Beginnings

"The first crown was a gift from Zeus to Prometheus. It thus came from the gods as homage to a man whose relationship with them was anything but clear, at once a threat and a means of salvation (109)"
For my presentation, I chose a Melanasian myth about the origins of death called The Cast Skin. I read several myths concerning the origins of death and most of them treated death as a punishment. I chose this particular myth because it treats the orgins of death as a self-less act of love; a testament to the importance and depth of the mother-child relationship.  In class many of the presentations, although unique, contained many common elements; the concept of the 'earth diver', creation from thought or speech, creation through division, or creation by dismemberment were often repeated.
The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony begins with a girl being carried of by a bull. But this girl wasn't the first to be carried off by a bull, in the beginning bulls were forever abducting beautiful young girls. When they weren't carrying off women, women were going through great lengths to copulate with them. Obviously these were some very handsome bulls. The image of the bull, the turtle, the duck, and various other animals are ever present in origin myths.  I think this suggests that many cultures acknowledge that animals came before humans.  Which is interesting because modern science agrees with this concept. i also find the creation myths that i read having to do with the concept of an egg to be terribly interesting since many life forms DO come from an egg. What does this prove? That it is ALL TRUE!
 Mythos Logos