Twins: An Overview

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TWINS: AN OVERVIEW

The notion of duality, which must be distinguished from dualism, is common to every human culture. It finds a particular expression in the concept of the couple, an idea understood as a generating agency not only in the field of animal physiology but also in numerical and metaphysical symbology (as, for example, in Pythagorean speculation). According to this, the One and the Two, as generating principles, are perceived as masculine and feminine. The kind of duality expressed by the generating couple need not be viewed as dualistic in itself, but the shift from duality to dualism is obvious when the constituent elements (the One and the Two, male and female) are understood as principles that are, in effect, principal: that is, when their mutual relationship is responsible for the first origins of the world and of human beings and, at the same time, is one characterized by a strong disparity of value (or even a total opposition) between them.

Another privileged expression of duality, in both physiology and symbology, is the notion of twinship. The concept of twinship is not reducible to the projection of a physiological experience on a symbological plane. In fact, physiology requires the possibility of more than two twins, a possibility that is normally excluded in the symbological use of the notion. Thus, the duality of twins, an essential constituent of the notion in symbology, is given a peculiar function in the field of ontology, different from that of the couple. First, the couple is understood as a generating agency from the dynamic perspective of a sonship, which, on the symbological plane, can be unitary (as in the triadic pattern of father, mother, and son) or indefinitely plural. The notion of twins, however, is oriented toward stasis, whether there is a perfect symmetry between the two constituent elements, or, inversely, disparity between them. In fact, twinship is founded on the physiological experience of the diachrony of twins' conception in or emergence from the maternal womb. (This diachrony is the motivation behind seniorship, the notion that the twin born second was conceived first.)

Historical Examples

Diachrony is a decisive element in a famous mythical story about twins, the myth of the birth of Ōhrmazd and Ahriman, the God and the Antigod of Zoroastrian religion; this narrative is not explicitly accounted for in Zoroastrian literature but only in Christian and Islamic sources arguing against Zoroastrianism. It was not intended to resolve the radical dualism of Zoroastrianism but to provide an explanation of the origins of evil. Zurwān, the personification of time, performed a sacrifice in order to generate Ōhrmazd, the potential creator of all good things. But Zurwān doubted the efficacy of his sacrifice, and as a result he gave birth to twin sons, Ōhrmazd and Ahriman. The former was a result of his sacrifice, and the latter the consequence of his doubt. Since Zurwān had pledged to concede the royal privilege to the first son who appeared before him, the perverse Ahriman broke out of the maternal womb prematurely and demanded the fulfillment of his father's promise. Zurwān did not acknowledge him as a true son but was obliged to honor his promise; he declared that Ahriman would be king for nine thousand years, but that Ōhrmazd would be king forever.

Despite Zurwān's probable existence in the mythology of older times (in the cuneiform tablets of Nuzi and, according to some scholars, in a silver relief coming from Luristan), a similar myth of twinship appears in later religious contexts. More significant and much older is a text belonging to the very old Gāthās in the Zoroastrian Avesta (Yasna 30.3). This poem mentions two spirits (Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu) who "were seen in sleep as twins"; they are respectively good and bad in thought, word, and action and the foundations of life and its opposite. According to a recent translation of this text by Helmut Humbach, their aspects as the foundations of life and its opposite are not to be interpreted specifically in a chronological sense (that is, in the sense of a cosmogony); but one may still consider the two spirits as opposite principles that exist prior to any manifestation of their existence in this world and hold them accountable for the existence of good and bad, life and death. Thus, they express a radical formulation of dualism, not only moral but ontological.

