MYTHS OF CREATION
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12. Ethnological
Domain: Anthropogony * A N T H R O P O -
from the Greek : '... ... - G O N Y * from the Greek γόνος : ‘Creation, generation, or begetting’ * ... ... * |
[12.1]
In all cultural traditions under consideration, every celestial event above was also held to have an immediate counterpart in human affairs below. In fact, the very origins of human society were usually linked directly to the deeds of the astral deities, in that — in addition to the overthrow of an older heavenly order and the refashioning of a new earth from the remains of the former world — the final or culminating act in most peoples’ cosmogonies was the creation or regeneration of Humankind. In some places the astral gods themselves (or their lesser subordinate deities) were seen as the makers of mankind, who fashioned our ancient ancestors from the dust of the ground, or from a mixture of blood and clay. — Equally common, however, were Creation Myths that emphasized the power of the planet Earth itself as a creative deity; such as those which depicted the first human beings as emerging from the ground, ascending out of the depths of the Earth, or coming forth from a particular tree or mountain of central cultural significance. [12.2]
Many of these myths opened by envisioning a kind of Golden Age at the beginning of history, when an earlier, more powerful, primordial generation of human beings lived serenely and happily, and in complete harmony with nature, untouched by disease, aging, or death — united with the rhythms of the cosmos, the music of the spheres, and the resourceful wisdom of the gods. In fact, creation stories concerning an older, more divine state of humankind, subsequent stages of human history and relationships of genealogical descent are among the most common types of mythos found worldwide. — Everywhere around the globe, moreover, these primeval ancestors of modern mankind are represented as having accidentally lost their initial blessed state due to some unfortunate mischance or imbalance or indiscretion arising between themselves and the forces of nature, manifesting as a resurgence of active chaos across all three of the major domains outlined here -- Astronomical, Geophysical, and Ethnological, alike. In all cases, these ancestral myths describe the prehistoric golden time of creation as being forever lost by decisive alterations in the very conditions of life — including the complete shattering of the older, more ideal cosmic order on high and the scattering of the planetary gods through wider spaces round the skies; — as well as the simultaneous unleashing of catastrophic deluges, cataclysms and conflagrations on Earth here below, — with the pains of childbirth, the hard toil of agriculture, wickedness, wastefulness, disease, and death itself entering into the human world as a result, even though human beings were not necessarily regarded as being at fault. [12.3]
Most common of all were mythical accounts which told of multiple occasions when the gods began to create humankind — only to destroy the unfortunate results of these initial endeavors by means of natural forces on high directly stimulating geophysical upheavals, floods and fires on planet Earth below. Each of these races, or generations of human beings underwent radical transformations in behavior and appearance — parallel to the alterations on earth and in the heavens that were signaled, on each occasion, by revolutions among the planets or stars. Furthermore, in all instances of this mythos, the newer generations of Man exhibited traits that distinctly distinguished them from the older generations, tantamount to the older generation or race being virtually wiped out and subsequently replaced by a newly refashioned creation. In some examples when an ancestral race was destroyed completely, the gods themselves created the next generation; while in other cases, a small band of heroic survivors were the ones who ensured the continued survival of the human race. — In all known instances, however, each destruction of mankind appeared to be a part of a progressive degradation or ‘cycle’ of general decline, unfolding over longer periods of time across all of the three major cosmological domains, in a dramatically punctuated series of destructions and renewals — eventually culminating in the modern human being of today. [12.4]
While the impact of earthquakes, floods and fires on human societies and settlements and the resilience of their surrounding ecosystems varied considerably from time to time and place to place, the natural disasters and catastrophes that directly affected humankind during the mythopoeic era often culminated in the sweeping, near-total extinction of the contemporary generation of man and all terrestrial life the same — excepting those providentially saved in water-tight vessels at sea, or by hiding out in mountaintop caves. — Over time, as new communities grew, recollections of the devastating occasions that led to the loss of older social orders, and which furthermore played such a critical role in shaping the rise of new cultural groups, developed into the central narratives of their newly expanded mythologies. These Myths of Creation as such also commonly served as the basic pragmatic charter for newly forged societies — and likewise affirmed the basic foundations for the rituals and ceremonies which became so central to their polyarchal beliefs and practices. — Hence it was that the survivors of each newly-turned Age developed new cultures of their own, which often enough passed over partly to the next subsequent Age. But all the same: each time new disasters struck, the more practical, scientific discoveries of the preceding epoch were almost entirely obliterated, and the vast majority of men and women were time and again reduced to a more brutish state. — Consequently — both the prelude and the aftermath of each round of creation and destruction was the near complete disintegration of human society altogether. [12.5.1]
Reverting back to their primal origins among the ashen ruins of an earlier world order each time a new creation was raised, humankind in like manner started out over and over again, anew. Not only was each consecutive generation more highly cultured and refined (and thereby more domesticated and artificially removed from the natural world, likewise —), many traditions regarded the Floods and Fires and other catastrophic disruptions in their mythos not only as profound catalysts for sociological renovations, but also as the very impetus behind the development of every conceivable aspect of human culture altogether — leading up to, and including, the eventual rise of the modern technocratic civilization most peoples live in today. — For in addition to the displacement of the old heavens and earth at the end of the Golden Age, humanity also found themselves in a new position with regard to the astral gods — who afterwards immediately withdrew from Earth in open warfare, and entirely abandoned humankind for more distant celestial dwellings. Prior to that time, while the gods still lived peaceably alongside or nearby people on earth, mankind received everything necessary for their subsistence as gifts from the gods, lived in complete harmony with nature and did not have to work for anything whatsoever at all. — But in the new world, mankind suddenly found themselves all alone. Now separated from the gods, they had to toil tirelessly in order to simply get by . . . [12.5.2]
The separation that accompanied the collapse of the sacred Golden Age was not absolute, however; thereafter a new sort of relation flourished for a time between mankind and the astral gods — in which mankind was believed to hold a particular integral place among the entire natural order, on account of the new cultural developments entrusted to them as gifts, along with their newly proscribed duties to the gods. Hence one of the most ancient and ubiquitous traditional religious beliefs in which human behavior played a decisive role held that there was a sort of sympathetic relation between human conduct and the ’moral’ behavior of Nature; — to the extent that the very order of the cosmos itself was either actively preserved by mankind’s continued upholding of their god-given beliefs and ritual praxes; or alternatively, more or less disturbed or poisoned by the unruly offenses of man. By and large, early cultures in the ancient world were almost obsessively concerned with warding off or otherwise ameliorating the potential of future impending catastrophes further beleaguering the continued viability of human society; — and likewise held in common that, so long as mankind kept straight upon his path of regular rituals and sacrifices to the gods, strictly regulating his own conduct so as to regulate the behaviors of the earth and the skies as well — the orderly processes of day and night, seed-time and harvest, life and death would hence continue to go forward too, and reward the faithfulness of humankind with the good fruits of the earth. — And so, accordingly, the regular seasonal maintenance of the new ordering of the world described by the community’s cosmogonic myth was annually re-enacted in their festive "New Years” Equinox rituals, which commonly served as the focal point of their ongoing cultural development — in that the responsible recollection and celebration of their cosmogonic mythos enabled the community, by proxy, to continue to participate in the larger life of the cosmos around which all known cultures had first been founded and orientated from the very start. |