Yayin Ruan 11/19/19 Period 2 - Blog #1

11/19/19

Name: YaYin Ruan Pd2

Mythology 2020 

Blogger #28

Aim: Mythology presentation

• Team: Sirens Culture: Hawaiian
• Their research was from hawaiian oral poems passed down for generations and generations.
• Creation of the universe
• The universe started off with Po which embodies nothing but chaotic blackness
• Kane was the first god to be separated from Po and he represented light
• Then there was Lono (god of fertility and agriculture) represented sound, and Ku (god of war) represented substance.
• Creation of man
• Kane, Ku, Lono created men from clay from different parts of the earth.
• The first man was Kumuhonua and his wife was made from his right side. They lived in the garden paliuli. (This story is similar to adam and eve)
• Major gods and goddesses
• Kanaloa (ruler of the oceans) and his wife Kapo/tapo (goddess of sorcery)
• Hina (moon goddess) is married to Ku
• Wakea (sky father) and Papa (earth mother) made Honua (earth)
• Namaka: goddess of the sea and she is known for being fierce
• Pele: goddess of fire, lightning, wind, dance, and volcanoes. She has a very fierce and passionate personality.
• Has an earth eating digging stick called o’o
• Sometimes appear as an old lady begging for food. Those who are generous to her will be rewarded and those who are not will be punished. 
• Creation story of Hawaii
• Pele sent away by her father for her temper and seducing Namaka’s (her sister) husband. She was attacked by her sister Namaka in Kauai and escaped to Oahu where she dug fire pits. When her sister discovered she survived and they fought an epic battle where Pele was torn apart by her sister and become a god.
• This created hawaii when Pele was hoping to different places and digging fire pits.
• Connections with modern religions, science, and philosophy
• The story of Kumuhonua and Lalo Honua is similar to Adam and eve
• They both take place where the first man and woman lived in a garden
• Both were forbidden from eating a fruit and in this case they were forbidden from eating the sacred apples from the Tapu tree
• The woman in this case were seduced by a seabird while in Eve was seduced by the devil
• At the end they were banished from the garden
• The universe started from chaos and nothing related to the Big Bang theory that the universe started as a singularity.
• Hawaiian belief of mana which is living energy
• 
• Top level: battle between Namka and Pele which created Hawaii. Middle level: Po, the chaos before the universe was created. The bottom level: Kune, Ku, and Lono creating the first man. 
• Team: Hydra and Siege. Culture: Shintoism
• Worship of kami or spirits gods or forces of nature. If rituals are not properly followed or natural order is disturbed, bad things will happen. The Kamis are not immortal. In Shintoism sex is a holy creative process, and imperfect children can be abandoned.
• Creation story
• Starts from a pre existing chaos. Kamis popped up out of nowhere, starting with Izanagi  (he who invites) and Izanami (she who invites).
• Izanagi and Izanami thrusted a jeweled spear into the ocean forming the central japan. Their children became islands of japan and other kami. They abandoned their first child was abandoned because the first child was deformed.
• Yomi is land of dead and Izanami was the first to die during childbirth.
• Major Kamis
• Amaterasu omikami (sun goddess), the ruler of the high celestial, and the ancestress of imperial family.
• Susanoo (god of wind and storms) is both a protector and the cause of disasters
• Tsukuyomi no Mikoto the moon god
• Ebisu (god of commerce) is one of the seven gods of luck and was the child abandoned by Izanami and Izanagi
• Tenjin is the god of education and was once a human scholar
• Susanoo and orochi
• Susanoo was thrown to the realm of mortals, and met two earth deities, who were being harassed by the serpent of Orochi. It demanded their daughters as sacrifices. Susanoo killed the serpent by slicing it.
• Modern shinto is fused with Buddhism which is called ryobu shinto
• 
• Unsa did not draw the faces of the Kamis because different texts have different descriptions of how the Kamis looked like. This enables the viewers to envision the faces with their own interpretation.

Reflection: 

Both groups did a fantastic job in their research and art piece.  The Sirens’ artwork has a really nice color scheme and detailed artwork. I really liked the concept Unsa used to allow viewers to interpret how the Kamis looked like. I learned that in both Hawaiian and Shintoism the universe started as nothing or a chaotic darkness. This adds on to what we learned in class that most mythology including Greek mythology starts off with the universe being nothing. Both Hawaiian and Shintoism have their own unique stories. The Hawaiians believed that Hawaii was created when Pele and Namka fought. The fire pits created by Pele ultimately became the islands of Hawaii. In Shintoism, it was believed the kamis Izanagi and Izanami thrusted a jewel spear into the ocean to create Japan and some of their children became the islands of Japan. In both cultures, we see that the lands were created by deities and are connected to them. The reason to learn about various culture’s mythology is to appreciate their unique qualities and draw similarities between them. The origin of the universe being nothing is common throughout many cultures as I mentioned above. Additionally, we can draw parallels from mythologies that originated from different parts of the world. The Hawaiian’s Kumuhonua and Lalo Honua and the bible’s Adam and Eve are very similar. In both stories the first man and woman lived in a garden and were tempted to consume a forbidden fruit. Learning about different mythologies gives me a new perspective of the world that I never had before. This helps me to have a better understanding of how people can view the world differently.