Primal Myths

by Barbara C. Sproul

  Now the male deity turning by the left, and the female deity by the right, they went round the pillar of the land separately. When they met together on one side, the female deity spoke first and said:—“How delightful! I have met with a lovely youth.” The male deity was displeased, and said:—“I am a man, and by right should have spoken first. How is it that on the contrary thou, a woman, shouldst have been the first to speak? This was unlucky. Let us go round again.” Upon this the two deities went back, and having met anew, this time the male deity spoke first, and said:—“How delightful! I have met a lovely maiden.”

  Then he inquired of the female deity, saying:—“In thy body is there aught formed?” She answered, and said:—“In my body there is a place which is the source of femininity.” The male deity said:—“In my body again there is a place which is the source of masculinity. I wish to unite this source-place of my body to the source-place of thy body.” Hereupon the male and female first became united as husband and wife.

  Now when the time of birth arrived, first of all the island of Ahaji was reckoned as the placenta, and their minds took no pleasure in it. Therefore it received the name of Ahaji no Shima [the island which is unsatisfactory].

  Next there was produced the island of Oho-yamato no Toyo-aki-tsu-shima [rich-harvest-of-island].

  Next they produced the island of Iyo no futa-na, and next the island of Tsukushi. Next the islands of Oki and Sado were born as twins. This is the prototype of the twin-births which sometimes take place among mankind.

  Next was born the island of Koshi, then the island of Oho-shima, then the island of Kibi no ko.

  Hence first arose the designation of the Oho-ya-shima country [great-eight-island country].

  Then the islands of Tsushima and Iki, with the small islands in various parts, were produced by the coagulation of the foam of the salt-water.

  They next produced the sea, then the rivers, and then the mountains. Then they produced Ku-ku-no-chi, the ancestor of the trees, and next the ancestor of herbs, Kaya no hime.

  After this Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto consulted together, saying:—“We have not produced the Great-eight-island country, with the mountains, rivers, herbs, and trees. Why should we not produce someone who shall be lord of the universe? They then together produced the Sun-Goddess, who was called Oho-hiru-me no muchi [Great-noon-female-of-possessor].

  The resplendent luster of this child shone throughout all the six quarters [North, East, South, West, Above and Below]. Therefore the two Deities rejoiced, saying:—“We have had many children, but none of them have been equal to this wondrous infant. She ought not to be kept long in this land, but we ought of our own accord to send her at once to Heaven, and entrust to her the affairs of Heaven.”

  At this time Heaven and Earth were still not far separated, and therefore they sent her up to Heaven by the ladder of Heaven.

  They next produced the Moon-god.

  His radiance was next to that of the Sun in splendour. This God was to be the consort of the Sun-Goddess, and to share in her government. They therefore sent him also to Heaven.

  Next they produced the leech-child, which even at the age of three years could not stand upright. They therefore placed it in the rock-camphor-wood boat of Heaven, and abandoned it to the winds.

  Their next child was Sosa no wo no Mikoto [Impetuous One].

  This God had a fierce temper and was given to cruel acts. Moreover he made a practice of continually weeping and wailing. So he brought many of the people of the land to an untimely end. Again he caused green montains to become withered. Therefore the two Gods, his parents, addressed Sosa no wo no Mikoto, saying:—“Thou art exceedingly wicked, and it is not meet that thou shouldst reign over the world. Certainly thou must depart far away to the Netherland” [Hades]. So they at length expelled him.

  Their next child was Kagu tsuchi [god of fire].

  Now Izanami no Mikoto was burnt by Kagu tsuchi, so that she died. When she was lying down to die, she gave birth to the Earth-Goddess, Hani-yama-hime, and the Water-Goddess, Midzu-ha-no-me. Upon this Kagu tsuchi took to wife Hani-yama-hime, and they had a child named Waka-musubi [young growth]. On the crown of this Deity’s head were produced the silkworm and the mulberry tree, and in her navel the five kinds of grain.

