Post 5/ Hittites vs Japanese Orochi (AKA: Can I make it fit if I try really hard?)
Going to play devil's advocate for a short space. Not really. But want to show that another famous instance still doesn't fit Susano-o vs Orochi's case (not any more than it can fit other non-IE's cases or they can fit each other), even after I've pushed the similarity as far as it can (probably) go, even by means of Cheating (i.e. *really* wild speculation. Not as wild as the PIE-ists, but they don't usually even bother to look into anything non-"IE" in much detail anyway - except if they're planning major encroachment on a non-IE civilisation).
Here's the case that PIE-ism refers to for the PIE "chaoskampf" trope among Hittites. Hopefully no one will insinuate that if not Indra/Vedic religion then the IE Hittites "must" have influenced the Japanese Susanowo vs Orochi.
[color="#0000FF"]hittites.info/translations.aspx?text=translations/mythology%2FIlluyanka.html[/color]
Appears to be direct translation of primary text. Uh, it seems to give 2 very different versions of the Hittite Storm God vs (one-headed) Serpent. (Note the ellipses in square brackets in the following are not mine, they appear to indicate missing source text)
The next line seems to start again from the beginning but recounts the battle differently:
Version #1 is what's relevant since it's the only one that appears to have any point in commonality with Susano-wo (this being the element of intoxicating the Serpent to get the better of it).
- Am assuming the Serpent is suitably large and/or otherwise magical, else how can it have kept a God at bay for so long in battle?
- No indication of number of heads of the serpent. So far it seems to have even less in common with 8-headed Orochi of Japan than the 3-headed/Trishiras-Vishvaroopa had (multi-headedness is the sort of thing that PIE-ism went in for, so I could theoretically just restrict myself to such superficials in this discussion)
- though not multi-headed, there are many serpents in the Hittite case: the major serpent comes in with his family. No indication that all of them were killed though.
[In version #2, the enemy serpent and the Storm God's own son - married to a serpent's-daughter - both got killed, presumably because the son felt he had unwittingly betrayed his serpent father-in-law?]
- but there is the luring the serpent in with various recognisable and unrecognisably-named liquors (wine, some type of beer and other beverage). However, the Serpent - and family - gets an explicit invitation to the festivitiy (which implies a magical snake since it understands an invitation). A real invitation doesn't seem to be the case with Orochi, who just seems to be lured in on a primal urge for yummy sake, or Orochi just isn't a very intelligent creature, more like an animal, even though it would have been a formidable beast to fight. If you take Orochi's "anatomy" as embodying regional geography then it makes sense that Orochi doesn't interact on any intellectual level: there would be little point for such a digression in the narrative. It was overcome, that's all that mattered: Susanowo overcame it and brought in the right climate to make the Rice Fields productive (instead of the last Rice Field/the future of rice fields in the area being threatened).
- The Hittite Serpent is indeed restrained after getting drunk, but a human does this - specifically chosen for the purpose by Inara who turns out to be a Hittite Goddess. And the plan to lure it in belongs to her. Luring strong enemies with food and wine (even with the point of getting them drunk/incapacitated) is a very old trick. As stated before, luring snakes in with foods and milk is common.
[color="#0000FF"]Had missed this before: but in the Chinese folktale of Li Ji vs Giant Serpent (which required maiden sacrifices), the quoted summary in post 416 specifically says that the heroine lures the snake into position using rice. (As opposed to rice-wine that was used to lure the Japanese Orochi to the trap.) Again, the Chinese Giant Snake was attracted by the fragrant smell of the rice. Presumably Orochi was attracted by the fragrant smell of rice-wine. It was then that Li-Ji and her dog set about attacking the duped man-eating Chinese snake.[/color]
The rice wine/sake factor used to lure Orochi is more likely to be because of rice-wine's direct relation to the crop (rice), and also because sake is related to the Gods - one assumes they always can produce a supply for their own ends and are never without for themselves, which makes it the most straightforward choice to lure the oro-chi with (where the "chi" suffix was translated as meaning God/Spirit): the Kamis like Sake. Repeating wacky's admission: 'The most feasible native etymological proposals are Japanese o- from o å°¾ "tail" (which is where Susanoo discovered the sacred sword), à  å¤§ "big; great", or oro å³° "peak; summit"; and -chi meaning "god; spirit", cognate with the mizuchi river-dragon.' [Since mizuchi is a river-dragon kami, so is Orochi by all indication.]
