tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/mythology-15111/articles
Mythology – The Conversation
2024-03-14T19:24:53Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218800
2024-03-14T19:24:53Z
2024-03-14T19:24:53Z
Friday essay: from political bees to talking pigs – how ancient thinkers saw the human-animal divide
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581424/original/file-20240312-18-f7g0up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C8%2C5467%2C3655&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What makes us human? What (if anything) sets us apart from all other creatures? Ever since Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, the answer to these questions has pointed us back to our own animal nature.</p>
<p>Yet the idea that, in one way or another, our humanity is entangled with the non-human has a much longer and more venerable history. In the West, it goes all the way back to Classical antiquity – to Greek and Roman views about humans and animals. </p>
<p>The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322) first argued the human stands out from all other animals through the presence of <em>logos</em> (“speech” but also “reason”). Numerous Greek and Roman thinkers engaged in similar attempts to name what, exactly, sets humans apart. </p>
<p>Who or what is man? The arguments these philosophers came up with verged from the obscure to the outright bizarre: The human alone has the capacity to have sex at all seasons and well into old age; the human alone can sit comfortably on his hip bones; the human alone has hands that can build altars to the gods and craft divine statues. No observation seemed too far-fetched or outlandish. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a bearded man, Aristotle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Aristotle, as painted by Raphael.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>And yet, above all, the argument that animals lack logos continued to resonate. In classical antiquity it became powerful enough to coin the very word for animals in ancient Greek: <em>ta aloga</em> – “those without logos”. </p>
<p>This position was taken up by the philosophical school of the Stoics and from there came to influence Christianity, with its view of man made in the image of God. </p>
<p>The idea of an insurmountable gap between humans and other animals soon became the dominant paradigm, informing, for instance, the 18th century naturalist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carolus-Linnaeus">Carl Linnaeus’s</a> influential classification of the human as <em>homo sapiens</em> (literally: the “wise”, or “rational man”). </p>
<p>The practical implications of this idea cannot be underestimated. What has been termed “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/">the moral status of animals</a>” – the question of whether they should be included in considerations of justice – has traditionally been linked to the question of whether they have logos. Because animals differ from humans in lacking both speech and reason (so this line of argument goes) they cannot themselves formulate moral positions. Therefore, they do not warrant inclusion in our moral considerations, or at least not in the same way as humans. </p>
<p>Increasingly, of course, as many contemporary philosophers have pointed out, this idea seems too simple. </p>
<p>New research in the behavioural sciences illustrates the at times astonishing capacities of certain animals: crows and otters using tools to crack open nuts or shells to make their contents available for consumption; octopuses lifting the lids to their tanks and successfully escaping to the ocean through pipes; bees optimising their flight path on repeated trips to a food source.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pink octopus in a tank." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Octopus have lifted the lids of their tanks and escaped.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dofleins-octopus-latin-enteroctopus-dofleini-tentacles-2278086727">Victor1153/shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>But there is, in fact, a considerable body of evidence from the ancient Greek and Roman worlds showcasing the complex behaviours of different kinds of animals.</p>
<p>Ancient authors like <a href="https://www.livius.org/articles/person/pliny-the-elder/">Pliny</a>, <a href="https://www.livius.org/sources/content/plutarch/">Plutarch</a>, <a href="https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-4570">Oppian</a>, <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095353490">Aelian</a>,<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/porphyry/"> Porphyry</a>, <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095431452">Athenaeus </a>and others have dedicated whole books or treatises to this topic, pushing back on the notion of animals as merely “dumb beasts”. </p>
<p>Their views anticipated the modern debate by attributing animals not only with forms of reason; they also highlighted their capacity to suffer, to feel pain and to feel empathy towards each other and, occasionally, even towards members of the human species. </p>
<p>Then there are the human-animal hybrid creatures of the Greek and Roman myths (more on this later) – the Sirens, the Sphinx, the Minotaur. All combine the body parts of human and animal. Individually and collectively they thus raise a fundamental yet potentially disturbing question: what if we are really, in part at least, animal?</p>
<h2>Ancient animal-smarts</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>In <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/11879565">On the Nature of Animals</a> (late second/early third century CE), Aelian, a Roman author writing in Greek, described fish that helped their unfortunate mates when caught at sea, setting their backs against the trapped creature and “pushing with all their might to try to stop him from being hauled in”. </p>
<p>He wrote, too, of dolphins that helped fisher-folk, pressing the fish in “on all sides” so they couldn’t escape. In return, they were rewarded for their labours by a share of the catch.</p>
<p>He celebrated the clever design of beehives, observing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first thing that they construct are the chambers of their kings, and they are spacious and above all the rest. Round them they put a barrier, as it were a wall or fence, thereby also enhancing their importance of the royal dwelling. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>By parading animal-smarts in action these examples – of which there are hundreds - astonish, inform, and entertain at the same time – similar perhaps to the ubiquitous reels showing animals doing amazing things circulating in modern social media.</p>
<p>Modern ethological studies variously observe animal behaviours which reverberate with Aelian’s examples.</p>
<p>Pairs of <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150925085344.htm">rabbit fish</a> have been shown to cooperate, with one partner standing on guard protecting the other one while feeding. Honeybees indeed build bigger cells for their queen that are set apart at the bottom of the hive separated by thicker walls. And <a href="https://www.pnas.org/post/podcast/cooperative-fishing-between-humans-and-dolphins">bottlenose dolphins</a> have been found to cooperate with humans in their efforts to capture fish. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dolphins swimming over seagrass." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bottlenose dolphins have been seen cooperating with humans while fishing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anita Kainrath/shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>While not all of the ancient anecdotal evidence is confirmed by modern research, the overall thrust is clear: it deserves to be taken seriously and is part of the ancient conversation of what makes us human. </p>
<h2>The power of storytelling</h2>
<p>Some Greek and Roman thinkers resorted to the medium of storytelling to articulate views that are essentially philosophical in nature. The Greek philosopher Plutarch’s treatise <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Gryllus*.html">Beasts are Rational</a> draws on the famous story from Homer’s Odyssey in which some of Odysseus’ comrades are turned into pigs by the sorceress Circe. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-odyssey-82911">Guide to the Classics: Homer's Odyssey</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Odysseus is eventually able to convince the sorceress to turn them back into human beings. In Plutarch’s rendering of the story he returns to Circe’s island to check whether there are any other Greeks turned animal – and finds a pig named Gryllus (“Grunter”).</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of men with animal heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Detail of a wine cup (kylix) depicting scenes from The Odyssey including men turned into animals, circa 560-550 BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detail_view_-_Odysseus_men_turned_into_animals_by_Circe_receive_antidote_photo_by_Lucas_ancientartpodcast_flickr_cca2.0_8705662763_02d64d713e_o.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>Things take a turn for the unexpected when Grunter declines Odysseus’ offer of help. The reason? He prefers his animal to his human existence.</p>
<p>Grunter sets out to make an impassioned, highly rational case, arguing all animals in one form or another, have reason. Individual species differ from each other merely in the extent of and kind of reason. And, yes, this includes even those animals that have come to serve as the epitome of dumbness: sheep and the ass. </p>
<p>“Please note,” he adds, “that cases of dullness and stupidity in some animals are demonstrated by the cleverness and sharpness of others – as when you compare an ass and a sheep with a fox or a wolf or a bee.”</p>
<p>Grunter is not afraid to push things even further: Don’t individual humans, too, differ from each other in cleverness and wit? Long before the arrival of evolutionary theory, the pig here points towards a gradual view of how certain features, skills, and capacities map onto a continuum of all living creatures (the human included). The implied conclusion: there is no insurmountable gap between the human and other animals.</p>
<p>Grunter’s views are supported by others such as the speaking rooster of Lucian’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/11879565">The Dream or the Cock</a> (second century CE). Claiming to be the latest in a long line of previous incarnations that include (brace yourself) – the philosopher Pythagoras, the Cynic philosopher Crates, the Trojan hero Euphorbus, the Greek courtesan Aspasia, and several animals – this rooster-philosopher, too, prefers his animal to his human existence. </p>
<p>Animals, the rooster argues, are content with the basics; humans, by contrast, over-complicate things because they can’t get enough and greedily strive for ever more. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-darwins-the-descent-of-man-150-years-on-sex-race-and-our-lowly-ape-ancestry-155305">Guide to the classics: Darwin's The Descent of Man 150 years on — sex, race and our 'lowly' ape ancestry</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Myths and hybrid monsters</h2>
<p>Myth is arguably the most influential genre of ancient storytelling. A set of malleable tales of great age and importance, myth constitutes a world apart, a medium just far enough removed from the intricacies (and banalities) of everyday life to allow for the exploration of fundamental questions concerning the human condition. And Greek myths often explore human entanglements with non-human animals in ways that reference the philosophical debate.</p>
<p>The mythical figure of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Minotaur">the Minotaur</a> for example – a hybrid creature sporting the head of a bull and the body of a human male – does not seem to adhere to the norms and conventions applying to either of his composite identities. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a minotaur." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tondo of a Minotaur, circa 515 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tondo_Minotaur_London_E4_MAN.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>His insatiable appetite for young humans sets him apart from accepted behaviour for both humans and cattle alike, identifying him as monstrous. </p>
<p>But what are monsters for?</p>
<p>This question also applies to another famous hybrid beast of the ancient world: the Theban sphinx. Perched high outside the gates of the city of Thebes, in the region of Boeotia in central Greece, this creature (half woman, half lion, often endowed with an extra set of wings) challenges all wishing to enter with the following riddle: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many try and fail to name the right answer, paying for it with their lives. Until Oedipus comes along. He gives the correct answer and thus busts the beast, which dutifully throws itself to death. </p>
<p>The creature in the riddle is, of course, the human: man first crawls on four legs, then walks on two, until in old age when a walking stick may serve as a third “leg”. And yet despite his clever wit, Oedipus is ultimately unable to use reason to his and the city’s advantage (a situation explored in depth in <a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html">Sophocles’ famous tragedy Oedipus the King</a>).</p>
<p>What is the point of the riddle of the Sphinx? This story poses the human as a question but also illustrates the limits of logos in gaining self-understanding. Oedipus can solve the beast’s riddle; yet the riddle of his own humanity remains unresolved until it is too late. Here, the monstrous figure holds up a mirror for the human to recognise himself. </p>
<h2>Speaking animals</h2>
<p>Logos (in the sense of speech) also features prominently in the intervention of another iconic creature from classical antiquity: Xanthus, Achilles’ speaking horse. </p>
<p>On the battlefields of Troy (featured in Homer’s Iliad) Xanthus reminds Achilles of his imminent death. In this way the horse seems to tease all those thinkers (ancient and modern) who have argued the human stands out from all other animals in his capacity to speak in complex sentences.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-iliad-80968">Guide to the classics: Homer's Iliad</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a Greek god with two horses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Automedon with the Horses of Achilles, painting by Henri Regnault, 1868.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Xanthus’s voice resonates with that of numerous other speaking animals populating Greek and Roman literature, including the gnat of <a href="http://virgil.org/appendix/culex.htm">Pseudo-Virgil’s Culex</a>, the speaking eel in Oppian’s didactic poem <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/oppian-halieutica_fishing/1928/pb_LCL219.279.xml">On Fishing</a>, and the whole chorus of animals speaking to us in ancient fables. </p>
<p>Individually and as a group they raise a question: what if animals could speak to us in human language? What would they have to say to those humans prepared to listen? </p>
<p>As it turns out in these stories, often nothing too flattering. In classical antiquity, speaking animals often use their special position to question or examine the human condition.</p>
<p>Xanthus is a case in point. By reminding Achilles he is fated to die at Troy, the speaking horse reminds the Greek hero of an important aspect of the human condition: his own mortality and the fact that he, too, is ultimately subject to powers beyond human control.</p>
<h2>The political bee</h2>
<p>In Greek and Roman accounts of honeybee politics we find a peculiar human habit with a surprisingly long history: the attribution of political qualities to honeybees. </p>
<p>When we distinguish a “queen bee” from “workers” we are continuing a tradition that goes back to the ancient world (and possibly beyond). Aristotle names honeybees among the <em>zoa politika</em> (the “political animals”) – a category that includes wasps, ants, cranes, and, above all, the human.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Day_85_-_Sweat_Bee_-_Lasioglossum_species,_Leesylvania_State_Park,_Woodbridge,_Virginia.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He and others then set out to explore the intricacies of honeybee society. The ancient Greeks and Romans traditionally considered honeybees to inhabit a monarchy. In line with the gender realities of the ancient world, they imagined this monarchy to be led by a king or male leader. </p>
<p>Does the bee monarch have a stinger? If not, how does he assert his power and leadership? And what does the presence of the obviously unproductive drones in the hive say about the distribution of labour in a community? These are the kind of questions that resonated among Greek and Roman thinkers.</p>
<p>Honeybee society thus provided a perfect microcosm to study a set of questions that concerned human politics and society. The Roman philosopher Seneca, for instance, asserted that the bee monarch leads by <em>clementia</em> (mercy or mildness) - a form of leadership he found woefully lacking in contemporary Roman society. </p>
<h2>Meat and man</h2>
<p>So far we have seen animals mostly playing a symbolic role in Graeco-Roman storytelling. There is also a very real way in which human and animal bodies come to merge: through the human consumption of meat.</p>
<p>The ancient Greeks and Romans were ardent meat-eaters. Indeed meat-eating became a status symbol closely linked to the articulation of masculine identities. </p>
<p>In classical Greece the male citizen received his equal share of meat after communal religious sacrifices carried out by the <em>polis</em> (“city-state”). Meat eating also features prominently in several anecdotes about successful ancient Greek athletes who toned their extraordinary bodies through the consumption of ridiculous amounts of meat.</p>
<p>One of them – a boxer named Theagenes – even claimed to have gobbled up an entire oxen in one sitting. Another one – Milo of Croton – apparently gained his extraordinary strength by carrying a heifer on his back as a young man until both he and the heifer had grown up. </p>
<p>Meanwhile at Rome, the elites sought to outdo each other by hosting ever more lavish dinner parties typically featuring one or several meat dishes. More often than not this involved attempts to serve a bigger or larger quantity of boar than their peers. <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Sumtuariae_Leges.html">Roman sumptuary laws</a> eventually sought to control the worst excesses – albeit with limited success. </p>
<h2>The shearwaters of Diomedea</h2>
<p>The real also blends into the imaginary in the story of a special kind of bird. The Scopoli Shearwater (<em>Calonectris Diomedea</em>) is a species common to the Adriatic and other parts of the Mediterranean Sea. One of its outstanding features is that its cries resemble that of a wailing baby. These birds feed on small fish, crustaceans, squid, and zooplankton and are both migratory and pelagic. </p>
<p>The stories told about these birds by several ancient authors bring us to what is perhaps the most momentous way of exploring the human-animal boundary: the idea that in the realm of myth, at least, some humans, under certain conditions, could turn into animals and back again (metamorphosis). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A shearwater in the sea." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581199/original/file-20240312-28-mfz55.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A scopoli shearwater.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">D.serra1/shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aelian-characteristics_animals/1958/pb_LCL446.15.xml">Aelian</a>, some shearwaters residing on a rocky, otherwise uninhabited island in the Mediterranean Sea showed puzzling behaviour. They duly ignored all non-Greeks arriving on their island. Yet if Greek people reached their shores they welcomed them with stretched wings, even settling down on their laps as if for a joint meal. </p>
<p>What motivated this curious behaviour? </p>
<p>The backstory explains that the birds were once human. They were the comrades of Diomedes, king of Argos, one of the Greeks fighting at Troy, who is said to have died on the same island now inhabited by the birds. Apparently, upon his death, his friends grieved so heavily the goddess Aphrodite turned them into birds – their cries forever bemoaning the passing of their comrade. </p>
<p>On the face of it this story is merely another example of a myth explaining an outstanding feature in nature (the birds’ endearing <a href="https://www.birdlife.org/news/2021/05/31/seabird-month-corys-shearwater-calonectris-borealis/">human-like cry</a>). Yet there is more to the birds’ curious behaviour than meets the eye. In discriminating between Greeks and non-Greeks the birds seem to recall not only their former humanity but specifically their Greekness; they even seem to engage in the central Greek practice of extending friendship to guests (<em>xenia</em>) and the sharing of food. </p>
<p>In doing so they illustrate a central point of ancient (and many modern) tales of metamorphosis: even though the body may turn animal, the mind remains human. As the seat of logos it contains our humanity while the body adds little, if anything, of substance.</p>
<p>As such, rather than imagining what the world looks like from the point of view of a non-human creature, tales of metamorphosis ultimately come to reaffirm the view that the human stands apart from all other animals. </p>
<h2>And so?</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Trojan Horse and other stories: book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cambridge University Press</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In the myth of the Minotaur, the Greek hero Theseus eventually enters the labyrinth in which the Minotaur is confined, tracking him down, and slaying him. With the help of a thread given to him by Ariadne, he finds his way back out to tell the tale.</p>
<p>But trying to make sense of the Minotaur and other iconic creatures from the ancient world leads us down a rabbit hole into a place of blurred boundaries: where the human emerges as a contested figure somewhere in the space between mind and body, human and animal parts.</p>
<p>In the end, then, there is no hard and fast boundary separating us from all other creatures – notwithstanding all efforts to dress ourselves up as different.
Rather, it is the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/trojan-horse-and-other-stories/6DD8408FDBA4C5C6604536F6EC7406D5">negotiations between different facets of our identity</a> which make us human</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218800/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Kindt received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and is a member of the Sydney Environment Institute.</span></em></p>
What makes us human? Greek and Roman thinkers were preoccupied with this question. And some of their observations of animals foreshadowed recent findings in the behavioural sciences.
Julia Kindt, Professor, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215049
2023-10-31T21:15:06Z
2023-10-31T21:15:06Z
‘Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)’ turns 30: How the album pays homage to hip-hop’s mythical and martial arts origins
<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/enter-the-wu-tang-36-chambers-turns-30-how-the-album-pays-homage-to-hip-hops-mythical-and-martial-arts-origins" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>2023 marks the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/01/1197210646/fresh-air-celebrates-50-years-of-hip-hop-wu-tang-clans-rza">50th anniversary of hip-hop</a> culture and the 30th anniversary of the Wu-Tang Clan’s <em>Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)</em>.</p>
<p>Released on Nov. 9, 1993, the <em>36 Chambers</em> introduced its audiences to the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/wutang-clan-and-rza-9780313384424/">world of the Wu-Tang Clan</a> which was largely inspired by Asian martial arts and films.</p>
<p>Scholars working on <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814775813/afroasian-encounters/">Afro-Asian encounters</a>, <a href="https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Critical_Minded/yh0JAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Critical%20minded%20:%20new%20approaches%20to%20hip%20hop%20studies">hip-hop</a> and the <a href="https://tupress.temple.edu/books/chinese-connections">transnational circulation of film</a> have discussed the connection between martial arts and hip-hop culture at large. </p>
<p>My research examines how in the making of hip-hop culture, kung fu films were <a href="https://www.bard.edu/library/arendt/pdfs/Eliade_MythAndReality.pdf">mythic models</a> by which urban youth ritually transformed their world into that of the urban warrior. It is not that these youth became literal “warriors,” but that they reimagined their hip-hop performance arts as martial arts.</p>
<p>The Wu-Tang Clan’s <em>36 Chambers</em> repeated these same rituals and paid homage to mythical and martial origins of hip-hop culture. </p>
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<h2>In the beginning</h2>
<p>Hip-hop traditionally goes back to <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312425791/cantstopwontstop">the summer of 1973</a>. It was a New York City subculture of urban youth that emerged alongside a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cinema-of-hong-kong/kung-fu-craze-hong-kong-cinemas-first-american-reception/693947D529C969249691BF74CE361527">pop-cultural craze</a> for Asian martial arts and films. </p>
<p>Discussing martial arts and hip-hop culture, some scholars focus on the <a href="https://sunypress.edu/Books/F/From-Kung-Fu-to-Hip-Hop2">cross-cultural impact of Bruce Lee</a>, who historian Robin D.G. Kelley describes as an Asian American “<a href="https://www.beacon.org/Yo-Mamas-Disfunktional-P148.aspx">among a pantheon of Black heroes</a>.”</p>
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<p>Cultural critic Nelson George goes so far as to credit 1970s kung fu movies <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/330984/hip-hop-america-by-nelson-george/">for helping create hip-hop culture</a>, because well into the early 1980s, hip-hop pioneers like Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five were inspired by kung fu films. </p>
<p>George’s 2016 Netflix series, <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80025601"><em>The Get Down</em></a>, dramatizes hip-hop’s origins in the Bronx, New York. In this drama, Grandmaster Flash mentors Shaolin Fantastic, whose belt-buckle reads “kung fu” with an image of Bruce Lee. </p>
<h2>Why this martial arts and hip-hop connection?</h2>
<p>Of course, hip-hop artists customarily competed with rival artists. Marcyliena Morgan, a social sciences professor who writes on hip-hop language and culture, <a href="https://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/publications/hip-hop-and-philosophy-rhyme-2-reason">speaks of an inherent battle ethos</a> that made hip-hop translatable as martial arts.</p>
<p>Historian Fanon Che Wilkins explains that films <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p075001">like Wu-Tang’s beloved <em>36th Chamber of Shaolin</em></a> (1978) were full of East Asian religious imagery and symbolism, notably that of Taoism, Zen Buddhism and Confucianism. And imagining oneself as a martial artist could elevate one’s competitive play to a spiritual practice.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556659/original/file-20231030-19-zasqbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A line of figures wearing black martial arts clothing and white coverings over their faces." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556659/original/file-20231030-19-zasqbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556659/original/file-20231030-19-zasqbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556659/original/file-20231030-19-zasqbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556659/original/file-20231030-19-zasqbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556659/original/file-20231030-19-zasqbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556659/original/file-20231030-19-zasqbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556659/original/file-20231030-19-zasqbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Front cover art for <em>Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)</em>, 1993.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wu-TangClanEntertheWu-Tangalbumcover.jpg">(Loud Records/RCA Records)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814214602.html">Issues of race and gender</a> were also at stake. Martial arts provided young Black American men with dignified ideals of manhood that <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780822397748-013/html">opposed racist stereotypes of black masculinity</a>.</p>
<p>But while Asian martial arts and films were rich with esthetic, spiritual and racial significance, in all cases, they inspired Black and brown youth to reimagine their artistic lifestyles as warrior-like. Asian martial arts and films functioned like mythic models for the making of urban warriors, and later the Wu-Tang Clan. </p>
<h2>Enter the <em>36 Chambers</em></h2>
<p><em>36 Chambers</em> debuted in 1993, when hip-hop music was commercially dominated by <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003060581-5/kickin-reality-kickin-ballistics-robin-kelley">West Coast gangster rap</a>. This genre, says George, drew its inspiration from the 1970s <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Soul-Babies-Black-Popular-Culture-and-the-Post-Soul-Aesthetic/Neal/p/book/9780415926584">Blaxploitation</a> films that also informed hip-hop culture.</p>
<p>Like some gangster rap, <em>36 Chambers</em> dealt with the lived realities of urban youth. Songs like “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL_m18Q-9B8">Tearz</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m148vZDwJA">Can It All Be So Simple</a>,” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwAxmrE194">C.R.E.A.M.</a>” talked about the inner-city conditions that cause untimely deaths, poverty and criminality.</p>
<p>But unlike Snoop Doggy Dogg’s November 1993 debut, <em>Doggystyle</em>, which enveloped listeners in a “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En3IgstEmcU">Doggy Dogg World</a>” of gangsters, pimps and hustlers, <em>36 Chambers</em> drew from the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1n7qm2h">esthetics of Chinese kung fu films</a> and immersed audiences in a world of lyrical warriors. </p>
<h2>MCing as martial art</h2>
<p>On this album, the art of MCing was first and foremost a martial art. One could be annihilated in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9gBO6mhDLU">“36 chambers of death” by “360 degrees of perfected styles</a>.” </p>
<p>In the spirit of battling, songs like “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvbb7F2CCOU">Protect Ya Neck</a>,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1GdDt5mrqo">Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F* Wit</a>,” and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRhRNgqPlyk">Bring Da Ruckus</a>” conveyed the danger and deadliness of the Wu’s lyricism. The latter song opened with a movie sample that presented the Wu as serious threat to all would-be MCs.</p>
<p>The sample was taken from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083062/"><em>Shaolin and Wu-Tang</em> (1983)</a>, a film after which the Wu had crafted their identity as a group of nine men <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/s-h-fernando/from-the-streets-of-shaolin/9780306874437/">from the slums of Shaolin</a>. Shaolin is <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/the-shaolin-monastery-history-religion-and-the-chinese-martial-arts/">a historical Buddhist tradition in China</a>, but here it symbolizes <a href="https://pitchfork.com/news/new-york-street-corner-now-named-wu-tang-clan-district/">Staten Island, New York</a>, where the Wu-Tang Clan as a group was formed. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1124737446527287296"}"></div></p>
<h2>Spiritual meaning of 36</h2>
<p>While the aforementioned songs and <a href="https://www.wired.com/2007/10/pl-music/">sample were meant to induce a feeling of being in a martial world</a>, the <em>36 Chambers</em> was also based on the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078243/"><em>36th Chamber of Shaolin</em></a>, a film that showed how martial arts was both a physical <em>and</em> spiritual ordeal. Thus, there was more to entering the <em>36 Chambers</em> than chopping off MCs’ heads and warning them to “protect ya neck!”</p>
<p>The number “36,” for instance, had a spiritual meaning. For the Wu, this meaning was based on several <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/293773/the-wu-tang-manual-by-the-rza-and-chris-norris/">numerological correlations</a> between the number 36, the nine members of the band, and the number of chambers in each member’s heart.</p>
<p>It was also based on the teachings of the <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Five-Percenters/Michael-Muhammad-Knight/9781851686155">Five Percent Nation</a> (also called <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Five-Percent-Nation">Nation of Gods and Earths</a>), a Black American movement influenced by Islamic traditions in which the <a href="https://iupress.org/9780253217639/five-percenter-rap/">Wu and other rappers were engrossed</a>.</p>
<p>Suffice it to say that to “enter the 36 chambers” was to enter the myth and <a href="https://www.springpublications.com/eliade.html">mysteries</a> of the Wu-Tang Clan. This was also implied by the album’s esoteric cover art and song, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lki_5CVKS0Y">Da Mystery of Chessboxin’</a>,” which likewise took its name from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199813/">a kung fu film</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pJk0p-98Xzc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Wu-Tang Clan - ‘Da Mystery Of Chessboxin’‘ (Official Video)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Overall, the album extended an initiatory call to experience, what sociologist Tricia Rose terms the <a href="https://www.weslpress.org/9780819562753/black-noise/">emotional and sonic force</a> of Wu’s music. It was a sonic rite of passage into their martial styles and spirituality. </p>
<h2>Re-enter hip-hop</h2>
<p>On the <a href="https://www.thisiscertified.com/">25th anniversary of the album</a>, the former Shaolin monk and Wu-Tang affiliate, <a href="https://usashaolintemple.com/shiyanming/">Shi Yan Ming</a>, said the only way to enter hip-hop is by entering the Wu-Tang Clan’s <em>36 Chambers</em>. His statement presupposes that we accept authentic MCing as a martial art. </p>
<p>Whether we agree with Shi Yan Ming or not, <em>36 Chambers</em> recalls hip-hop’s mythical and martial influences. This is one way in which it belongs in conversations about hip-hop’s 50th year anniversary.</p>
<p>Wu-Tang Forever!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215049/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marcus Evans, PhD. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Asian martial arts and films functioned as mythic models which inspired Black and brown youth in the making of ‘urban warriors,’ and later the Wu-Tang Clan.
