A POTAWATOMI STORY - THE NATIVE WISCONSIN CREATION STORY

This story comes from the Native American people of Wisconsin and it portrays the origin of humans like any other creation story and just like the Genesis account it has, in essence, two parts.

Earthmaker made the world with trees and fields, with rivers, lakes, and springs, and with hills and valleys. It was beautiful. However, there weren't any humans, and so one day he decided to make some.

Did he get called Earthmaker before or after making the earth?  That is just like a government assigned position isn't it "OK, we need an earth, you are now Earthmaker".

He scooped out a hole in a stream bank and lined the hole with stones to make a hearth, and he built a fire there. Then he took some clay and made a small figure that he put in the hearth. While it baked, he took some twigs and made tongs. When he pulled the figure out of the fire and had let it cool, he moved its limbs and breathed life into it, and it walked away. Earthmaker nonetheless realized that it was only half-baked. That figure became the white people.

First, have you noticed that in almost every creation story humans were made from clay or mud or some such dirt type material?  Coincidence?  Secondly, this is kind of a racist story calling white people half baked - just saying.  Another thing to think about, the natives probably made their creation story up hundreds, if not thousands, of years before the Europeans set foot in America and would know nothing of white people.  Perhaps this is creation addendum?

Earthmaker decided to try again, and so he made another figure and put it on the hearth. This time he took a nap under a tree while the figure baked, and he slept longer than he intended. When he pulled the second figure out of the fire and had let it cool, he moved its limbs and breathed life into it, and it walked away. Earthmaker realized that this figure was over baked, and it became the black people.

Half baked and over baked.  I guess new recipes are hard to get right.

Earthmaker decided to try one more time. He cleaned the ashes out of the hearth and built a new fire. Then he scooped up some clay and cleaned it of any twigs or leaves, so that it was pure. He made a little figure and put it on the hearth, and this time he sat by the hearth and watched carefully as the figure baked. When this figure was done, he pulled it out of the fire and let it cool. Then he moved its limbs and breathed life into it, and it walked away. This figure was baked just right, and it became the red people.

Finally, although he hasn't made the yellow people yet.

The red people became many tribes, and they spread across the land. Among these tribes were the Ojibwe, the Ottawa, and the Potawatomi. These three tribes were enemies and fought many battles. One Potawatomi man had ten sons, all of whom were killed in battle. Unbeknownst to him, there was an Ojibwe man who had lost ten sons in these battles, and there was an Ottawa man who had likewise lost ten sons. Each man mourned so much that they wandered away from their tribes, each looking for a place to die in the woods.

They each lost ten sons each - it's like gangs of NY!

The Ojibwe man walked and walked, and eventually he came to a huge tree. The tree had four long roots stretching to the north, east, south, and west, and four huge branches that extended in the same directions. The tree also had one huge root that ran straight toward the center of the earth, and its center limb ran straight up into the sky. The tree was so beautiful, and the view from under it was so tranquil, that the man forgot his sorrow, and eventually he was happy.

You see that?  Trees make us happy.  Go hug a tree and say thank you, even the mutant ones that have roots that tickle magma and touch the sky.

As the Ojibwe man sat under the tree, he saw another man approaching in the distance. This newcomer was crying as he walked toward the tree, but eventually he saw the tree's beauty and stopped under it. The Ojibwe man said, "I lost ten sons in war and was so heartbroken that I wandered away to die, until I came to this tree. Why have you come here?" The newcomer, an Ottawa, said, "I too lost ten sons in war, and I lost myself in grief until I came to this place". The two men sat and talked of their troubles.

The very first support group.  Nice

As the two men talked, a third approached weeping. The first two watched as this third came to the tree. When they asked, the third man, a Potawatomi, told how he had lost ten sons in war and had walked in grief until he came to this beautiful place.

I guess that's why they say trees company.

The three men talked and realized that their sons had died fighting in the same wars. They concluded that the Great Spirit had brought them together to this tranquil place, where they could hear the spirits speak. They agreed that there had been too much fighting between their tribes, and too much grief. They resolved to go back to their tribes and get them to live in peace. They made three pipes, and each took a pipe of tobacco home to his people as a symbol of peace.

It's a good story but they should have probably checked with a health professional first because smoking is bad.

