The Mayan Creation Myth

Like snowflakes, no two creation myths are identical, “The Story of the Creation”, which highlights on the creation of the Akimel O’odham, more commonly known as the Pima, and Megan Wren’s “Mayan Creation Myth” are no exception; however, there are many similarities. The “Mayan Creation Myth” and “The Story of Creation” both follow the basic path that most creation myths do starting with the emptiness in the beginning, a void to be filled by a God-like figure, who would soon create vegetation, animals, and humans who he would then destroy and start anew. With every creation myth, there is a void, or an emptiness before a greater power takes it into his hands to change that, and this is true for both the Mayan, and the Pima creation myth.

Mankind proved to be dificult to create in both the “Mayan Creation Myth” and “The Story of Creation”. In the “Mayan Creation Myth” the higher powers, Hurricane and Serpent, started their experimenting with mud people. The mud people were soon disposed of because “they kept falling apart...and their faces were lopsided” (Wren 1). Hurricane and Serpent then went onto creating wooden people. The wooden people were slightly more fruitful; however, they had no emotion, and therefore could not worship their creators accordingly. Hurricane and Serpent decided that it was time to discard of the wooden people, so the two flooded the Earth, and those who survived were exterminated by monsters like Bloodletter, Gouger of Faces, Crunching Jaguar, and Tearing Jaguar. On the third attempt to create a successful human being, Hurricane and Serpent made a few small adjustments to the Earth before they started again. The new race was created out of a “maize paste” (Wren 1), and these people were successful. In “The Story of Creation”, after Juhwertamahkai added more to his world, he went on to create the perfect humans, or so he thought. Everything seemed to be defectless at first, until overpopulation sent Juhwertamahkai’s people into carnivorism. Juhwertamahkai was discontent with these actions, “so he let the sky fall to kill them” (The Bedford Anthology of American Literature 53). Juhwertamahkai faced two more failed attempts before he finally reached something he liked. Juhwertamahkai “created the Earth as it is now” (The Bedford Anthology of American Literature 53). In both creation myths there were failures when it came to the creation to mankind, which is one of the largest similarities between the two