The Dun Cow: The Cosmos

Scientists have found that the Earth was formed about 4.6 billion years ago by collisions in the giant disc-shaped cloud of material that also formed the Sun. As gravity slowly gathered this gas and dust together into clumps, it became asteroids and small early planets called planetesimals. These objects collided repeatedly and gradually got bigger, building up the planets in the Solar System. Although scientists are very close to answering the question, they still continue to search for the exact answer to how the Earth was created. With all the evidence presented, it is hard to refute from scientific theories. This becomes cumbersome to many religions because in their eyes God has always been the creator of the Earth.

Thus beginning the but the animal yet again where worried that now the man would grow lonely, so then Hactcin, with a lice made the man dream of a women. When he had woken there she was, and they were instructed to eat plants and animal. From the first man and women come all people of their tribe after. Apache spirit “Holy Boy” tried to make the sun and with help of White and Black Hactcin and Red Boy they made what daylight is to us now. Shamans claimed they controlled the sun but four days after an eclipse occurred and unable to bring the light back, White Hactcin called upon the animal and with their help they created a mountain. This mountain was climbed by White, Black Hactcin and Holy boy as well as Red boy who only saw the sun was in another earth where it shined bright. Man and women where the first to climb up the mountain and there all others come up except two, an old man and an old women. They stayed behind but told the others they had to go back one day which is why when we die we go the underworld.

In comparison to The Book of Genesis, the story of the Navajo creation also began in a dark universe. In some versions of the Navajo origin stories, there were four worlds.“The first world was black, the second blue, the third yellow, and the fourth or present world bright or glittering” (Calloway 41). However, unlike the Genesis, there was no actual “God” creating humans, animals, plants etc. “The four seasons, men and women living in harmony, and humans together with the animals and plants, the Navajos had moved from lower worlds of chaos and strife into a higher world of beauty and harmony” (Calloway 42). The Navajos Emergence was a journey of Man and Woman exploring different sub cultures. Each time, they would flee to a higher world, each being a different level of universe.

When the modern person ponders the formation of human beings, our mind automatically goes to Adam and Eve, whom were the first man and woman created by God according to the Book of Genesis. Before there was Adam and Eve, diverse cultures came up with myths about the construction of humans. These myths included: “The Song of Creation” from the Rig Veda, An African Creation Tale, From the Popol Vuh, and A Native American Creation Tale “How Man Was Created” Each one of these legends gives a diverse perspective on the creation of human beings.

In the Bible book of Genesis chapters one through eleven is the story of the creation of the natural world, human identity, human relationships, and civilization. This is a story created by God, written by Moses and lived out by everyone, believers and nonbelievers. The first eleven chapters of Genesis do not set out to prove the existence of God, as some are trying to do today. These chapters simply put Him at the center of everything. The beginning of Genesis contains the account of creation, the fall of mankind into sin, procreation leading to civilization, the flood to bring about the re-creation, and finally the culminating account of man marveling in his own effort - the Tower of Babel. All of which creates the foundation of theology and the Christian’s worldview of how God intended things to function in our world. Genesis also forms a foundation for other religious and secular morals which aid in forming a worldview. By placing God at the center of everything, He creates the moral foundational worldview for cultures around the globe. In his book, The Universe Next Door, James W. Sire describes worldview as essentially this: “A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, … about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. …the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” In the Christian faith the world was created by God in the sequence of seven days. Throughout those days he made light and darkness, water and sky; he made the animals of the water and the animals

For example they told about a man and a women in the beginning of time who lived in the sky world and one day the women was hungry and wanted some bark from the forbidden tree. Wait a second, that sound familiar, sound like the story of Adam and Eve that we know today. She fell through a hole near the tree and was caught by animals and began to build up this new area that was full of water my making land. The women had a child that she walked the lands with and helped create the land. Her daughter was then to bear twins. This is just like the story of Mary conceiving Jesus. The two twins were in constant competition trying to beat the other one one twin was born normally and the other through the armpit killing their mother. “As the twins became men full grown, they still contested with one another,” (pg 42). They created the animals, one would create a good one and the other would create one to kill the others animal therefore creating balance in the world. Just like today there is good and evil still working against each other to create a balanced

“The Iroquois Creation Story” tells the ancient myth when only two worlds existed. One, in the lower half, complete darkness filled with monsters and the other, the upper world, filled with mankind. There, in the second world, a women conceived twins. As her labor intensified she fell closer and closer to the lower, darker world. While in distress the twins were born and “entered the dark world by compulsion”. Only a few moments later the women fell to her death. As the twins grew older they possessed different minds. One was the good mind and the other was the bad mind. The good mind used the parent for his initial creations. Around the head, an orb was created to “bestow light to the new world”, now known as the sun. Another orb was placed around the body which was “inferior” to the light, now known as the moon. He also created spots of lights to connect the day and night which are now know as stars. All of these were created to help “regulate” the days, nights, season, years, etc.”. The good mind continued his creations by creating animals, oceans, mountains, insects and mankind.

