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Iroquois and navajo creation stories
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The Creation Story - An Iroquois Legend
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When the modern person ponders the formation of human beings, our mind automatically goes to Adam and Eve, whom were the first man and woman created by God according to the Book of Genesis. Before there was Adam and Eve, diverse cultures came up with myths about the construction of humans. These myths included: “The Song of Creation” from the Rig Veda, An African Creation Tale, From the Popol Vuh, and A Native American Creation Tale “How Man Was Created” Each one of these legends gives a diverse perspective on the creation of human beings.
A Native American Creation Tale “How Man Was Created” tells a story of a Mohawk Indian known as Sat-kon-se-ri-io or the “Good Spirit.” The Mohawks believed that he produced all of the creatures and placed them on earth to live and burgeon. It was said that he felt something was still missing and decide to make a creäture that resembled him. He did this by going to the river, gathering some clay and crafting a man out of it. He then placed the clay into the fire but eventually fell asleep. When he finally woke up, he found the clay man scorched black, which is said to be the first African. This did not gratify the Good Spirit so he repeated the process a second time going to sleep again. When he awoke this instance, the clay man was insipid and under cooked; this was the first white man. Still not pleased with the outcome, he did it one more time. For the third endeavor, the Good Spirit made sure he didn’t fall asleep. When he removed the third man from the fire he was said to be “just right” he was red a man, he was the first Mohawk Indian.
This fable, created by the Mohawk Indians proposes that they believed in one higher power that created the world. It also implies they beli...
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...h and its people.
Unlike “The Song of Creation” from the Rig Veda, the Popol Vuh thought the earth and humanity were birthed from spiritual gods. The Mayans believed in several higher powers and lionized them all. Both cultures had their individual views on how the earth was formed, who were the first humans, and who created them. This contradiction builds on the many aspects of today’s reality and how did it all begin.
All in all, every culture and religion has their personal beliefs on human civilization and how the earth was produced. The most frequent belief modern day of the first humans, is the story of Adam and Eve. There is a plethora of theories, but none that are one hundred percent accurate. If you ask me, scientist will never know how earth came about and they will never identify who the first humans were. Every “story of creation” is a myth.
Most cultures have a creation myth, a story of how humans came to exist in the world. Often, they involve Gods of some capacity who exist without much question or explanation. Many myths have a common idea for the origin of the world, like Earth being born from water, a golden egg, or a great monster. The Mayan creation myth and the Babylonian creation myth are similar in that they both begin with water, and account the creation and purpose of man. They also differ, as the Mayan Popol Vuh chronicles a peaceful tale of trials to forge the Earth and sentient beings to worship the gods, while the Babylonian Enuma Elish tells of wars between gods that lead to the creation of Earth and of man as a servant to the gods.
In Native American literature, both creation myths and trickster tales were frequently told and passed down through generations upon generations orally, and then eventually written down. A creation myth is a tale that tells of how the world began or how people first came to live here, while a trickster tale is a short story that tells of a “trickster” with vacuous behavior, whose actions are meant to teach a lesson. Both types of literature are still relevant in modern society, whether it’s through pop-culture or re-told stories, and continue to guide individuals through their life, teach lessons about life on earth, morals, and human nature.
The Popol Vuh is the most important Mayan document to survive the Spanish conquest. It is believed to have been written in pre-Columbian times in hieroglyphs. After the conquest it was transcribed into the Mayan language with Roman characters. The Popol Vuh is the most sacred book of the Quiche Maya. Like other holy books, it contains stories of human creation. The opening passage excerpted here refers to the Heart of Heaven and the Heart of Earth, a name given to the Creator and the Maker of Life. According to the text, nothing was on Earth in the beginning, only the silence of darkness. The Creator and his helpers united their "words and their thoughts" and brought forth the world. They then modeled humans from yellow and white corn. The Popol Vuh is not only a precious source of information on the pre-Columbian Maya but a source of inspiration to many contemporary Central American and Hispanic-American artists and writers. “This is the account of how all was in suspense, all calm, in silence; all motionless, still, and the expanse of the sky was empty. This is the first account, the first narrative. There was neither man, nor animal, birds, fishes, crabs, trees, stones, caves, ravines, grasses, nor forests; there was only the sky. The surface of the earth had not appeared. There was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky. There was nothing brought together, nothing which could make a noise, nor anything which might move, or tremble, or could make noise in the sky. There was nothing standing; only the calm water, the placid sea, alone and tranquil. Nothing existed. There was only immobility and silence in the darkness, in the night. Only the Creator, the Maker, Tepeu, Gucumatz, the Fore-fathers, were in the water surrounded with light. They were hidden under green and blue feathers, and were
The Native American’s way of living was different from the Europeans. They believed that man is ruled by respect and reverence for nature and that nature is an ancestor or relative. The Native American’s strongly belie...
