Transcript for Teaching Mythology Episode 004: The Greek Creation, Castration, and Cannibalism

Go to Teaching Mythology Episode 004: The Greek Creation, Castration, and Cannibalism

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Welcome to the teaching mythology podcast. I’m your host Lesli from education’s powerful. Come with me as we explore myth, through a modern day lens.

Okay, are you ready for one wild creation story full of cannibalism and castration, yes I said it and yes we are going to talk about it. The Greek creation is unlike any other Gration myth in the world. It has a tiny bit to do with creation, and a whole lot to do with the beginnings of the Greek god family tree and battles over power and control in the universe.

When I was teaching and I would start this introduction to Greek mythology. This would normally take two full class periods, and I have my PowerPoint that I would use as a template or as notes to guide me along, but it gave me a chance to tell a lot of introductory stories about the gods to, to the students and this is genuinely one of the first things that I ever taught and so it was my chance to hook them, and to get them engaged and to hopefully have them. Want to learn more.

So I’m gonna follow along on my PowerPoint slides. And if you’ve bought this from my TPT store, you’ll notice that I add quite a lot that isn’t in the slides, because it’s a skeleton it’s an outline for me.

And what I’ve noticed over the years is that as I learn more about the myths, I add, I had so many more stories that it takes me longer and longer and longer to get through these. This first introductory PowerPoint. So, here we go.

And I do want to start with a caveat, I always would say this to students. There are multiple versions of the Greek creation story. Many versions and I will point out some, some differences I will you’ll hear me say things like something, some people say, but ultimately this is the one that I’ve landed on this is the one that makes sense to me. And it’s ultimately a blend of various creation stories that I’ve read or heard about the Greek myth, so it’s not perfect, but it is the one that will be on the test, and so that’s why I think it’s the most important. Just kidding. No, I’m really not. That’s what I really said to students. So, yeah, there you go I’m the teacher I get to decide what’s on the test, right.

So here we go for real. In the beginning, there was only chaos. And from this chaos two beings formed Gaia, who formed the earth and Tartarus, who represented darkness, and later on in the Greek myth, he also is like inside the earth, and represents the deepest darkest place within, and it becomes a prison for various Titan gods, and then a little bit later on, it becomes where humans are punished when they go into the underworld if you are a horrible person, and you eat your children, then maybe that’s where you might go, but Tartarus, is a place and a person, and kind of unknown. Now if you’ve read the brierton, Roman Series. I love the way he describes Tartarus, because in one of the books, Percy and Annabeth have to travel through the underworld and they have to get to Tartarus. And they’re actually traveling through Tartarus at this as if he’s a person. And like I remember at one point out of his skin was where the monsters were born, that you know kind of torment them when they’re on Earth. And I remember this part about his rib cage, I mean, it was incredible. So I love that imaginative take on progress, but we don’t know much about it, just that he was there at the beginning with Gaia. Now, Gaia was lonely. And so she gave birth to a son named Uranus. Now, I say Uranus because it’s easier for me it’s actually the Latin name. The Greek name is Ourenus if I think that I say Uranus and I just get it out there, right, like let’s just get the giggle and move on because this is not the worst thing, I’m gonna say. In this introductory PowerPoint. Greek mythology,

We really end up having in the beginning, Gaia whose mother earth and Uranus, who is the sky or the heavens. Now it said that in the beginning, Uranus would rain down upon Gaia, and that is how life was created and from Gaia miraculously sprouted, plants and animals. And at this point I would stop and I would look at students, I’d wait to see if I could see a snicker in the crowd or, or some teenage boy look into the side going Did I just hear that right. If I didn’t hear anything good, I would say, What do you think this is like what is this reminder. And I would get blank stares, because you know this is like the first week of school, they don’t know me. I don’t even know each other, they’re still being very well behaved. And I would say, hmm. Father sky rains, a liquid down on to Mother Earth, and life is created. What could that be. And finally, somebody would say it’s sperm, and I’m like thank you for finally saying it, and it gave us a good talking point. I’d always have to say, Yeah, yep, you’re right, you said, I just needed a student to say it right. I needed a student to break the ice.

