

"I can't agree to that," Cfichulainn said, "for if you take away the bondwomen our freewomen will have to take to the grinding-stones, and ifyou take away our milch cows we would have to go without milk."

Mac Roth came to Cfichulainn again, and said tltcy would leave him instead the bondwomen and tile milch cows.

"I can't agree to that either," Cfichulainn said, "for the men of UIstcr would sleep with the bondwomen and beget slavish sons, and they would use the milch cows for meat in the winter."

15 SeeMeyer, p. 77, n. l. The Md,:ava Dharma{dstra (l lI.24, 26) "speaks of marriage by capture (rdks.asa marriage) as appropriate for the warrior class, although the very name "rdks.asa'(demonic) suggi~sts some disapproval.

16 For an Indian example, see Lawrence A. Babb, The Divine ttierarchy: Popular ltinduism in Central lndia (New York and l.ondon: Columbia University Press, 1975), p. 85. For the situation in Ireland, see Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tra'dition in Ireland and Wales (London: Thames and Iludson, 1961), pp. 267-68.

17 See Bhagwat Saran Upadhyaya, Women in R gveda (New Delhi: S. Chand, 1974), pp. 81-82, 117-18. But the R g Veda also suggests a distrust of Aryan-ddsa relations:

l ie gained possession of the Sun and Horses, Indra obtained the Cow who feedeth many.

Treasure ofgold he won; he smote tile Dasyus, and gave protection to the Aryan col0ur. (.Rg Veda 1II.34.9, trans. Griffith)

18 Macdonnell, p. 65. Hymn X.85, the marriage hymn for Sfiryfi, is the single major exception to the R.g Veda's neglect ofquestions oflove and marriage. With regard


to the Rg Veda's lack of interest in the feminine, two additional facts may be cited. F i r s t l y , ' . . . no desire for the birth of a daughter is ever expressed in the entire range of the .Rgveda' (Upadhyaya, p. 42). Secondly, the greatest number of hymns dedicated to any goddess in the .Rg Veda is twenty, to Us as, goddess ofdawn; this compared to approximately two hundred fifty hymns to Indra, two hundred to the fire god, Agni!

19 R.g Veda 1.112.19, 1.116.1, I.I i 7.20, X.39.7, X.65.2. 20 Trans. Griffith. 21 Upadhyaya, pp. 54-56. 22 R. g Veda 1.118.5, 1.119.5. 23 Macdonell. D. 124. 24 See, for example, ~atapatha Brfihma.na Ili,2.1.18--24. Even within this BrS.hmana,

one also finds variations of this theme; for example, the struggle for V~.c becomes a struggle betwi~en the gods and tile gandharvas, rather than the demons (I I 1.2.4.3- 6). Note the misogynous ending of this version:

The Gandharvas recited the Vcdas to her, saying, "See ho';v we know it, see how we know it!"

�9 The gods then created tile lute and sat playing and singing, saying, "Thus we will sing to thee, thus we will amuse thee!" She turned to the gods; but, in truth, she turned to them vainly, since she turned away from those, engaged in praising and praying, to dance and song. Wherefore even to this day women are given to vain things: for it was on this wise that Vfik turned thereto, and other women do as she didl And hence it is to him who dances and sings that they most readily take a fancy.

(As translated by Julius Eggeling in Satapatha-Brdhmana According to the Text of the Mddhyandina School, Tile Sacred Books of the East, V01s. 12, 26, 41, 43, and 44 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882-1900].)

25 See AIf Hiltebeitel, The Ritual of Battle: Krishna in the Mah8bhSrata (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1976), pp. 154-66. The mffjor epic references are Mahdbhdrata XII.124.54-60 and XII.215-21.

26 Mah8bMrata 1.96.11 (as translated by J.A.B. van Buitenen in The Mah8bhSrata, Books I-V, 3 vols. [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973-78]); compare 1.211.22.

27 MahJbh~rata 1.211-12. Note the interesting connection beween Subhadr~ and cattle: when Arjuna brings Subhadrfi home, his first wife, Draupadi, is consumed with jealousy ;

Hurriedly, Arjuna had Subhadr~, who ~as wearing a red silk shirt, change into a cow maid's dress. The woman looked even more beautiful in it. When she came to the main house, the glorious Bhadrrt of the wide copper-red eyes greeted Prth?t [Arjuna's mother], and then, her face shining like the full moon, hastened to greet Draupadi: "I am Bhadrfi, your serving maid!" she said. (I.213.17-19, trans, van Buitenen.)

28 It is mentioned briefly in Mah~bhdrata III.13.28, 102, V.47.68, etc. 29 Mahdbh6rata 1.96 and V.170 ft. This abduction and the abductions of Subhadr~

and Rukmini are the best known cases of this sort in the Mah6bhdrata, but lesser examples may also be cited, notably, Duryodhana's theft of a bride with Karna 's aid, in Mah~bhdrata XI 1.4.

