The Noongar people of Southwest Australia tell a story about how when the sea levels rose many spirits were trapped under the waves. Whenever a whale calf is born one of these spirits becomes attached to it. After the whale swims around for about 80 or 90 years it beaches itself to return the spirit to the land.
my comment is missing, under my second account, I think youtube hide it after my last added comment, I use SahuMaculu, I was already receiving thumbs up on those comments, but this account, I can't see them, could check from your side, in he past I was told they found them in their deleted message folder, they didn't place them there, YT did.
I was going to say there was even an event a few years ago about a woman swallowed by a whale. And that is how I remember the story. But looks like since then, it was edited and now represented in a different way. WHere it is actually impossible for them to get swallowed. Mandella effect No idea LOL
There's also a story from the Noongar people of Western Australia about a man travelling far from his home in the belly of a whale (or mamang in Noongar).
I’m only half way through the video… but I have to say, for the psyche part of the myth: I think the whale is just a metaphor for how deadly the ocean was, and the whale is the largest animal in the water so it is the king of the sea, the proverbial god of the domain. The belly of the whale is a temporary underworld, following a logical explanation for how all these heroes can descend to the underworld but also return. Things can be swallowed, but they can also be spit back up. I’d be interested in if the underworld myths accompanying these stories also have watery elements. Like in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, death swallows up Baal like a literal open mouth and the underworld is described as swamp-llike
I agree. The whale stands for the vastness and the mystery of the sea and all the dangers lurking for humans who dare to get into the water. The hero escapes to tell the story and give his people a peace of mind. Obviously the story was told at the time when it would be believable that a human can survive in a belly of a whale. The tragic part is that some still believe it today.
Happy to see you reference Amirani myth! Ill add some context. Amirani and his adoptive brothers Badri and Usup were fithting 3 dragons red white (or green) and black. They grew from the worms that crawled out of a Giant overlord they defeated previously. They killed the other 2 but the black one was too powerful and swallowed Amirani. but Badri the archer, managed to shoot the tail off so the serpent couldnt coil arround a tree (or mountain) and crush his swallowed victim. Dragon then went to the black sea to visit his mother, Veshapi the Leviathan, he asked his mother for help because the dragon couldnt digest Amirani. Mother told him that he is half god so he couldnt digest his devine half and had to let him out. The dragon asked Amirani to leave from the back, Amirani got angry, "I am no shit to poop out" "Then leave from the front!" "I am no vomit to be barfed out" Then they agreed that Amirani can come out from the dragons side as long as he rebuilds it with wood. Then the dragon went to swallow the sun but it burned the wooden hole and reamerged. After that Amirani was reborn, he looked like a newborn baby, gone was his clothing, hair and beard, but also his human half, only the devine remained. He had a major personality change after that, went off the deep end, ended up challenging god and getting chained for it, the dragon returned to finish the job, but Saint George (snt G. Absorbed older heroes identity) turned the dragon into Stone thus we get the Caucasus mountains. Dragon in Georgian is Gveleshap, it means Serpent-whale or snake-Leviathan. Whales are called Veshapi who are a race of Lake and Sea dwelling dragons that breathe Smoke and poison. There are few motifs of heroes swallowed up and freeing themselves. One is Aspirtsela (100 folds) hero who rescues his brother from the belly of an evil multi headed Devi (ogre/Giant) The other is Godson Hero Iakhsar who battled a Devi in a lake where the blood of the ogre covered rhe surface of the lake and the hero couldnt leave until a human goat herder brought a goat with 4 horns to be sacrificed and after 3 days he was freed.
What a whale of a story. I can image an ancient sailor telling his whale tale at every port entertaining the local children or around a campfire where the lamp, fuelled by whale oil, would make sense. Thanks Jon for another interesting myth and its history.
I thought your storytelling was especially powerful in this video, well done. There's a classic Australian children's storybook called 'The Rainbow Serpent' - written by Goolbalalthaldin, a Yalanji (an Indigenous group of people from North Queensland) man. In the story, two brothers are swallowed by the rainbow serpent, whilst seeking refuge from a storm. They are carried away in its belly, and when freed they emerge as rainbow lorikeets.
Great video. I appreciate the various paths these myths may have followed. Two things stand out in my thoughts: The first is that the prevalence of sea creatures swallowing people in these myths support the claims that humans migrated by boat across the Pacific. And that as they moved inland, the creatures changed to land beasts. As seafarers in the northern Pacific ocean, these people were familiar with whales, and likely were very close to some as they breached, and perhaps saw the gaping mouths from their small kayaks. Whether or not someone was actually swallowed by a whale (this could have happened), the idea that it could happen was more real to them then we can imagine from our viewpoint. There's a big difference between the view of a whale form the beach or from a boat. The second is about human intelligence. Humans have more knowledge then ever before, but an examination of ancient philosophy suggests we aren't really any better at thinking. I see know reason to think that prehistoric man was not capable of crafting allegories and moral tales purposefully. The wondering if someone had been swallowed by a whale, could lead to using an invented story as a way of teaching the young, or passing cultural practices. In other words, the wise of the group would look for fables to insert lessons. When the people in question aren't near water, the wise of their village imagine being eaten whole by some more local large creature.