- The human mating with Inara has no connection (i.e. no enforced "parallel/equivalent" and other such de-heathenising words).
*If* Inara were an agricultural Goddess, I could perhaps *force-read* the invitation to the human man to take part in the Gods' killing of the Serpent and his subsequent demand to mate with the Goddess along with her consent and subsequent the mating of the two itself as an agricultural reference such as man seeding and ploughing the land - which is a very common motif (also in rituals) in many religions (and not just "IE" ones). But no evidence of fruit [at least symbolically in the form of children] is shown from this union, he just appears stuck in a house she set up for him. His wanting to go back home to his real/human family and what remnants there are of the text with the missing ending sounds ominous enough. Confirmed: other sites discussing it think he may have been killed after requesting to join his family or else cursed with infertility, which means my forced-reading was wrong. [Or his sacrifice was insufficient to yield lasting crops - he was not committed?
trained:] But there's just no data, this is all just extreme guesswork.
- The Serpent is restrained with a rope. In Orochi's case it was 8 gates for the 8 heads (tributaries rather than hills?) of the giant snake. The difference is important, because the choice of "gates" could imply irrigation as others have pointed out. Whereas just a rope would mean nothing in Orochi's case. It is natural to see the serpentine zig-zagging of Rivers as long snakes or as Longs/Asian Dragons. And a river branching into many exits/entrances would easily be seen as a snake with multiple heads and tails. That Orochi's body included the hills, valleys and plants of the region is clear geography. Why in the *world* would Japanese - a brilliant, creative population to this day - need alleged PIEs from the alleged Urheimat to teach them to see their own geography in meaningful ways. Japanese religion innately fosters a recognition of life, spirit and Gods in the nature around them.
Other relevant things :
- no explanation why the Hittite Serpent needed to be killed/why the Hittite Storm God didn't like him. Version #2 of the Hittite narrative says the Serpent stole the God's heart and eyes, but at the time it did so, the God and the Serpent were already fighting.
Whatever the reason, Orochi was a clear danger in the Japanese case, because he was threatening the Kami (life essence, presiding Goddess) of the last remaining (chance for the future of the) Rice Field there, who was meant to be Princess of many more rice fields, until the hostile landscape of Orochi suffocated her possibility to develop further/have a future. Every year, the number of daughters of her Kami parents had grown less (yearly heavy failure in rice crop yield?) If it weren't for Susanowo's taming of the landscape, she would have been devoured by the geography around Hii river/Orochi. Susanowo brought favourable weather conditions to marry with the land and allow it to produce plenty (rice cultivation).
- The line: 'ç2 "May the land grow and thrive! May the land be protected!" When it grows and thrives, they perform the festival of the purulli.'
That line is really the only point of true comparison - even though it is likely to be very independent from other continents (since the same 'pattern' is seen in many places). I'm reading it as referring to a festival ("purulli" by name) of thanksgiving (?) presumably to the Storm God for dispatching the Serpent. It is from such inference that one further infers that the Serpent may have been somehow throttling the land or preventing rains or flooding the region or whatever it is that Anatolia was suffering from back then. Can't commit myself, as I know little of the area and there's too little data.
- This next set of lines is less clear but one assumes it speaks of agricultural blessings as well:
Assuming again that Inara is an agricultural Goddess. I think the underground spring is the one that the Serpent hogged* and that the "house" is not hers but the Serpent's lair (maybe she put the keys of the house into the hands of the king :pure-speculation
? Anyway, forcing it that way, you can further force-read the statement of the Goddess donating these things to the King as entrusting the now-secured welfare of the land (secured by the Storm God) to the King. Underground springs are very useful for cities/Kings: water supply, and a water supply at times of need and can (hopefully) be kept secret at times of war with enemies who are holding a city at siege, as the citizens will still have access to water.
