Folia archeologica 27.
István Ecsedy: Két neolitikus idol Kelet-Magyarországról
52 I. ECSEDY The fact that female figures prevail in the Neolithic idol plastic art is not necessarily to be explained with the cult of a Mother Goddess, supposing a matriarchal structure. (It is very likely, though, that Neolithic peoples recorded their descendance for a long time on the matrilineal way.) The frequency of female idols does not contradict the interpretation, raised by us hypothetically, for it seems to be likely that magic practices, connected with the fertility of corn or seed grains, with birth and nutrition, belonged to the tasks of women, of mothers, as the practical activity belonging immediately to these fields did. With the evolution of peasant agriculture a system of ceremonies, connected with the main events of agriculture, as sowing or harvesting, developed and the Ancestress, impersonated permanently during the rites became identified with her function practised here, to the length as to appear in later myths as a Mother Goddess of universal sphere of action, giving birth to Heaven and Earth. In our opinion this process must have taken a very long time and for times previous to the Tisza culture a development of the cult of the Mother Goddess is hardly imaginable. 6 7 Human representations of different types originating rom previous periods are, in all probability, to be ascribed to beliefs connected with ancestral cults and magic rites. For formal deviances, occurring within the same cultures, we can only conjecture that they were based on differences of functions occupied in magic acts; an interpretation of different motives seems to be, for the time being, beyond the range of our possibilities. e : Cf. Behrens, H., op. cit. 244-245. See note 54.
