11/19/19 Chris Turano Period 8

Modern Mythology 2020

11/19/19

Chris Turano Pd 8 #28

Aim: Creation Story Presentations

Notes:

Shinto Creation Story - Group 6

Before there was anything, there was only chaos in the shape of an egg. This egg separated into two distinct parts, one more pure and the other impure. The pure part formed together and became heaven while the impure part became Earth. Many Gods began to emerge after the creation of heaven and Earth, the most important of which were Izanagi and Izanami. After seeing that Earth was just a big ocean they created the first island by sticking a spear into the ocean. They went down to live there together and fell in love. After a failed marriage ritual due to Izanami, the woman, speaking first, they had a deformed child named Hiruko. They attempted the marriage ritual again, this time with Izanagi speaking first and were successful, coming together and having many children after the fact. The first of their children were the other islands that would go on to eventually become Japan. After this they had children in the form of other gods, the most important of which were the sun goddess Amaterasu and the storm god Susanoo. Amaterasu is the most important God in the Shinto religion (hence Japan’s name “land of the rising sun”) and she was also the ruler of Takama No Hara, their version of Heaven. After gaining control of Earth, Amaterasu passed it to her grandson Ninigi and gave him a jewel a mirror and a sword. These three items were used by the imperial power in Japan to show that they had descended from the gods. After giving birth to the fire god Kagutsuchi, Izanami was fatally burned and eventually died. Furious at this, Izanagi chopped of Kagutsuchi’s head, creating more gods in the process. Izanagi then journeyed down into Yomi, the land of the dead, to try and get Izanami back. Upon arriving Izanagi found that Izanami had eaten the fruit of the underworld and may be trapped there forever. However, Izanami said that she would try to convince the rulers of the underworld to let her go, on the condition that Izanagi not look at her until she does so. Izanagi agreed but after waiting for a long time could not wait any longer and went back to look at his wife. What he saw was a rotting corpse of his wife and disgusted by this, he ran. Izanami attempted to catch him and force him to stay with her but was unsuccessful. When Izanagi reached the surface again he blocked the entrance to the land of the dead with a giant boulder, forever creating a barrier between the two. The Shinto creation myth connects to modern science in the way that islands are formed. In the myth the first island is created from the ocean which is how we know islands to be created today. Islands are created when tectonic plates under the ocean rub into each other and one is forced above the other creating land. 

Slavic Creation Story- Group 4

The slavic creation story started with darkness a god named Rod and an egg. The egg cracked and out of it came another god named Svarog. After this, Rod disappeared and was not seen again. Pieces of the egg went on to become trees and mankind itself. Svarog is often credited with being the main creator god after Rod disappeared as he created everything after the creation of the egg and himself. Two very important gods are Czembog and bernobog, the gods of darkness and light respectively. Many aspects of life were attributed to clashes between these two such as the day/night cycle and the changing of the seasons. Two more important gods wer Perun and Veles who also were often at odds with each other. These two were the gods of good and evil respectively and bore many similarities to Thor and Loki from Norse mythology. The idea that the universe came from nothing connects to modern day science with the idea of the big bang theory and everything we knowing coming from nothing. 

Reflection:

In class today we learned about the Shinto and Slavic creation stories. These connected to what we learned about the greek creation story and how everything started in chaos. As seen in all three of these creation stories many people of different backgrounds all had the idea of something coming from nothing which seems to be constant throughout all creation stories and even in our modern understanding of science. These stories also had certain details crossing over with other creation stories which we can use to see how certain cultures may have impacted each other. For example the similarities between Perun and Veles, and Thor and Loki shows us that Norse mythology and Slavic mythology impacted each other in some way although because there are no records we cannot be sure how.