Ten days later, the three old men led their people to the great tree. Each man brought wood from which they built a fire together, and they cooked food from each tribe. They filled a pipe and offered its smoke to the Great Spirit above, to the spirits of the four directions, and then downward to the spirit that keeps the earth from sinking into the water. The tribes each smoked from the pipe of peace and ate of the common meal, and their chiefs agreed that they should live in peace. The three old men agreed to a set of rules to preserve the peace and to guide their peoples. This is how the Potawatomi, the Ojibwe, and Ottawa came to live in peace and to intermarry, as one people.

Nawwwww, that's so sweet.  I wish all creation stories could end like that instead of fire and floods.  All I can see in my head is the Chief looking over the polluted land with a tear in his eye.

I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way I may even learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write so if you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all

Justin

PAN GU AND NU WA - THE CHINESE CREATION STORY

This story is a compilation of three stories from The Classic of Mountain and Seas from the first century B.C.E.

Long, long ago, when heaven and earth were still one, the entire universe was contained in an egg-shaped cloud. All the matter of the universe swirled chaotically in that egg. Deep within the swirling matter was Pan Gu, a huge giant who grew in the chaos. For 18,000 years he developed and slept in the egg. Finally one day he awoke and stretched, and the egg broke to release the matter of the universe. The lighter purer elements drifted upwards to make the sky and heavens, and the heavier impure elements settled downwards to make the earth.

So that answers the question of what came first, the egg or the universe.  This is kind of like the big bang but with bits of egg shell.

In the midst of this new world, Pan Gu worried that heaven and earth might mix again; so he resolved to hold them apart, with the heavens on his head and the earth under his feet. As the two continued to separate, Pan Gu grew to hold them apart. For 18,000 years he continued to grow, until the heavens were 30,000 miles above the earth. For much longer he continued to hold the two apart, fearing the return of the chaos of his youth. Finally he realized they were stable, and soon after that he died.

Job done.  I wonder where the figure of 30,000 miles came from?

With the immense giant's death, the earth took on new character. His arms and legs became the four directions and the moutains. His blood became the rivers, and his sweat became the rain and dew. His voice became the thunder, and his breath became the winds. His hair became the grass, and his veins became the roads and paths. His teeth and bones became the minerals and rocks, and his flesh became the soil of the fields. Up above, his left eye became the sun, and his right eye became the moon. Thus in death, as in life, Pan Gu made the world as it is today.

But he was dead, he had no voice from which thunder could come...hmmm, something fishy going on here and I don't think I could believe this story as it seems to have a few holes in it.  This is not the first creation story that uses dead god body parts to make the land and the sun etc, it's kind of nasty when you think about it.

Many centuries later, there was a goddess named Nü Wa who roamed this wild world that Pan Gu had left behind, and she became lonely in her solitude. Stopping by a pond to rest, she saw her reflection and realized that there was nothing like herself in the world. She resolved to make something like herself for company.

Looks like a goddess creation story is about to unfold.  At the very least this story is attempting to illustrate the very long time it took for the universe to be what it is today - kind of.

From the edge of the pond she took some mud and shaped it in the form of a human being. At first her creation was lifeless, and she set it down. It took life as soon as it touched the soil, however, and soon the human was dancing and celebrating its new life. Pleased with her creation, Nü Wa made more of them, and soon her loneliness disappeared in the crowd of little humans around her. For two days she made them, and still she wanted to make more. Finaly she pulled down a long vine and dragged it through the mud, and then she swung the vine through the air. Droplets of mud flew everywhere and, when they fell, they became more humans that were nearly as perfect as the ones she had made by hand. Soon she had spread humans over the whole world. The ones she made by hand became the aristocrats, and the ones she made with the vine became the poor common people.

Dirty vine people!

Even then, Nü Wa realized that her work was incomplete, because as her creations died she would have to make more. She solved this problem by dividing the humans into male and female, so that they could reproduce and save her from having to make new humans to break her solitude.

Smart, let them make themselves - one question, what were they before they were male and female?  Were they like ken dolls with only a mound of plastic down there?  Who knows, I wasn't there.

Many years later, Pan Gu's greatest fear came true. The heavens collapsed so that there were holes in the sky, and the earth cracked, letting water rush from below to flood the earth. At other places, fire sprang forth from the earth, and everywhere wild beasts emerged from the forests to prey on the people. Nü Wa drove the beasts back and healed the earth. To fix the sky, she took stones of many colors from the river and built a fire in which she melted them. She used the molten rock to patch the holes in the sky, and she used the four legs of a giant turtle to support the sky again. Exhausted by her labors, she soon lay down to die and, like Pan Gu, from her body came many more features to adorn the world that she had restored.