So you don't think that the Eskimo Legends about the Mammoth could be coming from them find so many dead one frozen in the ice, that would be a good reason to call them water beast, not their inner action with them. 100,000's Mammoth tusk were taken from arctic for its ivory by Europeans in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Mammoth tusks have been collected from the tundra in what is now Russia for thousands of years and used by the local people for practical and artistic purposes. I wonder if any of them sailors told them about the Johan story, maybe not that old at all.
Fantastic and fascinating work, sir. It strikes me that there is another biblical story not dissimilar where a messiah hero enters a dark cave (tomb/womb motif) and emerges reborn three days later.
When I was a kid, we had a book about why blue whales don't eat humans. It was written with humour and rhymes, but the basic parts was that a blue whale had tried to eat a sailor on a raft, who turned out to be quite the trickster: the sailor would make so much rumble and tumble in the whale's stomach, that the whale in the end swam hin back home to his own shores 😂 The sailor had though made sure the whale would never eat anything bigger than the smallest sea creatures, by making a wooden raft into a tight grid and make it absolutely stuck in the whale's throat 😅 I loved that book as a kid, especially when my mom would read it with her funny voices.
There is Lucien of Samosate, of course, with one or two populated island in the whale's stomach. And a whole lot of other motives not found in the bible 😄
At 45 degrees North latitude, during the winter, nights are approximately 15 hours and 14 minutes long at the winter solstice, with the day lasting only around 8 hours and 46 minutes. I don't know about you but I can not sleep 15 hours, plenty of time during the night to create stories to tell around the campfire.
Archetypes aren't necessarily universal to all human cultures, I'd say. People use the term in different ways. If you don't live near mountains, then you won't have any mountain archetypes, for instance. So, they can exist at different levels of scale or abstraction. In this sense, some archetypes predate humanity, say identities, roles or events/dynamics that are common to planets or solar systems or galaxies, or at the smaller scale biology, chemistry and physics. If you'd like to create more categories to make clear distinctions, you could of course do that.
I suppose the only game you can play when trapped within the belly of the beast is "who will be reduced to waste first"lol. Any who overcome the fear of being devoured by challenges lurking below the surface of such a vast expanse and live to tell of it would be deemed as a conqueror of all who gamble on ignorance, Ya whale and fool all caught in the World into being your fuels. Thank you sharing such fascinating content without wasting a thought"
Made me think of the Hydrus from medieval bestiaries, which was said to enter the mouths of crocodiles or river monsters, and then emerge from their belly, eating it's way out. I think the creature was said to reside in "Ethiopia" which might just refer to what we now call Africa anywhere south of Egypt.
Was there even a difference and distinction drawn between "a large fish" and a "whale" ? is it possible when the stories were first being documented the researcher just wrote "whale" when the storytelling was just referring to any large fish?
the cave monster with it's Stalactites teeth, how can it not be to enter in maw is to enter in to remains of a great Leviathan, with it's bones long turned to stone. for long ago when the earth was brought up from the water, many a deep fish flopped upon it till death like the deck of a fishing boat. their bodies only serve as passages to the underworld, that many do not return from venturing, should you return from belly of a one living only hero has.
If we think about being "swalled" for 3 days and then appear in new quality I think of Jesus who resuracted on the 3rd day so his mother cannot recognise him.
There is Lucien of Samosate, of course, with one or two populated island in the whale's stomach. And a whole lot of other motives not found in the bible 😄
Do you know of any other whale tales from where you're living?
The Noongar people of Southwest Australia tell a story about how when the sea levels rose many spirits were trapped under the waves. Whenever a whale calf is born one of these spirits becomes attached to it. After the whale swims around for about 80 or 90 years it beaches itself to return the spirit to the land.
my comment is missing, under my second account, I think youtube hide it after my last added comment, I use SahuMaculu, I was already receiving thumbs up on those comments, but this account, I can't see them, could check from your side, in he past I was told they found them in their deleted message folder, they didn't place them there, YT did.
I was going to say there was even an event a few years ago about a woman swallowed by a whale. And that is how I remember the story. But looks like since then, it was edited and now represented in a different way. WHere it is actually impossible for them to get swallowed. Mandella effect No idea LOL
O know whale story about hobo humpin' slobo babe
In Uganda there is a tale about a trickster hare making a fire inside an elephant and eating it from the inside.
Jonah has gambling too! The sailors cast lots to see who to throw overboard.
