Tag Archives: reading response

Week 4: A Collection of Observations – Kāliya, the Snake

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I took some notes during my reading of ‘Kāliya, the Snake’. I don’t know a super coherent way to organize my thoughts here, so I am going to separate them by bullet points.

  • “Serpent worship is among the world’s oldest and most widespread religious practices.” This surprised me. Maybe it’s because I was raised, and the snake is a symbol of the Devil in Christian/Catholic ideologies. It might be because my dad has an ungodly fear of snakes, so I’ve always seen them as something to avoid and not to worship. Maybe I’ve been living under a rock – either way, it’s cool. The only snake-like God or deity I can imagine is Geb from Ancient Egypt.
  • “Then he came upon the river Yamunā, whose waves were tossing about as if she were laughing, throwing patches of foam on the banks.” I really like the use of personification to describe the river Yamunā. I firmly believe one of the fundamental problems with us as a species is how we stopped looking at the natural world as its own being. I don’t know if that makes any sense. To most people words like ‘lake’, ‘river’, ‘tree’, ‘mountain’, etc. are just that – words. They are void of personality and I’d be willing to bet for a lot of people, placing humanlike behaviors on these words would be considered weird or hippy-esque. As a species, it almost seems like we stopped trying to understand the natural world – we replaced that connection with the hellbent desire to conquer it. We stopped adapting to Earth, now Earth has to adapt to us. Unfortunately I think its too late to turn the tides on humanity (singular) we view our planet.
  • “How can I, a mere woman, describe you? . . . Since silly women and miserable creatures are to be pitied by the virtuous, please forgive this wretched creature, you who are eminent among the forgiving!” Once again, gross gross GROSS. It’s so crazy to write a story and have a woman just blatantly say this. I’m assuming this story was passed down orally in Hindu for centuries, so for centuries these ideals were fed to young boys and girls. I know that this note isn’t very constructive as its saying somethings thats already been said and will probably be said for the rest of our course from time to time – but golly, this undisguised degradation of women as an entirety is so baffling and strange.

Week 4 (Penguin Book)

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The first few myths of the book are so far, pretty interesting. It was really neat to see how some elements of the mermaid have stayed the same (the fish features and the connection to water, for example). But I think the one that really spoke to me this time was the sharing of information, particularly with Oannes, the first myth we had to read. He seemed very fun, but his description boggled and intrigued me. (here is my mspaint interpretation of Oannes, bless his heart. I drew this with my fingers) “…the whole body of the animal was like that of a fish;and had under a fish’s head another head, and also feet below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish’s tail.” (pages 3-4)

You’re telling me THIS CREATURE MAN was giving people advice and sage wisdom?

Real talk, I think this connection of water and knowledge is interesting. “…and he gave them an insight into letters, and sciences, and every kind of art”. (page 4) So were all of their cultural advancements solely centered around the ocean? Around Oannes? Or did Oannes know of things beyond the ocean? From his section in the book, he doesn’t come off as malevolent. Perhaps the people of Babylon had a very beneficial relationship with their ocean. Or maybe Oannes had Good Vibes ™.

Week 3: The Mer-Wife Plot and How Women Are Perceived

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It was interesting to see the difference between Western European and precolonial societies’ attitudes and beliefs towards women. It was equally interesting to see those attitudes reflected in how they viewed mermaids. The patriarchal ideas held within European Christian doctrine stand stark against the more egalitarian precolonial views of gender, reflected in how European mer-wife plots tended to be tales about female infidelity or served as implicit calls to action for their male audience to control the women in their lives, (Bacchilega, et. al., xix) whereas precolonial societies like precolonial Hawaiian myths of human men and their mer-wives (mo’o) found no need to control their otherworldly spouses. (Bacchilega, et. al., xx) 

In my personal and cultural experience, we also have a mermaid equivalent called the sirena, but the name itself and its associating facts are borrowed from the Spanish. The sirena has a reputation for using their beauty and their enchanting voices to lure sailors to watery deaths, similar to the way Europeans paint mermaids as temptresses. However, in precolonial Philippine myths, sirenas are seen as protectors of the waters, sea life and the gods themselves. In one myth, a sirena stayed loyal to their human lover, who earned the sirena’s trust and loyalty after performing multiple feats, till they died and spent the rest of their immortal life still very much in love with their lover.