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:''For scientific articles about the origins of the Earth, the Universe, and Life see: Formation And Evolution Of The Solar System , Big Bang , and Origin Of Life respectively.'' An origin belief, or '''creation myth''', is a supernatural story or explanation that describes the beginnings of Humanity , Earth , Life , and the Universe ( Cosmogony ). 1 's sculpture The Raven and The First Men, showing part of a Haida creation story. The Raven represents the Trickster figure common to many Mythologies . The work is in the University Of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver.]] Origin beliefs are Mytho- Religious stories which typically explain the beginnings of the universe as a deliberate act of " Creation " by a Supreme Being . The term ''creation myth'' is sometimes used in a derogatory way to describe stories which are still believed today, as the term '''' may suggest something which is absurd or fictional. While these beliefs and stories need not be a literal account of actual events, they may yet express ideas that are perceived by some people and cultures to be truths at a deeper or more symbolic level. Author Daniel Quinn notes that in this sense creation myths need not be religious in nature, and they have secular analogues in modern cultures. Many accounts of creation share broadly similar themes. Common Motifs include the fractionation of the things of the world from a primordial chaos ( Demiurge ); the separation of the mother and father God s; land emerging from an infinite and timeless ocean; or creation '' Ex Nihilo '' ( Latin : out of nothing). Some religious groups assert that their accounts of creation should be considered alongside, supersede, or even replace Scientific accounts of the development of Life and the Cosmos . This assertion has proven highly controversial (for one example, see Creation-evolution Controversy ). ASIA Ainu The Ainu People of Hokkaidō recount the Demiurge with a cosmology consisting of six Heaven s and six Hell s where Gods , Demon s, and animals lived. Demons lived in the lower heavens. Amongst the Star s and the Clouds lived the lesser gods. In Highest Heaven lived Kamui , the creator God, and his servants. His realm was surrounded by a mighty metal wall and the only entrance was through a great iron gate. Kamui made this world as a vast round ocean resting on the backbone of an enormous Trout . This fish sucks in the ocean and spits it out again to make the tides; when it moves it causes earthquakes. One day Kamui looked down on the watery world and decided to make something of it. He sent down a Water Wagtail to do the work. By fluttering over the waters with its wings and by trampling the sand with its feet and beating it with its tail, the wagtail created patches of dry land. In this way Island s were raised to float upon the Ocean . When the animals who lived up in the heavens saw how beautiful the world was, they begged Kamui to let them go and live on it, and he did. But Kamui also made many other creatures especially for the world. The first people, the Ainu, had bodies of earth, hair of chickweed, and spines made from sticks of willow. Kamui sent Aioina , the divine man, down from heaven to teach the Ainu how to hunt and to cook. Hmong According to Hmong tradition, a long time ago the rivers and ocean covered the Earth. A brother and sister were locked in a yellow wooden drum. The Sky People looked out and saw the Earth. Everything was dead. Only a yellow wooden drum was left on the water. "Punch holes in the Earth so the water will drain away," said the King above the Sky. The water went down. Finally, the drum bumped against the ground. The brother and sister came out of the drum and looked around. Everything was dead. "Where are the people?" asked the sister. But the brother had an idea. "All the people on Earth are gone. Marry me, we can have children." "I can't marry you, we are brother and sister." But he asked her again and again and she said, "No." Finally the brother said, "Let's carry the grindstones up the hill and roll them into the valley. If the stones land on top of each other, then you shall marry me." The sister rolled her stone and then, as soon as the brother rolled his stone he ran as fast as he could down the hill and stacked the stones on top of each other. When the sister saw the stones she cried. Finally she said, "I will marry you, because it was meant to be." A year later the wife gave birth to a baby, but the baby was not a real baby. It had no arms or legs. It was just round like a fuck you pumpkin. The husband cut it up and threw the pieces away. One piece fell on the garden and it became the "Vang" clan because "Vang" sounds like the word for "garden" in Hmong. One piece fell on the goat house. Some pieces fell on the leaves and grass and they became the other