Brian McMahon
September 23,2014
Reading Lit: Classics/Centre Trade
Dr. Edward Karshner
Theme #2
GENESIS…or the Navajo Creation?
The Navajo creation story holds that the first combination of the world was small and pitches black. The story claims that there existed four seas with an island in the middle. In the island there was a single pine tree, ants, beetles, locusts, and dragonflies making the Air-Spirit People of this first world (Birchfield, 2014). Each of the four seas that existed then was ruled by a single supernatural being, the Frog, the Blue Heron, the White Thunder, and the Big Water Creature. Above the sea existed a black cloud, a yellow cloud, a white cloud, and a blue cloud. The female spirit resided in the black cloud while…show more content… Comparing this to the Genesis, there was nothing that existed before humans were created. However, the air-spirit people can be compared to the angels in the story of the Genesis creation. Before creation, there seems to have been a chaotic situation in both stories with darkness hovering across the waters in Genesis and the inhabitants of the first world in Navajo were just doing their own things (Birchfield, 2014). Again, the air-spirit people seem to have angered someone a result of which caused a giant wave and flood. As it is stated in the Navajo story the insurmountable wall of water surrounded them and they saw that it was closing in rapidly on them. This is very close to the story of Noah and the great flood as told in the…show more content… Genesis generally answers more questions than the Navajo creation myth (Scottoline, 2014). The Navajo story does not go into details of how human beings came into existence. It only tries to explain the essence of existence from deep within the same world that exists today. It fails to explain how humans could have gotten to that first world (Birchfield, 2014). Again, the story suggests that humans had the power to create everything without explaining what happened to that power afterwards.
The genesis presents a succession of the creation of the earth with life on it and also humankind. Both male and female were created at the same time unlike in the Navajo story. The Genesis story has God depicted as the Supreme Being and the ultimate creator unlike in the Navajo story where humans are presented as the creators (Birchfield, 2014). Indeed, both stories have a supreme being only that their roles in creation differ from each