The Creation

Good Mind and Bad Mind
 

 The Iroquois and Navajo creation stories were very interesting to me in how they were similar to each other but most of all how they had many parallels to the Biblical account. The first observation I made was the Good Mind and the Bad Mind in the Iroquois account. This could be compared to God (good) and Satan(evil). Another is the creation of man. I found this quite interesting as the wording used was much the same. Man was made by the dust of the earth, made in image of the the creator, given souls, life was breathed in his nostrils and were given dominion over the land. In the Navajo account the Nilchi'i Dine'e were forced to leave the world they were living in because they commited adultery. This was unacceptable because the land they lived in was considered holy. This is very similar to Adam and Eve being cast out of Eden for sinning. The fact that we have no account of any the Native Americans having any access to the Bible or teachings of any Christians when these stories were told makes this remarkable.This makes me wonder how people who had no contact with each other on opposite sides of the ocean could have such similar beliefs. These parallels are not unique only to these two stories. As in the Navajo story, there are a plethora of flood stories and accounts from around the world and all cultures. One of the Eskimo stories even mentions Noah inviting animals aboard his ark. For North America alone I was able to find over 50 creation stories. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html. It seems that anywhere you go in the world people have a natural desire to know where they came from and search for a divine power. Personally, I am a Christian and believe the Bible to be the true creation account. I also believe there is a natural God given instinct to know that we were created. This is further confirmed by people believing that we have souls and that there is an afterlife. The Iroquois story is once again similar in this way. The Good and Bad Minds wanted equal power over souls after death. The biblical account tells us that we will go to either Heaven or Hell after death where we will either be with God or Satan. Some cultures believe that we can be reborn in the future such as the Aborigines in Australia. http://library.thinkquest.org/16665/afterlifeframe.htm There are some other beliefs of where we go after death, but there are very few that believe that there is no afterlife. Thinking about all of this makes me wonder again how there could be so many similarities not just from North America but from around the world. We will probably never know how they all had so many similar ideas. As for myself, I like to believe that we are born with something God given for us to know we were created by a higher power just by looking around at the world we live in and not by accident.