Ignoring sex and mythology is actually impossible. And this gave me a chance, very early on to talk about how we couldn’t impose our modern moral views on sexuality. On to ancient cultures, and I refused in my class to edit out or to censor any ancient depictions of art. And when we get into world mythology, I think we’re kind of used to with classical mythology. But when we get into world mythology and you have fertility goddesses. Yeah, Some of them are pretty explicit and I just, I don’t send the right it’s actually in my disclosure that I, we’re going to be looking at ancient depictions of gods and goddesses, in their natural form, I think that’s how I worded it, and I would always say, on the first day, what does that mean oh yeah they’re nude Okay good. And I would tell students, if you’re uncomfortable with nudity, you probably shouldn’t take this class, because I’m not going to censor artwork that’s 4000 years old, right. So, by forcing some poor student or waiting for some poor student to say sperm, then it gave me this chance to talk about sexuality in the midst and the gods don’t obey the rules they don’t obey our modern eight rules and even if you’re not Christian. We live in a Judeo Christian society where there are certain rules put upon upon us, and so we need to kind of get over that because if you fixate on trying to put your morality system on ancient myths and ancient cultures, you kind of end up moralizing the myth, and then you miss, like what they’re actually trying to teach us, and you miss some really good scenes and symbols and connections right because you’re so like out that Daya like basically had sex with her son to create life, and you just can’t worry about it. Right, okay.

So guy in Uranus end up having eightteen children. First, our third three hecatoncheires. Now if you know mythology, no I probably said that wrong. I’ve heard it pronounced hecatoncheires. I’ve heard it pronounced hecatoncheires. I don’t even know. But I would say this, so confidently that I never once had a student, correct me. I would just say, Oh, yeah. Three hecatoncheires and a student looking at my slide is like yeah, that’s how I would pronounce that name because I don’t know any different. And I try, I try to look up how things are pronounced and I have a friend who actually teaches Latin and her degree was in like ancient languages so I will ask her how to say things, but in the moment I can never say it right. Until I just say it confidently. Students don’t know, and it’s okay.

So, the hecatoncheires are also known as 100 handed ones, because they had 100 hands, and 50 heads. We don’t know much about them but they were incredibly powerful.

Then they had three Cyclops, or Cyclopes. Now, these are different from the Cyclops that show up in Greek myths like Jason and the golden fleece or the one that had Oddyseus runs from, but they weren’t like them and that they had one eye, they were incredibly strong. They could withstand heat and so they actually ended up playing a really key role later on that we’re going to get to in next week’s episode, but they can create weapons, and they have a long life. They’re known as bad temper. And this side clocks that show up later on in mythology not these three original ones but later on they actually work with Festus, in the forges and create weapons for the gods.

And then they had 12 Titan children and I’m not going to go over all of them. The kind of important ones that you should know are Kronos, who becomes king of the gods. He plays a really important role in the story. His wife has sister wife Rhea, Oceanus, Atlas informacion so those are the ones that we talk about the most.

So here we are, Uranus and Gaia have 18 children now Uranus hates his ugly children, but he’s also incredibly afraid of them because they are powerful, and they are strong, and he is one paranoid guy, his own fear of his own children, causes him to lock them into Tartarus, to like, basically imprison them right, because they’re gods. They can’t die. So what are you going to do, you’re going to lock them away.