30 For the winning of Draupadi, see Mahfibhfirata I. 176--81. For that ofSita, Rfimfi.)'ana 1.67.

31 According to at least one edition ofthe Mah~bMrata, Subhadrfi is so pleased at the


prospect ofmarrying Arjuna that she herself drives the chariot in which he abduct., her! (see Meyer, pp. 75-76, n. 2).

32 See Krsna's defense of Arjuna'a abduction ofSubhadrfi (Mah~bMrata 1.213.2 ff?j As Arjuna's maternal cousin, Subhadr-5. is, in fact, particularly well suited tc becoming his wife, by tile rules of cross-cousin marriage (which, however, were later discredited in India; see P. V. Kane, History of Dharm~astra [Andent and Medieval Religious and Civil Law in lndia], 2nd ed., Government Oriental Series, Class B, No. 6, 5 vols. in 8 [Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1968-77], especially II , 458-63).

33 SeeMah~bhffratalI.58.31 f., the story ofthe Pfindavas' near loss ofDraupadi in the great Mahdbh~rata dice game.

34 See, for example, Mah~bhdrata V.80. 35 Mahabh~rata 1II.248-56; compare III.154, IV.13-21. 36 RdmS_)'ana IV.8 IT. 37 Compare theaccusations lodged against Si~'upfila by Krsna, Mah~bh~rata I1.42.10 I 38 Kinsella, pp. 8-20. On the sons of Uisliu as cattle raiders, as well as bride stealers,

see Kinsella, p. 13: But still the men of UIstcr pursued them until they crossed the sea to the land of Alba.

They settled there in the waste places. When the mountain game failed them they turned to take the people's cattle.

39 Kinsella, p. 19. 40 Rees, Chapter 14. With regard to 'Trystan and Esyllt,' tile Rces brothers arc

evidently referring to the 'reluctant lover' aspect of the story, on which see, for example, Sigmund Eisner, The Tristan Legend: A Study in Sources (Evanston: North- western University Press, 1969), Chapter 7.

41 Rees, 293-9-I: The sympathy rests with the elopers, and great pains are taken to establish the hero's innocence. He is the victim of a destiny which works through such media as an accidentally drunk love-potion, the inadvertent uncovering of the love- spot on his forehead, or the fortuitous concurrence of his colours in a homely winter's scene.

Besides, the hero is often forced to comply by tile heroine, as is Noisiu by Derdriu. 42 Rots, pp. 271 ft. 43 Rees, pp. 271-73. 44 Rees, pp. 262 ft. 45 Kinsella, p. 37. 46 Kinsella, p. 27. 47 Recs, p. 226. Complexity ofcharacterization accounts for the fact that one may in

some cases also feel a certain sympathy for tile bereaved parent: O!wen's father, after all, objects to her marriage to Kulhwch only because of a curse which says that he will die when his daughter marries (Rees, p. 263). Nonetheless, even his own daughter does not let this consideration (which, ofcourse, is secondary for the story pattern as a whole) stop her from advising her suitor regarding the appropriate means of winning her. In Emer's case, the father is clearly shown t o b e a no-good, who has tried to kill Cfichulainn.

48 Lord, AlbertB., TheSingerofTales(1960;rpt. New York: Atheneum, 1973),p. 186. 49 Mah6bhdrata 1.61.95, etc. On the mythic complexities inherent in such an iden-

tification, see, especially, Hiltebeitel, pp. 144-47.


50 Rrm~_yana, books I and VII, for example 1.14-15. 5 i R6m~yana VI 1.45.15. 52 For example, in the words ofR~vana, Rffmff.)'ana III.44.15-16:

Who are you, O one with golden lustre, dressed in yellow silk, like a lotus pond bearing a beautiful garland of lotuses?

Are you Hri (Modesty), ~ri (Prosperity), Kirti (Fame), beautiful Laksmi, or an apsar~ (nymph), O beautiful one, or Bhfiti (Welfare), O fine-hipped women, or self-willed Rati (pleasure)?

53 Rrma.yana VII, App. I, No. 3, lines 219 ft. 54 Mah~bh~rata I, 566* (cited by Hiltebeitel, p. 145). 55 See Sir Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary Etymologically and

Philologically Arranged with Special Reference to Cognate Indo-European Languages (1899; rpt. Delhi, etc.: Motilal Banarsidass, 1979), p. 882 (entry: Rukmini).

56 See, for example, Sabatino Moscati, The Face of the Ancient Orient: A Panorama of Near Eastern Civilizations in Pre-Classical Times (1960; rpt. Garden City: Anchor- Doubleday, 1962), p. 219, regarding the Canaanite goddess Anat. Compare Helmer Ringgren, Religions of the Ancient Near East, trans. John Sturdy (Phila- delphia: Westminster, 1973), p. 143: 'She appears as the sister of Baal, but it is not impossible that this word, as in, for example, the Song of Songs, has the meaning of 'beloved' or 'bride'. '

57 See, for example, Hiltebeitei, p. 175, referring to Coomaraswamy, Krappe, the Rees brothers, and Dum~zil.

58 For the strongest defense ofthis view, see Alexander H. Krappe, 'The Sovereignty of Erin,' American Journal of Philology, 63 (1942), 444-54.

