Anansi's web

one_raven

one_raven

God is a Chinese Whisper
Valued Senior Member
Someone at another forum asked me about the title under my name "God is a Chinese Whisper" (it is the same there).
I went on about Gods developing from other Gods, interractions among religions, cultural influences and original concepts of people ascribing "powers" to those things in life that they do not understand and have control/sway over them in some way.
That got me thinking about the whole point of me wanting to go to school to study Comparitive Religion as a field.
This is from an old Blog post...
Me said:
I am thirty-three years old now, and have been thinking about the nature of God since I decided that I was no longer Catholic when I was about eight years old.
Recently I have found myself seriously considering going to school for Anthropology with a focus on world religions.
It's not really an attempt to know God and discern what I may end up believing - not for me, at least.
It is more a source of curiosity and wonderment for why people believe what they do.
I have pretty much resolved myself to being agnostic for the rest of my life because, simply, I don't think it matters.

After some long and serious thought, I realized that Man was far more fascinating than God.
All these years I spent so far trying to understand God, what it may be and how I feel about it were not in vain, but more a prelude to where I have come to realize my real fascination lies.

I don't have much interest in studying God through Man's eyes.
I would rather study Man through God's eyes.
Click to expand...
My goal, it seems, it to build a family tree of religion (of sorts) (I haven't even started college yet, and I am already working on the idea for my doctoral thesis ;)) beginning at the very roots.

My question to you is, where do you think the roots are?
What are the earliest myths and codified religions you know about?
The Sumerian myths are pretty old (Sumeria was one of the first (civilizations in the world) but even their myths evolved into what is etched in the clay fragments we have found.

In my response about the title under my name, I waxed on about Anansi the spider from West Africa.
I find myself hoping on the idea that Anansi (known as the King of All Stories) is the first God from whose web was spun all the other Gods and stories. The whole idea of the web symbolizing stories, myths, cultures and memes interracting and affecting each other and being intrinsically tied to one another... blah blah - it's all very poetic.

Though I WANT it to be Anansi, I would like to know where the roots of this tree actually are.
Where do you think it all started?
When the rain, the sun, the moon and stars all become Gods, who were the first?
 
My question to you is, where do you think the roots are?
What are the earliest myths and codified religions you know about?
Click to expand...
I can give my answer, but I doubt you'll like it.

My opinion is that the root of all myth is the perception of the world - a psyche of a comparatively advanced animal, one that can imagine.
The root is our mind. The root is not some place, some far away time ago, and every new myth is just as valid as the very first myth.

We have recorded bear shrines and ritual places belonging to the neanderthals as long as perhaps 80,000 years bce. We have the same rituals, as far as we can say, practiced by the 19th century siberians and even nowaday Ainu of Northern Japan.

You can say that it is the oldest known mythology that has even leaped the species barrier. Or - it originated independently, because we saw and interpreted this world alike.

So, to answer another part of your question, the oldest known deity is the bear, animal master, god of hunters.

I'm also in the search for the beginnings and what I have found suggests that the beginning of the human myth is the human mind, the beginning is hardwired in our brains and how they interpret the world around.

Of course there is also a progressive evolution as well as regression of myth,
one people first producing the idea, others catching it up, usually together with the new technology that assisted in developing that particular world view - hunt, agriculture, division of labour, city state, rule of the king, etc., they all have a particular kind of mythology associated with them, because they all changed the way we see, organise and try to understand our world.

And nowaday space science is just as potent as the spear and the bow were, just look at Star Wars, Star Gate, Star Trek, Babylon 5, 2001 Space Odyssey, etc, myths most of them in a great forge of what is becomming the science mythology of today.
Just as the story of the big bang already is.

So, in my mind, a lot better strategy to study myth is not to search for the first myth, it is to research how myths are made - now and then.
 
Well - I think it is a nice idea , to have a scientific forum for religion........

Where did it all start you ask , One Raven :

It all started in the human brain , the thoughts about survival in everyday´s life made the idea of DO UT DES : give to receive , offerings to get good luck on the hunt , good crops on the field , cure for disease or women getting pregnant ........
The thought of survival also raised questions about death , was it possible to survive death and go to another place - would that place be better or worse , than the world that they knew ..........
So came the illusion of an afterlife ...........and how to come to a GOOD place (by doing good deeds , or by making special rites - the pyramids together with special rites ( the book of death) are by some believed to be "machines" , that ensured a nice good afterlife for the pharaohs ) .....or to a BAD place ( if you were evil , or if special rites were not performed .....even during early christianity, it was believed , that if you were not buried in holy consecrated ground , then you could not go to heaven )

I think all religions has a background in primitive thinking about how to improve your life ... in this life or in the next life ......... magic rites turned into religion ......

