In the beginning of
time there was only water everywhere.
Old One got tired of looking at all the water, so he came down on a
cloud, determined to create something new.
When the cloud-now fog-reached the waters, Old One plucked five hairs
from his head (some say from his pubic area) and threw them down, and they
became five perfect young women, already able to speak, see, and hear. Then he asked the women what they would like
to do with their lives.
The first woman said
she would like to have many children, be wicked, and pursue her own
pleasure. She wanted her descendants to
be fighters, murderers, adulterers, thieves, and liars. Old One was sorry for this answer.
The second woman said she
too would like to bear children, but that she and her descendants would be good
and true people-wise, honest, peaceful, and chaste. Old One praised the second woman and pointed
out that in the end her way would triumph over the first woman’s.
The third woman said
she wanted to be the earth, the place where her sisters and their descendants
would live. She would allow the people
to take life from her, and she promised to give abundantly of herself. Old One was well pleased with new Earth
Mother. He foresaw that she would
nurture the world and then take the dead back to herself and keep them
warm. She would give forth beautiful
trees and plants.
The fourth woman said
she planned to be fire, that she would give warmth to the people and help them
make their food better. Old One was more
than satisfied with this plan.
The fifth woman simply
wished to be water.
Then the Old One
changed the women into their wishes for themselves. The third woman lay down in the waters and
became the Earth Mother on which we live.
The fifth woman became the waters within Earth, the fourth woman became
the spirit of fire in all things that burn.
As for the first and second women, Old One placed them on Earth and
immediately impregnated them. “You will
be the first people,” he said, “and from you will come all the people of the
earth-male and female.” Old One foresaw
that at first the evil woman’s children would dominate but that eventually the
good woman’s children would prevail. Old
One said he would bring together the five sisters and all of the people-good
and evil, dead and alive-at the end of the world
All of this explains
why there are good and bad people on Earth.
It also explains how all of us are directly related to earth, fire, and
water.
This creation story comes from the Thompson River
Native North Americans of British Columbia, told by an old shaman named
Nkamtcine’lx, whose grandfather had told him.
I chose this myth because it is relatively close to where we live and
learning about how people interpreted this area of the world interested
me. We all know the Hebrew creation
story presented by the people from what is now the Middle East, but a more
local version seemed more relevant.
I found this story in “Creation Myths of the World:
An Encyclopedia, Volume 1”, and at the end of the story, the author says that
“Old man’s creation is technically ex nihilo in that it is of himself…” I don’t agree with this. Ex nihilo translates to “out of nothing”, and
the Old One created the five women from his five hairs. He didn’t speak or think them into existence,
but rather a metamorphosis of his
hair into the women. I would say this is
a world parent story. It is from the
body the of the Old One, his hair, from which everything came.
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