59 ~atapatha Brdhmana II.4.4.6, trans. Eggeling. This passage is mentioned by Hil- tebeitel, p. 149, citing Jan Gonda. Compare ~atapatha Br~hmana XIII.2.6.7, regarding the horse sacrifice:

It is the wives that anoint (the horse), for they-- to wit, (m~ny) wives--are a form of prosperity (or social eminence); it is thus prosperity he confers on him (the Sacrificer), and neither fiery spirit, nor energy, nor cattle, nor prosperity pass away from him.

60 See for example, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, 'On the Loathly Bride,' in Roger Lipsey, ed., Coomaraswamy, I, Bollingen Series No. 89 (Princeton: Princeton Uni- versity Press, 1977), 353-74. Coomaraswamy traces this figure, in the Indian tradition, all the way back to the Vedic figure of Apala (see .Rg Veda VIII.80).

61 I would like here to point to one detail, in addition to the many noted by various scholars, in support ofthe Prosperity-Sovereignty identification: the number five. Flaith, in two of her best known tales (the story of Niali and the story oftbe sons of D~iire), chooses her future favorite from among five brothers (Rees, pp. 73-74), while the number of Draupadi's husbands is also five. That the number five is indeed significant is indicated by its survival in the Wife of Bath's Prologue of the Canterbury Tales: there, the Wife of Bath, who then goes on to recount a version of the loathly bride story (indicating her connection with the Sovereignty motif), boasts ofher five (in this case serial) husbands, and 'Welcome the sixte, whenthat evere he sha l l . . . '

62 Note the parallel with the adventures of Draupadi and Sit], already cited above. 63 Kinsella, pp. 8-10. The closest parallel in the 3lah~bh6rata is the omen at the birth

of the Kaurava leader, Duryodhana: ' . . . there was a sudden outcry on all hori-


zons of gruesome beasts that feed on carrion and of jackals of unholy howls' (I.107.28, trans, van Buitenen).

64 Kinsella, p. 53. 65 Compare the words of~ri in Mah~bhhrata XIII . I 1; 6 ft. For thorough discussion of

Medb as sovereignty, see Georges Dumfzil, The Destiny of a King, trans. AIf Hiltebeitel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), pp. 83-107 and M.)'the et ipopee [II]: T)pes ~piques indo-europ&ns: un h~ros, un sorrier, un roi (Paris: Gallimard, 197 !), pp. 316-77. Two striking points made by Dum6zil in these writings have to do with the connection between Medb and the Indian M~dhavi (the names of both referring to the intoxicating attraction inherent in royal power) and the fact that more than one Medb/Sovereignty figure is to be found in tile Irish literature.

66 Kinsella, pp. 53-54. 67 The broader meaning of this figure is expressed by Christine Downing in The

Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine (New York: Crossroad, 1981), pp. 12-13, as follows:

To see the goddesses only as fertility goddesses is to see them as they were viewed in a later period. Recovery of the full scope of the goddesses' power during the period in which their worship predominated reveals that, like any primordial archetype, the Great Mother provokes profound ambivalence: her cruelty is no less salient than her benevolence. The nurturing goddess is also the devouring one. In the world of the goddesses, creation-and-destruction and feast-and-famine were seen as two phases ofthe one ever-recurring inescapable pattern, not as irreconcilable opposites. Perhaps it is the greatest gift of the goddess to teach us that good and evil, life and death, are inextricably inter- twined.

68 SeeMarijaGimbutas, GoddessesandGodsofOldEurope, 6500to3500B.C.:M),thsand Cult hnages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 216 ft.

69 Thus, an analytical psychological interpretation of the Goddess stresses her I t . �9

simultaneous attractiveness and repulsiveness; see, pnmanly, Erich Neumann, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, trans. Ralph Mannheim, 2nd ed., Bollingen Series, No. 47 (1963; rpt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), particularly Chapters I0-11.

70 On gri as pre-Indo-European, see, for example, Suvira Jaiswal, The Origin and Development of Vaisnavism (Vaisnavism from 200 B.C. to A.D. 500) (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1967), pp..90 ff.

71 The archaeological sites of the Indus Valley Civilization are rich in goddess figurines.

72 For example; the major deities ofthe Hindu tradition, Visnu (particularly incarnate as Krsna), ~iva, and the Goddess, all clearly combine Indo-European with pre-Indo-European characteristics. The same claim may be made for the ancient Greek deities, as is asserted, for example, by W. K. C. Guthrie, throughout his The Greeks and Their Gods (1950, rpt. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955). The Rees brothers and others argue for the Indo-European component of Celtic religion; its autochthonous element is embodied in the continuing sfdh presence of the Tuatha D~ Danann.

