Choctaw
NOTE: This story was told to Catlin by the Choctaw Peter Pinchlin.
Our people have always had a tradition of the Deluge, which happened in this way: There was total darkness for a great time over the whole of the earth; the Choctaw doctors or mystery-men looked out for daylight for a long time, until at last they despaired of ever seeing it, and the whole nation was very unhappy. At last a light was discovered in the North, and there was great rejoicing, until it was found to be great mountains of water rolling on, which destroyed them all, except a few families who had expected it and built a great raft, on which they were saved.
Creek-Natchez
The dog warned his master to build a raft because all things were about to be destroyed by a flood. The waters rose, lifting man and dog above the clouds into a wonderful land of trees. The dog told the man that the only way he could ever return to his homeland was if he, the dog, were thrown into the water. The man was loyal to his friend and was reluctant to do this. The dog also told the man not to leave the raft for seven days after the waters had subsided. With pain in his heart, the man threw the dog overboard.
As the dog had predicted, the waters did subside and the man waited seven days as he was instructed. At the end of the seven days, multitudes of people approached the raft, some wet and dressed in rags, and others were dressed in finery. When they arrived at the raft it was clear that they were not humans, but spirits of the many killed in the flood.
Mojave-Apache
NOTE: Do you remember the emergence myths in the last chapter? This myth is both an emergence myth and a flood story.
Many years ago, people lived under the ground. There came a time when there was no food, when the people sent a hummingbird up to see what he could find for them to eat. He saw the deep roots of a grapevine, which he followed up to the surface of the earth. The people went up through the hole and began living above ground.
One day a man looked down into the hole made by the vine, through which the people had entered the upper world, and saw that water was rising up through it. The wise ones knew that a great flood was coming and that something had to be done to save humankind.
They then cut down a great tree and hollowed it out to make a canoe, placing a young girl in it. The tree-trunk canoe floated high on the waters until nothing but water could be seen in any direction. The wise ones had warned the girl not to leave the vessel until it touched land, even if she heard the waters going down.
Finally, the tree-trunk canoe touched ground. When the girl emerged, all the world had been drowned. She wondered whether she would always be alone. She went up to the mountains to rest. As she lay down, the sun shone on her, warming water that dripped down on her body from the rocks. This magic water impregnated her and she later gave birth to a daughter who conceived in the same way. All of us are descended from her.
Cree
Wisagatcak the Trickster built a dam across a stream in an attempt to capture the Great Beaver as it left its lodge. He waited all day until finally, at dusk, the huge creature swam toward him. Now, the Great Beaver possesses powerful magic and, as Wisagatcak prepared to spear it, created a spell that caused a muskrat to bite Wisagatcak in the behind, making him miss the target. Though spared, the Great Beaver was angry and wanted revenge.
The next morning Wisagatcak was dumfounded. After being bitten, he had dismantled his dam, but the water level had not gone down even though the stream was now flowing freely through the spot where the dam had been. Even more strange—the water level continued to rise higher and higher. The Great Beaver had worked powerful magic indeed; the entire world was flooding. For two weeks, the Great Beaver and the little beavers kept busy making all the waters of earth to rise until not one spot of dry land could be found. In great haste, Wisagatcak built a raft of logs and took many animals aboard with him.
The water continued to rise for yet another two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, the muskrat left the raft to search for land, but even the muskrat, who is accustomed to living between earth and water, drowned. Then a raven left the raft. He flew around the entire world, but found no land, only water. Then Wisagatcak made his own magic with the help of a wolf on his raft.
During the next two weeks on the raft, moss grew all over its surface. The wolf ran around and around on the raft, causing the moss to become magically expanding earth, until the raft was a vast land mass. However, to this very day, water springs up through holes in the ground—cracks in that original raft.
Algonquin
NOTE: In the stories of Noah, Utnapishtim, Wisagatcak, and this one, a raven is sent out to find land.
The god Michabo was hunting with his pack of trained wolves one day when he saw the strangest sight—the wolves entered a lake and disappeared. He followed them into the water to fetch them and as he did so, the entire world flooded. Michabo then sent forth a raven to find some soil with which to make a new earth, but the bird returned unsuccessful in its quest. Then Michabo sent an otter to do the same thing, but again to no avail.
Finally he sent the muskrat and she brought him back enough earth to begin the reconstruction of the world. The trees had lost their branches in the flood, so Michabo shot magic arrows at them that immediately became new branches covered with leaves.
Then Michabo married the muskrat and they became the parents of the human race.
THE FLOOD MYTH OF THE INCAS
Once there was a period called the Pachachama, when humankind was cruel, barbaric, and murderous. Human beings did whatever they pleased without any fear. They were so busy planning wars and stealing that they completely ignored the gods. The only part of the world that remained uncorrupted was the high Andes.
In the highlands of Peru there were two shepherd brothers who were of impeccable character. They became very concerned when their llamas acted strangely. The llamas stopped eating and spent the night gazing sadly up at the stars. When the brothers asked the llamas what was going on, they replied that the stars had told them that a great flood was coming that would destroy all creatures on earth.
