, the
dwarf was an embodiment of the
Maize God's
helpers at
creation.
Mythologists have applied various schemes to classify creation myths found throughout human cultures. Eliade and his colleague Charles Long developed a classification based on some common
motifs that reappear in stories the world over. The classification identifies five basic types: , the
Hindu deva of creation, emerges from a
lotus risen from the navel of
Viṣņu, who lies with
Lakshmi on the serpent
Ananta Shesha. •
Creation ex nihilo in which the creation is through the thought, word, dream, or bodily secretions of a divine being. • Earth-diver creation in which a diver, usually a bird or amphibian sent by a creator, plunges to the seabed through a
primordial ocean to bring up sand or mud which develops into a terrestrial world. • Emergence myths in which progenitors pass through a series of worlds and metamorphoses until reaching the present world. • Creation by the dismemberment of a primordial being. • Creation by the splitting or ordering of a primordial unity such as the cracking of a
cosmic egg or a bringing order from
chaos.
Marta Weigle further developed and refined this typology to highlight nine themes, adding elements such as
deus faber, a creation crafted by a deity, creation from the work of two creators working together or against each other, creation from sacrifice and creation from division/conjugation, accretion/conjunction, or secretion. In most of these stories, the world is brought into being by the speech, dream, breath, or pure thought of a creator but creation ex nihilo may also take place through a creator's bodily secretions. The literal translation of the phrase
ex nihilo is "from nothing" but in many creation myths the line is blurred whether the creative act would be better classified as a creation
ex nihilo or creation from chaos. In
ex nihilo creation myths, the potential and the substance of creation springs from within the creator. Such a creator may or may not be existing in physical surroundings such as darkness or water, but does not create the world from them, whereas in creation from chaos the substance used for creation is pre-existing within the unformed void.
Creation from chaos In creation from chaos myths, there is nothing initially but a formless, shapeless expanse. In these stories the word "chaos" means "disorder", and this formless expanse, which is also sometimes called a void or an abyss, contains the material with which the created world will be made. Chaos may be described as having the consistency of vapor or water, dimensionless, and sometimes salty or muddy. These myths associate chaos with evil and oblivion, in contrast to "order" (
cosmos) which is the good. The act of creation is the bringing of order from disorder, and in many of these cultures it is believed that at some point the forces preserving order and form will weaken and the world will once again be engulfed into the abyss. One example is the
Genesis creation narrative from the first chapter of the
Book of Genesis.
World parent , the primal couple are
Rangi and Papa, depicted holding each other in a tight embrace. There are two types of world parent myths, both describing a separation or splitting of a primeval entity, the world parent or parents. One form describes the primeval state as an eternal union of two parents, and the creation takes place when the two are pulled apart. The two parents are commonly identified as
Sky (usually male) and
Earth (usually female), who were so tightly bound to each other in the primeval state that no offspring could emerge. These myths often depict creation as the result of a sexual union and serve as genealogical record of the deities born from it. In the second form of world parent myths, creation itself springs from dismembered parts of the body of the primeval being. Often, in these stories, the limbs, hair, blood, bones, or organs of the primeval being are somehow severed or sacrificed to transform into sky, earth, animal or plant life, and other worldly features. These myths tend to emphasize creative forces as animistic in nature rather than sexual, and depict the sacred as the elemental and integral component of the natural world. One example of this is the
Norse creation myth described in "
Völuspá", the first poem in the
Poetic Edda, and in
Gylfaginning.
Emergence In emergence myths, humanity emerges from another world into the one they currently inhabit. The previous world is often considered the womb of the
earth mother, and the process of emergence is likened to the act of giving birth. The role of midwife is usually played by a female deity, like the spider woman of several mythologies of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Male characters rarely figure into these stories, and scholars often consider them in counterpoint to male-oriented creation myths, like those of the
ex nihilo variety. of both
ancient and present-day
Pueblo peoples, the
sipapu is a small round hole in the floor that represents the portal through which the ancestors
first emerged. (The larger hole is a fire pit, here in a ruin from the
Mesa Verde National Park.) Emergence myths commonly describe the creation of people and/or supernatural beings as a staged ascent or
metamorphosis from nascent forms through a series of subterranean worlds to arrive at their current place and form. Often the passage from one world or stage to the next is impelled by inner forces, a process of germination or gestation from earlier, embryonic forms. The genre is most commonly found in Native American cultures where the myths frequently link the final emergence of people from a hole opening to the underworld to stories about their subsequent migrations and eventual settlement in their current homelands.
