Reference
- ABORIGINAL HISTORY (60,000 BP-1605 C.E.)As do other religions, Aboriginal religion has a body of myth contained in its creation stories, rules and prohibitions to follow, and a series of rituals that bring the myths to life. Religious rituals, regardless of the tradition in which they originate, are about regularly enacting the sacred moments of the believers’ history. For example, Christians partake in communion to reenact the last supper, when the apostles gave life to Jesus despite the sacrifice of his body on Earth. Aboriginal rituals likewise reenact the most important moments in the lives of their sacred ancestors as a way of connecting past and present. Rituals also provide moments for younger Aboriginal people to learn from their elders the words to songs, the moves to dances, the beat to songs, and the power of the ancestors in the past and present world.
- Native American Creation MythsNative American creation myths speak about origins. They are myths because they are imaginative stories that present events that took place at the beginning. They often relate how the world took shape, how a people were led to their own special place, and how humans, animals, plants, the stars, and all the variety of creatures in general or in particular came to be just as they are. Typically, they start out with the world and living creatures already in existence.
Many of these stories have been written down and translated into English, often without indicating the narrator, his or her style, the audience response, and other circumstantial events. In this way the reader is already distanced from the stories themselves. Furthermore, to a reader more familiar with European storytelling and Greek and Roman myths, Native American creation myths are difficult because the reader's cultural expectations differ from those of the people whose stories are being told.
Surprisingly, some of these stories are very long, the equivalent of hundreds of pages, while others are quite short. Although now in print, to be read at any time, some of these stories traditionally could be recited only during a certain season and at a certain time of day. Some are regarded as so sacred that it is questionable whether they should be collected in anthologies at all. Principally gathered by ethnographers, anthropologists, and Christian missionaries, the stories have become available in a wide range of publications. This may be fortunate for Indian and non-Indian alike. For the Native American, stories that have been lost in their own traditions have nevertheless been preserved, often in their original languages. For the non-Indian, the Indian perspective provides an alternative way of thinking about what is important for human beings. For readers accustomed to the stories in the Bible, these Native American creation stories are full of surprises.
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Perspectives
Diné Bahane' : The Navajo Creation Story
This is the most complete version of the Navajo creation story to appear in English since Washington Matthews' Navajo Legends of 1847. Zolbrod's new translation renders the power and delicacy of the oral storytelling performance on the page through a poetic idiom appropriate to the Navajo oral tradition.
Zolbrod's book offers the general reader a vivid introduction to Navajo culture. For students of literature this book proposes a new way of looking at our literary heritage.
Creation Myths of the World
The most comprehensive resource available on creation myths from around the world their narratives, themes, motifs, similarities, and differences and what they reveal about their cultures of origin."
Maya Creation Myths
There is no Classical Yucatecan Maya word for "myth." But around the close of the seventeenth century, an anonymous Maya scribe penned what he called u kahlay cab tu kinil, "the world history of the era," before Christianity came to the Peten. He collected numerous accounts of the cyclical destruction and reestablishment of the cosmos; the origins of gods, human beings, and the rituals and activities upon which their relationship depends; and finally the dawn of the sun and the sacred calendar Maya diviners still use today to make sense of humanity's place in the otherwise inscrutable march of time. These creation myths eventually became part of the documents known today as the Books of Chilam Balam. Maya Creation Myths provides not only new and outstanding translations of these myths but also an interpretive journey through these often misunderstood texts, providing insight into Maya cosmology and how Maya intellectuals met the challenge of the European clergy's attempts to eradicate their worldviews. Unlike many scholars who focus primarily on traces of pre-Hispanic culture or Christian influence within the Books of Chilam Balam, Knowlton emphasizes the diversity of Maya mythic traditions and the uniquely Maya discursive strategies that emerged in the Colonial period. This book will be of significant interest to Maya scholars, folklorists, and historians, as well as students and scholars of religion, cosmology, and anthropology.