In the beginning there were two worlds. The lower world, and the upper world. Everything existed in total darkness. The upper world was to hold mankind, and the lower world was where all of the monsters lived. A woman gave birth too twins. One twin was the good mind and the other was the evil mind. The good mind

2: 19, it says, “Now the Lord had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and birds of

Celebrated on October 31st, the festival of Halloween (also known as Samhain) includes dressing in costume, trick or treating, and decorating. Tracing back in history Halloween is considered to be one of America’s oldest holidays, and is still celebrated today. Halloween is believed to come from Celtic rituals. Celtics believed the cosmological myth of Saman (Lord of the Dead). Saman would call on the souls of the people that passed away that year to take them to the afterlife or underworld; the Celtic underworld identifies with the Christian Hell. In order for the spirits to believe they were on their own, the living would wear costumes and mask their identities, along with fairies, witches and demons. This functions as a cosmological myth because it provides a creation story and framework in which this universe occupies and includes many other realms of existence. Another tradition that followed was to give food to the Saman, to persuade him to be more tolerant while he judged the dead ancestors of the living, which he would chose to take to the underworld. In this essay I will further investigate what the origins of Halloween consist of and how it offers reasoning for trick-or-treating. Also I will examine how trick-or-treating, which is still continued today, is connected to ancient Celtic festivals.

Just as there existed beings outside of creation in the Enuma Elish, the Hebrew God was present prior to the formation of the world. As the universe becomes defined in the following stages, the development described in each of the stories show a resemblance in events and the order in which they occurred. It is important to note that light existed, in both stories, independent of celestial bodies. Next, in same order, the sky and ground are created, followed by “luminaries” or the sun, moon and stars. The fact that the sequence of the creation stories is nearly identical “can hardly be accidental” according to some scholars. Subsequently, man is created with elements of divinity, given the task “of working the soil”. At the conclusion of each creation story, the deities rest from their work. While it is necessary to refrain from “exaggerating the influence” found in these similarities, it is equally essential to remain open to the understanding that these works emerged “within a similar conceptual world”.

But, perhaps one may argue that’s at its core the Iroquois Creation Story seeks not to account for the waged between good and evil for authority, but rather that the universe must exists with both, seeing that they can and often do exists within each other. Even before the creation of the world that it is believed mankind exists on today, there was a presence of the good and evils of the world. The myth begins with the existence of two worlds, an Upper World, sustaining the life of mankind, or more accurately godly beings, and the world below populated by monsters and influenced by darkness. The tension is seen almost immediately. One can assume that the inhabitants of the Upper World, the gods in sorts, were good and clearly the monsters below were evil, as implied by their existence in the shadows and darkness.

Like in this world there was a main creator, the all-powerful person in the sky that created everything and now looks down upon his or her creation with pride. Here, the all-powerful one is called different names: God, Brahman, and Chaos are only some examples. The name may be different but the idea is the same, the notion that there was nothing then the powerful one made earth and sky and so on. In Oz, the main cosmic force is named Lurline, and is paired with her daughter Ozma to make the only religion. The most evident example of how Lurline is Oz’s God is in the holiday Lurlinmas, sound familiar? Lurline is the main cosmic force, but there was still a lot that was unknown about her, which resulted in different stories that were believed by some and rejected by others. One of the stories, which in modern Oz is considered the same as the universe’s Greek mythology, is the origin of Animals. In the legend, Lurline really had to urinate and being as large as she was the outcome was a river. The Animals were created because “When Lurline let loose, the animals thought the raging stream was a flood, sent to drown their fresh new world, and they despaired of their existence. In a panic they flung themselves into the torrent and attempted to swim through Lurline’s urine. Those who became intimidated and turned back remained animals, beasts of burden, slaughtered for flesh, hunted for fun, counted

In the beginning, the world was all water. Above the water, there was a great ivory cloud, full of people and animals. The people used the animals as slaves and told them what to do. The animals would have to clean, cook and work for the humans. One day a Nene, named Faddei, refused to work for the humans. That day the humans battered Faddei for not working, later he snuck out and told all the animals to meet him under the willow tree. That night at the willow tree he and the other animals formed a coalition against the humans. The animals went on strike against the humans. Later, the humans declared war on the animals. The animals surrounded the humans and started to push them off the cloud one by one. As the humans fell the fish down below