The Background Story of "Tubing the River Styx"
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Ancient Greeks believed that the dead went to the Underworld, an underground kingdom ruled by the god Hades. The souls of the newly deceased who had received the rites of burial, would be carried across the River Styx that divided the world of the living from the Underworld by the ferryman Charon. A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or on the mouth of a dead person. Those who could not pay the fee, or those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years, until they were allowed to cross the river.
After eventually crossing the River Styx, three judges decided where the dead person should spend eternity. If they’d been really good, they were sent to live happily forever in the Elysian Fields. If they had been ok, they were sent to the Asphodel Meadows, but if they had been really bad, they ended up in Tartarus, a really horrible pit where their soul was tortured for all eternity. An enterprising young Greek named "Ceaserus Tuberous", who's family did not provide a coin for the ferryman, decided he would spend his hundred year wait tubing up and down the River Styx, just to keep himself entertained. This automata celebrates his spirit regardless of his final destination. Somehow what started as a project born from watching my grandchildren this past summer transformed from a child tubing on a lake into a tortured soul tubing on the River Styx just in time for halloween! |
Ceaserus Tuberous bouncing down the River Styx on "Bone Crusher", the original inflatable water toy. (circa 1200 BC)
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