The Ramayana www.quazoo.com
Mythology week is coming up on the @afrophantoms Twitter account. Before I go further into detail about mythology week, let me first say that I love myths, legends and all things from the ancient world. Mythology is the reason I wanted to become an archaeologist as a kid. Eventually, I studied anthropology in college with a focus on folklore.
Growing up, myths and lore from the western world was readily available for the picking. I cannot stress how many times I’ve read Homer or the Arthurian legends. In a previous post I talked about how I took a Harry Potter class in college because J.K. Rowling makes direct references to these giant works of literature. You can read it here.
Sadly, I couldn’t help but feel lonely. These epics and myths are not my history. I can talk all day about how multicultural and ethnically diverse the ancient Mediterranean area was, but for the sake of this post I’m going to say that most of the heroes we read about had white faces.
In high school I took a world mythology class where I was introduced to the Ramayana and the love story of Osiris and Isis and Osiris’s evil, jealous brother Seth. Interestingly, we never talked about sub-Saharan African or Chinese mythology.
Osiris and Isis drakinan.weebly.com
My thirst for knowledge is the inspiration for mythology week. This is a learning opportunity for all of us. During these seven days of greatness, Asian, African, Australian, Native American and Caribbean mythology will be explored. If anyone has any myths they want talked about email me at afrophantoms14@gmail.com and like us on Facebook.
Mythology Week is January 25th-31st, 2015.
Comments