Assignment 3:5- Creation Stories
What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story or stories you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories?
Having grown up as a Christian, I am very familiar with the story of Adam and Eve, and it is also the creation story that I believe to be true. However, before I came to Canada, the creation story that I have known was very different from the biblical tale. Although it is one that I deemed to be a myth, it’s also one that I cannot help but love, and one that holds a special place in my heart as a part of my cultural background. Thinking about it again also brings back the memories of my mother sitting by my bedside, and telling the story to me in her soft voice as I snuggled under my warm covers. The warmth of the story resonated with the warmth I felt back then, and perhaps that’s what makes it so unforgettable.
This is a beautiful story; a love story.
Nüwa was the mother goddess, who created mankind and everything that roamed the earth. She loved her creations dearly, and was loved in return by the people. However, when warfare ensued between the gods, disaster rain down upon the people. The sun and moon disappeared, cracks appeared in the sky and the earth was flooded, and death plagued all things of the land. Seeing this, Nüwa went down to earth and began to repair the heavens. Using the boulders formed from the sun’s power, she put the skies back together, piece by piece. Then, she killed a giant turtle from the sea, and lifted its remains to cover the last piece that was missing. She worked endlessly, day and night, and after the work was done, she was overcome with exhaustion. After Nüwa died, and her spirit was transformed into the new sun and moon, and new life on the earth.
This story, told to me by my mother, made me feel the warmth of Nüwa’s love for mankind, who she saw as her children. She alone shouldered the burden of repairing the heavens, and it was her sacrifice that allowed the people to live on.
It is a wonderful tale, but a solitary one. This is what greatly differentiates King’s creation story from the one I know. Charm is not alone in the creation of the world, and what I love the most is the last passage where it says:
The animals and the humans and the Twins and Charm looked around at the world that they had created. Boy, they said, this is as good as it gets. This is one beautiful world. (King 20)
Unlike the biblical story and the tale of Nüwa, the world came into being through the collective efforts of Charm, the Twins, and the animals. There was no single superior being who stood above their creation, instead, Charm and her friends stood as a part of the world they had created.
There are many creation stories that differ vastly in the nature of the tale. While all are focused on how mankind came to be, the differences can bring out what a culture deems to be important and hold as core values in their beliefs. This article that I found includes a video that was put together as a project to explore the importance of origin stories of the Ktunaxa people of Canada. In the article, it states that these stories “inform and support the Ktunaxa ways of knowing, their world views, their history pre- and post-contact, and their connection to the geography of the Ktunaxa territory.” This shows that creation stories carry more than just an attempt at explaining how mankind came to be, they also carry the deeply-rooted traditions and the way-of-life in a culture. In the video, the tales told by the people exemplified how animals are an essential part of their lives, and how the world they’ve come to know has been shared by people and animals since the beginning of time.
It is also interesting that because creation stories are often oral stories, the same tales can be so different depending on the storyteller. The origin story of the Haida people, the Raven and the First Men, is told in different ways here and here. Of course, these are also different from the first story that sprang from the mouths of the People, with many elements lost in translation. I wonder if this kind of loss is significant for creation stories. If so, in what aspects does it affect the story told, if the core message of it is still present? Is it okay to retell stories that we might have not heard all the parts of, and have perhaps inserted our own narratives into?
Works Cited
Gahr, Tanya Laing. “Creation Stories- The Origins of Culture: An Exploration of Ktunaxa creation stories.” Indigenous Corporate Training INC. 23 June 2013. Web. 9 Mar 2019. https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/creation-stories-the-origins-of-culture
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough: Anansi Press. 2003. Print.
McWilliams, Barry. “Raven finds the First Men.” Eldrbarry’s Raven Tales. 1997. Web. 9 Mar 2019. https://www.eldrbarry.net/rabb/rvn/first.htm
“The Beginning of the Haida Gwaii World.” Oral Traditions. Web. 9 Mar 2019. https://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/exhibits/bc-archives-time-machine/galler07/frames/oralhist.htm
Hi Anna,
Thank you for sharing the story you love. I really like the story too, Nüwa’s love for mankind and her sacrifice is very touching. Thank you for the hyperlink too. I just thought of creation stories as something that is made so we can answer other people when they ask about how humans are first created but it holds a bigger value than that. As for you question to if it is okay to retell stories that we don’t know all the parts of because creation stories are often oral stories and it changes according to the storyteller, I think it is okay as long as the core message is still present. But I think storyteller has an important power in deciding what details are important and what not so when story is being passed on, each story teller is adding their belief and values by telling and not telling certain details of the story.
Hi Cathy,
Thank you for reading and commenting! I do agree with your opinion that it is okay for stories to change as long as the core message is still present. I think one of the beautiful things about stories is their ability to connect people, and there is no one narrative that will touch the hearts of everyone.
Hi Anna,
Thank-you for your blog, with its succinct yet beautiful prose.
I particularly appreciate this comment that you made:
“It is a wonderful tale, but a solitary one. This is what greatly differentiates King’s creation story from the one I know. Charm is not alone in the creation of the world-” (Anna).
There is something incredibly poignant in what you’re saying: “It is a wonderful tale, but a solitary one”. I find this significant because myths are often seen as “wonderful tales”, or rationalized away by outsiders who don’t believe in the myth as ‘the explanations proffered by a certain group to answer questions about the world that we do not understand’. And certainly, we must acknowledge the merit in cultural creation stories, both as wonderful tales and as myths.
But what I observe, is that when it comes to Native myths and storytelling being perceived by mainstream media and narratives (as opposed to critically analyzed as we are doing in school) –Indigenous storytelling is usually cast aside as being restricted “only” to wondrous tales, “restricted” to functioning as explanations. And what King shows us is: there is more. There are entire worldviews and implications which are ingrained in stories and myths: in how they are framed and who the protagonist is and who gets to talk. In the creation story you quoted from King: the implicit narrative is one of equality. There is so much to learn by respecting and really paying attention to myths beyond the confines which colonial stereotypes have taught us to read myths and then dismiss them with.
So the way you said a specific myth is a wonderful tale -which is true. But then you go further and add that this same myth is not /only/ wonderful, but also a “solitary” one — you are aware of the implicit cultural values being conveyed through storytelling.
Very poignant -a wonderful and thought-provoking blog.
I really enjoyed your blog because Native myths are often consumed with “wonder” or dismissed as “explanations offered by a certain group to answer questions about the world that we don’t understand”. And while both these things –answers and wonderful stories innately, are qualities to be cherished: Native myths are often restricted to these two topics when being consumed and that’s a problem! Because there is so much more going on. Whenever a story is told, there is a narrative and a frame and values being taught and its worth paying attention to.
so what i really, really love about your blog Anna — is you say “It is a wonderful tale, but a solitary one. This is what greatly differentiates King’s creation story from the one I know. Charm is not alone in the creation of the world-“.
That is so smart, insightful, direct and poignant to me. Because you see the value in myths as “wonderful tales” and of course we all know that a creation myth is, atleast in part, attempting to answer huge world mysteries. But then you go further, and you continue to say the myth is also “solitary”. You catch on to the ideologies and framing of hierarchy or equality –those values which are implicit in the myth. And that is very important, especially given our colonial literary history where historically and, honestly, today as well: we are often fed a hierarchy of which stories are more important and why they are “more important” and that has to do with culture, the groups which myths are assorted with, whether those groups are marginalized or often dismissed, stereotyped and spoken over.
I could go on forever analyzing your blog and that is just a testament to how much of a phenomenal writer you are, Anna.