Giant Rocks and God-PWNing
When I was a little girl, my parents did not read to me from Aesop. My mother, who cares deeply about Native American rights, read me Native stories*. They were from an amalgamation of tribes, and a lot of the stories were somewhat more frightening than Nightmare Before Christmas, which my mom never let me watch because it was “too scary.” I mean, in one of the stories, a hunter and his seven dogs are out and the dogs volunteer to die to save the master from a monster during a huge suspenseful chase. That is thriller-quality material.
But that's not the one I want to talk about. I want to talk about Coyote, Iktomi, and the Rock. (OH MY GOD IT'S A GIANT ROCK!) I promise that mentioning this story has something to do with Hellenic Polytheism, but for now, let's go through the Pillars of Herakles, cross the Atlantic, and make our way to Lakota Territory.
Coyote and Iktomi are walking around, and they walk by this rock called Iya. Coyote is like, "HOLY CRAP GIANT ROCK! O_O I MUST MAKE AN OFFERING." He gives Iya the blanket around his shoulders for the cold winds because it's a rather nice day out.
Unfortunately, the weather decides to pull an England as they're walking on. Clouds. Rain. Dreariness. People in long black coats running into Tube stations. And then the weather decides which specific English month it wants to imitate and starts chucking hail everywhere.
Iktomi has a blanket. He's right as rain. Coyote, though, is miserable, cold, and wet. Coyote says, "Hey, I want my blanket back from the impressive giant rock, which shouldn't care because it's just a rock and rocks don't actually need things like blankets."
Iktomi and Coyote walk back to the rock. (There's this brief thing about Iktomi and Iya, but you can read the full story --- or a version of it --- here. I'm just providing an abridged version.) Coyote decides he wants the blanket.
"Dude, Iya, give me the freaking blanket."
"Dude, Coyote, like, no. You freaking gave me this rad blanket, and I likes me some blanket action."
Coyote takes the blanket back anyway.
So Iktomi and Coyote start walking again, and all of a sudden they hear the weirdest noise ever. Do you remember the movie Labyrinth with the giant beast who can summon huge boulders that totally PWN the goblins so the main character can get her baby brother back from David Bowie in tights? Yeah. You guessed it. The rock is rolling down behind them.
Iktomi, at this point, goes, "Lolnoway. Imma gonna, like, get lost." Iktomi now turns into a spider and gets the hell out of the rock's way.
Coyote runs from the rock. The rock runs over Coyote enough that Coyote gets flattened like a pancake, and the rock grabs the blanket. And then this hunter comes along and decides to use Coyote as a floor rug.
Pretend now that the Iya is an Olympian God with several temples. If Coyote offers the blanket at one, it belongs to Iya.
We have records --- Julian's famous "Oration upon the Mother of the Gods" among them --- that prove sacred objects were transferred between temples. The location doesn't matter in these stories as much as the sanctity of the object and its status as an image or a divine offering.
So long as something we give remains in a place where it can be valued as a sacred object --- an online temenos, a household shrine, or perhaps a blog --- it doesn't matter much where it is, or how many times it moves from one location to the other. It must be placed, however, somewhere sacred to the Gods after its voyage through the in-between.
Coyote may move his blanket to another temple if something happens to Temple A that makes it unsuitable for his blanket. Removing the blanket from a sacred space permanently and reusing it as a common household item --- think of everything that happens on and beneath common blankets! --- is bad form. If not resulting in smashed Coyote, it would most likely bring some amount of ill fortune from his impiety.
The story of Coyote, Iktomi, and Iya the Rock came into my head suddenly as I pondered why something made me so uncomfortable earlier this week. I believe that the moral of that childhood story hidden in memory was powerful enough to influence my reaction. (Luckily, my mother was available to answer my question when I asked about "that one Native American myth in which someone takes something and gets PWNed.")
While I thought primarily about things others had done (correction: could possibly do) at first, I realized that I am somewhat guilty of not placing a divine offering someplace sacred. I suppose that means I am impious by my own definition.
The first semester of my senior year, I took a class called Classical Mythology from Scott Bradbury** and wrote an essay on Dionysos. I wrote that primarily as a congenial offering to Dionysos, and I received a 96/100 on the essay. (That's the best I have done on an essay outside of French class.) It might be time to post it here on KALLISTI so others can also enjoy the offering. I want to go over the writing first, but it should be posted sometime later this month, unless any readers think it would be better to post something on the day of a Dionysian festival.
As a last note, I have always wanted to say "God-PWN." (ThankyouHermesyouareawesome<3.)
* I read my own Greek mythology, and my first book of myths is now bound with duct tape. Also, I was in love with Urania when I was a toddler.
** Scott Bradbury confused me. I am pretty sure he is either an atheist or a monotheist, because I know that most Classicists are. However, he also spoke energetically about the numinous qualities of Delphi before quickly changing the subject. That. Was. Just. Weird. I would tip the scales in favor of atheism, though, because we compared myths to the Bible in that class. I don't think that a monotheist would necessarily be comfortable with that. Also, from what I have seen of his scholarship, he doesn't have an explicit monotheistic slant.
Image credit: stock.xchng.
