The numinous figure of the deer in Anatolia and in other Indo-European and non-Indo-European traditions. Comparison, prehistory, interpretation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37536/RPM.2023.37.1.97459Keywords:
(Sacred) Deer, Ancient Anatolia, Hunting Numen, Indo-European Religions, Cultural ReconstructionAbstract
The article deals with the origins and development of the numinous figure of the deer in those ancient Indo-European traditions where it appears most clearly, both in written sources and in other manifestations of subjective culture. The second chapter includes a study of hunting as a ritual and numinous activity in Anatolia, in classical India, in Greece and in the Celtic tradition. The survival of the constellations associated with the Hunt or the Hunter in the Indian and Greek traditions makes it possible to reconstruct a common Indo-European myth related to the so-called Cosmic Hunt of the Siberian peoples. This is the starting point of the third chapter, which presents comparable cultural elements from Eurasian nomadic traditions, mainly Siberian and of the Turkic-Mongolian stock, but which must also have influenced the common Indo-European imaginary. The Cosmic Elk—equivalent of the Big Dipper—, the Wonderful Deer, the Deer as Mother of the Animals and their corresponding narratives foreshadow basic elements of deer numinosity in the West that support a new interpretation of the data.
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