In the myth of the Feast of Tantalus, Tantalus serves the flesh of his own son Pelops at a banquet to the Gods. Zeus, perceiving the deception, orders the flesh to be returned to the cauldron in which it had been cooked and the child to be restored to life. Pelops' shoulder, which had already been unwittingly eaten by Demeter, the mother-goddess, is replaced by one of ivory. Bunker shows this myth to be a considerably disguised narrative representation of a puberty rite. The myth emphasizes (a) the importance of mother-child separation in such rites, e.g. the attempted undoing of the separation represented by Demeter's swallowing of Pelops' shoulder, and (b) the compensation for the separation. Pelops is given a resplendent ivory shoulder in the same way as the Central Australian neophyte is given a 'symbolic omnipotent penis'. The myth confirms Roheim's demonstration that the puberty rite, over and above its conscious intent of initiating the adolescent into the ranks of the adults, also represents a compensation for the loss of the mother.