2 Genesis, Chapt. 6 (Part 2) - Didn't it rain, rain, rain....?
Before we go any further, let's take a quick look at some of the many other flood stories that have been handed down to us from other cultures around the globe - one in particular may really surprise you.
Native American
The Pima:
As people grew in numbers, they became selfish and greedy. As the situation became worse, Earth Maker decided to drown all the evil ones, but not without warning. Four times, Earth Maker used the wind and a prophet named Suhu, to warn the people, but they ignored the warnings and called Suhu a fool. Finally, Earth Maker told Suhu to gather all of the good people and take them to the summit of Kakatak Tamai, "Crooked-top Mountain," "...for all the land will soon be covered with water and all of the evil ones will perish." Suhu gathered the good ones and led them to the mountaintop, and for two months rain fell, covering all of the land except the top of the mountain. Finally, Earth Maker spoke from the clouds, telling Suhu that the good people could return to the valley to till the soil, and that the evil ones would be turned to stone. Which begs the question as to why he didn't simply turn them to stone in the first place, and save himself the water bill.
The Jicarilla Apache:
Before the Apache emerged from the underworld, there were other people on the earth. Dios told an old man and an old woman that it would rain forty days and forty nights. People were told to go to the tops of four mountains and not look at the flood or the sky. The people didn't believe the old couple. When the rains came, only a few people made it to the mountain tops and shut their eyes. Those who looked at the flood turned into fish or frogs; those who looked at the sky, turned into birds. After eighty days, Dios told the twenty-four remaining people to open their eyes and come down.
The use of the name, "Dios" and the rain period of "forty days and forty nights," sounds as though the original Apache story may have been supplemented by information absorbed through contact with Spanish-Christian missionaries.
The Maya:
God sent a flood because people made from wood (an early version of Humans) had no souls, minds or hearts - in other words, Republicans. They wanted to escape, but the animals that they had starved and beaten, the pots they had burned, and the trees they had stripped, refused to help them. Only a few escaped the flood and it is said that their descendants are monkeys - I rest my case --
The Toltec:
One of the Tezcatlipocas (sons of the original dual god) transformed himself into the Sun and created the first Humans to show up his brothers. The other gods, angry at his audacity, ordered Quetzalcoatl to destroy the people, which he did, with a flood. The people became fish.
The Aztec:
In the Valley of Mexico lived a pious man named, Tapi. Creator told him to build a boat to live, to take a pair of every animal that existed. Neighbors thought he was crazy. As soon as he finished, it began to rain. The valley flooded; men and animals went into the mountains, but they were submerged. The rain ended. Tapi realized that the flood waters had receded after sending out a dove that did not return. Tapi rejoiced.
Again, this story smacks of missionary influence, which isn't surprising since both the Aztec and Apache made Mexico their home, the first country to be colonized by the Christian-Spanish, who brought us the ever-popular Inquisition, which made "water-boarding" sound like an amusement park ride, replete with a sign that read: "Must be this tall to enter - too short? - no worries, we have a rack that can fix that!"
The Skagit:
The Creator made the earth and gave four names for it - for the sun, waters, soil and forests. He said only a few people, with special preparation for the knowledge, should ever know all four names, or the world would change too suddenly. After a while, everyone learned the four names. When the people started talking to the trees, the change came in the form of a flood. When the people saw the flood coming, they made a giant canoe and filled it with five people and a male and female of all plants and animals. Water covered everything but the summits of Kobah (Mt. Baker) and Takobah (Mt. Ranier). The canoe landed on the prarie. Doquebuth, the new Creator, was born of a couple from the canoe. He delayed getting his spirit powers, but finally did so after his family deserted him. At the direction of the Old Creator, he made people again from the soil and from the bones of the people who lived before the flood.
The Squamish:
When the Squamish saw the great flood coming, they made a giant canoe and a long rope of cedar fibers with which they fastened the canoe to a giant rock. Into the canoe, they put every baby, along with a young man and woman to be their guardians, and food and water. The waters rose and drowned everyone else. After several days, the man saw Kobah (Mt. Baker) in the distance. He cut the rope and paddled to it and made a new home there. The outline of the canoe can still be seen halfway up the slope of Mt. Baker.
The "People of Mt. Jefferson":
Twice, a great flood came. Afraid that another might come, the people made a giant canoe from a big cedar. When they saw a third flood coming, they put the bravest young men and women in the canoe, with plenty of food. Then the flood, bigger and deeper than the earlier ones, swallowed the land. It rained for many days and nights, but when the clouds finally parted for the third time, the people saw land (Mt. Jefferson) and landed on it. When the water receded, they made their home at the base of it. The canoe was turned to stone and can still be seen on Mt. Jefferson today.