It is not clear, however, whether the two spirits are literally twins. According to most scholars, they are sons of one and the same father, Ahura Mazdā (the former spelling of the name Ōhrmazd ), because other texts in the Gāthās state that Ahura Mazdā is the father of the beneficent Spenta Mainyu. Moreover, the same scholars, noting that the text quoted above mentions a "choice" made by the two twins (a good choice by the first and a bad choice by the second), think that these choices were made freely, in keeping with the then-current Zoroastrian notion of the free choice between good and bad that can be made by any human being in this world. This interpretation appears highly improbable. Good and bad seem natural choices for the first and second spirit respectively (otherwise, why should there be precisely two?), in the sense that the spirits prefigure the radical character of the choice. Or, rather, they embody it, but as principles and preformate referents of the choice itself and its consequences for people and daēva s, that is, life and its opposite. This is the only interpretation that can account for the pregnancy and the profound intermixture of ontology and ethics (as well as cosmogony and moral struggle) that is characteristic of Zoroastrianism in every period of its history. Moreover, it would be impossible to conceive the great god Ahura Mazdā as the father of the evil spirit, for the simple reason that their respective essences have nothing in common. In conclusion, the term twins, as applied to the two spirits, should be understood in that Gathic text not as designating brothers, sons of one and the same father, but as a strong expression of their symmetrical and perfectly contrary essences. In order to compare this notion of the twin spirits with the myth of Zurwān and his two sons (who are also good and bad already in their respective natures and not as a consequence of a contrary choice made by them), one must take into account the precisely different natures of Ahura Mazdā and Zurwān. The former is a supreme being completely endowed with personality and ethics; the latter—as time or destiny personified—is not so endowed; he is an entity apt to have materially with himself and to generate from himself such contrary personal agents as the twin characters, God and Antigod, that is, Ōhrmazd (the old Ahura Mazdā) and Ahriman (the old Destructive Spirit) and their mutually opposing activities.

These two examples show the mythical theme of twinship in the context of the dualistic conceptions of Zoroastrian religion. As has been seen, the opposition between the two twins in the Gāthās and in the myth of Zurwān is, in a sense, horizontal. A different use of the theme of twins is present in Manichaeism. Mani was said to have a counterpart in the celestial realm, a twin, (Syr., at-Taum ) a pneumatic-divine entity who was both his protecting agency and his alter ego. In the Manichaean Codex of Cologne, a Greek biographical text, the term suzugos ("he who is bound in marriage") is substituted for twin. This is reminiscent of the fact that in Valentinian Gnosticism the soul of the Gnostic was conceived of as feminine, destined to marry her divine counterpart, her angel. In Mani's case, the terms twin and husband both point to a relationship that implies the Gnostic notion of the perfect consubstantiality of the celestial element and its counterpart active in the terrestial realm. The terrestrial element waits to be reunited with the celestial element, the pneumatic self. At the same time, the heavenly twin and the angelic husband are an expression of transcendence in relation to whatever lives in the terrestial realm: "The mysteries and [vi]sions and the excellence of my Father, and concerning me, who I am, and my suzugos … who he is" (Manichaean Codex of Cologne 23.1–5). It is clear that this ambivalence concerning the perfect consubstantiality (or even identification) between Mani and his twin and at the same time the difference between them (i. e., their respective, actual identities) before the final return of Mani's soul to its original abode implies a vertical structure, well adapted to the general Gnostic notion of a devolution of some pneumatic essence or of its mission in this mixed world. This notion is antithetical to the radical, horizontal opposition of essences expressed in Zoroastrianism in the notion of twin spirits.

Among the nonliterate cultures in which dualistic and (needless to say) dual myths and conceptions exist, explicit radical dualisms are rare. The notion of two symmetrically opposed twins is found in the Iroquois myth of Iouskeha ("sprout") and Tawiskaron ("flint"). More primitive tribes that profess a dualistic mythology do not share the idea of a symmetry between two opposed, superhuman beings (as, for example in the myth of Coyote, who has nothing in common—as far as his origin and ontological meaning are concerned—with the creator). The Iroquois are agriculturalists with matriarchal institutions. This may imply that the dualistic structure expressed in their myth, both in terms of the symmetry of opposing twins and their common origin from a maternal entity, derives from a lunar mythology. On the other hand, this symmetry must be distinguished from that found in Zoroastrianism between the opposed "twin" spirits, or between Ahriman and Ōhrmazd. The Zoroastrian notion of the ontological opposition between the two spirits or between God and Antigod is radicalized to such an extreme that it denies any dialectical or complementary function for Ahriman (with the exception of some brief, very heterodox tales in which he is given some positive capacities that render him rather akin to the figure of a trickster: For example, it is he who knows what Ōhrmazd must do in order to create the great luminaries). However, some comparisons may be drawn between the Iroquois myth and the myth of the birth of Ōhrmazd and Ahriman from Zurwān. Some of the characteristics of the bad Tawiskaron may remind one of the deeds of Ahriman. The bad Iroquois twin breaks out of the maternal womb, emerging from his mother's side. Iouskeha's demiurgical activity, like that of Ōhrmazd, calls the good creatures of the world into existence; the creations of his twin are monstrous and maleficent. Tawiskaron calls into existence a gigantic frog who absorbs all the water in the world, causing aridity—a mythical motif that also exists in the Zurwān mythology. All in all, differences predominate. Even though Iouskeha (or Oterongtongnia) triumphs, he does not transcend his identity as a twin and grandson—not even the privileged one—of the female, primordial character, Ataentsic. Therefore, he has very little in common with the high god of Zoroastrianism, who does transcend his earthly role.