73 See Margaret Stutley, Ancient Indian Magic and Folklore: An Introduction (Boulder: Great Eastern, 1980), Chapter 3: 'Charms relating mainly to women.'

74 The Goidels or Gaels, thus clearly Indo-Europeans; see Myles Dillon and Nora K. Chadwick, The Celtic Realms (New York: New American Library, 1967), pp. 5-6, citing T. F. O'Rahilly, and Proinsias MacCana, Celtic Mythology: London, etc.: Hamlyn, 1970),p. 64.


75 MacCana, p. 64. 76 Note the bawdy references to Fergus's 'sword' throughout the Tdin (see Kinsella,

p. 103, etc.). 77 Seeabove, n.61. 78 Rees, pp. 283 If., notes the seasonal significance ofthe Elopement tales, featuring

an old husband and a young lover. 79 See Jan Gonda, Aspects of Early Visnuism, 2nd ed. (Delhi, etc.: Motilai Banarsidass,

1969), pp. 209-10, on the connection between gri and blackness. B0 Compare ~iva's epithet Tryambaka. 81 See, for example, Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, trans. Rosemary

Sheed (1958; rpt. New York: Meridian-World, 1972), pp. 83, 86, etc. and Rites and Symbols of lnitiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth, trans. Willard R. Trask ( 1958; rpt. New York: Harper and Row, 1955), pp. 56-57. It is striking, however, that in a number of the most ancient sites, the male principle offertility is depicted as an animal or part-animal, but the female in human form. Such is the case, for the most part, among the Indus Valley finds. Similarly, ~atal Hfiyfik~ see James Mellaart, The Archaeology of Ancient Turkey (London, etc.: The Bodley ttead, 1978),

�9 p. 20. Compare tile various Greek stories of women (Europ~, Pasipha~-) mating with bulls; or a toned-down version of the same: Medb offering her 'friendly thighs' in exchange for the bull she desires (Kinsella, p. 56). It appears, thus, that the bull, not the cow, is construed as the sacrificial animal (an hypothesis sup- ported by later developments: see Kane, especially II, 772-73), perhaps an embodiment ofthe dying and rising god.

82 The extreme of this reversal is reached in India in the cases ofvarious heroes, for example, Drona and Krpa of the Mah~bhffrata, who are conceived and born without mothers! (Compare, of course, the Greek Athena.) It was Mary Carroll Smith's paper on this peculiar image, entitled 'The Un-Womb-Born Figures in Indian Myth,' read at the American Academy of Religion national meeting held in New York City in November 1979, which inspired the lines of research reported upon here. Among other conclusions, Smith sees the Indian emphasis upon tapas (austerities), contingent upon celibacy and avoidance ofwomen, as a product of Indo-European influence.

83 Thus, such Sanskrit epithets as 'narapumgavah' ('bull among men' 'best ofmen'). On parallel Celtic names and titles, see Jack Randolph Conrad, The tlorn and the Su'ord: The History of the Bull as Symbol of Power and Fertility (1957; rpt. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), p. 156.

84 Strikingly, the results presented here offer a clear parallel to the transformation ('depotentiation') of the female in connection with the emergence of the ego, traced by Erich Neumann in The Origins and History of Consciousness, trans. R. F. V. Hull, Bollingen Series, No. 42 (1954; rpt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).

85 Analytical psychologists would identify this power as the unconscious; see Neumann, Origins, Chapter IBI I, 'The Slaying of the Mother.'

86 Kinsella, pp. 250-51. 87 The stupidity of Medb's 'woman's thinking' is mentioned several times in the

Tdin; see, for example, Kinsella, pp. 66, 162,251. 88 Compare Sitfi's fate in Rdmdyana VII.43 ft. 89 Note Neumann's statement on the emergence ofthe male enemy (Origins, p. 179):

The young hero's growing masculinity now experiences tile destructive side of the Great Mother as something masculine. I t is her murderous satellites, with whomare connected the destructive elements stone and iron, who carry out the


sacrifice ofthe adolescent son. In mythology this side manifests itselfas a dark! homicidal male force, a savage animal, in particular the boar, which is akin to the sow, symbol of the Great Mother, but later it manifests itself as her masculine warrior consort [Ailill?] or as tile priest who performs the castration.

90 Mah~bh~rata 1II.29.34-35. 91 Mah6bh~rata 1.56.7. 92 Mah~bh~rata 11.60-64. 'Ofa l l the women ofmanklnd, famous for their beauty, of

whom we have heard, no one have we heard accomplished such a deed! While the P~rthas and the Dhartar~stras [P~ndavas and Kauravas] are raging beyond measure, Krsna Draupadi has become tile salvation of the PS.ndavas! When they were sinking, boatless and drowning, in the plumbless ocean, the Pfinc~li [Draupadi] became the Pfindavas' boat, to set them ashore!' (II.64.1-3), trans. van Buitenen).