Fascinating! Thanks for your hard work!
There's also a story from the Noongar people of Western Australia about a man travelling far from his home in the belly of a whale (or mamang in Noongar).
30:27 folklore ALWAYS comes back to how to get a wife tutorial
I’m only half way through the video… but I have to say, for the psyche part of the myth: I think the whale is just a metaphor for how deadly the ocean was, and the whale is the largest animal in the water so it is the king of the sea, the proverbial god of the domain. The belly of the whale is a temporary underworld, following a logical explanation for how all these heroes can descend to the underworld but also return. Things can be swallowed, but they can also be spit back up. I’d be interested in if the underworld myths accompanying these stories also have watery elements. Like in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, death swallows up Baal like a literal open mouth and the underworld is described as swamp-llike
I agree. The whale stands for the vastness and the mystery of the sea and all the dangers lurking for humans who dare to get into the water. The hero escapes to tell the story and give his people a peace of mind. Obviously the story was told at the time when it would be believable that a human can survive in a belly of a whale. The tragic part is that some still believe it today.
@@Emymagdalena Being swallowed by the whale is a metaphor for descending into hell/underworld. The ocean represents the spiritual world and chaos.
Happy to see you reference Amirani myth!
Ill add some context.
Amirani and his adoptive brothers Badri and Usup were fithting 3 dragons red white (or green) and black.
They grew from the worms that crawled out of a Giant overlord they defeated previously.
They killed the other 2 but the black one was too powerful and swallowed Amirani. but Badri the archer, managed to shoot the tail off so the serpent couldnt coil arround a tree (or mountain) and crush his swallowed victim.
Dragon then went to the black sea to visit his mother, Veshapi the Leviathan, he asked his mother for help because the dragon couldnt digest Amirani. Mother told him that he is half god so he couldnt digest his devine half and had to let him out.
The dragon asked Amirani to leave from the back, Amirani got angry, "I am no shit to poop out"
"Then leave from the front!"
"I am no vomit to be barfed out"
Then they agreed that Amirani can come out from the dragons side as long as he rebuilds it with wood.
Then the dragon went to swallow the sun but it burned the wooden hole and reamerged.
After that Amirani was reborn, he looked like a newborn baby, gone was his clothing, hair and beard, but also his human half, only the devine remained.
He had a major personality change after that, went off the deep end, ended up challenging god and getting chained for it, the dragon returned to finish the job, but Saint George (snt G. Absorbed older heroes identity) turned the dragon into Stone thus we get the Caucasus mountains.
Dragon in Georgian is Gveleshap, it means Serpent-whale or snake-Leviathan.
Whales are called Veshapi who are a race of Lake and Sea dwelling dragons that breathe Smoke and poison.
There are few motifs of heroes swallowed up and freeing themselves.
One is Aspirtsela (100 folds) hero who rescues his brother from the belly of an evil multi headed Devi (ogre/Giant)
The other is Godson Hero Iakhsar who battled a Devi in a lake where the blood of the ogre covered rhe surface of the lake and the hero couldnt leave until a human goat herder brought a goat with 4 horns to be sacrificed and after 3 days he was freed.
Always - always! - high class! Best channel ever!
What a whale of a story. I can image an ancient sailor telling his whale tale at every port entertaining the local children or around a campfire where the lamp, fuelled by whale oil, would make sense.
Thanks Jon for another interesting myth and its history.
I thought your storytelling was especially powerful in this video, well done. There's a classic Australian children's storybook called 'The Rainbow Serpent' - written by Goolbalalthaldin, a Yalanji (an Indigenous group of people from North Queensland) man. In the story, two brothers are swallowed by the rainbow serpent, whilst seeking refuge from a storm. They are carried away in its belly, and when freed they emerge as rainbow lorikeets.
Thank you.
A man was swallowed by a whale recently in Massachusetts but he got spit out almost immediately
So beautiful. I love your channel! Much love from Kenya
Thank you so much!
Great subject. Thanks Jon.😊
Very interesting. It’s always fun to hear how widespread these stories are!
The Problems With Archetypes very nicely answered the question I tried to ask during your livestream. I worded it bad though lol
Thanks!
Thank you again!
I love this story!
Great video. I appreciate the various paths these myths may have followed. Two things stand out in my thoughts:
The first is that the prevalence of sea creatures swallowing people in these myths support the claims that humans migrated by boat across the Pacific. And that as they moved inland, the creatures changed to land beasts.
As seafarers in the northern Pacific ocean, these people were familiar with whales, and likely were very close to some as they breached, and perhaps saw the gaping mouths from their small kayaks. Whether or not someone was actually swallowed by a whale (this could have happened), the idea that it could happen was more real to them then we can imagine from our viewpoint.
There's a big difference between the view of a whale form the beach or from a boat.