The Yakima:
In early times, many people had gone to war with other tribes, but there were still some good people. One of the good men heard from the Land Above that a big water was coming. He told the other good people and decided they would make a dugout boat from the largest cedar they could find. Soon after the canoe was finished, the flood came, filling the valleys and covering the mountains. The bad people were drowned; the good people were saved in the boat. The canoe can still be seen where it came down on Toppenish Ridge.
The Quillayute:
Thunderbird was once so angry that he sent the ocean over the land. When it reached the village of the Quillayute, they got into their canoes. The water rose for four days, covering the mountains. The boats were scattered by the wind and waves. Then the water receded for four days, and people settled in many areas.
The Shasta:
Coyote encountered an evil water spirit who caused water to rise until it covered Coyote. After the water receded. Coyote shot the water spirit with a bow and ran away, but the water followed him. He ran to the top of Mt. Shasta; the water followed, but didn't quite reach the top. Coyote made a fire and all of the other animal people swam to it and found refuge there. After the water receded, they came down and found new homes.
The Nizqualli:
The people became so numerous that they ate all of the fish and game and began to eat each other. They were so wicked that Dokibatl, the Changer, flooded the earth. All living things were destroyed except one woman and one dog, which survived atop Tacobah (Mt. Ranier). From them, the next race of people were born. They lived like animals until the Changer sent a spirit to teach them civilization.
The Lakota (Sioux):
Unktehi, a water monster, fought the people and caused a great flood. The people retreated to a hill, but the water swept over them, killing them all. Somehow, in the process, Unktehi was turned to stone - her bones are in the badlands now. A giant eagle, Wanblee Galeshka, swept down, saved one girl from the flood and made her his wife. (In another version , the thunderbirds fought and defeated Unktehi and her children before the water washed over the highest mountain.)
The Caddo:
Four monsters grew large and powerful until they were high enough to touch the sky. One man heard a voice telling him to plant a hollow reed. He did so, and it quickly grew very big. He, his wife, and pairs of all good animals entered the reed. Water rose to cover everything but the top of the reed and the heads of the monsters. Turtle destroyed the monsters by digging under them and uprooting them. The water subsided and winds dried the earth.
The Navajo:
For their sins, the gods expelled the Insect people from the first world by sending a wall of water from all directions. The Insect People flew up into the second world. Later, in the fourth world, descendants of these people were likewise punished. They escaped the floodwaters by climbing into a fast-growing reed. Cicada dug an entrance into the fifth world, where people live today.
The Hopi:
The people repeatedly became distant from Sotuknang, the creator. Twice he destroyed the world (by fire and by cold) and recreated it while the few people who still lived by the laws of creation took shelter underground with the ants. When people became corrupt and warlike a third time, Sotuknang guided them to Spider Woman, who cut down giant reeds and sheltered the people in the hollow stems. Sotuknang caused a great flood, and the people floated in their reeds for a long time. They emerged after coming to rest on a small piece of land. They still had as much food as they started with (loaves and fishes?). Guided by their inner wisdom (which comes from Sotuknang through the door at the top of their head), the people traveled on, using the reeds as canoes. They went northeast, finding progressively larger islands, until they came to the fourth world. When they reached it, they saw the islands sink into the ocean.
The Yuma:
Komashtam'ho caused a great rain and started to flood out the large, dangerous animals, but he was persuaded that people needed some of the animals for food. He evaporated the waters with a great fire, turning the land into desert in the process.
The Huichol (of Central Mexico):
A man clearing fields found the trees regrown overnight. He learned his grandmother, Nakawe, did this. She told him that he was working in vain, because a flood was coming. Per her instructions, he built a box and survived the flood with corn, beans, fire, and a black female dog. After the flood, he would return home from work to find his meals already prepared. One day he spied and found that the dog took off her skin and became a woman to do the work. He threw her skin into the fire and bathed her in "nixtamal" water. They repopulated the earth.
The Yanomamo (S. American rainforest natives):
The son of Omauwa (one of the first beings) became very thirsty. Omauwa and his brother dug a hole for water, but they dug so deep that water gushed forth and covered the jungle. Many drowned. Some of the first beings survived by cutting down trees and floating on them. They floated away and became foreigners. The Yanomamo survived by climbing mountains. Raharariyoma painted red dots all over her body and plunged into the lake, causing it to recede. Omauwa then caused her to be changed into a rahara, a dangerous snake-like monster that lives in large rivers.