There are numerous problems connected with the myths of twins found among American Indians because of certain sociological elements common to many tribes; the tendency toward a dual organization, for instance, is shared by many populations of North and South America. It appears that the two moieties of a tribe are frequently connected with two mythical twins. According to Werner Müller (1956), this prevents one from interpreting the opposition between such twins as a crude opposition between good and evil. According to Mircea Eliade, the Iroquois myth "is a dualist myth, the only North American myth susceptible to comparison with the Iranian dualism of zurvanite type.… Nevertheless, as shall presently be seen, such an irreducible antagonism does not reach the Iranian paroxysm, and this for the simple reason that the Iroquois refuse to identify in the 'bad' twin the essence of 'evil,' the ontological evil that obsessed Iranian religious thought" (Eliade, 1969, p. 147f.). Moreover, the ontological basis of the Iroquois dual and (because connected with cosmogony) dualistic mythology is intertwined with sociological and cultural motivations; it implies a question not only of essence but also of function. Tawiskaron's activity, though essentially negative in its value, is considered to have an effect on Iroquois institutions (their cult and calendar) and way of life. As Eliade observes (on the basis of Werner Müller's argumentation), it was a prophet of the Seneca tribe, Handsome Lake, who, at the beginning of the nineteenth century "substituted for the couple of the mythical Twins that of the Great God, Haweniyo (the 'Great Voice') and the Devil, Haninseono ('Who Dwells in the Earth')" (ibid., p. 148). This substitution could be a result of the prophet's monotheistic tendency, but as Müller and Eliade point out, it could also be a response to the accusation made by the Europeans that the Iroquois "adored the Devil." This accusation has been leveled several times in response to dualistic theologies and mythologies; it implies that there is a cult around the second element of the couple. This element may be a demiurge-trickster, a culture hero, or a twin, in no way an exclusively bad character because it is also connected with an important, complementary aspect of reality. Such a notion is a reminder of the Egyptian myth (as expounded by Plutarch) that Seth, the opposing and destroying agency complementary to Osiris, was defeated but not annihilated in order that the equilibrium of the universe remain unchanged.

According to Åke Hultkrantz, the theme of twins in American Indian culture is connected with the figure of the culture hero. This hero may be the father of the twins; in some instances, at least one of the twins has some of the hero's characteristics. One even gets the impression that the twins incorporate respectively the two essences or tendencies present in the culture hero: "the vocation to produce and the vocation to destroy" (Hultkrantz, 1963, p. 41). Hultkrantz maintains that there is also a kind of parallelism between the relationship linking the supreme being and the culture hero on the one hand and the relationship between the two twins on the other. "It seems verisimilar that the myth of the twins be a variation of the mythological theme expressed in the relationship between the Supreme Being and the cultural hero, and that it influenced the latter only secondarily, possibly emphasizing dualism present in this" (ibid., p. 41f.).

In other cases, the twins have nothing in common with the culture hero, but they may accomplish—individually or together—some of the deeds traditionally attributed to him. According to Paul Radin (1949), three types are to be distinguished at the core of American Indian myths of twinship. First, the mother of the twins dies as a result of outside aggression or the unnatural birth of the bad twin (as among the Iroquois). In both myths, the second twin is negative and violent, but the first—at least in the first type of myth—is scarcely more commendable in his modus operandi. Second, the twins are children of the Sun. They are different in character, but they cooperate. The third type of myth is a combination of the first two. The first type seems to be common among the northern regions of North America; the second is concentrated in the southwestern regions of the same continent; the third belongs exclusively to South America.

