>Is there some PIE concept at Yama's buffalo?
>I'm thinking on several possibilities...
>
>1) The buffalo represents an older concept, maybe a bison? aurochs?
A horse. *Manus and *Yemos are Horse Twins.
You've hit upon something worth mentioning. I do think that this is an
ancient herder/hunter symbolism underlying the Horse Twin story stemming
from IE times. I've arrived to a similar conclusion previously.
However, I don't see how one can convincingly combine the differences
between the male *Manus and the female bovine deity *Gwo:uXanos
(Juno-Hera-GoMata), the great Cow Mother/Crone. She is found in many IE
mythologies and is always a female entity, seperate from the mortal hero
*Manus who, aside from killing his brother, is seen doing great superhuman
feats (Heracles). In the end, we can see the hopelessness of this idea when
you imagine a male god suckling his brother (?!!) or a cow slaying her human
brother (????!!!). Talkin' about "turnin' the tables"!
Now regardless, I think that Joao's idea of "Yama's buffalo" makes some
sense... but we should say "Manus' horse" instead.
The connection between the creation of earth from a brotherly "sacrifice"
and the yearly festival of *Ek^woM�dhu concerning the slaying of a horse at
year's end is important to note. The festival is seasonal and therefore is
probably chthonic in nature - the seasonal birth-death-rebirth pattern of
the seasons and vegetation. The horse is slain to re-enact the point when
*Manus had slain his brother *Yemos, carved him up and made the new earth
from his flesh. The horse in the ritual festival sacrifice and *Yemos are
the same. The slaying of the horse and its carving reenact the creation of
the world, promoting new vegetation and growth in the next spring. (I'll get
to the *medhu part in a minute...)
So... we might say that *Yemos is the symbolic "horse" (or any animal that
can be sacrificed) and that the mythological story of a slaying, itself,
also reinforces the concept of sacrifice and even the symbiotic relationship
between hunter/herder and his prey/herd.
As for the true mother of the giant pair *Yemos and *Manus, I think that
*Sxwe:l The Sun Maiden is the most logical choice, not a bovine mother.
Afterall, once *Manus finally kills *Yemos out of jealousy, *Sxwe:l would
understandably weap for her dead son (ie: earth). Her weaping (ie: rain)
would cause the rebirth of her son (ie: rebirth of vegetation or 'spring').
The very reason that these twins are associated with animals at all is
probably because of the association of the sun with the swift horse (*ek^wos
o:k^us).
Now, I promised to mention the *medhu thing. Well, if a "weaping for the
dead earth" can be said to be part of the creation myth (cf. Inanna and
Dumuzi), then we can see how *medhu fits in with the ritual. The mead is
used as the symbolic tears that magically bring *Yemos The Earth
(represented as the flesh of the horse) back to life.
That puzzle is solved nicely, isn't it?
After his act, *Manus is shrunk down to size by the divine assembly,
condemned to be mortal and to reside on his brother's dead body. The
"-Maretan" in "Gayo-Maretan" means "to become mortal", is it not? This all
explains why we have a mortal hero in other stories. This is *Manus trying
to atone for his horrendous crime of passion by doing community service.
Speaking of the creation myth, I've been trying to piece together the IE
story and have made a recreation of it the way I sees it. The story is at:
http://glen-gordon.tripod.com/LANGUAGE/NOSTRATIC/STEPPE/indoeur_creationmyth.html
Hope yo'll like
- gLeN
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