Author Robert Spiller discusses anything he darn well pleases: writing, Bonnie Pinkwater, math problems, and musings in general.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Creation Stories - Chapter 2: Native North American and African: Rising Up vs The World Egg
This is the second installment - see the earlier Scandinavian and Sumerian - in a multiple part series on creation stories. Since there were many North American creation stories, I have chosen the Navajo story. Similarly, there were a large number of African stories and I selected one, the Dogon Creation Story.
Navajo - Even to this day there are a number of domed worlds - five altogether- built one atop the other. First world, deep underground was centered on a huge ocean and was populated by the Insect People, led by Locust. Because of the wrath of their gods they were forced upwards to the World of the Swallows. Again they screwed up and had to rise up to the Grasshopper World where they blew it again and had to rise up to the Kisani, the Pueblo People. The two races got along famously and together created First Man and First Woman. These did their job and made many children. Two divine creatures, one called Water Monster and the other The Trickster Coyote for some reason known only to the gods started kidnapping young girls. The people - both The Insect People and the Kisani and the humans they created - were forced to go into hiding. A brave insect, Locust, (kind of a bug Moses) led everyone out of this intolerable situation up into the Fifth World, the world they inhabit to this day.
Dogon Creation Story (Africa) - First there was the World Egg which had been fertilized by the creator, Amma. The egg cracked into two halves each containing a set of divine identical twins, male and female. These four are called The Nummo. Amma flung some divine clay from the heavens and created the Earth. These four took it into their heads to fall to the Earth and copulate with it and each other- thus humans came to be. Once the human race established itself, the original Nummo twins became something that would feed all the world, the grasses of the plains. And from there they eternally watch over their creation.
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