Here in Europe , some of the oldest religion is found in the Aurignacian culture ( made by cro magnon people)
(it started about 35000 BC ) - wallpaintings have been found on cave walls ....most of them believed to have a religious purpose ( animals depicted to be used in rituals about good fortune on hunting .......
Socalled figurines of Venus has been found , and is belived to have been used in fertility rituals ..........
Gifts put in graves ( including food, drink , warm clothes and even flowers) has been found in ancient graves , showing that ancient people probably were thinking about an afterlife ...........
Burying dead people is at least some 200.000 years old , but putting gifts in the grave is believed to be some 35-40.000 years old ..........
 
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Avatar,
Were they worshipping the Bear as a "God" or as an "Ideal"?
Do you think there is a difference?

Sputnik,
I agree about the roots of religion - how and why it started.
Early man saw that if it did not rain he would die, therefore understood that rain had power over him, which equated to more powerful than him.
The moment man recognized his own mortality, religion was born.

What I am looking for, however, is the spark.
I am searching for that moment in history in which humans stopped simply worshipping "The Bear", and gave that bear a name and a distinct personality.
I want to find that moment of confluence when awe, language, intention and persionality all clashed and the first religious figure was codified and embraced as an individual.

I am looking for the names of the first Gods to be worshipped as distinct individuals.
 
Avatar,
Were they worshipping the Bear as a "God" or as an "Ideal"?
Do you think there is a difference?
Click to expand...
I honestly don't think there is a difference. And we will never know what the neanderthals precisely believed in, but we can research modern Ainu.

Bear is a material manifestation of the divine mystery of the animal kingdom.
It is the strongest, smartest beast, that can stand on two legs and look human like.
It creates awe and respect, a natural choice to pick as the master of animals, to which to ask for a good hunt and willing food.

A living god which could be killed, but you didn't actually kill it (thus neanderthals sticked bones through bear eyeholes, as if to protect form the evil eye, a tradition and ritual still practiced). The spirit of the bear was something great and above human.

Also take in mind that the ancient man of the hunt lived in constant killing, blood and death. It's a huge strain for any psyche. Partly you had to invent a justification and the meaning for your actions. [This is my assumption]
What am I doing? I kill to feed, and I am killed and fed on. What have I done with the killing and what is done to me by killing? Why do new animals come, and why do sometimes they don't? ,etc,etc.

I think it helped in the development of the imagination and thus the creation of a modern man, a man of art, stories and myth.
 
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one_raven said:
Sputnik,
I agree about the roots of religion - how and why it started.
Early man saw that if it did not rain he would die, therefore understood that rain had power over him, which equated to more powerful than him.
The moment man recognized his own mortality, religion was born.

What I am looking for, however, is the spark.
I am searching for that moment in history in which humans stopped simply worshipping "The Bear", and gave that bear a name and a distinct personality.
I want to find that moment of confluence when awe, language, intention and persionality all clashed and the first religious figure was codified and embraced as an individual.

I am looking for the names of the first Gods to be worshipped as distinct individuals.
Click to expand...


I see , the first spark and the first names of god(s) , will never be known ......
We can only deal with gods named in writings or at least in legends .....
I will have to do some research .....
 
There are many gods going by many names.
There are many Lokis, and many Zeuses, many Osirises and Isids all over the world and throughout time.
My personal view is that a particular name is not important at all, it all depends on the culture and language, what is important is the particular idea - independent of language, society or prior tradition.

I wish you luck in your search, but don't think you'll find anything more than is already known. Unless you do archeologic digs.

And what is a word in the end - a collection of sounds in between silence.
On their own, without the idea, they are just howls of animals.
 
Sputnik said:
We can only deal with gods named in writings or at least in legends .....
I will have to do some research .....
Click to expand...

I can´t find it now ( I am not at home right now ) , but I remember a book I once read with some of the oldest legends known to man ...... I´ve got the book at home in my library ... still can´t remember if the names of god(s) was mentioned in it .....
 
Raven ,
Sorry , that I am a bit late - after a terrible accident in Egypt , I live a troubled life - sometimes living at the hospital , rarely in my own home , where I have my library - most of the time living with my family ..........

The legend I describe here, is by some believed to be from 3500 BC (5500 years old)- other people believe it to be more than 4000 years old , the most pessimistic: 3500 years old .......... anyway it is probably the oldest american legend ...........
It is from the Linapi tribe (linapi-algonquin) a proto-dorset people , that came to America about 3500 BC from Siberia .... it spread out over America and some of them eventually settled in Delaware .........

The legend was written down on Wallam Ollum - notched and painted sticks collected about year 1800 and forward ....... these has been examined by both white and american indian scholars and deemed genuine ..........