Particularly interesting is the respective quality of the achievements of the twins in the context of their demiurgical activity, an issue that adds new particulars to the generic statement that the second twin, as Eliade points out, "does not incarnate the idea of, 'evil' but only the negative, dark aspect of the world" (Eliade, 1969, p. 149). Thus, among the Tuscarora, an Iroquois tribe, the bad twin, "animated by a bad spirit," came violently to light, so killing his mother. The good twin tried to create plants and animals, but the other, trying to imitate him, succeeded only in bringing desert lands and reptiles into existence. The bad twin also created the bodies of human beings; his brother gave them souls. In the end, the bad twin was vanquished but not annihilated; he became the king of the dead (Hultkrantz, 1963). One cannot but concur with Eliade that the twins in these mythologies form a complementary couple ruling "the two modes or two 'times,' which together constitute the living and fertile universe" (ibid., p. 149).

Another character from these Iroquois myths, the Grande Bosse, a double of Tawiskaron, who fought against the creator and introduced sickness and other evils, was finally defeated but was given the task of curing and helping people. This double lives on the cliffs at the borders of the world, in the land where diseases are born, accompanied by the False Faces, the abortive creations of Tawiskaron, who had tried in vain to imitate the human beings created by his brother. But, as Müller points out, as known from ritual, these creatures "in spring and autumn, drive away the maladies from the villages" (Müller, 1946, p. 272). This is a notion widespread both in North America and in Australia, namely, that bad entities or spirits that are guilty of homicide are endowed with the capacity to heal: They know the "medicine." In the Menomini cult of Manabozo, for example, the evil spirits responsible for the death of the brother of the hero are obliged to impart the medicine to those initiated in the cult, that is, to act against their previous homicidal activity. The same applies to the dreadful character of Crow in some Australian myths and also to the Egyptian myth already mentioned, in which the evil Seth is defeated but not annihilated. A providential decision by Isis allows him to continue his struggle against Apophis, the serpent, who day after day attacks the cosmic boat of the sun crossing the heaven. Eliade's discussion applies to the Egyptian situation as well as to the Indian:

In other words, though the adversary has been defeated by the Great God, his works, the "evil," persist in the world. The Creator does not seek to, or perhaps he cannot, annihilate the "evil," but neither does he permit it to corrupt his creation. He accepts it as an inevitable negative aspect of life, but at the same time he compels his adversary to combat the results of his own work. (1969, p. 149)

Eliade points out, too, that the Iroquois worldview displays a clearly dualistic view of evil. Considered a "disastrous innovation" brought about by some bad superhuman personage, evil is nonetheless

accepted as a henceforth inevitable modality of life and of human existence.… The universe is imagined to have a central portion, i. e., the village and the cultivated fields, inhabited by men; this central portion is surrounded by an exterior desert full of stones, swamps, and "False faces." (ibid., pp. 149–150)

The same situation is found in old Egypt, where the Nile and the land that is periodically flooded by it belong to Osiris; the desert and the barren sea (with the foreign, Asiatic) countries belong to the "red" Seth (red being the color of the desert), who is characterized by loneliness, infertility, and aggressiveness. A similar notion is found among the Dogon of West Africa. Nommo, the god of water (that of the Niger), may resemble the high god of numerous mythologies in his creative activity. The infelicitous attempts of his evil brother, Yurugu, or Ogo (who is not properly a twin), at creation result in misshapen, monstrous creatures. Compelled by his experience of failure, he introduces pain into the existence of the good creatures. In doing so, Yurugu joins the ranks of the demiurge-tricksters at least in terms of his inability to imitate the efficacy of the creator. But a difference remains. The demiurge-trickster is more interested in particular occurrences in purposedly worsening the quality of life than is the bad twin or brother; he introduces painful conditions of life, creates cliffs and mountains that are difficult to cross, and causes people to become mortal (as does Coyote among some Californian tribes and the bad demiurge of some Asiatic mythologies). But he also justifies his actions by claiming that he challenges human cultural creativity by providing obstacles to survival.