Marcus Evans, PhD., PhD. Candidate, Department of Religious Studies, McMaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210939
2023-10-30T12:11:30Z
2023-10-30T12:11:30Z
Nos Galan Gaeaf: the traditional Welsh celebration being eclipsed by modern Halloween
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555331/original/file-20231023-27-3fyhsc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6016%2C3998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nos Galan Gaeaf on October 31 is followed by Calan Gaeaf on November 1 in Wales. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sheep-cow-animal-skull-on-abandon-2353014109">PBabic/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Children throughout Wales will be dressed in witch or ghost costumes come October 31, going from door to door, chorusing “trick or treat” in the hope of receiving sweets. In other words, the scene will be very much like that encountered at Halloween in the rest of the UK. </p>
<p>On posters advertising Halloween events in Wales, the word Halloween is rendered in Welsh as <a href="https://museum.wales/blog/1857/Halloween-Traditions/"><em>Nos Galan Gaeaf</em></a>. A <a href="https://nation.cymru/news/call-to-ditch-anglo-american-halloween-and-restore-welsh-traditions/">common complaint</a> is that traditional customs at this time of year have been eclipsed by an increasingly homogenised and commercialised event imported from the USA. </p>
<p>But how would Welsh people have celebrated <em>Nos Galan Gaeaf</em> in former centuries? What is its origin? And has it always been intrinsically linked to Halloween?</p>
<h2>October 31 celebrations</h2>
<p>Halloween has its <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/All-Saints-Day">origins</a> in AD609 or AD610 when the Pantheon in Rome was converted to a place of Christian worship and dedicated to Mary and to all the martyrs by Pope Boniface IV, who ordered an anniversary to be celebrated. </p>
<p>In the eighth century, the date of the celebration at the Basilica of St. Peter was fixed on November 1. This was extended by Gregory IV in the early ninth century to the whole church. </p>
<p>This celebration was known in English as “All Hallows Day”, and thus the eve is Halloween. It is quite plausible that there was already a seasonal festival of some sort at this date and that some of the features of this festival were transferred to Halloween.</p>
<p>A common <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2021/10/the-origins-of-halloween-traditions/#:%7E:text=Yet%2C%20the%20Halloween%20holiday%20has,costumes%20to%20ward%20off%20ghosts.">claim</a> is that Halloween is essentially Celtic. It is true that Gaelic-speaking places (Ireland, Gaelic Scotland and the Isle of Man) celebrated, at this time, a festival called <em><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Samhain">Samhain</a></em>, references to which abound in early medieval Irish <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tXEyEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT8&dq=medieval+irish+samhain&ots=7srml1iSDo&sig=cZXC5ybD81Yu1vJAreNFi34Q1RI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=medieval%20irish%20samhain&f=false">literature</a>. It was presented as a time of uncanny events and otherworldly visitations. </p>
<p>The name <em>Samhain</em> is often mispronounced by non-Gaelic speakers as “Sam Hain”. But it is actually closer, in modern Irish pronunciation, to “sow won” (sow as in female pig). </p>
<p>However, while Welsh is also a Celtic language, there is no evidence for <em>Samhain</em> having been celebrated in Wales – so, it could well be a Gaelic rather than a Celtic institution. The oft-repeated <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/halloween-owes-its-tricks-and-treats-celtic-new-years-eve-180960944/">claim</a> that it signifies the start of the Celtic year is based on the speculation of comparative mythologists.</p>
<p>The name <em>Nos Galan Gaeaf</em> certainly does not go back to a prehistoric period of Celtic linguistic unity. The word <a href="https://geiriadur.ac.uk/gpc/gpc.html"><em>calan</em></a> is borrowed from the Latin <em>calends</em>, meaning “the first day of the month”, while <em>gaeaf</em> means “winter”. </p>
<p>So we can think of it as “the winter calends”, or “the first day of winter”. <em>Calan</em> was one of hundreds of Latin loan words that entered the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brythonic-languages">Brittonic</a> language, the ancestor of the Welsh language, during the period in which Britain was part of the Roman Empire. </p>
<p>There is, however, an element of the name which does have Celtic ancestry. <em>Calan Gaeaf</em> on its own is November 1, but <em>Nos Galan Gaeaf</em> (the “night of the winter calends”), is the night before. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0001">Julius Caesar</a> said of the Celtic-speaking Gauls (who inhabited what is now France and Belgium), that they counted the day to begin on the previous evening. This is reflected in <a href="https://celt.ucc.ie">medieval Irish</a>, where the term <em>aidche Lúain</em> means “the night before Monday” – what we would call Sunday night. This is merely a linguistic fossil, however, and does not prove anything about the antiquity of <em>Nos Galan Gaeaf</em>.</p>
<p>There are medieval references to it, for example, in poetry from the <a href="https://www.library.wales/discover-learn/digital-exhibitions/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/the-black-book-of-carmarthen">Black Book of Carmarthen</a>, a collection of early Welsh poems and manuscripts. <em>Calan Gaeaf</em> is also mentioned in the <a href="https://www.library.wales/discover-learn/digital-exhibitions/manuscripts/the-middle-ages/laws-of-hywel-dda#:%7E:text=The%20%27Laws%20of%20Hywel%20Dda,quarter%20of%20the%2013th%20century.">early Welsh laws</a>, detailed in 13th-century manuscripts, but those references are disappointingly prosaic. </p>
<p>And, it is only in the modern period that we have <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.29074/page/n5/mode/2up">references</a> to <em>Nos Galan Gaeaf</em> customs, exhaustively catalogued in the 20th century by the historian, Trefor M. Owen.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A spooky black and white forest with twisted trees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555615/original/file-20231024-23-xeucjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555615/original/file-20231024-23-xeucjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555615/original/file-20231024-23-xeucjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555615/original/file-20231024-23-xeucjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555615/original/file-20231024-23-xeucjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555615/original/file-20231024-23-xeucjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555615/original/file-20231024-23-xeucjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beware the lurking Hwch Ddu Gwta and the Ladi Wen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/spooky-wooodland-scene-twisted-trees-black-619428050">bearacreative/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Spooky customs</h2>
<p>How people <a href="https://museum.wales/blog/1857/Halloween-Traditions/">celebrated</a> varied significantly from region to region. Many, such as bobbing for apples, and various types of divination to determine who will marry who, are far from unique to Wales. Nonetheless, some have an unfamiliar twist. </p>
<p>In south Wales, parties of young people would maraud from door to door like modern trick or treaters. In Glamorgan, boys would wear women’s clothing. Much more sinister were the <em>gwrachod</em> (meaning “witches” or “hags”) of Powys though. These were men who would go about in pairs, dressed as an old man and old woman, or in gangs dressed in sheep skins and masks, drinking heavily and demanding gifts.</p>
<p>The lighting of a bonfire, or <em>coelcerth</em>, was a notable feature too. Close to the fires, people would be safe from wandering spirits, but the return home could be a fraught business. In the darkness lurked the <em><a href="https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/606778">Hwch Ddu Gwta</a></em> (tail-less black sow) accompanied by the <em><a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100047409">Ladi Wen</a> heb ddim pen</em> (the white lady without a head). </p>
<p>If you want to stand out from the crowd of mummies and vampires this October 31, you could do worse than dressing as one of these gruesome characters instead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Rodway does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Nos Galan Gaeaf on October 31 in Wales is steeped in folklore and tradition.
Simon Rodway, Lecturer in Celtic Studies, Aberystwyth University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215659
2023-10-17T12:19:37Z
2023-10-17T12:19:37Z
Louise Glück honed her poetic voice across a lifetime to speak to us from beyond the grave
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554065/original/file-20231016-15-9jajn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1620%2C1079&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Louise Glück was photographed outside her home in Cambridge, Mass., after being named the 2020 Nobel laureate in literature.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2020/gluck/photo-gallery/">Daniel Ebersole/Nobel Prize Outreach</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When asked what her response was to being awarded the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/books/louise-gluck-nobel-prize-literature.html">Nobel Prize in literature in 2020</a>, Louise Glück replied that she was “completely flabbergasted.” She said she had thought it “extremely unlikely that I would ever have this particular event to deal with in my life.”</p>
<p>Glück, who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/10/13/louise-gluck-dead/">died on Oct. 13, 2023</a>, at the age of 80, may have been taken aback that she was granted this exalted honor, the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/louise-gluck-prize-winning-poet-of-terse-and-candid-lyricism-dies-at-80">first American poet</a> to win since T.S. Eliot in 1948. But her win was far less surprising to those who know and love her work, and who now mourn her loss. </p>
<p>The Nobel Committee for Literature selected Glück for this literary achievement to <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2020/gluck/facts/">honor her</a> “unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://dornsife.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1062252">poet and professor of writing</a>, I have long been an admirer of Glück’s spare and striking work. Her lyric voice still reverberates after her death, in part because of how consistently she turned her attention to questions of mortality.</p>
<h2>A cruel clarity of vision</h2>
<p>Glück said, in the same interview about her Nobel win, “I’ve written about death since I could write.” Her work turns again and again to the human story, those elemental facets of life that unite people. She went on to say, “I look for archetypal experience, and I assume that my struggles and joys are not unique.” </p>
<p>What’s common to humanity characterizes her work: Her focus on lasting themes of family and heartache and loss has earned her a wide audience and lasting acclaim. Before being awarded the Nobel Prize, Glück won the <a href="https://www.nationalbook.org/people/louise-gluck/">National Book Award</a> for “Faithful and Virtuous Night” in 2014 and the <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/louise-gluck">Pulitzer Prize</a> for “Wild Iris” in 1992, among other accolades. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FWQUMaI3wPs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Louise Glück reads selected poems.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though well received, Glück’s work is not always inviting. It can have an icy abruptness; she often writes speakers who have a cruel clarity of vision. In her poem “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49601/mock-orange">Mock Orange</a>” she writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is not the moon, I tell you.</p>
<p>It is these flowers</p>
<p>lighting the yard.</p>
<p>I hate them.</p>
<p>I hate them as I hate sex </p>
</blockquote>
<p>which she goes on to describe as “the low, humiliating / premise of union.” As the poem ends, her speaker asks, “How can I be content / when there is still / that odor in the world?” </p>
<p>The lyric “I,” the first-person speaker of Glück’s poems, is rarely content. Though Glück wrote in the voice of many characters and from many perspectives, woven throughout her work is a perspective that tends to find the world – and the self – wanting. </p>
<p>It may be surprising, then, how strongly readers have responded to her still, spare, often quietly devastating work. It attends to daily human struggles as if from a distance, what the critic Helen Vendler described as “almost through the <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/159665/poetry-louise-gluck">wrong end of a telescope</a>.” As in the old adage about what poetry can do, Glück <a href="https://theworld.com/%7Eraparker/exploring/tseliot/works/essays/andrew_marvell.html">made the familiar strange</a>, which is perhaps what continues to draw readers to her work: It renders the close-up experiences of heartbreak and hope from a new perspective.</p>
<h2>Ancient voices speaking to the everyday</h2>
<p>Glück also made the strange familiar, especially the distant world of myth. She brought ancient figures down to a human level by exploring everyday dramas through their voices. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554070/original/file-20231016-25-r0pb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Poster with an image of a young Louise Glück leaning against a brick wall, promoting a reading at the Poetry Center of the Museum of Contemporary Art" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554070/original/file-20231016-25-r0pb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554070/original/file-20231016-25-r0pb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554070/original/file-20231016-25-r0pb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554070/original/file-20231016-25-r0pb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554070/original/file-20231016-25-r0pb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554070/original/file-20231016-25-r0pb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554070/original/file-20231016-25-r0pb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster promotes a Louise Glück reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago on Jan. 21, 1977.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archive.poetrycenter.org/2015/07/21/gluck-louise-1977-2004/">The Poetry Center at the Museum of Contemporary Art</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She wrote often of families and the ways they fail each other, though slantingly, as when Glück explores strained dynamics between mothers and daughters via the Greek goddesses <a href="https://poets.org/poem/persephone-wanderer">Demeter and Persephone</a>. She makes vivid the challenges of marriage through the characters of Homer’s “Odyssey” in her 1996 book “Meadowlands.” A poem from that work, “<a href="https://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/gluck/Telemachus.html">Telemachus’ Detachment</a>,” envisages the son of Odysseus and Penelope reflecting on his parents’ union as “heartbreaking, but also / insane. Also / very funny.” Her register was wide: Though Glück wrote with a kind of detachment about even the most intimate of emotions, it was often via characters who spoke wryly, abruptly, with gallows humor and a gimlet eye for human frailty.</p>
<p>Failure and loss frequently gave rise to her work: Her fifth book, “Ararat,” published in 1990, arose after her father’s death; her 1999 book, “<a href="https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/louise-glucks-nine-lives/docview/231943493/se-2">Vita Nova,</a>” emerged from the dissolution of her marriage. Even her titles exemplify the dense literary references that characterize her work:
“Ararat” echoes the story of Noah’s flood, and “Vita Nova” is named after Dante Alighieri’s poems on the death of his beloved. In “Vita Nova,” the way we fail those we love is explored via the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. </p>
<h2>Contact even at a distance</h2>
<p>“Wild Iris,” one of Glück’s <a href="https://poets.org/poet/louise-gluck">most honored works</a>, winning both the Pulitzer Prize and The Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award, is exemplary of her style. A book of poems written after a <a href="https://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities-medals/louise-gl%C3%BCck">paralyzing period of writer’s block</a>, it is the voice of flowers, of prayers, of the soul beyond death and of God speaking back through her poems. Even when talking to God, the speaker remains acerbic and questioning: The <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49758/vespers-once-i-believed-in-you">first line of one poem</a> to God begins “Once, I believed in you … .” </p>
<p>The title piece of the collection speaks in the voice of a flower emerging in spring and as a speaker from beyond the grave, “whatever / returns from oblivion returns / to find a voice.” Another poem in the voice of “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49760/the-silver-lily">The Silver Lily</a>” says “We have come too far together toward the end now / to fear the end.” </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iDL8IMLA0Uc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Louise Glück reads from ‘Faithful and Virtuous Night’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Louise Glück’s poems can feel like they come at the drama of life from a distance: The voice in her poems has been described as <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/poems-louise-gl-ck/1120357967">vatic</a>, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/159665/poetry-louise-gluck">divinatory</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/books/louise-gluck-nobel-prize-literature.html">Delphic</a> and <a href="https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3407600191/GVRL?u=usocal_main&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=9003490a">haunting</a>, evoking a ghost speaking across time, able to narrate its own story with a dispassionate disinterest. </p>
<p>In the end, it was this carefully crafted, piercing observation of what is core to our human struggle that continues to animate Glück’s work for so many. If ever a poetic voice was honed across a lifetime to speak to us from beyond the grave, it’s Glück’s.</p>
<p><em>This article was updated to clarify that Glück was the first American poet to win the Nobel Prize in literature since T.S. Eliot.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Cannon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A celebrated poet and Nobel laureate, Louise Glück wrote about mortality, broken families and human frailty with devastating wryness and quiet beauty.
Amy Cannon, Associate Professor of Writing, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211619
2023-08-17T00:58:14Z
2023-08-17T00:58:14Z
A dramatic volcano eruption changed lives in Fiji 2,500 years ago. 100 generations have kept the story alive
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542953/original/file-20230816-20-ud5god.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=126%2C205%2C3663%2C2571&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Can you imagine a scientist who could neither read nor write, who spoke their wisdom in riddles, in tales of fantastic beings flying through the sky, fighting each another furiously and noisily, drinking the ocean dry, and throwing giant spears with force enough to leave massive holes in rocky headlands?</p>
<p>Our newly published research <a href="https://journal.oraltradition.org/driva-qele-stealing-earth-oral-accounts-of-the-volcanic-eruption-of-nabukelevu-mt-washington-kadavu-island-fiji-2500-years-ago/">in the journal Oral Tradition</a> shows memories of a volcanic eruption in Fiji some 2,500 years ago were encoded in oral traditions in precisely these ways.</p>
<p>They were never intended as fanciful stories, but rather as the pragmatic foundations of a system of local risk management.</p>
<h2>Life-changing events</h2>
<p>Around 2,500 years ago, at the western end of the island of Kadavu in the southern part of Fiji, the ground shook, the ocean became agitated, and clouds of billowing smoke and ash poured into the sky.</p>
<p>When the clouds cleared, the people saw a new mountain had formed, its shape resembling a mound of earth in which yams are grown. This gave the mountain its name – Nabukelevu, the giant yam mound. (It was renamed Mount Washington during Fiji’s colonial history.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542950/original/file-20230816-17-71orq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Photo of a flat-topped volcano with a beach in front, and a drawing of a similar mountain in the top left corner" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542950/original/file-20230816-17-71orq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542950/original/file-20230816-17-71orq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542950/original/file-20230816-17-71orq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542950/original/file-20230816-17-71orq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=350&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542950/original/file-20230816-17-71orq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542950/original/file-20230816-17-71orq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542950/original/file-20230816-17-71orq5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nabukelevu from the northeast, its top hidden in cloud. Inset: Nabukelevu from the west in 1827 after the drawing by the artist aboard the <em>Astrolabe</em>, the ship of French explorer Dumont d’Urville. It is an original lithograph by H. van der Burch after original artwork by Louis Auguste de Sainson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons; Australian National Maritime Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So dramatic, so life-changing were the events <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0377027303004141">associated with this eruption</a>, the people who witnessed it told stories about it. These stories have endured more than two millennia, faithfully passed on across roughly 100 generations to reach us today.</p>
<p>Scientists used to dismiss such stories as fictions, devalue them with labels like “myth” or “legend”. But the situation is changing. </p>
<p>Today, we are starting to recognise that many such “stories” are authentic memories of human pasts, encoded in oral traditions in ways that represent the worldviews of people from <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/edge-of-memory-9781472943286/">long ago</a>.</p>
<p>In other words, these stories served the same purpose as scientific accounts, and the people who told them were trying to understand the natural world, much like scientists do today.</p>
<h2>Battle of the <em>vu</em></h2>
<p>The most common story about the 2,500-year-old eruption of Nabukelevu is one involving a “god” (<em>vu</em> in Fijian) named Tanovo from the island of Ono, about 56km from the volcano.</p>
<p>Tanovo’s view of the sunset became blocked one day by this huge mountain. Our research identifies this as a volcanic dome that was created during the eruption, raising the height of the mountain several hundred feet.</p>
<p>Enraged, Tanovo flew to Nabukelevu and started to tear down the mountain, a process described by local residents as <em>driva qele</em> (stealing earth). This explains why even today the summit of Nabukelevu has a crater.</p>
<p>But Tanovo was interrupted by the “god” of Nabukelevu, named Tautaumolau. The pair started fighting. A chase ensued through the sky and, as the two twisted and turned, the earth being carried by Tanovo started falling to the ground, where it is said to have “created” islands.</p>
<p>We conclude that the sequence in which these islands are said to have been created is likely to represent the movement of the ash plume from the eruption, as shown on the map below.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542959/original/file-20230816-19-96orcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing a jagged landmass with an inset showing a plume of ash swirling across it" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542959/original/file-20230816-19-96orcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542959/original/file-20230816-19-96orcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542959/original/file-20230816-19-96orcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542959/original/file-20230816-19-96orcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542959/original/file-20230816-19-96orcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542959/original/file-20230816-19-96orcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542959/original/file-20230816-19-96orcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smaller offshore islands named in seven versions of the Nabukelevu story as having formed following the Nabukelevu eruption. Inset shows the possible trace of the ash cloud based on the stories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Myths’ based in fact</h2>
<p>Geologists would today find it exceedingly difficult to deduce such details of an ancient eruption. But here, in the oral traditions of Kadavu people, this information is readily available.</p>
<p>Another detail we would never know if we did not have the oral traditions is about the tsunami the eruption caused. </p>
<p>In some versions of the story, one of the “gods” is so frightened, he hides beneath the sea. But his rival comes along and drinks up all the water at that place, a detail our research interprets as a memory of the ocean withdrawing prior to tsunami impact.</p>
<p>Other details in the oral traditions recall how one god threw a massive spear at his rival but missed, leaving behind a huge hole in a rock. This is a good example of how landforms likely predating the eruption can be retrofitted to a narrative.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542952/original/file-20230816-23-afpteq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An orange rock jutting out of the water with a large hole within" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542952/original/file-20230816-23-afpteq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542952/original/file-20230816-23-afpteq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542952/original/file-20230816-23-afpteq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542952/original/file-20230816-23-afpteq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542952/original/file-20230816-23-afpteq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542952/original/file-20230816-23-afpteq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542952/original/file-20230816-23-afpteq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The hole made when a spear was thrown by one god at the other, on the north coast of eastern Kadavu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our study adds to the growing body of scientific research into “myths” and “legends”, showing that many have a basis in fact, and the details they contain add depth and breadth to our understanding of human pasts.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://kaidravuni.com/">Kadavu volcano stories</a> discussed here also show ancient societies were no less risk aware and risk averse than ours are today. The imperative was to survive, greatly aided by keeping alive memories of all the hazards that existed in a particular place.</p>
<p>Australian First Peoples’ cultures are <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-bullin-shrieked-aboriginal-memories-of-volcanic-eruptions-thousands-of-years-ago-81986">replete with similar stories</a>.</p>
<p>Literate people, those who read and write, tend to be impressed by the extraordinary time depth of oral traditions, like those about the 2,500-year old eruption of Nabukelevu. But not everyone is.</p>
<p>In early 2019, I was sitting and chatting to Ratu Petero Uluinaceva in Waisomo Village, after he had finished relating the Ono people’s story of the eruption. I told him this particular story recalled events which occurred more than two millennia ago – and thought he might be impressed. But he wasn’t.</p>
<p>“We know our stories are that old, that they recall our ancient history,” he told me with a grin. “But we are glad you have now learned this too!”</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Acknowledgements: The original research was conducted in collaboration with Loredana Lancini and Rita Compatangelo-Soussignan (University of Le Mans), Meli Nanuku and Kaliopate Tavola (Fiji Museum), Taniela Bolea (University of the Sunshine Coast) and Paul Geraghty (University of the South Pacific).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211619/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick D. Nunn receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australia Pacific Climate Partnership, the Asia-Pacific Network, the Natural Environment Research Council (UK) and the British Academy.
The original research was conducted in collaboration with Loredana Lancini and Rita Compatangelo-Soussignan (University of Le Mans), Meli Nanuku and Kaliopate Tavola (Fiji Museum), Taniela Bolea (University of the Sunshine Coast) and Paul Geraghty (University of the South Pacific).</span></em></p>
Many ‘myths’ are authentic memories of human pasts, told by people who passed down precise accounts of their history.
