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--I resurrected this topic from Google's Egyptsearch cache for the benefit of those who are new here...
From "OSIRIS" & "LEGENDS OF THE EGYPTIAN GODS" by E.A.WALLIS BUDGE (1857-1934), Keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum...
Osiris and Dancing
"Diodorus...describes the love of Osiris for music, and singing, and dancing...throws light on one of the most important features of the African religion and the character of the African. All Nilotic peoples are greatly addicted to dancing, and they never seem able to perform any ceremony without dancing; they dance at weddings and they dance at funerals, and dancing among many tribes constitutes an act of worship of the highest and most solemn importance...(the Ancient Egyptians) considered certain dances to be acts of worship." -- p.231
Osiris and Human Sacrifice
"Among the Africans of all periods the belief in immortality has always been implicit and absolute, and there can be no question that human sacrifices and "funeral murders"(1) are the logical outcome of this belief in immortality, and of the fear and honour in which they have always held the gods and the dead...In Ashanti, the king, as in ancient Egypt, slew prisoners with his own hand." -- p.225/229 (1) ritual murder
Origin of the Ht hieroglyph ("the god's house)
"The first of these (early temple images) is clearly an African hut, the sides of which are made of plaited reeds; the roof is made of some vegetable material which has been tied together, and consisted probably of a thick mat made of solatik similar to that which covered my tukul (hut) at Marawi (Abu Dom) and other places in the Sudan...the three curved lines in front represent the palings which are fixed before the tombs of great men all over the Sudan." -- p.247-8
Osiris, Tattooing, & the Color White
"We next notice that the whole body of Osiris, from the neck to the soles of his feet, is covered with something which is commonly called "scale-work."...I believe that this "scale- work" is intended to represent the design with which the whole body of Osiris was thought to be tattued...That the body of Osiris is often painted white in vignettes does not affect the identification of the scale-work with tattuing, for many tribes smear themselves with white earth or clay. The white color may be symbolic of death for among the Nilotic Negroes the women wear a black tail fringed with white strings for a month as a sign of mourning, and others smear themselves with white earth." -- p.324
The Cult of Osiris
"(The cult of Osiris)...is as old as dynastic civilization in Egypt, and that it grew and developed, and spread with ever-increasing power until it became the dominating religious influence throughout the country. Osiris was the symbol of the African conception of resurrection and immortality, and from first to last his worship was characterized by customs, and rites, and ceremonies which was purely African." -- p.347
Egyptian Monotheism
"Champollion le Jeune believed "the Egyptian religion to be a pure monotheism, which manifested itself externally by a symbolic polytheism." -- p.358
Ancestor Worship
" Up to the time when the cult of Osiris spread throughout Egypt, the Egyptians, I believe, worshiped their ancestors, according to the custom of the African in most parts of the Sudan, then and now. The following examples will show how widespread is the cult of ancestors in the Sudan, and will illustrate the similarity between the figures of ancestral gods and the figure of Osiris. The Barotse worship chiefly the souls of their ancestors..."the essence of true Negro religion is ancestor-worship, a belief in the 'ghosts of the departed'." -- p.290
The Resurrection
"Osiris suffered death because he was righteous, and because he had done good to all men. Osiris, being the son of a god, knew well the wickedness which was in Set, and the hatred which the personification of evil and his fiends bore to him, yet he did not seek to evade his murderous attack, but willingly met his death...the resurrection of Osiris is the great and distinguishing feature of the Egyptian religion, for Osiris was the first fruits of the dead, and every worshiper of Osiris based his hope of resurrection and immortality upon the fundamental fact of the resurrection of Osiris." --Osiris, EW Budge, p.312-3
Africa Adorned
"The tombs of Egypt have yielded untold thousands of beads of all kinds, which prove that the love of the Egyptians for beads, shells, teeth of animals and men, pendants, etc., which could be worn as necklaces, was as great as is that of modern nations of Africa." --Osiris, EW Budge, p.323
The Creation of Mankind
"(GOD)..."Now after these things I gathered together my members, and I wept (rimei) over them, and men and women (romeou) sprang into being from the tears (rimety) which came forth from my eye." --Legends of the Egyptian Gods, p.5 rome (Sahaidic Coptic) = lome in Bantu & Bohairic Coptic"
Egyptian Voodoo & Zar
"It was well known in Egypt and the Sudan at a very early period that if a magician obtained some portion of a person's body, e.g., a hair, a paring of a nail, a fragment of skin, or a portion of some efflux from the body, spells could be used upon them which would have the effect of causing grievous harm to that person." --Legends of the Egyptian Gods, EW Budge, p.xxxiv (see:The Zar: Women's Theatre in the Southern Sudan,"Women's Medicine: Zar Cult in Africa and Beyond, ed. by Ioan Lewis, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991)
"Zar, in the sense of possession, is usually, though not exclusively, inherited. It is also contagious and may strike at any time. Diriye Abdullahi, a native of Somalia, says that the zar is basically a dance of spirits, or a religious dance - kind of leftover from the old African deities, a variant of what we describe in the west as "voodoo". The old African deities were headed by two figures; Azuzar (the male, assoc. with Osiris) and Ausitu (the female, known in the west as Isis). Ausitu (or Aysitu in Somalia) is still celebrated and given offerings by pregnant women so that she will provide them with a safe birth. He describes it as a ritual dance which is mostly observed by women, especially older women. This corresponds to the practice of older African religions, in which older women were the priestesses. He maintains that younger women, especially unmarried women, are not generally thought to be "worthy of a visit by the spirit of Zar, who chooses domicile or residence in the person who is his choice." Traditionally, women are carriers of the Zar tradition. A Zar is a spirit. Some Ethiopians and Yemenis have their own Zar, like a guide of guardian angel. The dance ritual, Zar, like other traditional healing ceremonies, as for instance practiced by the !Kung of Southern Africa, is done to regain a sense of balance and harmony in one's life and in tandem with the community. The word Zar is thought by some to be a corruption of Jar which in the Cushitic language of the Agaw people is the word for Waaq the sky god. The Rastafarians call god Jah." And Yah is a very old Ancient Egyptian word for God.
from my own experiences...
As an African American, born in (Voodoo) Louisiana... One of the first things you learn as a Black youngster is that when you go to church on Sunday, DO NOT SIT NEXT TO A WOMAN, especially a middle-aged one. When this "zar spirit" hits one of these women (it usually affects several women almost simultaneously), they begin to gesticulate and shout out loud. They then, usually, make their way to the church's aisle where they begin to dance themselves into a trance like frenzy, eventually feinting or becoming rigid, where they have to be fanned and literally carried out of the auditorium. And your biggest fear is that this spirit might also hit you! ...we call this the Holy Ghost in (Voodoo) Louisiana. The only thing missing is some formalized ritual, which obviously isn't necessary.
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