Let’s continue our conversation about myths.
At some point I started wondering: why did humans even come up with the idea of burying the dead in the ground? My intuition used to tell me that people somehow sensed the concept of hygiene. But then I remembered the story of Ignaz Semmelweis — the doctor who was destroyed by his colleagues in the 19th century for the idea of washing hands before delivering babies — and that made me doubt the hygiene hypothesis.
I did a small bit of research (I asked ChatGPT) and learned this: technically, you could just throw a dead body away. So the idea of burial isn’t “get rid of the body,” but rather “preserve it.” Preserve it in a way that doesn’t require dragging it around, hiding it from predators and rain, or watching Uncle Borya slowly merge with the topsoil. And so humans invented this: you can bury someone.
The other popular method, of course, is cremation — but cremation requires materials, technology, and effort, while dirt exists everywhere, and the only “technology” needed is knowing how to dig.
And now we end up with something curious: Uncle Borya is kind of with us and kind of not. We can “consult” with him, tell him our troubles, but at the same time he isn’t sneaking into the cave fountain on guard-duty day or chugging spoiled goat milk.
What became even more interesting to me is that humans then created a whole set of myths about heroes visiting these Uncle-Borya-lands. The most famous is Orpheus, of course, but far from the only one. And for some reason, the realm of the dead — the underworld — always has similar traits:
- Getting there is easy; coming back is nearly impossible.
- It’s not horrible, but it’s gloomy, heavy, oppressive.
- And if a hero does return, he’s always changed — either wiser, or sorrowful, or both.
- And honestly, these myths make perfect sense.
First, they emphasize that you can’t reverse the process: the ground meat cannot be un-ground; Uncle Borya will not return to life.
Second, the traits of the underworld are simply the traits of the underground places humans have actually been: our ancestors really didn’t enjoy dark caves and shadowy depths.
Third, the ritual of “descending into the realm of the dead” essentially meant rebirth or initiation. So if your hero has ever died — and especially if he came back — expect changes.
He has been initiated.