  Thereafter, Izanagi no Mikoto went after Izanami no Mikoto, and entered the land of Yomi [Hades]. When he reached her they conversed together, and Izanami no Mikoto said: “My lord and husband, why is the coming so late? I have already eaten of the cooking-furnace of Yomi. Nevertheless, I am about to lie down to rest. I pray thee, do not thou look on me.” Izanagi no Mikoto did not give ear to her, but secretly took his many-toothed comb and, breaking off its end tooth, made of it a torch, and looked at her. Putrefying matter had gushed up, and maggots swarmed. This is why people at the present day avoid using a single light at night, and also avoid throwing away a comb at night. Izanagi no Mikoto was greatly shocked, and said: “Nay! I have come unawares to a hideous and polluted land.” So he speedily ran away back again. Then Izanami no Mikoto was angry, and said: “Why didst thou not observe that which I charged thee? Now am I put to shame.” So she sent the eight Ugly Females of Yomi to pursue and stay him. Izanagi no Mikoto therefore drew his sword, and, flourishing it behind him, ran away. Then he took his black head-dress and flung it down. It became changed into grapes, which the Ugly Females seeing, took and ate. When they had finished eating them, they again pursued Izanagi no Mikoto. Then he flung down his many-toothed comb, which forthwith became changed into bamboo-shoots. The Ugly Females pulled them up and ate them, and when they had done eating them, again gave chase. Afterwards, Izanami no Mikoto came herself and pursued him. By this time Izanagi no Mikoto had reached the Even Pass of Yomi.

  But, having visited in person the Land of Yomi, he had brought on himself ill-luck. In order, therefore, to wash away the defilement, he visited the Aha gate [a strait famous for its rapid tides] and the Haya-sufu-na [Quick-such-name] gate. But the tide in these two gates was exceeding strong. So he returned and took his way towards Wodo [little gate] in Tachibana. There he did his ablutions. At this time, entering the water, he blew out and produced Iha-tsu-tsu no Mikoto [Rock-of-Elder]; coming out of the water, he blew forth and produced Oho-nawo-bi no Kami [Great Remedy Person]. Entering a second time, he blew out and produced Sokotsutsu no Mikoto [Bottom-elder]; coming out he blew forth and produced Oho-aya-tsu-bi no Kami [Great-Pattern-of-Person]. Entering again, he blew forth and produced Aka-tsutsu no Mikoto [Red Elder], and coming out he blew out and produced the various deities of Heaven and Earth, and of the Sea-plain.

  After this, Izanagi no Mikoto, his divine task having been accomplished, and his spirit-career about to suffer a change, built himself an abode of gloom in the island of Ahaji, where he dwelt for ever in silence and concealment.

  —W. G. Aston (trans.). The Nihongi. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1956, pp. 1–34.

  AINU

  In the Beginning the World Was Slush The Ainu are the native, aboriginal people of Japan. Subjugated by the Japanese in 812 A.D. and forced to retreat to the northern islands of Hokkaido and Sakhalin, the 16,000 remaining Ainu are hunters and fishermen. Not Mongoloid, they are probably remnants of a proto-Nordic people that once spread over western Asia. Their language is unrelated to any other.

  Ainu religion is generally classed as animistic, but it has many dualistic features as well. A supreme god dwells in the highest heaven and many lesser deities, including an evil one who created death and disease, populate the lower regions. Ancestor worship, propitiation of evil forces, belief in a future life, and judgment before god with the fire goddess as chief witness are major features of the religion.

  Intermarriage with Japanese has caused a decline in both native culture and population, and in this creation myth, a close relation to Japanese cosmologies is clear. As in the Nihongi, the primordial earth is slushy and unformed until a wagtail, sacred in the Nihongi for his sexual instruction of Izanagi
and Izanami, forms dry places by beating the muck with his wings and stamping it into firmness.

  IN THE BEGINNING the world was slush, for the waters and the mud were all stirred in together. All was silence; there was no sound. It was cold. There were no birds in the air. There was no living thing.

  At last the Creator made a little wagtail and sent him down from his far place in the sky.

  “Produce the earth,” he said.

  The bird flew down over the black waters and the dismal swamp. He did not know what to do. He did not know how to begin.

