Creation Myths by Category

What needs do mythology and religion serve in today's world and in ancient times? Here we discuss the relationship between mythology, religion and science from mythological, religious and philosophical viewpoints.

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Creation Myths by Category

Post by Cindy B. »

Courtesy of Jeff House (Thanks, Jeff, whomever you may be. :) ), the following text comes from his web site devoted to mythology: http://www.jeffhouse.addr.com/mythology ... nmyths.htm


If interested, share a creation myth that intrigues you. Please include the country of origin and/or the group that gave rise to the myth.


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Creator and Creature: Creation Myths by Category
Jeff House



Though creation myths exist by the thousands, mythologists have identified a handful of patterns. Primarily, creation myths deal with the act of separation. In the beginning, most often, a state of wholeness or peace exists, a wholeness that is disrupted by some deliberate or unintentional violation by someone, usually a subordinate, but sometimes the god himself. In other myths, the world emerges from a state of chaos into a state of order, but even these myths imply separation, as chaos is divided into separate and increasingly smaller states.

In Jungian psychology, creation myths symbolize the dawning of self-awareness in the individual. They parallel that state in childhood when we become aware of ourselves and our separation from others; in other words, the sense we develop that we are separate from others, and then the growing awareness that we are divided within ourselves, parallel creation myths in their depiction of a world (similar to the [ego's] consciousness) that divides in two and then divides even further into smaller units.

World Parents: In this type of creation myth, a father/sky and mother/earth deity are involved in the world's creation, often their separation being the basis for creation. In many myths, the two parents go about the face of the earth creating and naming natural and animal life forms. This myth is found in Native American, Polynesian, and Asian cultures.

Emergence Myths: In emergence myths, the earth already exists, and life forms come from either a land above or below and into the finished earth. Men may exist in a cave below the earth's surface where they receive instruction in how to live on the surface. They then begin climbing toward the surface, sometimes scaling a rope or a vine, other times breaking through a hole in the ceiling and emerging into another cave or sealed area. In one Navajo myth, men climb through four worlds before emerging into the fifth and final one. These myths are also found in Central America and Asia.

The Two Creators: In this myth two creators produce the world out of a contest or challenge, one attempting to best the other. Often the two have a close but antithetical relationship, such as a brother/sister, father/son, or uncle/nephew. The intent is to establish a superior/subordinate relationship wherein one emerges as the victor over the other. The two creators may debate to establish who is wiser, or more fit to create a world. Sometimes a clearly good god wins out over an evil one. Such myths are found in Norse mythology, Native American, African, and Mediterranean.

God as Craftsman: Some myths depict god as a craftsman, a creator who uses his skills to make a world out of nothingness. This creator makes the earth and its inhabitants out of the elements of the earth, the most recurrent motif being that of man created out of clay, life then breathed into his nostrils. In Egypt it is believed that god was a potter who created the world from his potter's wheel. This myth type shows up in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Earth-Diver as Creator: The earth-diver is an archetypal figure who creates the earth out of substance brought up from the water. This is a particularly recurrent image in flood myths wherein a bird is sent out over the waters and returns with a twig, rock or bit of mud, which indicates the finding of earth. In Native American mythology, the earth-diver is just as often an animal as a man who dives below the water to bring up the materials necessary to begin construction of the earth. This type of myth is found all over the world from America through Europe and Asia.

Creation Out of the Body: The body of a god can provide the building blocks for the world. The most famous example of this type of myth is that of the god Ymir from Norse mythology. Ymir's skull is made into the sky, his bones become stones, his hair is made into vegetation, the blood becomes water, his brain forms the clouds, etc. The Australian Aborigines believe the bow and arrow were made from the bodies of male and female gods embracing each other. This is an exceedingly prevalent myth, found in all parts of the world.

Germs and Eggs: Many societies believe the world was created from a whole object like an egg, a self-contained item that is brooded upon by a god or force and then opened to reveal a fully created world. The egg is often associated with more advanced or mystical societies, particularly the medieval alchermists who saw the egg as a symbol of perfection. This myth shows up all around the early Mediterranean and Asian worlds.

Abortive Creation Attempts: A number of cultures feature gods who fail in their attempts to produce a race of man, first engendering giants, dwarves, monsters or other failed creations. Greek mythology abounds with such constructions. In Norse mythology, dwarves were formed from the maggots in Ymir's body. In Genesis, giants are formed when the sons of God mate with women on earth. A common motif in this type of myth is the story of the god who destroys his creation before starting over; this is the recurrent explanation in flood myths.

http://www.jeffhouse.addr.com/mythology ... nmyths.htm
Last edited by Cindy B. on Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Plato's "Androgyne" (Greek)

Post by Cindy B. »

Plato's Androgyne
Plato, "The Symposium," Benjamin Jowet, trans., Great Books of the Western World, Chapter 7, page 157.
From: http://www.reconnections.net/androgyny.htm


"The original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two, as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and a union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which once had a real existence, but is now lost, and the word "Androgynous" is only preserved as a term of reproach. In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; one head with two faces looking in opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men do now, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace...

"The man was originally the child of the Sun, and the man-woman of the Moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round like their parents. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they dared to scale the heavens, and they made an attack on the Gods.

"The Gods took council and Zeus discovered a way to humble their pride and improve their manners. They would continue to exist, but he cut them in two like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling.