The legend describes the history of the Linapi tribe, from when they arrived in America - untill the white people arrived from the east ( it is not known if the white people , were the norse (around year 1000 - they first met Beothuk indians .......and the norse are believed to be wiped out by exactly the algonquin tribe later on ) or english/french some 500 years later ) ...........

The legend describes 96 succesive leaders (chiefs/"kings") so it span over 96 generations ...........
HOWEVER , the legend describes the events about the gods of their tribe as beeing a LONG time before , in a country on the other side of the ocean (Siberia)........this could be REALLY old .....

Linapi National Songs : first song : the creation

1) At first there was nothing but seawater on the top of the land , Aki
2) There was much water , and much fog over the land , and there was also Kitanitowit , the god creator .
3) And this god creator was the first being, Saye-Wis , an eternal being , and invisible , although everywhere .
4) It was he who caused much water , much land , much cloud, much heaven.
5) It was he who caused the sun , the moon and the stars.
6) And all these he caused to move well.
7) By his action it blew hard, it cleared up, and the deep water ran off .
8) It looked bright , and the islands stood there , Menak.
9)It was then , when again the god creator made the makers or spirits, Manitoba-Manitoak.
.....it continues .....
................
24) All this happened a long time ago, at the first land Netamaki, beyond the great ocean , Kitahikan (pacific ocean) .........

Please note, that many american indians still honour Manitoba .... but he was created by Kitanitowit - their first ( Siberian ?) god.

There might be older legends from other parts of the world - I will come back , when (if ) I find out ..........

Anyone with information about older legends , please step forward , and tell us ..........
We need the info here, if one raven is going to make his book .....:m: :p

Sources:
P. de Roo , History of America before Columbus
C.S. Rafinesque , The American Nations
and a few others .......
 
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You are all most welcome , I hope to find out more !!!!
The subject about the first god known to man , is actually interesting .......
 
You could also look into languages.
In baltic paganism the main diety is known as Dievs (in Latvian language) or Dievas (in lithuanian Language), in sanskrit the word is Dyaus (in english God).
Interestingly it is also the name for the general word "god", so in Latvian language and old folk songs often the diminutive form of Dievs (God) is used to distinguish it from dievs (god) - Dieviņš (Goddy).
He is the creator of Earth and has a farm in the sky, and often comes down gently to Earth on a gentle, sometimes golden haired horse (a reference to Sun I think), but the sun is another deity - Saule, which is also the name of the shiny thing in the sky in modern language.
The farm thing is a later addition,, because indo-europeans were nomadic people at first.

So Dyaus, Dievs, Dievas, Deus is a very, very old indo-european word, and it might also have been the name of a single diety, though not likely.

And if we touched the Sun motif. the Sun is also an old indo-european goddess,
Saule (latvian) Saule (lithuanian) Sun (english) Solnce (russian, polish, other slavic languages),
And because the nomadic people usually had things that are seen everywhere as gods, because you travel around, Saule might actually be a very, very old name of a sun goddess indeeed, and Latvian and Lithuanian are the oldest surviving indo-european languages in Europe.

And as it might be a proto-indo european word, it can be from 3000bce to 7000bce or to some theories even 10000bce.
Unfortunately there are many theories concerning the proto-indo european language... My personal view is that 3000bce is much too late, I'd vote for something around 6000 or 7000 bce, but I'm not historian.


btw- http://www.lexiline.com/lexiline/lexi51.htm
 
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Raven and Avatar ,
I think, I´ve got a break through ........ I have found a god (gods) who might be 77.000 years old ..........
I tried to concentrate on Africa ( since most scholars believe humanity evolved from there )..........

Some of the oldest legends are believed to be from the bushmen in Kalahari (Botswana in Africa ) - and in his book : The Kua: Life and Soul of the Central Kalahari Bushmen (1993) , Carlos Valiente-Noailles recorded the religious mythology of the bushmen in central Kalahari .......

He describes two gods : a creator being : ´Gama , and an evil death giver named ´Kaonxa ( who sometimes appears also as a less malignent being )....
´Kaonxa was described as coming back from the west , he became a big SNAKE and was said to be still alive (immune to death/immortal) .....
´Kaonxa is the "master of all illnesses" and brings violent winds and rainstorms...
´Kaonxa is also associated with ´Gamahare , or spirits of the death .........

So far so good - but how old are these myths ????
A recent discovery reveals, that they might be 70 - 77.000 years old :
In the Tsodilo hills in Botswana ( by the bushmen called : " the Mountains of the Gods " ) something amazing has been found and described in the Scientific American :

http://scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa027&articleID=3FE89A86-E7F2-99DF-366D045A5BF3EAB1

Scientists think, this is the earliest evidence of practised religion on earth - and we just might have the names of the gods !!!!!!!! :m: :p
 
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