Neat question! The idea of a rainbow serpent is definitely widespread in different cultures' mythologies, but don't be confused into thinking it's the same global figure all the time. Just as there are many gods of storms or harvest across the world, so there are many gods of the rainbow.
While not every rainbow deity takes the form of a serpent - Ix Chel of the Maya doesn't, nor does Iris of the Greek pantheon - many cultures conceived of the rainbow as a gigantic snake. It's not hard to see why; it looks like one, after all, all long and cosmic and shimmery in the post-rain light.
You can definitely see why an ancient person might look at that and see a thick, many-colored serpent's body arching up over the world, right? This perception of the rainbow as a huge snake appears in several different cultures around the world, each with their own take on what the serpent is and why it exists.
Several Australian tribes believed that the rainbow snake (which bears a number of different names depending on where you are on the continent) was the original creator of the world, making mountain ranges and valleys as it slithered over the earth as well as creating rivers, lakes and other natural features, simply by existing and impressing its gigantic presence on the formless Dreamtime. Now that the world has mostly become created and is populated by humanity, the serpent appears as the rainbow, passing from earth to sky and vice versa, or sometimes as the milky way, another serpent-like thread in the skies.
There are also several African myths regarding a rainbow serpent, again different for different peoples and places across the continent. The Yoruba believe that the rainbow serpent is an Orisha named Oshumare, acting as the messenger between the earth and the other Orisha in the heavens, and appearing in the sky when he stretches his neck up to drink from the wellsprings of unfallen rain. Likewise, the Fon believe in a female rainbow serpent named Ayida Wedo, who ties the sky together and holds it up as the supporter of the heavens and is visible to humanity when she is absorbed in this task. The Luangu people of the Congo believed in several rainbow serpents, one for each color, that always appear together and that fly up into the sky from pools of water, and similarly other nearby tribes claim that only the red stripe is a serpent and rides the rainbow to the sky or other variations on the theme.
And finally, the rainbow serpent was also considered a deity by the ancient Inca, who named him Kuychi and claimed that he sometimes provided transportation to the other gods, who could walk along his enormous length in the heavens or ask him to carry messages to one another for them. Like many of the African rainbow serpents, he (and the appearance of his rainbow tail in the sky) was associated with disease and misfortune, and avoiding the rainbow or taking ritual precautions to ward off its notice was considered necessary to avoid its more malicious qualities.
Obviously, these are not all the same god; the rainbow serpents of various parts of the world are distinctly different deities or monsters who are shaped by the religions of the people who believed in them. Rather, it's just a common way of various ancient peoples interpreting the inexplicable presence of the rainbow in the sky, which other cultures saw as a bridge (like the Norse) or a bow that shoots celestial arrows (like the Indian, Arab or Canaanite myths). Of all the many natural phenomena in the world, rainbows are one of the most awe-inspiring and least explainable, so naturally it's up to myth and legend to explain what they are and where they come from.
Various rainbow serpents may remain as giant monsters all the time or have the option to take on more humanoid godly forms, but they're all fairly important characters in the divine universe. They'd definitely be awesome additions to Scion games that involve those mythologies... and we're now totally envisioning an epically fabulous rainbow snake club, where the goats are free and the dress code is casual splendid.
No comments:
Post a Comment