Omar goes for the kill <:S
> The point is that I can't see which kind of relation we
>can establish between Underworld deities and so a clear Over world
>function as the warrior function is.
But... we have two lords fighting over rulership - This much is clear. This
two-lord battle must be ancient because the theme exists not just in IE myth
but in the nearby Middle East as well (El versus Baal). The battle sometimes
involves competing generations of gods but nonetheless there is indeed a
battle for the sky, not the underworld or the earth but the _sky_. This
mythological fact could serve well to obscure the connections that the IE
war god had with the underworld. In other words, the warrior god fights the
sky god in the sky, maybe even taking over and voila! After a while, people
start believing in an originally underworld war god living in the sky.
>I think we have to agree with a connection between Underworld & >Chthonic
>cults & some odd resemblance between Underworld deities and mortal heroes
>[...] prior to state that the warrior
>function has something to do with the Underworld in a "strong" way
The whole tripartition theme, I feel, is of prehistoric European origin. I
also feel that the IE language (as opposed to culture or mythology) came
ultimately from off the steppes, from the east. The pre-IEs would come from
east to west into the North Pontic-Caspian area by 7000 BCE. So, the
original view of the cosmos of these pre-IEs might have been more like a
dual sky-earth opposition only, without a clear underworld. The
priest-commoner-warrior themes in IE myth would not have existed either
(since they are probably influenced by European tripartitive ideas too). And
so, while I am convinced that there was a mythological connection between
war and the underworld in the IE speech communities as they stood from about
5500 and 4000 BCE, I have severe doubts that this connection is much older
than that amongst the IEs. A war-underworld connection was probably not a
theme common to Asian shamanistic religion prior to 5500 BCE.
> Of course, sometimes the warrior hero has to visit this realm
>to gain access to his competencies/abilities, but does it mean that
>those competencies have necessarily to be linked with the warrior
>function and the Underworld? But if it is so, in which way?
The mortal Hero, while having "warrior" characteristics, is not entirely
connected with the underworld. He's human and so he lives in the earthly
realm. It's just how things end up in the tale of the three-headed serpent.
I get the impression that there were three IE labours involving three
animals, as I've said: a bird, serpent, and wolf. The bird does something to
*Manus and so he prays to the sky for help. The sky (*Wextnos/*Dye:us) gives
him the power to combat the bird and the bird is slain. The bird becomes the
mountains. *Manus is then confronted by a serpent who steals his cattle.
Again, *Manus prays to the waters for help. The waters (*Nepo:t/*PerkWnos)
give him the power to combat the serpent and the serpent is slain. The
serpent becomes the rivers. Finally, *Manus is harassed by a ferocious wolf.
He prays to *Yemos, the earth, for help. The earth gives him the power to
combat the wolf but this time, he must give it to *Yemos who keeps it as his
pet, a guard-dog to look after the dead. At this point, the first man,
*Manus, dies because he ends up in a land of no return. He is the first to
die and ends up immortal in Heracles fashion. Do you see the pattern now?
The three animals were sent in the first place by Cow Mother (Greek Hera) to
punish Manus for killing his own brother *Yemos. Cow Mother represents the
concept of justice side-by-side with her husband *Dye:us, the law guy.
>So let's analyse another Underworld journey, for example C� >Chulainn's
>initiation with Sc�thach (only if we accept that it is >another form of
>that realm, of course [...]
I'm not quite familiar with Celtic mythology but it would seem that his
journey to the faraway land (Scythia, was it?) doesn't relate greatly to the
underworld nor does it appear to connect with any other IE myths.
>According to Norse mythology, Thor fights against Jormungard
>the serpent. IMHO, the same question arises in another way (the same
>about Herakles and Kerberus).
What question? Cerberus is clearly an IE character (connected to Yama's
dog), who guards the underworld. The fact that we have a tale explaining the
reason why there is a wolf guarddog for the underworld, connected to the
labours of Heracles, another clear IE character, tells me that the capturing
of this dog for *Yemos by *Manus, the IE Hero, must have been part of IE
myth to begin with. This canine story would be a second tale of heroism
alongside the well-known underworld-related serpent tale. With two tales,
one concerning the earth and canines, the other concerning the underworld
and serpents, one must start wondering whether there was a third tale linked
to the overworld involving birds. Afterall, there are those Stymphalian
birds...
> Yes, werewolves are associated to the moon (remember "Kaos",
>a Taviani Brother's film, a somewhat modern and funny example...),
Actually, I don't remember. I never heard of "Kaos" but this is not
surprising. I live in Winnipeg, the farmer-trash capital of Canada. Movies I
recommend: Tampopo, Twelve Monkeys, Lilies and Gattaca. Make it a
BlockBuster night!
>>Yes, the land of the dead... but since the dead were buried under
>>the earth, that "land" was located in the _underworld_.
>
> Buried physically of metaphorically? Remember Bran's trip to
>Tir-nam-ban (an island), Oisin's Tir-nan-og (another one), Achilles'
>island in the mouth of the Danube (with Helen), or the Blessing >Islands,
>(physically) nothing to do with the Underworld.
I'm speaking about the structure of the IE cosmos. The dead were in the
underworld both in physical terms as well as metaphysical terms. These
isolated stories don't matter when it comes to where the dead were generally
believed to go. As I mentioned, Norse had Hel and the Greeks had Hades, both
under the earth. Of course there are deviations and add-ons like Valhalla, a
specialized heaven, and such, but I'm talking about the general structure of
things in IE beliefs. If we accept that the place of the dead was in the
underworld, we find that, as with everything else, the IE belief system is
much like the ideas in the Middle East and Egypt where we also find an
underworld place of death.
> I agree with you, but is not the tree a shamanistic/non IE
>cosmological motif? Excepting Norse Iggdrassil, what tree can be >useful to
>support this theory? I am well aware of sacred trees in >North and South
>American initiation patterns, but what can we say >about IE trees?
Looking at myths in the general European and Middle-Eastern areas, there
appear to be two main objects in the center of the cosmos. It's either the
tree or the mountain. The central object varies from location to location
and appears to be a little unstable. Mountains however appear to be
restricted to southern locations (Sumer, Greece, Italy) and there is some
overlap with the tree motif too since the tree is even mentioned in the
bible (Genesis) and Sumerian mythology (huluppu). In all, I have to conclude
that the mountain could not have been central to the IE cosmos (since they
didn't live in mountains), leaving only the tree.
Further, it makes sense for the purposes of the IE creation myth. If it was
a bird emerging from the primordial waters that created the IE cosmos (Greek
Nyx), it makes sense that the bird would lay a "cosmic egg" (Vedic religion)
from which a great tree (Norse Yggdrasil, Celtic Bile) would grow. Why?
Because the bird was tired of flapping her wings and needed a place to
perch, silly! The bird is found elsewhere associated with Creation like in
the biblical epic of the flood where Noah sends out birds to find land (a
blatant re-Creation tale where the bird flies over eternal primordial waters
all over again).
So you see, in all, the IE creation myths clearly support an avicentric
cosmos complete with cosmic eggs and a giant tree as is supported by the
fragments seen in Greek, Indo-Iranian, Germanic and Celtic religion.
Oh, and the whole Mayan religion is probably the result of later
mythological diffusion from Asia, but I digress.
- gLeN
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