Page 101 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

450 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

“history” has meant for most human communities. Cre- clopaedia Americana points out,“a myth is understood in
ation myths appear to have existed in all human societies its own society as a true story. (It is only when it is seen
and they are deeply embedded within all the major world from outside its society that it has come to acquire the
religions. By offering answers to questions about origins, popular meaning of a story that is untrue)” (Long 1996,
creation myths provide maps of reality within which 699). The difficulties of understanding a creation myth
people can learn about their place in the cosmos and the from outside can be appreciated from the following
roles they are expected to play. As Barbara Sproul has extract. It comes from the account of a French anthro-
written: “[C]reation myths are the most comprehensive of pologist, Marcel Griaule, who is summarizing his con-
mythic statements, addressing themselves to the widest versations with Ogotemmeli, a wise man of the Dogon
range of questions of meaning, but they are also the most people of Mali. Ogotemmeli had been authorized to
profound. They deal with first causes, the essences of reveal something of his society’s cosmology, but it is clear
what their cultures perceive reality to be. In them people from the conversation that he was aware of speaking to
set forth their primary understanding of man and the an outsider, who might not understand or fully appreci-
world, time and space” (1991, 2–3). Marie-Louise von ate all he said, and Griaule himself was acutely aware of
Franz writes: “[Creation myths] refer to the most basic the difficulties of this complex process of translation.
problems of human life, for they are concerned with the
ultimate meaning, not only of our existence, but of the The stars came from pellets of earth flung out into space by
existence of the whole cosmos” (1972, 5). the God Amma, the one God. He had created the sun and
This article will discuss creation myths and the many the moon by a more complicated process, which was not
the first known to man but is the first attested invention of
striking parallels that exist between traditional creation
God: the art of pottery.The sun is, in a sense, a pot raised
myths and the foundation stories of modern societies,
once for all to white heat and surrounded by a spiral of red
which are embedded within modern science and histori-
copper with eight turns. The moon is in the same shape,
ography. Are modern accounts of origins fundamentally
but its copper is white. It was heated only one quarter at a
different from those of traditional societies? Or can they,
time. Ogotemmeli said he would explain later the move-
too, be regarded as “creation myths”? Such questions are
ments of these bodies. For the moment he was concerned
worth pursuing because they raise important questions only to indicate the main lines of the design, and from that
about the nature of the truths that can be attained within to pass to its actors. He was anxious...to give an idea of
modern historiography, particularly when, like world his- the size of the sun. “Some,” he said, “think it is as large as
tory, it aspires to a coherent account of the past on many this encampment, which would mean thirty cubits. But it
scales. is really bigger. Its surface area is bigger than the whole of
Sanga Canton.” And after some hesitation he added: “It is
A Creation Myth Example perhaps even bigger than that.”. . .
The moon’s function was not important, and he would
Creation myths have taken many different forms. The
speak of it later. He said however that, while Africans were
Genesis story within the Judeo-Christian-Islamic reli-
creatures of light emanating from the fullness of the sun,
gious tradition counts as a creation myth. So do the ori-
Europeans were creatures of the moonlight: hence their
gin stories found in the oral traditions of societies without
immature appearance. . . .
written traditions.Appreciating the full significance of cre-
The god Amma,... took a lump of clay, squeezed it in
ation myths is difficult because, like so many cultural
his hand and flung it from him, as he had done with the
traits, their meaning is obvious to those brought up with stars. The clay spread and fell on the north, which is the
them, but opaque to outsiders. So the creation myths of top, and from there stretched out to the south, which is the
others are almost invariably experienced as strange, bottom of the world, although the whole movement was
exotic, and wrong. As the definition of myth in the Ency- horizontal.The earth lies flat, but the north is at the top. It