Amaterasu Myth

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Reading the myth of Telepinu and relating it to last week's reading of the myth of Amaterasu I have noticed some patterns in these two stories. Although they are from different regions of the world (the first from the Middle East, and the second from the far East and the Pacific Islands), and also from different times, yet they share a single type of myth, that is nature myth. To be more specific the pattern resembles the disappearance of gods for being mad or angry, and with their absence chaos, death, darkness, dryness and infertility fills the lands. To solve this problem, rituals, prayers, and celebrations are usually needed to restore the presence of the gods, when gods are satisfied peace, light, and fertility are brought back as a reward. …show more content…
With his disappearance he away the "ripening grain, the fertile wind, and the abundant growth in fields, meadows, and the grassy plains", killing plants makes human and other Gods strave (p. 22). We can also see this with Amaterasu, the Mother Goddess and the sun Goddess who is responsible for fertility. The sun Goddess gets upset- by her brother- and locks herself in the cave. Without the sun plants can't grow, thus no food, and all the people and the Gods starve as well (p.335).

To solve this problem, as I have mentioned before, rituals and prayers are practiced to restore those Gods. In Telepinu, his mother wakes him up and purifies him with a bee, and then prayers are said, "Let Telepinu's rage, anger, wrath, and fury depart!" the man prayed. "Let them

leave the house, the window, the courtyard, the gate, the gateway, and the road of the king. Let them stay far removed from the thriving field, the garden, and the orchard." (p.25). Same thing happens to Amaterasu, as the Gods placed a statue of the sun Goddess next to the cave, said prayers, made offerings- like fine clothes and jewels- and they all danced and chanted by the door (p. 337). Eventually the Gods are pleased and they come back to their home restoring peace, light, and fertility. These stories teaches us to treat the nature with respect by being …show more content…
But why personifying natural agents to Gods? According to Kees W. Bolle, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles and the author of The Freedom of Man in Myth, said that it made sense to people back then to visualize Gods with human shapes, emotions, and acts who are more powerful and infinitely immortal than us, rather than to impersonal forces who are different than the human being. Also they maybe felt it is more acceptable or reasonable for gods to stark chaos as a religion to forbid people from being bad. If they did good those Gods will reward them. I mean let's face it, at the end of the day these people didn’t have the knowledge to blame things on nature that can be explained by science. So giving personifications, interpreting nature by myths, analogical reasoning, and relating the unfamiliar to the familiar by means of likeness made sense of the
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