Native american literature. Literature & Language Essay

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A comparison of the Inuit and Japanese people creation myths
A myth is defined by (CITATION May19 \p 382 \l 1033 (Mays 382) as ‘a story of communal origin providing an explanation or religious interpretation of humanity, nature, the universe, or the relations among them.’ Nearly all communities have myths about their origins. Creation stories attempt to show the cause and effect of the existence of the world and everything in it. These myths are greatly similar in their explanation of how the world began. This article focuses on how the Inuit people of North America compare to Japanese creation myths.
The Inuit people believed that a raven which had the powers to transform to human at will created land and the sea and some plants and animalsCITATION Jam101 \p 100 \l 1033 (Cox 100). One of the plants gave birth to man and when he was hungry the raven went to get him food which was strawberries and heath berries which he ate at once. He therefore resulted to create sheep and other animals which he positioned them further from man so he could not eat them at once. When the raven saw that man was hungry, he created a woman for him to be his helper and companion.
On the other hand, the Japanese believed that a mass which had no shape or form separated into heaven and the earth (Kingsley 72). The denser particles formed the earth and the lightest particles formed the skies. One day, a shoot grew from the land until it reached the clouds where it was transformed into a god. The god created other gods with the last of them being Izanagi and Izanami. Izanagi and Izanami went on to create more islands. They later married and their first child was so radiant that they put her up in the sky where it became the sun. The second child became the moon and the third was a son who was senten...