Dragons, Sea Monsters and Giants, Oh My!

Image of a fantastical dragon

‘If archaeology were to believe that everything drawn on the walls of caves and tombs, or referred to in legends and folktales, were real events, then we would live in a world full of dragons and sea monsters and giants.’

 Variations of this criticism have been levelled at my work, that of my father and, in fact, any scholar that dares to put more than a passing comment about oral traditions or imagery into their academic conclusions. 

Yet, if an event, a story, even a simple observation was recorded in a book, scroll or carved into a stone tablet, it is easier to accept as fact. This is doubly so if signed by an acknowledged ancient expert such as Herodotus, Pliny or Caesar. Indeed, an entire academic discipline is devoted to the study of this – we call it history.

Without the presence of history recorded in this way, a benchmark to label a culture as a ‘civilisation’, that culture is (you guessed it) prehistoric. This applies to people living today who have yet to realise the delights of sitting at a wooden bureau while guiding a fountain pen in elegant swirls across reams of paper.

In such circles, then, does prehistoric equal pre-civilised? Uncivilised?

The Oxford Dictionary describes ‘uncivilised’ as ‘people who are no socially, culturally or morally advanced. Uncouth. Coarse. Rough. Boorish. Vulgar’. 

You get the picture.

Photo of an ancient scroll
‘History’ is defined by the adoption of a written form of communication – therefore, scholars deem any culture without writing as ‘prehistoric’ and give less emphasis to the way they record events, often through oral storytelling.

I’m being harsh, of course. Not every historian thinks a traditional society living in the rainforests of New Guinea is a vulgar, uncouth boor. I hope. Nor do they just take the written words of Julius Caesar as gospel. In fact, historians go to painstaking lengths to evaluate their sources, taking into account the author’s bias, experience, motive, and source of information, among other things. 

Yet, I believe that it is fair to say that many less traditional forms of media are just as relevant as the written word. Rock art, cave paintings and oral traditions, with the same scrutiny as so-called historical sources, transmit information and ideas that are just as critical to our understanding of the past. 

The legend of the Moon Mask is such an example.

A Continental Conundrum

Versions of the Moon Mask story are told throughout Africa, although its link to the origins of the Bouda is a more localised Gambian legend. Even so, as mentioned in a previous post, stories about the Bouda, or wear-hyenas, are also seen across Africa, into the Near East and even Greece. 

 Some people take the Moon Mask story very literally, their faith and belief in magic suggesting that the old gods really did dismantle an ancient mask that could allow its wearer to travel through time.

 Others, arguably more grounded in realism, accept it as a story, an African fairy-tale if you like, perhaps transmitting a morality message- something along the same lines as ‘power corrupts’.

 I, however, draw a line between these two viewpoints. I suggest that, for the legend to have survived across such a broad geographic area, there must be a facet of truth to it.

Image of the wooden Trojan Horse against a fiery backdrop.
The city of Troy, as described in Homer’s Illiad, was once thought to be nothing but a fantastical legend until Heinrich Schliemann identified it as the real-world ruins of Hisarlik.

This is hardly without precedent- Troy, for instance, was once thought to be merely a figment of Homer’s imagination until Schliemann discovered a possible origin of the myth. Many people consider Shangri La as a real place, arguably located by numerous scientists. The destruction of Santorini may have propagated the Atlantis tale. One only needs to browse through a history book to detect this pattern of reality feeding into myth. 

However, none of the above is to say that I believe in the literal tales of Atlantis, Shangri La or Troy, any more than I believe that an ancient African king was able to travel through time.

Yet, the idea of seeing the future is hardly exclusive to the Moon Mask legend. You can find it in almost every culture in the world that has ever existed.

 Witch doctors and voodoo masters; astrologers and fortune-tellers; crystal balls and fortune-telling dice. 

Image of hands holding a crystal ball containing the silhouettes of a man and woman.
Crystal balls are another tool used by fortune-tellers and clairvoyants. The earliest recorded use of a crystal ball for such purposes is noted by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century CE.

 Nor is it a theme limited to ‘traditional’ societies, Pagans or nut-jobs. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and just about every other ‘major’ religion preaches about prophets and people who can see/know the future, usually through some form of communion with a god.

 Access to this knowledge inevitably comes via some substance taking (drugs, alcohol etc.), or through extreme fasting, sleep deprivation or hardship, all of which can have a similar hallucinogenic result.

 Such induced trances are still taken very seriously in countless cultures today. They are transmissions of knowledge, usually by gods or supreme beings, to a select few initiated into the relevant cult. Usually, only the initiated can translate and interpret the meaning of such ‘visions’. Such interpretations are often skewed towards the benefit of elites.  

 Is it, therefore, so difficult to believe that a line of ancient African kings may have worn a sacred mask while partaking in drug-induced rituals which they believed bestowed them with visions of the future? Or, perhaps, that they propagated this myth amongst their followers to keep them in power?

 A good spin doctor could likely link the drug-induced imagery to any real-world scenario, not unlike how many people, if so inclined, draw links between their tabloid horoscope and whatever might be going on in their lives at that time.

Such a perspective might help us look beyond the western bias of the written word and seek truth from the walls of caves or firelit retellings of grand adventures. If so, perhaps the dragons, sea monsters and giants are not so outlandish after all.