The two brothers and their families decided to seek safety in the caves in the highest mountain. They took their flocks with them into a cave and then it began to rain. It rained for months without end. Looking down from the mountains, they saw that the llamas were right: The entire world was being destroyed. They could hear the cries of the miserable dying humans below. Miraculously, the mountain grew taller and taller as the waters rose. Even so, the waters began to lap at the door of their cave. Then the mountain grew still higher.
One day they saw that the rain had ceased and that the waters were subsiding. Inti, the sun-god, appeared once again and smiled, causing the waters to evaporate. Just as their provisions were running out, the brothers looked down to see that the earth was dry. The mountain then returned to its usual height, and the shepherds and their families repopulated the earth.
Human beings live everywhere; llamas, however, remember the flood and prefer to live only in the highlands.
THE FLOOD MYTH OF EGYPT
The sun-god Ra, was warned by his father, the Watery Abyss, that humankind had grown too wicked and was on the verge of full rebellion against the gods. So Ra took his eye, the goddess Hathor, and sent her to investigate and punish the evildoers.
Hathor went to earth and began slaying thousands of humans, then millions. She was so terrible that the streets of the town of Chetenuten ran like a river with blood. So much blood poured into the Nile that it overflowed its banks, and the mixture of blood and water inundated the land, destroying everything in its path. The mixture even met the sea, which, in turn, overflowed its banks. Hathor had become literally bloodthirsty, drinking this gory liquid.
Ra’s original intention was to punish, but not destroy, humankind. So he called Thoth, the wisest of the gods, for advice. Ra then sent the goddess Sektet and told her to grind a great volume of the dada [perhaps the date] fruit and mix it with barley to make strong beer. Th
en the beer would be mixed with the blood of hapless humans to attract Hathor.
Ra then instructed his servants to take the jugs of beer and pour them out near Hathor on whatever dry land remained. The beer formed a great sea. Hathor was drawn by the smell of the blood and began to drink the beer until she was so drunk that she could not even stand. Completely intoxicated, she could no longer identify the few humans left and she staggered off to sleep.
From that remnant, humankind repopulated the earth.
Ra was tired of dealing with human beings, Hathor, and the other problems on earth. So he went off to rest on the back of the great cow of heaven, appointing Thoth as his governor on earth. This was an excellent choice, as Thoth taught people how to write, compose poetry, and govern themselves.
* Geza Roheim, a Hungarian disciple of Sigmund Freud, attributed the universality of flood myths to dreams that occurred while the sleeper had a full bladder.
* In Greek this is the result of a play on words: laos means “people” (the source of our English word laity) and laas means “stones.”
Deucalion was the son of Prometheus, whose name means “forethought,” and the father lived up to his name by warning of the flood.
6. Tales of Love
We insist that life must have a meaning—but it can have no more meaning than we ourselves are able to give it. Because individuals can do this only imperfectly, the religions and philosophers have tried to supply a comforting answer to the question. The answers all amount to the same thing: love alone can give life meaning. In other words: the more capable we are of loving, and of giving ourselves, the more meaning there will be in our lives.
—Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), Reflections
Man can live his truth, his deepest truth, but cannot speak it. It is for this reason that love becomes the ultimate human answer to the ultimate human question. Love, in reason’s terms, answers nothing—certainly not death—certainly not chance. What love does is to arm. It arms the worth of life in spite of it.
—Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982)
GREEK AND ROMAN LOVE MYTHS
NOTE: The Greek and Roman mythologies were full of tales of romances with object lessons. The Latin poet Ovid, in particular, retold many myths of love and is our source for most of these stories. Hence the names of the gods are in their Roman forms.
CUPID AND PSYCHE
There was once a king with three beautiful daughters, the fairest of whom was Psyche, the youngest. Her name means “soul” and “butterfly” in Greek. Her beauty was such that the entire world soon knew of her and men swooned at the very mention of her name. Not only was she physically beautiful, but she was a kind and innocent girl as well. Through no fault of her own, people began to compare her with Venus [Greek: Aphrodite], the goddess of beauty. In time, the temples of Venus were ignored; no one brought sacrifices or invoked the name of the goddess for help. For, as the people saw it, Venus was a distant goddess who lived on Mount Olympus, while the very picture of beauty, Psyche, lived in their midst.
Venus became very angry about the attention given this mere mortal girl and she called her son Cupid [Greek: Eros] to assist in solving this problem. The arrows of Cupid are irresistible and invincible; anyone they strike falls hopelessly in love. Venus asked Cupid to make the vilest, ugliest man on earth fall in love with Psyche.
Upon inspecting the situation, however, Cupid fell in love with the girl himself and forgot all about his mother’s command. Venus merely took the silence of her son as his assent that he would do her bidding, certain that the matter would be taken care of promptly.
But as time went on, not only didn’t a terrible man fall in love with Psyche; no one fell in love with Psyche. Men still looked at her and praised her beauty, but not a single one approached her. Her two sisters had married well, while this most beautiful of mortals appeared to be headed for a lonely spinsterhood. Her parents despaired and decided to seek the advice of the oracle of the god Apollo at Delphi.