93 See Rees, pp. 306-7; the story told here is from "The Wasting Sickness of Cfichulainn," not part ofthe Tdin.

94 In Indian epic, the powerful Goddess persists most regularly as a temptress apsaras (nymph) set against a tapasbin (ascetic), usually a brahmin. Contrast the Tdin's image ofFinnabair, Medb's daughter, who is offered to various warriors to attract them to her mother's army (Kinsella, pp. 122, 129, etc. etc.).

95 Mah~bhJrata V. 11-15. Most references to the Goddess in her violent form have been omitted from the Critical Edition of the Mah~bhhrata, the single striking exception being her appearance as K~lardtff ("the Night of Destruction") in MahdbhYrata X.8.64 ft.:

They saw Kfilarfitri, black, with red mouth and eyes, adorned with a red garland, wearing a red garment, with a noose in her hand, crested, smiling, poised, having bound men, horses, and elephants with terrible fetters, immov- able, carrying offhairless ghosts ofvarious kinds, bound in fcttcrs . . . .

96 Kinsella, pp. 132-37. At the conclusion ofthis cpisgde, the connection between Goddess and cow is made apparent:

The M6rrigan appeared to him in the shape of a squint-eyed old woman milking a.cow with three teats. He asked her for a drink and she gave him milk from the first teat.

"Good health to the giver!" Cdchulainn said. "The blessing of God and man on you."

And her head was healcd and made whole. She gave him milk from the second teat and her cye was made whole. Shc gave him milk from the third teat and her legs were made whole.

Other Goddess figures appearing in the Tdin include the Babd and the Nemain, vengeful spirits ofthe battlefield.

97 Rf.dhS. herself is a gopi (cowherder girl), and veneration of cattle is intimately connected with the Krsna cult. There is scarcely an illustration of the loves of Krs.na which does not include cows!

98 Sylvain L6vi,/2 Th/atre indien, Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Philologiques et Historiques, 83 (Paris: Emile Bouillon, 1890), p. 72. Compare Mdnava DharmoJ&tra V. 147 IT. Thus tbe character of ~akuntalS. has weakened considerably from its Draupadi-like nature in the epic (Mah~bh~rata 1.62-69) to its more-demure-than-Sit5 quality in the famous Gupta-period play, Abhij'hfinMakun- tala, by KS.lidfisa.

99 The Indian image of the Goddess has even been used to control women; see the words of the philosopher Mehta in Premchand's novel Godan (The Gift of a Cow), trans.Jai Ratan and P. Lal (Bombay:Jaico, 1979), pp. 123-24:


Devijis, when I address you like th is- -"goddesses"--you find it nothing unusual. You take this honour as a matter ofright. But have you ever heard a woman addressing a man as "god"? [!] Ifyou address him as "god" he will think you are pulling his leg. For sympathy, devotion and sacrifice are the precious virtues of a woman. And what about man? What has he to give? Nothing. He is not the giver, he is the taker. He fights to wrest his rights from others; struggle and violence are tile basic traits of his character. Nor, upon closer consideration, as Devi as warrior truly the powerful female figure she appears to be: she has actually been co-opted, for her story is just another version of the Indo-European conquest of the autochthons. Thus, the buffalo-shaped demon whom Devi kills is, in fact, a transmuted version of her own husband, Siva (see David Shulman, "The murderous Bride: Tamil Versions of the Myth of Devi and the Buffalo-Demon," History of Religions, 16 [1976-77], 125 ft.), the developed story of Devi being an Indo-Europeanized reworking of the sacrifice of the bull (buffalo) king (see above, n. 81). Devi as warrior does not really represent powerful femininity; she is merely borrowing at tr ibutes (M~rkandeya Purina 82.9 ft.) and adventures of other deities! Therefore, the very texts which praise her can, in the next breath, demean women, as pointed out by David Kinsley in his discussion of the Devibh6gavata Purdna, entitled "A Paradox of Goddess Worship: a Male Chauvinist's Adoration of the Goddess," offered at the American Academy of Religion national meeting, November 1979.

100 See, for example, Dillon and Chadwick, pp. 25, 153-54; also Nora Chadwick, The Celts (1970; rpt. Harmondsworth, etc.: Penguin, 1981), pp. 115 and 136. Unfor- tunately, both these references include mythic or heroic characters along with historical evidence, arguing that "the high prestige ofwomen is a feature charac- teristic of early Celtic civilization and especially of Celtic mythology [italics mine]" (Dillon and Chadwick, p. 153), which undermines their his~rical argument. More conservative is Carole L. Crumley, in her Celtic Social Structure: The Genera- tion of Archaeologically Testable Hypotheses from Litera(y Evidence, Anthropological Papers, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, No. 54 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1974), who states simply (p. 22): "Sex was a status- determining factor in Celtic society, although the treatment of women was generally more egalitarian than in many other groups on similar levels ofsocial organization." Far more extreme in her views, but thorough in her gathering of evidence on this issue, is Elizabeth Gould Davis, in The First Sex (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971), Chapter 13.