Another important feature of American Indian mythologies of twins is that in South America and in the southwestern regions of North America twins are conceived as sons of the sun. Their birth is characterized by the violent death of their mother. The twins are not necessarily portrayed as rivals. The difference between them is sometimes attested to by the difference of their respective destinies; one of them experiences death but is resurrected by the other (a motif found in the classical myth of the Dioscuri). These twins represent universal duality at the cosmological and sociological levels, which fact, however, does not prevent a consideration of them as disparate in terms of their ontological consistency and their axiological evaluation. Similar interpretations apply when the mythical referents of the twins are respectively Sun and Moon, such as among the Apinagé (or Apinayé; see Nimuendajú, 1939). Among the Caribbean population of the Kaliña, the first twin, Tanusi, is a kind of high god and ancestor, the creator of all good things, living in the "land without evening." Yolokantamulu, his twin brother, is connected with obscurity and the pains of humanity and lives in the "land without morning." By the standard tendency implicit in this kind of duality, the inborn disparity of the twins is not to be explained only as an expression of mere opposition between good and evil but also (or even preeminently) as an expression of ontological and cosmological (and sometimes sociological and psychological) complementarity (but see also the discussion by Josef Haekel, 1958, concerning Tanusi's feature as high god). At the same time, a notion of the disparity of value between the twins in the American Indian mythologies and religions can find a counterpart, as Eliade (1969, pp. 137f.) has observed, in the conception of the two souls in humans, one of heavenly origin and the other of "animal" nature (as among the Apapocúva of Brazil). As for the Caribbean Kaliñas, they characteristically claim that things existing on earth have their spiritual counterpart in heaven. On the sociological plane, the twins may sometimes represent respectively the two moieties of a tribe, as among the already quoted Apinagé.

The principle of twinship is fundamental to the ideology of the Dogon of Mali. For them, twinship means perfection. One of the main characters of their cosmology and cosmogony is Nommo. He is perfect and beneficent. His personality is equivalent to a pair of twins, masculine and feminine, who represent the ideal couple. This couple is not to be imitated on this earth because the marriage between twins is prohibited as a result of the troubles caused by Yurugu, or Ogo, the first son of Amma and the Earth. Nommo as a spiritual entity is a married couple, which is, because married, completely perfect. Yurugu alone is single, imperfect, and unhappy. He personifies deficiency, ontological and ethical. Not directly linked to a twin (Nommo is his younger brother), Yurugu is only understandable as Nommo's misshapen opposite. But it is exactly this opposition (and not the twinship inherent in the entity that is Nommo) that introduces a crucial dialectic between completeness and deficiency in the Dogon ideology. In this ideology, there is a kind of articulated totality in which deficiency—as represented by Yurugu—is an indispensable component. All in all, it may be concluded that in the Dogon ideology, twinship attains a higher status than in American Indian mythologies, because in those mythologies the principle of twinship is directly engaged in a dialectic of completeness and incompleteness as an element constituting a totality (so that even the "dark" element of a pair of twins is considered positive from a functional point of view).

According to the Dogon conception, twinship as such transcends evil but is pledged to coexist with it (i.e., with the single Yurugu). This kind of triadic ontology is very similar to that expressed in the Egyptian myth of Osiris and Seth told by Plutarch. The good Osiris and the bad Seth are not twins but brothers. Osiris' counterpart is his wife, Isis; Seth is infecund and alone—which does not prevent him from being an element of a universal totality. Yurugu's status as the older son of Amma is a feature not uncommon in dualistic conceptions. For instance, the birth of Ahriman precedes (though as a consequence of a trick and a violent act) that of Ōhrmazd in the Zurvanite myth, while Satan is the younger (or older) brother of Christ in the dualistic and sectarian doctrine of the Bogomils. The violence that characterizes the birth or coming to light of a bad twin or brother is typical of such twinship mythologies; this feature probably expresses a kind of recrimination against the bad twin, which is intended to diminish but not to abolish his "legitimacy."

Finally, as far as the "incompleteness" of Yurugu is concerned (i.e., his deprivation of the benefits of both twinship and marriage, or of the marriage implied in twinship), one can conclude that for the first entities of some cosmogonies the duality of twinship and the duality of the married couple are the same. (An example can be found in the Zoroastrian myth of the first human couple, Mashya and Mashyane, who were twins due to the fact that they were brought into existence as the result of a split within a rhubarb plant.) On the contrary, this identification between the two main forms of duality on the anthropological level—between marriage and twinship—is prohibited in the actual life of the Dogon as a lasting consequence of the rupture of harmony caused by the "previous guilt" committed by Yurugu, a guilt that is both a cause and a consequence of his deficiency. According to a version recorded by Montserrat Palau Marti (1957), Yurugu's deficiency was due to the fact that he was born irregularly to Amma and the Earth, a couple whose feminine component had not yet been excised and was therefore not yet ready for marriage and generation.

