Creation Stories

The cosmogonical myths of creation are divided in to five types depending on the nature of creation.  Eliade and his student, Charles H. Long, developed a classification based on some common motifs that reappear in stories the world over. The classification identifies five basic types:

• Creation ex nihilo in which the creation is through the thought, word, dream or bodily secretions of a divine being
• Earth diver creation in which a diver, usually a bird or amphibian sent by a creator, plunges to the seabed through a primordial ocean to bring up sand or mud which develops into a terrestrial world
• Emergence myths in which progenitors pass through a series of worlds and metamorphoses until reaching the present world
• Creation by the dismemberment of a primordial being
• Creation by the splitting or ordering of a primordial unity such as the cracking of a cosmic egg or a bringing into form from chao 

We will visit the myths of creation from culture to culture, starting form Genesis of the Jewish,  Nasadiya of Rigveda (India), Sura Al-Baqara of Quran, creation by Pan-Gu of chinese, Creation by Nun of the Egyptians, Creation from Niflheim of the Norse, Theogony (Hesoid Poem) of the Greeks and the creation stories of the native americans (Hopi, Cherokee, Patawatomi).

It is a very humbling experience to read what our ancients believed of our birth, so it always amazed me to know of our humble beginning or not so humble depending on which story you are reading.

Pillars of Creation