This provides powerful insight into the role Bigfoot like creatures played in Native American cultures. Some tribes were not afraid of the creatures, considering them kind and helpful, while peacefully coexisting with them. Other tribes found them to be more violent and dangerous creatures. The fact that these tribes called the animals Stick Indians or Brush Indians seems to suggest that the creatures were simply other tribes they did not get along with opposed to a village of mythical creatures. Some examples of Bigfoot like creatures in Native American tribes include the Chiye – Tanka, the Lofa, the Maxemista, and the popular Sasquatch. The Chiye – Tanka was the Bigfoot like creature of the Sioux Indians (“Native American,” n.d.). This animal
The Native American people have great respect and reverence for nature, in fact the animal spirits and other elemental spirits represent important roles in their daily life (Taylor). They view the world as an interconnected fabric of harmonious and inharmonious interaction between people and nature. One tribe in particular, the Miwok, consider the Coyote as an ancestor and creator of man; additionally, they consider Coyote as a trickster god (Godchecker). A Miwok myth recount a story from long ago in which animals were like people. In this tale, the Coyote and Falcon decided to create man. Coyote pretended to be dead, and permitted the buzzards and crows to eat his posterior (Bastian and Mitchell). As they dug in, he trapped them inside, and
Each culture has its own distinct origin myth, including the Hebrew and Cheyenne. Origin myths are most likely the first stories human beings told and they explain how we came to be. There are many similarities and differences between the Cheyenne origin myth, “How the World was Made,” and the Hebrew origin myth, “In the Beginning,” that tell how each culture views its god, nature, and humanity's relationship to each of these.
For the Native Americans to explain their existence, they created stories that described how things came to be. These stories are much like the ones that you would find in the Bible, and are very insightful in getting a better understanding of the Native Americans religious viewings. The Native Americans strongly believed in spirits and beings of another world. In the Iroquois Creation Story, these believes are strongly represented by telling the story of two brothers. This story is a representation of how the world was created. There is a good minded brother and a bad minded brother, which are not just brothers but twins. These unborn brothers and their mother were sent to the back of a turtle that in order to secure them from the dangers of the dark world she fell to. In a hurry to be born, the bad minded brother murders
Can religions and cultures be anything more than their history? Why do we have a concept of history in the first place? Obviously history exists, but like the human ability to conceive of the future, history seems to be a rare phenomenon tied with our ability for language and the telling of stories. What’s even more fascinating is the human ability to make up a history or to tell a story, such as a creation myth, that seeks to explain something that has not been witnessed by anyone and does not have any role in finding food or creating shelter. We do not have a physical need to know how the earth came to be or to know how it is that we came to be here. Still, creation stories exist in almost all human cultures and, amazingly, many share many of the same elements. The question is, why? Is it a coincidence that so many of them share the same elements? By looking at a comparison of two creation stories, we should be able to understand the meaning of these similarities better.
The earth is a beautiful place with blue skies, sky high mountains, lavish grounds, and wonderful people. There are numerous explanation and theories as to how the creation of the world came to be, and two of these explanations come from the creation myths of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Though both are very different in context, these two versions explain exactly how the sky became to be, how land was created, and most importantly how man was created and how they were destroyed and why. These two stories also contain similar themes that help build the story and are seen throughout the many situations that occurred within both creation myths.
Hesiod’s Theogony and the Babylonian Enuma Elish are both myths that begin as creation myths, explaining how the universe and, later on, humans came to be. These types of myths exist in every culture and, while the account of creation in Hesiod’s Theogony and the Enuma Elish share many similarities, the two myths differ in many ways as well. Both myths begin creation from where the universe is a formless state, from which the primordial gods emerge. The idea of the earth and sky beginning as one and then being separated is also expressed in both myths.
other Native American tribes. Although first and foremost the Myth follows an emergence story of how
After wisdom is turned on, a lot of people start thinking about human origins. Many great people have tried to explain the origin of human, they also proposed a variety of unusual ideas and explains, but most people are not accepted their idea. However, the first part of the Bible have a good explanation of the origin of human. There are two different theory about the origins of humanity in the Bible. God according to his own image to create a human, designed to allow humans to communicate with him, to respond to his love, and to serve as managing the affairs responsibilities.
This presentation is about the book of Genesis in the Old Testament. Its main purpose will be to educate you, the audience on hermeneutics, the literal and contextual interpretations of the creation story, as well as the history, author, date and importance of the book of Genesis.
How did the earth and its people come to be? The world may never know the actual answer to this question, but that hasn't stopped people from digging into all the evidence the world has to offer. Several different opinions have developed regarding how the earth came to be. According to a survey taken in 2012, approximately 32% of the population believes that humans evolved over millions of years by God's guiding hand, 15% believe that humans evolved over millions of years completely without God, 46% believe God created humans in present form within the last 10,000 years or so, and 7% don't have an opinion. My opinion on creation is that humans have evolved over millions of years by God’s guiding hand. Nothing that happened in the history of the Earth happened without God’s intention: "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3).