Message #24841

[Abedabun]

Most such monsters are cannibals like Big Owl and Kicker-off-the-rocks. Child-of-the-Waters is the junior twin; the helper of his elder bother. His name is a direct translation of that of the Hindu Apam-Napat, himself an alias of Skanda, the Hindu War-god. These two should be compared to the Twin War Gods of the Pueblo Indians, as commented above.



The Exploits of the Twins
Navajo mythology hinges on the exploits of the Twins in their quest of the mythical Center of Origin, the Paradise they identify with the Whirling Mountain at the Center of the World. In certain versions, this Paradise was reached by a man who went down the Colorado River inside a hollow log. This myth can be understood in the light of similar South American Indian myths.

The hollow log is really a giant serpent (Anaconda) which is a sort of submarine, inside which they came out from the underwater primordial abode. In other words, the hollow log is an alias of the Ark, which is often likened to a giant serpent both in the New and the Old Worlds.

South American Indian mythology is presently far more complete than that of the North American Indians, for down here many tribes still survive in their pristine state, and have not yet been acculturated by the missionaries and other white influences. But an in depth study of south American mythology clearly shows a fundamental identity with that of their northern brothers, particularly insofar as the myths of origin are concerned.



The Death and Resurrection of Wiyot
The Pueblo Indians and the Luiseños turned migrants in imitation of the Twins. They thus attempted to reach the Center of the Earth where their god, Wiyot, had hidden himself after he died. Wiyot was the first of all men to die, and his death taught his people the example. In fact, Wiyot later resurrected as the New Moon, and became immortal.

The example of Wiyot is literally copied from the Hindu one of Yama ("twin"). Yama is an alias of Varuna as the lesser of the two Twins. Indeed, the stories of both Wiyot and Yama anticipate that of Christ, who died and resurrected in order to teach his worshippers that it can be done in practice. The death and resurrection of Wiyot is an instance of those of the so-called Vegetation Gods of the Old World. To this famous confrary also belong gods and heroes such as Tammuz, Attis, Adonis, Agdistis, King Arthur, Hercules, and, of course, Jesus Christ, Osiris and Dionysos.

What the story of Wiyot is indeed telling is that the elder, the Solar Twin, dies and resurrects as the lesser one, the Lunar Twin. In other words, what we have here is the alternance of the eras and that of the ruling and ruled races with the passage of time.

Even Plato seemed to believe in this concept, as he held that we are sequentially born as males and females (i.e. Solar and Lunar) in successive metempsychoses. Apparently, victims and oppressors also change places. As one philosophical Indian once said, "when we were on top, we stepped on the necks of the whites. Now they re on top, and step on ours."



The Primordial Migration
The migrations of the Luiseños, the Apaches and the Pueblos recall the identical ones of the Tupi-Guarani Indians of Brazil. Even before the Portuguese arrived here, they knew their world was doomed. So, they started migrating to the coast, awaiting for the Saviour that would lead them safely across the Ocean, just as Moses, Christ, and other such Tirthankaras ("Ford-makers" or, rather, "Saviours") had done in Primordial times.

This mass migration precipitated the downfall of the once mighty Tupi-Guarani nation. Out of their own bases, these Indians became an easy prey for the Portuguese invaders, who cornered them against the seas, and killed them off through starvation and purposefully spread diseases such as smallpox and syphilis. More or less as happened in North America, except that in a far larger scale, for the genocide there was conducted by the government itself.

The pungent story of the Tupi-Guarani migrations in quest of their Paradise, Yvymaraney (or "evil-less land"), is one of the most touching dramas of the Amerindian saga in the three Americas. We have told this sad story elsewhere, and will not return to it here. Suffice it to say that the pilgrimages in quest of Paradise and the Holy Land are perhaps the most prevalent of religious rituals in the world.

Pilgrimages are done by the Hindus and the Arabs, as well as by the Jews and the Christians alike.