Another version ascribes the guilt to Yuguru himself, who could not believe that Amma would give him a wife for his twin. This ambivalence concerning the ontological level to which the first origin of deficiency is attributed reminds one of the sin of Sophia according to Valentinus and his followers. Sophia failed to obey the law that regulated the order and fecundity of the aeons, those spiritual couples (or syzygies) that exist in the divine Pleroma ("fullness"). Yurugu did not find his "twin soul" (literally, the feminine part of his soul) because of his lack of belief or, alternatively, because of his inborn deficiency, and therefore he cohabited incestuously with his mother, the Earth; this resulted in the birth of certain malevolent entities who live in the woods, outside of the culturalized and purified (i. e., ritually cultivated) land. On the other hand, the impurity and sterility of Yurugu does not prevent him from being an important element in the cosmological process; he is an essential part of the ordinary life of the Dogon. His "words" are essential to the development of life. Nommo, that is to say, one of the twins that compose his double personality, was sacrificed, and some cosmic entities were derived from him; he was later resurrected. Once the world is put in motion, the androgynous condition of existence (which was also peculiar to Nommo, whose two souls, masculine and feminine, were twins) is abolished, and sexual differentiation obtains—a differentiation, of course, that is different from the loneliness and incompleteness of Yurugu, the inhabitant of the woods. All in all, Yurugu remains a representation of limitation, but, for the same reason, also a referent of the growing cosmos of culture and agriculture. This corresponds to the will of Amma, that all be found and all be functional in nature, the perfect and the imperfect. Dogon dualism has its roots higher in the vertical series of the ontological levels; it affects the divine to some degree particularly if the first origin of deficiency is seen as deriving from the irregular maternity of Earth, whose feminine part was not yet excised.

One can conclude that the motif of twins in the ideologies of nonliterate cultures takes two main expressions: (1) symmetry, which being partial and not specular as in the Zoroastrian (Gathic) notion of the two spirits, is an adequate expression of the complementarity of twins; and (2) disparity in value, which also includes in itself a dynamism motivating some peculiarities related in the myth (e.g., when the second twin undergoes a crisis and is rehabilitated by the first). This complementarity, which is capable of integrating within itself the "bad" aspect, or simply the inferior quality, of the second twin, is not unqualified and static but articulated and dynamic; a distant equivalent is to be found in Platonic, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic speculation, where the existence of the lower, imperfect world, made after the image of the ideal one, is a requisite for the completeness of the All.

It is clear that this notion of an imperfection, which is a necessary component of a perfect totality, is extraneous to biblical creationism. It is dualistic in itself (when the two members of the couple are seen as disparate "principles" in the context of a cosmogony), and it in turn expresses a dialectical form of dualism. It must be distinguished from two other forms of dualism, where the "harmony" of the dialectical position is broken. The first is the Zoroastrian conception of the twins, one beneficent and the other maleficent; their relationship is one of radical opposition and mutual exclusion (a condition also present in the myth of Zurwān, despite the fact that the idea of Time as father of both Ōhrmazd and Ahriman is not to be confused with the Zoroastrian conception of the twin spirits, who cannot have God as their common father). The second form is found in Gnostic speculation, particularly Manichaeism, where matter, the substance of this visible world, is condemned, and Mani, the inspired founder, has a spiritual twin who is a heavenly counterpart of himself (i.e., his true self), to which he is to be "reduced" after his corporeal death.

Indo-European Cultures

This article comes finally to some myths of twins in the Indo-European cultures. In India, Yama, whose name means "twin," is accompanied by a female counterpart, Yamī, the feminine form of his name. But he underwent some essential modifications and became the king of the dead, a function well suited to his original quality as first man. In Iran, Yima (the equivalent of Yama), with his female twin, Yimak, remained a prototype of humanity. (Other prototypes were Gaya-maretan, a total figure with no female counterpart or twin, and Mashya and Mashyane, the primordial twins and human progenitors.) Yima later became the inhabitant of Var, a subterranean world in which different categories of living beings wait for the final rehabilitation. Yima's connection with the principle of twinship is an important confirmation of the principle of duality in the field of cosmogony, no less important than another principle in the same field, androgyny.

