by Irie Bliss

Created on: March 03, 2011

According to The Sacred and the Profane, by Mircea Eliade, “The myth relates a scared history, that is, a primordial event that took place at the beginning of time…it establishes a truth that is absolute” (95). Most people are familiar with the Biblical creation myth and do not conduct other research on the creation stories of other cultures. The Native Americans, arguably, have some of the most organic and creative stories of how the world began. The Hopi people of northern Arizona, also known as the “People of Peace,” begin their creation story with “endless space in which existed only the Creator, Taiowa. This world had no time, no shape, and no life, except in the mind of the Creator” (Fredericks). In short, the Creator decides to create multiple worlds. Sotuknang and The Spider Woman are the initial inhibitors of the new world. Between the two of them they create all living creatures and plants.

There are also, several characteristics about the Hopi people that are revealed in their creation myth. First, it is not the Creator that brings human beings to life on Earth, but The Spider Woman. She “made all the plants, the flowers, the bushes, and the trees. Likewise she made the birds and animals, again using earth and singing the Creation Song. When all this was done, she made human beings, using yellow, red, white, and black earth mixed with her saliva” (Fredericks). In their culture, women were equally as necessarily as men, if not more so. The two sexes live harmoniously and in peace, there is no strive or war in their creation myth. Women were also very important to the continuation of their clan and culture. In addition, women were highly connected with the earth and its changing seasons.

It is also interesting how often ants come up in the story. This insect is most often associated with hard work and teamwork, two things that would be critical to the survival of a native tribe in the Arizona wilderness. In the creation story, the Hopi lived with the ants, relied on them for food, and worked side by side them. The Hopi eventually have to leave the initial worlds, or islands, they resided on and go to the fourth world which their Creator “warned was not as beautiful as the previous ones, and that life here would be harder, with heat and cold, and tall mountains and deep valleys” (Fredericks). However, the Hopi “finally settled in the arid lands between the Colorado River and Rio Grande River. They chose that place so that the hardship of their life would always remind them of their dependence on, and link to, their Creator.” This conclusion has hints of the Biblical ending of Genesis with Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden.

Myths tell the story of how something came to be. Within the culture to which the myth is addressing, it “speaks only of realities…of what really happened” (Eliade 95). The commonality between all creation and cultural myths is that every myth shows how a “reality came into existence” and attempts to answer the question of why something exists (97). Although, outsiders may not relate to or understand the myth, it is true to the culture that believes it.

Works Cited

Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace& World, 1959.

Fredericks, Oswald White Bear. Creation Stories from Around the World. “The Four Creations.” Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2000. Obtained electronically 26 August 2010. <http://www.gly.uga.edu/railsback/CS/CSFourCreations. html>

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