  He fluttered the water with his wings and spashed it here and there. He ran up and down in the slush with his feet and tried to trample it into firmness. He beat on it with his tail, beating it down. After a long time of this treading and tail-wagging a few dry places began to appear in the big ocean which now surrounds them—the islands of the Ainu. The Ainu word for earth is moshiri, floating land, and the wagtail is reverenced.

  —Retold in Maria Leach. The Beginning. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1956, p. 205.—Based on material in G. Batchelor. The Ainu and Their Folklore. London: 1901, p. 582f. and in “Notes on the Ainu.” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. Vol. 10. Yokohama: 1882.

  SIX

  SIBERIAN AND ESKIMO MYTHS

  TUNGUS

  God Triumphs Over the Devil The Tungus (or Evenki) are a native Siberian group now numbering about 30,000. The vast majority live in the USSR, mainly in the Evenki National Okrug, while the rest are in China. Before the Russians moved into Siberia in the latter part of the sixteenth century and before the Soviets eventually established control of the region, the Tungus practiced a shamanistic religion.

  In many Siberian creation myths such as this one, God created the earth by setting fire to the primordial ocean. Using one creative force to overcome and order another, he triumphed over the powers of chaos and formed the land.

  Once on earth, God met the devil, Buninka, who had designs of his own. Buninka broke God’s twelve-stringed musical instrument (one string for each month), and in response to this challenge God offered a test of respective power. The creation of the pine tree, the focus of the subsequent contest, is significant for several reasons: at a psychosexual level, it is an obvious phallic symbol, evocative of fertility and creative power; it is also, religiously, an axis mundi, a symbolic connection between the absolute and relative realms, heaven and earth. In addition, given its properties as an evergreen, the pine symbolizes immortal and unchanging life. When the devil’s tree proved weak and ungrounded in comparison to God’s, the superior might of God was established.

  GOD sent fire into the primordial ocean. In the course of time the fire vanquished the power of the water and burnt up a part of the ocean, so that it became quite hard. Thus the present land and sea were formed.

  When God stepped down upon the earth he met the devil, Buninka, who also desired to create a world. Thus a dispute arose between God and the devil. The devil wished to destroy God’s earth and broke the latter’s twelve-stringed musical instrument. Then God was angry and said: “If thou canst command a pine-tree to grow out of the lake I will recognize thy power, but if I can do it, thou must admit that I am omnipotent.” The devil agreed to God’s proposal. At once, when God commanded, a tree arose from the water and began to grow, but the devil’s pine would not stand erect but tottered from one side to the other. Thus the devil saw that God was mightier than he.

  —Uno Holmberg. Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythology. In MacCulloch (ed.), The Mythology of All Races. Vol. 4. Boston: Marshall Jones, 1927, p. 329.

  MONGOLIAN

  A Lama Came Down from Heaven The simultaneous conquest of northern India by the Moslems and of northern China by the Mongols under Genghis Khan (1167?–1227 A.D.) forced the Tibetan Buddhists to turn away from the religious life of India to which they had been attached and to look toward the Mongolians. The missionary work they did among these people even after the fall of the Mongol (Yuan) Dynasty in China is evident in this creation myth fragment.

  Here a Lama (“superior one,” the ideal of Tibetan Buddhism) stirs the primeval waters with an iron rod much as Izanagi and Izanami did in the Japanese myth, the Nihongi. Affected by this powerful connection to the source of creative power, the chaos orders itself into land and the surrounding sea.

  The Mongolians, currently numbering around 3,250,000, now live in Mongolia, northern and western Manchuria, and in the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous SSR in the USSR.

  IN THE BEGINNING, when there was yet no earth, but water covered everything, a Lama came down from Heaven, and began to stir the water with an iron rod. By the influence of the wind and fire thus brought about, the water on the surface in the middle of the ocean thickened and coagulated into land.

  —Uno Holmberg. Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythlology. In MacCulloch (ed.), The Mythology of All Races. Vol. 4. Boston: Marshall Jones, 1927, pp. 328–329.

  ALARSK BURYATS

  When Burkhan Came Down from Heaven Closely related to the Mongols linguistically and culturally, the Buryats are another people indigenous to Siberia. Currently numbering about 250,000, they live in the Buryat Autonomous SSR, north of Mongolia. While most Buryats are Russian Orthodox today, a strong Buddhist influence is apparent in this older creation myth.