[* Lines 9 and 11 of the Hittite Storm God vs Snake narrative show that the serpent lived somewhere in the downward direction and that its lair is a hole]
"The mountain" - which brought rain - "is first of all" -> first to receive the sacrifice during festival purulli? The sacrifice appears to be agricultural: bread, in return for a good harvest? (Force-reading again, based on what many heathens all over the world do.) Line 19: the bread is offered to Mt Zaliyanu (first), and in return rain is sought from him, which he therefore brings "[on account of] the bread" (i.e. as gift for the donated sacrifice of bread.)
Still, there's little comparison and even less need to infer borrowing from PIE to Japan via the Hittites. My own force-reading of meanings into this is the only thing that *inches* - as in really inches - the Hittite case anywhere near the Susanowo vs Orochi case, though even then the two narratives remain irreconcilably miles apart. Why do people insist that "borrowing" must be the case - for any oh-so-common agricultural/weather etc metaphors or even for the literalness in any of the simpler narrative commonalities that occur all over the world concerning serpents (weather-control, human sacrifice, shapeshifting)?**
In the early days of images of the moon being shown around, people from various parts of the world apparently recognised a "face" on the moon. There was no face - just crators. Nor was the notion rooted in some primeval human mythology. It's simply human *nature* to try to see faces in everything - including door knobs that have 2 screws at the top seen as eyes and the knob as the nose. Likewise, there may be real creatures [late dino remnants?] that "inspired" humans, or humans could just be projecting a larger version of animals they know into the sky or the water or whatever, or - as is at least true in the case of Daoists and probably Shintos too - the giant serpents and Longs are literally true.
What does *PIE* have to do with what could sooner be classified as coincidence or world-wide "syndrome"? Rather than accuse world mythology/some collective ancestral shared memory of all humanity, I'd sooner suspect the human tendency to anthropomorphise nature/the environment. (Though that is still not what I think is going on. If nothing else, the Daoist Long - and other Daoist Gods - are very real and do have power over that realm which they preside over. And the Shinto Gods are apparently true too.
Hey, when Indian Hindus foolishly gave christianism the benefit of the doubt that the non-historical jeebus existed and the equally evil invisible, unimageable = non-existent christoislamic gawd - without a single shred of evidence given to us about jeebusjehovallah - why in the world can't Hindu heathens give the benefit of the doubt to the Shintos and Taoists [and Hellenes, etc], who never even missionise on Hindus, and whose religion in many respects sounds like that of Hindus?)
** [color="#0000FF"]The Snake God Bida of the Ghanans was supposed to have rained gold[/color] (IIRC see the blackdrago.com site) in return for the yearly human sacrifices. Since literally raining gold on humans would rather be a punishment - lumps of gold would hit you hard on the head, besides gold can't compare to a secure supply of food such as from proper (conditions for) harvest - I'm assuming Bida brought the Ghanans the necessary supply of rain for successful agriculture, which then brought in good crop for them, which would have resulted in the nation growing and expanding to specialise in fields outside of agriculture (perhaps gold mining, or at least trade) which would have resulted in wealth [including much gold] for the Ghanans. Bida's favour in the form of rain was recognised as the primary/direct source of this wealth, so she 'rained gold'. When she was killed by the human man, she could no longer regulate the weather to be favourable for the Ghanans any more and so - as the narrative stated - the rain of gold ceased.
Going to play devil's advocate for a short space. Not really. But want to show that another famous instance still doesn't fit Susano-o vs Orochi's case (not any more than it can fit other non-IE's cases or they can fit each other), even after I've pushed the similarity as far as it can (probably) go, even by means of Cheating (i.e. *really* wild speculation. Not as wild as the PIE-ists, but they don't usually even bother to look into anything non-"IE" in much detail anyway - except if they're planning major encroachment on a non-IE civilisation).
Here's the case that PIE-ism refers to for the PIE "chaoskampf" trope among Hittites. Hopefully no one will insinuate that if not Indra/Vedic religion then the IE Hittites "must" have influenced the Japanese Susanowo vs Orochi.