So the heavens fell and was propped up again with giant turtle legs.  Where did they come up with this stuff.  Again, more construction from the body parts of deities - this is definitely some kind of freakish bedtime story for kids.

I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way I may even learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write so if you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all

Justin

THE NABA ZID-WENDE - THE MOSSI CREATION STORY

Before Africa was colonized the Mossi people lived in the Mogho kingdom (Upper Volta) and their story was told to Frederic Guirma by the elders and he, in turn, published in in 1971.

In the beginning there was no earth, no day or night, and not even time itself. All that existed was the Kingdom of Everlasting Truth, which was ruled by the Naba Zid-Wendé. The Naba Zid-Wendé made the earth, and then they made the day and the night. To make the day a time to be busy, they made the sun, and to make the night a time of rest, they made the moon. In doing so, they made time itself.

This story starts in the traditional way with, well, nothing.  The fact that it was told there was not even time itself is as close to truth as I have seen in a creation story thus far... and then it falls apart when the sun was made after the earth and even after the day.  There are elements of Genesis here which makes me think the missionaries got there pretty early on.  If not, then they made the same naive observations as those that made up the Genesis creation story, which is not out of the realms of possibilities.

At first the earth was covered with fire, but the Naba Zid-Wendé blew on the earth to cool the fire. They ordered the fire to live inside the earth, so that the surface would be safe for the humans they were going to make. Only very resentfully did the fire go into the earth.

Apart from the blowing, it follows the cooling of the new earth well but anthropomorphising fire is only going to lead to bad things.

First the Naba Zid-Wendé made a chameleon, to see if the earth's outer crust would hold it up. When the crust held it up, the Naba Zid-Wendé made snakes to crawl on the earth, to see if it was cool enough to live on. When the snakes did not complain about their bellies, the Naba Zid-Wendé made the large animals, the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the buffalo. The crust was strong enough to hold up even them, and so the crust was solid and cool.

Wow, so the chameleon and the snakes were the canaries of the gods.  And the Naba Zid-Wendé saw that it was good.

Finally the Naba Zid-Wendé were ready to create humans. They made them very black, because black is a strong color, and to make them different from the sun, which is red, and from the moon, which is white. The Naba Zid-Wendé used their breath to blow a soul into the humans that they had made.

If you can only tell the difference between humans, the sun and the moon by it's colour you have no business being a god.  That's all I can say about that.

The smile of the Naba Zid-Wendé at their human creations became the sky, and they hung the sky so low that humans could reach it and eat it for their food. They made stars out beyond the sky, and they made many other wonderful things for their humans. The humans nonetheless became arrogant and suspicious, and the humans began to claim that the Naba Zid-Wendé had hidden something valuable from them under the mountains. The humans dug under the mountains, but they only found a leper living there, and they let the leper go free from his subterranean prison.

Is it me or is this story starting to go off the rails a little?  Since when did the Naba Zid-Wendé make horrible diseases?  In essence the humans were right, they were hiding something - some poor bastard with a deadly communicable disease!

This leper, however, was really the fire, and he soon burst into flames. Still angry at the Naba Zid-Wendé and jealous of the humans, the fire was evil, and it burned the sky. The sky withdrew in pain, and withdrew all the way beyond the stars, back to the Kingdom of Everlasting Truth.

I knew something like that was going to happen, though I was more in the volcano camp of how the fire was going to take revenge.

No longer could the humans get their food from the sky, their arrogance had ended that. The Naba Zid-Wendé nonetheless made clouds and rivers and streams to keep the earth wet, and they made plants for humans to have food and trees that produce fruit for them. They made flowers to make the earth beautiful, and made the scents of the flowers to provide the smell of life.

The good will always prevail over evil but what the hell is the smell of life?  How did the humans get on when they switched from gobbling on god to nibbling on nettles?  I hope there is a good meat meal coming their way. 

