Mircea Eliade "From Primitives to Zen": THE CAST SKIN:
A MELANESIAN MYTH
At first men never died, but when they advanced in life they cast their skins like snakes and crabs,
and came out with youth renewed. After a time a woman growing old went to a stream to change
her skin. She threw off her old skin in the water, and observed that as it floated down it caught
against a stick. Then she went home, where she had left her child. The child, however, refused to
recognize her, crying that its mother was an old woman not like this young stranger; and to pacify
the child she went after her cast integument and put it on. From that time mankind ceased to cast
their skins and died.
R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians (Oxford, 1891), p.265
Bibliography for this page:
Books by Mircea Eliade:
- Mircea Eliade, Jr., Fred H. Johnson “Journal II, 1957-1969 (Journal)”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth”
- Mircea Eliade, Teresa Lavender Fagan “Journal III, 1970-1978 (Journal)”
- Mircea Eliade “The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion (Midway Reprint)”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “The Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos and History”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask “History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity (History of Religious Ideas)”
- Mircea Eliade “Autobiography, Volume 2: 1937-1960, Exile's Odyssey (Autobiography / Mircea Eliade)”
- Mircea Eliade, Catherine Spencer “Bengal Nights: A Novel”
- Mircea Eliade, Willard R. Trask, Wendy Doniger “Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Bollingen Series (General))”
- Mircea Eliade “Two Strange Tales”
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