is as a synonym for the festivals of the
goddess. The "hysteria" was the name for the orgy in celebration of the
goddess on New Year's day: then it was applied to the condition produced
by these excesses; and ultimately it was adopted in medicine to apply to
similar emotional disturbances. Thus both the terms "hysteria" and
"lunacy"[412] are intimately associated with the earliest phases in the
moon-goddess's history; and their survival in modern medicine is a
striking tribute to the strong hold of effete superstition in this
branch of the diagnosis and treatment of disease.[413]

I have already referred to the association of Artemis with the portal of
birth and rebirth. As the guardian of the door her Roman representative
Diana and her masculine _avatar_ Dianus or Janus gave the name to the
commencement of the year. The Great Mother not only initiated the
measurement of the year, but she (or her representative) lent her name
to the opening of the year in various countries.

But the story of the Destruction of Mankind has preserved the record not
only of the circumstances which were responsible for originating the
measurement of the year and the making of a calendar, but also of the
materials out of which were formed the mythical epochs preserved in the
legends of Greece and India and many other countries further removed
from the original centre of civilization. When the elaboration of the
early story involved the destruction of mankind, it became necessary to
provide some explanation of the continued existence of man upon the
earth. This difficulty was got rid of by creating a new race of men from
the fragments of the old or from the clay into which they had been
transformed (_supra_, p. 196). In course of time this _secondary_
creation became the basis of the familiar story of the _original_
creation of mankind. But the story also became transformed in other
ways. Different versions of the process of destruction were blended into
one narrative, and made into a series of catastrophes and a succession
of acts of creation. I shall quote (from Mr. T. A. Joyce's "Mexican
Archaeology," p. 50) one example of these series of mythical epochs or
world ages to illustrate the method of synthesis:--

When all was dark Tezcatlipoca transformed himself into the sun to give
light to men.

1. This sun terminated in the destruction of mankind, including a race
of giants, by _jaguars_.

2. The second sun was Quetzalcoatl, and his a