Imagine for a moment that you are completely unaware of the existence of dinosaurs in the past. Suppose that one afternoon, walking through the countryside, you find huge footprints that you cannot identify with any animal you know. They have three toes and leave a footprint as if a giant chicken had walked by. You bend down to touch the mold that has been left on the floor and discover that what you are touching is pure and hard rock. What heavy animal could leave footprints in such a hard material?
Today this situation is comical, but there were those who came across fossils of strange beings that no longer live among us for the first time and had to ask themselves similar questions. In fact, surprisingly, there are still people who believe that the dinosaur thing is a hoax. You already know that denial of highly contrasted topics is in fashion now. Well, among the various theories that the human being has been able to extract from the observation of dinosaur fossils, there have been many cases that, of course, have attributed these remains to the presence of divine beings or related to myths and legends of different religions and beliefs throughout the world.
animals of christianity
In 1802 dinosaur tracks were found in the Connecticut Valley. They had a tridactyl morphology, that is, with three fingers, which is why it was thought that they would be bird tracks. It was interpreted that they could be marks produced by the passage of poultry, but they were probably the tracks of the raven that Noah sent from his ark to check if he found a place to perch or if everything was still flooded.
Lagosteiros Bay, in Portugal, is one of the most outstanding areas for the study of ichnites (fossilized traces left by an organism) in the Iberian Peninsula. The marks of this place were identified as the trail left by a mule that transported the Virgin from the coast to the interior.
In La Rioja there are three-toed footprints with an exceptional level of conservation. They are also tridactyls, but this did not prevent the peasants and shepherds of the area from attributing the marks to Santiago’s horse.
The Thunder Bird
Among the indigenous cultures of North America, the connection with nature is very important. All their beliefs offer, to a greater or lesser extent, relationships between the divine and the earthly through feathers, fur, animals, plants and, ultimately, everything that the environment of their habitats supposes.
Through Texas run the waters of the Paluxy River. In its surroundings there are deposits of dinosaur footprints that are quite famous in the country. Jim Farlow, an American paleontologist, argued that these footprints could have been taken by the Indians of the area as traces of the Thunderbird.
But even more interesting is the relationship between the Hopi Indians and the Ichnites . This Amerindian culture is located in the current states of Arizona and Colorado. The Hopis perform the “Dance of the Serpent” to ask the sky and their mythological beings for rain. This ritual is repeated in a similar way in other neighboring cultures. The “Dance of the rain” is a vital ceremony for cultures that live in such dry areas.
In the case of the Hopi Indians, they dress in their best clothes. Headdresses with feathers, body and face paintings, pendants, bracelets and bangles. Among the clothing, we are interested in the skirts that they wear during the rite, in them we can see symbols with the shape of tridactyl footprints . It is evident that these people discovered dinosaur footprints long ago and attributed them to some powerful being of their beliefs. That is why, like feathers and other symbols related to divinities, they are wrapped in dinosaur footprints, for them evidence of the passage through the land of divinities.
dragon footprints
Traditional Chinese medicine considers the fossils to be the remains of dragons with healing abilities . They are highly sought-after commercial items and these “dragon teeth” or “dragon bones” are still sold to treat kidney, liver and digestive disorders or as a remedy for epilepsy and nightmares among other problems.
Footprints of Cheirotherium , a crocodile-like archosaur reptile, were discovered in Germany. In 1941 there were still those who related these footprints to the dragon that Siegfried killed . In myths that have dragons as protagonists, it is common to find the figure of the dragon slayer. Christianity has Saint George as the greatest exponent of this tradition, but a German epic poem from the 13th century, “The Nibelungs”, recounts how the hero Siegfried killed a dragon. For some, the beast left its footprints in the rock.
References:
Sanz, JL 1999. Mythology of the dinosaurs. Taurus.
Zanza López, G. 2015. Dinosaur footprints on Hopi Indian clothing? blogmadeinpangea.blogspot.com.
