In Ionia, Katagogia festivals were celebrated to honor the return of Dionysos, whose image was ceremoniously escorted by priests and priestesses. In Athens the image of Dionysos was driven to his sanctuary in a ship on wheels, most probably during the Anthesteria festival on the day of Khoes. Pausanias describes the procession of Dionysos Eleuthereus' image from a little temple in the Academy to his sanctuary before the eve of the City Dionysia (1.29.2).
Carl Kerenyi observes, "The core of this ritual procession has its analogies in the religious and cultural history of Egypt, where Gods in their chapels were borne by barks which the gods' servants carried on their backs. What in Greece was an anomaly, limited to the cult of Dionysos, was held to be the most natural thing in the world in Egypt, where the Nile was the main avenue of communication." (Dionysos: Archetype of Indestructable Life, pg 167)
Additionally, processions in which representations of the phallus were carried about were quite common for Dionysos. According to Aristophanes, Phales, the phallus personified, was the "friend and constant companion" of Dionysos, and accompanied him in processions and sacred dances. (Acharnians 263) Herodotus says that Melampos, who supposedly introduced Dionysos' worship into Greece, instituted phallic processions in his honor. (2.49) At Methymna on Lesbos there was a cult of Dionysos Phallen in which a wooden trunk with a face on it was carried in procession. (Pasuanias 10.19.3)
Both sorts of processions played an important role in the worship of Osiris, as Emily Teeter observed in Egypt and the Egyptians: "During festivals the statue of the god was removed from his sanctuary and placed in a portable shrine which was, in turn, placed on a boat. These ritual craft could be quite large; indeed, the texts from Tutankhamun claim that it was carried by eleven pairs of priests. The sacred boat processions might circumambulate the temple or make a pilgrimage from one temple to another, accompanied by temple personnel and local residents who sang, danced, and acclaimed the god." (Chapter 6)
From a Middle Kingdom stela belonging to the high official Ikhernofret, we learn that the second day of the Osirian mysteries at Abydos consisted of a great procession, where a shrine inlaid with gold, lapis lazuli, silver, and bronze was carried on a bark called 'neshmet' through the funerary complex and to a number of different localities. At Philae, the statue of Osiris was carried in procession from his temple to the neighboring temple of Isis, where a hieros gamos or sacred marriage was likely celebrated. Plutarch reports that pitchers carrying water from the Nile were borne at the head of Osiris' processions (On Isis and Osiris, 36) and he says that at the Pamylia festivals, "a statue of the god with a triple phallus is carried about" (37). Herodotus attests to phallic processions in honor of Osiris as well (2.49) where women used to go about the villages singing songs in his praise and carrying obscene images of him which they set in motion by means of strings.
Copyright 2005 Sannion
All rights reserved
Posted with permission
Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/wargod/public_html/greek/rel/diosiris/processions.php on line 71
Warning: include(http://www.wargoddess.net/includes/back.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/wargod/public_html/greek/rel/diosiris/processions.php on line 71
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://www.wargoddess.net/includes/back.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/wargod/public_html/greek/rel/diosiris/processions.php on line 71