Patrick D. Nunn, Professor of Geography, School of Law and Society, University of the Sunshine Coast
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/204677
2023-05-28T20:04:51Z
2023-05-28T20:04:51Z
A long and fishy tail: before Disney’s Little Mermaid, these creatures existed in mythologies from around the world
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527889/original/file-20230524-23-g3pkhd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C2977%2C1127&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">13th century painting of mermaids from a house in Barcelona. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mermaids are multicultural mythical figures, reflecting the continuing human fascination with the sea in stories echoing <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-cant-resist-the-lure-of-mermaids-80086">thousands of years into the past</a>. Mermaids are found in cultures across the globe.</p>
<p>In Australia, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-11/mermaids-across-the-world-arnhem-land/9846210">special water spirits</a> appear in the rock and bark art of First Nations people in Arnhem Land.</p>
<p>Across the continent of Africa, mermaid-like water deities such as <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-history-of-yemaya-goddess-mermaid">Yemaya</a> and <a href="https://africa.si.edu/exhibits/mamiwata/intro.html">Mami Wata</a> reflect the powerful connection between human communities and their environment. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527880/original/file-20230523-15345-se86zx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527880/original/file-20230523-15345-se86zx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527880/original/file-20230523-15345-se86zx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527880/original/file-20230523-15345-se86zx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527880/original/file-20230523-15345-se86zx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527880/original/file-20230523-15345-se86zx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527880/original/file-20230523-15345-se86zx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527880/original/file-20230523-15345-se86zx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mami Wata sculpture from the Ewe people from Ghana, c. 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">FundacionArellanoAlonso/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the most well-known mermaid narratives is Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32572/pg32572-images.html">The Little Mermaid</a>, now a live-action film from Disney.</p>
<p>By the time of its publication in 1837, The Little Mermaid was already a relative latecomer to the genre. Indeed, Hans Christian Andersen himself was raised with much earlier stories involving mermaids. </p>
<p>His childhood bedtime reading included the works of Shakespeare and the Tales of the Arabian Nights. </p>
<p>Shakespeare’s mermaids from <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/midsummer-nights-dream/?gclid=CjwKCAjwvJyjBhApEiwAWz2nLcQ6PuKfn8VpX9KTNJQptFQ9WYYWcBR86oiHzoyEPjpiqB1c1ko2-BoCsWcQAvD_BwE">A Midsummer Night’s Dream</a> are noted for their song. Oberon observes beautiful mermaid melodies could calm the sea and draw down the stars:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Since once I sat upon a promontory,<br>
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back<br>
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath<br>
That the rude sea grew civil at her song<br>
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,<br>
To hear the sea-maid’s music.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Andersen’s other bedtime book, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Thousand-and-One-Nights">Arabian Nights</a>, is a collection of Indian and Persian stories assembled over many centuries. Among these are narratives about merfolk, some of whom live in wonderful undersea palaces. </p>
<p>In one story, <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Thousand_Nights_and_One_Night/Abdallah_the_Fisherman_and_Abdallah_the_Merman">a human fisherman visits his merman friend</a> under the sea. There he finds communities of Jewish, Christian and Muslim merfolk, before their friendship ends over religious differences.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527881/original/file-20230523-27-3pbtkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527881/original/file-20230523-27-3pbtkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527881/original/file-20230523-27-3pbtkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527881/original/file-20230523-27-3pbtkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527881/original/file-20230523-27-3pbtkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527881/original/file-20230523-27-3pbtkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527881/original/file-20230523-27-3pbtkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527881/original/file-20230523-27-3pbtkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1015&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abdullah the Fisherman and Abdullah the Merman illustrated by Albert Letchford, 1897.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-little-mermaid-has-always-been-a-story-about-exclusion-and-its-author-was-an-outsider-191001">The Little Mermaid has always been a story about exclusion – and its author was an outsider</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Ancient wisdom from the deep</h2>
<p>Images of human-fish hybrid creatures can be found from the third millennium BCE in ancient Mesopotamia, a geographical area relating roughly to modern day Iraq. </p>
<p>The Apkallu, or the seven divine sages of Mesopotamian myth, can take the shape of human-fish hybrids. This is particularly interesting due to their connection to ancient <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/324338">wisdom traditions predating the great flood</a>. In Mesopotamian literature, as in the Bible, a <a href="https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/reflections-on-the-mesopotamian-flood/">great flood event</a> destroys most of humanity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527882/original/file-20230524-19-n7ychd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527882/original/file-20230524-19-n7ychd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527882/original/file-20230524-19-n7ychd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527882/original/file-20230524-19-n7ychd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527882/original/file-20230524-19-n7ychd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527882/original/file-20230524-19-n7ychd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527882/original/file-20230524-19-n7ychd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527882/original/file-20230524-19-n7ychd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Apkallu figure: male with a fish-skin hood, Assyrian, c. 9th–8th century BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As human-fish hybrids, the Apkallu were well-equipped to survive the flood and carry forward their wisdom traditions. According to Mesopotamian literature, the useful information given to humanity by the Apkallu included knowledge of medicine and building cities. </p>
<p>The connection of mermaids to wisdom and medicine extends to other ancient traditions. In Southern Africa, mermaids play a complex role in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43809484?seq=1">ages-old healing rituals</a>.</p>
<p>The ancient Near Eastern connection between mermaids and Flood traditions can be seen in the illustrated Nuremberg Bible of 1483, where <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1987/09/11/the-lure-lore-of-mermaids/b8c8480a-9cd4-4921-bdfe-d34b36e43e49/">merfolk are depicted swimming around the ark with their merdog</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527883/original/file-20230524-15-l4fgym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527883/original/file-20230524-15-l4fgym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527883/original/file-20230524-15-l4fgym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527883/original/file-20230524-15-l4fgym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527883/original/file-20230524-15-l4fgym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527883/original/file-20230524-15-l4fgym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527883/original/file-20230524-15-l4fgym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527883/original/file-20230524-15-l4fgym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Woodcut of Noah’s Ark from Anton Koberger’s Nuremberg Bible of 1483.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Edinburgh</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seafaring friends</h2>
<p>Across the world and across traditions, mermaids have been accompanied by many different creatures. Their close connection to the sea extends to animals who share their home.</p>
<p>As in the Nuremberg Bible, mermaids and seadogs are said to swim together in <a href="https://www.academia.edu/11722193/Recovering_and_Celebrating_Inuit_Knowledge_through_Design_The_Making_of_a_Virtual_Storytelling_Space">Inuit mythology</a> from North America. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527884/original/file-20230524-15-ueth5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527884/original/file-20230524-15-ueth5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527884/original/file-20230524-15-ueth5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527884/original/file-20230524-15-ueth5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527884/original/file-20230524-15-ueth5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527884/original/file-20230524-15-ueth5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527884/original/file-20230524-15-ueth5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527884/original/file-20230524-15-ueth5v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Havets Moder (‘Mother of the Sea’), granite sculpture by Greenlandic artist Aka Høegh, on the Nuuk coast, Greenland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gray Geezer/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In folklore from the Orkney Islands in Scotland merfolk are instead accompanied by seals, and are described <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25516511?seq=6">milking whales</a>. </p>
<p>In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, mermaids are accompanied by dolphins. In myths from East Asia and South America, they are friendly with turtles.</p>
<p>Similarities with the Danish fairy tale can be found in a famous story from South Korean folklore, dating to the 13th century CE.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527885/original/file-20230524-15-eqan30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527885/original/file-20230524-15-eqan30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527885/original/file-20230524-15-eqan30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527885/original/file-20230524-15-eqan30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527885/original/file-20230524-15-eqan30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527885/original/file-20230524-15-eqan30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527885/original/file-20230524-15-eqan30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527885/original/file-20230524-15-eqan30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hwang Ok Princess mermaid statue on the rocks by the sea at Dongbaek Island, Haeundae, South Korea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the story, the mermaid Princess Hwang-Ok (also known as Topaz) <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326776813_Legend_of_the_Blue_Sea_Mermaids_in_South_Korean_folklore_and_popular_culture">marries a prince and becomes more human</a>. </p>
<p>The princess is homesick for her underwater life, so her turtle companion helps her to use the moon to turn back into a mermaid and regain her wellbeing. </p>
<p>Turtles and whales appear with mermaids as helpers to the Mesoamerican storm deity <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Tezcatlipoca/">Tezcatlipoca</a>. The myth is an aetiological tale about the creation of music in the world.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mermaids-in-japan-from-hideous-harbingers-of-violence-to-beautiful-enchantresses-179251">Mermaids in Japan – from hideous harbingers of violence to beautiful enchantresses</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Captivating creatures of song</h2>
<p>Another theme shared by many mermaid myths is that of music. Powerful and persuasive song is a feature of numerous folkloric tales containing mermaids, including varieties of the Little Mermaid tale and Shakespeare.</p>
<p>In his fairy tale, Andersen’s mermaid uses her special abilities with music to win a contest in the royal court. In a disturbing scene, the voiceless mermaid participates in a song and dance contest against decoratively attired enslaved women, all competing for the prince’s attention.</p>
<p>In 1989, the animated Disney film’s soundtrack won both a Grammy award and two Oscars.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GC_mV1IpjWA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>In Shakespeare, mermaids are sometimes conflated with <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Siren/">the Sirens of Greek myth</a> by the poet. The two mythical figures were commonly viewed as interchangeable from the medieval times.</p>
<p>Sirens in ancient epics such as Homer’s Odyssey were known for their ability to lure people to their death with their sweet-sounding songs – and their promise to share secret wisdom with their listeners. Sirens, like merfolk, are known as hybrid creatures with powerful voices, but are usually <a href="https://www.audubon.org/news/sirens-greek-myth-were-bird-women-not-mermaids">depicted with bird-like, rather than fish-like</a>, qualities.</p>
<p>The power of merfolk to seduce with their charms may reflect the ability of the sea to capture the hearts of seafarers, and keep them away from their homes on land – by accident or design. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527886/original/file-20230524-15-9w9r0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527886/original/file-20230524-15-9w9r0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527886/original/file-20230524-15-9w9r0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527886/original/file-20230524-15-9w9r0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527886/original/file-20230524-15-9w9r0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527886/original/file-20230524-15-9w9r0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527886/original/file-20230524-15-9w9r0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527886/original/file-20230524-15-9w9r0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greek Vase in the Form of a Siren, c. 540 BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walters Art Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mysterious depths</h2>
<p>The dynamic nature of mermaid mythology contributes to their continuing popularity in the 21st century. </p>
<p>Mermaids build bridges between land and water (at times in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suvannamaccha">Southeast Asian</a> and South American myths, quite literally), between human and animal, and between wilderness and civilisation, giving a human face to the mysteries of the deep.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/disneys-black-mermaid-is-no-breakthrough-just-look-at-the-literary-subgenre-of-black-mermaid-fiction-194435">Disney's Black mermaid is no breakthrough – just look at the literary subgenre of Black mermaid fiction</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Pryke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From Ancient Mesopotamia to Shakespeare to Arnhem Land, humans have been telling tails of mermaids for millennia.
Louise Pryke, Honorary Research Associate, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197735
2023-02-08T13:43:00Z
2023-02-08T13:43:00Z
Don’t underestimate Cupid – he’s not the chubby cherub you associate with Valentine’s Day
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508485/original/file-20230206-31-17810f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C6%2C1013%2C787&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Cupid and Psyche' by Italian sculptor Antonio Canova</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/stature-of-cupid-and-psyche-embracing-from-the-villa-news-photo/517391898?phrase=cupid%20and%20psyche&adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ah, Valentine’s Day: that Hallmark holiday of greeting cards and chocolates, its bloody origins almost entirely forgotten over the last 2,000 years! </p>
<p>What began as a Christian feast day honoring two or three early Christian martyrs – <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-real-st-valentine-was-no-patron-of-love-90518">the original “Valentines</a>” – is now associated with flocks of winged cherubic Cupids, whose innocuous-looking bows and arrows symbolize gentle romance instead of death-dealing war. Somehow, the phrase “struck by Cupid’s arrow” is supposed to be exciting rather than excruciating.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-mythical-cupid-can-teach-us-about-the-meaning-of-love-and-desire-176760">The original Cupid</a> was the son of Venus, Roman goddess of love and beauty. He himself was a Roman deity associated with lust and love, based on the Greek Eros. In Greece and Rome, both figures were depicted as handsome young men, not as winged infants.</p>
<p>But ancient poets and artists also imagined a troop of “Erotes” or “Cupidines” as attendants of these gods. The Romans portrayed them as winged infants, <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469628400/inventing-the-renaissance-putto/">or “putti</a>,” as they became known in Italian Renaissance art. These, in turn, became the chubby cherubs of today’s valentines.</p>
<p>Despite envisioning the god with a troop of adorable attendants, even the Romans understood that Cupid had a darker, more dangerous side – one whose power you wouldn’t want to dismiss.</p>
<h2>Small but mighty</h2>
<p>The archer god Apollo found this out the hard way, as the poet Ovid told in his epic of A.D. 8, “Metamorphoses.” Having just <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/Metamorph.php#anchor_Toc64105469">slain the dragon of Delphi with 1,000 arrows,</a> Apollo provoked the fierce fury of Venus’ son by mocking Cupid’s seemingly toylike weapons.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A painting in black and white shows a winged naked figure talking with a man in a tunic." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508469/original/file-20230206-21-fnxjey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508469/original/file-20230206-21-fnxjey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508469/original/file-20230206-21-fnxjey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508469/original/file-20230206-21-fnxjey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508469/original/file-20230206-21-fnxjey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508469/original/file-20230206-21-fnxjey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508469/original/file-20230206-21-fnxjey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=957&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Cupid and Apollo’ by Pontormo (attributed to the School of Andrea del Sarto)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2916">Samek Art Museum at Bucknell University/National Art Gallery</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cupid swiftly took his revenge. He pierced Apollo’s heart with a golden arrow, causing him to fall passionately in love with the nymph Daphne. But Daphne was a sworn virgin, and Cupid shot her with a lead arrow, intensifying her loathing for all things amorous. </p>
<p>She fled from Apollo’s advances. The desperate deity pursued her relentlessly, until Daphne’s father <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D1%3Acard%3D452">turned her into a laurel tree to save her</a>. Cupid’s arrows, however diminutive, were more powerful than Apollo’s.</p>
<h2>The unseen spouse</h2>
<p>But the most famous characterization of Cupid in Latin literature appears in the work of Apuleius, who lived during the second century in what is now Algeria. He wrote <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/TheGoldenAssIV.php#anchor_Toc347999726">a story about Psyche</a>, a princess so exceedingly beautiful that mortals worshipped her as if she were the goddess of love herself.</p>
<p>Enraged by jealousy, Venus commanded her son to make Psyche fall in love with the most wretched man possible. But an oracle told the royal family that their daughter was destined to marry “a savage, untamed creature” that flew about tormenting everyone with fire – and they abandoned her on a cliff to meet this terrifying fate.</p>
<p>Instead, Psyche found herself borne by a gentle breeze to an elaborate palace inhabited by invisible servants. That night, an “unknown husband arrived and made Psyche his wife,” departing before sunrise.</p>
<p>Her unseen spouse continued to visit nightly, and Psyche was soon overjoyed to find herself pregnant. But she also became increasingly lonely. Her mysterious husband agreed that <a href="https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/TheGoldenAssV.php">her sisters could visit</a> – as long as she did not try to “investigate his appearance.” She happily agreed, telling him, “Whoever you are I love you deeply. Not even Cupid could compare to you.”</p>
<p>But when Psyche’s two older sisters visited, they became envious of her luxurious life. “She must be married to a god!” they intuited – unlike Psyche, who remained inexplicably clueless. Hoping to break up the marriage, they offered a false explanation for her husband’s secrecy: He must be a monstrous serpent intent on devouring her and her unborn child.</p>
<p>A horrified Psyche believed them, despite her intimate physical knowledge of her spouse – his “perfumed locks, tender cheeks, and warm chest.” Armed with a dagger, she prepared to kill her husband as he slept. But first, ignoring his repeated warnings, she gazed at him by the light of an oil lamp. Here, halfway through the story, the audience finally finds out his identity: none other than Cupid himself!</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A statue of a naked woman looking down at a sleeping man on display in a park in autumn." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508488/original/file-20230206-19-2byobp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508488/original/file-20230206-19-2byobp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508488/original/file-20230206-19-2byobp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508488/original/file-20230206-19-2byobp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508488/original/file-20230206-19-2byobp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508488/original/file-20230206-19-2byobp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508488/original/file-20230206-19-2byobp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Psyche finally gets a good look at her husband. ‘Cupid and Psyche’ by Giulio Kartar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/marble-sculpture-cupid-and-psyche-royalty-free-image/471366765?phrase=cupid%20and%20psyche&adppopup=true">leoaleks/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the sight, Psyche “fell in love with Love.” But a drop of scalding oil awakened Cupid. Utterly dismayed at his wife’s betrayal, he flew away – but first explained: “I have disobeyed my mother’s orders to fill you with passion for some vile wretch. I flew to you as your lover instead.”</p>
<h2>Love lost – and found</h2>
<p>The rest of the narrative involves Psyche’s long, arduous quest to win Cupid back. Though despairing and exhausted, Psyche willingly submitted herself to a series of brutal tasks imposed by Venus, only to fall into a deathlike slumber just before completing them.</p>
<p>And where is Cupid during all this? If he is characterized as a powerful, dangerous force in the first half of the story, the second half depicts him as a helpless mama’s boy. He flew back to Venus’ palace, where his mother – furious that he had secretly married Psyche – scolded him righteously, screamed that he had embarrassed her, and locked him in his room. </p>
<p>Finally, recalling his love for Psyche, Cupid escaped out the window and saved her from eternal slumber. Then he made a savvy deal with Jupiter, king of the gods: Psyche could be made immortal, clearing the way for her to “officially” marry Cupid in an arrangement that even satisfied Venus.</p>
<h2>Complex vision of love</h2>
<p>Apuleius’ story is rare in focusing on a female character and how love and desire affect her. The audience follows Psyche through several rites of passage. Initially, as an unmarried girl, she has not fulfilled her expected <a href="https://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/weddings.html">role of wife and mother</a>. As a frightened bride, she has no say in whom she marries – an experience common for young wives in ancient Roman society. Love does not enter the picture.</p>
<p>But Apuleius’ portrayal of Psyche’s situation suggests a lesson Roman writers of the day wanted readers to believe: that young married women eventually come to desire and love their husbands. Although that process can be long and difficult, wives and husbands both adjust to their roles over time. The birth of Psyche’s child, “Pleasure,” at the end of the story results in harmony all around, an idealized image of marriage. </p>
<p>Ovid and Apuleius remind us that the original Cupid is not the benign little bearer of valentines but an elemental force of human nature – a “savage, untamed creature” that lights the fires of passion in unpredictable ways. Whereas Apollo’s lust for Daphne’s visible beauty remained unsated, Psyche eventually enjoyed sex with her unseen husband. Apollo learned that longing isn’t always mutual, while Psyche realized that love and trust must be earned. </p>
<p>Apuleius’s story suggests that Cupid and all the intense emotions he represents, once tempered, can provide the basis for a loving, long-lasting relationship. In short, both stories contain valuable lessons about the nature of romance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Debbie Felton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Ancient Greece and Rome may have handed down the image of rosy-cheeked Cupids, but their myths about him explore the messier – sometimes scarier – sides of love.
Debbie Felton, Professor of Classics, UMass Amherst
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/194133
2022-12-15T13:06:07Z
2022-12-15T13:06:07Z
Why early Christians wouldn’t have found the Christmas story’s virgin birth so surprising
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500114/original/file-20221209-41413-3bblu5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C7%2C997%2C672&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'The Nativity,' circa 1406-10, by Lorenzo Monaco</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-nativity-circa-1406-10-artist-lorenzo-monaco-news-photo/1206224323?phrase=nativity&adppopup=true">Heritage Images/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/por-que-a-los-primeros-cristianos-no-les-habria-sorprendido-tanto-el-nacimiento-virginal-de-la-historia-de-navidad-219875"><em>Leer en español</em></a>. </p>
<p>Every year on Christmas, Christians celebrate the birth of their religion’s founder, Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. Part of this celebration includes the claim that Jesus was born from <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+1%3A18&version=NIV">a virgin mother named Mary</a>, which is fundamental to the Christian understanding that Jesus is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%201&version=NIV">the divine son of God</a>.</p>
<p>The virgin birth may seem <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/15/opinion/believe-it-or-not.html">strange</a> to a modern audience – and not just because it runs counter to the science of reproduction. Even in the Bible itself, the idea is rarely mentioned.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4ufVq8gAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">a scholar of the New Testament</a>, however, I argue that this story’s original audiences would not have been put off by the supposed “strangeness” of the virgin birth story. The story would have felt much more familiar to listeners at that time, when the ancient Mediterranean was full of tales of legendary men born of gods – and when early Christians were paying close attention to the Hebrew Bible’s prophecies.</p>
<h2>What the Bible does – and doesn’t – say</h2>
<p>Strikingly, the New Testament is relatively silent on the virgin birth except in two places. It appears only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, written a few decades after Jesus’ death.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%201&version=NIV">Book of Matthew</a> explains that when Joseph was engaged to Mary, she was “found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.” The writer links this unexpected pregnancy to an Old Testament prophecy <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah+7%3A14&version=NIV">in Isaiah 7:14</a>, which states “the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will call him Immanuel.” According to the prophet Isaiah, this child would be a sign to the Jewish people that God would protect them from powerful empires.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A faded illustration shows an angel looking down at a woman kneeling on the ground in a cloak, surrounded by rays of light." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500112/original/file-20221209-30168-3510zz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A depiction of the Annunciation to Mary at Our Lady of the Assumption Church.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/the-annunciation-our-lady-of-the-assumption-church-royalty-free-image/538214856?phrase=the%20annunciation&adppopup=true">Catherine Leblanc/Stone via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now the majority of early Christians outside of Judea and throughout the Roman empire did not know the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, but rather a Greek translation known as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Septuagint">the Septuagint</a>. When the Gospel of Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, it uses the Septuagint, which includes the term “parthenos,” commonly understood as “virgin.” This term differs from the Hebrew Old Testament, which uses the word “almah,” properly translated as “young woman.” The slight difference in <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/nt/43/2/article-p144_3.xml">translation</a> between the Hebrew and the Greek may not mean much, but for early Christians who knew Greek, it provided prophetic proof for Jesus’ birth from the Virgin Mary. </p>
<p>Was the belief in the virgin birth based on a mistranslation? Not necessarily. Such terms were sometimes synonymous in Greek and Jewish thought. And the same Greek word, “parthenos,” is also found in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%201&version=NIV">Luke’s version of the story</a>. Luke does not cite the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14. Instead, this version of the Nativity story describes the angel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she will give birth even though she is a virgin. Like in Matthew’s version of the story, Mary is told that her baby will be the “son of God.”</p>
<h2>Human and divine?</h2>
<p>For early Christians, the idea of the virgin birth put to rest any rumors about Mary’s honor. It also contributed to their belief that Jesus was the Son of God and Mary the <a href="https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum03.htm">Mother of God</a>. These ideas became even more important during the second century, when some Christians were <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103126.htm">debating Jesus’ origins</a>: Was he <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103321.htm">simply born</a> <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103126.htm">a human being</a> but became the Son of God after <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+1&version=NIV">being baptized</a>? Was he a <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103111.htm">semi-divine being</a>, not really human? Or was he both fully divine and fully human?</p>
<p>The last idea, symbolized by the virgin birth, was most accepted – and is now standard Christian belief. But the relative silence about it in the first few decades of Christianity does not necessarily suggest that early Christians did not believe it. Instead, as biblical scholar <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300140088/the-birth-of-the-messiah-a-new-updated-edition/">Raymond Brown</a> also noted, the virgin birth was likely not a major concern for first-century Christians. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john+1&version=NIV">They affirmed</a> that Jesus was <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=philippians+2&version=NIV">the divine Son of God</a> who <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=hebrews+2&version=NIV">became a human being</a>, without trying to explain exactly how this happened.</p>
<h2>Greco-Roman roots</h2>
<p>Claiming that someone was divinely born was not a new concept during the first century, when Jesus was born. Many Greco-Roman heroes had divine birth stories. Take three famous figures: Perseus, Ion and Alexander the Great.</p>
<p>One of the oldest Greek legends affirms that Perseus, an ancient ancestor of the Greek people, was born of <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D4">a virgin mother named Danaë</a>. The story begins with Danaë imprisoned by her father, the king of Argos, who feared her because it was prophesied that his grandson would kill him. According to the legend, the Greek god Zeus transformed himself into golden rain <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0162%3Abook%3DP.%3Apoem%3D12">and impregnated her</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A painting shows a nude woman reclining on a bed with soft rain behind her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500113/original/file-20221209-46034-p3m533.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A painting of Danaë, showing the golden rain above her, by Andrea Schiavone (1522-1563). From the collection of Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/danae-mid-of-16th-cen-found-in-the-collection-of-museo-di-news-photo/1155650935?phrase=danae&adppopup=true">Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Danaë gave birth to Perseus, they escaped and eventually landed on an island where he grew up. He eventually became a famous hero who killed the snake-haired Medusa, and <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0028:book=4:card=604&highlight=medusa%2C">his great-grandson</a> <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D4%3Asection%3D8">was Hercules</a>, known for his strength and uncontrollable anger.</p>
<p>The playwright Euripides, who lived in the fifth century B.C., describes the story of Ion, whose father was the Greek god Apollo. Apollo raped Creusa, Ion’s mother, who abandoned him at birth. Ion grew up unaware of his divine father, but eventually reconciled with his Athenian mother and became known as <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Eur.+Ion+1-75&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0110">the founder</a> of various Greek cities in modern-day Turkey.</p>
<p>Lastly, legends held that Zeus was the father of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian ruler who conquered his vast empire before age 33. Alexander was supposedly conceived the night before his mother consummated her marriage with the king of Macedon, when Zeus impregnated her with <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0243%3Achapter%3D2%3Asection%3D2">a lightning bolt from heaven</a>. Philip, the king of Macedon, raised Alexander as his son, but suspected that there was something different about his conception.</p>
<h2>A familiar type of hero</h2>
<p>Overall, divine conception stories were familiar in the ancient Mediterranean world. By the second century A.D., Justin Martyr, a Christian theologian who defended Christianity, recognized this point: that virgin birth <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm">would not have been considered as “extraordinary</a>” in societies familiar with Greco-Roman deities. In fact, in an address to the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius and philosophers, Justin <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm#:%7E:text=Chapter%2022.%20Analogies,done%20by%20%C3%86sculapius.">argued</a> that they should tolerate Christian belief in the virgin birth just as they did belief in the stories of Perseus. </p>
<p>The idea of the divine participating in the conception of a child destined for greatness wouldn’t have seemed so unusual to an ancient audience. Even more, early Christians’ interpretation of the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 from the Septuagint supported their belief that Jesus’ origin was not only divine, but foretold in their prophetic scriptures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The idea of virgin birth has been part of Christianity since the start, but its significance has shifted over time.
Rodolfo Galvan Estrada III, Assistant Professor of the New Testament, Vanguard University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/196135
2022-12-13T23:37:41Z
2022-12-13T23:37:41Z
What is a goblin?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500550/original/file-20221212-1235-576dx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C1187%2C1304&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">By John Dickson Batten/Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2022 word of the year from the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary is “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-06/what-is-goblin-mode-oxford-dictionary-word-of-the-year-2022/101738866">goblin mode</a>”. Voted by the public and coming in at 93%, “goblin mode” – a phrase, rather than a word, to be precise – expresses a state of being or mindset. </p>
<p>The official <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/goblin-mode-selected-as-oxfords-2022-word-of-the-year-180981245/">definition</a> is: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Goblin mode” expresses a response to the anxieties of the pandemic and the challenges of the return to so-called “normality”. It is also about challenging the essentially unattainable ideals expressed on social media. Think: grocery shopping in your pyjamas; talking on your phone while on the toilet; bingeing an entire television series while eating takeaway. </p>
<p>But what about the goblin whose name has been taken in vain? What have goblins ever done to deserve being linked to such anti-social, self-indulgent human behaviour?</p>
<p>And what is a goblin, anyway?</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1599695123209719812"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-grown-ups-still-need-fairy-tales-87078">Friday essay: why grown-ups still need fairy tales</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Hostile creatures known to travel in little gangs</h2>
<p>According to the famous English folklorist, <a href="https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL684537A/Katharine_Mary_Briggs">Katharine Mary Briggs</a> (1898-1980), goblins are evil and ill-intentioned spirits. Small and ugly in appearance, they are embedded in the rich folklore of the United Kingdom, in particular.</p>
<p>Like all members of the very broad category of “fey”, or the beings of the preternatural world, including fairies, elves, and pixies, goblins are renowned for being tricksy. In other words, they are best avoided. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500622/original/file-20221213-6597-agowbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Goblin market, 1911, England, by Frank Craig. Purchased 1912 by Public Subscription.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Te Papa</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Different regions in Britain have different goblin types. In Cornwall, for example, the Spriggan tends to inhabit <a href="https://www.ancientpenwith.org/cairns.html">cairns and barrows</a>. </p>
<p>Hostile creatures known to travel in little gangs, Spriggans love guarding special objects as befitting a locale rich in stories of pirates, smugglers and buried treasure. </p>
<p>Also in Cornwall are the <a href="https://www.miningweekly.com/article/-1970-01-01-65">Knockers</a> or Buccas. This type of goblin works in the tin mines and lives in nearby caverns, springs, or wells. Cornish folklore presents differing accounts of the Knockers, including stories ranging from their indifference towards their human counterparts to their instigation of mining accidents, rockslides and cave-ins.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500551/original/file-20221212-24-uptvhb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=992&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1920.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What about hobgoblins, then?</h2>
<p>Under the category of “hobgoblin” we have nicer goblins that are helpful rather than harmful to humans. Known to be more domesticated than other goblins, hobgoblins tend to find a house, move in, and stay put.</p>
<p>Their presence is often made known in mysterious, unsettling sounds and physical pranks, similar to the actions of <a href="https://theconversation.com/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-poltergeists-just-in-time-for-halloween-85690">poltergeists</a>. Like all fey folk, hobgoblins are most troublesome when they are irritated or provoked. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most famous hobgoblin is Puck from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is introduced by a fairy who addresses him in Act 2, Scene 1:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Either I mistake your shape and making quite,<br>
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite<br>
Call’d Robin Goodfellow: are you not he<br>
That frights the maidens of the villagery;<br>
Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern, <br>
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;<br>
And sometime make the drink to bear no barm;<br>
Mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm?<br>
Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,<br>
You do their work, and they shall have good luck:<br>
Are you not he?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here Shakespeare captures the folkloric essence of the British hobgoblin. Puck is described as a prankster and trickster, as a spirit fond of frightening innocent maidens, turning milk sour, and misleading humans walking at night. Yet he is also depicted as helping humans at work and sometimes bringing them good luck.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500552/original/file-20221212-18-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=977&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Puck (1789) by Joshua Reynolds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-poltergeists-just-in-time-for-halloween-85690">Eight things you need to know about poltergeists – just in time for Halloween</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A complex figure</h2>
<p>These varied representations of the British folkloric goblin speak to their embodiment of pure ambivalence. Some are inherently hostile and malevolent, others are unpredictable – both harmful and helpful, and some have good intentions unless antagonised. </p>
<p>In this sense, the goblin is a complex figure, both frightening and yet also intriguing. As such, they may be considered to symbolise the human “<a href="https://www.thesap.org.uk/articles-on-jungian-psychology-2/about-analysis-and-therapy/the-shadow/">shadow</a> self”.</p>
<p>According to Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung">Carl Jung</a> (1875-1961), the shadow is that part of every human psyche that we strive to keep hidden and repressed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man sleeps; monsters proliferate behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500624/original/file-20221213-1960-ib856g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Francisco de Goya Y Lucientes, Spain, The sleep of reason produces monsters 1797-1798.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of New South Wales</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It may be interpreted as our anti-social self, our lazy, unfriendly, indulgent, hostile, and hurtful self. In this particular manifestation of our shadow self, we may embrace the goblin in its worst form, including its grotesque appearance (remember the dark pandemic days when hair remained unwashed, uncombed, and generally unkempt; and clothes were recycled over days if not weeks?).</p>
<p>But Jung also saw hope in the shadow. It represents our wildness and our enjoyment of intense, wilful self-expression, and our creativity. It is the part of us that stands up to injustice and offence. It can lead us to joyful mischief and laughter. It reminds us that non-conformity is sometimes liberating.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/harking-back-the-ancient-pagan-festivities-in-our-christmas-rituals-34309">Harking back: the ancient pagan festivities in our Christmas rituals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196135/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marguerite Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Like all members of the category of ‘fey’, or the beings of the preternatural world, including fairies, elves, and pixies, goblins are renowned for being tricksy. In other words, best avoided.
Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/186330
2022-10-20T14:08:34Z
2022-10-20T14:08:34Z
Kenya’s Samburu warriors still practise a rock art tradition that tells their stories
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472309/original/file-20220704-22-twug26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An example of the rock art created by young Samburu men.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Ebbe Westergren</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-samburu-community-of-kenya-national-museums-of-kenya/JwWh0Lc7NlRtIQ?hl=en">Samburu</a> people in northern Kenya’s Marsabit county are pastoralists. They migrate from place to place in search of pasture and water for their cattle, goats, sheep and camels. As part of their lifestyle, Samburu boys go through an initiation period when they live in rock shelters, learning how to take care of their animals and how to become warriors. </p>
<p>During this time the young warriors – called lmurran – express themselves by painting images on the rocks. This is one of very few ongoing rock art traditions in the world, but it has gained almost no attention among rock art researchers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487655/original/file-20221002-21-1psstw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487655/original/file-20221002-21-1psstw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487655/original/file-20221002-21-1psstw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487655/original/file-20221002-21-1psstw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=232&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487655/original/file-20221002-21-1psstw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487655/original/file-20221002-21-1psstw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487655/original/file-20221002-21-1psstw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=291&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marsabit county in northern Kenya is a semi-desert which frequently experiences drought. Photo: Ebbe Westergren.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rock art has been made for more than 60,000 years and it exists on every continent except the Antarctic. Papua New Guinea and parts of Australia are among the few other places where new rock art is still being created, maintained or repainted like at the Samburu sites.</p>
<p>Ancient rock art images offer glimpses of human thoughts and beliefs from times when no written records existed. But it is difficult to interpret these images since first hand information is lacking. The ongoing Samburu rock art tradition, therefore, presents a unique chance to know where, when and why rock art was created. </p>
<p>Linnaeus University in Sweden and the University of Western Australia initiated a community-led project together with the Samburu to learn about this tradition. The first outcomes of the project were recently published in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/i-have-done-hundreds-of-rock-paintings-on-the-ongoing-rock-art-tradition-among-samburu-northern-kenya/C68375C5B9570BD7C42A6DE2165561DC#fndtn-metrics">our research paper</a>. </p>
<p>Rock art researchers tend to think about images as representing rituals and myths. In contrast, our project has revealed that the current Samburu rock art tradition commemorates real-life events and is made as a leisure activity.</p>
<h2>Samburu warriors and rock art</h2>
<p>At the age of 15, Samburu boys leave their villages and go through initiation rituals which mark the passing from childhood to warriorhood. During the two month initiation period they learn about their protective duties. As young warriors, lmurran move from camp to camp and live in rock shelters or caves where they eat, relax, dance and sometimes arrange feasts. It is during these stays at the rock shelters that they create rock art. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487653/original/file-20221002-20-tolpdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487653/original/file-20221002-20-tolpdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487653/original/file-20221002-20-tolpdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487653/original/file-20221002-20-tolpdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487653/original/file-20221002-20-tolpdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487653/original/file-20221002-20-tolpdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487653/original/file-20221002-20-tolpdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487653/original/file-20221002-20-tolpdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lmurran warriors. Photo: Ebbe Westergren.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The images they paint commemorate real-life events related to the warrior life-world and they express the wishes and expectations of the young men. It may be an animal they have seen or hunted, or a girl back home in the village. Dancing is an important part of Samburu culture and some paintings depict boys and girls dancing together.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487651/original/file-20221002-17-awfnir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487651/original/file-20221002-17-awfnir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487651/original/file-20221002-17-awfnir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487651/original/file-20221002-17-awfnir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487651/original/file-20221002-17-awfnir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487651/original/file-20221002-17-awfnir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487651/original/file-20221002-17-awfnir.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lererin Lempate and Sania Lempate at a rock art site close to Ngurunit community. Photo: Ebbe Westergren.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The images are made using red, white, yellow and black paint. Before the arrival of Europeans in the 1940s the artists preferred a pigment of red ochre, which was also used for smearing their hair and bodies. The white colour was animal fat, which turns light when it dries. To make black paint they used charcoal. As a binder, all pigments were mixed with fat from slaughtered animals. Today, commercial paint is also used along with more traditional pigments. </p>
<p>When speaking to Samburu today, they often downplay the importance of rock art. The paintings are not talked about but are done for leisure. By interviewing current and former lmurran we found out that they were well aware of rock art sites made by previous generations. The oldest rock art the elders remembered was more than 150 years old. </p>
<p>When visiting the rock art sites we saw an intriguing relationship between rock art made by different generations of warriors. Present warriors are inspired by older art, but add their own memories and style, and sometimes also the names of the artists. The images become an inter-generational visual culture that reflects and recreates a warrior identity and lifestyle.</p>
<h2>Samburu visual culture and rock art research</h2>
<p>Another thing we learned from Samburu rock art is that the artists always have specific people, animals and objects in mind when making their drawings. This is not clearly expressed in the drawings as they lack identifying details. Studying the images doesn’t reveal the artist’s intention: you need to talk to the artist to understand what they wanted their art to express. Many of the artworks reflect first hand experiences of the warriors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487658/original/file-20221003-12-8fc0xz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487658/original/file-20221003-12-8fc0xz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487658/original/file-20221003-12-8fc0xz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487658/original/file-20221003-12-8fc0xz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487658/original/file-20221003-12-8fc0xz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487658/original/file-20221003-12-8fc0xz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487658/original/file-20221003-12-8fc0xz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lmapili Lengewa and Leramis Lengewa with paintings of Lmapili’s brothers made in 2005. Photo: Ebbe Westergren.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One example comes from Mount Ng'iro at South Horr. Here at least five generations of lmurran have created rock art. The most recent was created by two older brothers of a participant in our research, Lmapili Lengewa (26). The brothers, Lpalani and Lejinai, were around 20 and 16 respectively when they made the paintings. Lmapili was present when the paintings were created, although he was too young at the time to be an lmurran. The brothers learned from studying older paintings, but their paintings were made to commemorate what they had experienced as newly inducted lmurran. A bull figure, for example, depicts a bull they slaughtered and ate. At the time there were about five or six people in the shelter; most of them focused on preparing the food, while the two brothers created rock art.</p>
<p>While there are indeed many rituals in Samburu culture, rock art is not part of such practices. Certainly there are norms guiding the creation of the rock art, but the artist is free to express himself as long as the images reflect young men’s experiences. </p>
<p>Being able to hear the artist’s own reflections, perspectives and stories about specific paintings is a unique opportunity for rock art researchers globally. Our ongoing community-led project aims to learn more about Samburu lmurran life-worlds and to bring their stories to the world, also benefiting the local Samburu communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joakim Goldhahn holds the Rock Art Australia Ian Potter Kimberley Chair at the Centre of Rock Art Research + Management at the University of Western Australia. This project is funded by the Swedish Institute, Creative Force.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Currently Linnaeus University, LNU, Kalmar, Sweden is running a two-year community building project, together with Empower Northern Frontier, ENF, an NGO in northern Kenya, on Samburu rock art, a unique heritage. The persons involved in the project are I, Peter, Joakim and Sada from LNU and Steven and Muchemi Njeru from ENF. The project is funded by the Swedish Institute, Creative Force.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Skoglund is working together with the NGO Empower the Northern Frontier (ENF) in a community-based project on Samburu rock art. He receives funding from The Swedish Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Longoida Labarakwe is working together with the NGO Empower the Northern Frontier (ENF) in a community-based project on Samburu rock art. He receives funding from The Swedish Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sada Mire does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Instead of displaying myths, Samburu rock art reveals real-life stories and is made as a leisure activity.
Joakim Goldhahn, Rock Art Australia Ian Potter Kimberley Chair, The University of Western Australia
Ebbe Westergren, Honorary Doctor, Linnaeus University
Peter Skoglund, Professor in Archaeology, Linnaeus University
Sada Mire, Associate Professor in Archaeology, UCL
Steven Longoida Labarakwe, Director of Empower the Northern Frontier, Linnaeus University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184419
2022-08-24T13:27:16Z
2022-08-24T13:27:16Z
Terrifying dragons have long been a part of many religions, and there is a reason for their appeal
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478145/original/file-20220808-8059-ox4drg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=156%2C78%2C7075%2C4563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fire-breathing, fearsome dragons may represent chaos and the human impulse to conquer that threat. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/augmented-reality-royalty-free-image/166065759?adppopup=true">The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>HBO’s prequel to “Game of Thrones,” “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DotnJ7tTA34">House of the Dragon</a>” brought renewed attention to the ferocious dragon. Two-legged or four, fire-breathing or shape-shifting, scaled or feathered, dragons fascinate people across the world with their legendary power. This shouldn’t be surprising.</p>
<p>Long before “<a href="https://youtu.be/3EGojp4Hh6I">Harry Potter</a>,” “<a href="https://youtu.be/8YjFbMbfXaQ">Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings</a>” and other modern interpretations increased the dragon’s notoriety in the 21st century, artifacts from ancient civilizations indicated their importance in many religions across the world. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.emilyelizabethzarka.com/">scholar of monsters</a>, I’ve found dragons to be a nearly universal symbol for many civilizations. Scientists have tried to come up with explanations for the myth of dragons, but their enduring existence is testimony to their narrative power and mystery. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Pure white dragon looking backward." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478160/original/file-20220808-8265-f54vc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dragons can symbolize the chaos of the natural world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/krUJkOtqIrw">Photo by Rock Vincent Guitard for Unsplash.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ancient dragons, ancient stories</h2>
<p>Religions and cultures <a href="https://allthatsinteresting.com/dragon-legends">across the globe</a> are rife with dragon lore. In fact, across the vast <a href="https://www.eisenbrauns.org/books/titles/978-1-57506-279-2.html">majority of religions</a>, there is mythic trope some scholars call Chaoskampf, a German word that translates as struggle against chaos. This term, used by <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315236278">mythologists</a>, refers to a pervasive motif involving a heroic character who slays a primordial chaos “monster,” often with serpentine or dragonlike characteristics and a massive size that dwarfs humans. </p>
<p>One ancient example is found in the “<a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/225/enuma-elish---the-babylonian-epic-of-creation---fu/">Enūma Eliš</a>,” a Babylonian creation text from around 2,000 to 1,000 years <a href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/BCE">B.C.</a>. </p>
<p>In the text, <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/Tiamat/">Tiamat</a>, the female primordial deity of salt water and matriarch of the gods, births 11 kinds of monsters, including the dragon. While Tiamat herself is never described as a “dragon,” some of her children, or “monsters,” include several different kinds of dragons with explicit references to her <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/156921212X629446">dragon children</a>. Iconography later evolved so that her appearance began to take on serpentine features, linking her image to another famous clawed mythological predator, the dragon.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Colorful dragon wrapped around a column near the ceiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478149/original/file-20220808-8292-ydwm57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The dragon, lord of the scaly animals, represents one of four animals in Chinese mythology corresponding to directions and seasons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/WgFwcIozP-o">Photo by Raimond Klavins for Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Dragons in Chinese and other cultures</h2>
<p>The presence of the dragon in China, where it is called Long is also ancient and integral to various cultural, spiritual and social traditions. </p>
<p>Dragons are members of the Chinese zodiac, one of the sacred guardian creatures that make up the <a href="http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/astronomy/sky.html">Four Benevolent Animals</a> and
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/suslj.v9i1.3735">provide justification</a> for <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1125/the-dragon-in-ancient-china/">imperial dynasties</a>. Different kinds of these aquatic, intelligent, semidivine beings form <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520298514/a-chinese-bestiary">a hierarchy</a> in ancient Chinese cosmology and appear in <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Chinese_mythology">creation myths</a> of various indigenous traditions. </p>
<p>When Jesuit missionaries reintroduced Christianity in China in the 16th century, <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/esm/14/1-3/article-p340_15.xml?language=en">the dragon’s existence was not contested</a>. Instead, they became associated with a more Westernized explanation – the Devil. </p>
<p>Today, dragons are celebrated and revered in Buddhist, Taoist and Confucianism traditions as symbols of strength and enlightenment.</p>
<p>Dragons also appear in <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/58405">Anatolian religions</a>, <a href="https://direct.mit.edu/leon/article/53/1/50/46847/Drawing-New-Boundaries-Finding-the-Origins-of">Sumerian myths,</a> <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520272996/the-saga-of-the-volsungs">Germanic sagas</a>, <a href="https://www.harvard-yenching.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy_files/featurefiles/Nguyen%20Ngoc%20Tho_The%20Symbol%20of%20the%20Dragon%20and%20Ways%20to%20Shape%20Cultural%20Identities%20in%20Vietnam%20and%20Japan.pdf">Shinto beliefs</a> and in <a href="https://www.eisenbrauns.org/books/titles/978-1-57506-106-1.html">Abrahamic scriptures</a>. The creature’s repeated and important presence across global religions and cultures raises an interesting question: Why did dragons appear at all?</p>
<h2>Symbolic power</h2>
<p>A long-proposed theory is that there are natural explanations for dragons. That’s not to say the beasts of myth existed in real life but rather that fossils, living animals and geological features existing in the natural world inspired their creation. </p>
<p>Pulitzer Prize-winning author and scientist Carl Sagan wrote <a href="http://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/159732/">a book</a> on the subject, arguing that dragons evolved from a human need to merge science with myth, the rational with the irrational, as part of an evolutionary response to real predators. His thoughts are an expansion of <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Dragon_Seekers/vC4c3Kx746QC?hl=en&gbpv=0">proposed ideas</a> beginning in the 19th century or earlier as newly discovered fossils were linked to representations of dragons across the globe. </p>
<p>Full or partial remains of numerous <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/D/bo70560676.html">extinct species</a> may explain the physical attributes of dragons. In 2020, two scholars, <a href="https://www.roanoke.edu/inside/a-z_index/biology/meet_the_biologists/dr_dorothybelle_poli">DorothyBelle Poli</a> and <a href="https://directory.roanoke.edu/faculty/stoneman">Lisa Stoneman</a>, even proposed that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004415133_007">fossilized remains of Lepidodendron</a>, a plant with a scalelike resemblance, may be behind the global presence of dragons. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=679&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478152/original/file-20220808-1720-jmhq2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fossilized scalelike bark of Lepidodendron could inform dragon mythology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/landscape-with-plants-from-the-carboniferous-period-news-photo/857133514?adppopup=true">Print by De Agostini Editorial via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Human encounters with flying lizards, oarfish, crocodiles, Saharan horned vipers, large snakes and certain species of <a href="https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/komodo-dragon">lizards</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Quetzalcoatl">birds</a> have also been proposed as possible explanations for dragon lore, given their physical resemblance to different dragons. </p>
<p>Scholars have also cited natural geologic processes as explanations for dragon lore – particularly when they are <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2015/10/29/in-the-alps-myths-about-dragons-may-be-rooted-in-geology/?sh=60d120cd210e">associated with natural disasters</a>. Fire-breathing dragons, for instance, might be an explanation for mysterious fires that observers attempted to rationalize as a dragon’s flame. Natural gas vents, methane produced from decaying matter and other sources of underground gas deposits can produce a blaze if accidentally lit. Before the mechanics of combustion were understood fully, such events were <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Science-of-Monsters/Matt-Kaplan/9781451667998">deemed indicators</a> of a dragon’s presence, providing a cause for the seemingly implausible.</p>
<h2>Eternal dragons</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A colorful dragon sculpture lit internally against a black backdrop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478154/original/file-20220808-1720-aebc7l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ancient dragon mythology continues to inspire art and drama.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/JNbxBcFzpv8">Photo by Thomas Despeyroux for Unsplash.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One enduring reason dragons continue to appear in our world could be because they represent the power of nature. Stories about people taming dragons can be seen as stories about the ability of humans to dominate forces that cannot always be controlled. </p>
<p>To gain control over a dragon underscores the problematic idea that humans are superior to all other animals in nature. Dragons challenge the concept of human biological supremacy, raising questions about what it means if humans were forced to reposition themselves as lesser members of the food chain. </p>
<p>More importantly, I believe, the beauty, terror and power of the dragon evokes mystery and suggests that not all phenomena are easily explained or understood.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184419/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Zarka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Enormous, scaly, fire-breathing dragons have fascinated civilizations for centuries. A scholar who studies monsters explains their power and appeal.
Emily Zarka, Instructor in English, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170305
2021-10-29T15:19:24Z
2021-10-29T15:19:24Z
Fairies weren’t always cute – they used to drink human blood and kidnap children
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429326/original/file-20211029-13-14mglsr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C11%2C988%2C693&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A painting by John Anster Fitzgerald who was well known for his work featuring fairies. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Fitzgerald%2C_The_stuff_that_dreams_are_made_of.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When most people think about fairies, they perhaps picture the sparkling Tinker Bell from Peter Pan or the other heartwarming and cute fairies and fairy god mothers that populate many Disney movies and children’s cartoons. But these creatures have much darker origins - and were once thought to be more like undead blood-sucking vampires.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sce/index.htm">The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies</a> (1682), folklorist <a href="https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2016/12/the-supernatural-worlds-of-robert-kirk-fairies-beasts-landscapes-and-lychnobious-liminalities/">Robert Kirk</a> argued that fairies are “the dead”, or of “a middle nature betwixt man and angels”. This association is particularly prominent in Celtic lore. Writing in <a href="https://www.libraryireland.com/AncientLegendsSuperstitions/Contents.php">1887</a>, <a href="https://www.dib.ie/biography/wilde-jane-francesca-agnes-speranza-a9035">Lady Jane Wilde</a> popularised the Irish belief that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>fairies are the fallen angels who were cast down by the Lord God out of heaven for their sinful pride…and the devil gives to these knowledge and power and sends them on earth where they work much evil.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At first sight the current innocent idea of fairyland seems as far away from the shadowy realms of the dead, and yet there are many resemblances between them. Despite their wands and glitter, fairies have a dark history and surprisingly gothic credentials. So why did we lose our fear of fairies and how did they come to be associated with childhood? </p>
<h2>How fairies lost their bite</h2>
<p>When <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/J-M-Barrie#ref82890">JM Barrie</a>’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Peter-Pan-play-by-Barrie">Peter Pan</a> debuted in the early 1900s, it was widely believed in society at that time that fairies were inhabited a shadowy spirit world. Fascinated by angels, ghosts and vampires Victorians (subsequently Edwardians) increasingly saw fairies as the souls of the dead. Rather than dispelling fairies, the first world war and the loss of many loved ones heightened a belief in airy spirits and occult methods of communicating with them. </p>
<p>However, due to Peter Pan’s great success and the prominent “pixie” character of Tinker Bell the creatures would eventually lose their malevolence as they became confined to the nursery. </p>
<p>Barrie famously equated the origin of fairies with children:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the first baby laughed…its laugh broke into a thousand pieces…that was the beginning of fairies.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A baby being carried off by fairies." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429105/original/file-20211028-13-1m1ucud.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration for Barrie’s Peter Pan book by Arthur Rackham.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is far from the malevolent fairies and their shadowy history in folklore. In these stories they steal children, drive people insane, blight cattle and crops – and drink human blood. Barrie, of course, was aware of their dark side. Despite the fairy dust and glamour, Tinker Bell is dangerous and vengeful like a deadly fairy temptress. At one point in the story, she even threatens to kill Wendy. </p>
<p>Peter Pan, or <a href="https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300081h.html">the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up</a>, debuted on stage at Christmas in 1904. It was inspired by performing fairies in popular shows such as Seymour Hicks’s <a href="https://gsarchive.net/british/bluebell/index.html">Bluebell in Fairyland</a>. Peter Pan was canonised by Disney in 1953 and the sentimental celluloid fairy was born. The cutesy and youthful <a href="https://www.romper.com/entertainment/shows-about-fairies">fairies of contemporary children’s TV</a> are a result of this Disneyfication. </p>
<h2>Blood hungry demons</h2>
<p>But in folklore, fairies are often a demonic or undead force; one which humans need to seek protection against. As folklorist <a href="https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/katharine-mary-briggs/">Katharine Briggs</a> has noted. In her <a href="https://archive.org/details/BriggsKatharineMaryAnEncyclopediaOfFairies">Dictionary of Fairies</a>, she wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People walking alone by night, especially through fairy-haunted places, had many ways of protecting themselves. The first might be sacred symbols, by making the sign of a cross, or by carrying a cross, particularly one made of iron; by prayers, or the chanting of hymns, by holy water, sprinkled or carried, and by carrying and strewing Churchyard mould in their path. Bread and salt were also effective, and both were regarded as sacred symbols, one of life and the other of eternity. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is more, fairyland has a hunger for human blood. This links fairies to the vengeful dead and to vampires. In early accounts, vampires are defined as the bodies of the dead, animated by evil spirits, which come out of their graves in the night, suck the blood the living and thereby destroy them – as an entry in the <a href="https://www.oed.com/oed2/00274736">Oxford English Dictionary</a> from 1734 noted .</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Troublesome_Things.html?id=_r2LQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Diane Purkiss’s history of fairies</a>, includes a Scottish Highland legend which warns that you must bring water into the house at night, so the fairies don’t quench their thirst with your blood. Very old fairies, like vampires, were said to wrinkle and dry up without fresh blood.</p>
<p>The <em>Baobhan Sith</em> are vampiric Scottish fairies. These beautiful green banshees have hooves instead of feet, they dance with and exhaust their male victims then tear them to pieces. Like many fairies, they can be killed with iron. </p>
<p><em>Dearg-Due</em> are Irish vampiric fairies or “Red Blood Suckers”. They were thought to be influential on Sheridan Le Fanu’s female vampire tale <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10007">Carmilla</a> (1871).</p>
<p>Halloween is supposedly a time when the veil between our world and the shadow world is extremely thin. A time when you are more likely to hear stories of encounters between humans and fairies. So if this Halloween you go seeking winged friends, a warning to the curious, they might not be as sweet as you think. </p>
<p>Tread carefully and never enter a fairy ring. Circles of mushrooms, they are believed to have been created by fairies dancing in rounds. According to <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2019/08/what-is-a-fairy-ring/">folklore</a>, if you do happen to step into such a circle of mushrooms, you may become invisible and be made to dance around until you die of exhaustion. So a healthy fear of fairies is always wise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sam George receives funding from the AHRC. </span></em></p>
The ‘Disneyfication’ of fairies has helped us forget their darker origins.
