African creation myths Essay

1. Perhaps the answer that would best suit the question why life is so hard and then you die is how death is portrayed in these stories. There is suffering and hardship in one’s life because of disobedience of the hardships and commands of his gods. Death ultimately becomes the only â€Å"salvation† after so much hardship.   Had the living things and man obeyed the orders of their god, death would not have overcome these lives. In the story of the Plant of Life, the second wife, in her jealousy of not being considered by her husband despite the death of the first wife decided that in order to end her suffering must kill the plant that has taken the time and affection that would have been hers. Hence, ultimately, it is no wonder that in the end, the wife bears the consequent death of all living things. 2.  Ã‚   Basically these African myths hold women in the same way that women are being viewed today. Women are seen as being responsible for the ills that happened to society and life in general.   For example, in the story of the Plant of Life, the second wife was blamed for being the source of death when â€Å"she saw the plant and was jealous and cut it down with a hoe.† (Plant of Life). Such story shows how of little value women are because if the god did not play favourites among his wives, the story would not have ended that way. As a whole, women are viewed as being the cause of tragedies. 3. This myth basically starts out as a story of creation of the world and its five elements.   However, as the story intertwined itself it became a story not of creation but of destruction as each element became defeated by the other until at last Doondari, the god who created these things came down to earth and became the eternal one.   A very good point of interest here is how the story incorporated the attributes of men like sleep, blindness, worry and death and how these attributes became defeated when all of them became proud. It would seem that the writer wanted to emphasize that pride became the reason for the fall of its attributes and in the end, it was the god who has to put everything in its place. 4. One interesting thing about this myth is how Shida Matunda got afraid when the jealous wife killed the plant which what became of his favorite wife when she died. He is a god and yet he had no hold over life when in fact, he created the world and its living things. It would seem that as a god, he too depended on â€Å"higher beings† than himself and that he attributes life on these beings such as the plant which became the plant of life. 5. Between the myth of the Disobedience of Man and the story of creation in Genesis, one common factor emerges as to why one man disobeyed his Creator.   In this African myth, the root of the disobedience is the woman who failed to follow the orders of her god not to till the soil for food while in Genesis, Eve did not take heed in God’s warning not to eat the Forbidden fruit lest they will be punished. Hence, when they disobeyed the order of their gods, they were punished: the first beings in this African myth were sent with Death while Adam and Eve were banished out of the paradise that God created for them. 6. Indeed there is a great similarity between the myth Revolt Against God and the great Flood in Genesis although the manner of wiping out the face of the earth vastly differs with the version in Genesis.   In the myth of the Revolt against God, the gods wiped out the earth through fire whereas in the version of Genesis, the world was wiped out by the Great Flood.   Perhaps the reason why there is a similarity between the two stories is because we all came from the same roots.   Just like in the religions of   Christianity and Islam that traces its roots to Abraham, these stories of cleansing the earth may have also come from one original source and just branched out after generations of passing it. 7.   Ã‚  The gods in these African myths are not at all like gods but rather seemed like counterparts of men.   Although they have created the world, the living things and men, they never ceased to be like human beings who still feel the emotions of human beings or maybe they are simply reflections of the image and likeness of the beings they have created.   However, these African gods tend to be fickle-minded sometimes and would do whatever they feel like doing at the heat of the moment and that analyzing these myths, one can surmise that they are just exercising their power over their creations.