Hmong Clans . The Nhia, Mhoua, Pao, Ho, Xiong, Vue, and so on. The next morning the village was full of houses. Everyone came to the husband and wife and said, "Mother and father, come have breakfast with us." The husband said to his wife, "I asked you to marry me because all the people on Earth were dead. Now these people are our family -- our sons and daughters." Korea There were heavenly ones in the sky domain. JoMulJu created everything in the universe, and the heavenly ones had their own kingdom. The son of the Supreme Being (JoMulju) came to the Earth with ministers (people and animals) who control wind, water, fire, etc, to govern the Earth, as he is in fact a human being as well as some kind of deity. A bear and a tiger wished to become humans. They prayed to the Supreme Being, and he gave them 20 cloves of Garlic and a handful of Mugwort , and told them to live in a dark cave for 100 days. The bear was patient enough to withstand the hardship of the cave and the starvation, but the tiger failed at the last minute and ran out of the cave. The bear became a girl and wanted to have a child, so the son of the Supreme Being married her. The son was Dangun who established the kingdom of Korea. Mansi The traditional account of creation by the Mansi people of Siberia involved two Loon s which dove to the bottom of primeval waters to retrieve a piece of the bottom and placed it on top of the water. From there the Earth grew. After a time, at the behest of his daughter, the spirit of the sky ordered his brother, the spirit of the lower world to create humanity. His brother made seven earthy, clay figures and which were quickened by the gods' sister, Mother Earth . Mongol There is no singular Mongol account of the creation and the beginning of the world, but from a variety of accounts from Mongol tribes of Central Asia, a general outline can be made. The creation of the world is attributed to a Lama named Udan who is sometimes also conflated with God or Buddha Sakyamuni by the tribes influenced by Tibetan Buddhism . The primordial world is usually described as being covered in darkness with no separation between earth and sky. The construction of the cosmos proceeds in a variety of fashions. One account describes ninety-nine golden columns holding apart the sky and earth. In this description the world has three stories, the upper one being heaven where gods and goddesses live, the middle one being earth where man dwells, and the lower one being the place where man goes after death; heaven (sky) is the father and earth is the mother of man, animals, etc. Another narrative recounts that when the creator divided the heaven and earth he created a nine-story heaven, a nine-story earth, and nine rivers. In some accounts, the world first was a vast ocean, but dust and sand rose to cover the ocean surface and become earth. In another account, the land is placed on the back of a golden Frog who was pierced with arrows causing fire and water to spew from him at various places After the creation of the Earth itself, the first male and female couple were created out of clay. They would become the progenitors of All Humanity . The various tribes and peoples were placed there with different characteristics. In the north, the men were paired with Ewes as sexual mates and this was the spawn of the Mongol ethnicity while the Han Chinese were the spawn of Hens while the Dorbed and the Buryat recount that they are the descendants of a coupling between hunters and Swan Maiden s. Another account tells that in the beginning, seven suns rose in the sky so that the rivers and vegetation on earth dried up, so the people asked the archer Erkei-Mergen to shoot the suns out of the sky. The archer shot down six, but while he was taking aim at the seventh a Martin flew in front of the sun and was shot in the tail. From then on, the martin had a forked tail and there was a single sun remaining in the sky. The archer was so distressed that he fled to the Steppe , cut off his thumbs in shame, and became the ancestor of the Marmot . Orok traditionally interpret the presence of Sundog s such as this to be evidence that three distinct suns used to reside in the sky. The remaining present-day Sun is located outside of the picture to the right.]] The traditional creation narrative of the Orok people of Sakhalin begins with three suns shining in the sky. The earth was completely liquid, but the liquid was slowly diminishing and the earth was hardening. Under the heat, cliffs and stones boiled. At that time, on earth there were no living creatures except the family of a man named Hadau . When the earth hardened, Hadau shot arrows at two suns first killing the older sister sun with one arrow, and then the younger sister sun with another leaving only the middle sun. Sundog s are said to be the visible shadows of the two earlier suns, as if imprints of one on each side. After this, Hadau created a family of Eagle s and a family of Raven s. Therefore upon seeing an eagle on a hunt, the Oroks call him their elder (grandfather). The flight of these birds allowed people to be dispersed across the Earth. Shinto See Also: Japanese mythology The god Izanagi and goddess Izanami churned the ocean with a spear to make a small island of curdled salt. Two deities went down to the island, mixed there, and bore main islands, deities, and forefathers of Japan. Taoism See Also: Chinese creationism Tao is the nameless void, the mother of the Ten Thousand Things. Tao is considered by Laozi to be that which eternally gives without being depleted, and eternally receives without being filled. That which does not exist for its own sake is able to endure.: There is something that contains everything. Before heaven and earth it is. Oh, it is still, unbodied, all on its own, unchanging, all-pervading, ever-moving. So it can act as the mother of all things. Not knowing its real name, we only call it the Way) Taoist philosophy appears relatively late in Chinese history. In it, Tao is described as the ultimate force behind the creation. With tao, nothingness gave rise to existence, existence gave rise to Yin And Yang , and yin and yang gave rise to everything. Due to the ambiguous nature of this myth, it could be compatible with the first myth (and therefore say nothing). But it could, like its antithesis, be explained in a way to better fit the modern scientific view of the creation of universe. Another view is the relatively late myth of Pangu . This was an explanation offered by Taoist Monk s hundreds of years after Laozi ; probably around 200 CE . In this story, the universe begins as a Cosmic Egg . A god named Pangu , born inside the egg, broke it into two halves: The upper half became the sky, the lower half became the earth. As the god grew taller, the sky and the earth grew thicker and were separated further. Finally the god died and his body parts became different parts of the earth. Zen and Nothing are all interconnected, inseparable, a whole. Zen denies that the Person is the First Cause . If it speaks of origins at all, it says that the Ground Of Being is the real First Cause . AFRICA Bakuba The was the first king of the Bakuba . Maasai The Maasai of Kenya in their creation narrative recount the origin of humanity to be fashioned by the Creator deity from a single tree or leg which split into three pieces. To the first father of the Maasai, he gave a stick. To the first father of the Kikuyu , he gave a hoe. To the first father of the Kamba , he gave a bow and arrow. Each son survived in the wild. The first father of the Maasai used his stick to herd animals. The first father of the Kikuyu used his hoe to cultivate the ground. The first father of the Kamba used his bow and arrow to hunt. Mandinka The traditional creation narrative of the Mandinka People of southern Mali begins with Mangala , a singular, powerful being who is perceived to be a round, energetic presence. Within Mangala existed four divisions, which were symbolic of, among many things, the four days of the week (time), the Four Elements (matter), and the Four Directions (space). Mangala also contained two sets of dual gendered twins. Mangala was tired of keeping all of this matter inside, so the god removed it and compiled it into a seed. The seed was his creation of the world. The seed however did not hold together well and blew up. Mangala was disappointed with this and destroyed the world he created. Mangala did not lose hope; the creator began again, this time with two sets of twin seeds. Mangala planted the seeds in an Egg Shaped Womb where they gestated. Mangala continued to put more sets of twin seeds in the womb until he had 8 sets of seeds. In the womb, the gestating seeds transformed themselves into fish. The fish is considered a symbol of fertility in the Mande world. This time, Mangala's creation was successful. This is important, because it illustrates the idea of dual gendered twinship, an idea that permeates Mande culture. Mangala tried to maintain this perfect creation, but Chaos crept in; one of the male twins became ambitious and tried to escape from the egg. This chaotic character is called Pemba . He is a Trickster figure whose first trick was to steal a piece of the womb's Placenta and throw it down. This action made the earth. Pemba then tried to refertilize what was left of the womb, committing incest against his mother, the womb. Mangala decided to sacrifice Pemba's brother Farro to save what was left of his creation. He castrated him and then killed him in order to raise him from the dead. Mangala took what was left of the placenta and transformed it into the sun, thus associating Pemba with darkness and the night. Farro was transformed into a human being and was taught the language