Creating The World

[highlife]

These are parts of creation stories from around the world i got from this link. There is more to each story at the site. The Navajo story has its own link
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/miranda.htm#AZTEC

Fans
(Bantu )..Nzame, angered, brought forth thunder and lightning and destroyed everything that was, except Fam, who had been promised immortality. Nzame, in his three aspects, decided to renew the earth and try again. He applied a new layer of earth to the planet, and a tree grew upon it. The tree dropped seeds which grew into more trees. Leaves that dropped from them into the water became fish, those that dropped on land became animals. The old parched earth still lies below this new one, and if one digs deep enough it can be found in the form of coal. Nzame made a new man, one who would know death, and called him Sekume. Sekume fashioned a woman, Mbongwe, from a tree. These people were made with both Gnoul (body) and Nissim (soul). Nissim gives life to Gnoul. When Gnoul dies, Nissim lives on.

Navajo
After setting the mountains down where they should go, the Navajo deities, or "Holy People", put the sun and the moon into the sky and were in the process of carefully placing the stars in an orderly way. But the Coyote, known as the trickster, grew impatient from the long deliberations being held, and seized the corner of the blanket where it lay and flung the remaining stars into the sky.
http://www.lapahie.com/Creation.cfm


Australian Aboriganal
With their great stone knives, the Ungambikula carved heads, bodies, legs, and arms out of the bundles. They made the faces, and the hands and feet. At last the human beings were finished.
Thus every man and woman was transformed from nature and owes allegiance to the totem of the animal or the plant that made the bundle they were created from -- such as the plum tree, the grass seed, the large and small lizards, the parakeet, or the rat.
This work done, the ancestors went back to sleep. Some of them returned to underground homes, others became rocks and trees. The trails the ancestors walked in the Dreamtime are holy trails. Everywhere the ancestors went, they left sacred traces of their presence -- a rock, a waterhole, a tree.
For the Dreamtime does not merely lie in the distant past, the Dreamtime is the eternal Now. Between heartbeat and heartbeat, the Dreamtime can come again.

Ainu
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. When the poor bird arrived and saw what a mess everything was in, it was at its wit's end to know what to do. However, by fluttering over the waters with its wings and by trampling the sand with its feet and beating it with its tail, the wagtail at last created patches of dry land. In this way islands were raised to float upon the ocean in this, the floating world. Even today, the faithful wagtail is still carrying on its work, still beating the ground with its tail.

Another part of the story

They sniffed and sniffed to find out where the stink was coming from. At last they traced the smell to Aioina's clothes. The Gods sent him back to earth and refused to let him back into heaven until he left all his clothes behind. Down in the floating world, Aioina's cast-off sandals turned into the first squirrels.

Me.....Not knowing the details of there beliefs it looks like there country has smelly squirrels.

[raum]

great (if odd) find!

care to comment on what motivated this search through Navajo creationism?

[AYHJA]

I agree raum, this was great reading, I look forwards to getting into this though some good discussion...Creation stories to me are awesome; I can't quite say for certain, but I'm sure each underlying thing to them has a hint of truth, whatever that may be...

[highlife]

My motivation was the Eden disscution from the Crazy thread. My ex-stepmom is part American Indian so i think im going to post cool exerpts from a bunch of differant nations or tribes creation stories and than send them all to her at some point. I agree with Uber that there is some truth to the metephors in all creation stories but im just going to post the parts that i think are beautifuly written or poetic. Ill post links to the full versions. How about that part about the coyote scattering the stars. If any one has insites to this stuff feel free to comment. Ill add my 2 cents in at some point

[raum]

as far as creation stories, look at them this way... i find it helps.

someone WHEREWHERE said something - and he said something, and he said something.

and eventually, it trickeld down, changing, growing, including more and more until you have something completely different. Something like a religion.

There was something that happened, to enact man's consciousness into material, be in chemical, spiritual, or any combination of those or other factors. Most inportantly, LEARN them, and see what you can piece together.

All prophets are true, even if only about ONE thing.

good fortune in your research.

[highlife]

All prophets are true, even if only about ONE thing.

Most inportantly, LEARN them, and see what you can piece together. ...good fortune in your research

Thanks but I didnt mean to get your hopes up. Im not looking for drops of rain from the prairies and forests of Indian creation stories. This is more of an appreciation of good writing. I could have posted it in the Word forum but putting it here gives people a chance to comment on the spiritual views these writings represent.

One comment ...Indians didnt just use animals in there stories but the actual observed behavior of the animal or plant as well.
Had a thought about the coyote tossing the stares into the sky.. I know fox and coyotes some times play with the mice they catch. I watched a fox tossing one up into the air for about 5 minutes a couple years back .Im not saying thats why the coyote took on the job of star tosser but i think its cool that when ever an Indian of that tribe would see a coyote playing with a mouse he would be reminded of the story

[highlife]

Part of Pima creation story

But the earth shook and stretched, so that it was unsafe. So Earth Doctor made a gray spider which was to spin a web around the edges of the earth and sky, fastening them together. When this was done, the earth grew firm and solid. Earth Doctor made water, mountains, trees, grass, and weeds-made everything as we see it now. But all was still inky blackness. Then he made a dish, poured water into it, and it became ice. He threw this round block of ice far to the north, and it fell at the place where the earth and sky were woven together. At once the ice began to gleam and shine. We call it now the sun.
more http://www.aaanativearts.com/article579.html

Iroquois

In the beginning there was no earth to live on, but up above, in the Great Blue, there was a woman who dreamed dreams.
One night she dreamed about a tree covered with white blossoms, a tree that brightened up the sky when its flowers opened but that brought terrible darkness when they closed again. The dream frightened her, so she went and told it to the wise old men who lived with her in their village in the sky.
"Pull up this tree," she begged them, but they did not understand. All they did was dig around its roots, to make space for more light. But the tree just fell through the hole they had made and disappeared. After that there was no light at all, only darkness.
The old men grew frightened of the woman and her dreams. It was her fault that the light had disappeared forever.
So they dragged her toward the hole and pushed her through as well. Down, down she fell, down toward the great emptiness. There was nothing below her but a heaving waste of water. She would surely have been smashed to pieces, this strange dreaming woman from the Great Blue, had not a fish hawk come to her aid. His feathers made a pillow for her and she drifted gently above the waves.
more http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/oberon.htm#IROQUOIS

Cherokee

As the earth stiffened, the animals came down from the rainbow. It was still dark. They needed light, so they pulled the sun out from behind the rainbow, but it was too bright and hot. A solution was urgently needed. The shamans were told to place the sun higher in the sky. A path was made for it to travel--from east to west--so that all inhabitants could share in the light.
The plants were placed upon the earth. The Creator told the plants and animals to stay awake for seven days and seven nights. Only a few animals managed to do so, including the owls and mountain lions, and they were rewarded with the power to see in the dark. Among the plants, only the cedars, spruces, and pines remained awake. The Creator told these plants that they would keep their hair during the winter, while the other plants would lose theirs.