ho absorbed several of her
functions" (p. 301).

Professor Carnoy fully demonstrates the derivation of certain early
so-called "Aryan" beliefs from Chaldea. In the Iranian account of the
creation "the great spring Ardvi Sura Anahita is the
life-increasing, the herd-increasing, the fold-increasing who makes
prosperity for all countries (Yt. 5, 1) ... that precious spring is
worshipped as a goddess ... and is personified as a handsome and stately
woman. She is a fair maid, most strong, tall of form, high-girded. Her
arms are white and thick as a horse's shoulder or still thicker. She is
full of gracefulness" (Yt. 5, 7, 64, 78). "Professor Cumont thinks that
Anahita is Ishtar ... she is a goddess of fecundation and birth.
Moreover in Achaemenian inscriptions Anahita is associated with Ahura
Mazdah and Mithra, a triad corresponding to the Chaldean triad:
Sin-Shamash-Ishtar. [Greek: Anaitis] in Strabo and other Greek writers
is treated as [Greek: Aphrodite]" (p. 302).

But in Mesopotamia also the same views were entertained as in Egypt of
the functions of statues.

"The statues hidden in the recesses of the temples or erected on the
summits of the 'Ziggurats' became imbued, by virtue of their
consecration, with the actual body of the god whom they represented."
Thus Marduk is said to "inhabit his image" (Maspero, _op. cit._ p. 64).

This is precisely the idea which the Egyptians had. Even at the present
day it survives among the Dravidian peoples of India.[115] They make
images of their village deities, which may be permanent or only
temporary, but in any case they are regarded not as actual deities but
as the "bodies" so to speak into which these deities can enter. They are
sacred only when they are so animated by the goddess. The ritual of
animation is essentially identical with that found in Ancient Egypt.
Libations are poured out; incense is burnt; the bleeding right fore-leg
of a buffalo constitutes the blood-offering.[116] When the deity is
reanimated by these procedures and its consciousness restored by the
blood-offering it can hear appeals and speak.

The same attitude towards their idols was adopted by the Polynesians.
"The priest usually addressed the image, into which it was imagined the
god entered when anyone came to inquire his will."[117]

But there are certain other aspects of these Indian customs that are of
peculiar interest. In my Ridgeway essay (_op. cit. supra_) I referred to
the means by which i