The Huarochiri (of Peru):
In the Huarochiri area of Peru, the Quechua-speaking people have a myth of a deluge caused by a god whose presence was not acknowledged by the people. He sent a flood which wiped all of the villages away except for one woman who had befriended the god and was given instructions to take refuge on a high mountain.
The Yamana (of Chile):
Lexuwakipa felt offended by the people, so she let it snow so much that ice came to cover the entire earth. When it melted, it rapidly flooded all the earth, except five mountain tops, on which a few people escaped. Signs of the floodwaters still show up on those mountains.
Hopefully, you have noticed that some of the stories above have very similar themes - this kind of thing happens when a story originates at one point, then gets passed down or on to others who add their own particular flavor to it and pass it on further still. Remember this well, as we will encounter it again.
Note the last sentence of the flood story of the Yamana - "Signs of the floodwaters still show up on those mountains. All too often, I have heard ministers and Sunday school teachers verify the biblical flood story by drawing attention to the fact that quite often, sea shells and coral are found on mountaintops and citing that as proof that water rose to great heights during "the flood".
The study of tectonic plates has revealed that at one point in time, all of the earth was covered by sea except for one giant super-continent, known as Pangaea, that comprised all of the continental crust of the earth during the late Paleozoic (570-245 million years ago) and Mesozoic (245-65 million years ago) times, before it broke apart into the giant continents of Gondwana and Laurasia.
Those giant continents have, in turn, been broken apart by the movement of the tectonic plates that hold up the earth's crust, while floating on a sea of magma deep below the surface of the earth. Where pieces of the shattered continents have collided with other pieces - such, for example, as when the sub-continent that now is India, collided with the Eurasian continent - mountains were pushed up by the collision, mountains that may, at one time, have been submerged beneath the sea and contain coral and shells accumulated before the land was forced to rise by the collision. To see for yourself how this happened, lay a fresh sheet of paper on a table or desktop in front of you, place your left hand on the one side of the paper and your right hand on the other, then move your hands toward each other - the paper should rise in the middle, exactly as the mountains rose when the two plates collided.
Such fossils are only evidence that the mountains in question, have at one time been lower, not that at one time, the water has been higher. But again, what would nomadic herdsmen know of tectonic plates? Especially if their god neglected to mention them. Otherwise, one has to wonder how long it would take a clam to climb a mountain --
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
Posted by archaeopteryx at 7/2/2011 5:23 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: religion Christianity Judaism Islam atheism Native American flood stories the Pima the Jicarilla Apache the Maya the Toltec the Sagit the Squamish the "People of Mt. Jefferson the Yakima the Quillayute the Shasta the Nizqualli the Lakota Souix the Caddo the Navajo the Hopi the Yuma the Huichol of Central Mexico the Yanomamo the Huarochiri the Yamana Pangaea Gondwana Laurasia the "People of Mt. Jefferson" Suhu Kakatak Tamai Dios Tezcatlipocas Quetzalcoatl Tapi Kobah Takobah Doquebuth Thunderbird Coyote Dokibatl Tacobah Unktehi Wanblee Galeshka thunderbirds Turtle Insect people Sotuknang Spider Woman Komashtam'ho Nakawe nixtamal water Omauwa Yanomamo Raharariyoma Lexuwakipa flood stories religious mythology
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: religion Christianity Judaism Islam atheism Native American flood stories the Pima the Jicarilla Apache the Maya the Toltec the Sagit the Squamish the "People of Mt. Jefferson the Yakima the Quillayute the Shasta the Nizqualli the Lakota Souix the Caddo the Navajo the Hopi the Yuma the Huichol of Central Mexico the Yanomamo the Huarochiri the Yamana Pangaea Gondwana Laurasia the "People of Mt. Jefferson" Suhu Kakatak Tamai Dios Tezcatlipocas Quetzalcoatl Tapi Kobah Takobah Doquebuth Thunderbird Coyote Dokibatl Tacobah Unktehi Wanblee Galeshka thunderbirds Turtle Insect people Sotuknang Spider Woman Komashtam'ho Nakawe nixtamal water Omauwa Yanomamo Raharariyoma Lexuwakipa flood stories religious mythology
I don't know about you, but I get really annoyed when someone remakes a a movie or song. What ever happened to creativity.
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Something else that might be missed in this entry can be found at the beginning of the article. "Keeping ones eyes shut for 80 days and nights." Along with the whole "faith" thing when it comes to being a "true" christian, there also seems to be a recurring theme of "obedience." god is constantly checking our obedience levels. Of course both faith and obedience belong together in religion because the ultimate goal of the average religious leader/minister is that we all be obediently faithful.
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RE obedience, I believe I mentioned in an earlier reply, Hitler's "We need believing people." speech.
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