Now, like any good mother. Guy is very angered by this. And she tries to get her Titan children to revolt against their father, but only one of them will do this and that is Kronos, the youngest child. Now I don’t know if you’re young, youngest in your family. I am a youngest child, and I know that, you know, we’re fairly confident, and we believe in our own powers so this doesn’t surprise me the KRONOS does this. Now, to get, he needed help. Right so, Gaia. Mother Earth is probably the most powerful of them all. She actually makes magical weapon for Kronos, and it’s a size or a sickle. And this is the only thing that could harm, uranium, and it’s known as a God killing weapon, although it doesn’t actually kill him, it just weakened, completely. Now what’s really kind of cool is that I’ve seen this depicted in some places, as the crescent moon, which is beautiful, because in a battle Kronos actually cuts your ideas, and it said that this is what separates the earth from the sky right they’re permanently separated from this point, because of this event. So if this was the moon, a crescent moon that cut open the sky. I want you to imagine looking up at the night sky and you see a crescent moon and almost. It’s, I mean we know it’s a physical planet, but in the ancient world it could have looked as if the sky had been cut open right I just, I love the imagery of that. So, this cutting of Uranus is really important.

Now instead this three drops of his blood fell onto the earth, forming the furies and the furies, we’re going to talk about later right there spirits of revenge. There monsters with dog heads and fat beings Tartarus punish evil doers. I mean they’re scary bad asses.

Now, in some instances they say these three drops are actually the formation of the fates. We all know more, much about that and we’re gonna talk about fates later.

But in every instance. This cutting of Uranus is actually Kronos castrating Uranus and his penis falls into the ocean, and this forms the goddess Aphrodite, like so much to say about this.

So let’s first talk about it. So often, when this myth is retold and especially when it’s retold for children. They take out this part. I mean they just say he cut them open and blood fell into the ocean, and it forms, I forgot it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, why did they censor this. Well, the patriarchy, was to start there because no male to have it out there. If you cut off their penis you take away all their power. Right. I mean, come on. This is totally the patriarchy, it’s like the perfect symbol in the ancient world, for the God’s part of their power comes from their masculinity. I mean we see this with Zeus right, every single time he falls in love I mean he doesn’t even have to touch a woman, and bam, pregnant. That’s it. I’m so powerful. And we see this so much in society were like a woman’s pregnant, and the boyfriend or the husband is like, Yeah, I did that, like they get all cocky and I don’t think it was very hard for you to do that, I mean, good job, I guess I don’t know. It’s kind of a wild thing so it’s always censored for kids and I never censored it.

So number two. I love that, the goddess of love is formed from a sex organ. And this is really key to understanding Greek mythology that for the Greeks, love, was a very physical thing, and depending on what history you read about the Greeks, they have some different views about sexuality in their culture, but especially for the gods. Anytime they fall in love, it’s a physical relationship, right. We already talked about Zeus and his many children, but think about there all these stories of Apollo, chasing Mims, we have Poseidon raping Medusa, and it’s always this sense of, if I love her. Then I will have sex with her wild and crazy but Aphrodite is passion. She is not the kind of love you have when you’re 90 and you spent your whole life with somebody. She is honeymoon love, that is exactly what she is.

So the last thing I want to say about this is, I have been evaluated, two times. While I have given this lesson in my career I don’t know how that happened. Just fall to the right time of the year, I guess, it’s usually second semester two different administrators one was a man one was a woman. One was in the state of Wyoming one was in the state of Utah, and both times I knew what was coming. Right. And I refuse to center this. So, the minute I said penis heads popped up and immediately kids look to the back, like they looked at the back of the room at my administrators, wondering if I was gonna get fired. It was so funny like I, it was so hard for me to keep a straight face every time. And I never once had an administrator, talk to me about it. I’ve never had a parent complaint or a student complaint so you know I guess it’s all fine. And I think it’s because I’m explaining it or I’m using it for a reason. I’m not just telling the story so I can say that word penis in front of a bunch of teenagers because that’s just, you know, creepy.

Alright, so this great battle happens, and afterwards it’s said that your brain is actually curses Cronos. Sometimes they say your anus had a vision. I like her sweater. But then he had that he cursed Kronos and this is basically the gist of it. That one of crows his own children would destroy him. The way Kronos destroyed Uranus. Boom. There you go, prophecy, and now we have this like endless battle. Right. And it’s totally like father becoming like son.

