Creation Myth Motif Examples

“Creation Myth Motif”

Ever since the beginning of time, humans have had many myths and stories about how the earth was made and how we became as we are. These are called creation myths; they have different variations, but all have the same thought process. In these creation myths they include “motifs”; which are definitive recurring themes and instances that happen throughout myths. Now, concerning creation myths, there are three main recurring motifs, which are War/Chaos, People Created from Organic Matter (of some sort) , and One main Ruler or Creator/ Many Creators Rulers.

Motif #1

With the creation motif War/Chaos, this is a fairly common thought among creation myths. The earth was young, so destruction

And, these materials sometimes came from nature and is slightly logical in theory, which leads to humans thinking that they were “One with Nature” from perusing over these creation myths. This has always been in play in many of these creation myths similar to the Mayan one. In this creation myth the humans that were made were decreed by the gods that they were to tend the earth and make it suitable to their liking.

Not only are the humans being made from organic materials,but we were also given some form of a supernatural gift to make us living and breathing. An example would be according to the Norse creation myth when Odin had used his breath on us to give us life. This made us living, breathing, and it gave us the ability to move around so we could tend to the world as they so devised.

But, there are instances according to the creation myth with Raven when he was unaware that he had made humans. The first was a man that had risen up out of a pea pod plant already living and aware of life around him. Yet, while he did not make the first man he had to construct the second human which was the woman. By doing this, he sculpted her out of soft clay, then flapped his wings over her making her living kind of like the supernatural breath of life that Odin had