The Importance Of Trickster Stories

In the literal sense, God made the heavens and the earth. Before God spoke, the earth did not exist, it was empty and formless. He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. This is the first day of the creation of the world.

The Lord God created man in his own image. He used the dust from the ground and molded it to create the first ever human, Adam. The

“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, it all started with the gods and goddesses Cronus (God of the Sky) and Rhea (Goddess of the Earth). They met and got married. While they were married they produced six offspring. These offspring would turn out to be some of the most famous in mythology. The offspring consisted

Trickster tales have been an important part of the Native American culture for hundreds of years. Trickster tales are an oral storytelling tradition and are continuously passed down from generation to generation of Native American Indians. American Indians enjoy listening and telling trickster tales because it is a fun and interesting way to tell a story with a valuable lesson. In many tales, the trickster has a name associated with an animal, and a majority of listeners assume they are animals; however, in some tales, characteristics may appear more human-like. Trickster tales allow Native American cultures to use their imagination and thoroughly understand the moral lessons presented in the tales, and therefore may help with one’s

In the beginning of the myth, the gods Plumed Serpent and Hurricane created the first plant life and the mountains on Earth. As time went by, the gods felt there was something missing because there was no noise on the planet. They then created animals to live in the forests. Once the animals were created, the gods had the intention of having the animals speak. Without language, the animals could not worship the gods properly. This left the gods unsatisfied. With this, the gods decided to create humans. The humans would be able to worship the gods and the animals would stay in the forests to serve the needs of man.

Gen (2) revealed the formation of mankind from the dust of the ground Adam was made to take care of the land. Then God thought man should not be alone and form Eve from one of Adams Rib first to help him take care of the living creatures take care of the earth and obey the laws that were given to them, by being fruitful and multiple the earth as well as taking care everything on earth. (Gen 2)

In Eastern Algonquian religion they believed that there was a spiritual world that interacted constantly with the physical world.

Aboriginal spirituality has it that the spirits of unborn children (jilmas) are present in the land, usually in sacred waterholes. By dreaming, the child 's father brings its spirit into the mother 's body. Children are not born from the physical joining of the parents, but from the spiritual joining of both the parents and the land. From this, we can see that Aboriginals attribute their very existence to the land.

Key aspects of Indigenous knowledge include: monism, holism, relations, reciprocity, and inner/outer space (Frideres). The monist aspect of Indigenous ways of knowing suggests that there is no division between mind and matter. All animate and inanimate things have life spirit, and hence hold knowledge. Indigenous knowledge is holistic as it identifies cultural context as a central influence on knowledge. In this way, Indigenous ways of knowing are subjective. Relationships between all things on earth are a key component of Indigenous thought. This ties into the principle of reciprocity, which highlights the importance of actions and reactions between all things. Indigenous peoples believe they are not only in a reciprocal relationship with living and non-living things, but that they are responsible to them. When one comes about a certain piece of knowledge, one is transformed by it and therefore have a responsibility to act in light of that knowledge and share it in a conscientious manner. Finally, Indigenous knowledge is situated in the ‘inner space,’ as it is inherently colored by the reality that exists in each individual. Reality is bound by cultural and social contexts. In this way, Indigenous knowledge recognizes a multitude of realities that are interconnected

The Inuit are very spiritual people and they do not believe in a lot of the same things we do. They believe in something called Animism, all living and nonliving things have a spirit. When someone or something dies they believe that things spirit goes to the spiritual world. They only people powerful enough to talk or communicate with these spirits are religious leaders, Shamans or “Angakoks”. The way these religious leader speak with them is through dances or charms. They wear masks and clothes of an animal because they believe it helps them to communicate with them better. Not all spirits are good ones, when the weather was bad or there was an illness going around they believed it to be a displeased spirit, but the Inuit used guidelines to try to make the spirit happy. There was five rules that need to be followed in order to please the spirits, 1) women are not allowed to sew caribou skins on the inside of there igloo on sea ice in the winter. 2) Inuit can not eat sea mammal and land mammal at the same meal. 3) A knife used to kill whales had to wrapped in sealskin, not caribou skin. 4) After killing a seal melted snow had to dripped into its mouth to quench the spirit's thirst. 5) The Inuit saved the bladder of the hunted because they believed that’s where the spirit was found inside. One of the most important spirits was Sedna, The Goddess of the Sea. She provided them with food from the sea, which made the Inuit most happy.

In Genesis, the first book of The Bible the Christian and Jewish creation story is told. God spoke and his Word was done. He made the heavens and the earth. He made light and drove away the dark. On the earth he created the waters and lands and man and beast.

The Drama of Scripture written by Bartholomew and Goheen takes the reader on a journey through the entire Bible in six short “acts.” The first Act discusses creation and the establishment of God’s Kingdom. In the beginning was complete darkness. Then, God created light and divided the heavens and the earth. He then split the waters and the seas, creating dry ground on which the rest of creation could walk. He proceeded to make plants and flowers and the sun, moon, and stars. He created days and seasons and animals of all shapes and sizes. And then, to add the finishing touch, God created men and women, male and female, He created them. The book states that “the Genesis story is given so that we might have a true understanding of the world in which we live, its divine author, and our own place in it” (Bartholomew, 29). Genesis 1-3, the story of Creation, is prevalent because it introduces the author of creation, humanity, and the creation upon which humanity’s drama unfolds.

the coyote relies on his own wits. The coyote is always looking for the short

How were human beings created? How has life come to be? How was the earth created? These are some very important questions that humans have tried to answer for ages. In an attempt to answer these questions, different cultures around the world developed different beliefs. Some believe that they are many gods watching over them, while others believe that there is only one supreme God. Some believe that humans were created by an explosion while others believed that a God or gods created them. Today, I will be analyzing two different creation stories, Genesis, the Christian creation story and “The Creation and Emergence” story by the Jicarilla Apaches. While some differences between the two are evident, the similarities are noticeable.