Earth-diver The earth-diver is a common character in various traditional creation myths. In these stories a supreme being usually sends an animal (most often a type of bird, but also crustaceans, insects, and fish in some narratives) into the primal waters to find bits of sand or mud with which to build habitable land. Some scholars interpret these myths psychologically while others interpret them
cosmogonically. In both cases emphasis is placed on beginnings emanating from the depths.
Motif distribution According to
Gudmund Hatt and
Tristram P. Coffin, Earth-diver myths are common in
Native American folklore, among which
Shoshone,
Meskwaki,
Blackfoot,
Chipewyan,
Newettee,
Yokuts of California,
Mandan,
Hidatsa,
Cheyenne,
Arapaho,
Ojibwe,
Yuchi, and
Cherokee. American anthropologist
Gladys Reichard located the distribution of the motif across "all parts of North America", save for "the extreme north, northeast, and southwest".
David Adams Leeming pointed to its existence among the populations of the eastern United States. In a 1977 study, anthropologist Victor Barnouw surmised that the earth-diver motif appeared in "
hunting-gathering societies", mainly among northerly groups such as the
Hare,
Dogrib,
Kaska,
Beaver,
Carrier,
Chipewyan,
Sarsi,
Cree, and
Montagnais. Similar tales are also found among the
Chukchi and
Yukaghir, the
Tatars, and many
Finno-Ugric traditions, as well as among the
Buryat and the Samoyed. In addition, the earth-diver motif also exists in narratives from Eastern Europe, namely
Romani, Romanian,
Slavic (namely, Bulgarian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian), and Lithuanian mythological traditions. The pattern of distribution of these stories suggest they have a common origin in the
eastern Asiatic coastal region, spreading as peoples migrated west into
Siberia and east to the
North American continent. However, there are examples of this
mytheme found well outside of this boreal distribution pattern, for example the West African
Yoruba creation myth of
Ọbatala and
Oduduwa.
Native American narrative Characteristic of many Native American myths, earth-diver creation stories begin as beings and potential forms linger asleep or suspended in the primordial realm. The earth-diver is among the first of them to awaken and lay the necessary groundwork by building suitable lands where the coming creation will be able to live. In many cases, these stories will describe a series of failed attempts to make land before the solution is found. Among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the earth-diver cosmogony is attested in
Iroquois mythology: a female sky deity falls from the heavens, and certain animals, the
beaver, the
otter, the
duck, and the
muskrat dive in the waters to fetch mud to construct an island. In a similar story from the
Seneca, people lived in a sky realm. One day, the chief's daughter was afflicted with a mysterious illness, and the only cure recommended for her (revealed in a dream) was to lie beside a tree and to have it be dug up. The people do so, but a man complains that the tree was their livelihood, and kicks the girl through the hole. She ends up falling from the sky to a world of only water, but is rescued by
waterfowl. A turtle offers to bear her on its shell, but asked where would be a definitive dwelling place for her. They decide to create land, and the
toad dives into the depths of the primal sea to get pieces of soil. The toad puts it on the turtle's back, which grows larger with every deposit of soil. In another version from the
Wyandot, the Wyandot lived in heaven. The daughter of the Big Chief (or Mighty Ruler) was sick, so the
medicine man recommends that they dig up the wild apple tree that stands next to the Lodge of the Mighty Ruler, because the remedy is to be found on its roots. However, as the tree has been dug out, the ground begins to sink away, and the treetops catch and carry down the sick daughter with it. As the girl falls from the skies, two swans rescue her on their backs. The birds decide to summon all the Swimmers and the Water Tribes. Many volunteer to dive into the Great Water to fetch bits of earth from the bottom of the sea, but only the toad (female, in the story) is the one successful. ==See also==