[color="#0000FF"]hittites.info/translations.aspx?text=translations/mythology%2FIlluyanka.html[/color]
Appears to be direct translation of primary text. Uh, it seems to give 2 very different versions of the Hittite Storm God vs (one-headed) Serpent. (Note the ellipses in square brackets in the following are not mine, they appear to indicate missing source text)
Quote:The Storm God and the Serpent
Beckman, Gary, "The Anatolian Myth of Illuyanka", JANES 14 (1982)
TRANSLATION
ç1 Thusly Mr. Killa, the Anointed Priest of the Storm God of Nerik, (concerning) the matter of the purulli-festival [of] the Storm God of Heaven, when they speak thusly -
ç2 "May the land grow and thrive! May the land be protected!" When it grows and thrives, they perform the festival of the purulli.
ç3 When the Storm God and the serpent fought each other in the city of Kià ¡kiluà ¡à ¡a, the serpent vanquished the Storm God.
ç4 So the Storm God implored all of the gods, "Come together!" And Inara prepared a feast.
ç5 She prepared everything in great quantity: a large vessel of wine, a large vessel of marnuwanda-beer, a large vessel of walhîi-beverage. In the vessels she made abundance.
ç6 Inara went to the city of Ziggaratta, and she found Mr. Hîupaà ¡iya, a mortal.
ç7 Thusly Inara to Hîupaà ¡iya, "I am about to do such-and-such a thing! You, join with me!"
ç8 Thusly Hîupaà ¡iya to Inara, "If I may sleep with you, then I will come (and) I will do that of your heart." So he slept with her.
ç9 Inara led Hîupaà ¡iya away and she concealed him. Inara dressed herself up, and she invited the serpent up from its lair (lit. "hole") (saying), "I am about to make a feast! Come eat and drink!"
ç10 So the serpent came up along with his sons and they ate and drank. They drank every vessel and they made themselves drunk.
ç11 They did not want to go down into the lair again. Hîupaà ¡iya came and tied up the serpent with rope.
ç12 The Storm God came and killed the serpent. The gods were with him.
ç13 Inara built a house on a rock for herself in the land Tarukka. She set Hîupaà ¡iya in the house. Inara repeatedly commanded him, "When I go into the countryside, you must not look out from the window! If you look out, you will see your wife and your children!"
ç14 When 20 days passed, he looked out from the window, and he saw his wife and his children.
ç15 When Inara came back from the countryside, he began to weep, "Let me back home!"
ç16 Thusly Inara to Hîupaà ¡iya, "Why did you look out? [. . .]" [. . .]
12 by means of a crime [. . .]
13 Of? the Storm God [. . .] the meadow [. . .]
14 he [. . .] and him [. . .]
ç17 Inara [went?] to the city Kià ¡kiluà ¡à ¡a. When she put [. .] her? house and the underground spring? [into] the hand of the king [. . .] Because (of this) we are celebrating the first purulli-festival. The hand [of the king will hold? the house?] of Inara and the underground spring?.
ç18 Mt. Zaliyanu is first of all (the gods). When he assigned rain in Nerik, the staff-bearer brings the thick bread from Nerik.
ç19 He asked Mt. Zaliyanu for rain, and he brings it to him [on account of] the bread.
27 And he [. . .]
28 And it to him [. . .] he [. . .]
29 And he/them [. . .]
30 [. . .]
The next line seems to start again from the beginning but recounts the battle differently:
Quote:(Gap)I think version #2 of the events already ended.
ç20' This [. . .]
ç21' What Kella the Anointed priest said: [First], the serpent vanquished the Storm God, and he took [(his) heart and (his) eyes]. And [the Storm God feared?] him.
ç22' He took the daughter of a poor man for his wife, and he begat a son. When he grew up, he took for himself the daughter of the serpent in matrimony.
ç23' The Storm God repeatedly instructed (his) son, "When you enter the house of your wife, request from them (my) heart and (my) eyes!"
ç24' When he went, he requested the heart from them, and they gave it to him. Later, he requested the eyes from them, and those, too, they gave to him. He brought them to the Storm God, his father. The Storm God took back the heart and the eyes.
