The Creation Myths: Americas Visions, East Asia and the Pacific Vision - Essay Example

Task Introduction A cosmic structure is a myth or narration of the universe as it appears in the human mind. It s and defines how the world came into existence. The creation myth is the way the world came into existence, often accounted for in the form of symbols, poets to bring out what is regarded as the truth. America’s Visions Different continents in the world have dissimilar myths about human identity. For instance, in America, the first story is on Emergence, which states that all human being came from a different world and settled in the one they are currently living. The other world, which is the womb, is considered as the earth mother. This emergence is often referred to as giving birth. The midwife in this case is a female who is like a spider woman. In this emergence story, the male human beings are not featured anywhere. In this case, the formation of human beings is often done in dissimilar stages of growth and change. This is necessitated by inner forces in the womb, and finally the people emerge from a hole and eventually settle in their present homes. The ex nihilo story is found in many cultures, America included, which means “out of nothing”. Human identity is brought about by the thought of a creator who through his dreams and breath was able to form a human being. Through the creator’s bodily secretions, they believed that a being would be formed because of that. This is solely from within the creator who does not exist in the physical world. Another story is the world parent, which describes the union of two parents when they are both disjoined from one another. These two parents are referred to as the Sky and the Earth, which describes the male, and female respectively. A creation comes out because of sexual intimacy between the two and the subsequent growth of a human being who is then born. A second myth on the world parents is the creation of a human being from different parts of a body that are disfigured and then turned into the sky and the earth to form a creature; these forces are usually animistic in nature. The similarities of the visions from the Americas are not strong enough as to allow us to speak of an American view of human identity because the myths from different geographical areas are to a far extent a like so these visions cannot be adopted solely as the view of human identity. East Asia In East Asia, and particularly Japan, their vision of human identity was similar to the American and Central Asian cultures. At first, there was chaos, and out of it came light that formed the sky. It later formed the earth. Both the sky and the earth formed various creations and it is at this time that the roots of two people Yang and Yin who were male and female respectively begun to grow in the sky and the earth. At this time both of them were united together and they started separating to create a man and another light brought another person who was like him and he taught him to make clothes to cover himself because he was naked. Another version is of how a bird was sent under the water to create a land inside the water where people can live. The bird then went splashing water apart with its feet at the same time creating the earth when people will live. They believe that their ancestor was a bear because of their hairy bodies. They also believe that two people a male and a female were sent to the earth and had a son from where they originated. Australia and the Pacific vision A vision on the Australian myths was about analyzing every animal and its features, which included why the emu has long legs, why the snake has no legs and the reason why the koala has no tail among others. They tell of the formation of the Milky Way and the migration of animals to Australia. They tell of how the first humans came into existence in the continent and how the beginning came into existence. They believed in a wondrous being that went all over the world creating trees, animals and everything in the world and lastly created human beings. African Vision In the African context, there is a Nigerian myth that depicts that the world was a big swamp, the gods lived in the sky and there was a great God Oisha Nla who poured dirt on the swamp that formed the dry ground. Then the earth was formed in four days and the fifth day was set aside for worshipping the Great God. The Bushmen of South Africa believed in a good god and an evil god of death and bad spirits. They say that a man called Cagn was created first and he is the one who ordered all things to be created (Sproul, 1979). From the above stories of different continents it is evident that nothing existed in the world and that the world was formed by different scenarios and that is how human beings came into being and the earth and everything in it. Discussion Many people have studied the differences and similarities of the different myths and found out that they resemble one another largely. Most of the creation myths are shown or originate from the bible in the book of Genesis. In the biblical approach, the origin of these myths occurred in a sequential manner that happened and were passed on by the first human beings. Though as the years progressed and history has been changed as people developed but the main vision of different countries remained the same. The main essence of getting to know the bases of these myths is to help people to understand the world they live in. In all the above visions, people have believed in the religious and cultural aspect of every vision. It is quite evident that these visions have played an integral part in influencing their attitude and well-being. The belief in a supernatural being is evident here as according to the different visions something that they do not understand comes up and makes things to happen like the mysterious formation of human beings, the animals, the earth and other features. All in all these visions are held sacred by the people who believe in them and there is divine intervention. References Sproul, B.C. Primal Myths: Creation Myths around the World. Harper Collins Publishers. New York, 1979. Read More