Castellani, V.

Parisi, P.

Rachewiltz, B. De

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The Twinning Phenomenon / . Twins and Culture TWINS IN O U R CULTURAL HERITAGE: M Y T H AND R E L I G I O N B. DE RACHEWILTZ, P. PARISI, V. CASTELLANI The Ludwig Keimer Foundation for Comparative Research in Archaeology and Ethnology, Basel, Switzerland The Gregor Mendel Institute of Medical Genetics and Twin Research, Rome, Italy Any myth reflects the archaic conceptions of civilizations in a t ranshuman shape. He-roes and illustrious personalities grow into gods; mountains and earthquakes turn to stone-ejecting Cyclops. In its cosmic, earth-ly, and netherworld manifestations, myth thus becomes the natural substratum of any ancient religion, as well as the expression of the moral and social conceptions of a culture —• to which, therefore, the study of mythology and, more generally, of ancient religious and ritual manifestations, brings us in closer contact. Twins have an important place in this con-text: mythology frequently refers to them or the twinning phenomenon, and a sacred character seems to be attached to them since the most ancient times. In ancient Egypt, for instance, it may be interesting to note the cult of the royal pla-centa, considered as the Pharao's twin (a conception that is still alive among certain African populations), or the idea of one's Ka or astral body, i.e., of one's twin, through whom it was supposed to be possible to op-erate with magical rituals to hit an enemy. Twin gods were worshipped by Babylonians and Assyrians, who also introduced them among astronomic constellations, and may be also found in the Persian and Veda re-ligions. In the classic world, then, the examples of twin gods and heroes are innumerable: from the famous twin sons of Zeus, the Dioscuri, or the opposite-sexed twin gods Apollo and Artemis (Diana), to the Homeric twin he-roes (such as the sons of Diocles, both killed by Aeneas, or Esepus and Pedasus killed by Eurialus, etc.), and to Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus. Since the most ancient times, a magic con-ception is connected to the twins, either in a positive or a negative sense, but often with some kind of a " fatidic " aspect (e.g., the Erinyes, the triplet avenging spirits who punished evildoers and inflicted madness). Such a two-faced approach to the phenom-enon of twinning, that variously character-izes near-east, protomediterranean, classic, and other ancient civilizations, may still be found in contemporary primitive societies. Prof. Boris de Rachewiltz, Fondazione Keimer, Via Denza 20, 00197 Roma, Italy A T T I T U D E S TOWARDS TWINNING A M O N G P R I M I T I V E SOCIETIES F. LEROY Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Brussels, Belgium In primitive societies twinning raises emo-tions varying from extreme terror through the whole gamut of fear, repugnance, sus-picion, anxiety, perplexity, hope, and joy. The first impulse prevailing among the less civilized people seems to be to regard twins as unnatural and monstruous, and there-fore as portending evil. Accordingly, they must be put to death and the offence re-pudiated. This negative att i tude stems from a series of explanations which can ge-nerally be connected with the widespread belief in superfactation and double pater-nity. In a few cases, only, would the cus-tom of sacrificing twins arise from economic necessities rendering the simultaneous rais-ing of two infants almost impossible. How-ever, in many agricultural primitive tribes, 12 https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S112096230002237XDownloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 15:50:49, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at

Twins in Our Cultural Heritage: Myth and Religion

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