Sam George, Associate Professor of Research, University of Hertfordshire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164154
2021-08-19T19:49:23Z
2021-08-19T19:49:23Z
Friday essay: how ancient beliefs in underwater worlds can shed light in a time of rising sea levels
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416437/original/file-20210817-52421-eei0gh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A submerged coconut palm on Kadavu Island, Fiji.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ethan Daniels/shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The small boat sliced its way through the waveless ocean. The Fiji air was warm and still, the silhouettes of distant islands like sentinels watching our progress. It seemed a perfect day to visit the Solo Lighthouse and the “drowned land” reputed to surround it. </p>
<p>As we entered the gap through the coral reef bordering the Solo Lagoon, we all removed our headgear and bowed, clapping gently with cupped hands to show our respect to the people locals say live on the land beneath the sea.</p>
<p>The Solo Lagoon lies at the northern extremity of the Kadavu island group in the south of Fiji. In the local dialect, solo means rock, which is all that is left of a more extensive land that once existed here. Ancient tales recall this land was abruptly submerged during an earthquake and tsunami, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years ago.</p>
<p>Our boat raced on, towards the lighthouse built on remnant rock in 1888. The people with me, from Dravuni and Buliya islands, told how on a still night when they come here to fish, they sometimes hear from beneath the lagoon the sounds of mosquitoes buzzing, roosters crowing and people talking. </p>
<p>Every local resident learns strict protocols upon entering the realm above this underwater world … and the perils of ignoring them. It is believed if you fail to slow and bow as you enter the Solo Lagoon, your boat will never leave it. If you take more fish from the lagoon than you need, you will never take your catch home. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415763/original/file-20210812-25-ddjjnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415763/original/file-20210812-25-ddjjnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415763/original/file-20210812-25-ddjjnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415763/original/file-20210812-25-ddjjnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415763/original/file-20210812-25-ddjjnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415763/original/file-20210812-25-ddjjnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415763/original/file-20210812-25-ddjjnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415763/original/file-20210812-25-ddjjnu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Solo Lighthouse stands on a rock in southern Fiji.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vasemaca Setariki</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is deceptively easy to ridicule such beliefs in underwater worlds but <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/worlds-in-shadow-9781472983497/">they likely represent memories of places that really were once submerged</a>. Several groups of people living throughout Fiji today trace their lineage back to Lomanikoro, the name of the drowned land in the Solo Lagoon. Though there is no written record of the event, it is believed submergence reconfigured the power structures of Fijian society in ways that people still remember. Similar traditions are found elsewhere. </p>
<p>In northern Australia, many Aboriginal groups trace their lineage to lands now underwater. A <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Speaking_Land.html?id=_Ty1lfLFoTkC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">story</a> told decades ago by Mangurug, a Gunwinggu elder from Djamalingi or Cape Don in the Northern Territory, explained how his people came from an island named Aragaládi in the middle of the sea that was later submerged. “Trees and ground, creatures, kangaroos, they all drowned when the sea covered them,” he stated.</p>
<p>Other groups living around the Gulf of Carpentaria <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Archaeology_of_the_Dreamtime.html?id=Hx9CPgAACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">claim</a> their ancestors fled the drowning land of Baralku, possibly an ancient memory of the submergence of the land bridge connecting Australia and New Guinea during the last ice age.</p>
<p>In northwest Europe, meanwhile, there are countless stories of underwater lands off the coast where bells are said to toll eerily in drowned church steeples. Such stories abound in Cardigan Bay, Wales, where several “sunken cities” are said to lie. In medieval Brittany, in France, fisher-folk in the Baie de Douarnenez used to see the “streets and monuments” of the sunken city named Ys beneath the water surface, stories of which abound in local traditions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416438/original/file-20210817-18-101e5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416438/original/file-20210817-18-101e5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416438/original/file-20210817-18-101e5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416438/original/file-20210817-18-101e5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416438/original/file-20210817-18-101e5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416438/original/file-20210817-18-101e5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416438/original/file-20210817-18-101e5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416438/original/file-20210817-18-101e5p5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coast line near Tresaith, Cardigan Bay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed in many cultures across the world there are stories about underwater worlds inhabited by people strikingly similar to ourselves, cities where benevolent bearded monarchs and multi-tentacled sea witches organise the lives of younger merfolk, many of whom aspire to become part of human society. Fantasy? <a href="https://theconversation.com/mermaids-arent-real-but-theyve-fascinated-people-around-the-world-for-ages-150518">Undoubtedly</a>. Arbitrary inventions? Perhaps not. </p>
<p>Such ideas may derive from ancient memories about submerged lands and the peoples who once inhabited them.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mermaids-arent-real-but-theyve-fascinated-people-around-the-world-for-ages-150518">Mermaids aren't real – but they've fascinated people around the world for ages</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>And if we allow that some of these stories may actually be founded on millennia-old memories of coastal submergence, then they may also have some practical application to human futures. For coastal lands are being submerged today; birthplaces in living memory now underwater.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416432/original/file-20210817-21-1pxxyht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416432/original/file-20210817-21-1pxxyht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416432/original/file-20210817-21-1pxxyht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416432/original/file-20210817-21-1pxxyht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416432/original/file-20210817-21-1pxxyht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416432/original/file-20210817-21-1pxxyht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416432/original/file-20210817-21-1pxxyht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416432/original/file-20210817-21-1pxxyht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The annual Mermaid Parade in Coney Island, New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Foley/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Context</h2>
<p>In the 200,000 years or so that we — modern humans — have roamed the earth, the level of the ocean, which currently occupies over 70% of the earth’s surface, has gone up and down by tens of metres. At the end of the last great ice age, around 18,000 years ago, the average ocean level was <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-coastal-living-is-at-risk-from-sea-level-rise-but-its-happened-before-87686">120 metres or more lower than it is today</a>.</p>
<p>As land ice melted in the aftermath of the ice age, sea level rose. Coastal peoples in every part of the world had no choice except to adapt. Most moved inland, some offshore. Being unable to read or write, they encoded their experiences into their oral traditions.</p>
<p>We know that observations of memorable events can endure in oral cultures for thousands of years, plausibly more than seven millennia in the case of Indigenous Australian stories of <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-bullin-shrieked-aboriginal-memories-of-volcanic-eruptions-thousands-of-years-ago-81986">volcanic eruptions</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-aboriginal-stories-preserve-history-of-a-rise-in-sea-level-36010">coastal submergence</a>. So how might people’s memories of once populated lands have evolved in oral traditions to reach us today? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-aboriginal-stories-preserve-history-of-a-rise-in-sea-level-36010">Ancient Aboriginal stories preserve history of a rise in sea level</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Initially they would have recalled the precise places where drowned lands existed and histories of the people who had occupied them. Perhaps, as time went on, as these oral tales became less convincing, so links were made with the present. Listen carefully. You can hear the dogs barking below the water, the bells tolling, the people talking. You might even, as with Solo, embed these stories within cultural protocols to ensure history did not disappear.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416440/original/file-20210817-6629-qc70vx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416440/original/file-20210817-6629-qc70vx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416440/original/file-20210817-6629-qc70vx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416440/original/file-20210817-6629-qc70vx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416440/original/file-20210817-6629-qc70vx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416440/original/file-20210817-6629-qc70vx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416440/original/file-20210817-6629-qc70vx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416440/original/file-20210817-6629-qc70vx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mosaic depicting Triton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Traditions involving people of the land interacting with their submarine counterparts are quite old; the Greek story of a merman named Triton is mentioned in Hesiod’s Theogony, written almost 3,000 years ago. In Ireland, there are stories hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years old that tell of high ranking men wedding mermaids, begetting notable families, and even giving rise to taboos about killing seals, whom these mermaids regarded as kin.</p>
<p>Stories of people occupying undersea lands also abound in Indigenous Australia. They include those about the yawkyawk (or “young spirit woman” in the Kundjeyhmi language of western Arnhem Land), who has come to be represented in similar ways to a mermaid. </p>
<p>Like mermaids in Europe, Australian yawkyawk have long hair, which sometimes floats on the ocean surface as seaweed, and fish tails.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415766/original/file-20210812-14-1j91g44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415766/original/file-20210812-14-1j91g44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415766/original/file-20210812-14-1j91g44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415766/original/file-20210812-14-1j91g44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415766/original/file-20210812-14-1j91g44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415766/original/file-20210812-14-1j91g44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415766/original/file-20210812-14-1j91g44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415766/original/file-20210812-14-1j91g44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contemporary representations of Australian mermaids (yawkyawk) by Kunwinjku artists Marina Murdilnga, left, and Lulu Laradjbi. These mythical beings have the tails of fish and hair resembling algal blooms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dragi Markovic, NGA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the central Pacific islands of Kiribati, meanwhile, it was once widely believed worlds existed parallel to the tangible one we inhabit. Entire islands moved between these, wandering through time and space, disappearing one day only to reappear some time later in a different place. Humans also moved between these worlds — and I suspect this was once a widespread belief of people occupying islands and archipelagos. </p>
<p>Sometimes the inhabitants of these worlds were believed to be equipped with fish tails, replaced with legs when they moved onshore. An ancient ballad from the Orkney Islands (Scotland), where such merfolk are often called silkies, goes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am a man upon the land<br>
I am a silkie in the sea.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At one time, the people of the Aran Islands (Galway, Ireland) would believe they had spotted the island of Hy-Brasail far to the west; scrambling to reach it in their boats. No-one ever did. On the other side of the world, the fabulous island named Burotukula that “wanders” through Fiji waters is periodically claimed to be sighted off the coast of Matuku Island.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416443/original/file-20210817-21-1g4earj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416443/original/file-20210817-21-1g4earj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416443/original/file-20210817-21-1g4earj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416443/original/file-20210817-21-1g4earj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416443/original/file-20210817-21-1g4earj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416443/original/file-20210817-21-1g4earj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416443/original/file-20210817-21-1g4earj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416443/original/file-20210817-21-1g4earj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Matuku Island, Fiji.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Anxiety and solutions</h2>
<p>In oral societies, such as those that existed almost everywhere a thousand years ago, knowledge was amassed and communicated systematically by older people to younger ones because it was considered essential to their survival. Much of this knowledge was communicated as narrative, some through poetry and song, dance, performance and art.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416446/original/file-20210817-17-12mp605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416446/original/file-20210817-17-12mp605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416446/original/file-20210817-17-12mp605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416446/original/file-20210817-17-12mp605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416446/original/file-20210817-17-12mp605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416446/original/file-20210817-17-12mp605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1211&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416446/original/file-20210817-17-12mp605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1211&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416446/original/file-20210817-17-12mp605.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1211&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In harsh environments, where water and food were often scarce, it was vital to communicate knowledge fully and accurately. Australia provides excellent examples, where Indigenous law was cross-checked for completeness and accuracy when transmitted from father to son. </p>
<p>Part of the law considered essential to survival was people’s experiences of life-altering events. This included bursts of volcanic activity and the multi-generational land loss that affected the entire Australian fringe in the wake of the last ice age, reducing land mass by around 23%. </p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/environmental-humanities/article/12/1/113/165255/In-Anticipation-of-ExtirpationHow-Ancient-Peoples">research</a> has shown some ancient Indigenous Australian “submergence stories” contain more than simply descriptions of rising sea level and associated land loss. They also include expressions of people’s anxiety.</p>
<p>For instance, a <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Speaking_Land.html?id=_Ty1lfLFoTkC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">story</a> told in 1941 by Sugar Billy Rindjana, Jimmy Moore and Win-gari (Andingari people) and by Tommy Nedabi (Wiranggu-Kokatato) recalled how, millennia earlier, their forebears living along the Fowlers Bay coast in South Australia “feared the sea flood would spread over the whole country”. </p>
<p>These stories also talk about people’s practical responses to try to stop the rising waters. The Wati Nyiinyii peoples from the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Pila_Nguru.html?id=a3WDAAAAMAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">once</a> “bundled thousands of [wooden] spears to stop the ocean’s encroachment” on the lands that once existed below the Bunda Cliffs. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Languages_of_Australia.html?id=0b5XGja0HKIC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">story</a> told by the Gungganyji people of the Cairns district in northeast Australia, they heated boulders in a mountain-top fire, then rolled these into the face of the encroaching ocean to stop its rise.</p>
<p>Today the ocean surface along most of the world’s coasts is rising faster than it has for several thousand years. It is placing growing stress on coastal societies and the landscapes and infrastructures on which they have come to depend. Anxiety is building, especially in the face of scientific projections involving sea-level rise of at least 70 cm by the end of this <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-high-above-sea-level-am-i-if-youve-googled-this-youre-likely-asking-the-wrong-question-an-expert-explains-165882">century</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416445/original/file-20210817-21-1goh76o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416445/original/file-20210817-21-1goh76o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416445/original/file-20210817-21-1goh76o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416445/original/file-20210817-21-1goh76o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416445/original/file-20210817-21-1goh76o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416445/original/file-20210817-21-1goh76o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416445/original/file-20210817-21-1goh76o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416445/original/file-20210817-21-1goh76o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A family stand outside their submerged huts near Beira, Mozambique, in 2019. Much of the city is below sea level on a coastline that experts call one of the world’s most vulnerable to global warming’s rising waters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are responding with practical solutions, building hard structures such as walls and wooden palisades along coastlines. We look to science to curb climate change but many people still feel <a href="https://theconversation.com/ignoring-young-peoples-climate-change-fears-is-a-recipe-for-anxiety-123357">anxious and powerless</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ignoring-young-peoples-climate-change-fears-is-a-recipe-for-anxiety-123357">Ignoring young people's climate change fears is a recipe for anxiety</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our ancient ancestors, confronted with a seemingly unceasing rise in the ocean surface — and associated loss of coastal lands — also felt anxiety and built structures. And, as some people do today, many almost certainly sought spiritual remedies too. Of course we know little about the latter, but there are clues. </p>
<p>In many places along the coasts of Australia and northwest Europe, there are stone arrangements, ranging from simple stone circles to the extraordinary parallel “stone lines” at Carnac in France, kilometres long. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415768/original/file-20210812-21-f4ubm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415768/original/file-20210812-21-f4ubm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415768/original/file-20210812-21-f4ubm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415768/original/file-20210812-21-f4ubm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415768/original/file-20210812-21-f4ubm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415768/original/file-20210812-21-f4ubm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415768/original/file-20210812-21-f4ubm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415768/original/file-20210812-21-f4ubm4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Part of the stone lines of Carnac, considered to represent a spiritual response by people in this part of coastal Brittany more than six millennia ago to the rising sea level.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Patrick Nunn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These stone lines, built more than 6,000 years ago have been <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234118901_Submarine_Neolithic_Stone_Rows_near_Carnac_Morbihan_France_preliminary_results_from_acoustic_and_underwater_survey">interpreted</a> by French archaeologists as a “cognitive barrier” intended to stop the gods interfering with human affairs, specifically to stop the rapid and enduring rise of the sea level along this part of the Brittany coast. Ritual burials of people and valuables along the shore in northwest Europe may once have served a similar purpose.</p>
<p>We can take hope from our ancestors’ experiences with rising sea level. Most people survived it, so shall we. But the experience was so profound, so physically and psychologically challenging, that the survivors kept their memories of it alive as stories passed on from one generation to the next. Their stories became enduring oral traditions — intended to inform and empower future generations. And to show us that the past is not without meaning; it is not irrelevant to our future.</p>
<p><em>Patrick Nunn’s new book Worlds in Shadow: Submerged Lands in Science, Memory and Myth is published by Bloomsbury Sigma.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164154/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick D. Nunn receives funding from the Government of Australia (Department of the Environment and Energy), the British Academy (UK), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Natural Environment Research Council (UK), and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France).</span></em></p>
From Fiji to France to Central Australia, stories abound of lands lost beneath the sea. Some are likely founded on millennia-old memories of coastal submergence, offering us clues today.
Patrick D. Nunn, Professor of Geography, School of Law and Society, University of the Sunshine Coast
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162071
2021-08-06T12:40:43Z
2021-08-06T12:40:43Z
Dinosaur bones became griffins, volcanic eruptions were gods fighting – geomythology looks to ancient stories for hints of scientific truth
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414601/original/file-20210804-17-1waxsgj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=350%2C161%2C5218%2C3826&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mythical creature born of a misinterpreted fossil?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/statue-of-griffin-or-griffon-a-legendary-creature-royalty-free-image/1148411968">Akkharat Jarusilawong/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everyone loves a good story, especially if it’s based on something true.</p>
<p>Consider the Greek legend of the Titanomachy, in which the Olympian gods, led by Zeus, vanquish the previous generation of immortals, the Titans. As <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/theogony.htm">recounted by the Greek poet Hesiod</a>, this conflict makes for a thrilling tale – and it may preserve kernels of truth.</p>
<p>The eruption <a href="https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/greece/gr1040e.html">around 1650 B.C. of the Thera volcano</a> could have inspired Hesiod’s narrative. More powerful than Krakatoa, this ancient cataclysm in the southern Aegean Sea would have been witnessed by anyone living within hundreds of miles of the blast.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="aerial view of Santorini Caldera" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414381/original/file-20210803-15-1kd1r6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The massive eruption of the Thera volcano more than 3,500 years ago left behind a hollowed out island, today known as Santorini.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/7449551878/">Steve Jurvetson</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/natural-knowledge-preclassical-antiquity">Historian of science Mott Greene argues</a> that key moments from the Titanomachy map on to the eruption’s “signature.” For example, Hesiod notes that loud rumbles emanated from the ground as the armies clashed; seismologists now know that harmonic tremors – small earthquakes that sometimes precede eruptions – often produce similar sounds. And the impression of the sky – “wide Heaven” – shaking during the battle could have been inspired by <a href="https://www.universetoday.com/33431/volcanic-shockwave-captured-by-iss-imagery/">shock waves in the air</a> caused by the volcanic explosion. Hence, the Titanomachy may represent the creative misreading of a natural event.</p>
<p>Greene’s conjecture is an example of geomythology, a field of study that gleans scientific truths from legends and myths. Created by geologist Dorothy Vitaliano nearly 50 years ago, geomythology focuses on tales that may record, however dimly, occurrences like volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and earthquakes, as well as their aftereffects, such as the exposures of strange-looking bones. These events appear to have been, in some cases, so traumatic or wonder-inducing that they may have inspired preliterate peoples to “explain” them through fables.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mqZSQ1QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">In 2021 I published</a> the first textbook in the field, “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Geomythology-How-Common-Stories-Reflect-Earth-Events/Burbery/p/book/9780367711061">Geomythology: How Common Stories Reflect Earth Events</a>.” As the book demonstrates, researchers in both the sciences and the humanities practice geomythology. In fact, geomythology’s hybrid nature may help to bridge the gap between the two cultures. And despite its orientation toward the past, geomythology might also provide powerful resources for meeting environmental challenges in the future.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Moken children play on the beach, with small boats tied up in the shallows" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414610/original/file-20210804-21-o5ba5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The legend of a monster wave told by the Moken people gave them a leg up during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-photo-taken-on-september-30-2020-shows-moken-children-news-photo/1229742933">Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Passed-down tales that explain the world</h2>
<p>Some geomyths are relatively well known. One comes from the Moken people in Thailand, who survived the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, a catastrophe that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30034501">killed some 228,000 people</a>. On that terrible day, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/10/indian-ocean-tsunami-moken-sea-nomads-thailand">Moken heeded an old tale about the “laboon”</a>, or “monster wave,” a legend passed down to them over countless campfires.</p>
<p>According to the fable, from time to time a people-devouring wave would surge and move far inland. However, those who fled to high ground in time, or, counterintuitively, put out into deeper waters, would survive. Following the legend’s advice, the Moken preserved their lives. </p>
<p>Other geomyths might have started as explanations for prehistoric remains that didn’t readily map onto any known creature.</p>
<p>The Cyclopes, the tribe of one-eyed ogres that terrorized Odysseus and his crew, might have sprung from the findings of prehistoric elephant skulls in Greece and Italy. In 1914, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/animali-del-passato/oclc/878781319?referer=br&ht=edition">paleontologist Othenio Abel pointed out</a> that these fossils feature large facial cavities in front, from which the trunk would have protruded. The eye sockets, by contrast, are easily overlooked on the sides of the cranium. To the ancient Greeks who dug them up, these skulls might have seemed like the remains of monocular, humanoid giants.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/mythic-creatures/land/griffin-bones">seemingly fanciful griffin</a> – the eagle-headed, lion-bodied hybrid – might have a similar origin story and could be based on the creative misrecognition of <em>Protoceratops</em> dinosaur remains in the Gobi Desert.</p>
<p>Still other geomyths may point to natural events. Indigenous tales tell of “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-32701311">fire devils</a>” that flew down from the Sun and plunged to Earth, killing everything in the vicinity when they landed. These “devils” were probably meteors witnessed by Aboriginal Australians. In some cases, the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1408.6368">tales anticipate findings of Western science</a> by decades, even centuries.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="people on small boat and raft setting up scientific equipment" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414646/original/file-20210804-23-xydpg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers set up monitoring equipment at Africa’s Lake Nyos that will sound an alarm if carbon dioxide levels become dangerous again.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/multinational-group-of-researchers-set-up-carbon-dioxide-news-photo/585863268">Louise Gubb/Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Numerous African folktales ascribe mischief to certain lakes, including the lakes’ apparent ability to change color, shift locations and even turn deadly. <a href="https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/273/1/NP">Such legends have been corroborated by actual events</a>. The most notorious example is the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.236.4798.169">explosion” of Cameroon’s Lake Nyos in 1986</a> when carbon dioxide, long trapped on the bottom, abruptly surfaced. Within a day, 1,746 people, along with thousands of birds, insects and livestock, were <a href="https://youtu.be/o8AonDeS8HY">suffocated by the CO2 cloud the lake burped up</a>. Lakes are sometimes associated with death and the underworld in Mediterranean stories as well: Lake Avernus, near Naples, is mythologized <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.6.vi.html">as such in Virgil’s “Aeneid</a>.”</p>
<p>Animal encounters may inform other geomyths. <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-histories-by-herodotus-53748">Herodotus’ “Histories”</a>, written about 430 B.C., claims that dog-sized ants guard certain gold deposits in regions of East Asia. In his 1984 book “<a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/ants-gold/oclc/251832995&referer=brief_results">The Ants’s Gold: The Discovery of the Greek El Dorado in the Himalayas</a>,” ethnologist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/world/europe/michel-peissel-tibet-scholar-and-adventurer-dies-at-74.html">Michel Peissel</a> uncovered Herodotus’ possible inspiration: mountain-dwelling marmots, who to this day “mine” gold by layering their nests with gold dust.</p>
<h2>Fanciful stories that feed into science</h2>
<p>Geomythology is not a science. The old stories are often garbled or contradictory, and it’s always possible that they preceded the real events that today’s researchers link them with. Imaginative pre-scientific peoples might well have dreamed up various tales out of whole cloth and only later found “confirmation” in Earth events or discoveries. </p>
<p>Yet as noted, geomyths like the griffin and Cyclopes arose from specific geographical regions that feature remains not found elsewhere. The likelihood of preliterate peoples first inventing tales that then somehow corresponded closely to later fossil finds seems like a stunning coincidence. More likely, at least with some geotales, the discoveries preceded the narratives. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Etruscan pottery with black figures blinding the cyclops with a spear" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414650/original/file-20210804-13508-l8czzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pottery from the fifth century B.C. depicting the blinding of a Cyclops.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/etruscan-civilization-5th-century-b-c-black-figure-pottery-news-photo/122214433">DEA/G. Nimatallah/De Agostini Editorial via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Either way, geomythology can serve as a valuable ally to science. Most often, it can help to corroborate scientific findings.</p>
<p>Yet geomyths can sometimes go further and correct scientific results or raise alternative hypotheses. For example, geologist <a href="https://www.geosociety.org/awards/16speeches/mgpv.htm">Donald Swanson</a> argues that the Pele legends of Hawaii suggest that the Kilauea volcanic caldera was formed considerably earlier than previous studies had indicated. He alleges that “volcanologists were led astray” in their research on the caldera’s age “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2008.01.033">by not paying close attention to the Hawaiian oral traditions</a>.”</p>
<p>Though focused on the past, geomythology may also help to set future scientific agendas. Today’s researchers might become familiar with myths that feature weird creatures or extreme weather, and then examine the stories’ places of origins for geological and paleontological clues. Such tales might provide invaluable links with real occurrences that took place long before there was a scientist around to record them. Indeed, such stories could have endured precisely because they memorialized a traumatic or wrenching incident and were thus passed down from one generation to the next as a literal cautionary tale. </p>
<h2>Creating geomyths today for future generations</h2>
<p>Another exciting area for geomythical study is not just the researching of old myths but the creation of new ones that could alert future generations of potential dangers, whether these peoples might live in tsunami-prone regions, near nuclear waste sites like Yucca Mountain, or in some equally risky area. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="warning sign for radioactive waste" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414374/original/file-20210803-25-1fhv9fb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What if, millennia from now, no one can read or understand a sign like this?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WIPP_-_Small_Subsurface_Markers.svg">Department of Energy – Carlsbad Field Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nuclear waste can remain radioactive for mind-boggling amounts of time, in some cases <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/radwaste.html#waste">up to many tens of thousands of years</a>. While placing warning labels on deposits of radioactive materials seems sensible, languages morph constantly and there’s no guarantee that present-day ones will even be spoken, let alone be understandable, in the distant future. Indeed, even stranger to contemplate is the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/were-underestimating-the-risk-of-human-extinction/253821/">extinction of the human race</a>, an event that some philosophers see as potentially closer than we might think. How, if at all, might we warn our distant progeny or, beyond them, our eventual post-human successors? </p>
<p>[<em>Get fascinating science, health and technology news.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=science&source=inline-science-fascinating">Sign up for The Conversation’s weekly science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Creating notification systems that persist throughout time is an area in which myths could be useful. Famous tales often last for many generations, sometimes proving more durable than the languages in which they were first told or spoken. Indeed, C.S. Lewis wrote that one hallmark of myth is that it “would <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/george-macdonald-c-s-lewis?variant=32117835202594">equally delight and nourish</a> if it had reached [us] by some medium which involved no words at all – say by a mime, or a film.”</p>
<p>Because they are less tied to language than literature is, myths may be easier to transmit across cultures and time. The oldest one currently on record is an <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/aboriginal-tale-ancient-volcano-oldest-story-ever-told">Aboriginal tale concerning a volcano</a>; it may be 35,000 years old.</p>
<p>Geomythology could thus contribute to a linguistic field known as nuclear semiotics, which <a href="https://mosaicscience.com/story/how-do-you-leave-warning-lasts-long-nuclear-waste/">grapples with the problem of</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200731-how-to-build-a-nuclear-warning-for-10000-years-time">warning distant generations about hazardous waste</a>. An intentionally created geomyth might preserve and transmit crucial information from the nuclear age to our descendants, with considerable effectiveness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy John Burbery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
People tell tales to explain what they see – centuries later, scientists try to map handed-down myths onto real geological events.
