Compare And Contrast Native American Creation Myths

Have you ever wonder how the world was created from another culture’s perspective? Native Americans used creation myths to explained to their people how the world was developed overtime. Creation myths are a big part of the Native American culture. they have been passed down from generation to generation. In the creation myths, harmony with nature, rituals, and strong social values are shown in each myths. The purpose of having strong social value in these myths is to teach younger Native Americans valuable lesson if they ever do something bad. These myths reveals how the rituals were created and their intentions for doing it. Creation myths has harmony with nature in it to show a very close kinship between them

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

“Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.-Native American proverb” This is a Native American proverb that shows how important storytelling and stories are to the Native Americans and their culture. Storytelling was a big way of teaching their lifestyle to their younger generation. Storytelling is very important to the Native American culture because it helps explain their way of life, faith, and helps teach life lessons to the younger generation.

The two stories both pit the idea of good against evil to explain the contrasting mechanisms of

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

There’s tons of debate between which creation story is true. Some people say that the Adam and Eve creation story is true. Others truly think the Native American one is correct. But nobody alive today, has any idea which one is true, probably no one ever will. However, both Native American and Creation stories are similar in many ways. Both stories are different also.

“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.

Many Native Americans tell stories of the creation of earth that explain how they came to be before the Europeans entered North America. Creation myths vary among all cultures; however, they all have one thing in common; heaven and earth. One of the most popular creation myths was the Iroquois creation myth. The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee meaning “People of the Longhouse” (Iroquois Indian Museum, n.d.) consists of six Indian nations that include the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora tribes. In the beginning, there was a belief that before the creation of earth, there were two realms, the sky, and the lower world that consisted of water and water creatures. From the sky, a young woman named the Sky Woman was

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

Almost every culture on earth has a creation myth. Most if not all of these myths borrow from the core theme of a God-centered creation as contained in the book of Genesis chapter one. According to Van Over (11), a good number of these creation stories show a similarity in the point of their origin. Rumor has it that some of these myths have emanated from actual historical occurrences or events. All creation myths emerge from one ancient source and only diverge when it comes to their timing and the surrounding cultural circumstances. The variations in the myths come as a result of the differences in time and cultural circumstances. Aside from the two causes of variation, in general all creation myths show a basic outline and they also share some basic elements.

Eternal inflation is an alternative theory of creation that is a modification of the Big Bang Theory. The earliest universe was expanding matter, and particles that were next to each other would routinely be sent whizzing away to the farthest reaches of their cosmological horizons. It is no longer like that, however, as the inflation stopped. The theory of eternal inflation is that the expansion did not stop all at once. Rather, little bubbles of space randomly stopped inflating, or fell onto trajectories that led to the end of their inflation. And, since the expansion is rapid, the inflating space creates more space than the bubbles that stop inflating lose -- so inflation never ends. The result is an ever-expanding multiverse, which means not only is Earth not the center of the universe but our universe isn’t the center of the universe.

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

Origin myths deliver stories explaining how the world, humans or objects came to existence. Describing where the nation comes from, they are very important to the culture of given region. Therefore, each nation developed its own stories and beliefs; however, there are many similarities between myths of various religions and cultures. A good example would be Native American stories about origin and their resemblance to Greek mythology or to the Bible. Similarities can be seen in different spheres such as creation of humankind or even in the story about flood.

The Iroquois creation story there exists two planes the Nothing and the Great Blue. In the Great Blue there lived a woman who dreamed dreams has a dream about a tree that brings the light, but the blossoms on the tree blocked the light and this frightened her. When she awoke she begs the men of her village to cut down the tree, but not understanding the men dig around of the tree to allow more light to shine through. The tree fell through the hole the men dug and left only darkness. The men blamed the dreamer of dreams for there being no more light and the men grabbed her and threw her through the hole where the tree used to be. As the woman fell a hawk caught her and slowed her fall. The hawk unable to carry her forever called to the other creatures to help find solid land for the woman to live upon. Unable to find dry land the animals dove into the depths and came up with mud which they began to pile on the back of a gigantic turtle. The animals became excite by their work and made the entire Earth. Till this day the Earth

Throughout history, and all over the world, mythology has been developed as a way of explaining the unknown and coping with one’s existence. Why does the sun shine? Well, seemingly, to generations past, something is controlling the universe, so there must be a god in charge of the sun and many other natural phenomenon. During the creation of Native American myths, “there was much in the way of free-range food, but hunting wasn't as easy as getting up in the morning, taking a stroll and shooting a few passing bison with your bow” (Godchecker). Times were tough, “even Plains societies who lived off the prolific buffalo fell under the threat of starvation at times” (Godchecker). Finally, “when herds were found, the people were grateful and