The humans, however, multiplied and became more and more arrogant. To wash away the arrogance, the Naba Zid-Wendé made a big blue lake in which the humans should bathe. The humans were too busy to come to the lake, however, and that gave the evil fire time to throw hatred and envy in the lake. Only when the Naba Zid-Wendé sent the sun to dry up the lake did the humans finally go there to bathe. The first group that went in bathed in the waters of hatred and division, and they came out white from head to toe. The second group that went in come out yellow from head to toe. The same happened to third group that went in, except that they came out copper-red. By the time the last group went in, only a little water was left from the sun's efforts to dry up the lake, and the last group could only wash their hands and feet. They came out with soles and palms of white, yellow, or red, but the rest of their bodies were still black.

Haha!  That is the best explanation, theologically wise, for the reason of many races I have heard in a story of creation.  Man, you get some of that lake water on your clothes it aint never coming out!

The Naba Zid-Wendé came to earth later to see what they had created, and they were shaping one last animal out of a lump of clay as they came. The plants and animals celebrated the coming of the Naba Zid-Wendé, but the human races were too busy dividing up the land and enslaving each other to notice. The Naba Zid-Wendé were so sad to see what the humans were doing that they forgot their last creation, until it cried out to be given a head, legs, and a tail. The Naba Zid-Wendé sadly finished their lump of clay, which is why the turtle has the shape it has.

OK, how the hell can something without a head cry out?  Essentially we are talking about is a shell with a body inside - kind of like an army helmet with just a head inside.  When this story first began I had high hopes that it would be a little more accurate than most but ended up feeling sad for the turtle.  

I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way I may even learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write so if you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all

Justin

THE MENOMINEE AND MANABUSH - THE MENOMONI CREATION STORY

Here is another story from the Native American Indians, this time from Northern Wisconsin.  Their story was  published in 1890 by Walter James Hoffman.

When Mashé Manido, the Great Spirit, first made the earth, he also created a large numbers of manidos or spirits. Some of these spirits were benevolent, but many were malevolent, and they went to live beneath the earth. Kishä Manido, the Good Spirit, was one of these spirits. He took a bear who lived near where the Menominee River flows into Green Bay and Lake Michigan and allowed the bear to change his form. The Bear, pleased at this gift from the Good Spirit, came out of the ground and changed into the first human.

So the creation of earth is a given, this is post creation but they wanted to live in the fiery depths of earths hell; fair enough.  Now a bear becomes a human... wrong evolutionary line but to understand what they understood back then with the bears walking on their hind legs and all, it's a tough conclusion to come to.  I guess.

Bear found himself alone and called to an eagle to join him. The eagle descended from the sky and took the form of a human too. Bear and Eagle were deciding whom else to ask to join them when a beaver came by and asked to join their tribe. Beaver too became a human and, as a female, became the first woman. When Bear and Eagle came to a stream, they found a sturgeon, and Sturgeon became part of their tribe as well. It is from these early people that the Bear, Eagle, and Sturgeon clans of the Menominee originated.

The beaver became the woman.  I'll let that sink in and wait for your laughter.  The beaver became woman.

All joking aside, this seems to be a kind of sexist creation story as it was known as the Bear, Eagle and Sturgeon story - what happened to Beaver?

In New Zealand we, I say we but I had noting to do with it, have produced a movie called Hawk vs Eagle; this reminded me of just that but less sexist. 

Lol - beaver...

One day when Bear was going up a river, he got tired and stopped to rest. As he was talking to a wolf, a crane flew up to them. Bear asked the crane to fly him up the river, promising to take Crane into his tribe in return. As Crane and Bear were leaving, Wolf asked if he could join them, both for the trip and in their tribe. Crane took both of them on his back and flew them up the river, and this is how the Crane and Wolf clans came into the tribe of Menominee people.

Uh huh.  Just so.

Bear took the name Sekatcokemau. He built the first wigwam for his people, and built a canoe so that he and his people could catch fish like sturgeon. The Good Spirit provided the people with corn, and with medicinal plants. However, the Good Spirit realized that the Menominee were afflicted by hardship and disease from the malevolent spirits. To help his people, the Good Spirit sent his kindred spirit Manabush down to earth.

So once again, the gods have no defense against evil.  What's wit these immortals?  You're a god, you fix it...or never let it happen in the first place.