The mention of a pair of Indian twin deities, the Nasatyas (or Aśvins), connected with the realm of health and fecundity (the third function of Indo-European tripartite ideology according to Georges Dumézil) provides an introduction to Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri of Greek mythology. These can be seen as a privileged expression of ontological disparity, which is not necessarily ethical, contained within a set of twins. According to the characteristic and prevailing (but not necessarily older) formulation of the myth (first mentioned in the old epic poem Kypria, fragment 5k), Pollux was immortal, the son of Zeus—the supreme god—and of Leda; Castor was mortal, son of Tyndareus, the human husband of Leda. A very particular mythical element mediated their relationship so that they were neither wholly disparate nor wholly equal: The immortal Pollux renounced half of his immortality in favor of his mortal brother when the latter was fatally wounded by some common enemies. As a consequence of this, Castor and Pollux live alternatively in the heavens and in the netherworld (or they sojourn in their tomb in Laconia, at Therapnae near Sparta). This particular aspect of the myth represents a very peculiar expression of the twinship motif. The twins' symmetrical affinity is emphasized by their common attribute of the pilos, a piece of headgear later interpreted as representing half of Leda's egg; on the other hand, their radical, original disparity is emphasized by the opposite natures of their respective fathers (Zeus and a human hero). However, this dialectical situation—of partial affinity and radical disparity—is transcended by the attribution to the mortal twin of one-half of the immortality of the other; this leads to the situation of an artificially produced, balanced equality. In this sense, twinship is both an ontological presupposition and a final acquisition for them: a pattern different from, or opposed to, that of other myths concerning twins or brothers who, on the basis of an ontological or merely ethical or behavioral disparity, come to represent opposing elements (sun or moon, life or death, etc.).

Unfortunately, there are versions of the myth of the Dioscuri that modify this basic pattern. In some texts, Castor and Pollux are sons of the same father, Tyndareus, whose name can also designate Zeus ("he who strikes"). According to other sources, they are sons of Zeus (hence the name hoi Dioskouroi, "the young sons of Zeus"). Moreover, there are different interpretations concerning the modalities of their alternating destinies apart from the fact that in old sources (Homer) they live as typical heroes in their tomb at Therapnae. The more widespread interpretation (Lucian) is that one lives in heaven and the other in his tomb or in the netherworld, and vice versa. There are also good reasons for understanding that they experience life and death together in alternation. In a famous song of victory (Nemean Odes 10), Pindar immortalizes this episode, making brotherly love the motivation behind the generous deed of Pollux, who renounces one-half of his (still to be experienced) immortality to show that life (even immortal life) is hard without friends. This throws a different light on the whole myth, more in accordance with the old Homeric statement that the two are together in their Laconian tomb, or hērōion.

Thus, the myth of the Dioscuri may be distinguished from such myths as that of the Sumerian Dumuzi, who alternates his stay in the netherworld with that of Geshtinanna, his sister. In other words, the Dioscuri do not belong fundamentally to the typology of the dying god (even a dying god split into two figures who take turns dwelling in the netherworld); they represent instead a special (duplicate) version of the hero, who lives in his tomb, from which emanates his protecting influence on the town and the territory. More precisely, the Dioscuri (theoi hērōes, "divine heroes") belong to a typology in between that of the chthonic hero and the heavenly god. Their shared immortality, based on their geminate personality, allows them to act together as heavenly gods; as such, they manifest themselves on the summit of a ship's mast during a tempest, or they appear at the decisive moment during a battle. Their stay in a tomb links them to the classical heroes. All in all, this is a polytheistic interpretation of the motif of twins, different from those that are familiar in nonliterate cultures.

The most famous set of twins in myth and legend is Romulus and Remus, the founders of the Eternal City. Although the Dioscuri were worshiped in old Latium, as demonstrated by an archaic Latin inscription from Lavinium (fifth century bce) dedicated to them, these twins were unrelated to the Roman twins. In contrast to the Dioscuri, who tended to be equated in their destiny and function (although Castor has special relations with the cavalry, and the temple on the forum was originally dedicated to—or at least named after—him, and only later after the Castores, the Roman name of the Dioscuri), Romulus and Remus tended to be differentiated, to the extent that the former kills the latter immediately after the marking of the sacred pomerium, which was intended to separate the domestic soil of the city from all external territory. The killing of the offender, Remus, because he had violated the pomerium, may be interpreted as prototypical of the drastic measures associated with this boundary for the protection of the city.

