Content Warning: Brief discussion of patriarchy and misogyny. Brief mention of colonization of indigenous peoples, genocide, war, exile, and racism.
In this episode, I tell the myth: "When Grizzlies Walked Upright", by the Modoc tribe of Northern California and Oregon. The story was first written down by Ella Clark, an untrained anthropologist, in 1953. Ella Clark's work has been criticized, though this particular myth seems to have been recorded quite well, as modern accounts of this tale from Modoc storytellers follow the same beats. The myth tells the story of how the world was formed, how all beings came about, and how humans came to be through happenstance. Similar to many origin myths across the world, creation centers on a potentially destructive hazard present where the people who constructed the story lived. In this case a volcano, Mount Shasta is the center from which all the world came down from the sky. The Modoc today are mostly assimilated into the Klamath tribe on their reservation in Oregon. In total they represent a part of the estimated 6,000 Klamath.
We'll discuss the many metaphors at play in the tale, the etiological nature of the myth, and the patriarchal worldview baked into the how creation is depicted. We'll also make sense of the non-dual nature of religion, describing the interlocked relationship of monotheism and polytheism across culture.
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