User:Awesome.noyes/El Oso Pulposo

, The mythos surrounding the figure most commonly known today as El Oso Pulposo, which translates loosely in English to “Mushy Bear,” is a culmination of thousands of years and myriad cultures. The origin of the myth is as highly disputed as the true details of the myth, as nearly every significant society has a story of the large, grizzled, but kind-hearted male that preceded dirt. The first written account of this figure is said to be in the Book of the Dead, in which it is written, “And before the earth was given form, there was a giant who did stand upon nothing.” There is very little else of this figure in Egyptian mythology, as El Oso Pulposo, whose symbol was an elephant with a head of a lion, was never considered a deity. It was assumed by scholars that, due to his lack of elevated status, this figure did not create the earth, but simply predated it. However, it is asserted that there are similarities between the Babylonian earth god Ea and this figure, and Ea, child of the sea and fresh water gods, predates the creation of earth and life. Similarly, it is a source of much debate if this is why the Yahweh of the Old Testament is initially referred to in the plural, as the Judaic and Christian traditions only worship one god. It is proposed that when this god refers to himself as “we,” he is, in fact, acknowledging that he was with this ancient giant at the moment of the seven days of creation. After that, of course, there is limited mention of a physically imposing man who is older than dirt and covered in fur in There is much older evidence than the written accounts of the elusive and enigmatic “Mushy Bear.” A rather animated dispute over the nature of the elusive character began to occur when the French Chauvet cave paintings were discovered, clearly depicting a large, fur-covered figure standing upon a pile of earth. Dating to nearly 37,000 years ago, it seemed that the earliest inception of the oso pulsposo occurred with dirt beneath him. Then, in Spain, the shocking discovery at El Castillo of what are now believed to be the oldest cave paintings, dating nearly 42,000 years ago, depicted a nearly identical figure conspicuously hovering with nothing beneath it. That said, the most violent and contentious struggle surrounding El Oso Pulposo occurred at the introduction of the oldest detailed source of the myth as it is commonly understood today. The name El Oso Pulposo comes from the Spanish Conquistadors that had the initial contact with the natives of South America. The Aztecs and Mayans both had elaborate and nearly identical stories of this creature, most of which were translated and transcribed by the Christian monks that traveled with the Spanish explorers. In the native tradition, El Oso Pulposo was not a deity, but an exploring entity that found this region of space barren. He attempted to grow life, laying down a variety of foundations. At first attempt, he tried stones, but his seeds (from an unknown source) scattered and burnt in the sun. Then he tried smashing the stones to small pebbles, but the roots had nothing to hold. Finally he tried grinding the pebbles into silt and soil, creating dirt, and life took root. The native gods and goddesses came later, able to perform much more stunning feats than gardening. The resulting controversy was largely a product of differing translations of the native tongues and in the slight disparity between the Aztec and Mayan mythos. The Mayans did not see El Oso Pulposo as anything other than a catalyst coexisting with or created by Yucatec, the creator god. In contract, at least as it was translated, the Aztecs believed that El Oso Pulposo predated and possibly gave life to the creator god Ometecutli. Seeing this contrast, the Spanish Conquistadors began to inflame this point of contention while dividing loyalties in order to divide and conquer. In the meantime, a great religious debate occurred within the Catholic Church whose monk missionaries were divided on this issue and its relationship to Christianity. Those who had best understood the Aztecs, were convinced that the native population was comprised of hopeless savages in need of conquering, while those who had studied the Mayans felt it a harmless deviation as long as they could convince Los Indios that Yucatec was a perverse misconception of the Christian god, and simply needed to introduce their new friends to frocks that covered their lower halves and the Bible in order to right the moral compass of the wayward natives. The product was a colorful and detailed dissection of the transcribed myths in volumes of correspondences between the missionaries and their superiors. In the end, the religious debate was thwarted by the more pressing needs of the aptly-named Conquistadors. However, much to the chagrin and denial of the modern Catholic Church, there was a small, but somewhat heretical sect of monks who had spent their time with the Mayans and were not only drawn to incorporating the Mushy Bear mythos into Christianity, but who evolved completely into their own subset religion, a tenet of which is that El Oso Pulposo is eternal, reborn throughout the ages to cultivate life in barren isolation. According to this subset, known as Los Ninos del Oso Pulposo, the current incarnation of the Mushy Bear lives in the United States under the name Richard McCullough. This current manifestation certainly bears the large stature and grizzly body hair of the mythic figure, but he opts to live a quiet, unostentatious existence and pays little heed to the notion of being a reincarnation of a disputed deity. He does, however, proudly assert that he is, in fact, older than dirt.