Duality of a symbol: Ox-Headed Gorz from a totemic symbol to the weapon of manhood community.

Bull- headed gorz (Gorz-e-Gāvsar), is a symbolic weapon in Persian culture which has been described in various texts, from Avesta to Šāhnāma and historical texts of Islamic era. It has represented in forms of myths, literatures, texts and paintings as heroes’ weapon to kill dragon. This essay has considered the weapon of bull-headed gorz as a symbol which obtained its meaning through texts and correlation with ancient rituals, studied its duality. On one hand, in Ferēdūn story, this symbolic weapon represented as a totemic symbol which remind us prohibition of scarification animals (in this case: bull) in Zoroastrian religion. This totemic side has been confirmed in Zoroastrian texts and also prolonged to Islamic era and its historical books. On the other hand, related to manhood community, bull- headed gorz is a weapon of its primier hero, Garšāsp, and has spreadly prolonged and revived in Indo-European civilization, from myth to epic and folkloric culture. Although this symbolic and ritualistic aspect of bull-headed gorz is not accepted directly by Zoroastrian religion, but has survived its symbolic characters in Avesta narrations, Šāhnāma and Persian folk tales.