Compare And Contrast The Iroquois Creation Story

Finally, the Christian God and the Iroquois gods are viewed differently in the eyes of a standard human. First off, the God of Christianity, is the only God. But, in the Iroquois culture there are multiple gods, who become the elements, and then the Iroquois praise these elements.(Iroquois 30) In Genesis, man is created in the likeness of God,(Genesis 1:27) but in the Iroquois myth man is created by another man. The Genesis God is thought of as more of a paternal God who loves His children but reprimands them when the children disobey, where the gods of the Iroquois is just revered and respected, no mention of punishment for humans is mentioned in the Iroquois myth. One similarity is the belief that the gods or God dwell in a place above the rest of the world, the Sky-World in Iroquois, or Heaven in the story of Genesis.

Both stories have to deal with a tree of some sort. The creation story has a perfect garden, with hundreds of types of fruits. God tells Adam and Eve to never eat from the tree of “knowledge of good and bad” or you will die. In the Sky Woman story, there's a tree that you can eat from, but you cannot touch it or harm it in any way. In both stories the woman disobeys and eats the

The Indigenous people of America are called Native Americans or often referred to as “Indians”. They make up about two percent of the population in the United States and some of them still live in reservations. They once lived freely in the wilderness without any sort of influence or exposure from the Europeans who later came in the year of 1492, and therefore their culture is very different from ours. The Iroquois are northeastern Native Americans who are historically important and powerful. In the following essay we will discover some differences between the religious beliefs of the Native American Iroquois and Christianity to see if culture and ways of living have an effect on the view of religion, but we will also get to know some similarities. I am going to be focusing on the Iroquois, which are the northeastern Native Americans in North America.

The Lakota Indians, are sometimes known as the Sioux, but they call themselves the Lakota, which is translated as ‘friend’ or ‘ally’ in their native tongue. Their description of themselves make sense when looking at their seven virtues that they live by, “These are Wóčhekiye (Prayer), Wóohola (Respect), Wówauŋšila (Compassion), Wówičakȟe (Honesty), Wówačhaŋtognaka (Generosity), Wówaȟwala (Humility) and Wóksape (Wisdom) (“Lakota Today”). A culture’s idea of the most importance qualities a good person should have gives a good idea of what kind of people they are. The Lakota’s virtues all revolve around a general concept of respect for everything, compassion, humility, and honesty. These things can either refer to their fellow man, or

Creation stories are tools used to try to explain the unexplainable. For centuries humans have been searching for answers to the what, when, why, and how questions that encompass life. Genesis and the Iroquois Creation Myth are two different stories that seek to describe the creation of Earth and the universe that surrounds it. Genesis describes a Christian perspective, particularly one of the most popular Western explanations to life on Earth. The Iroquois Creation Myth, on the other hand, takes a less traditional approach, while only mildly alluding to religion. The similarities between the two lie in the timeless battle of good versus evil.

All humans are interested in their origins and trying to account for their existence through creation stories. Native Americans tribes are no different from the rest of humanity. The tribes’ stories explain how people came into existence, how they came to be live on the lands they do and the how people interact with nature and each other. These trends can be seen in the legends of three tribes hailing from New England to the Great Lakes Region.

First we will be contrasting them. These story start very differently off the bat one with god making everything from nothing and in the other a woman made only the earth and she made it from earth and that brings us to our greatest difference between the two stories. In the bible story there is an all powerful god doing everything as for in the native american one it is quite frankly a normal human making the earth and her family making everything that comes after.

Every culture has its own past belief on how everything was created; Gods, lands, plants, animals, creatures, and humans all have a unique story to be told throughout the ages. But it is plain to see there is some overlap between ideas on how everything was made. Take the Greek Mythology, the most popular and well known type of mythos, has connections to other cultures like Nordic and Native American. But of course, each story has their own twist or other idea to it, as well.

The Iroquois Creation Story is set before the existence of humans as we know them, but not absent of a physical place, or other beings. The Iroquois Creation Story has a very supernatural setting with many mythical and magical elements. The first lines of the story stated, “Among the ancients there were two worlds in existence. The lower world was in great darkness; - the possession of the great monster; but the upper world was inhabited by mankind.” The physical setting starts out in in the upper world, but changes to the lower world when, as stated in the story, the mattress the woman laid on “sunk down towards the dark world.” Eventually the setting changes one more time when the mattress landed on the back of a turtle, and eventually changed in to an island. “While holding her, the turtle increased every moment and became a considerable island of earth.” The inhabitants of these settings are just as enigmatic as the actual setting. Mankind inhabited the upper world we know but the lower world was “the possession of the great monster”. The monsters of the lower world are never described, except we know for sure that there was a turtle where the woman came to rest. Eventually the inhabitants of the lower world would include Enigonhahetgea and Enigorio, who would go on to transform the setting even more.

The subject of origins, or how we got here, is one of the most fundamental questions that can be asked. The important question of why we are here can’t be answered by science alone. How we answer these questions provides the basis for how we think about things, it defines our world-view. The Evolution vs. Creation debate is often referred to as the Great Debate. 20th century science has made the compelling discovery that, at some point, the universe began. Both sides of the debate Evolutionists and Creationists agree on one thing only, that the universe has not always existed. This is where their agreement ends. The why and how the universe began is where the division and dispute begins.

Many Native Americans tell stories of the creation of earth that explain how they came to be before the Europeans entered North America. Creation myths vary among all cultures; however, they all have one thing in common; heaven and earth. One of the most popular creation myths was the Iroquois creation myth. The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee meaning “People of the Longhouse” (Iroquois Indian Museum, n.d.) consists of six Indian nations that include the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora tribes. In the beginning, there was a belief that before the creation of earth, there were two realms, the sky, and the lower world that consisted of water and water creatures. From the sky, a young woman named the Sky Woman was

A belief is defines a true statement, something that exists, or the trust and faith in someone or something. We all have beliefs and have obtained those believes individually in many different ways and whose to say that belief is right or wrong, or true or false. As with a myth, a traditional story, mostly believed to be a false idea or false believe.

There is an enormous amount of symbolism in the Navajo Creation Story. One important symbol is the number 4. The table below lists several aspects of the story that are related to the number 4.

The power in The Navajo Creation Story belongs to the four Holy People who were called mysterious beings. They appeared four times over a four day period (Franklin A: 28). These beings wanted to create more people, a community, which led to the creation of the First Man and First Woman. The First Man and First Woman became leaders as they learned “how to live a good life” (Franklin A: 29). In order for their family to live a good life the family had to grow, so after four days there were children. At the conclusion of the story, the Twins became leaders who saved the people from Monsters.

It's inevitable that with over 6 billion people here on Earth, there will be different views upon how our universe was created. Views are mainly fueled by faith or science but the modern view of today's era is the Big Bang Theory. The theory states that the universe started at one single spot, and has been expanding ever since (Big Bang Theory, N.P.). Of course it's crazy, and highly difficult, for many of us to imagine something so large starting from one tiny spot; so indeed there are faults in the theory. Modern science however strongly supports this idea and truth be told, it's the best we have. The theory estimates that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old! This means that if this theory is correct,