ç25' When his form was again sound in its former state, he again went to the sea for battle. When he gave battle to him, he ultimately began to vanquish the serpent, and the son of the Storm God was with the serpent. He cried up to heaven, to his father:
ç26' "Take me together (with them)! Do not spare me!" So the Storm God killed the serpent and his son. That Storm God is about to/just finished [. . .]
ç27' Thusly Kella, the Anointed Priest of the Storm God of Nerik: When the gods [. . .]
ç27a' 1 [. . .]
2 [. .] they [. . .] and for him food [. . .]
3 [. . .] back to Nerik [. . .]
4 [. . .] Let!
ç27b' 5 The god Zaà ¡hîapuna (acc.)
6 [. . .] (s)he did [. . .] and the Storm God of Nerik
7 [. . .] they went. The god Zaliyanu[. . .]
8 [. . .] (s)he went back [. . .]
ç27c' 9 [. . .] (s)he? gave? [. . .]
10 [. . .] to? Nerik [. . .]
11 [. . .] the serpent? [. . .]
ç28' For the Anointed Priest they made the first (ranked) gods into the last, and they made the last (ranked) into the first (ranked) gods.
ç29' The cult revenues of the god Zaliyanu are great. Zaà ¡hîapuna, wife of Zalinui (i.e. Zaliyanu), is greater than the Storm God
Version #1 is what's relevant since it's the only one that appears to have any point in commonality with Susano-wo (this being the element of intoxicating the Serpent to get the better of it).
- Am assuming the Serpent is suitably large and/or otherwise magical, else how can it have kept a God at bay for so long in battle?
- No indication of number of heads of the serpent. So far it seems to have even less in common with 8-headed Orochi of Japan than the 3-headed/Trishiras-Vishvaroopa had (multi-headedness is the sort of thing that PIE-ism went in for, so I could theoretically just restrict myself to such superficials in this discussion)
- though not multi-headed, there are many serpents in the Hittite case: the major serpent comes in with his family. No indication that all of them were killed though.
[In version #2, the enemy serpent and the Storm God's own son - married to a serpent's-daughter - both got killed, presumably because the son felt he had unwittingly betrayed his serpent father-in-law?]
- but there is the luring the serpent in with various recognisable and unrecognisably-named liquors (wine, some type of beer and other beverage). However, the Serpent - and family - gets an explicit invitation to the festivitiy (which implies a magical snake since it understands an invitation). A real invitation doesn't seem to be the case with Orochi, who just seems to be lured in on a primal urge for yummy sake, or Orochi just isn't a very intelligent creature, more like an animal, even though it would have been a formidable beast to fight. If you take Orochi's "anatomy" as embodying regional geography then it makes sense that Orochi doesn't interact on any intellectual level: there would be little point for such a digression in the narrative. It was overcome, that's all that mattered: Susanowo overcame it and brought in the right climate to make the Rice Fields productive (instead of the last Rice Field/the future of rice fields in the area being threatened).
- The Hittite Serpent is indeed restrained after getting drunk, but a human does this - specifically chosen for the purpose by Inara who turns out to be a Hittite Goddess. And the plan to lure it in belongs to her. Luring strong enemies with food and wine (even with the point of getting them drunk/incapacitated) is a very old trick. As stated before, luring snakes in with foods and milk is common.
[color="#0000FF"]Had missed this before: but in the Chinese folktale of Li Ji vs Giant Serpent (which required maiden sacrifices), the quoted summary in post 416 specifically says that the heroine lures the snake into position using rice. (As opposed to rice-wine that was used to lure the Japanese Orochi to the trap.) Again, the Chinese Giant Snake was attracted by the fragrant smell of the rice. Presumably Orochi was attracted by the fragrant smell of rice-wine. It was then that Li-Ji and her dog set about attacking the duped man-eating Chinese snake.[/color]
The rice wine/sake factor used to lure Orochi is more likely to be because of rice-wine's direct relation to the crop (rice), and also because sake is related to the Gods - one assumes they always can produce a supply for their own ends and are never without for themselves, which makes it the most straightforward choice to lure the oro-chi with (where the "chi" suffix was translated as meaning God/Spirit): the Kamis like Sake. Repeating wacky's admission: 'The most feasible native etymological proposals are Japanese o- from o å°¾ "tail" (which is where Susanoo discovered the sacred sword), à  å¤§ "big; great", or oro å³° "peak; summit"; and -chi meaning "god; spirit", cognate with the mizuchi river-dragon.' [Since mizuchi is a river-dragon kami, so is Orochi by all indication.]
