This unit will take a close look at one of the "tale types," the Origin of the World story.

"A Myth is all about wonders."  Aristotle

"Among the most basic questions raised by human beings are those of origins. How did the human species arise? How was the earth created? What about the sun? the moon? the stars? Why do we have night and day? Why do people die? No human society lacks answers to such questions. While these answers vary greatly in detail, they are, for primitive peoples as a whole, similar in their basic form: people and the world exist because they were brought into being by a series of creative acts.
Moreover, this creation is usually regarded as the work of supernatural beings or forces. The accounts of the ways in which these supernatural agents formed the earth and peopled it are known as origin myths."

from an essay on Origin Myths by Robert L. Carneiro
American Museum of Natural History

Caption:  Columns at Luxor, Egypt

We have visited the ancient skies in several stories already - the myths and legends of Egyptian antiquity, the stories of American Indians, and the earliest tales from Sumeria.  You have also finished your reading of Krupp, and have a good idea of how central the sky was to our ancestors.

Several important mythologists, anthropologists, and cultural critics have undertaken the study of Origin Stories - and while their findings and theories overlap in several areas, their conclusions about what these tales mean often differ surprisingly. 

Caption:  The eternal garden of the Nile - banks of paradise

First, we want to look at the way that Origin Tales fit in with what we already know.  While the Origin story fits into the Motif Index as type U - Nature of Life, it also may overlap into other tale types and use several of the motifs - for example, many cultures have origin tales that involve animals (Motif type B).  The Chumash Indians of California believed that the Turtle was largely responsible for the first material that made the land - and the wily Coyote figures in this scenario. 

A. Mythological Motifs
B. Animals
C. Taboo
D. Magic
E. The Dead
F. Marvels
G. Ogres
H. Tests
J. The Wise and the Foolish
K. Deceptions
L. Reversal of Fortune
M. Ordaining the Future
N. Chance and Fate
P. Society
Q. Rewards and Punishments
R. Captives and Fugitives
S. Unnatural Cruelty
T. Sex
U. The Nature of Life
V. Religion
W. Traits of Character
X. Humor
Z. Miscellaneous Groups of Motif

Other Motifs that are familiar in Origin stories involve Death (Motif type E), as in the First Death (also a central idea, really, in the story of Adam and Eve), Taboo (Motif type C) [this is the operative moment in many of the Pacific Islander creation myths - what the living can and cannot do], Tests (Motif type H), [read Remaking the World by Leonard Crow Dog], and Rewards and Punishments (Motif type Q) - as in the punishment of Adam and Eve.

Probably the  best-known author on the subject of Origin tales is Joseph Campbell, whose TV series about the Transformations of Myth Through Time has been widely aired.  I am going to draw on many of the essays in the book of the same name (listed in your resources page) for this lecture and for the material on the Arthurian Legends (you have now read through much of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.)  Another respected author in this field is Mircea Eliade (see links to his work on Resources page, and his work on religion will be important to us.

"The man of archaic societies tends to live as much as possible in the sacred or in close
proximity to consecrated objects. The tendency is perfectly understandable, because, for
primitives as for the man of all premodern societies, the sacred is equivalent to a power, and, in
the last analysis, to reality. The sacred is saturated with being...(R)eligious man deeply desires
to be, to participate in reality, to be saturated with power...(T)he completely profane world, the
wholly desacralized cosmos, is a recent discovery in the history of the human
spirit...(D)esacralization pervades the entire experience of the nonreligious man of modern
societies and that, in consequence, he finds it increasingly difficult to rediscover the existential
dimensions of religious man in the archaic societies."
- Mircea Eliade

a second quality of primitive peoples that we want to keep in mind is the aspect of causation:

One more word about explanation. At the heart of explanation lies causation. The idea of causation, again, was not born with modern science, nor from the early Greek philosophers. It is much older than that. Indeed, causation is very deeply rooted in human thought. Among the Kuikuru Indians of central Brazil, for instance, a tribe I have studied in the field, a cause is quickly found when something untoward or unusual happens. Thus, one man attributed a toothache to someone's having worked witchcraft on a piece of sugar cane he had chewed. Another man, whose manioc garden was being ravaged by peccaries, decided than an enemy had put a picture of a peccary in his garden to draw these animals to it. The pattern of causal thinking I found among the Kuikuru occurs among primitive peoples everywhere. I think it is safe to say, then, that the quest for causes, which is so central to modern science, is actually a legacy bequeathed to science by our pre-scientific Old Stone Age ancestors.

