Creation

Amanda Onalaja

August 25, 2009

Pd. 2 – Ms. Brown

Every culture has a story of their beginning. Whether noted or not, these accounts tell of where those people come from, helping them to better understand who they are. The tales of the origination of the Iroquois and the Pimas resemble the events of the book of Genesis in the Bible. Both retellings are to preserve their beliefs of how our world was formed. Through a powerful use of imagery, each story seems to capture their culture’s unique way in describing the universe in its earliest times.

The Iroquois envision an already designed existence with two worlds; one ruled by man the other by a monster. The story paints a picture of a woman, falling from the upper world to the lower, to rest upon a turtle that later turns into earth. The woman is carrying twins, one evil and one good. “[the evil infant] was moved by an evil opinion and he was determined to pass out under the side of the parent’s arm”, the evil infant in this passage seems to embody Christianity’s Devil. The yin yang relationship between the two brothers is evident throughout the tale. As the good brother continues to grow the difference between him and the evil brother are more prominent, including the evil brother’s inability to create man. However, towards the end of the story, the relationship between the brothers seems to be related to the story of Abel and Cain; expect the victim is the evil twin and motive to kill is different. “And the last words uttered from the bad mind were, that he would have equal power over the souls of mankind after death”, in this line readers can detect the bad twin’s connection to the Devil.

The story of creation from the Pimas is very similar also. It begins with an all powerful being that creates land and sea, and eventually man. The Pima’s version even includes the great flood depicted in Genesis. There is a scene where their creator, Juhwertamahkai, is disappointed with the people he created. The author repeats the phase “younger still” describing how the sins the people commit pass on to each generation until even infants are committing them. Although, the story seems to fall off track as the author includes an event about the moon, “the moon became a mother and went to a mountain… there was born her baby”. Readers understanding of the concept of the story seem to decrease after that paragraph.

Both narrations are unique in their style of description. The Iroquois have a more celestial and adventurous way of describing the universe. Their accounts seems to possess more purpose, wherein every creature served a purpose; from the mattress the woman slept on to lead her to the lower world, where she birthed the twins who would create the elements of the earth, and her corpse being used to create the moon and the stars, it would seem the Iroquois found beauty and function in everything. The Pima’s adaptation is much more biblical, in a sense that it’s just like the modern bible. But the last few paragraphs branch off into something unrelated to the universe’s creation.

The purpose of each chronicle was to express how their culture depicted the world to be created. Hidden in each, is the history of the people in some fashion. The story of the Iroquois focused mainly on the rival of the two brothers; maybe today religion and God are a big part of their culture. The Pima, being modern, may have been influenced with the records in the Bible since the stories are very similar. Both used vivid events to convey their story and in return achieved an emotional response.