Similarities Between West African And Cherokee Creation Stories

All different cultures have their own creation stories, mostly all containing the elements of a Higher Power of some sort, how the power created the world, and the creation a human man. The Christian belief in the Genesis story has these key elements , as does the Iroquois creation myth, The World on the Turtle's Back. Although these two creation stories share similarities, they also have some stark contrasts. These contrasts include, how the two cultures of the Native American Iroquois tribe and then Christians view life and aspects of good and evil, the way each culture views nature and the impact that has on their culture, and finally the way the Christian God and the Iroquois gods are portrayed to

When the British landed in the New World, they came across a people they had to learn from. These people were the Native Americans. In order to over come their differences, the British had to learn about the Native American culture. Three stories recorded the beliefs about how the world came to be. The Sky Tree and How the World was Made were stories told my the Native Americans, while the British used The Book of "Genesis" to tell how the world was created. All three stories have there differences and similarities.

At the beginning of the story about the creation is different: in Christian story, the first day God created the heavens and the earth. God created the world in seven days, and the world has day time, night time, plants, trees, sky, seas, lands, water, birds, wild animals, foods, the man ? Adam, and his wife ? Eve. On the other hand, in Iroquois, that has two worlds in ancients already ? the lower world was in great darkness and humankind inhabited the upper

The Indian myth "Old Man and Old Woman" begins, "Long, long ago, there were only two persons in the world: Old Man and Old Woman" (538). In the beginning of Christian creation story, the two characters, Adam and Eve, are also the only two people in the world. The characteristic that I found that shows a difference between the openings of the stories is the presence of God in

The stories of the creation will always be topics of controversy, however it helps when there is light shed upon similarities and differences of them so people will be presented with information they need in order to make their own decision. I do understand that the two stories are similar in different ways, however I feel that it is the differences that really highlight the importance of each one based on the cultures that they originate

There are quite a few similarities between the Greeks stories of creation and the Cherokee. In both stories, before anything could be created, water had been everywhere, and surrounded in darkness. It was void-like and wild, primitive almost. Another similarity

In summary, the principle point of comparison between these creation stories is intrinsically related to the engendering of the heavens and earth. It is not coincidental that in each myth, an egg was responsible for rendering of both of these places. As noted above, there are other religious similarities between India and China other than their creation myths for the world. This latter similarity, however, is fairly important because it also adheres to the universal motif of a great father who is responsible for the making of both heaven and

Many years ago you were told many creation stories that had you thinking or wording. Even though the Chinese creation story and the Greek creation story came from two different cultures, they share some archetypal similarities but also some differences. For example how humans were supposed to look like, how earth was created, and also where all existed. Although there was many similar archetypal there is also some differences for example humans were created to worship god made, humans beaning made with particles, and what was earth before land was made.

Understanding the Tsalagi or Cherokee society with the responsibilities each gender plays, one must first start from the beginning. Inspired from the traditions, the creation stories of the Cherokee or Tsalagi people, one can plainly see how each gender had their role within the matrilineal based tribe. “Our base for traditions and culture are taken from the stories passed down.” (Hiseley) The Cherokee tell various creation stories, usually depicted by the female sun. The Cherokee legend of Sky Woman, creation of the world came into being when she fell out of heaven or Galunlati onto a turtles back. After all was ready for Sky Woman, who landed on Turtle’s back, immediately from her body produced corn,

Often a topic of debate, there are several different takes on the creation story existent in literature. Dependent on one’s religion, different beliefs about how the world we live in was created may arise. Looking deeper into the literature, one will realize there are also many similarities between creation stories. Based on the strong possibility that Genesis was influenced by the Enuma Elish, there are similarities that stem from the fact that they both describe the creation of a new world as well as differences in their interpretations and approaches to creationism.

African and Native American religions both share the polytheistic trait, meaning that both worship multiple god, goddesses, ancestors and other deities. The African and Native American religions share more common traits than they have differences. A common belief is that the High God is the creator whom is not used or appealed to on a regular use. Hopfe states that “The High God is appealed to rarely, perhaps only in an extreme emergency called upon on rare occasions or emergencies, and is seldom mentioned in religious conversation” (Hopfe pg 30). This pretty much goes for both religions when it comes to the High God. Another similar trait would be how these two religions High God is not always the same among the many different diverse groups

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

The year is 1493 in our beautiful natural land. I’m Catoi, daughter of the chief

When most western people think about Native American or African religions there is a certain stigma that comes with the topic. This is in part because there is a lot of misinformation in the world about Native American and African religions. When most westerners think of African religions they think of voodoo and black magic. Likewise, the view of Native American religions is still looked at through the lens of the pilgrims who wrote about Native Americans as being savages and less than human. These stereotypes were all formed from a lack of accurate information. African and Native American religions are very similar. It is difficult to find a lot of accurate information on African and Native American indigenous religions because of the lack of written history but there is a lot of oral history that has been passed down from generation to generation. From this information, it is clear that Native American and African religions have many more similarities than they do differences. Three of these similarities will be discussed in this paper. The first topic of discussion is the similarity between African and Native American people when it comes to their perception of the spirit world. Following this topic are the similarities between Native American and African views on the afterlife and finally, the diversity of beliefs within African and Native American religions.

In both creation stories, their creation of earth is a lot different, but with some similarity. For example in the West African story life did exist just not on earth but in the sky with vast water below it. While in the Chinese story, the entire universe was contained in an egg shaped cloud. For how earth was created the Chinese said “deep within the