11/20/19 Allen Vaiman PD 7

Allen Vaiman

11/20/19

Period 7

Aim: Creation Story Presentation

Today we had two groups present Eastern Culture Myths, which had some interesting connections

to each other and the Greek Myths we learned about in class before.

The first group was Group 4, Zeus is the Father, who chose Japan as their culture of focus.

Much like the Greeks, the Japanese believed that in the beginning there was nothing but chaos

until the emergence of the primal gods including the Amenominakamushi.

He would eventually create the first male/female pair of deities, Izunagi and Izunami who

were tasked with creating the world and maintaining order within it. The first island was created

from a drop of water that fell off of Izunagi’s spear. Together Izunagi and Izunami created

water, land, and the winds and give birth to many other gods including the goddess of the

sun Amaterasu and the fire kami Kagu-tsuchi whose birth burned Izunami and sent her

spirit to theYomi, the Japanese Underworld. Her husband Izunagi went to try and get her

back, but Izunami had already eaten the food of theYomi and was bound to stay there, much

like Persephone was bound to Hades by the pomegranate seed she ate. Another significant

points emphasized by the group was that the Japanese deities were imperfect and based off

of humans, much like the Greek gods, with many conflicts and consequences coming from

their wrath and vengeful relationships. An aspect that sets Japanese culture apart from western

ones was their worship of their ancestors and their spirits, believing that they would protect

them if they were shown respect and honored in death, likely derived from Izunami’s

misdirected anger after being killed by Kagu-tsuchi.

The next group to present was Group 3, Troy Story, told us a little about Chinese

mythology, specifically the story of Pangu. Similarly to the Greeks and Japanese, the

Chinese believed that there was some sort of void at the beginning of time. The Chinese

however believed this void to be a sort of  dark “egg” in which the infant god Pangu was

being nursed. One day, Pangu emerged from the egg and the aspects of Yin and Yang

being held within were released. The group talked about the duality of Yin and Yang and

how they represent opposite pairs like light and darkness or males and females, but also have

within them a drop of each other, the white and black drops in Yin and Yang respectively.

Despite this, they also completed each other, which is similar to the 8 aspects of chaos in

Egyptian myth which my group studied. You can also see an emphasis on balance and duality

in Greek myth, particularly in gods like Dionysus, who embodies the dual nature of wine

and in concepts like the diamonic which drive people to do either great good or horrible evil.

The group continued, explaining that as Pangu grew he separated the Earth from the sky

and eventually sculpted the world and its landscape until he perished. One story posits that

the human race was descended from parasites that had been leeching off of Pangu’s body.

The other human creation story involved the goddess Nuwa and her brother (and husband)

Fuxi. Nuwa was tired of how empty the world was and she decided to sculpt some dolls from

clay which would become humans. It is said that the ones she had made with her own hands

became the elites of society while the rest were considered to be the poorer classes, a method

likely used to reinforce the Chinese emperor’s “Mandate of Heaven” and justify their rule.

Fuxi created all of the tools and techniques used by society, and even taught man how to fish,

showing that the Chinese valued civility and order as a divine creation. His actions however,

angered the Dragon King much like how when Prometheus gave fire to humans, he attracted

the wrath of Zeus.

Reflection:

I enjoyed today’s presentations and it's obvious that a lot of research went into making

these projects. The groups were knowledgeable about their cultures and I thought it was

interesting to see the differences and overlap in mythologies developed by cultures that lived

so close to each other. It was also fascinating to see that many hints of Greek myth and

other western cultures developed simultaneously in the form of different stories in a

place far removed from their influence, especially at the time of their origin in history.

Through all of the creation stories we have studied, we can see that humans, no matter

how different we may think we are, share some similarities that bring us closer together

in our ideas and philosophies.