Once there was an old woman named Nokomis who had an unmarried daughter, and the daughter gave birth to twin boys. One of the boys and his mother died. Nokomis wrapped the surviving boy in dry grass and put him under a wooden bowl to protect him while she buried the other boy and his mother. When she returned, she picked up the bowl and found a little white rabbit. She raised the rabbit, and he became the Great Rabbit, which is "Mashé Wabösh" in Menominee, or "Manabush".

How do you say cuckoos nest in Menomoni?

When Manabush came of age, he had his grandmother make two drum sticks with which he drummed to call the people together to a long wigwam he had built. He taught them many useful things and gave them powerful medicines to cure diseases. He gave them medicine bags that were made of the hides of mink and weasel and rattlesnake and panther. From that first meeting comes the Grand Medicine Society of the Menominee today.

To have drum sticks are we talking chicken or actual drumsticks?  Nevertheless, man was created,ostensibly with the problems of disease.  What a terrible way to create something... so they had to give them medicine bags.  This is the scientific equivalent of "whatever, I created them and their not a perfect race but look what I did!".  I'm sorry, but this is not how you create stuff outside of a lab.  I'm glad, however, that this story correctly addresses the shit that we don't know how to deal with in medical terms. 

Manabush went on to accomplish many great feats for his people. Once there was a great water monster who killed many people, especially fishermen. Manabush let the monster eat him and then stabbed it from inside and killed it. To get his people fire, Manabush went far to the east across the water to the wigwam of an old man and his daughters. The daughters found a little rabbit shivering outside their wigwam and took it in to warm it by their fire. Manabush grabbed an ember from the fire and fled back with it across the water, bringing fire to his people. Once he climbed a mountain and stole tobacco from a giant who kept it there, and he had to flee from the giant to bring tobacco back to his people. As he fled, he hid himself just before a cliff, and the giant ran past him and over the cliff. When the giant climbed back up the cliff, bleeding and bruised, Manabush grabbed him and threw him to the ground, making him the grasshopper that today can only chew at the tobacco plants in the fields.

Manabush was apparently allergic to seafood, but you know it's the best food... then we turn to Jonah.  Then the story just turns to shit.  A god that has to steel the discovery of fir to take it to his people - not a god.  Then he stole tobacco - maybe my history is off, but didn't the white man bring the carcinogenic weed to America?  And then there is the whole throwing a giant of the cliff thing... do you think he may have been hi?

Once Manabush was out hunting and deceived some birds into singing with him. When they were close, he caught a swan and a goose on a sand bar and killed them for his dinner. However, by then he was tired, so he buried the birds up to their necks in sand, built a fire around them to cook them, and lay down to take a nap. When he awoke, he was hungry, and so he went to get his cooked birds. When he pulled at the necks, he came up with the heads and necks, but the bodies of the birds were missing. He ran out on the sand bar just in time to see people in canoes disappearing around a point of land. Realizing they had stolen his meal, he ran after them yelling "Winnebago! Winnebago!", which is the name the Menominee have used ever since for their thievish neighbors to the south.

This gives American camper van holidays a totally new meaning... so travelling bus means chicken stealer?  No wonder the Native Americans hate the holidaying Caucasians!

Not a lot more to say about that really.  

I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way I may even learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write so if you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all

Justin

   

THE GOLDEN CHAIN - THE YORUBA CREATION STORY

From the Yoruba people of Nigeria, Togo and Benin comes this interesting creation story which was written down in 1991 after many, many years of being handed down orally.  It goes without saying that when it is handed down that way there is no way of knowing how the original story was told but in the case of a creation story that doesn't really matter because it's all made up anyway.

Long ago, well before there were any people, all life existed in the sky. Olorun lived in the sky, and with Olorun were many orishas. There were both male and female orishas, but Olorun transcended male and female and was the all-powerful supreme being. Olorun and the orishas lived around a young baobab tree. Around the baobab tree the orishas found everything they needed for their lives, and in fact they wore beautiful clothes and gold jewelry. Olorun told them that all the vast sky was theirs to explore. All the orishas save one, however, were content to stay near the baobab tree.

Not your traditional creation story, another that started with stuff in the sky including a tree so it still leaves the question of where all that stuff came from.  I'm not liking this story so far.

Obatala was the curious orisha who wasn't content to live blissfully by the baobab tree. Like all orishas, he had certain powers, and he wanted to put them to use. As he pondered what to do, he looked far down through the mists below the sky. As he looked and looked, he began to realize that there was a vast empty ocean below the mist. Obatala went to Olorun and asked Olorun to let him make something solid in the waters below. That way there could be beings that Obatala and the orishas could help with their powers.

Really?  So all this time in paradise and this is the first time one of the "gods" looked down.  What makes this an ever increasingly strange story is that it seems this god wants to create beings so he has something to do.  Fair enough I guess.

Touched by Obatala's desire to do something constructive, Olorun agreed to send Obatala to the watery world below. Obatala then asked Orunmila, the orisha who knows the future, what he should do to prepare for his mission. Orunmila brought out a sacred tray and sprinkled the powder of baobab roots on it. He tossed sixteen palm kernels onto the tray and studied the marks and tracks they made on the powder. He did this eight times, each time carefully observing the patterns. Finally he told Obatala to prepare a chain of gold, and to gather sand, palm nuts, and maize. He also told Obatala to get the sacred egg carrying the personalities of all the orishas.

I just don't understand this bit at all.  This would probably be one of the paragraphs that evolved through time from something that originally made sense.

Obatala went to his fellow orishas to ask for their gold, and they all gave him all the gold they had. He took this to the goldsmith, who melted all the jewelry to make the links of the golden chain. When Obatala realized that the goldsmith had made all the gold into links, he had the goldsmith melt a few of them back down to make a hook for the end of the chain.

Sooo, what, he's going fishing with a gold hook?  They seem to have a great community up there including a goldsmith!

Meanwhile, as Orunmila had told him, Obatala gathered all the sand in the sky and put it in an empty snail shell, and in with it he added a little baobab powder. He put that in his pack, along with palm nuts, maize, and other seeds that he found around the baobab tree. He wrapped the egg in his shirt, close to his chest so that it would be warm during his journey.

It's starting to look like this is not so much a creation story more of a "how man was created" story.  I mean there is sand, sky, mist, snails, nuts, maize and other seeds.  But, wow, that must be one hell of a big snail!

Obatala hooked the chain into the sky, and he began to climb down the chain. For seven days he went down and down, until finally he reached the end of the chain. He hung at its end, not sure what to do, and he looked and listened for any clue. Finally he heard Orunmila, the seer, calling to him to use the sand. He took the shell from his pack and poured out the sand into the water below. The sand hit the water, and to his surprise it spread and solidified to make a vast land. Still unsure what to do, Obatala hung from the end of the chain until his heart pounded so much that the egg cracked. From it flew Sankofa, the bird bearing the sprits of all the orishas. Like a storm, they blew the sand to make dunes and hills and lowlands, giving it character just as the orishas themselves have character.

So that's why a third of Africa is desert.  Talk about your accidental creation of land.

Finally Obatala let go of the chain and dropped to this new land, which he called "Ife", the place that divides the waters. Soon he began to explore this land, and as he did so he scattered the seeds from his pack, and as he walked the seeds began to grow behind him, so that the land turned green in his wake.

All I can say is that he must have walked very, very slowly - although they were probably magic seeds.

After walking a long time, Obatala grew thirsty and stopped at a small pond. As he bent over the water, he saw his reflection and was pleased. He took some clay from the edge of the pond and began to mold it into the shape he had seen in the reflection. He finished that one and began another, and before long he had made many of these bodies from the dark earth at the pond's side. By then he was even thirstier than before, and he took juice from the newly-grown palm trees and it fermented into palm wine. He drank this, and drank some more, and soon he was intoxicated. He returned to his work of making more forms from the edge of the pond, but now he wasn't careful and made some without eyes or some with misshapen limbs. He thought they all were beautiful, although later he realized that he had erred in drinking the wine and vowed to not do so again

Started off as a vein kind of dude and ended up being the poster child of a "don't drink and fry" campaign and it gives the blind, death and limbless people someone to blame.  Did you also notice that humans were made from dark earth?  Hence the dark skin I guess.

Before long, Olorun dispatched Chameleon down the golden chain to check on Obatala's progress. Chameleon reported Obatala's disappointment at making figures that had form but no life. Gathering gasses from the space beyond the sky, Olorun sparked the gasses into an explosion that he shaped into a fireball. He sent that fireball to Ife, where it dried the lands that were still wet and began to bake the clay figures that Obatala had made. The fireball even set the earth to spinning, as it still does today. Olorun then blew his breath across Ife, and Obatala's figures slowly came to life as the first people of Ife.

