Blog Post #9: Adam & Eve vs. Charm, the Twins, & the Animals
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 ?
To begin with summarizing two creation stories, King’s creation story is revolved around a curious woman named Charm, who lets her curiosity get the best of her as she digs a hole too deep, and falls from the sky, into a world full of only water, also known as earth. To accommodate the woman, the water animals let her stay on top of Turtle’s back, as it is a flat surface. However, they soon realize that she is pregnant and the back of Turtle will not suffice forever. In a quest to create a larger flat surface, the water animals one by one, go to the bottom of the water in search of mud. All of them fail, except for the Otter, who brings back some mud, followed by singing and dancing and creating earth into a mud and water world. Soon after, Charm has not one, but TWO twin babies, each of them different from the other (one is light, another is dark; one is a boy, another is a girl; and one is right-handed, while another is left-handed). Both of the twins work together to create the rest of earth: valleys, mountains, fruit and nut trees, trenches, rivers, roses, and lastly, men and women. This particular creation story ends with the following:
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)
On the other hand, the creation story that I am most familiar with, is that of Adam and Eve from the Book of Genesis in the Bible. I have learned about this quite famous creation story so much more in depth, from being a student at Catholic educational institutions for 12 years of my life. To capture the gist of it however, God created the world in 6 days, leaving Sunday as His day of rest. In this time span, He created light, darkness, land, seas, the sky, stars, animals, the beautiful Garden of Eden, and many other things. God forbid Adam from eating the apples from a particular tree in the garden, and soon after, realized that Adam was lonely. To combat this, God created a woman and named her Eve. One day, because of some pressure from the snake in the forbidden tree, Eve and Adam ate an apple and went against God’s rule. Now this particular creation story ends with the following:
So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (The Bible NIV, Genesis.3: 23-24)
With these two creation stories in mind now, although they seem entirely different, there are some parallels that should be noted.
Similarities
One major similarity between these two aforementioned stories is that the first human was created after the world was created. I am aware that this sentiment seems a little ambiguous in the Native creation story, but even though Charm was described as a woman, she still lived in an ancient world in space, and had two twins who clearly had divine power because they were able to create the world. Men and women then, were the last thing to be created by the twins, and similarly at the end of Genesis 1, Adam, the first human, was created on the sixth day, AFTER God had created the rest of the world.
Another integral parallel lies in the reality that these two are creation stories. They both tell their own versions of how the world and humans came to be. Keeping this in mind, we can remember that they do not need to exist in a dichotomy. This reminds me of Chamberlin’s notion of “contradictory truths”: these two creation stories do not need to be viewed as pitted against each other, and can simply be perceived as two stories (221).
Differences
One major difference then, between these two stories, is that in the creation story mentioned in the Bible, in the process of God creating the world, there is also a hierarchy created: God is above humankind, humankind is superior to animals, and so on. However, in the Native creation story described by King, all of the characters, from Charm to Otter, are collaborating with each other and there is no clear hierarchy. King says it perfectly:
… The elements in Genesis create a particular universe governed by a series of hierarchies — God, man, animals, plants — that celebrate law, order, and good government, while in our Native story, the universe is governed by a series of co-operations — Charm, the Twins, animals, humans — that celebrate equality and balance. (King 23-24)
Another integral difference that I found is in the consequence of curiosity. In the story that King recited, Charm was extremely nosy, and different animals repeatedly told her to stop being curious. In fact, when she was digging the hole that made her fall out of the sky, Badger stated “Don’t dig too deep.” When Charm told Badger to “Mind your own business,” Badger responded “Okay… but don’t blame me if you make a mistake” (King 13). What was the consequence of her disobedience mixed with her curiosity? She fell out of the sky, became friends with the water animals, had two babies, and helped to create earth.
If we look at Adam and Eve now, they broke the one rule that God had given to them: to NOT eat the fruit from the forbidden tree. Their curiosity got the best of them when they listened to the serpent and ate the apple, which did not result in a positive consequence for them. Rather, they were banished from the Garden of Eden forever.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed this discussion, because it gave me the chance to learn about another creation story that greatly differs from one that I have been accustomed to for nearly the entirety of my life.
Despite this, I found it much easier to pick out differences than similarities between these two stories. My question then for my classmates is, are there any more parallels that you can find between the story of Adam and Eve, and the story of Charm, the twins, and the animals?
Works Cited
Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Print.
The Bible. New International Version, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3&version=NIV
Hi Simran!
Thanks for your post! I agree that both stories had a significant emphasis on sustaining the world for the long-run. In regards to your question, I noticed that Christian theology is (obviously) focused on monotheism, and so it makes sense that the Book of Genesis would involve only God. However, the story of Charm involves nature as whole – basically any essence of spirit was involved in the creation myth. I also think the notion of curiosity is fascinating, as the outcomes varied greatly in both stories. It’s almost as if Eurocentric ideology discouraged curiosity, whereas the culture Indigenous encouraged it.
Hi Katrina,
Thank you for your comment and for your answer to my question that I posed. I definitely agree with you – monotheism is something that is so prevalent in the Judeo-Christian creation story, whereas harmony of varying spirits is valued in the Native creation story. Thank you for bringing that up – it didn’t even occur to me!
Your last statement about curiosity is really engaging. Although I do not completely agree with it, I do resonate with the sentiment that even if Eurocentric ideology encouraged curiosity, they did so in a controversial way that also encompassed some sort of positive or negative punishment.
Hi Simran,
I liked the point about curiosity that you brought up in both the stories. I find it interesting how curiosity resulted in two very different outcomes in each story. Curiosity was a precursor to Eve bringing evil into the world, although the Bible would refer to this as “temptation”. Charm, on the other hand, seems to have had a benevolent outcome from curiosity. This really emphasizes how the Bible shuns behaviour that transcends the laws that relate to the “10 Commandments” whereas the Indigenous story provokes an innocence towards being curious. As I talked about in my blog, do you think gender depictions have any relevance in the story of Adam and Eve versus Charm? (Eve being a cause for evil being brought into the world and a portrayal of negative outcomes from disobedience and while Charm experienced the opposite).
Hi Kynan,
Thank you for your comment and for your supportive remarks on curiosity in both stories. I did bring up this point in my initial comment on your blog, but to summarize it, the varying gender depictions speak to the status of women in such cultures and societies. Although women have seen a lower status cross-culturally, the fact that Eve is blamed for her curiosity while Charm is celebrated for it, goes to show that women are held in a higher esteem in Indigenous cultures.
Hi Simran, thanks for your comparison of the two (out of many) creation stories that exist, particularly in Canada. After reading through your analysis, it’s evident that creation stories can influence world views and actions that we take in our day to day lives. I’m curious though, how you think the differing creation stories have influenced relations between the provincial and federal governments and indigenous peoples?