The Onocentaur: A comparative study in mythology

The following analysis is meant to study and compare two myths belonging to different cultural backgrounds, namely Pelops and Hippodomeia in Ancient Greece and Sichem and Dina in Genesis, book 34. Initially, the narrative patterns of these myths seem to have very little in common.

The hypotheses, based on research in anthropology and zootechnics, will be supported by paradigms associating both narrative pattern and knowledge of ethology and lexicology. The subtle anthropomorphization of the Equidae in those two versions allows an interpretation liable to reveal, in the imaginative world of myths, the fertile links between the animal world and that of Man.

Thus, we will tackle zoological problems in connection with the regeneration of domestic species (crossbreeding) and hybridization, in order to apply them to human beings, whose marriages (exogamy) and legitimate offspring in an agonistic and commercial environment, were considered as necessary evils to what we commonly refer to as “cultural development”.