Prev      Top     Next

Sacred Landscape

TREE

It is never safe to assume, except in late European art, that a tree is just a tree. A tree, pole or stone pillar is, along with water source and cave-mound, an essential part of sacred site, and in small spaces can serve as shorthand for 'festival' or 'festival' site.'

This image is rooted in reality. In earlier times village councils and royal judgments took place at a central upright: the French 'Elm of Judgment' before the medieval church, the German and Irish pole at which court, in both sense, was held; or a pillar such as Kritias described for Atlantis where the kings swore to uphold the laws. And festival as well as judgment centered her, not because it was obvious and convenient as a meeting place, but because as interpenetrator of underworld, this world, and sky, it brought the influence of the gods to bear on human affairs. It is, as Gudea said of his temple, the -Great Binding Post' which unites this world with the other.

As 'axis mundi', then, this tree appears in art all over the world. Not so obvious, perhaps, is its identity with the 'Tree of Life' bearing fruit for all mankind. But festival is essentially a fertility ritual, to order crops as well as seasons, and this fertility comes in part up from the roots of the tree, from the underworld where fertility (as opposed to order) pullulates.

The famous 'Temptation Seal,' from mid third millenium BC Mesopotamia (now in the British Museum). It roused great interest when it was discovered because of its resemblance to the Adam and Eve story, but it is simply a sacred marriage icon, the horned figure on the right being the king and that on the left the priestess who customarily stood in for the goddess. Here the central tree stands for both festival and fertility, as does the Sacred Marriage itself. (Note that the scene is almost identical to that on the Inca vessel shown in ACTION, Sacred Marriage, including the snake which represents fertility rising from below.

An ivory Tree of Life from Lashish, ca 1500-1250 BC. In the Israel Department of Antiquities, Jerusalem.

Cretan seal with three goddesses and a triple tree. Hagia Triada.

A 'tree shrine' shown on a pillar from Buddhist Amoravati, ca 1st Century BC-1st Century AD.

This Japanese stupa, in a Kyoto temple garden, is the oriental counterpart. Appropriately, it is called -The Tower of the White Snake'—fertility rising from the underworld.

The 'Ring of Minos' from Minoan Crete, shows us these underworld roots. Not all the figures from this joyful lion-ruled underworld are shown here, only the underworld animals dog, lion and griffin to confirm the underworld nature of the scene.

Again a Cretan scene, showing festival rejoicing at the coming of spring and the new season, as indicated by sun and horns. (From Psychro).

Given the sacred nature of this tree, it is not surprising that it often appears in stylized, hieratic, or even unnatural form. Highly stylized are these reliefs from the Warka vase, Ur, 4-3rd Millenium BC. (now in the Baghdad Museum). One version of the tree has three top branches, the other three lower ones. This portayal of the tree as triple, representing the three faces of godhead, is common even up through the Middle Ages.

Two trees like this flank the scene of the investiture of the King of Mari (18th Century BC, now in the Louvre). They resemble sacred fans, and some near eastern paintings which portray tall 'fans' may actually be showing trees.

These paired trees may, moreover, originally have represented the Twins as Guardians of the Gate, since a tree or pillar was the earliest form of god image. Hera was first a tree stump or pillar, Ashur was probably a pole. So was Hermes; only later was his stump adorned with head on top and phallus below. Even after statuary, a persistent tradition in Europe and the near east associates Gods 2 with deciduous trees (summer) and Gods 1 and 3 with evergreens (winter)—a tradition which gave rise to Maypole and Christmas tree.

Svantovit of Slavic lands; god carved on a tree in Oceania.

These pillars in pairs, because of their original divinity, became guardians of sacred sites: and 'between the pillars', under the arch, was holy too. In the near east (Constantinople, Sumer) it was a place where the king gave judgment as well as a place of festival (Chaldea). Thus, in works of art where two trees frame the central scene, the action within must be considered sacred even though the idea of the divinity of the poles has become tenuous.

A Cretan ritual libation, from a Knossos seal.

Three pillars—usually with the outer two lower than the central one—also represent the triple deity on Malta, in Crete, throughout the Libya-Phoenicia area, and probably in many other places as well.

Much more important in art, however, is a triple pattern like the three trees-three pillars, in which a pillar is central to two human or animal figures, or two pillars frame a (third) god. And here, the identity of the pillar must be deduced from the other figures.

This scene, from a Minoan ring, will be repeated again and again through the centuries right up to the Unicorn Tapestries, and always with the same meaning: initiation taming. The flanking animals are always wild; the chains symbolize 1. their subordination to the world of order and 2. their upcoming God 2 status. The knots underline their transitional meaning.

This pattern, very similar, is known as the Master or Mistress of Animals, a way of portraying the underworld hunt deities. In the first illustration the 'Cretan' goddess of Mycenae, wearing an underworld snake frame hat, is simply shown in company with wild animals—bear or lion, and bird. But in the second, a bead seal from Ialysos, she is not with real animals but with paired griffins. And other seals show us two griffins tied to a pillar. Thus the meaning is probably not just -Mistress of Animals' but -Mistress of Initiation' as well.

A pottery jar from the fortress of Paramonga, Chimu, South America. The similarities of pattern are striking, the central figure in priest role holding two wild creatures, possibly feline. Most intriguing, though, is the 'fence' which tames them, and the shape of the triple crown, which may suggest an origin for the 'butterly frame' worn in contemporary southwest Amerind festivals by unmarried girls.

The same 'taming' motif, in simpler form, with hatted man holding a man-headed dog, comes from the Scandinavian Gallehus Goldhorn.

In all the triple examples above, the god pattern can be interpreted as 1-3-1. However, in another equally popular triple form, the central pillar is not a third stage deity but God 2. Here, for instance, the 'initiation pillar' flanked by animals is indeed the Sun. (A lenticular seal in dark red steatite from 15th-14th BC Crete, now in the British Museum.)

From Mycenae, an explicit sacred facade from a gold plate in Shaft Grave IV, ca 16th Century BC. Note, below, the three pillars; but above, the underworld birds flank the Horns of Consecration, 1-2-1. (National Museum, Athens)

Again, Mycenae: the lion gate, the animals flanking the royal pillar.

Shamash, Babylonian sun god, between two framing pillars. God 2 is again the central element.

A Coptic form, the facade of the 6th Century Coptic chapel.

A Celtic version, Cernunnos as God 2, horned and throned, between Apollo and Mercury.

A twelfth century European form: the coronation mantle of the Holy Roman Emperor, whose 'pillar' is central.

And back to Babylon: Gilgamesh between two fantastic animals, probably griffins. This has been interpreted as a -Master of Animals,' but horns, necklace and circle suggest it is a God 2 central figure.

Certainly, here, it is a kingly Christ in Majesty who is central Tympanum of Arles.

And the usual medieval coat of arms, the shield or circle with wild animal supporters, follows the same pattern. This is the Maldonado coat of arms from the facade of their mansion in Salamanca, Spain.

But who is this figure from a Paracas cotton embroidery from pre-Conquest South America? Master of Animals, or God 2? which kind of horns, animal or royal, is he wearing?

Fountain, River, Stream, Sea

The fountain per se has been discussed in some detail at ANIMALS, Unicorn. However, it represents only a particular aspect of water as a sacred element: well, stream, river, seacoast. Almost all sacred sites, perhaps all, include water as well as pillar-tree-upright, and when it does not naturally flow it must be artificially produced, as in the 'basin' or Solomon's temple—or our font.

Water has two aspects. In ritual it is part of the purification which must take place to welcome the new season or world or status: washing one's face in dew before the May festival, or the bath which precedes the new knight's induction and mock beheading. But it is also the underworld, so if you want to make an offering to underworld gods you can throw the victim down a well, drown him in the river (as at the Chinese festival regatta) or in a vat, like the Cimri. Both uses, however, enshrine the same meaning—transition from one state to another. And at festival the sea, stream, well or basin, like the upright, opens the gate so that underworld powers may enter 'this world'.

In what precedes we have seen many examples of water as transition imagery. You may want to look back at April in Goddess 1, St. Vaast and the Bear in ANIMALS, Bear, the Queen of Sheba crossing a stream in Goddess 3, or the Christ in Majesty of the resurrection in God 2. These last two, however, also contain the third element of sacred site, the cave-mound.

Cave-Mound

A cave is also an open route to the underworld; and with tree and water it still appears in churches today. The pillars of the aisle and steeple over the altar at the crossing, the baptismal font, are only superstructure to the crypt.

From very ancient times burials have been laid in real or artificial caves and, just as cave paintings in paleolithic Europe are thought to return the animals to the womb of Goddess 3 for rebirth, so human interments echo the same concept. The dolmen, the pyramid, the burial mound facilitate the transition from death to life again. Other transitions as well: at a cave in France, for instance, it is thought that if you put a white goose in at one end it will come out black the other.

At the festival site, however, this cave-mound is simply a way of communicating with the other world and bringing its life-giving powers to bear on this world. Thus, if there is no real cave to be found, an artificial cave-mound is often constructed, like the ziggurat at Babylon or, as in Europe and elsewhere, the ceremony is held at the burial mound or dolmen.

The cave-mound has appeared as hieroglyph for sacred site in a number of the preceding illustrations: see for instance ACTION, Initiation (the whipping Tarot card); in the Cretan sacred marriage seal, with the Virgin and Child with serpent in ACTION, Fall Festival, and with the stoning of St. Stephen in Cleves Book of Hours 131. Below is a late example, in late religious art: a Virgin and Child by Nicholas Froment, 1370-1439. The Virgin not only sits on a sacred grove of trees, but in the mound below is a cave and in that cave sits a small upright, a standing stone.