- The human mating with Inara has no connection (i.e. no enforced "parallel/equivalent" and other such de-heathenising words).
*If* Inara were an agricultural Goddess, I could perhaps *force-read* the invitation to the human man to take part in the Gods' killing of the Serpent and his subsequent demand to mate with the Goddess along with her consent and subsequent the mating of the two itself as an agricultural reference such as man seeding and ploughing the land - which is a very common motif (also in rituals) in many religions (and not just "IE" ones). But no evidence of fruit [at least symbolically in the form of children] is shown from this union, he just appears stuck in a house she set up for him. His wanting to go back home to his real/human family and what remnants there are of the text with the missing ending sounds ominous enough. Confirmed: other sites discussing it think he may have been killed after requesting to join his family or else cursed with infertility, which means my forced-reading was wrong. [Or his sacrifice was insufficient to yield lasting crops - he was not committed?
trained:] But there's just no data, this is all just extreme guesswork.- The Serpent is restrained with a rope. In Orochi's case it was 8 gates for the 8 heads (tributaries rather than hills?) of the giant snake. The difference is important, because the choice of "gates" could imply irrigation as others have pointed out. Whereas just a rope would mean nothing in Orochi's case. It is natural to see the serpentine zig-zagging of Rivers as long snakes or as Longs/Asian Dragons. And a river branching into many exits/entrances would easily be seen as a snake with multiple heads and tails. That Orochi's body included the hills, valleys and plants of the region is clear geography. Why in the *world* would Japanese - a brilliant, creative population to this day - need alleged PIEs from the alleged Urheimat to teach them to see their own geography in meaningful ways. Japanese religion innately fosters a recognition of life, spirit and Gods in the nature around them.
Other relevant things :
- no explanation why the Hittite Serpent needed to be killed/why the Hittite Storm God didn't like him. Version #2 of the Hittite narrative says the Serpent stole the God's heart and eyes, but at the time it did so, the God and the Serpent were already fighting.
Whatever the reason, Orochi was a clear danger in the Japanese case, because he was threatening the Kami (life essence, presiding Goddess) of the last remaining (chance for the future of the) Rice Field there, who was meant to be Princess of many more rice fields, until the hostile landscape of Orochi suffocated her possibility to develop further/have a future. Every year, the number of daughters of her Kami parents had grown less (yearly heavy failure in rice crop yield?) If it weren't for Susanowo's taming of the landscape, she would have been devoured by the geography around Hii river/Orochi. Susanowo brought favourable weather conditions to marry with the land and allow it to produce plenty (rice cultivation).
- The line: 'ç2 "May the land grow and thrive! May the land be protected!" When it grows and thrives, they perform the festival of the purulli.'
That line is really the only point of true comparison - even though it is likely to be very independent from other continents (since the same 'pattern' is seen in many places). I'm reading it as referring to a festival ("purulli" by name) of thanksgiving (?) presumably to the Storm God for dispatching the Serpent. It is from such inference that one further infers that the Serpent may have been somehow throttling the land or preventing rains or flooding the region or whatever it is that Anatolia was suffering from back then. Can't commit myself, as I know little of the area and there's too little data.
- This next set of lines is less clear but one assumes it speaks of agricultural blessings as well:
Quote:ç17 Inara [went?] to the city Kià ¡kiluà ¡à ¡a. When she put [. .] her? house and the underground spring? [into] the hand of the king [. . .] Because (of this) we are celebrating the first purulli-festival. The hand [of the king will hold? the house?] of Inara and the underground spring?.