Caption:  The Greek Winged Sphinx

However, the kind of causation employed by primitive peoples is of a very special kind. It is personal causation. That is, the agent responsible for an action generally has the attributes of human personality. Impersonal causation, a hallmark of modern science, is regarded as insufficient by primitive peoples.* Impersonal forces may be the immediate cause of something, but they are always underlain by ultimate causes, which are usually personal in nature. Thus, the Kuikuru know it was the wind that blew the roof off a house, but they carry the search for explanation one step further and ask, "Who sent the wind?" Their implicit assumption, which they never seem to question, is that some personality, human or spirit, had to direct the natural force of the wind to produce its effect. How could it be otherwise? The members of a pre-literate society could not possibly know the physical causes of cyclonic storms generated high in the atmosphere by complex meteorological forces.

from an essay, Origin Myths,  by Robert L. Carneiro
American Museum of Natural History

Universe Creation

The view that the earth is the center of the universe, which, until Copernicus, prevailed throughout Europe, was by no means unique to Western thought. It is no doubt a legacy from Stone Age times. After all, since the earth is the place where people live and is what they know, and since people create the myths, why shouldn't they place their planet at the center of the cosmos?
Moreover, if the earth is of prime importance to them - as it is - why not make its creation primary in time as well? Thus, in primitive mythology, it is the rule that the world was created first, and that the sun, the moon, and the stars follow it. In fact, the sun, moon, and stars are often mythological characters who first lived on earth but who, after a series of adventures or misfortunes, ended up in the sky to find their ultimate resting place as heavenly bodies.

A few societies have no myth to account for the origin of the world.  For them, the world has always existed.  More commonly, however, the earth is thought to have been created by the actions of supernatural beings. Rarely, though, does a deity create the world out of nothing: generally, he or she has something to work with. Some Polynesian peoples, for example, believe that the sea was primeval, and that the land was created by a god, Tane, who drove to the bottom and came up with mud from which to fashion it.  The Norse gods Odin, Vill, and Ve made the world from the body of the giant Ymir, using his blood for oceans, his bones for mountains, his hair for trees, and so on. It is not unusual for several gods or culture heroes to be involved in the creation, each contributing his or her portion to the final structure.

Babylonian Creation Myths

From the mixing of Apsu (sweet water) and Tiamat (salt water) there arose the gods, Mummu (the waves), and
Lakhmu and Lakhamu (gigantic twin serpents). The serpents produced Anshar (heaven) and Kishar (earth). From these two came Anu, Enlil, and Ea, as well as all the other gods of the sky, earth, and underworld. Apsu and Tiamat became angered because of the noise made by such a large group of gods, and began talking about killing off their progeny so they could get some rest.  When Ea, the all-knowing, learned of this he used his magic to capture Apsu and Mummu. Tiamat was furious and raised a large army of gods and freaks to battle Ea and his cohorts.  Anu and Ea became frightened and Ea created Marduk to battle Tiamat.  Marduk promised to do so if he were granted supremacy over all the other gods. All the gods agreed and Marduk, armed with bow and arrows, lightning, the winds, a hurricane, and a special net sallied forth to battle Tiamat. When they clashed, Marduk caught Tiamat in his special net, and as she opened her mouth to swallow him, loosed the hurricane into her mouth.  As she swelled from the hurricane within her, Marduk slew her with an arrow into her belly.  Then he cast the net again capturing her army within it. These he chained and cast into the underworld. From her corpse the world is created. He was th en proclaimed God of the Gods.

Another Babylonia Creation Myth

In the beginning there was only darkness and water. Out of this Chaos there came many odd creatures: men with wings, two faces, or both; creatures that were male and female combined; humans with goat feet; others who were part horse and part man.  These creatures were ruled over by Omorka, the (female) moon.  Marduk cut Omorka in two, and separated the the halves into sky and earth, and destroyed all of the odd beings that existed.  Then Marduk commanded one of the gods to cut off his head, and from the blood and clay of the earth, he created humans, animals, stars, sun, moon, and everything that is.

Egyptian Creation Myth

Caption:  Creator God, Ptah

Only the ocean existed at first. Then Ra (the sun) came out of an egg that appeared on the surface of the water.  Ra brought forth four children, the gods Shu and Geb and the goddesses Tefnut and Nut.  Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere.  They stood on Geb, who became the earth, and raised up Nut, who became the sky.  Ra ruled over all. Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set and Osiris, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys.  Osiris succeeded Ra as king of the earth, helped by Isis, his sister-wife.  Set, however, hated his brother and killed him.  Isis then embalmed her husband's body with the help of the god Anubis, who thus became the god of embalming.  The powerful charms of Isis resurrected Osiris, who became king of the netherworld, the land of the dead.  Horus, who was the son of Osiris and Isis, later defeated Set in a great battle and became king of the earth.

