Common Elements in Creation Myths

Common Elements In Creation Myths

“Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them.” Albert Camus

Themes like a cosmic egg, nothingness and natural phenomena, can be found in many different creation myths from all around the world. This is very unusual because, these countries are very far apart, and yet they ended up with the same common themes. Also these myths might have been told in different time periods and maybe these people have never ever met each other, because they could not have travelled. A common element found in many creation myths, is that something from some creature was born from a cosmic egg. For example in the Chinese myth, there was a creature named Phan Ku. He hatched from an egg, and created everything on earth. Also in the Tahitian myth, everything started from just that creature that was born from an egg. Nothing could have happened if that creature was never born. So as you can see these myths are very much in common with each other, although they are from different places in the world. In the beginning, some cultures believed that everything started from nothingness or chaos. In the Maori myth, it all started with nothing, then gods started developing over time, like it started with one god than another one would appear from that. Another example would be the Japanese myth, explaining how in the beginning all the elements were mixed together with a germ of life. Although possibly these myths were told in very different times, they all share the same idea with one another. Many of the creation myths explain how natural phenomena were formed. For example, in the African myth, a god vomited all the landscapes on earth, like the moon and the animals. Another example would be a Hebrew creation myth called “In the beginning.”, explaining how a god announced a command and that order would appeared. The phenomena he requested were usually landscapes that would create the world. This is strange because, these two myths were not on the same continents, and yet, their stories shared the same idea of the physical landscapes, making the world we live in today. These people back then probably could not have travelled the world, and so they might not have seen what other countries might have look like.

“What if myths were true” Lui Kang.

Picture URL: http://www.vladimirkush.com/___images___/large/161.jpg

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Why I chose the picture: I chose the picture because it shows the beginning of life. And myths were all about creating an image for people, so they can at least, think about how the world came to be. The picture shows the common elements, and also the picture combines all of the elements together into one. It shows the cosmic egg, hatching out, creating the landscapes, from nothingness.