Apollo himself was known for his taste for beautiful mortal women, but he was also the brother of Venus and did not wish to incur her wrath. So, speaking through the oracle, he did the diplomatic thing, telling the parents that Psyche would indeed have a lover—a horrible winged serpent. The parents were advised to take her up to a lonely rock to meet her lover, who was as strong as the gods and could not be resisted.
Sadly, her father obeyed this advice and left the beautiful Psyche on the mountaintop. Filled with sorrow, fear, and dread, she wept inconsolably until she fell asleep. The gentle southern wind, Zephyr, soothed her with gentle breezes.
When she awoke in the morning, she found herself in a palace more grand than any she had ever imagined. Dozens of beautiful servant girls attended her every whim. They placed her in the most comfortable bed she had ever slept in. During the night she was gently awakened by the loveliest voice she had ever heard—it was her lover. In the darkness, his skin and body felt like that of a beautiful youth, not a winged monster. She was certain that this was a youth of great beauty, perhaps even a god. After their first night together, she was resolved to see his face.
He was insistent, however, that she should never, under any circumstances whatsoever, look at his face. Once she had seen his face, he would have to leave her forever. So she endured this rule for a time, while still pleading to see his face. He consistently refused, which made her curiosity all the more powerful.
One day she coaxed him into allowing her sisters to visit the palace. He was reluctant to do this, but was so completely in love with her that he could not refuse. So, during the day, the gentle wind Zephyr whisked the sisters up to the palace for a visit. The sisters, though married to wealthy men, were unprepared for the splendor they saw and became insanely jealous of Psyche. The visiting sisters began to ask Psyche probing questions about her lover while they feasted on exquisite foods. As she had never seen his face, her answers were full of inconsistencies.
The sisters noted the holes in Psyche’s stories and they began to taunt her by saying, “This is a splendid palace, but that is still too high a price to pay for having to sleep with a monster.” When the sisters left, Psyche was filled with doubt. On the one hand, she was fairly certain that her lover was a handsome young man. On the other, maybe the sisters had a point; she had never seen his face. Perhaps he was a monster.
Psyche resolved that she would try to see his face by stealth. She stayed up waiting for him to return. When he finally walked into the dark bedroom and fell into a sound sleep, she slipped down the hall and grabbed an oil lamp, which she brought to the bedroom. Seeing him for the first time in the light, she could not believe her eyes: This was the most handsome youth in the world, perhaps even a god. She leaned over to kiss him. Then some of the hot oil spilled from the lamp onto his shoulder, waking him with a start.
He leaped up from the bed and shouted, “I told you never to look at my face!” Taking on the divine mantle of invisibility, he fled the room. She raced down the hall after him, but it was too late. As he ran, she heard him identify himself—he was Cupid, the god of love himself. And his final words to her that night were that love could not dwell where there is no trust.
Cupid went to the home of Venus, his mother. He had a painful burn on his shoulder where the hot oil had dripped, and he wanted her to tend to it. When he told his mother the story of Psyche, she became enraged. She now hated the beautiful mortal more than ever. Beauty is always least beautiful when threatened by a rival; nor is there any greater womanly spite than that of a mother against her son’s lover when that love has gone sour. Venus was absolutely determined to destroy Psyche; the girl had not merely been a threat to the cult of Venus, she had had an affair with Venus’s own son!
Likewise, Psyche knew that she was doomed. Not only was it clear enough that her affair with Cupid was over, but her very life was in danger. All that she could do was to throw herself on the mercy of Venus and vow to serve her all her days. She was hoping that the goddess had at leas
t one ounce of compassion left.
Zephyr carried Psyche to the chambers of Venus, who was relishing the chance for revenge on her mortal rival. Psyche flung herself at the feet of the goddess, pleading for mercy. Venus decided to give Psyche an impossible task and then destroy her. So she handed Psyche a pile of the smallest of seeds—poppy, millet, and mustard seeds—and ordered her to have them separated by kind before nightfall. The task was impossible. Psyche began to cry. As her tears hit the floor, the ants took pity on her. The queen ant ordered her subjects to help Psyche separate the seeds by kind. Soon, with thousands of busy little ants working, the job was done. When Venus returned and saw this, she was angrier than before. In fact, the ants still live underground to avoid her wrath.
As night fell, Psyche became very hungry. But Venus gave her only a morsel of dry bread and forced her to sleep on the cold stone floor. Venus knew that nothing could destroy beauty like deprivation.
The next day Venus gave Psyche another impossible task, to gather golden fleece. Down in a valley near a river, Venus kept a flock of sacred sheep with golden fleece. However, these sheep had heads like lions and had torn many a mortal to shreds. Psyche went down to the riverbank and wept, resigned to her doom. Utterly despondent, she contemplated drowning herself in the river. Just then she heard a sweet little voice, like that of a child. Between her toes was a tiny reed that advised her to pick the golden fleece from the thorny brambles where the sheep had passed through. This way she could gather plenty of the golden wool in safety. Soon Psyche had gathered as much golden wool as she could carry. She had completed Venus’s second impossible assignment.
Parallel Myths Page 14