Iroquois Creation Myths Similarities

A creation myth explains what each culture believes about the creation of the world and how people first entered into it. The two creation myths “African Bushmen Creation Myth” and “Iroquois Creation Myth” both explain the creation of Earth as well as their ideas of how people came to be. While the two creation myths have many similarities, differences may lie in the characters, personalities, setting, and plot. Creation myths have many similarities because many cultures develop with the same basic elements. Three comparisons from the creation myths “African Bushmen Creation Myth” and “Iroquois Creation Myth” caught my attention in a very special way. In both myths people did not start out living on Earth. The setting is very important in creation myths because it gives the reader a mental picture of the world. Kaang the Great Mater and Lord of All Life from the African Bushmen myth and Sapling the Sky Women’s son from Iroquois myth both did great things for the world. Kaang instructed people and animals to live together peacefully, he dug a deep hole down to where the people and animals lived to help them climb out of the hole and into the new world. On the other

Before the two myths discovered Earth they lived in two complete opposite settings. In the African Bushmen myth humans and animals lived under the Earth and in Iroquois myth people lived in an island, which floated in the sky. Not only did the two myths take place in different settings, but the characters are extremely different. In the African Bushmen myth they only have one god named Kaang, while the other myth had goddess and several gods Sky Women, her husband, Sky Women’s two twins Sapling, and Flint. In Iroquois myth some animals already existed on Earth before people came, while no animals lived no Earth in the African Bushmen myth, and instead lived under the Earth with