Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 12]
to be observed in parts of Madagascar. It was a common practice in Egypt, and other ancient nations to carry such a machine in procession. The shape was often like that of a canoe, having both extreamities the same. It was at other times nothing else but a square square chest. Does Mr Banks recollect the name of the Otahitee Ark. Had it any the least resemblance to the term Theba or Baris -- or to Arguz, Arena, Cibolus, Laris. These were the names of sacred Arks in Egypt, Canaan, and Greece.
Most of the Ethnic mythology was from emblems and hieroglyphics ill explained. The Egyptians had many traditions of the deluge. They supposed Orus to have been a person, who had been in a state of death and had a renewal of life. They described him in a second state of childhood: and depicted him in the midst of waters, sitting upon the Nympheum, or Lobos, crowned with a particular flower which I take to be the Water Lily. The Lobos in all the inundations of the Nile is observed to rise with the waters, and never to immerge. The crocodile; called Caimin and Campsa, was a symbol of the same purport; as was also the tortoise. Hence the Indians suppose the tortoise to be the support of the world. The Crocodile was likewise named Pi-psucha: which means the life of the world: the soul of the universe. Emblems of Orus, as well as of Isis