Theatrical Adaptation

Meditation # 7 -- Katie Marchant

There are so many creation myths. Basically every country and culture has a creation myth that they claim as their own. But many of these myths have some of the same basic elements; a deity of some sort, a man and a woman and animals. The three versions I want to briefly explore are some variations of the Christian/Jewish Creation Myth (The Book of Genesis), The Navajo Creation Story, and The Chinese Creation and Flood Myth. I am not sure why I choose these three in particular; I think that it is because I just liked them. Each of these myths have the three basic elements that I mentioned earlier.

Starting with the Christian/Jewish myth, only because it is the most widely known and the easiest to explain. It begins with God creating everything in a certain order. 1- heaven and earth 2- light and dark 3- separation of sky and earth 4- sea and land 5- plants 6- sun and moon and stars 7- birds and amphibious animals 8- animals 9- man 10-woman. God did all this in six days and rested on the seventh.

The next myth is one version of the Navajo myth. The Navajo myth differs in that the people came from 3 underworlds into this world. After they arrived in this world, the “Glittering World” they decided where to put the mountains then the Gods made the sun and moon and sky and all the other necessities of life. It goes on to tell about monsters and the twins that saved the new Earth People.

Next is a version of the Chinese myth. It is a creation/flood story that was originally in a poem form that was sung. In the beginning there is a deity that creates the three basics but there was a huge flood that wiped out all of mankind except for one man and his sister who survived by using a huge gourd as a boat. The man wants his sister to be his wife. In the end they have a child together who turns out deformed with no arms or legs so the man chops it up and throws the pieces around the hills but when he wakes up the next morning all the pieces became men and women, the new mankind.

I really like how vastly different these myths are even though they are telling basically the same story, how humans came to be on this earth. I like that in each of the stories there is a deity that creates the world but then that deity leaves it up to the people it creates to populate and take care of the what it gave them.

This is where I found the myths that I used: http://www.magictails.com/creationlinks.html

posted by Katie Marchant @ 8:40 PM