of creation by Mangala. Farro's knowledge of words is very powerful and the tool he used to defeat Pemba's mischief. Farro and his newly created twins came to Earth and got married (not to each other). This is the basis for the foundation of Exogamy in Mande. Next, a being named Sourakata arrived from the sky with the first sacred drum, hammer, and the sacrificed skull of Farro. Sourakata began to play on the drum and sang for the first rain to come. Sourakata is a magical being who can control nature, and he taught Farro and his followers. Voodoo of Damballa]] Damballah (Sky-serpent loa and wise and loving Father archetype) created all the waters of the earth. In the form of a serpent, the movement of his 7,000 coils formed hills and valleys on earth and brought forth stars and planets in the heavens. He forged metals from heat and sent forth lightning bolts to form the sacred rocks and stones. When he shed his skin in the sun, releasing all the waters over the land, the sun shone in the water and created the rainbow. Damballah loved the Rainbow 's beauty and made her his wife, Aida-Wedo . (Aida-Wedo represents the sky powers and is symbolized by the rainbow; wife of Damballah, she shares his function as cosmic protector and giver of blessing.) The revelations of the Loa (deity) descended upon the first faithful in Ifé , a legendary city located in Nigeria . Therefore, everything in life and all spiritual strength comes from Ifé. The homeland of all Voodoo devotees, where Ifé is located, is Ginen , from where they were forced to flee in the African Diaspora . In death, the higher soul will return to Ginen (the World Of The Dead , said to be under the water below the earth) to reside with the loa and the ancestral Spirit s. Because of this, all practitioners of voodoo refer to themselves as '' Ti Guinin '', sons or daughters of Ginen. Yoruba The Yoruba creator is called Olurun or Olodumare and is often assisted by the lesser god, Obatala . In the beginning, there was only water and chaos. The supreme being sent Obatala or Orishanla down from the sky to create some land out of the chaos. He descended on a long chain (umbilical cord) and brought with him a rooster, some iron, and a palm kernel. First, he put the metal on the earth and the rooster on top of that. The rooster scratched the metal and spread it out to create land. Then he planted the palm seed and from it grew the earth's vegetation. Olurun named earth "Ife" and the first city "Ile-Ife." Orshilana created humans out of the earth and got Olurun to blow life into them. Zulu The Ancient One, known as Unkulunkulu , is the Zulu creator. He came from the reeds and from them he brought forth the people and the cattle. He created everything that is: mountains, streams, snakes, etc. He taught the Zulu how to hunt, how to make fire, and how to grow food. EUROPE Finnish Ancient Finns believed that the world was formed from egg that was broken. A bird was flying above the sea, seeking a place to make a nest and lay her eggs. She searched everywhere, but found nothing but water. Then she noticed the first dry place. In some stories it was an island, in other stories it was a boat and in other stories it was a body part of a floating being, like the wizard , he was born from the maiden of air Ilmatar that was made pregnant by the sea. Väinämöinen ordered forests to be planted, and started human culture. Greek (Classical) See Also: Greek mythology Plato , in his dialogue Timaeus , describes a creation myth involving a being called the Demiurge . Hesiod , in his Theogony , says that Chaos existed in the beginning, and then gave birth to Gaia (the Earth), Tartarus (the Underworld), Eros (desire), Nyx (the darkness of the night) and Erebus (the darkness of the Underworld). Gaia brought forth Ouranos , the starry sky, her equal, to cover her, the hills, and the fruitless deep of the Sea, Pontus , "without sweet union of love," out of her own self. But afterwards, Hesiod tells, she lay with Heaven and bore the World-Ocean Oceanus , Coeus and Crius and the Titan s Hyperion and Iapetus , Theia and Rhea , Themis and Mnemosyne and Phoebe of the golden crown and lovely Tethys . "After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire." Cronos, at Gaia's urging, castrates Ouranos. He marries Rhea who bears him Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and Zeus . Zeus and his brothers overthrow Cronos and the other Titans, then draw lots to determine what each of them will rule. Zeus draws heaven, Poseidon draws the sea, and Hades draws the underworld. The Earth was contested and no one of them had absolute sovereignty over it, as shown by Poseidon's anger when Zeus forced him to leave the battlefield in the Iliad . Norse The Voluspa opens with the Norse account of the creation of the present universe : | ||
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