And so Kronos rules, he becomes a supreme Titan, he marries his sister Rhea. And some say that he actually stole powers from the other Titans, to become more powerful right he was getting he just became this like, I kind of pick it picture him as like this maniacal overlord now Kronos is actually the titan of time, and it’s the destructive nature of time right so I like to think that Kronos doesn’t get better as he gets older, right he’s, he’s not Aging Gracefully here.

Well, Kronos and Rhea and I’m having six children. And here they are in birth order. We have Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera and Zeus. Oh Zeus, you know he’s important and he’s the baby. We love those youngest children, just like Kronos, Zeus is going to be the one who was going to overthrow Kronos. Seriously, the parallelism in the myths is incredible.

Now, to stop this from happening Kronos does something that is considered one of the worst things you can do in Greek mythology, it’s considered worse than killing it’s considered worse than killing your own children. It’s worse than infidelity, I mean to the gods infidelity is not a bad thing so you know. He eats Every single one of his children. He’s so afraid of them. He doesn’t want to lock them in Tartarus. Let’s not forget in Tartarus. His brothers are still there, the hecatoncheires and Cyclops right so can’t send him there. So he eats them.

Now, They’re gods. They don’t die, and the guides were said to be quite large. You know, I’m sure they could be as tall as mountains. And so they just, you know, hang out in his stomach. Grow up. Apparently they don’t need to eat either or maybe they ate his food. I’m not sure, you know, we have to suspend our disbelief here for a second and just, just go with it just ride the wave, we’re accepting the myth how it is. We eat every single one of his children, except for Zeus.

Now, I’m a little angry with Rhea at this point because seriously girlfriend, five of your children need to get eaten before you do anything about it. I mean, Rhea, you are not winning any mother of the Year awards are you. So let me spell this out for you to see real clear. She gives birth to Hestia Hestia, she decided, Okay, let’s go for round two. And she gives birth to babies, and he eats Hades, so she tries again. He eats Demeter, She has child number four, he eats beside and just child number five. He eats Hera, and then finally she has job number six and decides she’s gonna do something about this. What she does is she actually gives Kronos a bundle of rocks to eat, and, I mean, at this point, he’s got to be so arrogant that he just swallows his bundle of rocks, and doesn’t even question it, like, doesn’t even check to see that there’s a baby God they’re like, Nah, I’m just gonna, I am I, it’s wild to me, like, what kind of person thinks that your wife just gonna stand by and let you eat your children but you know, he’s done it five times previously so you know what to say, well, This tricks Kronos he thinks he has eaten his sixth child and finally Rhea decides, Okay, I guess we’re not having any more children and after that’s cutting him off.

So Zeus is actually raised on the island of Crete, by nymphs, with our lesser goddesses. Most of them are children of oceanis. And what I really love about this is that it is said in the midst of when he would cry, the nymphs would bang on pots and pans to drown out his cries, so that Cronos wouldn’t hear him. Now, they’ve actually found caves on the island of Crete, that have cave paintings that depict this. Isn’t that awesome. I learned that from a really great series on the History Channel called Clash of the gods, and they have 10 videos, I love them I use them in my class I’ve made TPT products for them. They’re incredible but they, they blend in the myths with, could this have happened really like what’s our evidence and history of this. So that’s actually in episode one. And I think it’s called Zeus, so you’ll have to check that out it’s definitely worth using in your classroom and I will probably talk about them quite a bit.

So there’s Zeus a baby growing up on the island of Crete, and he’s slowly getting stronger. And that’s where we’re gonna stop for today so let’s let Zeus grow up a little bit, and next time we’ll talk about the fall of Cronos more cannibalism and the rise of Zeus.

Thanks for joining me today on teaching mythology. Don’t forget to rate review and subscribe and I’ll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai