§ 2. Osiris a Tree-Spirit.

Osiris as a tree-spirit. His image enclosed in a pine-tree.

But Osiris was more than a spirit of the corn; he was also a tree-spirit, and this may perhaps have been his primitive character, since the worship of trees is naturally older in the history of religion than the worship of the cereals. However that may have been, to an agricultural people like the Egyptians, who depended almost wholly on their crops, the corn-god was naturally a far more important [pg 108] personage than the tree-god, and attracted a larger share of their devotion. The character of Osiris as a tree-spirit was represented very graphically in a ceremony described by Firmicus Maternus.247 A pine-tree having been cut down, the centre was hollowed out, and with the wood thus excavated an image of Osiris was made, which was then buried like a corpse in the hollow of the tree. It is hard to imagine how the conception of a tree as tenanted by a personal being could be more plainly expressed. The image of Osiris thus made was kept for a year and then burned, exactly as was done with the image of Attis which was attached to the pine-tree.248 The ceremony of cutting the tree, as described by Firmicus Maternus, appears to be alluded to by Plutarch.249 It was probably the ritual counterpart of the mythical discovery of the body of Osiris enclosed in the erica-tree.250

The setting up of the ded pillar at the great festival of Osiris in the month of Khoiak. The setting up of the pillar may have been an emblem of the god's resurrection.

Now we know from the monuments that at Busiris, Memphis, and elsewhere the great festival of Osiris closed on the thirtieth of Khoiak with the setting up of a remarkable pillar known as the tatu, tat, tet, dad, or ded. This was a column with four or five cross-bars, like superposed capitals, at the top. The whole roughly resembled a telegraph-post with the cross-pieces which support the wires. Sometimes on the monuments a human form is given to the pillar by carving a grotesque face on it, robing the lower part, crowning the top with the symbols of Osiris, and adding two arms which hold two other characteristic emblems of the god, the crook and the scourge or flail. On a Theban tomb the king himself, assisted by his relations and a priest, is represented hauling at the ropes by which the pillar is being raised, while the queen looks on and her sixteen daughters accompany the ceremony with the music of rattles and sistrums. Again, in the hall of the Osirian mysteries at Abydos the King Sety I. and the goddess Isis are depicted raising the column between them. In Egyptian theology the pillar was interpreted as the backbone of Osiris, and whatever its meaning [pg 109] may have been, it was one of the holiest symbols of the national religion. It might very well be a conventional way of representing a tree stripped of its leaves; and if Osiris was a tree-spirit, the bare trunk and branches might naturally be described as his backbone. The setting up of the column would thus, as several modern scholars believe, shadow forth the resurrection of the god, and the importance of the occasion would explain and justify the prominent part which the king appears to have taken in the ceremony.251 It is to be noted that in the myth of Osiris the erica-tree which shot up and enclosed his dead body, was cut down by a king and turned by him into a pillar of his house.252 We can hardly doubt, therefore, that this incident of the legend was supposed to be dramatically set forth in the erection of the ded column by the king. Like the similar custom of cutting a pine-tree and fastening an image to it in the rites of Attis, the ceremony may have belonged to that class of customs of which the bringing in of the May-pole is among the most familiar. The association of the king and queen of Egypt with the ded pillar reminds us of the association of a King and Queen of May with the May-pole.253 The resemblance may be more than superficial.

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Osiris associated with the pine, the sycamore, the tamarisk, and the acacia.

In the hall of Osiris at Denderah the coffin containing the hawk-headed mummy of the god is clearly depicted as enclosed within a tree, apparently a conifer, the trunk and branches of which are seen above and below the coffin.254 The scene thus corresponds closely both to the myth and to the ceremony described by Firmicus Maternus. In another scene at Denderah a tree of the same sort is represented growing between the dead and the reviving Osiris, as if on purpose to indicate that the tree was the symbol of the divine resurrection.255 A pine-cone often appears on the monuments as an offering presented to Osiris, and a manuscript of the Louvre speaks of the cedar as sprung from him.256 The sycamore and the tamarisk were also his trees. In inscriptions he is spoken of as residing in them;257 and in tombs his mother Nut is often portrayed standing in the midst of a sycamore-tree and pouring a libation for the benefit of the dead.258 In one of the Pyramid Texts we read, “Hail to thee, Sycamore, which enclosest the god”;259 and in certain temples the statue of Osiris used to be placed for seven days upon branches of sycamores. The explanation appended in the sacred texts declares that the placing of the image on the tree was intended to recall the seven months passed by Osiris in the womb of his mother Nut, the goddess of the sycamore.260 The rite recalls the story that Adonis was born after ten months' gestation from a myrrh-tree.261 Further, in a sepulchre at How (Diospolis Parva) a tamarisk is depicted overshadowing the tomb of Osiris, while a bird is perched among the branches with the significant legend “the soul of Osiris,”262 [pg 111] showing that the spirit of the dead god was believed to haunt his sacred tree.263 Again, in the series of sculptures which illustrate the mystic history of Osiris in the great temple of Isis at Philae, a tamarisk is figured with two men pouring water on it. The accompanying inscription leaves no doubt, says Brugsch, that the verdure of the earth was believed to be connected with the verdure of the tree, and that the sculpture refers to the grave of Osiris at Philae, of which Plutarch tells us that it was overshadowed by a methide plant, taller than any olive-tree. This sculpture, it may be observed, occurs in the same chamber in which the god is represented as a corpse with ears of corn springing from him.264 In inscriptions he is referred to as “the one in the tree,” “the solitary one in the acacia,” and so forth.265 On the monuments he sometimes appears as a mummy covered with a tree or with plants;266 and trees are represented growing from his grave.267

Osiris in relation to fruit-trees, wells, the vine, and ivy.

It accords with the character of Osiris as a tree-spirit that his worshippers were forbidden to injure fruit-trees, and with his character as a god of vegetation in general that they were not allowed to stop up wells of water, which are so important for the irrigation of hot southern lands.268 [pg 112] According to one legend, he taught men to train the vine to poles, to prune its superfluous foliage, and to extract the juice of the grape.269 In the papyrus of Nebseni, written about 1550 b.c., Osiris is depicted sitting in a shrine, from the roof of which hang clusters of grapes;270 and in the papyrus of the royal scribe Nekht we see the god enthroned in front of a pool, from the banks of which a luxuriant vine, with many bunches of grapes, grows towards the green face of the seated deity.271 The ivy was sacred to him, and was called his plant because it is always green.272