Timothy John Burbery, Professor of English, Marshall University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/162973
2021-06-25T13:03:24Z
2021-06-25T13:03:24Z
China is using mythology and sci-fi to sell its space programme to the world
<p>On the <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-06/17/c_1310013455.htm">morning of June 17</a>, China launched its long-awaited Shenzhou-12 spacecraft, carrying three Chinese astronauts – or taikonauts – towards the Tianhe core module. The module itself was launched at the end of April, forming part of the permanent Tiangong space station, which is planned to remain in orbit for the next ten years.</p>
<p>China’s construction of its own space station stems from the nation’s exclusion from the <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1226392.shtml">International Space Station</a>, a result of US concerns over technology transfers that could enhance China’s military capabilities. Undeterred by this, China has forged ahead with its own space programmes and alliances. Since, the country has demonstrated that the Chinese “brand” of space technology is reputable and can hold its own in the international arena.</p>
<p>An impressive track record of remarkable space endeavours is not the only thing that distinguishes China’s space brand from other national players. The government and related organisations have made concerted efforts to establish a unique “Chinese space culture” alongside the country’s advances in space technology. While the target audience for many of these cultural creations remains domestic, China’s space ambitions are directed at global audiences in a variety of ways.</p>
<h2>Legendary beginnings</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the naming of these programmes after China’s traditional roots.</p>
<p>The name <em>Tiangong</em> translates as “<a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-05/18/c_139066005.htm">Heavenly Palace</a>”. This was the residence of the deity who holds supreme authority over the universe in Chinese mythology, the Celestial Ruler. The name is particularly fitting for a Chinese space station, which acts as a home in the heavens for the country’s taikonauts. The meaning of <em>Shenzhou</em>, the missions that take taikonauts to space, is “Divine Vessel”, which is also a homophone for an ancient name for China, “Divine Land”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Traditional Chinese painting of the moon goddess Chang'e." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408373/original/file-20210625-26-wy4p0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408373/original/file-20210625-26-wy4p0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408373/original/file-20210625-26-wy4p0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408373/original/file-20210625-26-wy4p0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408373/original/file-20210625-26-wy4p0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1435&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408373/original/file-20210625-26-wy4p0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408373/original/file-20210625-26-wy4p0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1435&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Moon Goddess Chang'e.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e#/media/File:The_Moon_Goddess_Chang_E_-_Unidentified_artist,_after_Tang_Yin.jpg">Wikimeda</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>China’s lunar exploration missions, meanwhile, are named after the legendary <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-03/08/c_137878220.htm">Moon goddess Chang’e</a>. The tale goes that Chang’e flew from Earth to the Moon after stealing the elixir of immortality from her husband, Hou Yi.</p>
<p>According to Chinese mythology, Chang’e continues to live on the Moon with her rabbit companion, who spends its time pounding the elixir of immortality in a mortar for the goddess. The rabbit is known as Yutu, or “Jade Rabbit”. China’s two lunar rovers, the second of which became the first to land on the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46724727">far side of the Moon</a> in 2019, are named after it.</p>
<p>A key component of this lunar landing mission was <em>Queqiao</em>, a <a href="http://en.people.cn/n3/2019/0109/c90000-9536171-4.html">communication relay satellite</a>. This was named after the myth of the “Magpie Bridge”, which joins the “Cowherd” and the “Weaver Girl” across the stretch of the Milky Way in a romantic folktale. The satellite acted as a vital bridge of communication between the Chang’e mission components and China’s mission control centre. </p>
<p>The linking of China’s traditional past to its forward-looking space activities serves to strengthen the identity of these space programmes as distinctly Chinese. </p>
<p>In connecting these achievements to the country’s cultural heritage, they are presented not as mere copies of their space power predecessors, but as having developed from national talents and progresses. They also serve as a reminder that while the programmes aim for the furthest reaches of space, China’s future will never be disconnected from its national and cultural roots. </p>
<p>Furthermore, these legendary names are a signal to the international community that space is not the exclusive domain of historical western figures such as Apollo or Artemis, but that it also belongs to the lineage of the Chinese people.</p>
<h2>China’s future in fiction</h2>
<p>Over the last few years, multiple corporations based in China have released space-themed commercial products and promotional campaigns in conjunction with China’s official space organisations, from <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/china-is-evolving-a-distinct-space-culture/">upmarket fashion brands to KFC</a>. But perhaps the most notable promotion of China’s space ambitions is in films.</p>
<p>In 2019, the blockbuster sci-fi film <a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-02/15/c_137822420.htm">The Wandering Earth</a> was released. The film was well received, and was publicised by the state’s international media platforms as a must-see. </p>
<p>Director Frant Gwo <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/wandering-earth-director-making-chinas-first-sci-fi-blockbuster-1187681/">has spoken about</a> the importance of the message behind the film, claiming that China’s way of thinking about space is vastly different from US ideologies. According to Gwo, while the US dreams of eventually leaving the Earth to move to other planets, the Chinese space dream is to improve life on Earth through the use of space resources. The film promotes the idea that we mustn’t try to flee our planet, but instead, we must strive to protect it.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0TDII5IkI3Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>While most space-themed commercial products remain aimed at a domestic market, Chinese sci-fi is becoming increasingly popular abroad. Books such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/magazine/ken-liu-three-body-problem-chinese-science-fiction.html">The Three Body Problem</a> by Liu Cixin, who wrote the short story which The Wandering Earth was adapted from, Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang, which is also being <a href="https://variety.com/2021/film/asia/chinese-sci-fi-film-folding-city-to-shoot-this-year-1234962940/">adapted for the screen</a>, and <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-redemption-of-time/baoshu/ken-liu/9781788542203">The Redemption of Time</a> by Baoshu have all succeeded as translations. </p>
<p>Recognised by politicians as a potentially powerful tool for promoting state-approved narratives, government bodies have encouraged China’s sci-fi filmmakers to <a href="http://www.chinafilm.gov.cn/chinafilm/contents/141/2533.shtml">incorporate narratives</a> that fit with the regime’s wider ideological and technological ambitions. </p>
<p>The fantasy aspect of sci-fi may explain why the genre is being internationally promoted first over other commercial products that feature imagery of actual Chinese space missions. Unlike China’s increasing capabilities in space, which are <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2021/04/14/china-aims-to-weaponize-space-says-intel-community-report/">viewed as a threat</a> by the US, the country’s fictional space developments pose no real-life risk. Able to incorporate the backdrop of a technologically powerful China into entertaining and compelling narratives, such stories allow foreign audiences to engage with the idea of China as a space power without the kind of political discourse that surrounds its real space activities. </p>
<p>Eventually, a foreign audience may begin to grow more comfortable with the notion of China as a technological world leader. And this, in turn, may cultivate an interest in the activities of the Chinese national space programme.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Molly Silk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
China’s space culture is unique and deeply rooted in the country’s traditions.
Molly Silk, PhD Candidate, Chinese Space Policy, University of Manchester
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/161064
2021-05-27T12:06:08Z
2021-05-27T12:06:08Z
‘WandaVision’ echoes myths of Isis, Orpheus and Kisa Gotami to explain how grief and love persevere
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402879/original/file-20210526-15-v4yroz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3834%2C2155&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What is Marvel if not mythology persevering?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://dmedmedia.disney.com/disney-plus/wandavision/images">WandaVision Images/Disney Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During a flashback scene in Marvel’s Disney Plus show “<a href="https://www.disneyplus.com/series/wandavision/4SrN28ZjDLwH">WandaVision</a>,” the <a href="https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Vision">superpowered android Vision</a> comforts his wife, Wanda Maximoff, after the death of her twin brother. “But what is grief,” he tells her, “if not love persevering?” </p>
<p>The line has become famous among Marvel fans and inspired <a href="https://junkee.com/wandavision-vision-grief-meme/289488">an internet meme</a>. But it also neatly summarizes the events of the show. Later, distraught over Vision’s death after battling the <a href="https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Thanos_(Earth-616)">villain Thanos</a>, Wanda uses her magic powers to bring a version of him back to life. He becomes her husband in a sitcom fantasy world of her own creation. In order to establish this dream world, Wanda pulls an entire town of people into her magic bubble to play roles of her choosing.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://variety.com/vip/wandavision-audience-bigger-than-netflixs-bridgerton-in-january-data-suggests-1234913691/">success of “WandaVision”</a> continues <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/31/the-13-highest-grossing-film-franchises-at-the-box-office.html">Marvel’s impressive record</a>. But besides extending the studio’s string of box office hits into television, “WandaVision” also continues another familiar pattern from Marvel: echoing much older stories from world mythologies.</p>
<h2>Marvel and mythology</h2>
<p>As I show in my recent book, “<a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/religion-and-myth-in-the-marvel-cinematic-universe/">Religion and Myth in the Marvel Cinematic Universe</a>,” examples of that pattern are not hard to find. </p>
<p>The origin stories where Marvel heroes discover their powers often resemble initiation rituals found around the world. In those rituals, the hero often dies – literally or symbolically – and achieves a new status upon coming back to life.</p>
<p>For instance, it shows up frequently in stories of shamans from around the globe, where individuals grow very sick or even briefly die, then return with supernatural powers. Similarly, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Black Panther all gain their powers after near-death experiences.</p>
<p>In some cases, as when the Avengers battle one another – such as in 2016’s “<a href="https://www.marvel.com/movies/captain-america-civil-war">Captain America: Civil War</a>” – the tragic battle between heroes resembles the scale and savagery of Achilles fighting Hector in the Greek “<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-iliad-80968">Iliad</a>” or Arjuna battling Karna in the Hindu “<a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-indian-epic-mahabharata-imparts-a-dark-nuanced-moral-vision">Mahabharata</a>.” Among the Avengers, when it is revealed that Captain America hid knowledge of who killed Iron Man’s parents, it results in a similarly vicious battle between the two heroes. </p>
<p>And when the Avengers battle monsters and villains, those antagonists often mirror the giants, dragons and beasts of much older stories. Think, for instance, of the <a href="https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Emil_Blonsky_(Earth-616)">Abomination</a> and <a href="https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Skull">Red Skull</a>, who resemble ogres found in stories like the <a href="http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Ar-Be/Beowulf.html">Norse myth “Beowulf”</a> or the Chinese folk tale “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39728636">Journey to the West</a>.”</p>
<p>The primary villains also have mythic connections. <a href="https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Thanos_(Earth-616)">Thanos</a>, whose name means “death” in Greek, has similarities to mythic figures of death from around the world. Like the Greek god <a href="https://www.greekmythology.com/Olympians/Hades/hades.html">Hades</a>, at times he appears regal, surrounded by servants and followers, sitting in a throne while wearing armor and a crown. Other times he is like <a href="https://www.learnreligions.com/the-demon-mara-449981">Mara</a>, the god of death in Buddhism, who assumes monstrous forms and commands an army of frightening and misshapen creatures. </p>
<p>The Avengers’ final attempt to defeat Thanos also parallels quests to overcome death found in stories like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-epic-of-gilgamesh-73444">Mesopotamian epic “Gilgamesh</a>” or the <a href="https://1baikal.ru/en/istoriya/bezzhalostnye-dukhi-buryatskogo-shamanizma">tales of Siberian shamans</a>. Like those ancient heroes, the Avengers undertake a great journey to acquire magical objects – in their case, the Infinity Stones – to overcome death.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402888/original/file-20210526-15-1vu5xn0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The android superhero Vision and Wanda Maximoff in the Marvel TV series 'WandaVision'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402888/original/file-20210526-15-1vu5xn0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402888/original/file-20210526-15-1vu5xn0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402888/original/file-20210526-15-1vu5xn0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402888/original/file-20210526-15-1vu5xn0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402888/original/file-20210526-15-1vu5xn0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402888/original/file-20210526-15-1vu5xn0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402888/original/file-20210526-15-1vu5xn0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The suburban newlyweds share similarities with Isis and Osiris from Egyptian mythology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://dmedmedia.disney.com/disney-plus/wandavision/images">WandaVision Images/Disney Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wanda’s grief</h2>
<p>In the case of “WandaVision,” its portrayal of grief and loss brings to mind many famous world myths. In Egyptian mythology, the goddess Isis searches for the dismembered body parts of <a href="https://www.laits.utexas.edu/cairo/teachers/osiris.pdf">her murdered husband Osiris</a>. After Isis reassembles Osiris, the couple have a son, Horus. Similarly, when Wanda cannot put Vision’s destroyed body back together, she recreates it out of magic and goes on to have twins with him.</p>
<p>Wanda’s actions also bring to mind <a href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/thig/thig.10.01.than.html">a famous tale</a> from the Buddhist tradition. In that story, a woman named Kisa Gotami is heartbroken when her only child dies. She begs the Buddha to bring the child back to life. The Buddha tells her to bring him a mustard seed from a house where no one has died. Going from house to house, Kisa Gotami discovers there is no family that has not experienced death, grief and loss. In the end, she comes to terms with her sorrow and joins the Buddhist path.</p>
<p>Interestingly, “WandaVision” arrives at a similar ending. For most of the series, Wanda clings to the idea that she can keep Vision alive and live happily ever after with him. But she eventually realizes it is wrong to keep her fantasy family alive at the cost of imprisoning an entire town. Like Kisa Gotami, she ultimately acknowledges the reality of death and lets Vision and their children go by ending the spell that animates them. </p>
<p>As Wanda watches Vision slowly vanish before her eyes, viewers may be reminded of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/orpheus-and-eurydice-review-a-bold-reimagining-through-circus-and-opera-124004">myth of Orpheus</a>, a Greek hero, and his wife, Eurydice. After Eurydice dies from a snakebite, Orpheus persuades Hades to release her from the underworld. Unfortunately, on the journey back, Orpheus breaks the one rule Hades gave him: Do not look at her before reaching the surface. When he does, he watches Eurydice disappear all over again.</p>
<h2>Timeless lessons</h2>
<p>It’s possible that these parallels between the Marvel stories and ancient myths are part of their ongoing popularity. Both genres tap into fundamental questions that people have been trying to answer for thousands of years. What is worth fighting for? How do I live my best life? Why do we have to die?</p>
<p>“WandaVision,” meanwhile, is all about grief, but – like many myths before it – there is a sprinkle of hope. As Vision begins to disappear, he tells Wanda, “I have been a voice with no body, a body but not human, and now, a memory made real. Who knows what I might be next? We have said goodbye before, so it stands to reason, we’ll say hello again.”</p>
<p>Those words capture the same ache felt by Isis, Orpheus, Kisa Gotami and any person – ancient or modern – who has ever lost a loved one. The mythological tales remain relevant across time and across cultures, reappearing in these Marvel stories. That fact makes me wonder if we can alter Vision’s famous words just a bit: “What is Marvel, if not mythology persevering?”</p>
<p>[<em>Explore the intersection of faith, politics, arts and culture.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-explore">Sign up for This Week in Religion.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161064/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Nichols does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
‘WandaVision’ reimagines stories from Egyptian and Greek mythology, as well as Buddhist tradition.
Michael Nichols, Professor of Religious Studies, Martin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134986
2020-04-01T12:13:04Z
2020-04-01T12:13:04Z
Obituary: South Africa’s towering healer, prophet and artist Credo Mutwa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323972/original/file-20200330-146683-3u49ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vusamazulu. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Artwork © Sindiso Nyoni</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mkhulu <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/vusamazulu-credo-mutwa">VusamaZulu Credo Mutwa</a>’s name foretold the role that this towering South African healer, prophet and artist was to play. VusamaZulu can be translated as either ‘awaken the Zulu nation’ or ‘awaken the heavens’, aptly describing his life’s work: asserting the humanity of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defining-term-bantu">aBantu</a> – people of African descent – globally.</p>
<p>‘Mkhulu’ means ‘grandfather’ and in this I acknowledge Mkhulu VusamaZulu as well as the ancestors that walk with him as my elders. </p>
<p>uMkhulu passed away at the age of 98. He was born on 21 July 1921 in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. After falling ill in his teenage years, he was initiated to become a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/sangoma">sangoma</a> or traditional healer. </p>
<p>The sangoma is a diviner and seer, using gifts of spiritual sight, mediation with the ancestors and knowledge of herbal medicine and ritual to diagnose and heal disease. Traditional healers are often ‘called’ to this path by their ancestors ‘<a href="http://scholar.ufs.ac.za:8080/bitstream/handle/11660/2171/MlisaL-RN.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">through dreams and other significant experiences</a>’ including illnesses and misfortune. </p>
<p>Following this intensive initiation process, uMkhulu embarked on <a href="http://credomutwa.com/credo-mutwa-biography/biography-01/">many journeys</a> through African countries, including Swaziland, Lesotho and Kenya. He wrote </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was not travelling for enjoyment, however, I was travelling for knowledge … I came into contact with men and women of countries that I had not known before … I found myself amongst men and women possessing knowledge that was already ancient when the man Jesus Christ was born. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Credo Mutwa in Soweto, 1997.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The pan-African nature of his training provided him with a vast <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4aXrxYWfxHbwbJCBThdMa07TQrQ8anOr">knowledge</a> of African folklore, mythology and culture which, he lamented, was dying. He became adamant that he needed not only to preserve it, but to educate South Africans about this heritage, which is not taught in schools. </p>
<h2>Prolific artist</h2>
<p>uMkhulu was astonishingly prolific despite his many years, working across mediums and forms as a teacher and healer. He was a storyteller of mythologies, the author of five books, the best-known being <em><a href="https://canongate.co.uk/books/236-indaba-my-children-african-tribal-history-legends-customs-and-religious-beliefs/">Indaba, My Children (1964)</a></em>. He wrote a play called <em>uNosilimela</em>, worked on a <a href="http://vusamazulu.com">graphic novel</a>, and created a <a href="http://credomutwa.com">website</a> and two living museums – <a href="https://www.sa-venues.com/things-to-do/gauteng/credo-mutwa-cultural-village/">KwaKhaya LeNdaba</a> in Soweto and <a href="http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=7&aid=1&dir=2010/January/Friday15/">Lotlamoreng</a> in Mahikeng. Here visitors can see some of his countless sculptures and artworks. </p>
<p>In many, there is a recurring figure of a woman, whom he called Ma in <em>Indaba, My Children</em>. This is the depiction of the goddess of creation, known to the Zulu people as <a href="http://paton.ukzn.ac.za/Collections/Nomkhubulwane.aspx">Nomkhubulwane</a>. He frequently exalted the spirit of women as life givers and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK13Yw9cXQQ">spoke</a> against the abuse of women. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin Random House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With no formal training, his art became an expression of his wish to share the oral tales and symbols of traditional African spirituality. </p>
<p>Through these various works, he allowed us to trace our roots, philosophy and <em>ubuntu bethu</em>; the humanity of aBantu. Ubuntu here refers to a specific humanity accessible only to aBantu; an assertion that foregrounds the African worldview. </p>
<p>At the time of his passing uMkhulu had received little financial gain from his writings as his royalties were owned by others, according to the <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/credo-mutwa-trust-opened/">Credo Mutwa Trust</a>.</p>
<p>This was not his only challenge. uMkhulu acknowledged that in his writing about African spirituality, he was risking being called a traitor by his people for sharing its secrets. </p>
<p>In 1976, students burnt down parts of his Soweto cultural village after he was misquoted on an Afrikaans radio station. It was burnt down again in 1980, his son murdered and wife raped, after being unjustly accused of working with white men under apartheid. </p>
<p>With his work easily exploited by conspiracy theorists, he was at times ridiculed as a false prophet. He was largely neglected as a cultural figure by the South African state. To maintain his safety, he retired to the small town of Kuruman in the North West province.</p>
<h2>Revered sanusi</h2>
<p>uMkhulu was a revered sanusi, loosely translated as ‘one who lifts us up’. Isanusi, according uMkhulu VVO Mkhize of <a href="https://umsamo.org.za/south-african-healers-association-soaha/">Umsamo Institute</a>, is a healer who reveals that which is hidden, such as mysteries erased by history, and who tells us about the future. </p>
<p>As he filled in some of the blanks in Bantu history, his predictions of significant global events garnered international interest.</p>
<p>Many were expressed through his <a href="https://www.artranked.com/topic/credo+mutwa">art</a>. His 1979 sculpture of King Khandakhulu discussing his sexually transmitted diseases with the gods is seen to pre-empt HIV and Aids. A 1979 painting is said to predict the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks">September 11</a> attacks in the USA. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mutwa’s sculptures of King Khandakulu and the gods.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of his many <a href="https://www.power987.co.za/news/documentary-celebrating-human-rights-day-with-credo-vusamazulu-mutwa/">predictive utterances</a> – among them those related to the 1976 Soweto youth <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">uprisings</a> and the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana</a> massacre – were told to visitors or made in video recordings posted on the Credo Mutwa Foundation Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LifeandTimesofCredoMutwa/">page</a>. His prophecy was embedded in South Africa’s popular culture, especially through the <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/credo-warns-evil-is-upon-us--daily-sun">mass print media</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76h62Z8OqMI">YouTube</a>.</p>
<p>Taken together, his life’s work proposed that knowledge was not finite and that the soul was able to traverse different times and dimensions to bring knowledge of the past and of the future into the present.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JtRpdpeJJDc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A short documentary on Mutwa’s cultural village in Soweto.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New ways of knowing</h2>
<p>uMkhulu broadened the view of Africans. In his work, we were exposed to a type of knowledge that had been <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227583160_Developmental_Psychology_as_Political_Psychology_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa_The_Challenge_of_Africanisation">oppressed</a>. He taught us that South Africans’ history did not begin in 1652, when <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/arrival-jan-van-riebeeck-cape-6-april-1652">Jan Van Riebeeck</a> hit our shores and the colonisation project <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa">began</a>, but that we have a long legacy of philosophy and medicine, interrupted by this colonisation. </p>
<p>Through his work, he gave us the voice, the agency and the tools with which to fight against a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01459740.2015.1100612">single story</a>. One that placed the white man as the ideal and any other category of human as ‘other’ and <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/1516556/69a8a25c597f33bf66af6cdf411d58c2.pdf">lesser</a>. We are now able to assert that the story is of multiple interpretations, dimensions and times.</p>
<p><em>Lala ngoxolo Khehla lethu</em> (rest in peace our old man); your prophecies are well heeded, and teachings continuously awaken <em>uBuntu bethu</em> (our humanity), <em>thina aBantu beThonga laseAfrika</em> (us children of the ancestor of Africa).</p>
<p><em>The portrait ‘Vusumazulu’ is by Sindiso Nyoni. See his work <a href="https://studioriot.com">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sinethemba Makanya receives funding from the Mellon Foundation and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human and Community Development. I have previously received funding from Fulbright </span></em></p>
His life’s work was asserting the humanity and history of the Bantu people, while proposing that the soul was able to bring knowledge of the past and of the future into the present.
Sinethemba Makanya, Doctoral Fellow, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/131815
2020-02-24T13:27:13Z
2020-02-24T13:27:13Z
The ancient Greeks had alternative facts too – they were just more chill about it
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316628/original/file-20200221-92530-qrka56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C1%2C1017%2C603&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Understandings of truth may be found in the Muses' words.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muses_(painting)#/media/File:Jacopo_Tintoretto_-_The_Muses,_1578.jpg">Jacopo Tintoretto's The Muses/Wikpedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In an age of <a href="https://theconversation.com/detecting-deepfake-videos-in-the-blink-of-an-eye-101072">deepfakes</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/alternative-facts-do-exist-beliefs-lies-and-politics-84692">alternative facts</a>, it can be tricky getting at the truth. But persuading others – or even yourself – what is true is not a challenge unique to the modern era. Even the ancient Greeks had to confront different realities.</p>
<p>Take the <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html">story of Oedipus</a>. It is a narrative that most people think they know – Oedipus blinded himself after finding out he killed his father and married his mother, right?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316705/original/file-20200223-92512-17klgm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316705/original/file-20200223-92512-17klgm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316705/original/file-20200223-92512-17klgm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316705/original/file-20200223-92512-17klgm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316705/original/file-20200223-92512-17klgm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316705/original/file-20200223-92512-17klgm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316705/original/file-20200223-92512-17klgm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316705/original/file-20200223-92512-17klgm1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=981&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Actor Christopher Plummer in the 1967 film ‘Oedipus the King.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-I-ENT-GRC-APHS245472-Plummer-1967/3fc1c4307ece416991d58c1b322e30e6/51/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the ancient Greeks actually left us many different versions of almost every ancient tale. Homer has Oedipus living on, eyes intact after his mother Jocasta’s death. Euripides, another Greek dramatist, has Oedipus continue living with his mother after the truth is revealed. </p>
<p>A challenge <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/facultyguide/person.html?emplid=1be7ee967d45605afddf7da9ad4ca2c049a26c0b">I face when teaching Greek mythology</a> is the assumption that my course will establish which version of the story is correct. Students want to know which version is “the right one.” </p>
<p>To help them understand why this isn’t the best approach, I use a passage from <a href="https://www.ancient.eu/Theogony/">Hesiod’s “Theogony</a>,” a story of the origin of the universe and the gods by the poet Hesiod. The narrator claims the Muses, inspirational goddesses of the arts, science and literature, appeared to him and declared “we know how to tell many false things (pseudea) similar to the truth (etumoisin) but we know how to speak the truth (alêthea) when we want to.”</p>
<p>Now, that is quite the disclaimer before going on to describe how Zeus came to rule the universe! But the Greeks had different ways of thinking about narrative and truth than we do today.</p>
<h2>The truths are out there</h2>
<p>One such approach focuses on the diversity of audiences hearing the story. Under this historical interpretation, the Muses’ caveat can be seen as a way to prepare audiences for stories that differ from those told in their local communities.</p>
<p>A theological interpretation might see a distinction between human beliefs and divine knowledge, reserving the ability to distinguish the truth for the gods alone. This approach anticipates a key tenet of later <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html">philosophical distinctions between appearance and reality</a>. </p>
<p>The Muses also set out a metaphysical foundation: The truth exists, but it is hard to comprehend and only the gods can truly know and understand it. This formulation establishes “truth” as a fundamental feature of the universe.</p>
<p>The meanings of the words used are important here. “Pseudea,” used for “lies,” is the root of English compounds denoting something false – think pseudonym or pseudoscience. But notice that Hesiod uses two different words for “truth.” The first, “etumon” is where we get the English etymology from, but this Greek word can mean anything from “authentic” to “original.” The second, “alêthea” literally means “that which is not hidden or forgotten.” It is the root of the mythical river of forgetfulness, Lêthe, whose waters the souls of the dead sample to wash away their memories.</p>
<p>So to the Muses — who were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory — “truth” is something authoritative because it is “authentic” in meaning and “revealed” or “unforgettable.”</p>
<p>The Muses’ implication is that truth is derived from ancient origins and is somehow unchanging and, ultimately, unknowable for human beings.</p>
<p>Indeed, this formulation becomes a bedrock of ancient philosophy when authors <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/form-philosophy">like Plato</a> insist that truth and reality must be eternal and immutable. Such assumptions about the truth are also central to absolutist approaches to beliefs, whether we are talking about religion, literature or politics.</p>
<p>But what good is knowing about the nature of truth if it is ultimately inaccessible to mortal minds? </p>
<p>From teaching Greek texts I have become increasingly convinced that the Theogony’s narrator quotes the Muses not merely to evade responsibility for telling an unknown story nor to praise the wisdom of the gods. Instead, he is giving us advice for how to interpret myth and storytelling in general: Don’t worry about what it is true or not. Just try to make sense of the story as you encounter it, based on the details it provides. </p>
<h2>Myth and memory</h2>
<p>The treatment of “truth” in Greek myth can be informative when looking at modern research in cognitive science and memory.</p>
<p>The memory scientist <a href="https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/soco.22.5.491.50768">Martin Conway</a>, in studying how people construct stories about the world and themselves, has argued that two basic tendencies, correspondence and coherence, govern our memories. </p>
<p>Correspondence refers to how well our memory fits with verifiable facts, or what actually happened.</p>
<p>Coherence is the human tendency to select details which fit our assumptions about the world and who we are. Conway’s studies show that we tend to select memories about the past and make observations on the present which confirm our own narrative of what actually happened. </p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627313009914">already know</a> that much of what we understand about the world is interpreted and “filled in” by our creative and efficient brains, so it should be of little surprise that we selectively pick memories to represent an absolute truth even as we continually revise it.</p>
<p>As individuals and groups, what we accept as “true” is conditioned by our biases and by what we want the truth to be.</p>
<p>With this in mind, the Muses’ warning not to obsess about whether the details in a myth are true seems appropriate – especially if a narrative making sense is more important than it being “true.” </p>
<p>A scene from Homer’s “Odyssey” strengthens the case for applying these ideas to early Greece. When Odysseus returns to his home island of Ithaca after 20 years, he dons a disguise to test the members of his household. A great deal of suspense arises from his conversations with his wife, Penelope, when he too is described as “someone speaking many lies (pseudea) similar to the truth (etumoisin).” Odysseus presents facts to his wife that have no counterpart in an objective reality, but his selection of details reveals much about Odysseus that is “true” about himself. He offers themes and anecdotes that give an insight into who he is, if we listen closely.</p>
<p>Ancient Greek epics emerged from a culture in which hundreds of different communities with separate traditions and beliefs developed shared languages and beliefs. Not unlike the United States today, this multiplicity created an environment for encountering and comparing differences. What Hesiod’s story tells his audience is that truth is out there, but it is hard work to figure out.</p>
<p>Figuring it out requires us to listen to the stories people tell and think about how they might seem true to them. That means not overreacting when we hear something unfamiliar that goes against what we think we know. </p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131815/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joel Christensen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Is making sense of a story more important than getting at its truth? Looking at the treatment of myth in ancient Greece may help us navigate what is true, and whether that matters.
