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Re: Comparative Mythology

Posted By: John M. Riada
Date: Wednesday, 30 October 2002, at 10:33 p.m.

In Response To: Comparative Mythology (Charles Pope)

That whole 'snake' thing is really the mother of all Pandora’s boxes. Seems there was an awful lot of serpent religion all over the world, once upon a time. Some authors (can't recall specifically) have made it their mission to track the rise and spread of the feathered serpent and other similar snake cults. They also report an accompanying spread of technology through missionary adherents of these cults, Prometheus again.

It may also be safe to say that the early Hebrews/Edenites defined themselves both as the children of the one true God as well as enemies of the snake guys. Know my enemies, know me. The tree/serpent, God/Satan, light/darkness duality is not easily undone, even if we discredit the idea of evil/error. If Abraham and Moses were pharos, who then were the real ancestors of the original Egyptians. The adAmses family?

I have often wondered about the difficulty of dating ancient mythology and history. How old is Homer's stuff? How long was it oral before it was written and did his epics have one source or did many converge into one. There is some evidence that, unlike his modern descendants, ancient man had the ability and need to retain large amounts of information in his head, and to be able to accurately spit it out to someone else. We, on the other hand, are totally incapable of this today. Witness the party gag of 'spread the rumor' to ten people and watch how it is distorts in just minutes. The ancients had no choice but to communicate accurately, even orally. Often it could mean life and death. While studying the Inuit people of North America many years ago, I was impressed how this culture had developed such incredible oral language and communication skills. Imagine an environment as featureless as the Arctic and so dangerous that one little slip and your an ice cube. The Inuit developed more than two hundred (I think) words for snow, while we have just one. One Inuit could give incredibly detailed information about large areas of land, including landmarks no bigger than a football, to a fellow tribesman needing to travel across an unfamiliar expanse.

No doubt other ancient peoples developed similar skills before written language was introduced. This of course presents a real problem as it is likely that writing spread on a completely different basis than did the information that it first captured. Further complicate the matter with the randomness of survival factor, then guess which versions made it to the present. Can we ever really know who first owned which stories? If the question sounds defeatist it is only because I am convinced that (some) early men were walking-talking encyclopedias and unless we can rehydrate those mummies - we may never really know. First of course we have to pry them out of the clutches of the Grand Pooh-Bah of the Ancient Council of Antiquated Antiquarians, but that is another story altogether.

- John

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