ABSTRACT
In a whole series of mythologies, the world is said to be parallel to the shores of an enormous river that acts as the focal point of economic and religious life. In ancient Egypt, for example, there is a clear dividing line between order, life, and the irrigated lands along the Nile on the one hand, and chaos, death, and the desert on the other. The two main gods of Egyptian mythology, Osiris and the sun god Ra, personify the Nile, and the Nile itself has a celestial ghostly counterpart whose course the sun follows in its daily circuit. Attuned to the Nile as they were, the Egyptians labeled the south ‘upper’, the north ‘lower’, west ‘right’ and east ‘left’. The same role is played by the major Siberian rivers (Lena, Yenisei) in the cosmology of numerous peoples in the region. Many of these Siberian tribes have the concept of a shamanic river, akin to the cosmic tree, that links high and low and the heavens and the earth. Usually the river runs from high to low, so that its source is in the heav ens and its mouth in the netherworld (with demonic overtones). Usually the mouth of the river and the demonic underworld are associated with the north.