  With the devil acting as an earth diver, God scatters the earth over the surface of the water and commands the world to be born. And then, in a strongly dualistic development, the devil is rewarded for his service with a piece of land for himself. Thrusting his staff into the fertile ground (an imitative sexual act), he causes the earth to give birth to all the harmful creatures.

  WHEN BURKHAN (=Buddha) came down from Heaven to create the earth, the devil (Sholmo) appeared beside him to give advice how the earth was to be made from the earth-matter and stones under the water, offering at the same time to fetch the earth-matter. God scattered the earth-matter, which the devil had brought him, on the surface of the ocean and said: “Let the world be born!” As a reward for his trouble the devil begged for a part of the land, receiving enough to plant his staff on. The devil at once pushed his staff into this, and from the hole there crept forth all manner of reptiles, snakes, etc. Thus he created the harmful creatures of the world.

  —Uno Holmberg. Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythology. In MacCulloch (ed.), The Mythology of All Races. Vol. 4. Boston: Marshall Jones, 1927, p. 315.

  ALTAIC

  God and First Man The Altaic peoples are a linguistically related group including Turks, Mongols, and Tungus-Manchus. Religious influences on these originally shamanistic, nomadic people come from Buddhism, Islam, Iranian religion, Nestorian Christianity, and Manichaeism. In this myth, the nascent or developed dualism of these creeds is clear. God and the Devil—identified here with the “First Man,” the first of the ancestors and eventual ruler of the underworld—act together to create land out of the watery chaos. Through his attempt to trick God and retain some earth for himself, the Devil inadvertently creates the boggy, unformed places.

  IN THE BEGINNING when there was nothing but water, God and the “First Man” moved about in the shape of two black geese over the waters of the primordial ocean. The devil, however, could not hide his nature, but endeavoured ever to rise higher, until he finally sank down into the depths. Nearly suffocating, he was forced to call to God for help, and God raised him again into the air with the power of his word. God then spoke: “Let a stone rise from the bottom of the ocean!” When the Stone appeared, “Man” seated himself upon it, but God asked him to dive under the water and bring land. Man brought earth in his hand and God scattered it on the surface of the water saying: “Let the world take shape!” Once more God asked Man to fetch earth. But Man then decided to take some for himself and brought a morsel in each hand. One handful he gave to God but the other he hid in his mouth, intending to create a world of his own. God threw the earth which the devil had brought him beside the rest on the water, and the world at once began to expand and grow harder, but with t
he growing of the world the piece of earth in Man’s mouth also swelled until he was about to suffocate so that he was again compelled to seek God’s help. God inquired: “What was thy intention? Didst thou think thou couldst hide earth from me in thy mouth?” Man now told his secret intentions and at God’s request spat the earth out of his mouth. Thus were formed the boggy places upon the earth.

  —Uno Holmberg. Finno-Ugric, Siberian Mythology. In MacCulloch (ed.), The Mythology of All Races. Vol. 4. Boston: Marshall Jones, 1927, pp. 317–318.

  ESKIMO

  The Creation The 55,000 Eskimo who live in the vast arctic and subarctic regions of the north are remarkably similar in language, physical appearance, and religion. Elements of this myth are common among Eskimo from the Chuckchi Peninsula in Siberia to Greenland, where they migrated by the thirteenth century A.D.; indeed, the latter sequences involving two brothers quarreling over the sun is characteristic of Finno-Ugric and Turko-Mongolian mythology as well.

  This myth was related by an old Unalit man from Kigitauik. Although its scope is typically limited and it does not focus on the creation of the universe as such, it does tell of the origin of people and society. Particularly, the myth evokes a connection between the trickster god, Raven, who travels frequently between the three worlds of heaven, earth, and the sea floor, and the shaman, a priest or medicine man basic to Eskimo and other religions whose function it is to mediate between the worlds of spirits and men. Like the Raven, the shaman is an outsider beyond the ordered realms of natural and human society. And, like the shaman, the Raven has great sacred powers; by his cunning and intelligence, he easily changes form and instructs people in the proper way of life.