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The Creation Myth In The Way To Rainy Mountain

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The creation myth found in The Way to Rainy Mountain fulfills the characteristics described on page 33. This myth describes how the universe and life began. For example, “it (tree) began to rise into the air …the seven sisters were borne into the sky, and they became the stars of the Big Dipper” (55). Secondly, The Way to Rainy Mountain creation myth explains the workings of the natural world. By way of illustration, the seven sisters came to the stump of a tree while being chased by a bear, whose goal was to kill them. When they got to the stump, the tree bade they climb upon it, which in fact saved them. Therefore, the bear represents the aggressiveness of humans and animals and how they kill others, while the tree represents life and safety. This creation myth also supports and validates social customs and values. For example, the bear (boy) signifies the dominance and violence of men. One example of the violence of the bear is, “the bear came to kill them…it scored the bark …show more content…

In the story “The World on the Turtle’s Back”, men were characterized as people pleasers, cautious, and afraid. Men did not grasp their typical leadership role in the family. On the other hand, The Way to Rainy Mountain described men as dominant, aggressive, and violent. Possibly taking the leadership role to an extreme. These characteristics were clearly demonstrated in these stories. For example, the Iroquois’ creation myth states the man did not want to dig roots from the Great Tree because, “he didn’t like the idea…he knew it was wrong…he gave in… and he was terrified” (34). Whereas, the man (bear) in The way to Rainy Mountain showed aggressiveness. For example, “the bear (brother) came to kill them (the sisters)…it reared against the tree and scored the bark” (55). The men’s roles proved to be far apart in characteristics and behavior within the two creation

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Hello, everybody. After reading all the assigned stories and viewing the lecture, I gained a strong interest for The Iroquois Creation Story. I was quite drawn to one of the beliefs over the piece once it was mentioned in the lecture because I shared the same thought while reading the narrative. Numerous individuals find it odd that Enigorio is said to be the good twin in the story while Enigonhahetgea is said to be the evil twin. The peculiarity seen in this aspect of the story originated because the readers of the tale learn that the “evil” twin attempts to prevent the human beings from eating the animals, which may be seen as a good deed.

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The most important way to think about myths is that they are symbolic stories that attempt to answer difficult human questions about the universe. For instance, where did we and the world come from? And what is the meaning of life?. “We all want to know where we came from, but because our earliest beginnings are lost in the mists of prehistory, we have created myths about our forefathers that are not historical but help to explain current attitudes about our environment, neighbors and customs” (6). Myth functions as a guidance that explains everything that we come into contact with in the universe.

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conditions for creations; common motifs in creations myths Have you ever wondered how someone 1,000 miles away can have have the same ideology concerning creation as someone else even though they have no way of even hoping for contact, let alone conversation fruitful enough to spark an exchange of ideas? many myths share many similar ideas such as: humans being created from clay, humans being destroyed by the gods due to an imperfection, and humans being created by the god breathing life into them. this fact does not seem so impressive until one understands the fact that many, if not all of these cultures have not had any contact what-so-ever to many of the cultures that share their ideas. yet we plainly see that they are there throughout a large number of creation myths and logic tells us that there must be a reason behind this coincidence.

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I feel as if there are many stories that lead back to these myths and I think we will continue to use myths in stories. Out of the three motifs, I feel that the most important myth motif is humans being created out of organic material. The materials on earth are endless which makes the creators be able to make as many humans as they want. The creators could try with many different materials and could see which material made the better humans just like in the Mayan myth.

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Rosenberg, Donna. World Mythology. “The Creation Cycle. The Five Worlds and Their Suns”. Lincolnwood, Illinois: NTC Publishing Group, 1994.

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Each every creation myth is unique in its own way. Of course, creation myths have their similarities, but each of them has at least one detail that separates them from every other myth. The question is how those similarities came about, considering for some of these groups that didn’t even know that each other existed. It would have nearly impossible and extremely unlikely for them to communicate with each other let alone, share their stories with each other. Yet, despite this there are some extremely common themes and events throughout these myths.

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