Myths, legends and TOK
How do we answer the question
“How was the world and man
created?”
Do those answers constitute
knowledge of the world?
• A myth is a special kind of story
which tries to interpret some
aspect of the world around us.
• A myth attempts to give answers
to primordial questions about
creation and existence.
• A myth can establish taboos,
moral prerogatives and codes of
behaviour.
The Aboriginal myth about creation
• In the beginning the earth was a bare plain. All was
dark. There was no life, no death. The sun, the
moon, and the stars slept beneath the earth. All the
eternal ancestors slept there, too, until at last they
woke themselves out of their own eternity and
broke through to the surface. Two such beings,
self-created out of nothing, were the Ungambikula.
Wandering the world, they found half-made human
beings. They were made of animals and plants, but
were shapeless bundles, lying higgledy-piggledy,
near where water holes and salt lakes could be
created.
•With their great stone knives, the Ungambikula carved
heads, bodies, legs, and arms out of the bundles. They
made the faces, and the hands and feet. At last the
human beings were finished
•Thus every man and woman was transformed from nature
and owes allegiance to the totem of the animal or the
plant that made the bundle they were created from -such as the plum tree, the grass seed, the large and small
lizards, the parakeet, or the rat.
•The people were all doubled over into balls, vague and
unfinished, without limbs or features.
•This work done, the ancestors went back to sleep.
•
Does this myth impart
knowledge about the world or
unlock the door to the secrets
about creation?
ZULU CREATION MYTH
The Ancient One, known as Unkulunkulu, is the
Zulu creator. He came from the reeds
(uthlanga, means source) and from them he
brought forth the people and the cattle. He
created everything that is: mountains,streams,
snakes, etc. He taught the Zulu how to hunt,
how to make fire, and how to grow food. He is
considered to be the First Man and is in
everything that he created.
Does this myth provide answers
to the question: “Where do we
come from?”
Is the “Ancient One” the same
as some religions’ notion of a
supreme being, source of all
creation?
Southern Nigerian Creation myth
EKOI
• In the beginning there were two gods, Obassi
Osaw and Obassi Nsi. The two gods created
everything together. Then Obassi Osaw decided
to live in the sky and Obassi Nsi decided to live
on the earth. The god in the sky gives light and
moisture, but also brings drought and storms.
The god of the earth nurtures, and takes the
people back to him when they die. One day long
ago Obassi Osaw made a man and a woman, and
placed them upon the earth. They knew nothing
so Obassi Nsi taught them about planting and
hunting to get food.
Genesis – account of creation
• In the beginning, G-d created the
heaven and the Earth.And the earth
was without form and void.
• And G-d said, Let there be light and
there was light…and G-d called the
light Day and the darkness He called
night.
• And the evening and the morning were
the first day.
Does the account in Genesis
about the creation of day
and night constitute
knowledge about the world?
Stephen Hawkings’s
scientific account of the
creation of the world
“..the laws of physics can still
determine how the universe began.”
• “The universe will have a beginning and an end.
The beginning in time will be the Big Bang
singularity.”
• Matter can be created out of energy..that was
borrowed from the gravitational energy of the
universe.
• Eventually the universe stopped expanding
• And contracted to form galaxies and stars.
• The laws of physics would hold at the beginning of
the universe so G-d would not have had the
freedom to choose the initial conditions.”
“He would still have been free to
choose the laws the universe obeyed.
However this may not have been much
of a choice.”
“Although science may solve the
question of how the universe
began, it cannot answer the
question: why does the universe
bother to exist? I don’t know
the answer to that.”
DO YOU KNOW THE
ANSWER TO THAT???
Is the theory of Hawkings a
myth or does it constitute
knowledge about the world?
Bibliography
Hawkins, S(1993): Black Holes and Baby Universes.
Bantam Books, London.
http://www.dreamscape.com/morgana/miranda.htm
10.11.2005
Brucher, J. & Locker, T. (1999): Between Earth & Sky:
Legends of Native American Sacred Places. Harcourt
Brace & co., San Diego.