When Hagar conceived, Yahweh told her that she
would have a son and his name would be Ishmael and that he would be
a "wild ass among men."1
Carl Jung equates the revolutionary wild ass with the archetypal trickster
figure and ultimately with Christ.2
During the Middle Ages, cathedrals celebrated the Feast
of the Wild Ass during mid-Winter, and the Feast of Fools during the Christmas
Season. In both cases a donkey, bearing a costumed Madonna and Child,
is ushered into the nave in what appeared to be a very irreverent ceremony.3"At
the conclusion of each part (Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, etc.) of the high
mass that followed, the whole congregation brayed, that is, they all went
'Y-a' like a donkey....A codex dating apparently from the eleventh century
says: 'At the end of the mass, instead of the words 'Ite miss est,' the
priest shall bray three times..., and instead of the words 'Deo Gratias,'
the congregation shall answer 'Y-a'...three times."4
This image was first inspired by a dream in which a
grey mule and an owl appeared in a densely textured dark environment,
after which there was light. One of the readings for the first Sunday
in Advent is from St. Paul's letter to the Romans speaking of this emergence.
"The night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the
works of darkness [and] put on the armor of light."5
Notes
- The New American
Bible, Saint Joseph Edition. Genesis 16:12. New York: Catholic Book
Publishing Co.
- Jung, C. G. R.F.C. Hull, Trans. 1968 (1959) Archetypes and the Collective
Unconscious second edition. Princeton University Press. pp. 259-260.
- Huson,
Paul. 1971. The Devil's Picturebook. New York: Putnam. p. 115 cited in Walker, Barbara G. 1988. The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols & Sacred
Objects. New York: Harper & Row Publishers. p. 362.
- Jung, p. 258.
- The New American Bible. Romans 13:12.
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