Joel Christensen, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130043
2020-02-03T13:53:26Z
2020-02-03T13:53:26Z
Do authors really put deeper meaning into poems and stories – or do readers make it up?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312578/original/file-20200129-92954-lqsff9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many books, like 'Charlotte's Web,' contain symbolism.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/near-rural-window-daylight-dark-room-1486987019">Dmitriy Os Ivanov/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Do authors really put deeper meaning into poems and stories – or do readers make it up? Jordan, 14, Indianapolis, Indiana</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>One of my favorite novels is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2011/07/05/137452030/how-e-b-white-spun-charlottes-web">“Charlotte’s Web</a>,” the famous story of a friendship between a pig and a spider.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=b2aAT9YAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">I often talk</a> about this novel with my students studying children’s literature. At some point, someone always asks about “deeper meaning.” Is it really a story of, say, the cycle of death and rebirth? Or the importance of friendship? Or the significance of writing?</p>
<p>Or is it just a story of life in the barn, with talking animals? </p>
<p>In a way, it doesn’t matter. Because every writer is also a reader, and that means that whatever a writer puts into a story probably came from somewhere else, whether it’s another story, or a poem, or their own life experience.</p>
<p>And readers, too, will bring their own experience – of other stories, other poems and life – and that will direct their interpretation of what they absorb. We can see one example of this if we look at the spider in “Charlotte’s Web.”</p>
<h2>The meaning of character</h2>
<p>That spider, Charlotte, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/07/biographer-spider-charlottes-web">is based on a real spider</a>. We know this because E.B. White drew pictures of spiders, studied them and made sure to be as accurate as he could when he wrote about them.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312575/original/file-20200129-92949-1nbo2r7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1084&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Charlotte’s Web’ by E. B. White.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte%27s_Web#/media/File:CharlotteWeb.png">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But, to a reader she <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Arachne">may also represent Arachne</a>, the talented weaver who challenged the goddess Athena and was changed into a spider for her pride. Or she may be the “noiseless patient spider” of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45473/a-noiseless-patient-spider">Walt Whitman’s poem</a>, who flings out thread-like filaments as the poet flings out words.</p>
<p>She may also be the spider who weaves “<a href="https://www.vqronline.org/silken-tent">the silken tent</a>” of Robert Frost’s poem. Maybe we’ll think about how the spider, like a human storyteller, generates something seemingly out of nothing, which makes her web miraculous.</p>
<p>Each of these spiders symbolizes different things. When we read about her, then, we may think of all those other spiders. Or we may just think about the spider we saw on our own front porch that morning, weaving her own web.</p>
<p>As the writer Philip Pullman said, “The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and the <a href="https://www.philip-pullman.com/">thoughts in the reader’s mind</a>.”</p>
<h2>The reader is in charge</h2>
<p>What Pullman is suggesting, then, is that it’s up to readers to make the meaning they want out of the stories they hear and the books they read.</p>
<p>It’s a powerful statement: We are in charge.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean that anything goes. Meanings come from context, from convention, from older stories and from previous usage. But it’s up to us to interpret what we read and to make the case for how we’re doing it.</p>
<p>Or, as the novelist John Green writes of his books, “<a href="https://www.johngreenbooks.com/where-i-get-my-ideas-inspiration-and-general-writing-stuff">They belong to their readers now</a>, which is a great thing – because the books are more powerful in the hands of my readers than they could ever be in my hands.”</p>
<p>What we do with the books we read matters, Green tells us. It’s up to us to make the meaning and up to us to decide what to do with that meaning once we’ve made it.</p>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elisabeth Gruner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Authors sometimes put deeper meanings into their stories, but really, it’s the reader who decides.
Elisabeth Gruner, Associate Professor of English, University of Richmond
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/130078
2020-01-21T17:30:36Z
2020-01-21T17:30:36Z
When did the vulva become obscene?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310449/original/file-20200116-181653-1pzeab2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C1497%2C1028&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Statuette of a female vulve called Baubo, terracotta, from Priene, Asia Minor, 4th century BC.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/7fifnk/statue_of_baubo_goddess_of_lewd_jokes_ca_400_bce/">Reddit</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In September 2019, a French ad for feminine hygiene products featuring taboo-breaking representations of vulvas and menstruation <a href="https://www.telerama.fr/television/sur-youtube,-la-vulve-sous-le-feu-des-commentaires,n6437136.php">sparked controversy</a>. Yet in a cultural context in France, phallic symbols rarely cause a fuss. What explains this difference in treatment?</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296231/original/file-20191009-3867-xogc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296231/original/file-20191009-3867-xogc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296231/original/file-20191009-3867-xogc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296231/original/file-20191009-3867-xogc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296231/original/file-20191009-3867-xogc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1668&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296231/original/file-20191009-3867-xogc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1668&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296231/original/file-20191009-3867-xogc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1668&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The goddess Ishtar, vase from Larsa, c. 1900 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Musée du Louvre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Images of male genitalia in art and advertising rarely cause a stir – we’re used to them. Male statues have been flaunting their (fairly realistic) penises in public parks for centuries, and <a href="http://www.culturepub.fr/videos/perrier-bouteille-phallique/">Perrier often centers its ads on phallic-shaped bottles</a>.</p>
<p>In contrast, vulval symbols are conspicuous by their absence. No wonder, then, that the Nana brand’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch&v=0k-_4WloY6Y">“Viva la Vulva”</a> campaign is causing a stir. The phallus is seen as a powerful image, whereas the vulva is upsetting to many. But this has not always been the case.</p>
<h2>The divine vulva of Ishtar: a fertility symbol</h2>
<p>In the third millennium BC, the Sumerians, inhabitants of present-day Iraq, worshipped the goddess Ishtar. Poetic texts refer to the goddess’ wet vulva, fertilized by the sperm of her mortal husband, Dumuzi, the shepherd king.</p>
<p>The goddess addresses her lover <a href="https://www.babelio.com/livres/Kramer-Lerotisme-sacre/444260">as follows</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Who will plow my high field?<br>
Who will plow my wet ground?<br>
As for me, the young woman,<br>
who will plow my vulva?<br>
Who will station the ox there?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The oxen pulling the plow refer to the king’s phallus; the vulva represents the ground to be sown. Ishtar’s royal lover answers, “I, Dumuzi the King, will plow your vulva.” At fever pitch of excitement, the goddess cries, “Then plow my vulva, man of my heart!”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296237/original/file-20191009-3910-ocs3qa.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296237/original/file-20191009-3910-ocs3qa.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296237/original/file-20191009-3910-ocs3qa.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296237/original/file-20191009-3910-ocs3qa.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296237/original/file-20191009-3910-ocs3qa.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=984&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296237/original/file-20191009-3910-ocs3qa.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1237&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296237/original/file-20191009-3910-ocs3qa.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1237&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296237/original/file-20191009-3910-ocs3qa.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1237&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hathor, bronze statuette, 8th century BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/685672">Brooklyn Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They make love, and when Dumuzi ejaculates, plants are seeded all around and begin to grow. The vulva plays a positive role in this story; it is complementary to the phallus, equally necessary to the fertilization of the land.</p>
<p>In ancient Egypt, the vulva was seen as a source of happiness and regeneration. The sun god Ra was the source of light on Earth, but he sometimes showed signs of weakness, endangering all of humankind. Fortunately, the beautiful goddess Hathor had the bright idea of undressing in front of him and showing her vulva. Ra laughed joyfully at the sight and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1529326/_Rire_f%C3%A9condit%C3%A9_et_d%C3%A9voilement_rituel_du_sexe_f%C3%A9minin_d_Hathor_%C3%A0_Baub%C3%B4_un_parcours_revisit%C3%A9_dans_Et_in_Aegypto_et_ad_Aegyptum_Recueil_d_%C3%A9tudes_d%C3%A9di%C3%A9es_%C3%A0_Jean%E2%80%91Claude_Grenier_Annie_Gasse_Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Servajean_et_Christophe_Thiers_%C3%A9ds._CENiM_5_vol._4_Montpellier_2012_p._755-772">recovered all his dazzle</a>. A valuable vulva indeed…</p>
<h2>In Greece and Rome: the vulva vanishes</h2>
<p>The vulva fell out of favour in the ancient Greek and Roman world. Artists often depicted the phallus, but the vulva is almost nowhere to be seen. Gods and heroes flaunt their penises, but goddesses tend to be robed; even when nude, like Aphrodite, they have perfectly smooth pubic triangles, with no clitoris or labia. The vulva was lost to censorship.</p>
<p>By contrast, the phallus – <em>phallos</em> in Greek or <em>fascinus</em> in Latin – was revered. Believed to have magical powers, it was exhibited and worshipped as an idol capable of protecting the city and its inhabitants from harm, and putting thieves and intruders to flight.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296240/original/file-20191009-3910-1jzdj02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296240/original/file-20191009-3910-1jzdj02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296240/original/file-20191009-3910-1jzdj02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296240/original/file-20191009-3910-1jzdj02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296240/original/file-20191009-3910-1jzdj02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296240/original/file-20191009-3910-1jzdj02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296240/original/file-20191009-3910-1jzdj02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296240/original/file-20191009-3910-1jzdj02.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Hic habitat Felicitas</em>, ‘Here dwells happiness,’ terracotta relief, 1st century AD.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pomp%C3%A9%C3%AF_HIC_HABITAT_FELICITAS.jpg">Archeological Museum, Naples</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is why the Athenians held the annual Dionysia festival, where a <a href="https://www.babelio.com/livres/Sissa-La-vie-quotidienne-des-dieux-grecs/114518">solemn procession of citizens called <em>phallophoroi</em></a> carried giant carved wooden phalluses. Erect penises made of wood or clay were also installed on street corners and at the entrances to stores and houses.</p>
<p>A sign found over the entrance of a bakery in Pompeii shows a <em>fascinus</em>, framed by an inscription proclaiming “Here dwells happiness” (<em>Hic habitat felicitas</em>). Phallic scarecrows were thought to be <a href="https://www.historia.fr/le-sexe-%C3%A0%C2%A0-rome">apotropaic</a> (able to ward off evil), and Greeks and Romans wore bronze penis-shaped pendants. In all these different forms, the phallus was always synonymous with strength, happiness and prosperity.</p>
<h2>The vulva, for women only</h2>
<p>In Greek art, depictions of the vulva – believed to <a href="http://pur-editions.fr/detail.php?idOuv=3869">boost female fertility</a> – are only found on objects intended for women.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296241/original/file-20191009-3846-13735cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296241/original/file-20191009-3846-13735cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1309&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296241/original/file-20191009-3846-13735cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296241/original/file-20191009-3846-13735cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1309&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296241/original/file-20191009-3846-13735cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1645&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296241/original/file-20191009-3846-13735cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1645&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/296241/original/file-20191009-3846-13735cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1645&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figurine of a vulva-woman known as Baubo, terracotta, Priene, Asia Minor, 4th century AD.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Statuettes of pregnant women touching their vulvas have been found in Egypt. Other figurines of vulva-women, found in Asia Minor, were probably worn by pregnant women as protective amulets. The ethnologist and psychoanalyst Georges Devereux associated these headless figurines, whose faces are engraved on their bellies, with the myth of the priestess Baubo, who <a href="https://www.babelio.com/livres/Devereux-Baubo-la-vulve-mythique/346685">showed her vulva to Demeter</a> to distract the goddess from her grief at the loss of her daughter.</p>
<p>Like Ra in the Egyptian story of Hathor, Demeter reacted by laughing–but Baubo showed her vulva as a gesture of female solidarity, with no erotic intention.</p>
<p>The denigration of the vulva outside the female sphere is illustrated by the birth of the goddess Athena, who was growing in Zeus’ skull. One day, Zeus had such a headache that he begged the god Hephaestus to split open his skull with a hammer and chisel. Hephaestus complied, <a href="https://www.babelio.com/livres/Bonnard-Le-complexe-de-Zeus--Representations-de-la-patern/404952">carving out a sort of improvised vulva</a>.</p>
<p>The goddess Athena, in full armour, sprang out from this crack – so the lord of the gods was able to give birth to his daughter, proving the vulva’s worthlessness. This myth is a fantasy of male birth-giving – procreation in which the vulva plays no part.</p>
<h2>The “taut sex” of the nymphomaniac</h2>
<p>But the most hostile ancient representations of the vulva are found in Latin texts. Roman authors imagined nymphomaniac characters, women gripped by uncontrollable sexual frenzy. One such example is Messalina, wife of the emperor Claudius (reigned AD 41-54). After her death, she became the heroine of a sinister legend portraying her as <a href="https://www.babelio.com/livres/Castorio-Messaline-la-putain-imperiale/784076">sexually insatiable</a>.</p>
<p>The poet Juvenal described her orgiastic behaviour in his <em>Satires</em>, recounting how the young empress left the splendour of the palace under cover of night, venturing out in secret to <a href="http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/satire/juvenal/satire6b.htm">gratify her lust in a sordid Roman brothel</a> (Juvénal, <em>Satires</em> VI, 116-130).</p>
<p>All night long, Messalina took lover after lover, only stopping when the brothel closed its doors. She returned to the palace with her “taut sex still burning” (<em>adhuc ardens rigidae tentigine vulvae</em>), exhausted but “not satisfied” (<em>sed non satiata</em>, the famous expression that inspired <a href="https://fleursdumal.org/poem/123">Baudelaire’s poem of the same name</a>).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311198/original/file-20200121-117927-18oilpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311198/original/file-20200121-117927-18oilpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311198/original/file-20200121-117927-18oilpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311198/original/file-20200121-117927-18oilpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311198/original/file-20200121-117927-18oilpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311198/original/file-20200121-117927-18oilpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311198/original/file-20200121-117927-18oilpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=594&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>The Death Of Valeria Messalina</em> by Victor Biennoury (1823–1893).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Death_Of_Valeria_Messalina_by_V.Biennoury.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Her lust never satisfied, Messalina involved her entourage in her excesses. According to Pliny the Elder, she challenged a prostitute to a 24-hour sex competition, which she won with a score of 25 partners (<em>Natural History</em> 10, 83, 172).</p>
<p>In addition to her endless string of lovers, Messalina was reputed to always initiate her sexual encounters, revolutionising the codes of phallocratic Roman society. She was portrayed as a tireless sexual predator and a dominant woman who behaved like a man – outrageous in Roman eyes.</p>
<p>Claudius was told of his wife’s shocking behaviour and ordered her execution – the only way of quenching her sexual thirst.</p>
<h2>So what is obscenity?</h2>
<p>Obscenity is a social construction that varies according to time and place. In Hindu mythology, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/yoni"><em>yoni</em> is the symbol of the fertility goddess Shakti</a>, who was was revered as far back as 4000 BC. It was seen as equal to its male counterpart, the <em>lingam</em>, and together they were the source of all existence. A similar mythology is present in Japan with the concepts of <em>yin</em> and <em>yang</em>, representing female and male energies. At the same time, the country still considers images of vulvas to be obscene from a legal point of view, as demonstrated by the <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/05/09/national/crime-legal/vagina-artist-convicted-of-obscenity-court-acknowledges-pop-art-motive/#.XicqzX-2mCg">2014 conviction of the artist Megumi Igarashi</a>.</p>
<p>But thanks to the influence the influence of female artists – and even advertisers – the vulva is back in the 21st century.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LyMHNvEkvwU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<hr>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Sally Laruelle of <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en">Fast ForWord</a> and Leighton Kille of The Conversation France.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian-Georges Schwentzel ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
An ad alluding to the vulva is sparking controversy, but there are few objections to phallic symbols. What explains this difference in treatment?
Christian-Georges Schwentzel, Professeur d'histoire ancienne, Université de Lorraine
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/127410
2019-12-19T13:51:45Z
2019-12-19T13:51:45Z
How old would you want to be in heaven?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306884/original/file-20191213-85428-1xi0cgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Our cult of youth continues into the afterlife.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/3d-illustration-soul-ascension-ghost-man-1345704401?src=-1-20">Denis Simonov/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many religious faiths propose different versions of heaven as a location: There are <a href="https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-heaven-depicted-as-a-walled-garden-with-the-virgin-mary-reading-a-105283341.html">walled gardens</a> with streams, flowers, pleasing scents, <a href="http://blogs.harvard.edu/olumakindeislamicart/files/2014/03/miraj-mohammed-buraq.jpg">pretty angels</a>, rapturous music or delicious accessible food.</p>
<p>But what about us – the once-mortal – who will go on to inhabit the heavenly real estate? What form will our bodies take? Not all religions posit bodily resurrection. But those that do tend to depict them as young. </p>
<p>As the author of <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Ending_Ageism_or_How_Not_to_Shoot_Old_Pe/YG8kDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Ending+ageism+or+how+not+to+shoot+old+people&printsec=frontcover">prize-winning</a> <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Aged_by_Culture/Qh_3UhFfM9kC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=aged+by+culture&printsec=frontcover">books</a> on age and culture, I tend to notice unseen forms of ageism. </p>
<p>I wonder: Is the cult of youth what we really want trailing us into the afterlife?</p>
<h2>The righteous are young</h2>
<p><a href="https://biblehub.com/luke/20-35.htm">According to Christian orthodoxy</a>, if you’re worthy of being raised from the dead, you’ll be resurrected in the flesh, not merely as spirit, with a body restored like that of Christ, who died at 33. </p>
<p>In heaven there will be no whip marks, no scars from thorns, no bodily wounds. If eaten by cannibals or bereft of limbs from battle – some medieval people worried about wholeness in such conditions – people would regain their missing parts. The body would be perfected, as the Apostle Matthew <a href="https://www.biblestudytools.com/matthew/11-5.html">promised in the New Testament</a> when he wrote, “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear.” </p>
<p>In Islam, in the traditional <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hadith">Hadiths</a> – the commentaries that succeeded the Quran – the righteous are also youthful, and apparently male. “The people of Paradise will enter Paradise hairless (in their body), beardless, white colored, curly haired, with their eyes anointed with kohl, aged thirty-three years,” <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Garden_and_the_Fire/ASEG9cFAkjMC?hl=en">according to Abu Harayra</a>, one of Mohammed’s companions.</p>
<p>The afterlife isn’t all based on sacred text. Folklore, cultural traditions and audience demand also shape its images. </p>
<p>Western art has, over the centuries, located the promise of posthumous perfection in bodies that are youthful. British historian Roy Porter <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/i329131">writes</a> that the art of the Renaissance (in which bodies were first portrayed with muscles and motion) showed “rosy-fleshed and even lithe bodies rising elegantly from the earth, in an almost balletic movement.” Think of the muscular naked bodies in Luca Signorelli’s “Resurrection and the Crowning of the Blessed” in Orvieto cathedral. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=306&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306162/original/file-20191210-95153-zz5wci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A section of Luca Signorelli’s fresco ‘Resurrection of the Flesh.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luca_Signorelli_-_Resurrection_of_the_Flesh_-_WGA21214.jpg">Cappella di San Brizio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout history, some people died in their 90s, as they do now. But the luck of having lived a long life on Earth, with its wisdom and experience symbolically etched on the face and signaled by the august whiteness of hair, apparently did not cross over onto the other side.</p>
<p>In such visions of heaven, there would be no signs of our ordinary mortal passage. No wrinkles. No disability. No old age. “Perfected” means never having grown up even into the middle years. </p>
<p>Ageist and ableist, these traditions promote cults of youth. The New Testament, the Quran, the Italian Renaissance, the Romantic era – all sing the same decline-oriented, exclusionary song.</p>
<h2>On our screens, forever young</h2>
<p>Jump to the myths of the modern world, and the aftercare of the fit juvenile body remains precious. In vampire stories, for example, the undead bloodsuckers appear young and attractive. When their true age is revealed, it turns out that they’re often thousands of years old. </p>
<p>“Who wants to see old ghosts?” critic Martha Smilgis wrote <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601910603,00.html">in a 1991 Time feature</a> about a recent spate of films that featured young, lithe actors populating the afterlife. “Hollywood wants to remain forever young,” she continued, “and what better way than to extend yourself into another life?”</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/emmys-2017-winners-black-mirror-san-junipero-charlie-brooker-outstanding-writing-tv-movie-a7952266.html">award-winning</a> “Black Mirror” episode “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4538072/">San Junipero</a>,” the fantasy of forever young becomes a reality: The dead can upload themselves into a simulation to live out their afterlives as their younger selves.</p>
<p>In other television shows about the afterlife, one way to avoid old ghosts is to simply have the characters all die young. And so in series like “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0348913/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Dead Like Me</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7720790/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8">Forever</a>,” freak accidents on Earth ensure the resurrected are fit and attractive. </p>
<h2>The best version of you</h2>
<p>Because we now live in <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Age_of_Longevity/sTWNDAAAQBAJ?hl=en">an age of longer, healthier lifespans</a> – and because I’m in my 70s – I’m nonplussed by seeing the cult of youth persist. </p>
<p>People I know in later life are healthy. Some are handsome. Unlike the great unwashed of previous epochs, old people too now bathe. We brush our teeth, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160229-how-our-ancestors-drilled-rotten-teeth">so we don’t lose them before 40</a>. Syphilis, in the rare event that we contract it, can be cured. If we have partners, <a href="https://womensenews.org/2011/08/sex-can-also-get-better-not-worse-age/">we enjoy sex</a>.</p>
<p>I can understand idealizing youth in this life, but only by considering the ageism that people endure in the workplace. Sure, a midlife job seeker, desperately unemployed, tweaks his date of birth on his resume because he is considered “too old” at too young an age. A woman dyes her hair and gets a little Botox for the same reason. </p>
<p>But in heaven too, where capitalism is gratefully left behind? Surely part of the Rapture is not having to depend on a boss and a paycheck. You can’t be fired, downsized or made redundant. If heaven means nothing else, it works like a good labor union, assuring blessed tenure.</p>
<p>So might we disrupt the ancient adolescent fantasies that, translated to our contemporary era, seem so anachronistic? I am no longer a teenager. I have put away on Earth – as it should be in heaven – the peer pressures, the showy embarrassing décolletage, shaving my legs, the comical hair styles and the beach-blanket boozy fantasies of <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/body/how-to-get-an-hourglass-figure">the hourglass figure</a>.</p>
<p>My earlier face would look weird to me were it suddenly to appear tomorrow over the bathroom sink. If heaven were furnished with mirrors – an unlikely scenario – I am certain I would want to behold the face I have now. Whatever its earthly faults in the eyes of Hollywood plastic surgeons and the tiresome fashion magazines, it has the virtue of familiarity. </p>
<p>Heaven is supposed to be the entrance to a fuller, or better, future life – what mortals fail to obtain in the real world. Does that now mean Club Med for young people? Fort Lauderdale at spring break? With more clothing? Or perhaps less? </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1305&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306867/original/file-20191213-85391-47iy2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1305&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Blake’s ‘The Meeting of the Family in Heaven’ (1805).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/William_Blake_-_The_Meeting_of_the_Family_in_Heaven.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2005.00239.x">Mormons are promised</a> that they will spend eternity with their kin. For many people now, paradise is, more than anything, a place where we will meet loved ones. Often a beloved parent. I would have no interest in a heaven in which my mother appeared to be 33, when I scarcely knew her as a six-year-old. Nor would I want her to look six decades younger than I do, were I to arrive in my 90s. </p>
<p>She died at 96, and I want her to have the face I loved in her very old age. There she would be, still smiling at me benignly, as she does in a photograph I see every day of my aging-into-old-age life.</p>
<p>Heaven can keep the pleasant streams, the divine choirs and the luscious apricots. It can heal us of pain. We can be loved for who we are. If all that, who needs to be younger as well? I believe our dreams of the afterlife need to challenge the idée fixe that only the appearance of youth is valuable. </p>
<p>Some of us with longer lives don’t think it perfection to have the signs of who we are now, erased for eternity. We have a finer dream of human solidarity. </p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127410/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Morganroth Gullette does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Our dreams of the afterlife need to challenge the idea that only the appearance of youth is worthy.
Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Resident Scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126783
2019-12-03T11:09:47Z
2019-12-03T11:09:47Z
Why children really believe in Santa – the surprising psychology behind tradition
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302306/original/file-20191118-169393-r78x4o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who made him up?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/holly-jolly-x-mas-noel-december-727154569">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong>Warning: this piece contains Christmas spoilers</strong></p>
<p>Many of us tell our children about a rotund, bearded man in red, who lives in the icy tundra at the top of the world. He is tasked with judging the moral worth of children everywhere. He has a list. He has checked it twice. And there is no court of appeals.</p>
<p>We promise our children that, on a known date and under the cover of darkness, he will sneak into our homes. Here, his judgment will be delivered. In preparation, it is customary to erect and decorate a tree inside one’s home (a dead one, or a simulacrum, will do just fine), and to leave a food sacrifice of high-fat cookies and nutrient-rich milk. He will then repeat this act several billion times, aided by his entourage of flying polar caribou. </p>
<p>Why would children believe something so absurd? And can it teach us anything about how children come to discriminate between what is real and what is not? </p>
<h2>Children are judicious</h2>
<p>One might be tempted to think that children are particularly susceptible to the fantastic. And while this may not be entirely unfair, children engage in a wide variety of judicious and sceptical behaviours. And compelling them to believe the fantastic without considerable effort is very difficult. </p>
<p>In one study, known as the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002209651100035X">“Princess Alice” study</a>, researchers told children about the invisible and imaginary Princess Alice, who was “present” in the room and sitting in a nearby chair. After this, children were left alone and given the opportunity to cheat on a task for a reward. While some children looked towards the empty chair, fewer still waved their hands through Alice’s ostensible location, and there was only very weak statistical evidence that this induction influenced children’s behaviour at all – <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00221325.2011.554921">other authors</a>, including myself, have failed to replicate this effect. </p>
<p>In contrast, there is the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00366.x">“Candy Witch” study</a>. Here, two different adults visited a school on two separate occasions, told children about the Candy Witch and showed the children pictures of her. They were told the Candy Witch would trade some of their Halloween candy for a toy (if they could refrain from eating it – <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797618761661?casa_token=Ssb8gSIk4aEAAAAA%3AoYxJXchCIEtEAxcQDL94t9KZvSwUJ291sikLB3-xBq2ooeOjCGIgWIcdMzbOjOeQk7Y6sTKiU3KgYA">no small task for a child</a>). Parents also needed to phone the Candy Witch in advance. As a result, many children believed in the Candy Witch, some even a year later.</p>
<p>The primary difference between these two studies is the amount of effort (many) adults put in to compel the children. Children are quite sensitive to effort, and with good reason. </p>
<h2>Actions speak louder than words</h2>
<p>Childhood is a unique, evolved life-stage in which sexual maturation is delayed in favour of brain growth and social learning. Historically, the only way to learn about something you haven’t directly experienced was to rely <a href="https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.12081">on testimony</a>. Children can differentiate between <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027709001929">fantasy and history</a>, evaluate the <a href="https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01248.x#b33">strength of evidence</a> and prefer claims with <a href="https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00973.x">scientific framing</a>. Children <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22417318">in many cultures</a> are less likely than adults to appeal to supernatural explanations <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jocc/11/3-4/article-p311_4.xml">for unlikely events</a>. In fact, children <em>learn</em> to make supernatural claims. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302307/original/file-20191118-169379-17e1mjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302307/original/file-20191118-169379-17e1mjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302307/original/file-20191118-169379-17e1mjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302307/original/file-20191118-169379-17e1mjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=257&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302307/original/file-20191118-169379-17e1mjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302307/original/file-20191118-169379-17e1mjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302307/original/file-20191118-169379-17e1mjk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who first insisted on the tree? Your children … or you?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/decorated-christmas-tree-on-blurred-background-1201088539">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Theory suggests that rituals may be a particularly influential kind of testimony. Joe Henrich’s theory of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513809000245">credibility enhancing displays</a> suggests that learners (such as children), to avoid exploitation, should pay attention to the actions of models (such as adults), and attempt to determine the degree to which a model believes something based on how costly their actions would be if those beliefs weren’t sincerely held. Put simply: actions speak louder than words. </p>
<p>The “Santa Claus” parts of Christmas are an excellent demonstration of adults willfully participating in a prolonged, high-cost cultural ritual. Santa must be real, otherwise why would my parents do this? The trick, of course, is that we tell children, over and over, that the tree, the Christmas lists, the cookies and the glasses of milk are for Santa and not that they are for tradition. </p>
<h2>Generating belief is hard</h2>
<p>Because Christmas saturates our culture, it is taken for granted. And because Santa is a lie we tell to children, we don’t treat it as a mature topic. Yet both Christmas and Santa have a lot to teach us about ourselves and how we come to understand reality.</p>
<p>Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny are somewhat unique. They require participation in social norms and cultural rituals in a way no other supernatural figures do (exempting religious figures). Children are not so much confused about what is a real, but sensitive to a diversity of cues we adults provide.</p>
<p>And when it comes to Santa Claus, we tend to not only make a claim, but we engage in many detailed actions, which would seem too costly to engage in if we were lying. My own preliminary <a href="https://osf.io/hvqd3/">research</a> has shown that the figures most commonly associated with rituals are the figures that are most endorsed as real – more real, even, than some other likely figures like aliens and dinosaurs. </p>
<p>Children are sensitive to our actions – singing carols, erecting dead trees inside our homes, leaving out milk and cookies – and children, sensibly, attend to this. And the result is belief: mum and dad wouldn’t do this if they didn’t believe, so Santa must be real.</p>
<p>Why would they lie to me? </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Rohan Kapitany is currently conducting research on the influence Santa has on children’s behaviour at Christmas time. If you have a child aged between three and nine, and are willing to complete a survey once during the first week of December (2019) and a second time in the last week in December (2019), <a href="https://keelepsych.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5ALoY7ptvWwpl5j">please click here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rohan Kapitany does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Santa myth tells us more about adults than children.
