11/20/19 Fiona Wang Period 8

Modern Mythology 2020

11/20/2019

Fiona Wang Period 8 #29

Aim: Creation Story Presentations

Today we continued to present our creation story projects in class. The 1st group that 

presented, Ajax Stronger Than Greece, created a diorama of Pan Gu holding up the sky and had a Slides presentation along with it. The 2nd group, Elbow Greece, did something different & created something almost similar to a video game to tell the Mayan creation story.

 

Ajax Stronger Than Greece: Chinese

The world started with chaotic darkness, much like other creation myths from cultures such as the Greeks, & the chaos gathered into the shape of an egg. The forces of Yin & Yang later settled in the egg, finding balance after fighting.

Pan Gu, the first man, came from the egg, like the Slavic creation story the group Phi Theta Delta explained yesterday. His name shows the ancientness & unusualness of his birth, with “pan” meaning “coil” & “gu” meaning “ancient”. Pan Gu is credited with the creation of the universe after he cracked open the egg in the middle with an axe & the forces of Yin and Yang came out of it, eventually settling down to form the earth & heaven. When Pan Gu died in his sleep, his body started to decay, creating the universe. His skin became soil, his blood became rivers, his last breath clouds, and eyes the sun & the moon.

Hundreds of years after Pan Gu’s death, the goddess Nuwa decided to live on the land Pan Gu created, but she ended up creating humans from mud because of her loneliness. Nuwa initially made them by hand, but then opted for a rope. Those that were made by hand were thought to be the ancestors of emperors & those made by the rope were thought to be the commoners. 

Mythical beasts had helped Pan Gu when he pushed the egg apart. These creatures represent traits that the Chinese value. Qilin, a chimerical unicorn-like creature, for example, represents good luck and prosperity, while the phoenix represents rebirth, strength, and renewal. Dragons are symbols of power, connected to the succession of early emperors, and turtles represent strength and immortality.

Some similarities to modern philosophy and science include similarities to the Big Bang Theory. The idea that the universe started from nothing and then atoms were formed is similar to the cosmic egg breaking since Pan Gu’s death resulted in the creation of each part of our universe, similar to how atoms in the universe were created after the Big Bang.

Elbow Greece: Mayan

Kukulkan, the god of learning crafts and war, helped created humanity and the earth. He is a feathered-serpent god who presides over human sacrifices and his priests preside over peaceful trade and communication.

Chaac, the god of rain and thunder, is also known as the fertility and agriculture god. He is thought of as 1 or 4 gods because he’s known as the Red Chaac of the East, Black Chaac of the West, White Chaac of the North, & Yellow Chaac of the South. Chaac is depicted as an old man with reptilian features & a long nose. He has tears in his eyes, symbolizing rain, & carries an axe that brings thunder. 

Itzamna, the most important god, is the ruler of heaven and the god of fire. He created humans & taught them writing and medicine and was identified with the Sun god because both are of high power. 

Yum Kaax was the nature god and the god of agriculture, wild plants, & animals. 

Kinich Ahau was the sun god & his name meant “divine king”. 

In the beginning, just like other creation myths in other cultures, there was nothing but stillness, silence, & water. There were the deities however, & they created the earth. First they created plants & animals, but the plants & animals didn’t have souls so the gods couldn’t be worshipped. They made humans that were able to worship them out of yellow corn in the end.

Reflection

Today we learned about Mayan & Chinese mythology and their creation stories. Hearing about these two mythologies was great because they aren’t the ones people usually know a lot about compared to ones like Greek or Norse mythology, so we had the opportunity to learn more about other cultures and the stories they passed on. We learned about the various gods & goddesses that were important to both cultures as well as the role some of those gods played in the creation of the world in their respective myths. What we learned today shows us that even the lesser known cultures had similar ideas about how the world was created but they were still unique in terms of the stories of their deities.