101 Seeabove, n. 88. 102 The true svayamvaras of Indi.qn epic include those of Kunti, Damayanti, S~vitri

and M~dhavi (Mahhbhhrata 1.105.1ff., 111.51-54. 111.277. 32ff V.118) Drau- padi's so-called sva)'amr,ara is actually a bow-bending contest, while a similar contest for Sitfi is not even called a svayamvara (for references, see n. 30, above).

103 Mah~bh~rata 1.211.21-23, trans, van Buitenen. 104 Referred to by Hiltebeitel, pp. 155 ft., as the "Sva.yamvara mythologem." 105 Though note Ailill's whining response to her (Kinsella, p. 54):

I never heard, in all Ireland, of a province run by a woman except this one, which is why I came and took the kingship here, in succession to my mother Mata Muiresc, Magach's daughter. Who better for my queen than you, a daughter of the high king of Ireland?

He admits a matrilineal succession, but denies that Medb is the female link. 106 See Stith.Thompson, Motif Index of Folk Literature: A Classification of Narrative


Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books and Local Legends, rev. ed., 5 vols. plus index (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955-58), R i 11.1.3, and related motifs.

107 Note in particular Ariadne's association with the land of the half-bull monster, the Minotaur. Ariadne's father is, ofcourse, Minos, King of Crete, son of Europfi by Zeus, who abducted her in tile form of a white bull.

108 H.J. Rose, A lIandbook of Greek Mythology Induding lts Extension to Rome (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1959), p. 231.

109 Rose, pp. 218-19. The result of Deianeira'sjealousy towards Iole was far more devastating than Draupadi 's jealousy towards SubhadrS. (above, n. 27), and led ultimately to Herakles' death.

I l0 Lee M. Hollander, trans., Heimskringla: History of the Kings ofNom, ay by Snorri Sturluson (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964), p. 22. The Heimskringla also offers several other pertinent stories: abductions (Hollander, pp. 35, 187), a self-choice (Hollander, pp. 171-72), etc. etc.

111 Joseph Fontenrose, Python: A Stud). of Delphic M)'th and its Origins (Berkeley, etc.: University of California Press, 1959), p. 538.

112 For example, tile tales of 'The Marriage ofDjuro ofSmeredevo,' 'Porgza of Avala and Vuk tile Fiery Dragon,' 'The Marriage of Vuk the Dragon-Despot' (some versions), 'The Captivity and Marriage of Stjepan Jak~i6,' etc.; see Chadwick, Growth of Literature, I I, 317, 322-24.

113 The case of the Sabines has been discussed at length by the great Indo- Europeanist Georges Dum6zil; see his Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus: Essai sur la conception . Indo-Europ/enne de la soci/t/ et sur les origines de Rome (Paris: Gallimard, 1941 ), pp. 155-98 and Naissance de Rome (Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus, II) (Paris: Gallimard, 1944), pp. 128-93. In conjunction with this story it is appropriate to comment upon tile connection between Dum~zil's findings and the materials discussed in this paper. To summarize: what Ires thus far been termed 'authocbthonous' in

. , , I t

this paper is classed by Dum6zil as 'thlrd function Indo-European. Tile clash IS not a new one: Dum6zil devotes much effort to overturning tile argument for autochthony which had been advanced by some of his predecessors. H e states that certain myths and legends which have often been interpreted as reflections of historic struggles between Indo-Europeans and autochthons (such as the story of the Sabines, or of the Aesir versus the Vanir in Scandinavia) are rather reflections of 'conceptual opposition' within the Indo-European social ideology; see Gods of the Ancient Norsemen, ed. Einar Haugen (Berkeley, etc.: University of California Press, 1973), p. 12. Note tile Rees brothers' parallel analysis of the mythic invaders of Ireland, Celtic Heritage, Chapter 4. Although Dum6zil's ideas thus seem difficult to reconcile with my own as expressed in this paper, I would argue that such is not really the case: for the Indo-Europeans, the ' third function' of society, largely agricultural, might well have been filled primarily by indigenous agriculturalists. It must have been primarily in confrontation with the autochthons that the Indo-Europeans were able to vivify their myth of inter- functional warfare. Dum6zil expresses a related idea when he states: ' . . . we admit perfectly willingly that the Indo-European gods of the second and third l e v e l s . . , probably annexed to themselves certain conceptions ofanother origin, already popular among the conquered indigenous population' (Gods, p. 18). For one particular case of amalgamation pertinent to this paper, see Linda Lee Clader, Helen: The Evolution from Divine to Heroic in Greek Epic Tradition, Mnemosy- ne Bibliotheca Classica Batava (Leiden: Brill, 1976), pp. 81-83.

114 See, most recently, Clader 's book on Helen, cited in the preceding note, and Downing, Chapter 3, on Ariadne.


115 'Most strikingly, compare the Vedic hymn of V~c, R g Veda X.125, with the classic Biblical statement of Wisdom, Proverbs VII I . It is the same figure speaking, telling ofhow she stands beside and behind the gods (or God) and how she offers treasures to her admirers!

