CA'NAANITES, a collective name for the several nations conquered by the Israelites on the w. side of Jordan. Five, six, seven, and ten nations are mentioned in various places in the Old Testament; but of only two of them have we any col lateral information—the Hittites, and the Amorites. And the former of these appears to have been included not with strict propriety among the Canaanites, evidence now tending to show that they not only dwelt beyond the border of Canaan, but did not even speak a Semitic language; nor were they homogeneous with other Canaanitish people. In general, the Canaanites are described as living in a state of political disintegration; the combined result of Semitic love of independence, and of varied conformation of the soil. Thirty-one of their petty kings are mentioned in the hook of Joshua. That the Israelites were not immediately successful in conquering the C. is now universally recognized. The work of many years was concentrated by tradition on a single great name. The immediate result of the Israelite invasion was, not the extinction of the old, but the addition of a new element of stronger material, but less advanced culture. The chief object of Canaanitish worship was the dual-natured god of life and fruitfulness, Baal, or the Baal, " the lord," and his consort Asherah, " the happy." The masculine form of the latter was the name of one of the twelve sons of Jacob. Asherah must not be confounded with Ashtoreth or Astarte, who belonged to another type of Semitic religion. The symbol of Asherah was the stein of a tree, though possibly some times carved into an image; that of the Baal probably had the form of a cone and repre sented the rays of the sun, or the generative power. It is these symbols which are
referred to in the phrase "the Baals and Asherahs" (Judges iii. 7), where "the groves" of the king James's version is clearly a mistranslation. The licensed harlotry which formed a part of the worship of Asherah was peculiarly obnoxious to the later Hebrew prophets, though, indeed, even the folk-lore of the Israelites shows traces of aversion to its attendant immorality. Another characteristic of the Canaanitish religion was sooth saying, and this was vigorously denounced by the conquerors (Dent. xviti. 10-14). There were relics of Canaanitish times in old traditions which the Israelites did not sup press, and it is alleged by uncompromising historical critics that some of the narratives in Genesis are revised' and purified versions of Canaanitish legends. The most obvi ous of these are said to be the stories which are attached to localities in Canaan, such as Luz and Beersheba. The question whether a remnant of the old population of Pales tine may not be still in existence is answered in the affirmative by several recent investi gators, who find descendants of the C. in the fellahs or peasants of the Holy Land. From an ethnological point of view there seems to have been a close.affinity of the three peoples, the Israelites, the C., and the Pheenicians, who appear to have migrated successively from a Babylonian center, and the last to move westward were probably the Hebrews.