Mythology’s Hybrids: Human Imagination or Alien Genetics? Part Two

Various mythological beasties, associated with the polytheistic gods include a generic type commonly referred to as hybrids, but which I term the ‘half-and-halves’. That is to say, these mythological beasties are a composite of two (sometimes more) distinct life forms.  There are the half-and-halves that are half human–half animal, and the half-and-halves that are half animal–half some other form of animal.  My premise is 1) these half-and-halves weren’t mythological; neither were the gods. The gods were really extraterrestrials, and the half-and-halves among the end products of ET’s genetic engineering experiments.

There are many puzzling features in mythology, if taken as purely mythology, regarding the so-called gods. I say so-called because to my way of interpreting things, the gods weren’t mythological but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials with advanced technology, especially in the field of bioengineering or genetic engineering. A puzzling feature regarding the ‘gods’ and related tales, or even tails, are the half-and-halves (my phrase – you probably won’t find it lasted in any index in any mythology text). But these half-and-halves, some of which I’m going to cite, are just scratching the surface of the sum total of those represented in our ancient mythologies. The interesting point is that these hybrids are universal within that collective mythology. That is, they appear across all cultures; all geographies. Anytime something supposedly mythological, is represented everywhere, it’s time to sit up and take closer notice that things might not be quite as mythological as things first appear.

Continued now from yesterday’s blog…

Now if two (or seven) heads are better than one; if many arms and hands make for lighter work, then rest assured we had many beasties, and ‘gods’ that had many heads and/or arms.

For starters, well the Hydra comes immediately to mind, ditto the Greek multi-headed dogs (Cerberus with three heads and Orthrus with two heads; collectively each with a snake for a tail). The Amphisbaena (Greek) was a serpent with two heads – one at each end. That’s sort of like the Mesoamerican ‘god’ Quetzalcoatl, often depicted as a feathered snake with a head at each end. The Scylla was a multi-headed sea monster with a woman’s torso attached to a dog’s body with a (cheaper by the) dozen legs! Not quite as bizarre was the Azhi Dahaka who was an ordinary run-of-the-mill triple-headed serpent (perhaps the inspiration for Godzilla’s nemesis, the Ghidorah).

That’s just a sample, but there are lots of others, especially from the Indian (as in subcontinent) mythology. For those, see the India section below.

Were some of the ‘gods’ themselves half-and-halves? Most of the Egyptian ‘gods’ tended to have had an animal head but a human body. For example:

 * Amon (or Amun) had the head of a ram.

* Anubis had a jackal head placed on a human body.

* Bastet had a cat’s head atop a human body.

* Harakhte was another falcon-headed deity.

* Hathor was often depicted as a cow-headed goddess.

* Horus had a falcon head placed on a human body. Of the four sons of Horus, three had animal heads (Duamutef – jackal; Qubhsnuf – hawk; and Hapi – dog).

* Khnum was another ram-headed god.

* Ra (or Re) had the head of a falcon.

* Sebek (or Sobek) was one of their gods who had a crocodile head.

* Seker (sometimes known as Sokar) had a hawk’s head.

* Sekhmet had the head of a lioness placed on a human body.

* Then there was the ancient Egyptian God Seth (Set) – a really one off. See below for more nitty-gritty details.

* Sokar (sometimes known as Seker) had a falcon head placed on a human body.

* Thoth had the head of an ibis placed on a human body.

It’s interesting that several ‘gods’ have falcon heads on human bodies. If Horus, Sokar, Ra and others depicted as falcon-headed were figments of the ancient Egyptians’ imaginations, you’d think there would be enough animal heads to go around without duplicating. I mean it would make things easier in terms of who’s who. However, there’s more than one ‘god’ with a jackal’s head, a hawk’s head or a ram’s head as well.

Speaking of strange non-terrestrial appearances of the ancient Egyptian ‘gods’, let’s take the ancient Egyptian ‘god’ Seth (or Set). Here’s how various mythology texts tend to describe him.

* He [Seth] was often depicted as a tall beast – perhaps a jackal or donkey – with a long muzzle. 

* Seth (Set) was mostly depicted as a fabulous creature, with a curved snout, square ears, forked tail, and canine body, or sometimes as a human with only the head of the Set animal. It has no complete resemblance to any known creature, although it could be seen as a composite of an aardvark, a donkey, a jackal. Some early Egyptologists proposed that it was a stylized representation of the giraffe due to the large flat-topped 'horns' but the Egyptians themselves distinguished between the giraffe and the Set animal. In the late period Set is depicted as an ass or with the head of an ass.

* When depicted in animal form, the god Seth was a very odd creature, with a long snout, short ears, and a pointy, upright tail. There have been many attempts to try to identify this creature with a known animal. The possibility remains that it was purely a mythological creature. To Egyptologists, it was known as ‘the Seth-animal’.

* [Seth was] depicted with floppy ears and an erect and divided tail. 

* Set was represented as having the features of a fantastic beast with a thin, curved snout, straight, square-cut ears and a stiff forked tail. This creature cannot with certainty be identified and was commonly called the ‘Typhonian animal’. Sometimes Set was depicted as a man with the head of this strange quadruped.

* Seth had a bizarre appearance. His human-form body is topped by a head that appears to combine the rounded snout of an aardvark (unknown to the ancient Egyptians) with curious, straight, flat-topped donkey ears. When represented in fully animal, four-legged form, he also displayed a long neck, a dog-like body and an erect, curiously forked tail.  Egyptologists have struggled to identify Seth’s component features: the more imaginative include camel, long-nosed mouse, hare, antelope, pig, giraffe and boar.

If Seth (Set) was an ‘ancient astronaut’, and extraterrestrial ‘god’, then by implication all his kin were too and by implication so were all the ancient Egyptian ‘gods’ (noted above), and by implication the whole lot of the polytheistic ‘gods’.  

If the physical appearance of the ‘gods’, or at least one representative ‘god’ can not be reconciled with that of any living thing known to man, then that alone is suggestive of something not-of-this-Earth; an extraterrestrial in other words, or the catch phrase, an ‘ancient astronaut’.

Let’s now take as examples some other geographical regions and their half-and-halves.

Mesopotamia (Persia) had several hybrid ‘gods’: Mithra had the head of a lion on the body of a human – with wings; Ahura Mazda on the other hand had a human head, but, like Angels, they had bird wings.

Half-and-halves were common throughout nearly all cultural mythologies, not just European and Egyptian ones, and other combinations from other mythologies have been realized. Here’s a small sample:

India: As noted above, when it comes to multiple body parts, you had the many headed hydra. However, one culture in particular seems to revel in multi-headed and/or multi-armed gods or creatures – ancient Indian (as in subcontinent) mythology. For example, the Nagas of India were multi-headed cobra-like snakes. Brahma had multi-heads; Shiva had multi-arms; ditto Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, and Yama. Agni and Ravana had multi-heads and multi-arms.

Then as noted above, there was the Indian elephant-human hybrid ‘god’ called Ganesha.

Peru: Ancient Peru had a pot-load of half-and-halves. There were owl-headed supernatural folk healers; unreal monsters shown flying through the air with falcon wings and tails attached; sculptures of half-human half-feline beings. In fact you had the flying felines known as the Ccoa, somewhat larger than a domestic cat with a winged body. The Ccoa was one of many frequent appearances of flying creatures containing human, feline and bird characteristics.

There must be something about Mesoamerica that has a thing about felines. The mysterious Olmecs showed images of a human body but with feline facial features. Unfortunately, the Olmecs vanished mysteriously leaving only the images for us to speculate on.

To be continued...