The Many Wonders Of Mythology Motifs Have you ever wondered what all myths have in common? Each myth often has a hidden message throughout all the creations. These messages are called motifs. There can be more than one motif in each myth. There are often at least two or three in each creation. In my opinion, three of the most common motifs are humans being made from organic material, there is only one creator or god, and every creation involving humans.
Humans made from organic material For most creations, people were created from organic materials. The creators felt it was easiest to make humans out of mud, dirt, clay, or wood. Even though the organic material didn’t always work, it was worth trying. As long as everything on earth
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Humans were the essential part to all creation. The humans would worship the gods and help keep the earth maintained. If humans could not praise the gods or complete simple tasks, they would be killed. Gods would not put up with anyone that was too good for them. If the humans were too smart, the creators would take something away from them because they felt threatened. The myths that included humans were the Greeks, Hebrews, Babylonians, Hindu, Norsem Chineses, Incan, Mayan, Inuit, Egyptian, Yoruban, and Cheyenne. In order to have a human come alive, the creator must breathe on a part of the body. All humans are born old enough to fend for themselves. There aren’t any babies because no one has time to take care of them. Everyone is busy doing adult things. There are several tasks the humans must learn from what the gods teach them. Making a human does not always work the first time. This could take several attempts. Most creators will not stop until they have the perfect human. Once the gods have a perfect human, they will often repeat the steps they used to make a perfect community. In the end, without any humans, the world would be nothing and the creators would have a very hard time in
Myths have been around longer than just about every other form of literature. From the beginning, it is clear that humanity has wanted some sort of explanation for the way the world works, and myths have long served that purpose. Whether it is the myth of Apollo driving his chariot across the sky each day to explain the bright light that traverses the sky (and to provide some sort of comfort that the gods are running things, even though the Greek gods certainly were not the benevolent sort) or the myth of Hades and Persephone’s twisted love that also serves as an explanation of the four seasons (as well as an insight into the stilted relations between the sexes), myths tend to follow a common set of purposes. Joseph Campbell suggests that
As written in bible, animals were created on the sixth day before humans were created on the seventh day. In the pragmatic examination and observation of scientists, there were dinosaurs long before humans appeared. Bones, habitats ,etc were all realistic evidences for the theory of dinosaurs. He also raised the point of Pangaea. Humans were all the same, however, after the breaking up of the continents, evolution happened and some people had darker skin.
There would be no friendship between the serpent (devil) and the human race. The woman would have a lot of pain during childbirth (more than other animals), and she would experience pain concerning her children in general, and her husband would rule over her. God curse the ground because of Adam before sin there was only coming good out of the ground, but now there will be thorns and thistles. Before the fall Adam was working, but there was joy in it after the curse it became hard and painful. The final curse is that Adam would become dust again; his end would be death not an end of
Motifs in Creation Myths There are many different motifs in creation myths. Creation myths can be so similar but so different at the same time. As I studied through the different creation myths I noticed that some might use organic materials to make humans or some might have one creator and another have 2 creators or some might even create humans for the same reason(s). Regardless of the similarities and differences, each creation myth is unique in its own special way. All together, almost every creation myth the creators are trying to reach the same end goal.
There are many creation myths and not all are the same but many share some similarities, they are called motifs, but how many myths share three well known motifs? It is a very amazing thing that all of these different people shared some of the same ideas on how their people were started and some of them were oceans apart. It is a curious thing and also cool seeing how all of them thought the same thing. The three motifs that I am going to go over are the motif of people being made out of organic materials, the earth being made from objects, like body parts or objects, and the motif of there being a great flood that almost wiped out all humans on Earth.
Motifs, which are recurring elements in a story, are found in a large variety of literary works. Motifs usually either add to and emphasize the theme, or they are used as characterization, such as Juliet’s motif of being married to death in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Likewise, one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays, Macbeth, is filled with motifs. Two motifs found throughout Macbeth are the definition of a man and light vs. dark/ good vs. evil.
Crake is trying to create the perfect human beings, they will die at the age of 30 in order not to overcrowd the earth, they have a mating cycle, they are vegetarian, and capable of recycling their own feces. Crake wants to edit all the flaws human has according to him; the need for jealousy, marriage, religion and war. However, when Snowman returns from his journey, he finds that the Crakers possess some of the flaws Crake wanted to edit out; the Crakers have tried to summon him, by building him with scrap they have found, and sitting in a circle saying “Snowman”, as if they were calling their prophet home. This raises the question, if it is even possible to create humans without the human assets; will they not then be robots? A part of
Gilgamesh is an epic hero, he embarks on a long and challenging journey, and he receives help from a supernatural force. Gilgamesh takes on a journey of 3 days and nights for him, but would normally take 6 weeks for regular men. They would travel a thousand miles every day for 3 days. They would eat after 400 miles and pitch their tents at the thousandth mile. Gilgamesh receives help from lord shamash.
The last emergence myth is about how Aba, created the Choctaw people out of yellow clay who emerged to the earth’s surface and they were the first inhabitants of the earth. (Bushnell, 1910). The second category of the Choctaw creation myth is the earth diver story. In this category, there is a story of how the people were children of the sun and the moon and they lived in the sky.
Motif #2: Humans Being Created From Organic Material I think so many creation myths used organic materials to explain the creation of humans for a couple different reasons. My first theory is because the earliest humans entire lives revolved around and depended on organic material. This makes total sense because literally everything from the shelter to their meals was all organic. There was not the option of hitting a Wal-Mart for new clothes or swinging through McDonald’s for a cheeseburger.
A motif is a reoccurring subject, image, or theme in stories. In the many creation myths all around the world, there are some motifs found in the stories being told. With these creation myths, there are three main motifs that I find most important: the idea of the creator bringing humans to life by air, the idea of second attempts on the creation of humans, and the idea of materials being used to create the earth. The idea of the creator bringing humans to life by air.
The Mayan creation where it takes Tepeu and Gucumats 3 attempts to make man, and even on the third attempt the human’s eyesight was as good as the Gods, so they removed some of it. IN the Inuit creation myth Raven didn’t mean to make man and doesn’t know how to take care of man at first. Then in the Egyptian creation Atum doesn’t even mean to make mankind, and in the Yoruban myth, it takes multiple attempts to make mankind
Imagine a world where no humans existed, and all that existed was the past we had left behind, and the animals that we had raised that were now roaming the streets to find the next safe place to live. “Life After People,” a short story by Dolores Vasquez is the frightening story of how the world would be without humans. So empty, and so out of control, Earth’s existence would practically be no more because without humans everything that we have worked for would just be left to fend for it self. The life we once knew would never see daylight again. “Over the next fifteen years the roads get overgrown and cracked” (Vasquez 53).
Additionally, these humans cannot be considered people because they have lost their individuality, as well as their ability to seek out knowledge and
The gods represent the best and worst, and they show us both the possibilities and limitations of human behavior. If nothing else, the gods remind us of the overwhelming