Fallow Deer/A Closer Look

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/4/2001 2:30:01 AM, edsel at glo.be writes:
>> Damate:r - Dor., Arc., Thess. and Boeot. form of goddess Demeter

> [Ed Selleslagh]

> Don't exaggerate: isn't that 'god(dess)-mother'? (Cf. Jupiter: 'god-father')

Or Demeter, the goddess of domestication?  Sometimes I suppose the chicken
comes first.  Sometimes the egg.  But in the context of all those other
words, and with an open-mind, the possibilities do expand.

> dama:r - wife, spouse

> [Ed]
> Wife = domesticated animal??????  I know those were backward times, but
> still....

OR spouse.  Are you familiar with how the wildman Enkidu was tamed in
Gilgamesh, an epic that might predate the earliest IE texts by 1500 years?
(And then again there's "the taming of the shrew.")

And by the way, the word means "tame" or "break-in"- not necessarily
"domesticate."

Regards,
Steve Long