ç18 Mt. Zaliyanu is first of all (the gods). When he assigned rain in Nerik, the staff-bearer brings the thick bread from Nerik.
ç19 He asked Mt. Zaliyanu for rain, and he brings it to him [on account of] the bread.
Assuming again that Inara is an agricultural Goddess. I think the underground spring is the one that the Serpent hogged* and that the "house" is not hers but the Serpent's lair (maybe she put the keys of the house into the hands of the king :pure-speculation
? Anyway, forcing it that way, you can further force-read the statement of the Goddess donating these things to the King as entrusting the now-secured welfare of the land (secured by the Storm God) to the King. Underground springs are very useful for cities/Kings: water supply, and a water supply at times of need and can (hopefully) be kept secret at times of war with enemies who are holding a city at siege, as the citizens will still have access to water.[* Lines 9 and 11 of the Hittite Storm God vs Snake narrative show that the serpent lived somewhere in the downward direction and that its lair is a hole]
"The mountain" - which brought rain - "is first of all" -> first to receive the sacrifice during festival purulli? The sacrifice appears to be agricultural: bread, in return for a good harvest? (Force-reading again, based on what many heathens all over the world do.) Line 19: the bread is offered to Mt Zaliyanu (first), and in return rain is sought from him, which he therefore brings "[on account of] the bread" (i.e. as gift for the donated sacrifice of bread.)
Still, there's little comparison and even less need to infer borrowing from PIE to Japan via the Hittites. My own force-reading of meanings into this is the only thing that *inches* - as in really inches - the Hittite case anywhere near the Susanowo vs Orochi case, though even then the two narratives remain irreconcilably miles apart. Why do people insist that "borrowing" must be the case - for any oh-so-common agricultural/weather etc metaphors or even for the literalness in any of the simpler narrative commonalities that occur all over the world concerning serpents (weather-control, human sacrifice, shapeshifting)?**
In the early days of images of the moon being shown around, people from various parts of the world apparently recognised a "face" on the moon. There was no face - just crators. Nor was the notion rooted in some primeval human mythology. It's simply human *nature* to try to see faces in everything - including door knobs that have 2 screws at the top seen as eyes and the knob as the nose. Likewise, there may be real creatures [late dino remnants?] that "inspired" humans, or humans could just be projecting a larger version of animals they know into the sky or the water or whatever, or - as is at least true in the case of Daoists and probably Shintos too - the giant serpents and Longs are literally true.
What does *PIE* have to do with what could sooner be classified as coincidence or world-wide "syndrome"? Rather than accuse world mythology/some collective ancestral shared memory of all humanity, I'd sooner suspect the human tendency to anthropomorphise nature/the environment. (Though that is still not what I think is going on. If nothing else, the Daoist Long - and other Daoist Gods - are very real and do have power over that realm which they preside over. And the Shinto Gods are apparently true too.
Hey, when Indian Hindus foolishly gave christianism the benefit of the doubt that the non-historical jeebus existed and the equally evil invisible, unimageable = non-existent christoislamic gawd - without a single shred of evidence given to us about jeebusjehovallah - why in the world can't Hindu heathens give the benefit of the doubt to the Shintos and Taoists [and Hellenes, etc], who never even missionise on Hindus, and whose religion in many respects sounds like that of Hindus?)
** [color="#0000FF"]The Snake God Bida of the Ghanans was supposed to have rained gold[/color] (IIRC see the blackdrago.com site) in return for the yearly human sacrifices. Since literally raining gold on humans would rather be a punishment - lumps of gold would hit you hard on the head, besides gold can't compare to a secure supply of food such as from proper (conditions for) harvest - I'm assuming Bida brought the Ghanans the necessary supply of rain for successful agriculture, which then brought in good crop for them, which would have resulted in the nation growing and expanding to specialise in fields outside of agriculture (perhaps gold mining, or at least trade) which would have resulted in wealth [including much gold] for the Ghanans. Bida's favour in the form of rain was recognised as the primary/direct source of this wealth, so she 'rained gold'. When she was killed by the human man, she could no longer regulate the weather to be favourable for the Ghanans any more and so - as the narrative stated - the rain of gold ceased.