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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   30739 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 21, 2022

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The drama of creation, according to the Hawaiian account, is divided into a series of stages, and in the very first of these life springs from the shadowy abyss and dark night... At first the lowly zoophytes and corals come into being, and these are followed by worms and shellfish, each type being declared to conquer and destroy its predecessor, a struggle for existence in which the strongest survive. Parallel with this evolution of animal forms, plant life begins on land and in the sea--at first with the algae, followed by seaweeds and rushes. As type follows type, the accumulating slime of their decay raises the land above the waters, in which, as spectator of all, swims the octopus, the lone survivor from an earlier world.

-- Roland Dixon, Oceanic Mythology, 1916

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