By the Waters of Babylon
pg. 110
Pay attention to the setting and ask
yourself…
Is this story set in…
The past
The present
Or the future?
Also, write these words down and after the
story, see if you can figure out what they
mean
1. Dead Places
2. The Great River
3. Old books & writings
4. Old Days
5. Place of the Gods
6. God-road
7. Ou-dis-sun
8. Bitter Water
9. UBTREAS
10. ASHING
11. The temple with the
stars for a roof
12. The dead god
The Dead Places were…
Houses or dwellings of humans who died a
long time ago…
The Great River, Ou-dis-sun was
The Hudson River
Old Books and Writings were…
Books written in English that existed
before our society was destroyed
The Old Days were….
The days before The Great Burning,
our “present day”
The God Roads were…
The Concrete roads we
used to use…
The Bitter Water was…
The Ocean
The Place of the Gods was…
New York
UBTREAS was…
The Sub Treasury in New York,
now called Federal Hall National Memorial
Ashing was…
A Statue of George Washington in Union
Square, New York City
The temple with the stars for a roof
was…
The ceiling at Grand Central Station
Who do you think the dead god
sitting in the chair was?
This was a fantasy story; but several things, although they
sounded odd, were based in reality. Some examples are…
1. Priests, chants and spells
2. A purification process
3. Interpreting animals as signs
4. Cultures in the future having less
knowledge than cultures in the past
Priests, Chants and Spells
The Cherokee have similar chants, spells, and dances…
The Cherokee had many lively dances. In the uka dance, the chief, or uka
himself offered thanksgiving in a spirit of rejoicing
A Purification process
Some Native Americans also have a purification process…
The individual goes alone into the wilderness to a sacred place where he
fasts, thirsts, smokes tobacco, prays, and meditates for a vision.
Vision quests are mostly undertaken by males usually when entering
puberty, but sometimes in childhood.
They also have maturity rituals, sometimes called vision quests
Young boys before or at puberty are encouraged to enter into a period of
fasting, meditation and physical challenge. He separates himself from
the tribe and go to a wilderness area. The goal is to receive a vision
that will guide his development for the rest of his life. They also seek to
acquire a guardian spirit who will be close and supportive for their
lifetime.
Interpreting animals as signs
In the Cherokee religion, The Eagle, flying toward the East, is a symbol of
strength, endurance and vision. East signifies the renewal of life and the
rebirth of Cherokee unity.
Also, Egyptians believed cats to be sacred
When a cat died their former owners and occupants of the house would
go into deep mourning and shave their eyebrows as a sign of grief. People
are not the only mummies in Egypt, as the cat was also mummified
significantly.
Cats were not only protected by almost every occupant of Egypt, but also
by the law. So extreme in fact was the devoutness of the Egyptian culture
to the cat, that if a human killed a feline, either intentionally or
unintentionally, that human was sentenced to death.
Cultures in the future having less knowledge
than cultures in the past
Examples:
Roman bathrooms
Bathhouses also had large public latrines,
often with marble seats over channels
whose continuous flow of water constituted
the first “flush toilets
This was in 117 A.D. Let’s check out the early 1900’s
2,000 years later, their toilets looked
like this
Usually the father of the family dug a new hole a few feet from the
outhouse, moved it onto the new hole, then took the dirt and filled in
the old hole. However, I know an uncle who got in there with a shovel
because he didn't feel like digging a new hole.
What about the concept of flight?
Between 1899 and 1905 A.D., the Wright
brothers conducted a program of
aeronautical research and experimentation
that led to the first successful powered
airplane in 1903
But the actual concept of flight is
much, much older
These are in ancient Egypt
Compare them…
Helicopters…
Gliders
These carvings were made at least
3,000 years BEFORE the Wright
Brothers took their first flight
What about homes?
These were the homes built and used
in early James town in the 1700’s
These, are the pyramids of Giza, constructed
some time around 2600 B.C.
This is the construction of the inside
These pyramids are at least
4,000 OLDER than the
Jamestown settlement