A baptism of fire the breath from a god gave life to what you could call the clay humans.  As disappointed as Obatala was, he didn't heal the disabled.  This could be one of the strangest and least convincing of the creation stories I have researched thus far.  But there is more to come.

I have still to explore more of the worlds creation stories and there are many more to go and I am yet to investigate the question of how many people still believe in these stories.  I realise that there are a few major religions in the world that ardently believe that their creation story is the truth.  It's as hard to believe as the stories themselves but vast communities, even countries that insist that their myths are not myths at all but fact.

I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way I may even learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write so if you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all

Justin

PROBLEMS WITH RELIGION - WITCH BURNING (graphic)

This blog comes with a warning, it contains images of a graphic nature and if you would like to pretend that this kind of shit does not happen in the world then don't read any further.  If, on the other hand, you understand that there are some sick things that go on in our world and are prepared to face up to the fact that religion kills then you may read on; but you have been warned.

This story was brought to my attention today by a colleague of mine who said that just reading it made him sick.  

  I agree.  That is why I found it important to not only write about the abhorrent example of mans cruelty to man but bring it graphically alive by showing you what it is that has happened.

  

Yes, I do this for the shock value.  I do this because if you have any doubt that religion is damaging then this is exactly what you need to see and this is only one example of the kind of shit that is going on in the world.  Recently we heard about the young girl who was shot in the head for asking to be educated, that story here.

Again, this is just one of the reasons why religion is a very dangerous thing, if you would like to find out about others you can check out What's The Harm.  Don't get me wrong, there are a few good things that organised religion has done but on the whole it's an evil concept.  Granted, this example is a hyperbole of my point but poignant none less as we time warp back to the 18th century with this sickening witch burning.

To westerners who can't understand how this can happen imagine what it is like to be part of the community that ingrains the witchcraft so far into the minds of the people that the authorities that tried to save this woman were outnumbered and couldn't get through.  The total indoctrination of these people is much the same as the indoctrination of church goers in the western world.  These people believe so much in the power of a prayer or a curse or conjuring up the evil enough to kill a baby through thought alone that they actually believe that this young woman killed her baby, who was in the hospital, with the power of witchcraft.

Let that sink in.

Understand that these people actually think that she is a witch, they actually think that she killed her boy whilst she was at home and her son was at the hospital.  They kidnapped her then brutally murdered her by burning her alive.

Let that sink in.

So, you ask, where did all this atrocity come from?  I blame the missionaries.  Why do I say that?  Well, the missionaries supplied the people of PNG with the bible and taught them that the bible is THE word of god and you know what?  If we look through the bible this is what we find this...

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

Exodus 22:18

Any questions?

This is a thoroughly sickening act and this is an innocent woman no matter if she was in her house dancing naked around a sacrificial chicken topped alter casting spells or not.  There is no connection between the woman and her boy dying outside of the paranoid delusions of a society of people that believe that an invisible man in the clouds told some guy a couple of thousand years ago that it was OK to kill someone you were afraid of. 

Just look at those pictures and take in just how horrific it is that a mass of people so large the emergency services could not get in were so afraid of this poor, innocent woman that they had burn her to death.  Any mother would tell you that knowing that you could loose your child is a very hard thing to go through and to be in this woman's shoes when you know that, medically, your child will probably not make it just to face a lynch mob after your blood would be the most terrifying last moments of this young woman's life.  Horrific.

The photos of this gruesome public display were plastered on the font page of both of the nations papers!  Talk about propagating the onerous act and apparently this is not a first; burning witches is a common thing!  The process involved the torture of this 20 year old with a hot poker and stripped naked and forced to admit  witchcraft that killing her 6 year old.  Her death because of sorcery by being burnt became the photo op for many of the onlookers who blocked the path of emergency workers.  Does anybody find anything normal here?  The police say they will charge the perpetrators with murder and I will follow this story to see if they do.

I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way I may even learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write so if you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all

Justin

MARDUK CREATES THE WORLD - THE BABYLONIAN CREATION STORY

From the Enumu Elish and the Astrahasis come this story of creation from the Babylonians.  The stories real title is Marduk Creates The World From The Spoils of Battle and was written between 1900 and 1500 B.C.E.  The source was on tablets which are broken and incomplete so some of the end of this story were implied from fragments of later writings which could be dated as late as 500 B.C.E but are consistent with earlier writings.