A final example comes, again, from the Cleves Book of Hours, which we cite so often here because it is easier for you to consult one volume of medieval illustrations rather than the many other paintings we could cite. This charming scene of the meeting of Joachim and Anne, parents of the Virgin, at the Golden Gate, portrays the moment when Anne tells her husband that despite her age she has conceived a child.

The emotions of the participants are movingly portrayed by their attitudes, but everything else in the scene is pre-Christian iconography. The gate is shown not realistically—neither Joachim nor Anne could pass through it—but as a sacred portal in red. The door stands upon a floor of yellow and black tiles, like a chessboard or the black and white checkered floors of many medieval churches. The colors the figures wear (See COLOR, seq.) are those of the old underworld gods, and the background contains at least two cave-mounds and two sacred tree portrayals, perhaps three or four.

The first cave is in the mound to the right, a dark opening above which stands a tree to represent the upright which frequently tops it. The second is the castle to the rear: note particularly the single very tall minaret which towers above it, very like that in the Tarot card shown in ACTION, Initiation. Note, too, its entrance: an arch surmounted by three parapets and flanked by two upright towers just like the Golden Gate itself, suggesting that it too is intended as a sacred cave-mound. And below the castle, facing the lower cave, are three very symmetrically placed trees which repeat the triplicity of the other elements.

Yet a fourth icon appears in the little arch, outlined with black and white tiles, below the gate steps. This archway, sometimes grated like a drain, is like that we have already seen in the third illustration under ANIMALS, Unicorn, and it appears in many other medieval paintings. This represents yet another entrance-exit for the underworld and is often, though not here where it serves no practical purpose at all, flowing with water.

The surround to this painting contains six other elements: a fox and goose, a bat-dragon with a ball, the musical green monkey shown under ANIMALS, Monkey, a man in red blowing a horn, and an archer, also in red. Archery contests, like ball games, were a common part of May festivals in Europe.

It may seem unlikely that these images from a time before Christianity survived so long in art. However, one must take into account a strong artistic tradition, passed on over the centuries from master to student, in formal but also far more often in informal works of art like wagon decorations, marriage chests, even distelfinks. At the same time, these images were constantly being refreshed by festival itself, which has never really ceased to exist. Any of us today, for instance, knows what to put on a Hallowe'en poster.

Moreover, the influence of Christianity in the middle ages was often very superficial, particularly in rural areas. Nor had Christianity, in the German and Scandinavian areas of Europe, arrived all that long before: Sweden, for instance, was not evangelized till the 12th century. And it is in just those areas where the influence of the old icons was most marked. In Mexico today, for that matter, Indian rites continue to be performed much as they were before the Conquest: they are just performed in front of the church.

The fact remains: these images did survive, Hindu and Shinto gods adapted and adopted by Buddhism, and in Europe pagan imagery continuing to influence art certainly as late as Durer. And in the east, the survivals of the old pattern continue up to the present time.

A kakemono from the temple of Kiyosumi-san, in Japan, representing Japanese Shinto gods attending of a 'Benevolent Bodhisatva' who is, of course, Buddhist. Notice, however, that along with the two Shinto gods the earlier color symbolism (see below) has been absorbed into Buddhism. All three—the Boddhisatva with his flowery topknot, war god Bishamon (left) and fire god Fudo (right) are dressed in varieties of red and green. Bishamon continues to carry the underworld trident, Fudo the knot or noose, the Bodhisatva the cup-jewel. Even the grouping is familiar: compare it to the groups in Twins with the twins surrounding a central God 3 figure. In fact, Fudo and Bishamon are twins, since they both descend from the very old pre-Buddhist god Zao-Gongen, shown below in an 11th century wooden statue from the Karya-ju, Kyoto. He has Bishamon's trident and Fudo's flaming aureole, and the fact that he stands on one foot probably has number significance.

Chung K'uei, Chinese physician and exorcist. Normally he is in green with one eye half closed like one eyed Odin, and one foot bare, ugly, with dishevelled hair. Sometimes too he may appear as a giant accompanied by a little red-trousered demon with flute. Here, however, the Ching artist, portraying him in porcelain, has chosen to glamorize him while still staying within traditional God 3 concepts: he is surrounded by 'cups', wears a red robe like Santa Claus, and sips his wine elegantly.

A Chinese kuei, or brother to the Japanese kappa, dangerous spirit of woods and wilds who attacks travellers. Note the many elements which would have been exactly the same a thousand years before: he carries a staff, has a leafy (fool's) collar, and the old 'knot' is still attached to his lantern. This, however, as with Bishamon above, has replaced the old cup-vessel. (19th Century screen now in the Victoria and Albert)

UPPERWORLD AND UNDERWORLD    UNDERWORLD   PERSONNAGES    GOD 1    TWINS    GODDESS 1    GOD 2    GODDESS 2    GOD 3    GODDESS 3    NUMBERS    HATS ETC.    ACTIONS    ANIMALS    LANDSCAPE    COLOR