China's Creation and Origin Myths
How did the world begin? How were the first people created and which specific roles were they supposed to play in the cosmos? Like other mythologies worldwide, China’s creation and origin myths explain how man created order out of chaos and imposed culture on nature. Cross-cultural approaches to myth make us aware of the limitations of our own familiar classifications. This book makes a provocative case for the comparative study of the hidden treasures of China’s oral and written myth traditions in different languages and cultures, a legacy generously left behind by singers, storytellers, poets, and writers. This book opens new doors to the study of Chinese mythologies, a surprising and so far almost unknown world outside China
The Origins of Mississippian Culture
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About 1,200 years ago in eastern North America, populations gathered their farms and living structures behind defensive walls. Explore Mississippian culture and see how it introduced an increased use of the bow and arrow along with a large body of art, extensive trade networks, and mythological creation stories remembered today in bits and pieces by a multitude of surviving indigenous nations.
Global Creation Stories
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Recent technological advances provide a detailed picture of universal origins. Indigenous Australians have observed stars for 40,000 years; hear about the emu. Professor Brian Cox believes curiosity about cosmic origins is inherently human.
Mayan Myths and Gods
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowCreation myths and stories about gods abound in indigenous literature. Mayan religious festivities were "milestones in time," festivities and celebrations integral to Mayan history.
Online Articles
- The Ch’orti’ Maya Myths of Creation Hull, KerryThe article offers information on the myths created by the Ch'orti' Maya peoples. Topics discussed include Ch'orti' people are primarily subsistence farmers, Ch'orti' language is part of the Eastern Branch of Ch'olan Mayan languages; and folktales, legends, jokes, and myths are the oral tradition of Ch'orti' Maya peoples.
- Creation Myth and the Prometheus Myth in FulgentiusThe article deals with such element of the Prometheus myth as creation of humans from clay. This variation of the creation myth is present in such early sources as Hesiod and Aesop and in such classical ancient sources as Ovid and Properce; yet overall, it is rare. In late Antiquity, the plot becomes more popular (Pausanias, Hygin, Lucian). Sometimes, Hephaestus replaces Prometheus; sometimes the myth comes together with the Pandora myth, but the moment of animating a clay figure is usually vaguely described. The essay specifically focuses on Mythologies by Fulgentius (5–6 AD): both his narration and interpretation of the myth are rather unique. Fulgentius presents contamination of previous versions (such as stealing the fire from gods and giving it to humans; ascent to heaven; creation of humans from clay; Athena’s help; Pandora; punishment for stealing fire etc). Of particular interest is the stealing of the fire motif: in this version, Prometheus wants to animate humans with the help of fire instead of helping the humankind. The essay examines the etymology of Prometheus’s name and the allegory of the hawk in Fulgentius and pays special attention to the philosophical meaning of the fire that brings humans to life.
- The Mande Creation Myth, by Germaine Dieterlen, as a Historical Source for the Mali EmpireThis article proposes a new reading for Germaine Dieterlen's classic text “The Mande Creation Myth,” and presents it as evidence for Kangaba's prominent military role as ruler of the Niger and defender of the gold mines that for centuries provided the wealth of the Mali Empire. It is demonstrated that, although Dieterlen was in search of a unified cosmology, her informants in Kangaba provided answers that voiced Kangaba's military concerns and claims as political heir of the medieval Mali Empire and ruler of the River Niger. The starting point of the analysis are new insights on how creation is envisioned in the West African savannah, with an emphasis on termite mounds, earth, and blacksmiths. These insights are compared to the fieldwork data that Dieterlen collected in 1953-55, which she used in 1955 for a publication on the Kamabolon ceremony in Kangaba and, under strikingly different personal circumstances, in 1957 in the article “The Mande Creation Myth.” The article explains why Dieterlen herself nor other researchers have never been able to reproduce neither her 1953-55 findings nor her 1957 findings by pointing to Kangaba's raised prestige as a major historical site for a new Republic of Mali, which had acquired independence in 1960. Kangaba's new position replaced the earlier focus on military rule on the Niger and defense of gold mines (in what had become the Republic of Guinée in 1958). This argument is substantiated by a recently discovered contemporary report of the 1961 Kamabolon ceremony, written by a leading contemporary intellectual, Mambi Sidibé.
Nunavik Creation Stories
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowHear excerpts of traditional Inuit tales explaining how humans came into being. Until the late 19th century, the tribe had no written language—but modern research is unraveling their origins.