Another Egyptian Creation Myth:

At first there was only Nun, the primal ocean of chaos that contained the beginnings of everything to come. From these waters came Ra who, by himself, gave birth to Shu and Tefnut. Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture gave birth to Geb and Nut, the earth god and the sky goddess.  And so the physical universe was created.  Men were created from Ra's tears.  They proved to be ungrateful so Ra, and a council of gods, decided they should be destroyed. Hathor was dispatched to do the job.  She was very efficient and slaughtered all but a remnant, when Ra relented and called her off.  Thus was the present world created.  Against Ra's orders, Geb and Nut married.  Ra was incensed and ordered Shu to separate them, which he did.  But Nut was already pregnant, although unable to give birth as Ra had decreed she could not give birth in any month of any year.  Thoth, the god of learning, decided to help her and gambling with the moon for extra light, was able to add five extra days to the 360-day calendar.  On those five days Nut gave birth to Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis, and Nephthys successively.  Osiris became the symbol of good, while Set became the symbol of evil.  And thus the two poles of morality were fixed once and for all.

One thing to note particularly is that in every culture for which we have extensive records, there are usually variations of the creation myth, and sometime outright competitive stories.  We can probably assume that, for the cultures we have less information on, the same phenomenon exists.  For example, see:

Yoruba Creation Myth

Vodun (Haitian evolution of Yoruba mythology) Creation Myth

and here we have the evolved remnant of what was once a very complicated folklore cycle.
Damballah (Sky-serpent loa; wise and loving father) created all the waters of the earth. The movement of his 7,000
coils, when in his serpent guise, formed hills and valleys on earth and brought forth stars and planets in the
heavens.  He shed his skin in the sunlight, 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; she shares his
function as cosmic protector and giver of blessings.

Creation of the Earth

Caption:  Animated Graphic from Lars Janssen's Viking Home Page - Beefy Viking striking a dragon with a Double Axe

Nordic myths tell how the world had been created and how everything was done. In the beginning there was the abyss
(Ginnungagapet), North of this there was Nifelheim, the world o f cold where Cold and Darkness rules. Frosty mists rose from the cold well of Hvergelmer.  In the south there was the hot Muspelheim, a place where the being Surte ruled with a flaming sword.  The mists from Hvergelmer formed the frozen stream of Elivågor which flowed in to the Ginnungagap and filled it with ice.  But at the same time flares from Muspelheim fell into the abyss and the falling drops which became the result of the mix of flares and ice formed two giant beings: A cow with the name 'Audhumbla' and a giant named 'Ymer'. Ymer got his food from the cow by means of four mouths which he used to milk the cows four nipples.  Audhumbla in turn lived on the white frost on the rocks.

Her warm breath created a man called Bure wich by some mysterious way managed to get hold of a wife (it is not described how) and they where the first of the Asa dynasty of which Oden, Vile and Ve would be the greatest.

Aztec Creation Myths

Caption:  The Plumed Serpent god

(Aztec mythology) His name means "plumed serpent". He was the god of vegetation, earth and water.
One legend says he was the god of creation, who with Tezcatlipoca, pulled the earth goddess,
Coatlicue, down from the heavens, and in the form of great serpents, they ripped her into two
pieces to form the earth and sky.

Creation of Man

Beliefs about the origin of human beings fall into three main types: (1) they have always existed on earth, (2) they did not always exist but were created in some way, and (3) they previously existed, but in another world, and had somehow to be brought to this one.

Caption:  North American Mounds of Central US

One of the most prevalent origin folktypes is the "emergence" myth, where the story posits a cave or hole as the source of entry for man.  Nanih Waiya is a flat-topped mound in the style common to most others constructed in the southeastern U.S.  It's base is oblong and covers about an acre while its peak, which rises 40 feet above the surrounding terrain, cover one-fourth of an acre. The main mound (also known as the temple mound) is located on the southeastern edge of a 10 foot high, 1.5 mile long circular wall and is about 50 yards from Nanih Waiya Creek.
Beyond the creek, by a mile or so, is a second mound called Nanih Waiya Cave which may be the source of the emergence myth.

Archeological evidence indicates that the site upon which Nanih Waiya stands had been occupied continuously for approximately 2000 years before the European invasion. After Contact the site was abandoned. The mound itself was built between 1500 and 2000 years ago, likely by the Choctaw themselves and the construction is thought to have taken 2-3 generations to complete and served as the base for a temple.
See:  Choctaw Origin Myths

A final word here:

Donna Haraway, a new media critic,  regards information technology as potentially liberating precisely because it explodes dangerous myths of origin, and thus affords some chance of escape from the histories predicated upon those myths:

".... the cyborg has no origin story in the Western sense -- a 'final' irony since the cyborg is also the awful
apocalyptic telos of the 'West's' escalating dominations of abstract individuation, an ultimate self untied at last from
all dependency, a man in space. An origin story in the 'Western,' humanist sense depends on the myth of original
unity, fullness, bliss and terror, represented by the phallic mother from whom all humans must separate, the task of
individual development and of history, the twin potent myths inscribed most powerfully for us in psychoanalysis
and Marxism. . . . The cyborg skips the step of original unity, of identification with nature in the Western sense. . . .
The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."
(Haraway 150-1)

Continue with Lecture VI.