Rohan Kapitany, Lecturer in Psychology, Keele University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/109185
2019-02-12T19:16:25Z
2019-02-12T19:16:25Z
Hidden women of history: Enheduanna, princess, priestess and the world’s first known author
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257852/original/file-20190207-174861-1s749k2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Standard of Ur mosaic, 26th century BC.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Standard_of_Ur_-_War.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In this series, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>The world’s first known author is widely considered to be Enheduanna, a woman who lived in the 23rd century BCE in ancient Mesopotamia (approximately 2285 – 2250 BCE). Enheduanna is a remarkable figure: an ancient <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/triple-threat">“triple threat”</a>, she was a princess and a priestess as well as a writer and poet.</p>
<p>The third millennium BCE was a time of upheaval in Mesopotamia. The <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/akka/hd_akka.htm">conquest of Sargon the Great</a> saw the development of the world’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-climate-change-caused-the-worlds-first-ever-empire-to-collapse-109060">first great empire</a>. The city of Akkad become one of the largest in the world, and northern and southern Mesopotamia were united for the first time in history.</p>
<p>In this extraordinary historical setting, we find the fascinating character of Enheduanna, Sargon’s daughter. She worked as the high priestess of the moon deity Nanna-Suen at his temple in Ur (in modern-day Southern Iraq). The celestial nature of her occupation is reflected in her name, meaning “Ornament of Heaven”.</p>
<p>Enheduanna composed several works of literature, including two hymns to the Mesopotamian love goddess Inanna (Semitic Ishtar). She wrote the myth of Inanna and Ebih, and a collection of 42 temple hymns. Scribal traditions in the ancient world are often considered an area of male authority, but Enheduanna’s works form an important part of <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/epic/hd_epic.htm">Mesopotamia’s rich literary history</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257437/original/file-20190206-174894-1uxn5sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257437/original/file-20190206-174894-1uxn5sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257437/original/file-20190206-174894-1uxn5sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257437/original/file-20190206-174894-1uxn5sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257437/original/file-20190206-174894-1uxn5sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257437/original/file-20190206-174894-1uxn5sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257437/original/file-20190206-174894-1uxn5sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257437/original/file-20190206-174894-1uxn5sl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ancient Akkadian cylindrical seal depicting Mesopotamian love goddess Inanna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Akkadian_Cylindrical_Seal_Depicting_Inanna_and_Ninshubur.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-legend-of-ishtar-first-goddess-of-love-and-war-78468">Friday essay: the legend of Ishtar, first goddess of love and war</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Enheduanna’s status as a named poet is significant given the anonymity surrounding works of <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2018/12/19/the-origins-of-writing/#.XFJYGcSYPIV">even earlier authors</a>. Yet she is almost <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/turning-pages-in-praise-of-the-neglected-women-writers-20181101-h17dch.html">entirely unknown in the modern day</a>, and her achievements have been largely overlooked (a notable exception is the work of Jungian analyst <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/736232.Inanna_Lady_of_Largest_Heart">Betty De Shong Meador</a>).
Her written works are deeply personal in subject, containing numerous biographical features. </p>
<p>Enheduanna’s <a href="http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4801.htm">cycle of temple hymns</a> concludes with an assertion of the work’s originality and its authorship:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The compiler of the tablets was En-hedu-ana. My king, something has been created that no one has created before.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While clearly asserting ownership over the creative property of her work, Enheduanna also comments on the difficulties of the creative process — apparently, writer’s block was a problem even in ancient Mesopotamia.</p>
<h2>Long hours labouring by night</h2>
<p>In her hymns, Enheduanna comments on the challenge of encapsulating divine wonders through the written word. She describes spending long hours labouring over her compositions by night, for them then to be performed in the day. The fruits of her work are dedicated to the goddess of love. </p>
<p>Enheduanna’s poetry has a reflective quality that emphasises the superlative qualities of its divine muse, while also highlighting the artistic skill required for written compositions.</p>
<p>Her written praise of celestial deities has been recognised in the field of modern astronomy. Her descriptions of stellar measurements and movements have been described as <a href="http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/05/enheduanna-our-first-great-scientist.html">possible early scientific observations.</a> Indeed, <a href="https://carnegiescience.edu/news/mercury-crater-naming-contest-winners-announced">a crater on Mercury was named in her honour in 2015.</a> </p>
<p>Enheduanna’s works were written in cuneiform, an ancient form of writing using clay tablets but have only survived in the form of much later copies from around 1800 BCE, from the Old Babylonian period and later. The lack of earlier sources has raised doubts for some over Enheduanna’s identification as the author of myths and hymns and her status as a religious official of high rank. However, the historical record clearly identifies Enheduanna as the composer of ancient literary works, and this is undoubtedly an important aspect of the traditions surrounding her.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-recovery-of-cuneiform-the-worlds-oldest-known-writing-82639">Friday essay: the recovery of cuneiform, the world's oldest known writing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Aside from poetry, other sources for Enheduanna’s life have been discovered by archaeologists. These include cylinder seals belonging to her servants, and an alabaster relief inscribed with her dedication. The <a href="https://www.penn.museum/collections/object/293415">Disk of Enheduanna</a> was discovered by British archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Woolley and his team of excavators in 1927. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257648/original/file-20190207-174857-7wfxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257648/original/file-20190207-174857-7wfxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257648/original/file-20190207-174857-7wfxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257648/original/file-20190207-174857-7wfxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257648/original/file-20190207-174857-7wfxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257648/original/file-20190207-174857-7wfxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257648/original/file-20190207-174857-7wfxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257648/original/file-20190207-174857-7wfxay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Disk of Enheduanna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disk_of_Enheduanna_(2).jpg">Zunkir/Mefman00/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Disk was <a href="https://www.penn.museum/blog/museum/ur-digitization-project-item-of-the-month-june-2012/">discarded and apparently defaced in antiquity</a>, but the pieces were recovered through excavations and the scene featuring the writer successfully restored. The scene depicts the priestess at work: along with three male attendants, she observes a libation offering being poured from a jug.</p>
<p>Enheduanna is situated in the centre of the image, with her gaze focused on the religious offering, and her hand raised in a gesture of piety. The image on the Disk emphasises the religious and social status of the priestess, who is wearing a cap and flounced garment.</p>
<h2>Art imitates life</h2>
<p>Enheduanna’s poetry contains what are thought to be autobiographical elements, such as <a href="https://www.academia.edu/5824228/The_First_Author_2010-2011_">descriptions of her struggle against a usurper</a>, Lugalanne. In her composition The Exaltation of Inanna, Enheduanna describes Lugalanne’s attempts to force her from her role at the temple. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257630/original/file-20190207-174880-5uae6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257630/original/file-20190207-174880-5uae6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257630/original/file-20190207-174880-5uae6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257630/original/file-20190207-174880-5uae6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257630/original/file-20190207-174880-5uae6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=988&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257630/original/file-20190207-174880-5uae6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1241&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257630/original/file-20190207-174880-5uae6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1241&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257630/original/file-20190207-174880-5uae6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1241&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inanna temple relief.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inanna_Temple_relief,_Nippur.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Enheduanna’s pleas to the moon god were apparently met with silence. She then turned to Inanna, who is praised for restoring her to office.</p>
<p>The challenge to Enheduanna’s authority, and her praise of her divine helper, are echoed in her other work, such as in the myth known as Inanna and Ebih.</p>
<p>In this narrative, the goddess Inanna comes into conflict with a haughty mountain, Ebih. The mountain offends the deity by standing tall and refusing to bow low to her. Inanna seeks help from her father, the deity Anu. He (understandably) advises her against going to war with the fearsome mountain range.</p>
<p>Inanna, in typically bold form, ignores this instruction and annihilates the mountain, before praising the god Enlil for his assistance. The myth contains intriguing parallels with the conflict described in Enheduanna’s poetry.</p>
<p>In the figure of Enheduanna, we see a powerful figure of great creativity, whose passionate praise of the goddess of love continues to echo through time, 4000 years after first being carved into a clay tablet.</p>
<p><em>Note: Translations of the Temple Hymns are taken from Black, J.A., Cunningham, G., Fluckiger-Hawker, E, Robson, E., and Zólyomi, G., <a href="http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/">The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature</a>, Oxford 1998.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Pryke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Enheduanna’s name means ‘Ornament of Heaven’. She wrote hymns and myths more than 4000 years ago, studied the stars and yet is almost entirely unknown in the present day.
Louise Pryke, Lecturer, Languages and Literature of Ancient Israel, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105856
2018-12-11T19:05:01Z
2018-12-11T19:05:01Z
How cinema’s new Aquaman draws on the mythology of ancient sea gods
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249829/original/file-20181210-76968-18u730c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jason Momoa as Aquaman in the forthcoming film. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Muscular, bearded and trident-wielding, Jason Momoa’s portrayal of the titular <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1477834/">Aquaman</a> in the forthcoming DC film draws on ancient Greek and Roman iconography.</p>
<p>Water gods in Greek mythology are a diverse group. There are human-looking gods such as <a href="http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Poseidon.html">Poseidon</a>, god of the sea, or <a href="http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisTethys.html">Tethys</a>: goddess of freshwater, rainfall, and nurse to the Olympians. Others, such as Tethys’ husband Oceanus, who represents the primordial ocean surrounding the world, are depicted as both human, and/or part-human combined with a fish or serpent. </p>
<p>Ruling Atlantis is a key role associated with sea gods. First mentioned in Plato’s The Republic, Atlantis was the Poseidon-worshipping city state held to be a pinnacle of ethics. According to Plato, Atlantis sunk into the ocean after it lost the favour of the gods due to the inhabitants’ hubris.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249910/original/file-20181211-76983-18fojpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249910/original/file-20181211-76983-18fojpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249910/original/file-20181211-76983-18fojpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249910/original/file-20181211-76983-18fojpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249910/original/file-20181211-76983-18fojpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249910/original/file-20181211-76983-18fojpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249910/original/file-20181211-76983-18fojpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249910/original/file-20181211-76983-18fojpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A third century mosaic depicting Tethys and Oceanus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tethys_(mythology)#/media/File:Antakya_Arkeoloji_Muzesi_02366_nevit.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While Aquaman is strictly speaking a superhero rather than a sea god, his appearance and powers in the upcoming movie certainly draw on those of maritime divinities. </p>
<p>Aquaman’s abilities to communicate with sea life, control the ocean and swim at superhuman speeds all resemble traits associated with Poseidon. Poseidon is well attested to communicating with (and even creating) sea creatures, and the nereids and oceanids – nymphs of the ocean – <a href="https://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_hesiod_theogony.html">by which he is surrounded</a>. In Homer’s Odyssey, Poseidon is a capricious, dangerous deity who delays Odysseus’ return home by ten years.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247458/original/file-20181127-130893-1hlrm4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247458/original/file-20181127-130893-1hlrm4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247458/original/file-20181127-130893-1hlrm4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247458/original/file-20181127-130893-1hlrm4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247458/original/file-20181127-130893-1hlrm4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247458/original/file-20181127-130893-1hlrm4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247458/original/file-20181127-130893-1hlrm4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aquaman comic book depiction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/28601488@N05/4952079960/in/photolist-8xAGQY-7Vzo14-bwLVFB-d6dqAC-owyBAJ-akhmeo-WXyAq8-fhqQpG-fcvrbF-e28CEr-C9ARC-W8mD5m-fhqPi1-8oUNEx-fhbABD-ZEbtcn-5iKPha-X46oCU-ofihBF-bwLWPn-fhqPYE-owuxA4-dz7fXk-ofhg9W-fhqQ3G-owyzrU-a6vWA7-hGuw7V-5t8kzU-e1AuyU-4n8juH-e2eBb1-YykJ2U-XAqi8t-cXXVtw-sJ6aMb-YCTauN-2W853Y-ZEbuUR-fhbBAi-fhbBt4-rYMop2-k7tGeZ-owJYd3-kYmaqZ-a8rJ7j-o1Yyz8-EmjX53-8Jxs9U-2aHot7V">Crayolamom/flickr</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In DC’s original comics, Aquaman, who <a href="http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/More_Fun_Comics_Vol_1_73">first appeared in 1941</a>, was most typically an outcast of the Atlantean cities. Depending on the version, Aquaman (also known as Arthur Curry) either grew up on land or was abandoned to die there, as he needed to be in contact with water every hour.</p>
<p>In other comics from the 1950s, Aquaman was depicted as the half-Atlantean son of Queen Atlanna, although in later versions he is depicted as fully Atlantean. A warrior king, he defended Atlantean cities, (and more broadly, the ocean and surface world as a member of the Justice League), from a variety of super-villains, as well as contemporary threats such as pirates and Nazi U-boats. </p>
<p>He does this through masterful skill in melee combat and, as the comics progress, through increasingly supernatural powers (such the ability to create water and dehydrate people). </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-odyssey-82911">Guide to the Classics: Homer's Odyssey</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The trident</h2>
<p>Aquaman’s weapon of choice - a trident - has always been associated with Poseidon. Homeric poets noted that Poseidon was gifted his trident by the elder cyclopes, the one-eyed giants of ancient Greece, to help him in the <a href="http://www.theoi.com/Text/HesiodTheogony.html#11">war against the titans</a> - the previous generation of deities. </p>
<p>In the comics, Aquaman’s trident is often referred to as “Poseidon’s trident”, or otherwise a trident known as “Neptune’s trident” is portrayed. (Neptune was the Roman equivalent of Poseidon.) Much like the trident of the Olympian Poseidon, Aquaman’s trident can create water. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249840/original/file-20181210-76989-1yqsqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249840/original/file-20181210-76989-1yqsqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249840/original/file-20181210-76989-1yqsqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249840/original/file-20181210-76989-1yqsqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249840/original/file-20181210-76989-1yqsqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=575&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249840/original/file-20181210-76989-1yqsqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249840/original/file-20181210-76989-1yqsqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249840/original/file-20181210-76989-1yqsqci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=723&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poseidon holding a trident. Corinthian plaque, 550–525 BC. From Penteskouphia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sea gods on screen</h2>
<p>In the comics, Aquaman is blonde, pale and usually clean shaven. While the green and orange costuming in the film is the same as the comic book character, Mamoa’s tattoos, dark beard and untamed hair are imported from other sea gods on screen. </p>
<p>Aquaman’s tattoos show a deference to the Polynesian god Maui that featured heavily in Moana (2016) and <a href="http://comicsalliance.com/jason-momoa-looking-forward-to-representing-polynesians-as-aquaman/">Momoa’s own cultural heritage</a>. Maui, the trickster of Polynesian mythology, is credited with pulling islands from the sea with his hook. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249825/original/file-20181210-76962-oivjpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249825/original/file-20181210-76962-oivjpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249825/original/file-20181210-76962-oivjpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249825/original/file-20181210-76962-oivjpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249825/original/file-20181210-76962-oivjpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=274&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249825/original/file-20181210-76962-oivjpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249825/original/file-20181210-76962-oivjpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249825/original/file-20181210-76962-oivjpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Atlantis-like city depicted in the promotional material for Aquaman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Previous depictions of Greek Gods on screen have featured merman. In Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989), King Triton, (named after Poseidon’s <a href="http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Triton.html">merman son</a>) possesses a golden trident which has many abilities. In Disney’s Hercules: The Animated Series, Poseidon is shown as an anthropomorphous man, who has physical aspects of a fish. And in the game <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/266840/Age_of_Mythology_Extended_Edition/">Age of Mythology</a>, Poseidon is shown as a merman. </p>
<p>In contrast, Momoa’s Aquaman, with his beard, trident and dangerous personality, is no part-fish, part-human combination. This is much more in line with ancient sea mythology. </p>
<p>His Aquaman will be a distinct recall to the classical tradition of Poseidon, the “<a href="https://hellopoetry.com/poem/74853/the-homeric-hymns-22-to-poseidon/">dark haired lord</a>” whose hand “<a href="http://www.theoi.com/Text/OrphicHymns1.html">the brazen trident wields</a>”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Turner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
With his beard, trident, and status as Atlantean ruler, the superhero Aquaman borrows many traits from the sea gods of mythology.
Adam Turner, PhD student, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/100755
2018-10-30T18:58:01Z
2018-10-30T18:58:01Z
From the jarnpa of central Australia to trolls: the many meanings of monsters
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242893/original/file-20181030-76399-1cn15p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Tanami desert in central Australia is haunted by beings called the jarnpa, which look like people but possess superhuman powers. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The word “monster” was coined from two Latin verbs “<em>monere</em>” (to warn) and “<em>demonstrare</em>” (to reveal). In tandem, they create a sense of warning, or a portent. The figure of the monster signals what threatens society. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.academia.edu/9601119/Monster_Anthropology_in_Australasia_and_Beyond">Monster Anthropology</a> combines the interdisciplinary field of Monster Studies, which explores the meanings of monsters, with anthropology, which is concerned with understanding how different peoples see and experience the world in their own specific ways.
Less focused on fictional monsters in literature and popular culture, (such as ghosts, zombies, vampires, aliens, dragons, and elves) it considers the monsters who haunt the people anthropologists work with. </p>
<p>These monsters are more than characters in myths, songs, and stories from around the fire. They are “out there” on the prowl, lurking in the shadows, lying in wait, going about their monstrous business in the real world. They appear in all kinds of shapes, and for all kinds of reasons. Some are cheeky and mischievous, some are mysterious, others are downright evil. </p>
<p>But all monsters make their mark on the communities they haunt. </p>
<h2>Fears come to life</h2>
<p>In central Australia, for example, many Aboriginal people are terrified of jarnpa. These monsters may look like humans, but they possess superhuman powers. They can fly as fast as a bullet and make themselves invisible. They love to kill and do so with ease, using either sorcery or brute force. </p>
<p>Jarnpa have existed in the Tanami Desert since time immemorial. In the past, when local people moved across the desert in their seasonal rhythms, jarnpa were held responsible for otherwise inexplicable deaths. A person and a jarnpa must have crossed paths, and the jarnpa did what jarnpa do: it killed.</p>
<p>Nowadays, Aboriginal people live in permanent communities dotted across the desert. It is believed these small towns have become magnets for jarnpa, who flock to them to kill. Interestingly, they kill only Aboriginal residents, while non-Indigenous locals are not even afraid of them. </p>
<p>We can interpret jarnpa as providing insights into prevailing <a href="https://closingthegap.pmc.gov.au/">inequalities</a> between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people - in particular the fact that Indigenous Australians have a <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/indigenous-australians/mortality-life-expectancy-2008-2012/contents/summary">life expectancy</a> of around 10 years less than those who are non-Indigenous.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242895/original/file-20181030-76402-ad968s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242895/original/file-20181030-76402-ad968s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242895/original/file-20181030-76402-ad968s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242895/original/file-20181030-76402-ad968s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242895/original/file-20181030-76402-ad968s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242895/original/file-20181030-76402-ad968s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1447&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242895/original/file-20181030-76402-ad968s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242895/original/file-20181030-76402-ad968s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1447&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A statue of an Anito.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anito">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another compelling example of monsters who exert a distinct influence over the people they haunt are the Anito, spirits of the Indigenous Tao people on Lanyu Island, Taiwan. Their presence on the island and in the Tao’s lives is all-encompassing. </p>
<p>As the Anito take great joy in spoiling people’s plans, the Tao will not discuss their intentions out loud. For the same reason, the Tao are taught to keep their emotions hidden. </p>
<p>Anger, for example, is said to draw the Anito in, enabling them to detach the soul from one’s body. To ward off this danger, children are taught to suppress anger from an early age. Through these and more examples, anthropologist <a href="http://www.polsoz.fu-berlin.de/en/ethnologie/personen/doktorand_innen/funk.html">Leberecht Funk illustrates</a> how the Anito shape every aspect of Tao life.</p>
<h2>Dangerous allies</h2>
<p>Other monsters are less intrusive, but this does not mean they are any less potent of meaning. Take the Latharr-ghun, for example. This is a big, black, scaly dragon said to live in caverns and underground tunnels in and around Litchfield National Park in the Northern Territory.</p>
<p>The traditional custodians of the land under which the Latharr-ghun roams, the Mak Mak Marranunggu people, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137472793">told anthropologist Joanne Thurman</a> how it can pop up through soft soil and pull you down with it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242894/original/file-20181030-76405-1ecwj1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242894/original/file-20181030-76405-1ecwj1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242894/original/file-20181030-76405-1ecwj1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242894/original/file-20181030-76405-1ecwj1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242894/original/file-20181030-76405-1ecwj1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242894/original/file-20181030-76405-1ecwj1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242894/original/file-20181030-76405-1ecwj1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242894/original/file-20181030-76405-1ecwj1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In Litchfield National Park, the Latharr-gun lives in caverns and underground tunnels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Mak Mak Marranunggu know how to recognise the “th-d-th-d-th-d” sound signalling its approach. They say they learned how to calm the Latharr-gun from “the old people”. It’s imperative to stand very still, while announcing in the local language that one belongs to the land. Slinging some sweat in the direction of the Latharr-gun also helps, as that way it can smell that one is “from here”. </p>
<p>Put differently, the danger the Latharr-gun poses can be mediated by custodians only. In the context of a contested land, over which Aboriginal, mining, pastoral, and National Park interests clash, the Latharr-gun becomes a strong if dangerous ally. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ancient-origins-of-werewolves-104775">The ancient origins of werewolves</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/religion_and_society/people/researchers/dr_helena_onnudottir">Icelandic anthropologist Helena Onnudottir</a> describes another monstrous ally: the Tröll. Human-like in appearance but larger and bit uncouth and rough, they live in caves and crevasses across Iceland and make their presence felt in a number of ways. </p>
<p>Like other Icelandic monsters, they are the idiom through which Icelanders know their land – and themselves. Further, as Onnudottir describes, in a situation of danger she “called on her Tröll … and the Tröll headed her call,” ensuring her safe passage. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242896/original/file-20181030-76396-kgvxlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242896/original/file-20181030-76396-kgvxlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242896/original/file-20181030-76396-kgvxlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242896/original/file-20181030-76396-kgvxlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242896/original/file-20181030-76396-kgvxlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242896/original/file-20181030-76396-kgvxlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242896/original/file-20181030-76396-kgvxlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242896/original/file-20181030-76396-kgvxlk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Princess and the Trolls, John Bauer, 1913.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Bauer_-_The_Princess_and_the_Trolls_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Such ambiguity in nature, being both threatening and familiar at once, is characteristic of all monsters. </p>
<h2>Taking monsters seriously</h2>
<p>Monsters always take on specific cultural meanings wherever they are found. Consider ghosts, for example. They are one of the most prolific monsters, existing everywhere across time and space. And yet, they do so differently. </p>
<p>Ghosts in Fiji are recognisably related to other local supernatural beings and take on the same responsibilities as ancestral spirits. According to anthropologist <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/staff_profiles/uws_profiles/doctor_geir_henning_presterudstuen">Geir Henning Presterudstuen</a>, they reinforce central cultural beliefs about Fijian cosmology, joining in with ancestors protecting the wellbeing of land and people. As they haunt people they also reflect the same concerns about ethnic and social relations that preoccupy the locals, such as sexual morality and maintaining racial borders. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-why-ya-gothic-fiction-is-booming-and-girl-monsters-are-on-the-rise-95921">Friday essay: why YA gothic fiction is booming - and girl monsters are on the rise</a>
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<p>Meanwhile ghosts in North Maluku, Indonesia, as anthropologist <a href="http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/nils-ole-bubandt(54cd6543-344a-462b-94d9-401711326190).html">Nils Ole Bubandt</a> reports, are part of the current political climate. For instance, a series of unnerving events was understood to be caused by the ghost of a woman whose husband had been killed in a conflict. </p>
<p>The woman had joined in herself, only to be raped, killed, and dumped in the forest. Her haunting the living echoed her own trauma and that of the conflict more widely. </p>
<p>The study of monsters can be a shortcut towards understanding different fears and how they manifest culturally. This is why taking other people’s monsters seriously becomes ever more urgent in these apocalyptic times of climate change, wars, inequality, terrorism, deforestation, extinction, floods, fires, and droughts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yasmine Musharbash received funding from the Australian Research Council (FT130100415). </span></em></p>
All monsters make their mark on the communities they haunt. Some are cheeky and mischievous, some are mysterious, others are downright evil.
Yasmine Musharbash, Senior Lecturer of Anthropology, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.