Comparing Manitou And The Hawaiian Creation Myth

The Hawaiian creation story tells us that long ago the world started off in total darkness, and out of the darkness two gods were born, Kumulipo and Po’ele. Kumulipo means “The Essence of Darkness” and Po’ele whose name means “Darkness Itself” These two created all the creatures of total darkness like the shellfish that live at the bottom of the ocean. These creatures made the darkness a little lighter and with every generation below Kumulipo and Po’ele the new creatures made the darkness a little lighter until the last descendants made humans that were dark but with every generation of humans they got lighter until they got the color they are now.

The most popular creation myth, in present day is the “one god” myth. It existed yet, had a brief life and it was in the minority. Here Ptah was the closest thing to monotheism that the ancients had. This is a popular theme in Memphite theology, but it was present in parts of Egypt. Ptah supposedly had all that is manifest in thought and then created them with his Word (Baines, 1991). It is also said that the “one god” is and the other god names are used to personify an extension of the “one god” (Ancient Egyptian Religion pg. 2 and 3). Ptah creates the Ennead with thought and word. This monotheism was not very widespread and it did not last long.

The two myths shows just how these native tribes were created, and who they are. In the myth “The Walam Olum” it tells about who they are. They are what is called “manitos” and appear to be human, “anew spoke the great manito, a manito to manitos.” It shows that their god created them and that they are manitos. The second story “The World on Turtles Back” also shows it. “Man was made of clay, like pottery, and baked in the fire...” It shows that they are humans made from clay that these two brothers made because they were given special powers. This is how both Native

The Hebrew and Babylonian myths are two different versions of how the earth was created. Even though there are perspectives of how the world was created they do have some similarities. The point of the two views intertwine with each other because they are consistent with the events.

All three creations myths begin similarily with the divine being or spirit being in a void. Written in Genesis 1:2, as well as the Enuma Elish with Tiamat, goddess of primeval chaos and bearer of sky and earth, and Aspu, god of water, along with Ahura Mazada from the Avesta. Notice the first three words in both the Old Testament and the Avesta, "In the beginning."

These stories continue to parallel as the gods multiply and reproduce to create more gods or demigods. Each pair of founding gods had a male figure as representing the sun or sky and the female figure representing the Earth. This suggests that both civilizations believed that the male was the dominant figure. The difference lies, however, in the way the earth was actually created and how the populations were dispersed. Another major difference was that the Maori believe that a woman was created first, while the Hopi believe that multiple humans were created all at once. Another strong difference, was that the Hopi believed that the woman was created first. These two groups of people are separated by thousands of years and thousands of miles. The Hopi traditional theory that said that the first humans were lead to the surface of the Earth from the Underworld via the bottom of the Colorado River were likely influenced by their location. Seeing this potential passage to another world may have lead the Hopi to believe that is where they had to have come from. They had no experience or recollection of traveling across the globe since they are said to have been in the same spot for

Every culture has its own past belief on how everything was created; Gods, lands, plants, animals, creatures, and humans all have a unique story to be told throughout the ages. But it is plain to see there is some overlap between ideas on how everything was made. Take the Greek Mythology, the most popular and well known type of mythos, has connections to other cultures like Nordic and Native American. But of course, each story has their own twist or other idea to it, as well.

The first story is The Enuma elish, and it was the Babylonian creation myth. In the beginning, there were two gods, Apsu was the ruler of the sweet waters, and Tiamat was the rulers of the salt waters. After a few generations of gods, Ea was born from Anu and Nintu. Ea was stronger than his father and his grandfather, so he became the god of the earth. After a while, the younger gods were starting to become annoying to the older gods, because they were being to rowdy. Apsu’s idea to stop their behavior was to destroy all the younger gods, and once the younger gods heard the news they became very

Creation Myths, they are very interesting in many different ways. If you were to look for similarities and differences you would find hundreds, but you would never find the exact same one. The reason for no identical creation myths is because everyone has their own opinions. Concerning creation myths though, there are three main motifs that I can see: the idea of a great flood, the idea of the younger generation taking over the old, and the idea of humans being made of organic materials. Were they all talking to each other across oceans?

Throughout the plot of these four creation stories, it is visible that each culture has varying beliefs on how land was developed. For example, Cherokee Indians conclude that land was created by a water beetle who sculpted soft mud, where as Hawaiians believe that land emerged from the slime in the ocean. Both Europeans and West Africans teach that a supreme being used his or her powers to form land. In Genesis, God was responsible for the land, whereas in the Golden Chain story, a creature called Obatala was deemed accountable for creating the land. One similarity betweens these stories is that they all begin in an almost identical setting. In every myth except for

One parallel between Greek and Egyptian creation stories is that they both begin with a God or Gods being created from the universe. The creation of

One reason that both Greek and Genesis creation stories are different is because the Gods in both stories create the universe in different ways. For example, “one half of the shell rose into the air and became the sky and the other became the earth.”(Greek) another example is, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This shows that both stories are different because the earth was created in different way in both stories. Another difference that both creation stories have is that they both have different amounts of time in which they created the earth. For example, “with the wing she laid a golden egg and for ages she sat upon the egg.”(Greek) another example is “God saw all that he made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.” This shows that both creation stories are different because it took ages to create the world in the Greek creation story, but in Genesis it only took 7 days to make the

The birth and origination of man in both myths have been told differently. In the Greek story, before man was born, violent battles waged, “… Which left hardly a living creature on earth.” (Sacred Texts of the World: A Universal Anthology) The Gods became caught in a power struggle and after the vicious war between Zeus and Typhon, Zeus became the ruler and “… Having been cleared of all of the monsters, the world was ready for mankind.” (Sacred Texts of the World: A Universal Anthology) Epimetheus was in charge of giving animals good qualities, but once he started making man he ran out.

Myths – as they are known to most of the world – give insight into the pasts of various countries and religions as the people saw them. They have been used to explain phenomenons in nature or describe the tales of courageous and important men and women throughout history. Creation myths in particular define how the Earth itself was created, along with the universe, heavens, hell, people, and creatures that exist today. Genesis of Christian mythology, for instance, tells the story of how the single deity God spoke and formed everything from day and night to man and woman. Various African creation myths, such as with the Yoruba, explain the creation of the Earth through at least a couple gods working together and all life

Throughout history many civilizations and cultures have had their own ways of explaining the world and its creation. Each of these civilizations has created unique descriptions and accounts of such events. However, when comparing them to each other, are they really different? Look at the ancient Greco - Roman creation myths as told by Hesiod in his Theogony and Works and Days and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, when compared to the creation myths as seen in the Old Testament’s book of Genesis they may not be as different as one would think. Taking a more in-depth look at both Genesis and Hesiod’s and Ovid’s work more closely, the reader can see that on multiple occasions the myths have almost identical similarities which reflect their views in