Creation Myths
I have always loved creation myths. When I was eight, I was reading myths and even then, I was amazed that so many people believed much of the same thing!
It’s funny how many creation myths there are and yet they all seem to be the same retelling of a basic story over and over again. It is the story of man, how he came to be, and how he keeps alive.
Most creation myths have three aspects to them. The first one would be how the world that supports man has come to be. For instance, this category would include the sun, moon, ocean, rain, gods, and anything that man survives on. The next aspect would be how independence came. Man has always yearned to be free, and in every creation myth there is some aspect on how freedom has come about.
The third aspect is how life comes to be. If you don’t know much about the society they had, all you have to do is see how they thought life was created to learn a lot about them. For instance, in the Greek creation story it had lots of politics, rivalries, and conflicts between many gods. So you can correctly assume that the Greeks interacted with many cultures and consequentially had some conflicts with these cultures.
I would like to start with talking a little about the Norse creation myth. The Norsemen lived way up in parts of Scandinavia in the frozen tundra, and their mythology has some of the oddest and most tragic tales ever.
Now before I begin, it should be noted that almost all creation myths start out the same way, starting with nothing. With that nothing, a being emerges that can make life.
Thus, I shall start with the void.
Norse Creation Myth
At first there was the void. And in this void, there were two parts. One was the fiery south, the other was the foggy and icy north. And where these parts converged, life was made. Two figures came out, a cow named Audhumla, and a giant named Ymir.
Now both of these beings created life, but each in different ways. Ymir created frost giants through the sweat of his armpit while Audhumla created gods through her incessant licking of the salt. The first god formed was Buri. Soon after, he had grandsons, Vili, Ve, and Odin, who eventually became the king of the gods.
Now after a while, Odin and his brothers began to long to be free. The only thing standing in their way was Ymir. They killed him, and his blood spilled out, killing all frost giants except for two.
Now Odin and his brothers were not wasteful. They took Ymir’s corpse and put it in the middle of the void, creating the earth and sky from it. Later they found two logs and created the first humans from it.
Many mythologies start this way, the first two figures of life being a female and a male, symbolizing the mother and father. Admittedly, this Norse Myth is a little strange in that the two first figures don’t love each other. After all, how can a cow and a giant ever get together?
But even with that obvious difference, the cow and Ymir still take after the typical mother and father roles. The mother is revered and is the only one who is capable of making desirable offspring. The father is less revered and is later killed by the mother’s offspring.
You’ll find that whenever you have two figures like this come up in mythology, the father figure is thrown away once the sons have grown up. For example, in Greek mythology, Uranus and Gaea love each other. They are the mother and father figures. Later Uranus gets overthrown, but Gaea is still loved and revered.
In almost every Norse creation myth I looked at, I found these words trying to describe Odin and his brothers killing the giant; “For some reason the sons of Bor decided to kill poor Ymir.” And that was it.
Now I realized there had to be something more to this than just having Odin and his brothers kill this giant. There had to be a reason. And there is. It is the first act of independence. To become truly free, thus become “men” they had to kill Ymir first. They had to throw away all the things they once knew, and create a life for themselves, without this father figure. But they did not kill in vain. Through Ymir’s death, life was able to exist.
You’ll notice that it was very hard to get life to exist. Odin and his brothers had to gain independence, and use their resources wisely (Ymir’s corpse), and then (although this is not mentioned in the myth) they had to watch out for themselves.
Thus it was for the Norsemen. Their entire life was a struggle to survive in the cold they lived in and to do that, they had to gain independence, use their resources wisely, and watch out very carefully.
Oh, and for those who are wondering about the armpit, because of the cold the armpit would be important to them. It is one of the warmest places on your body. The Norsemen would recognize it, and for that they would put it in esteem.
Now let’s go to a warmer place, a place in New Zealand. Over there, there were warm temperatures, huge forests, long fields, oceans, and mountains, a place full of beauty. It was here the Maori lived. Here is their creation myth.