The second is about human intelligence. Humans have more knowledge then ever before, but an examination of ancient philosophy suggests we aren't really any better at thinking. I see know reason to think that prehistoric man was not capable of crafting allegories and moral tales purposefully.
The wondering if someone had been swallowed by a whale, could lead to using an invented story as a way of teaching the young, or passing cultural practices.
In other words, the wise of the group would look for fables to insert lessons.
When the people in question aren't near water, the wise of their village imagine being eaten whole by some more local large creature.
So you don't think that the Eskimo Legends about the Mammoth could be coming from them find so many dead one frozen in the ice, that would be a good reason to call them water beast, not their inner action with them. 100,000's Mammoth tusk were taken from arctic for its ivory by Europeans in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Mammoth tusks have been collected from the tundra in what is now Russia for thousands of years and used by the local people for practical and artistic purposes. I wonder if any of them sailors told them about the Johan story, maybe not that old at all.
Fantastic and fascinating work, sir. It strikes me that there is another biblical story not dissimilar where a messiah hero enters a dark cave (tomb/womb motif) and emerges reborn three days later.
Hooray! 👏👏👏
When I was a kid, we had a book about why blue whales don't eat humans. It was written with humour and rhymes, but the basic parts was that a blue whale had tried to eat a sailor on a raft, who turned out to be quite the trickster: the sailor would make so much rumble and tumble in the whale's stomach, that the whale in the end swam hin back home to his own shores 😂
The sailor had though made sure the whale would never eat anything bigger than the smallest sea creatures, by making a wooden raft into a tight grid and make it absolutely stuck in the whale's throat 😅
I loved that book as a kid, especially when my mom would read it with her funny voices.
A version of this story can be seen in Terry Gilliam's adaptation of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
There is Lucien of Samosate, of course, with one or two populated island in the whale's stomach. And a whole lot of other motives not found in the bible 😄
At 45 degrees North latitude, during the winter, nights are approximately 15 hours and 14 minutes long at the winter solstice, with the day lasting only around 8 hours and 46 minutes. I don't know about you but I can not sleep 15 hours, plenty of time during the night to create stories to tell around the campfire.
Hello you. Thank you for this Christmas season drop.
And thank you for all your kind comments this year, and I hope you have a happy Christmas!
My favorite telling of this tale is from the movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen from, I think, 1988.
Another story plucked from stars.
Archetypes aren't necessarily universal to all human cultures, I'd say. People use the term in different ways.
If you don't live near mountains, then you won't have any mountain archetypes, for instance.
So, they can exist at different levels of scale or abstraction.
In this sense, some archetypes predate humanity, say identities, roles or events/dynamics that are common to planets or solar systems or galaxies, or at the smaller scale biology, chemistry and physics.
If you'd like to create more categories to make clear distinctions, you could of course do that.
Some of those petroglyphs look like the Halibut fish, a flat fish that can get bigger than a man and they live on the bottom of the ocean.
I suppose the only game you can play when trapped within the belly of the beast is "who will be reduced to waste first"lol. Any who overcome the fear of being devoured by challenges lurking below the surface of such a vast expanse and live to tell of it would be deemed as a conqueror of all who gamble on ignorance, Ya whale and fool all caught in the World into being your fuels. Thank you sharing such fascinating content without wasting a thought"
Perfect christmas content.
Made me think of the Hydrus from medieval bestiaries, which was said to enter the mouths of crocodiles or river monsters, and then emerge from their belly, eating it's way out.
I think the creature was said to reside in "Ethiopia" which might just refer to what we now call Africa anywhere south of Egypt.
Isn't it curious that the name of the hero is commonly a bird name? Raven, dove (Yunus), pidgeon (Jonah).
Was there even a difference and distinction drawn between "a large fish" and a "whale" ?
is it possible when the stories were first being documented the researcher just wrote "whale" when the storytelling was just referring to any large fish?
You forgot to mention the Uber Man
Pinocchio is a literary creation, BTW, not an authentically passed-down folktale.
🤍
🙏
I'm going in with Coffee this time, bro. See you on the other side.
Monster waves
Dag gedol, a big fish, not a whale.
Jonah and The Whale is satire.
the cave monster with it's Stalactites teeth, how can it not be to enter in maw is to enter in to remains of a great Leviathan, with it's bones long turned to stone. for long ago when the earth was brought up from the water, many a deep fish flopped upon it till death like the deck of a fishing boat. their bodies only serve as passages to the underworld, that many do not return from venturing, should you return from belly of a one living only hero has.
Fuck yeah
If we think about being "swalled" for 3 days and then appear in new quality I think of Jesus who resuracted on the 3rd day so his mother cannot recognise him.
🫶
B
There is Lucien of Samosate, of course, with one or two populated island in the whale's stomach. And a whole lot of other motives not found in the bible 😄