The legendary killing of Remus, however, did not prevent the Romans from continuing a ritual celebration, the Lupercalia, at which time two groups of Luperci, those allegedly instituted by Romulus (the Fabiani) and those said to be instituted by Remus (the Quinctiales), acted as rivals running around the old city acting out a rite intended to promote health and fertility and to reaffirm the ominous destiny of Rome. The rite was modified in 44 bce, when a third group of Luperci was instituted (the Julii), the tradition behind the festivity being somewhat misunderstood. The owner of the third flock of Luperci, Caesar, who in those months was striving after kingship, could automatically be compared to the first founders of Rome as a candidate for kingship. All in all, the celebration of the Lupercalia—strictly ritualized and thus made inoffensive—could perpetuate in Rome's historical memory a significant notion, that of an endogenous source of rivalry and destruction, a duality threatening to become a dualism and, as such, dangerous; for this reason it was allowed to survive only within a strictly controlled ritual.

Twins and the Myths of Origins

One must note some considerations concerning the cultural-historical setting in life of at least some of these traditions of twinship within the context of myths of origins. Such traditions are dualistic in character, whether they emphasize a horizontal or a frontal, mutually exclusive opposition between the twins (as in the case of Zoroastrianism), or, alternatively, a dialectical relationship between them. It would seem that this dialectic, as it is manifested among the American Indians, has something in common with an ideology of agriculturists, based on matriarchal and lunar aspects (e.g., the Kaliña situated the twins respectively on the bright and on the dark side of the moon). In the same way may be interpreted the extreme specialization and absoluteness of the dualism of the Iroquois twins, deriving probably from a lunar, female entity, as well as the type of culture present in the South American and Caribbean tribes. This means, as Hultkrantz (1963) has observed, that dualism in America (at least this kind of dualism) is a southern phenomenon (as opposed to that of the Arctic hunters). To be sure, one cannot forget, as Müller (1956) points out, that some mythologies of hunters, both in Canada and in California, are also dualistic. But this dualism (e.g., the well-known myth concerning the demiurge-trickster, Coyote, who opposes the high being in his creating activity and thus introduces death and the "heavy" physiology of human beings) is structurally very different from the dialectical symmetry of twins. The high being and the demiurge-trickster are of very different extraction; they cannot be reduced to a symmetrical, bipartite form of totality. On the other hand, dialecticism is not absent in the Californian myths of the supreme being and Coyote. The supreme being is a giver of life, but death is introduced by Coyote on the basis of an argument that tends to emphasize the cultural utility rather than the negative aspect of death.

Another issue concerning the twins motif in mythology concerns the direct impact of the physiological experience of twinship on the psychology of the relevant populations. According to Hultkrantz (1963, p. 45) the "superstitious" attention paid to the phenomenon of twinship could have been inspired by its appearance in the symbological language of myth. On the other hand, what is exceptional on earth could also be seen as primordial, so that the inauguration of the terrestrial (imperfect) status of humanity would have meant also the transition from (perfect) twinship to (imperfect) singleness. Twinship, as it is experienced in this world, comes to mean something extraordinary. In addition, the rather extraordinary phenomenon of twinship has been differently evaluated in different cultures. In Africa, for instance, one moves from a feeling of dread before twins (in some cases, one or both of them may be killed) among the San and Damara in southern Africa to a feeling of happiness and expectation of good fortune in their presence, as in Sudan. One could also venture that the typical ambivalence found in the disparities between twins (the second twin as bad, or simply as terrestrial, or, as a part of a totality, destined for a sacrifice from which he is ultimately rescued, as among the Dogon) is not unrelated to the problematical nature of physiological twinship, in which the different values of duality (completeness, but also distinction or even disparity) can put in motion a plurality of interpretations, both at the mythological and the ritual-sociological level. The reverse possibility, namely that the motif of twinship, which originally developed on the mythological level, could have motivated with its different expressions the contradictory nature of twinship on the ritual-sociological level, is perhaps too farfetched.

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