Maori Creation Myth
At first there was nothing. And then there were two beings, one being the sky, and the other the earth. As soon as they saw each other, they embraced and made love. Finally they created 70 sons.
Now these sons were trapped in their parent’s embrace, and they were upset at this. There was no light, they were stuck in the dark, and they were squeezed between their parents. Finally they had enough. After talking amongst themselves, they decided that they had to separate their parents.
Many sons tried at first. None of them were able to succeed, not even the god of war or the god of seas. Not until the god of life came up. With his enormous strength, he strained to separate his parents. While he was doing so, his parents made him go through many guilt trips. “Why do you wish to destroy our love?” they asked him. But finally he succeeded, and light covered the earth, which soon gave way to life.
This is a very common myth in many cultures, including Hawaiian, several Native American tribes, and Egyptian, yet the Maori never met all these people. It’s amazing how similar these myths are!
In all these mythologies, the independence is clear. Life can only exist in when they can live without the constraints of their parents.
But there is something very special about the Maori myth, which is rather unique to itself. Both in Hawaiian and Egyptian myths, someone who isn’t really connected to them lifts them apart with relative ease. In this myth, hardly anyone can separate these lovers, not even the god of war! Until the god of life comes around, who happens to be the god of man, can these two be seperated.
I think this myth is especially important and is a poignant reminder that it is not seas, nor war, that can accomplish anything. Only through the determination of man can anything ever be achieved.
This also tells about the Maori culture. The Maori were loners, often wandering around, creating lives for themselves. As loners, being their own man would be very important to them, and thus it is fitting that the creation myth is about the god of man overcoming all.
Well, the Maori almost got it right. But they forgot one simple fact: it was not just the earth and sky that were compacted. It was the whole universe. But another myth explains that. Let us go into modern times.
The Big Bang – Modern Creation Myth
At first there was a ball of tightly compressed matter and energy, no bigger than a millimeter, just waiting to explode. And it did. In an explosion that scientists believe to be no bigger than a sugar bag exploding, the universe first formed.
Things happened very quickly after that. Within one second, photons were formed and they streamed out, creating light and other various forms of radiation. Within three minutes, protons, neutrons, and electrons had formed, and created isotopes, Hydrogen, Helium, and other light elements.
Finally, after 330,000 years it had cooled down enough so Hydrogen atoms were able to form into stars. Now life could be created.
4.6 million years ago our sun came into being. 4.5 million years ago Earth formed. Finally 3.5 million years ago, the first life began to form on Earth.
I remember when I was first looking through creation myths a long time ago. Right in the middle of this book I was reading was in big letters, “The Big Bang.” I remember laughing, wondering how this could ever be considered as a mythology.
I was not alone. This is not considered a mythology by most. There are no gods, no really mystical things, and it seems too scientific to hold any mystery.
At first glance anyways.
You see, scientists have only come up with what happened 10 seconds after the big bang. Nobody really knows what happened before the big bang, indeed, we can’t calculate what happened as the big bang happened! So, like all mythologies before this, we are indeed at wonder as to what happened before. But even without that aspect, this is still a mythology since it follows the three guidelines. This myth explains how light, matter, our sun, and earth came into being, and how all these things create life for us.
Indeed, our new “religion” called science certainly reveals a startling picture of our society. For one we are not going to put up with traditional views on how we were created. We want to be absolutely certain. So we spend time trying to find out the truth. And, in a way, our search for the truth is our independence. Only until we find out the truth can we really be free.
Mythology comes from Greek word mythos, which means “final word.” Although it seems silly for us now, the Norsemen really did believe their gods were descendents of a cow who liked salt. For us, our final word is The Big Bang. In a couple thousand years, our ancestors might look at this as foolishness, the same way we view the Maori and Norse myths. But you can be sure that they will look at our myths with as much passion as we do of older ancient stories.
And you may be absolutely positive that they, though they might not guess it, will be creating their own rich mythology.