The Creation and the Afterlife
The myths of creation that called my attention are the Norse myth and the Hopi’s myth. The function of each of the myths is “to explain how the world came into being (Stookey, p. 17).” “The Creation myths, narratives that address the question of how the universe or the Earth and its inhabitants first came into existence, can be found in almost all cultures (Stookey, p. 39).”
In the Norse myth, creation is explained by the dismembered corpse of the first Frost Giant. Augermilr or Ymir was killed, and his bones, blood, teeth, and skull served to create mountains, clouds, seas and other elements of the earth. “Four dwarfs held up his skull. His eyelashes (or eyebrows) became the fence surrounding Midgard, or Middle Earth, the home of mankind (“Britannica: Aurgelmir,” p.1). Then, the myth of Hopi’s people explains the origin of the world by the union of two beings: Spider Woman or earth mother who gives life’s forms and Tawa who is the sky’s father and gives life’s energy. They both differ in their stories, but they are similar in the sense that for existing life, something extraordinary needed to happen. To have order, there must first be chaos or destruction. To create, you first need to make a mess, so everything can fall into place later.
I believe the point of the afterlife myths is often to describe a place of punishment because they want to leave us an explanation of why our bad choices can have catastrophic consequences for us. The afterlife will be as good or bad as the person had behaved or acted when he or she was alive. If he or she behaved according to what society establishes as correct, there will be a reward and the afterlife will be a pleasure. But, if the person has committed many faults or sins, his or her afterlife will be a suffering. After all, the afterlife is an eternal life for many cultures, so we are supposed to behave good enough as a person to deserve a good afterlife. Stookey says, “while peoples’ creation myths explain how earthly life first begins, their stories of an afterlife address enduring questions about what might follow mortal life (Stookey, p. 1).” For those who believe in the punishments in the afterlife, it is due to the belief that your soul will be punished in the measure of your sins or rewarded in the measure of your virtues. The passage from life to death varies from one culture to another. In some cultures, the world of death can be represented as an island and in others it is above the Earth, like a heaven. The soul is seen in many cultures as eternal, and in some cultures, you have the chance to reincarnate. Life could be seen as a cycle of death and rebirth to continue learning and improving ourselves.
Cited Works
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Aurgelmir”. 2022. Encyclopedia
Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Aurgelmir. Accessed 13
March 2022
Stookey, Lorena. Thematic Guide to World Mythology, ABC-CLIO, 2004.
ProQuest Ebook Central. https://ebookcentral-proquest-
com.ezproxy.snhu.edu/lib/snhu-ebooks/detail.action?docID=497482
Accessed 12 March 2022
