Mythology is defined as the interpretation of a myth and the body of myths written by people from a particular culture. A myth can be approached from several viewpoints. In general, a myth is a narrative that describes in symbolic language the origin of the basic elements and the speculations of a culture. Mythic narrative relates, for example, how the world began, how humans and animals were created, and how certain customs, gestures, or forms of human activities started. Each culture has its own myth of creation for example the Greek and Chinese cultures have a myth that explains how everything was created.
“The Greeks believe that at the beginning there was an empty darkness and the only thing in the void was Nyx, a bird with black wings. With the wind the bird laid a golden egg that she sat on for ages. Life began to stir in the egg and Eros, the god of love rose out of it. Half of the shell rose into the air and became the sky while the other became the Earth. Eros named the sky Uranus and named the Earth Gaia. Then Eros made them fall in love.”
“In the Chinese myth of creation it is said that the heavens and earth were still one and that the universe was very similar to a big black egg and carried Pan Gu inside itself. Pan Gu finally woke from a very long sleep. Since he felt suffocated he took up an axe and wielded it with all his might hoping to crack open the egg. The light, clear part of the egg floated up and formed the heavens whereas the cold, dirty matter stayed below to form earth.”
The Essay on Cosmic Myths Across Cultures
Cosmic creation myths are at the center of literally every culture of the human race. The Inca and The Navajo people are no different each has a cosmic creation myth. The two myths are similar in many ways there also are some differences in each cosmic creation myth. The Christian cosmic myth is one most every person from our American culture is familiar with, god created the world in 6 days, and ...
The myths are alike in a couple of ways. They both tell us that life evolved from the egg and it is also written that half the shell that stayed down formed the Earth. Apart from these two similarities the myths are quite different from each other. The Greeks believe that the bird with the black wings laid the egg whereas the Chinese believe that the universe was black and very similar to an egg, which carried Pan Gu inside itself.
These two myths have two different ways to explain how things were created. The Greek wrote that Zeus summoned his two sons Prometheus and Epimetheus. He told them to go on Earth in order to create men and animals and give each of them each a gift. Another of his son created a beautiful woman named Pandora. Zeus offered her a box and told her to never open it. She was sure that since the gods and goddesses had showered so many beautiful presents that this one would also be wonderful. One day she she opened the box. All of the horrors which plague the world today such as pain, sickness, envy, greed flew out of the box. The Chinese believed that Pan Gu who had a dog’s head and a human’s body is known as the creator of all things. He later married a princess, but since she didn’t want people to see her with such a man they decided to move to earth and lived in the remote mountains of south China. There they lived happily and had four children who turned out to be the ancestors of mankind.
