"Ancient Egypt: Light of the World" Gerald Massey
"In the course of time, as human consciousness increased, the Mother would be made exempt from primitive promiscuous intercourse. Here it may be observed that much of the early wisdom was secreted in Totemic Tabus that were recited to the initiates in the mysteries of young-man and young-woman making. The Buffalo clan of the Omaha In-
dians are prohibited from eating a calf whilst it is red, but when it turns black, the an-
imal may be eaten. This, as we understand it, was a mode of memorial by means of Tabu. There was a similar prohibition in the Red Maize clan. The youngsters of the
sub-clan are told {not to eat the red maize]. Nothing is more common in the initiation
of Australian youths than for these to be solemnly warned against eating forbidden food. They are not to eat the emu, that is a Totem which represents the Mother - as did other forms of prohibited food, including the tree. Thus eating the fruit of the for-
bidden tree is violating the Mother or female. If, as herein advanced, the Totem first represented the Mother, we may find a root-reason why it came to be prohibited from being eaten, excepting as a sacrament at the religious festival of promiscuity once a year. We know that in the Totemic Mysteries it was the Mothers or female elders who inducted the boys into a knowledge of connubium. This probably registers the fact that
when the boys became pubescent, the Mothers showed their own the way. And the likelihood is that the Mother was made Tabu to her own children as the earliest law of
prohibition from what came to be considered unnatural sexual intercourse which had been at one time natural. They were prohibited from "eating of her" in this sense, and the mode of memorizing the law would be by not eating of the zootype which repre-
sented the Mother. The Hindu does not eat the cow, the Jew does not eat the swine, and this is because these represented the Mother as a Totemic sign, and the typical Great Mother in the Mythology...
...Various Tabus were certainly conveyed in that way...The shall not drink the milk of the sow, Egyptian Tabu; Thou shall not eat the hare, Damara Tabu; Thou shall not go near or look on the crocodile, Bechuana Tabu;...Thou shall not touch the Mother-blood;
common Tabu; Thou shalt not eat the female of any animal, Kurnai Tabu; Thou shall not eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Biblical Tabu;..."
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