The Evolution of the Dragon

On 23 February, 1915, an essay on the spread of certain customs and beliefs in ancient times under the title "On the Significance of the Geographical Distribution of the Practice of Mummification", was presented to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and in Rylands Lecture two weeks later the general conclusions were summed up. In view of the lively controversies that followed the publication of the former of these addresses, the next Rylands Lecture was devoted to the discussion of "The Relationship of the Egyptian Practice of Mummification to the Development of Civilization". In preparing this address for publication some months later so much stress was laid upon the problems of "Incense and Libations" this more concise title was adopted for the elaboration of the lecture which forms the first chapter of this book. This will explain why so many matters are discussed in that chapter which have little or no connexion either with "Incense and Libations" or with "The Evolution of the Dragon". The study of the development of the belief in water's life-giving attributes, and their personification in the gods Osiris, Ea, Soma (Haoma) and Varuna, prepared the way for the elucidation of the history of "Dragons and Rain Gods" in a following lecture. What played a large part in directing the author's thoughts dragon-wards was the discussion of certain representations of the Indian Elephant upon Precolumbian monuments in, and manuscripts from, Central America. For in the course of investigating the meaning of these remarkable designs directing the author discovered that the Elephant-headed rain-god of America had attributes identical with those of the Indian lndra (and of Varuna and Soma) and the Chinese dragon. The investigation of these identities, established the fact that the American rain-god was transmitted across the Pacific from India via Cambodia.

About the Author :
Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, FRS, FRCP (1871 -1937) was an Australian-British anatomist and a proponent of the hyper-diffusionist view of prehistory. Smith was born in Grafton, New South Wales. He attended Sydney Boys High School, he was awarded a degree in medi-cine at the University of Sydney and developed an interest in the anatomy of the human brain. He held a travelling scholarship at Cambridge in 1896. From 1900 to 1909 he was the first chairholder of anatomy at the Cairo School of Medicine and investigated the brains of Egyptian mummies. He was the first scholar to x-ray a mummy. In 1907 he became archaeological advisor to the archaeological survey of Nubia. From 1909 to 1919 he was Professor in anat-omy in Manchester, 1919-1937 he held the chair of Anatomy at the University College London. He was elected President of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland for 1924 to 1927. During World War I he attended military hospitals for shell shock and served on the British General Medical Council. G. E. Smith's father had migrated to New South Wales from London. He had attended a workingman's college under John Ruskin and later became teacher and headmaster in Grafton, New South Wales. His older brother (S. H. Smith) was Director of Education in New South Wales; his younger brother (S. A. Smith) was Acting Professor of Anatomy at the University of Sydney. G. E. Smith married Kathleen Macredie in 1902. During his time in London, he lived in Hampstead, Gower Street, and at Regent's Park. During his London years, he became a friend of Dr. W. H. R. Rivers. Smith's youngest son, Stephen Smith, died in an accident in 1936 and G. E Smith spent his final year in a nursing home in London, where he died. Smith was the leading specialist on the evolution of the brain of his day. Many of his ideas on the evolution of the primate brain still form the core of present scholarship. He was decorated by the Khedive of Egypt, Abbas Hilmy in 1909. He became Fellow of the Royal Society in 1907, FRCP, cross of the French Legion of Honour, and was knighted in 1934. In 1912 he received the Royal Medal of the Royal Socie-ty, in 1930 the Honorary Gold Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1936 the Huxley Memorial Medal from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.