life and death

Ths is a lovely myth that i read in Myths and Legends of the World by Kenneth McLeish.
In Africa, a long time ago, Kalumba the creator god built a long single road that connected heaven and earth. Dog and Goat were positioned as guards on the road and had been trained by Kalumba Himself who had warned them about two visitors: life and death. They were to let life into earth but death had to be turned back. Of the two guards, Dog had been granted intelligence while Goat was given strength as its special characteristic.
One day, Dog was bored as the road did not have too many travellers and there was not much checking to be done and he decided to go for a short walk. This was just the opportunity that Death had been waiting for. Disguised as a bundle of dirty clothes, he sat upon the shoulders of his servants who walked him safely past Goat. A few minutes later, Life came by and Goat who took his job very seriously, pounced on her. Dog, who had chosen that very moment to come back from his stroll, ran to avoid a deadly disaster but was too late.
No amount of crying and begging by the guards worked on Kalumba who shut the road down with immediate effect and barred dog and goat from the gates of heaven. Ever since, we on earth have had to live with death while life goes on in heaven.

time and tortoise

Myths do a great job of marrying the verbal and visual in our imagination.

I found this one in a dictionary of myth describing Kasyapa from Indian mythology. (ref: Myths and Legends of the world, Kenneth Mcleish)Kasyapa was husband to the 13 daughters of Daksha (also believed to be the 13 months of the lunar calendar) and father to every living creature according to Mcleish's classification.

In some myths, Kasyapa is husband of Diti, father of the Daityas that include Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu and the 49 Maruts.

In Sanskrit, Kasyapa also means tortoise and is sometimes depicted as time creeping across the sky.

It must have been quite a fascinating journey for the mythmakers to convert concept to word and word to image or was it the other way around?

Art: Mekhala Singhal