116 Judges V.7. 117 This point brings up the issue ofthe substitution of other animals for cattle, with

either prosperity or fertility significance. Such interchangeability is found even within the Indo-European tradition; note, to give just two examples, the horse raid of Iliad X.436 ft., and the implicit sheep raid of the Romanian ballad "Mioritza." The fertility significance of horses is perhaps as well developed in the Indo-European ideology as that ofcattle; thus, the ancient Indian horse sacrifice, the Celtic horse goddesses, etc. See, in particular, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, IVomen, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts (Chicago and London: Un!versity of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 149-262. For horses as a bride-price, see the fascinating tale of M~dhavi (Medb's namesake [above, n. 65]), in Mah6bMrata V. 113- 18. In this story, the horses obtained in return for Mfidhavi are destined for Vi~vamitra (see above)! On the connection between Prosperity/Sovereignty and ram, lamb, or fawn, see, for example, Krappe, p. 448.

118 For Sarah as Sovereignty, mentioned by Coomaraswamy, p. 359, n. 18, see Philo, De Cherubim 3-10, etc.

119 Note Genesis 34.26-29 (RSV): They slew Hamor and his Son Shechem with the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went away, and the sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and plundered the city, because their sister had been defiled; they took their flocks and their herds, their asses, and whatever was in the city and in the field; all their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and made their prey.

120 Marduk is mourned as dead at the Babylonian New Year's festival, but praised as a conquering hero in the Babylonian Creation Epic. Baal's story also has two parts: he fights against and defeats the sea-dragon Yam; he is taken captive by Death, but afterwards rescued.

121 See Theodor H. Gaster, Thespis: Ritual, Myth and Drama in the Ancient Near East, new ed. (1961; rpt. New York: Harper Torchbooks-Harper and Row, 1966), pp. 175,221, and 236. Note the following simile (Gaster, p. 220):

CAnat goes searching for him. Like the heart of a cow for her calf, like the heart of a ewe for her lamb, so is the heart of~Anat on account of Baal.

122 As discussed by Lincoln, citing Ake Hultkrantz, in Priests, pp. 9-10. The focus of Lincoln's study is the ecological and religious similarity between Indo-Iranians and East African Nilotes.

123 Peggy Reeves Sanday, Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality (Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 50-51.

124 Sanday, pp. 194-95. 125 Sanday, p. 210. 126 Sanday, p. 172. 127 Sanday, p. 147:

� 9 the legal position of women became largely that of chattel. Wives were bought with horses and treated like property.' Upon marriage a woman passed to her husband's group and the husband had the right to kill or torture his wife. It was also the right of a brother to kill his sister. Other categories of property consisted of horses and dogs.


128

129

130

131

132

Sanday, pp. 148-52. However: 'The seeds for (3heyenne male dominance were clearly present' (Sanday, p. 152), gang rape as the prescribed punishment for 'adulterous' women being a sure sign of the presence ofsuch seeds! (p. 151). Sanday, pp. 144-45, 152. Societies heavily dependent upon hunting, particularly the hunting oflarge game, tend to undervalue the feminine; see Sanday, pp. 64 iT. It is easy, too, to imagine how such societies might evolve into pastoral-warrior groups with the sorts of practices focused upon this paper; see Eliade, Rites, p. 83:

I will only mention that the behavior of the Indo-European warrior bands offers certain points of resemblance to the secret fraternities of primitive societies. In both alike, the members of the group terrorize women and non-initiates and in some sort exercise a "right of rapine," a custom which, in diluted form, is still found in the popular traditions of Europe and the Cau- casus. Rapine, and especially cattle stealing, assimilate the members of the warrior band to carnivora.

Sanday, p. 152. Thus, as Cheyenne society evolved, women kept their role in the ritual life ofthe group (Sanday, p. 149). Sanday, p. 152: 'There is evidence that agriculture was not completely abandoned by Cheyenne women.' Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952), p. 36:

Horses constituted the most important type of property and the staple form of weahh. Because taking them under difficult conditions had a socio- psychological value, the acquisition of a large herd added greatly to t h e prestige of the owner. The owner of a large herd could make more munificent" gifts to a prospective wife and members ofher family and to other members of the tribe. Horses served also as an informal medium of exchange. They could be presented as gifts in reciprocity for services rendered and as fees to medicine men. When they were used in the settlement of controversies between individuals--as they generally were among the (]omanches--they had legal as well as monetary significance.

Comanche esteem of horses knew no bounds. Each man had at least one favorite horse, although his personal string might run to dozens, or even hundreds, ofanimals. His favorite horse was kept picketed close to his tipi at night while the remuda grazed on the open plains. He tended it, petted it, and adored it. "Some men loved their horses more than they loved their wives," said Post Oak Jim. To this, others added, "Or child, or any other human being." And in seeking legal settlements, whatever else the prosecuting man and his friends might demand of the offending culprit, they were sure to insist on the favorite horse.

