Unmasking AIT

[Husky]

This next set of posts is still related, but on

Dragons/Giant Snakes/Giant serpents in general. Looking at common features across the world etc.



Post 1/?



No. I *don't* do "world" "mythology" and I'm certainly not into "ur-human shared mythology" either - didn't the Germans beat that topic to death in the 19th century, as IIRC even briefly discussed in George Eliot's Middlemarch?



I think Dragons et al around the world is just fascinating. The commonalities, the differences, and how there are so few "exact" matches, etc.

And by coincidence it also challenges PIE assumptions of originality and directional borrowing in this matter. [There really should be a ban on all encroaching speculation made without proof.]





Africa

notableinklings.blogspot.com/2012/04/dragons-in-africa-aido-hwedo.html

Aido-Hwedo was so large it could hold up the entire world, but once the multitude of creation was done Nana-Buluku asked Aido-Hwedo to coil up beneath the land to cushion it. Aido-Hwedo cannot stand heat so the Creator made the ocean for the Dragon to live in (like the Midgard Serpent in Teutonic legend). Inhabiting the undersea with the Rainbow Dragon is a troop of red monkeys who forge the iron bars that are Aido-Hwedo’s food.

When the iron runs out and Aido-Hwedo grows hungry it will start to chew on its own tail. The earth above will become unbalanced, be struck by repeated earthquakes and eventually slide off the Dragon’s back into the sea.

picture: 4.bp.blogspot.com/-Hw5I6kRpTb0/T4aSEyBj9CI/AAAAAAAAAxc/zZvm3QkMIzw/s400/Benin+Aido+Hwedo+httpwww.thisotherworld.co.ukbenin2.html.jpg





library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01993/africa.htm

In the tales of Africa, it is believed that the world is held by a serpent called Aido Hwedo. When the world was shapeless, Aido Hwedo carried goddess Mawu in his mouth. Mawu shaped the world and Aido Hwedo was to have made running rivers & streams. During the travels wherever they rested Aido Hwedo excrement piled up to become the sheer of peaks of mountain ranges which later solidified. While this happing Mawu`s work was getting heavy. So she split the world in two, water on one part land and sky on the other. Mawu used her divine wisdom, and told Aido Hwedo to lie down on the water and put his tail in his mouth. On top of his coils, then Mawu placed the Earth. When Earthquakes strike it is believed that Aido Hwedo is moving, and it is also believed that Aido Hwedo is to act as the messenger of god Oklun, and is addressed "Our King".

It's not just the coiled up with tail-in-mouth that sounds a lot like the famous giant serpent that Thor fought (Norse/Germanic religion), but also the size being so great it compares - in terms of orders of magnitude - with earth's circumference:



blackdrago.com/fame/jormungand.htm

Being the second oldest child of Loki the Trickster and Angboda, he was kidnapped by the gods. Those gods then threw him into the sea near Midgard, and there he slept and brooded and ate. And, he ate so much that he then encompassed the world and finally had to bite on his own tail. [1]



Jormungand is a huge, serpent-shaped sea monster. In almost all artwork, he is depicted with his tail in his mouth. [1]

At the link, you see that God Thor fought this sea-serpent 3 times.



At least no one will pretend that tail-in-mouth giant serpent is a PIE motif (e.g. African, Native American, Norse and Egyptian all have it)



blackdrago.com/fame/aidohwedo.htm

Aido Hwedo is a Rainbow Serpent, which is a class of snakes found in many cultures that associate the phenomenon of the rainbow with a semi-supernatural creature. [2] In the traditions of the culture of Dahomey, Aido Hwedo was the first creature to be created, and he carried the supreme god, Mawu, across the earth on his back so that the deity could fill the world. [3] In this way, Aido Hwedo aided the creation of the universe and the earth. [1] As they traveled, the serpent's tracks carved the chasms and rivers of the Earth, [3] and wherever he rested for the night, he deposited piles of excrement so vast that they are known today as the mountains. [1]



He was so vast that he had to eat great quantities of iron to sustain his strength, and when there was not enough, Aido Hwedo devoured its own tail. [1] In this way, he reflect the symbolism of the Ouroborus.

blackdrago.com/types/ouroboros.htm

In the West, the Ouroboros originated in Egypt [1] around 1600 B.C. (since when did Egypt become "west" before Greek presence there?), [3] but many other cultures have this same symbol that predates its Egyptian counterpart. [2] The name Ouroboros is Greek, meaning "devouring its tail." [3] In the broadest sense, the Ouroboros represents the continuity of life, [5] and it symbolizes the primeval, anarchic dynamism preceding creation of the cosmos and emergence of order. [11]



The continuous destruction of life, and the continuity of life, and its cyclical nature connect in the Ouroboros. In this way, it encapsulates the complexities of life into a singular fact: Life eats life and sheds away the generations.



The Ouroboros appears all over the world in many different cultures. With its origins in Africa, specifically in Egypt, [2] the Ouroboros became introduced to Greece, and later Northern Europe, likely through trade. [2] Norse Mythology absorbed the Ouroboros as Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent, whose symbolism is counter to that of the Ouroboros. [4]



In Asia, both India and Japan present Ourobori. [2] In the American continent, indigenous groups of North, South, and Central America had variations of the Ouroboros, among them the Aztecs. [2]

Well, that's one thing people can't pretend is PIE and as being supposedly graciously "donated" to "Afro-Asiatic" etc. Nor does even donation follow: seems very old in various parts of the world, including places like the Americas. A native American example will come in a later post. (Again: how did PIE get there long before the Vikingen or even the alleged/speculative discovery of the New World by European Picts, then?)