This creature, in one guise or another, appears in almost every mythology and has been the subject of many books and countless articles. Let's begin by looking at the most widespread and celebrated of all mythic monsters - the dragon. But why does this primal fear take the form of a "monster," that is, a predatory creature that grotesquely mixes animal or human-and-animal physical features? In what way did our experiences as a prey species contribute to the formation of the mythic monster ? The archetype of the monster is an expression of this primal fear writ large, exaggerated and intensified to an outlandish degree. No wonder our brains are wired to make us dread this awful fate, and that the stories we tell ourselves reflect this dread and attempt to express it - press it out. Myth after myth confronts the stark facts of being consumed by a larger creature, obsessively depicting in graphic detail what both monsters and animal predators naturally do - turn humans into excrement.Įvery day over the course of several million years, our ancestors saw (and heard) living creatures being torn apart and devoured by hungry animals - with some victims still kicking as they were eviscerated and dismembered. This shameful fate of those who are eaten is confronted in an African myth in which a giant predatory bird swallows the hero whole day after day and then excretes him. Whatever else they may do for us psychologically, monsters express - and ex-press - our dread of being torn apart, eviscerated, chewed, swallowed, and then shit out. Regardless of their different sizes, features, and forms, monsters have one trait in common - they eat humans. In Greek myth, one finds Polyphemus, the one-eyed cannibal giant the Minotaur, a monstrous human-bull hybrid that consumes sacrificial victims in the "bowels" of the subterranean Labyrinth and Scylla, the six-headed serpent who wears a belt of dogs' heads ravenously braying for meat. In South American myth, there is the were-jaguar in Native American myth, there are flying heads, human-devouring eagles, predatory owl-men, water-cannibals, horned snakes, giant turtles, monster bats, and even a human-eating leech as large as a house. In Aboriginal myth, there is a creature with the body of a human, the head of a snake, and the suckers of an octopus. In Hawaiian myth, there is a human with a "shark-mouth" in the middle of his back. This article was adapted from the new book "Deadly Powers," from Prometheus Books.
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