Wallace and Hoebel, p. 50: Tile buffalo was as indispensable to the Comanche as the horse. No part of

the slaughtered animal was wasted except the rump, spine and skull. Hair, skin, flesh, blood, bones, entrails, horns, sinews, kidneys, liver, paunch, and the dried excrement were all utilized.

Buffalo also had great religious significance. See George Bird Grinnell on the Cheyennes (Grinnell, The Cheyenne lndians: Their tlisto~y and Ways of Life [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1924], II , I03-4):

As with most pra. irie tribes, the buffalo was greatly reverenced. Before the entrance of every sweat-lodge, propped up against a sagebrush, a pile ofstones, or a mound of earth, stands an old buffalo-skull. A very long time ago, a


medicine man's dream told him to make a sweat-house, and then to take the skull of a bul l - -one that had been killed for a long t ime- -and to put it in front of the sweat.house, and then to go in and take a sweat. When he came out, he should fill the pipe and hold the pipe to Heammawihio [chiefgod and creator] and ask him always to keep plenty of buffalo on the earth for the people to eat. He must present the pipe to the skull also, and smoke to it, and must ask the skull to rise to its feet, clothe itselfwith flesh, and come to life, so that the people might have its meat to eat, and its skin to make their lodges. At the same time they prayed to the buffalo in general, asking them to travel over smooth ground, not to run where it was rough and where there was danger that the horse might fall and break men's limbs.

Sometimes the buffalo-bulls talked to them, and sometimes the elk and the bear. It was always a male that talked. Not everyone could understand their language. Only now and then a person understood.

Later, cattle stealing also became an objective; see Wallace and Hoebel, p. 267: About the time of the Civil War, when the cattlemen were pushing westward

beyond the line of settlements across Texas into the Comanche country, Texas cattle became an important article ofplunder. Stolen cattle were exchanged for goods with the Comancheros, or traders from New Mexico. Cattle constituted a commodity easily procured and transported, and they could be obtained in almost unlimited numbers. The Comanches felt that ifonly the raiders could succeed in driving off enough of the intruders' cattle, it would discourage further encroachment into their country.

See Stith Thompson, Tales of the North American Indians (1929; rpt. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1966), Tales 39, 'The Sun Tests His Son-in-Law'; 46, 'The Son-in-Law Tests'; 54, 'Mudjikiwis' (Thompson's notes make clear the fact that versions ofthese tales are common to the Plains Indians). See also Robert H. Lowie, 'The Test-Theme in North American M~thology,' The Journal of American Folklore, 21 (I 908), 97-148. Thompson, Tales, Tale 21, 'The Release of the Wild Animals. ' Sometimes the freer ofthe buffalo is a trickster figure (e.g., Coyote); compare the fact that Indra is sometimes said to conquer by way of his mfi)'fi (magic power)(see ~,g Veda 1.11.7, I I . l l .10 , V.30.6, X.147.2). Often the captor of the buffalo is an old woman, sometimes depicted as antagonistic, sometimes as helpful. Wallace and Hoebel, p. 44. Wallace and Hoebel, p. 247. Compare Sanday, p. 63: "Competition for 'bravery ranking' is a major male pastime and includes, among other things, stealing women from their husbands." Thompson, Motif Index, R. 13.1 if, various references. Thompson, Tales, Tale 59: 'Splinter-Foot-Girl. ' Thompson, Tales, Tale 57, 'The Piqued Buffalo-Wife.' Thompson, Tales, Tale 63, 'The Rolling Head. ' Thompson, Tales, Tale 63, 'The Rolling Head. ' Thompson, Tales, Tale 51, Type 2, 'The Star Husband: The Girl Enticed to the Sky.' Also 'The Piqued Buffalo-Wife' and 'Splinter-Foot-Girl,' Thompson, Tales,. pp. 159-60. Thompson, Tales, Tale 59, 'Spllnter-Foot-Girl. ' As in the Indo-European case (see above), pastoral/nomadic groups tend to accept a certain religious syncretism; for example, the Mongols, who despite their ferocity were strikingly open-minded religiously (see Walter Heissig, The Religions of3.1.ongolia, trans. Geoffrey Samuel [Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni-


versity of California Press, 1980], pp. 4-5). 146 Sanday, p. 147. 147 Wallace and Hoebel, p. 201. The version of 'The Piqued Buffalo-Wife' presented

by Thompson (Tales, Tale 57) is not so explicit on this point, but contains anothez fascinating element: it culminates in the death and rebirth ofthe hero!

148 E. Adamson Hoebel, The Cheyennes: Indians of the Great Plains, Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology (New York, etc.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), pp. 38-39.

149 Sanday (pp. 224-25) seems to accept such a reconstruction.

The Goddess in Indo-European Heroic Literature

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