The image of the beneficent mother earth functioned as an ethical restraint on mining

Evidence

Here, then, is a striking example of the restraining force of the beneficent mother image—the living earth in her wisdom has ordained against the mining of metals by concealing them in the depths of her womb. In addition the mining of gold contributed to human corruption and avarice. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 173

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the core thesis thread the reader is mining: organic imagery as genuine normative constraint, contrasting sharply with the mechanistic license in the chapters to come. — connects to: Premodern miners treated mining as violating the Earth Mother’s sacred body — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 81; The nurturing-mother earth image carried a normative prohibition against mining deep minerals. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 210; The earth-mother metaphor survived as a legal argument against mining into the 1490s — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 202 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The earth-mother metaphor survived as a legal argument against mining into the 1490s #exemplifies (0.90) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 202
• The nurturing-mother earth image carried a normative prohibition against mining deep minerals. #expands (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 210
• Mechanism stripped away the organic view’s ethical restraints on nature exploitation #complicates (0.80) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 480
• Andean ethics require reciprocal exchange with the earth as a living mother #responds-to (0.70) — , A Year of World Stories, 10689