What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories ?
In a previous blog post, I mentioned that I grew up in a Christian home so the obvious creation story to compare King’s story would be the Judeo-Christian creation story involving God, 7 days and Adam and Eve. Instead, I will look at Hesiod’s poem, Theogony which is a cosmogony story, meaning it’s interested in the creation or origin of the universe, unlike cosmology or theology, which focuses on the true history or study of the universe/God. The poem was written around 700 B.C. The story teller begins by saying that Chaos was present, and from Chaos came Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (Abyss) and Eros (Love). Gaia birthed Uranus (Sky), Ourea (Mountain Ranges) and Pontus (Ocean/Sea), while Chaos birthed Erebus (place between Gaia and Hades) and Nyx (Night). Many other personifications were born, as well as the gods being created or born and then mating with each other to make other creations and gods. In this story there is castration, war, dominance and a hierarchy is created.
Some of the clear similarities between the Theogony and King’s creation story with the woman is the natural element. The both include and abundance of nature; Gaia and the water. Both stories have births. The both also have one wiser telling another information. In King’s story, he has the Rabbit and Fish tell Charm that she was pregnant, which she is. In Hesiod’s story, he has Gaia and Uranus tell their child Cronus that one of his children will overthrow him, which Zeus does. Both stories also give reasons why things are the way they are: why curiosity can be dangerous; why fathers and sons fight; why women are distractions or dangerous.
There are many differences in these stories. Hesiod never touches on the creation on man, but does say that they are there (when telling Prometheus’s story) and does say that woman was created by Hephaistos and Athena – the first woman is Pandora – as a punishment for receiving fire. He also includes more about where nature came from. In King’s story, nature is there and formed by the Twins. The water and the animals are all simply there, and we are not told how they got there. It is implied that humans came after the animals. The Greek story contains more punishments and death, unlike the Native story of exploration and problem-solving. King’s story also demands balance: Twins, one left-handed and one right-handed. Hesiod’s story values power and dominance.
Have you encountered other versions of the Greek creation myth?
Works Cited:
alyssea84uk. “Mythic Warriors – Prometheus and Pandora’s Box.” Youtube. Youtube, 31 May 2013. Web. 12 Mar 2015.
Hesiod. “Theogony”. Classical Mythology: Images and Insights (6th ed.). ed. Stephen L. Harris, and Gloria Platzner. 6th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 88- 105. Print.
Hey Caitlin, thanks for bringing Greek creation stories into the discussion, that’s a cool addition. You bring up the differences between the two story-types with respect to their treatment of punishment and death (in fact in Charm’s story the Otter ‘dies’, but then turn out not to have died after all!). That’s a very good point, as King himself notes that “deities are generally figures of limited power and persuasion” in Native creation stories (24). One connection that King does make in The Truth About Stories is the existence of curiosity in both Charm’s story and Adam & Eve’s story, and I think it is a good point you make that the Greek narrative also speaks to the dangers of curiosity. I wonder why this may be such a pervasive trope; it certainly is curious (wink), especially given our setting at the University. The other connection I think we can make between Greek and First Nations creation stories is the existence of multiple deities. Where in the Judeo-Christian story we have only one God there are quite a few in the Greek history you have mentioned, and also a fair amount that we have recently seen in GGRW (Coyote, Thought Woman, Changing Woman, etc.). In fact it seems like there is a huge difference between the role of God and the role of people such as Old Coyote; do you think this has helped attribute to cross-cultural misunderstandings?
Nicolas Thomson
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your very thorough and thoughtful response! Totally loved it. I don’t know much about Coyote, but thankfully your blog posts helped with that! 🙂 I definitely think that having similarities between deities are both a help and a hindrance. While it is easier to wrap my mind around someone who is being compared to a God I know, it can also lead to misconceptions of that God. But I think no matter what, unless you have been born into that culture, it is impossible to fully comprehend a culture. I lived in France for 1.5 years from 19-20 and even after living with a French family and speaking French every day, eating the food, cooking the food, drinking the wine, listening to the music, I still do not fully understand French culture. I can understand it in relation to the culture I know (how it’s different and how it’s similar), but I find it difficult to see as it’s own uniqueness. It’s similar to learning a new language: for the first while, you translate in your head, but eventually you don’t do that – you just understand and speak. But when you’re confronted with a new word or a new grammatical structure, you need to translate. You need to understand it in relation to your mother tongue. Do you agree?
Best,
Caitlin