View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Leeming say is important about dying gods?
(a) Dying gods protect humans from their feelings about death.
(b) Dying gods let cultures experience death and resurrection.
(c) Dying gods explain the seasons.
(d) Dying gods give men reasons to go to war.

2. Why mystery does Leeming address with regard to human creation?
(a) Why humans fall from grace so quickly after being created by gods.
(b) Why humans created gods to justify their discontent.
(c) Why humans see themselves as fundamentally flawed.
(d) Why humans have to go through rituals to regain grace.

3. What does Leeming say happened to the figure of the Great Mother over time?
(a) It lingered at the periphery of industrial culture.
(b) It lost significance.
(c) It became merely decorative.
(d) It acquired new faces.

4. What evidence does Leeming cite that suggests the presence of whites in Africa?
(a) Bumba speaks a foreign language.
(b) Bumba subjugates other tribes.
(c) Bumba is white.
(d) Bumba has new ways of doing things.

5. Where is the first recorded creation myth from?
(a) Mesopotamia.
(b) Greece.
(c) India.
(d) Egypt.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Leeming describe cosmogonies?

2. Who does Leeming say is the archetypal helper god in the Meso-American pantheon?

3. What creation myth does Leeming say modern people favor?

4. What does Leeming say myths describe with regard to individuals relating to the Supreme Being?

5. Who does Leeming say parallels Lucifer in the Norse pantheon?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the Hebrew creation myth.

2. Describe the Hopi creation myth.

3. What does Leeming say is the creation myth for modern people?

4. Describe the first creation myth to originate in Egypt.

5. What relationship does Leeming describe between politics and religion in the myths of the Egyptian pantheon?

6. How does Leeming say that pantheons can be described?

7. Describe the Mesopotamian creation myth.

8. What stories or topics does Leeming include in the category of cosmic myths?

9. How does Leeming say the figure of the trickster?

10. Why does Leeming say that cosmogonies are predominantly feminine?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 843 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample