Life Death Peter Sellers


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Life Death Peter Sellers

Life Death Peter Sellers

Death is a part of life—it is the end product of life, actually. In Native American mythology, death is a concept brought to the human world by the actions of inherently flawed individuals (supernatural entities like tricksters and cultural heroes, who are often given human attributes and emotions). By and large, death and the next world, or afterlife, were alien constructs until man was made aware of them by the actions of various cultural figures—tricksters and humans who travelled into the next world. Once introduced to the human world, death and the concept of a life hereafter became an integral part of indigenous religious and social development. While it would be a daunting task to outline the origins of death in the cultural mythos of all tribal groups, the key elements of those mythologies do have striking similarities. There are two such stories that can be explored as a template for the concept of death in relation to man’s development.

At the heart of the mythos surrounding the intertwined concepts of death and the afterlife is the flawed motivations of principal figures. Regardless of tribal affiliation or religious interpretation, death mythology carries with it the common theme of altruistic motivations producing negative and long lasting consequences. According to Chinook mythology, the trickster spirit Coyote is responsible for the introduction of death into the human world. In an effort to retrieve their wives, Coyote and Eagle traveled to the land of the dead and through a series of misadventures inadvertently unleashed it. According to the legend, the dead are only visible in the darkness that occurs when a mysterious woman consumes the moon. Realizing this would be the only way to reunite with his wife, Coyote killed the woman and proceeded to swallow the moon. The two quickly gathered the souls of the dead in a box and started back for the natural realm. Eager to see his beloved, Coyote opened the box and accidentally released the souls of the dead as well as death itself onto the world.