"After the division, the two parts of man (the Androgyne), each desiring his other half, came together and throwing their arms around one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one; they were on the point of dying from hunger and self-neglect because they did not like to do anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another mate, man or woman, as we call them--being the sections of entire men or women--and clung to that.

"They were being destroyed when Zeus, in pity of them, invented a new plan. He turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this had not always been their position, and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers, in the ground, but in one another; and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed and the race might continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and go their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted within us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.

"Each of us, when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the identure of a man, and is always looking for his other half. . .and when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself. . .the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment; these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has for the other does not appear to be the desire of lovers' intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment."


***


This myth often comes up in psychological circles when the issue is human nature and sexuality.

Cindy
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Neoplato »

This myth often comes up in psychological circles when the issue is human nature and sexuality.
Thanks for posting that one Cindy. :D
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

bodhibliss
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Post by bodhibliss »

Joseph Campbell loved to cite the example you offer from Plato, Cindy - sweet & poignant indeed ...

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Post by noman »

Great topic and a great website by Jeff House that provides a very concise snapshot of myths, heroes, rituals, and gods.

Being a cynic, I’m always skeptical about the authenticity of a story said to have come from ‘natives’. Anthropologists are never the first to arrive. First are the explorers, soon followed by exploiters, then by missionaries, and then by anthropologists. Stories can be contaminated before they are molded into a definite shape with a printing press. Nevertheless, I love the collection of creation myths we have from around the world. Especially sophisticated ones like this one from Madagascar.
Mother Earth and the Creator

The Creator was watching his daughter, Mother Earth, making little dolls out of clay and he became interested. He spoke to his daughter about them and breathed life into them, creating living human beings.

As time passed, however, the humans multiplied and prospered. They gave thanks to Mother Earth but forgot all about the Creator. He told his daughter that it was wrong for her to accept all of the sacrifices of the humans without sharing them. Thenceforth, he would take the souls of half the humans as tribute and leave the other half alive. The reason most of the souls he takes are from old people is that he is patient. As the Creator gave humans their souls, that are all that he can take; Mother Earth made their bodies and that is the part of humans that goes to her at their death.

- Parallel Myths, J. F. Bierlein, 1994 (p50)
Nature deities, especially those associated with the living earth, tend to be feminine. So there is a common motif (often over-interpreted) of ‘mother earth / father sky’. But in this case Mother Earth is subordinate, as the Sky Father’s daughter. This makes sense from a psychological point of view (having no respect for political correctness). The man is bigger and taller and more likely to be the chief of a tribe. He is more closely associated with the socially constructed reality, such as the concept of a psyche or soul. The woman is closer to nature and more closely associated with the physical reality, such as the more immediate experiences of the body. In the Western tradition, the Mother Mary, for all of her prestige, officially serves as a go-between to the Great One who is identified as a male deity. Joseph Campbell advised in one lecture not to spend too much time worrying about the gender of the primary deity. It’s one of the problems we acquired when we became monotheistic - and one of the reasons I’m a polytheist.

It’s probably safe to say that all children in every culture like to play with dolls. When I look at the Paleolithic Goddess figures I can’t help but wonder how treasured they must have been to the children ten to forty thousand years ago. And I think it’s a great projection to think of ‘Mother Earth’ as a child, who is just playing with inanimate objects, wishing them into life. There is no plan on Her part; no scheme to own human slaves to worship Her and sacrifice to Her. She’s just doing what children naturally do. But in many creation myths there’s a common mythical motif of sex polarity. These clay figures require a ‘soul’ from the male deity to be fully living beings with a body and soul.

This myth also explains the ‘why’ of death. We spend most of our thought concerned with earthly things, grateful of earthly things. But the great sages ask us to consider something else, something transcendent. The reason death exists, in this view, is that we are scarcely dedicated to thinking of matters of the soul, and of gratitude for such. The only way to bring our consciousness to its full potential is with the knowledge, the experience, and the reality of death.

The modern fallacy is to twist this around. We don’t like death; the knowledge of death, so some neurotics will imagine transcendence, building castles in the sky. Transcendence in this view is a symptom, and the result of the knowledge of death. But this myth from Madagascar, and many others from around the world I think, tells us just the reverse: death is the necessary result of transcendence - the price of having a soul.

There is also the motif of all of our deaths as sacrifices. Our bodies are gifts to the earth, to unite with Her, to replenish Her with the life force, and analogously, our souls are sacrificed to the Soul deity to unite with Him and replenish Him.

There’s something very sophisticated about this myth. But I wonder if it has been influenced by high culture mythology. Whether it has or not, it’s still a great myth.

- NoMan

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Re: Creation Myths By Category

Post by Cindy B. »

Creation Myth Categories


Some time ago I shared this elsewhere on the board, and it suits here, too, just a sampling. :)




A Half-Dozen Cosmic Eggs



Greek Orphic Egg
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Yoruban Cosmic Calabash
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Cosmic Egg by Hildegard of Bingen
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Globe of Life by William Blake
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Chinese Egg of Chaos Borne by Pan-Gu
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Alchemical Cosmic Egg by Valentine
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If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by bodhibliss »

I guess the yolk's on us ...

:wink:

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Post by Cindy B. »

yuk-yuk
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Cindy B. »

I've always liked this one, too. :razz:


Image
If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. --Jung

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Post by Clemsy »

That's great. May put that one up in my classroom to see if anyone gets it. We're at the tail end of the creation myth unit. :-)
Give me stories before I go mad! ~Andreas

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