We started our creation stories on Tuesday. Before we did that though we did recieve a rough schedule Dr. Sexson will send out an updated version in a mass email to the class. It lists what days our tests are, and the final will be at 8:50 pm, on Thursday the 15th of December. Business out of the way, creation stories began. We are snaking our way around the room, or trying to. I didn't copy down the names of all the stories, but I will give the summaries that I have. Justin was first and told the story of death and the moon. The moon would resurrect the dead people along with itself every month, but an old man struck a bargain with the moon so that the people would remain dead, but the moon would continue to return to us each month. Megan told an African creation story, it spoke of how black people were made out of black mud, white people out of sand, and brown people out of brown mud from the Nile. The people were formed around the idea that they would be farmers. Lauren told a Hopi creation story, where there was water (with animals living within it), and the sky (with people), and The Great Chief of the Universe lived with his pregnant wife, she once had a dream about uprooting a tree that was in the sky with them. The Great Chief of the Universe uprooted the tree and she unbalanced while looking in the hole. Some birds caught her, and a muskrat dove to the bottom of the water to retrieve land, and placed it on a turtle's back, and thus created the earth. Juniper told a Scandinavian version of Lauren's, where the sun god changed into a duck and retrieved seeds from the bottom of the water for his father to create earth. Sam told a Himalayan story, where Mother Nature and Father Winter created the world. A village was beset by devils who destroyed everything, and the poeple prayed. Then five clouds descended upon the village, and turned into five goddesses who healed the village. Then the most beautiful of the goddesses had a fling with Father Winter, and created Mount Everest. Wena Tsan told a Hispanic story, which I have summed up as Maria is a stuck up woman, who marries a wild man, has two kids, then he ditched her for a more elegant woman, and whe drowned her kids to spite him, he still rejected her, and she commits suicide. She can still be heard by the river crying for her children. Andrew a Native American creation story, where there was water, a tree with a nest and six animals living inside of the nest. Eagle decided to make land, and killed some ducks in the process of retrieving some mud. They mixed the mud with some seeds, and wolf shouted to cause earthquakes. Cyote decided he could shout too, but not much happened when he tried. Jennifer told the Native American story of the lady's slippers. A young girl lived with her family, and her brother was the village messenger, one day the village became ill, and she went in a blizzard to the next village to retrieve some sacred herbs to heal her village. She went because her brother was ill. She got the sacred herbs and made the trek back to her village. At one point the snow nearly swallowed her, and she lost her moccasins. They were never found, but where her feet had left bloody marks from the snow, a flower grew, hence the lady's slipper. I nearly forgot, I went after Sam. I tried, and failed, to remember the poem "Who Can Say Whence it all Came and How Creation Happened?" it is a very difficult philosophy to try to explain, and comes from India. Ashley went ater Jennifer and she told the Iroquis creation story. This is similar to the Hopi story. There is a lady who dreams of a tree that gives light to the heavens, and she wants to uproot it. So she does, and the light goes away, the men get angry and shove her down the hole, a seahawk catches her, and the world was created on a turtle. Maddie told the Cherokee story of how medicine began. At one time humans and animals got along well, then the humans began to kill animals for purposes beyond food. The animals plotted revenge, and the plants chose to side with the humans, making themselves usefull to resolving the problems set on the humans by the animals. Lisa told a flood story, where an eagle and a crow landed on a stub. They were best friends, and would fish all day and share their spoils at night. One day they found a duck, and convinced the duck to dive for earth while they fed it fish. The eagle and the crow became competitive, and when the waters recieded the Sierra Nevadas where the results of their dirt piles created by the duck. Vittoria (am I spelling that right? If not, apologies) told a Norse creation story. There were two villages (not sure how to spell them at all), with two rivers between them, There was a giant named Umers who lived in between the rivers. He had children, Odin, Ville, and Vay (I think), who are Norse gods, they kill Umers, and made the earth from his body. Man, they made from trees. We live in Midgaard and they live in asgaard. There was also a prediction about the end of the world. Jill told the Suoix story of Devil's Tower. Two naughty boys wandered away from their camp, and turned around for four days, then were chased by a grizzly bear, the boys prayed to their creator to save them, and Devil's Tower was created. No one knows how the boys got down, or if they did. Parker told the Crow creation story of Old Man Cyote creating the earth. Old Man Cyote was lonely, and found some ducks to retrieve land for him, where he created the world and all things living in it. Sarape (Old Man Cyote's brother?) encouraged war and weapons, so there could be the stealing of wives and great honor and glory. Old Man Cyote asked about what wives are better,the ones you steal, or the ones you don't steal, and in the end it didn't matter because his wife was good under the buffalo rug. Mathew told the story of the lamppost from The Magician's Nephew which is a prequel to the rest of the Narnia series. Aslan created Narnia, as the other characters are either frightened, or confused. The Witch has part of a lamppost she broke off to use as a weapon during a fight in London, and she threw it at Aslan, it hit the ground where it sprung as a whole lamppost from the ground. There was some explination for that in the book, but I don't remember it clearly.
Several of these stories became classified as "Earth-diver stories", meaning someone (usually some form of animal) dives under the water to retrieve earth for the creation of the earth. I have been greatly neglecting to read either of our books, which is bad because Dr. Sexson expects us to be done with The Magus by November 8th. I may still make that deadline, but it may come at the cost of Calasso. I'm trying for that not to be the case, but it may be so. Calasso has no definite plot, and simply confuses me. I get into a story of sorts, only to have it trumped at the next page break. I think this would be easier to read of it were set up like The Canterbury Tales where each story arc gets its own chapter. However, I still need a quote: "But how did it all begin?", p. 4. It seems the most fitting quote considering the topic of this blog post. I'll try to find a different quote for next blog because we are going to try to finish our creation stories Thursday in class.
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