e sacrificial sheep. The goddess (like
Hathor) is supposed to drink the blood of the sacrificial victims
(Whitehead, _op. cit._, pp. 164-8).

Many factors played a part in the development of the beliefs about the
origin of mankind from stones, with which the identification of the
thunderbolt with the winged disk plays a part.

The idea that the cowry was the giver of life and the parent of men was
also transferred to crude stone imitations of the shell. Perhaps the
belief in such stones as creators of human beings may have been
reinforced by finding actual fossilized shells within pebbles.[444]

A further corroboration of this theory was provided when the pearl came
to be regarded as the quintessence of the life-giving substance of
shells and as a little particle of moon-substance which fell as a drop
of dew into the gaping oyster. Perry (_op. cit._, p. 78) refers to an
Indonesian belief among the Tsalisen that their ancestors came out of
the moon; and the chief of this people has a spherical stone which is
said to represent the moon.

This association of the moon with round stones may be connected with the
identification of the sun (as the winged disk) with a stone axe, when
they came to be regarded as alternative weapons for the destruction or
the creation of men. Perry records a story of a rock being lowered down
from the sun, from which it was born, and out of a cleft in it man and
woman emerged, as they were believed to have been born from the cleft in
the cowry.

Then there are the Egyptian beliefs concerning stone statues, obelisks,
or even unshaped blocks of stone which could be animated by human beings
or gods.[445]

The cycle of these stories was completed when the "Eye of Re"
slaughtered the enemies of the god and they became identified with the
followers of Set, "creatures of stone". Thus the evil eye petrified
rebellious men: and so was launched upon its course the peculiar group
of legends which in time encircled the world.

It is particularly significant that in Indonesia, in association with
these ideas about stone-origins and petrifaction, Perry (p. 133) found
also the clear-cut belief that the thunder-weapon was a stone, or the
tooth of a cloud-dragon in the sky.

In Indonesia also petrifaction, thunder-stones, rain, floods, lightning,
and an arrow shot to the accompaniment of thunder and lightning were the
punishments traditionally assigned for certain offences, such as incest
and laughing a