MYTHS

Omaha Creation Myth

How do the Gods behave?  This myth, nothing was mentioned about a God but it does mention that people were made in the mind of the Wakonda. And he didn’t do much, just created people and let them float around.

How might the movement from an oral version of the story to a written version of the story affect what we take from it?  Well when someone tells a story orally they usually emphasize certain parts. When it is written nothing is emphasized so you can make what you want from it.

Out of what substances does creation come?  In this myth nothing is created, everything just appears. Like the people appear, and they find the sun, moon, then earth.

An African Story of the Creation of Man

How do the Gods behave?  They had a creator and his name was Juok. He was a curious man he walked among the earth and made people. He was a perfectionist in a sense because he wanted man to be able to do many things.

Would you agree that creation myths represent one of the most stunning feats of the human imagination? Why? Yes I do agree. It’s not normal for a human to think about things that big. And it’s fascinating to see what different cultures come up with.

Out of what substances does creation come? In this myth people are created out of clay. More specifically, there are different colors of clay to represent different races.

An African Cosmogony

How do the Gods behave? The main creator or God goes by the name of Bumba. He was the furst on the earth but then 9 other creators or Gods come and join him.

Out of what substance does creation come? Each different God created the animals like them. Like the crocodile made serpents and the iguana. The goat produced every beast with horns etc.

Do you see any similarities between the different myths?  Yes, I noticed that every myth has a God or some type of a creator. And they usually make humans because that’s the point of these myths.

EASTER'S END

The general point made by Jared Diamond in his work Easter’s End is that some great civilizations that were prosperous have failed. More specifically, Diamond suggests that the people of Easter’s Island did this exact thing. They were once a society with gigantic stone carvings and nothing short of a paradise island, and it all disappeared. He writes; “It would be easy to close our eyes or to give up in despair. If mere thousands of Easter Islanders with only stone tools and their own muscle power sufficed to destroy their society, how can billions of people with metal tools and machine power fail to do worse?”(pg 431) In this passage, Diamond is suggesting that we need to be careful with what we do with our tools. We need to conserve nature, so trees and other great plants that we take for granted, do not go extinct. In conclusion, it is Diamond’s belief that we should learn from the fates of societies like Easter’s and change now.

In my view, Diamond is right to say that we should be smart with how we use nature because we might get carried away and destroy it all. For example, this reminds me of the new movie The Lorax. The people in Thneedsville cut down all their trees just to make these stupid thneeds. By cutting down all these tress they ruined a beautiful piece of nature that used to be paradise to many animals.  Although Diamond objects that without conservation of nature it will slowly disappear I maintain that-we need to be careful and not overuse trees, and other plants to a point where is goes extinct. Therefore, I conclude that we should learn from the past and not make the same mistakes that the people from Easter’s Island made.