In the beginning, neither heaven nor earth had names. Apsu, the god of fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess of the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of the mist that rises from both of them, were still mingled as one. There were no mountains, there was no pasture land, and not even a reed-marsh could be found to break the surface of the waters.

So, there was stuff, which is a different beginning to a creation story, just not very marketable stuff.  There were lots of gods but they were all kind of one lump of stuff.

It was then that Apsu and Tiamat parented two gods, and then two more who outgrew the first pair. These further parented gods, until Ea, who was the god of rivers and was Tiamat and Apsu's great-grandson, was born. Ea was the cleverest of the gods, and with his magic Ea became the most powerful of the gods, ruling even his forebears.

Gods begat gods and those gods begat more gods until there was one to rule them all.  This is almost like the evolution from polytheistic religions to the monotheistic religions.  Let's read on...

Apsu and Tiamat's descendents became an unruly crowd. Eventually Apsu, in his frustration and inability to sleep with the clamor, went to Tiamat, and he proposed to her that he slay their noisy offspring. Tiamat was furious at his suggestion to kill their clan, but after leaving her Apsu resolved to proceed with his murderous plan. When the young gods heard of his plot against them, they were silent and fearful, but soon Ea was hatching a scheme. He cast a spell on Apsu, pulled Apsu's crown from his head, and slew him. Ea then built his palace on Apsu's waters, and it was there that, with the goddess Damkina, he fathered Marduk, the four-eared, four-eyed giant who was god of the rains and storms.

This is like a more bloody version of the Maori story of creation from New Zealand.  Tom Hanks could have directed this movie.  Then again, Roald Dahl could have written this and called it the The Big not-so-Friendly Giant.  It may not have sold so well, then again the bible is a great and gruesome story and is one of the best sellers of all time.

The other gods, however, went to Tiamat and complained of how Ea had slain her husband. Aroused, she collected an army of dragons and monsters, and at its head she placed the god Kingu, whom she gave magical powers as well. Even Ea was at a loss how to combat such a host, until he finally called on his son Marduk. Marduk gladly agreed to take on his father's battle, on the condition that he, Marduk, would rule the gods after achieving this victory. The other gods agreed, and at a banquet they gave him his royal robes and scepter.

So, they made a deal with the devil... how could this end well?  They want him to protect them against the dragons etc and, well, it's now a dick waving contest... I know Tiamat is a goddess but you get my drift.

Marduk armed himself with a bow and arrows, a club, and lightning, and he went in search of Tiamat's monstrous army. Rolling his thunder and storms in front him, he attacked, and Kingu's battle plan soon disintegrated. Tiamat was left alone to fight Marduk, and she howled as they closed for battle. They struggled as Marduk caught her in his nets. When she opened her mouth to devour him, he filled it with the evil wind that served him. She could not close her mouth with his gale blasting in it, and he shot an arrow down her throat. It split her heart, and she was slain.

Wow, graphic!  This is like reading a comic - of sorts.

After subduing the rest of her host, he took his club and split Tiamat's water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat's salt waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations in the stars for the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across the heavens. From the other half of Tiamat's body he made the land, which he placed over Apsu's fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes he made flow the Tigirs and Euphrates. Across this land he made the grains and herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and the forests and the orchards.

So our universe is made out of spare godly body parts... nice.  Now, whenever you work the land you are working her body - yeah baby, work that body!  Now for the final part, I get the feeling man is about to be created.

Marduk set the vanquished gods who had supported Tiamat to a variety of tasks, including work in the fields and canals. Soon they complained of their work, however, and they rebelled by burning their spades and baskets. Marduk saw a solution to their labors, though, and proposed it to Ea. He had Kingu, Timat's general, brought forward from the ranks of the defeated gods, and Kingu was slain. With Kingu's blood, with clay from the earth, and with spittle from the other gods, Ea and the birth-goddess Nintu created humans. On them Ea imposed the labor previously assigned to the gods. Thus the humans were set to maintain the canals and boundary ditches, to hoe and to carry, to irrigate the land and to raise crops, to raise animals and fill the granaries, and to worship the gods at their regular festivals.

Told you, though I didn't see the whole slave thing coming.  I don't like this story but I guess all the creation stories have us slaves of a zealous god or two.

I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way I may even learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write so if you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all

Justin