The Phylogeny of the Mennings

First, there was archaic Man.  Nature was his matrix, the All, full of numinous power, and he was its child.  Nature was his family and his neighborhood.  It was respected, feared, and loved.

Then came civilized Man, who had learned to herd animals and grow grain and store food and so-by increase over the land, building permanent townships to hold and protect his own, against beast and man without the walls.  In his mind he became detached from Nature and increasingly distant from it, seeking to become independent and secure from it.  He sought the favor of gods against the demons and monsters and fiends that lurked outside the walls, in the wilds.  Nature was no longer family.  It could be benevolent and beautiful, but it was set against him.

Finally, the estrangement of Man from Nature becomes extreme as his independence and security increase to enormous levels-- Nature becomes negligible, an ornament and a useful supply-store at best, a hindrance and a plague at worst.  The numinosity has fled from it, apart from the horrific.  Numinosity, if it exists at all, resides in the God of human welfare.  Nature itself is overrun, used up, laid waste.  And before long, it is dying. Man has triumphed over Nature, and now the child of Nature kills his parent.

This is when the Drygand comes.  And the first men to become Mennings.