Myths                           

           Myths are first and foremost stories.   They are usually about gods or other supernatural creatures.  Many cultures use myths to describe a peculiar event in nature.  They also use them to explain origins and how the world came to be.  Myths are symbolic and metaphorical in nature.   The myths are sacred storise from the past.  Some cultures use them to express their moral values, but in human terms.  Myths are about the powers which control humans, and they are about the interacting relationships between these powers and human beings.  Myths are religious in their origin and function, but they are also the earliest form of history, science, and philosophy.

         Mythology is fiction- something untrue.   It is often about the theme of good conquering evil.  Some scholars interpret the stories of mythology in different ways:  "Sometimes they are public dreams which, like private dreams, emerge from the unconscious mind (Freud)."   "They are usually strongly structured and and their meaning is only discerned by linguistic analysis (Lévi-Strauss)."  "They orient people to the metaphysical dimension, explain the origins and nature of the cosmos, validate social issues, and, on the psychological plane, address themselves to the innermost depths of the psyche (Campbell)."  "They are usually functional and are the science of primitive peoples (Malinowski)."  "Often, they are enacted in rituals (Hooke)."  "Religious myths are sacred histories (Eliade)."   "They are both individual and social in scope...(Kirk)."  The Greeks were the first to write  myths.  They wrote them similar to parables, so they could teach a lesson or moral.

          One type of myth is a creation myth.   These myths try to explain the origin of the universe and everything wihtin it.  Creation myths may involve one or several stages of creation.   An explanation which tries to explain the origin of the world is called a Cosmogony.  One myth used to express many themes is the traditional Chinese creation myth.  This is called the myth of Pan-gu.

        One very common variation of universe before man is as a great featureless body of water.  One example is the story of the Japanese gods Izanagi and Izanami mixing the waters of the earth to produce the island of Okonoro.  In this case the ocean is the precursor of the earth rather than the entire universe.

        Some of the most famous myths are Greek and Roman myths.  These myths are the classical stories of Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, and all of the other Greek gods and goddesses.  They all lived on Mount Olympus and they ate ambrosia, the food of the gods.  The Greek myths dealed mainly with gods and how they tortured the innocent.   The stories were passed down orally from generation to generation as explanations for phenominal occurrences in nature. 

PAN-GU

The primordial Chinese giant who was born as a dwarf from the cosmic egg. The upper part of the egg formed the Heaven (Yang) and the lower part formed the Earth (Yin). Pan-gu, growing ten feet a day, pushed the egg shells further and further apart. Then, after 13.000 years (other sources state 18,000 years), he himself burst apart. His eyes became the sun and the moon, his head the four sacred mountains, his blood the seas and the rivers, his hair turned into the grasses and trees, his breath became the wind, his sweat turned into rain, and his voice into thunder. The fleas that had been living on his skin became the ancestors of the human race.

A second myth, however, relates that he was born from the five elements, and that he created heaven and earth with a chisel and a hammer. He is depicted by the Taoists as a shaggy primitive being bearing a huge hammer with which he breaks up the primeval rocks.

IZANAGI