Origins
How the worlds say the world began.
Creation stories set side by side, from the Hopi mesas to the Finnish lakes, from Genesis to the measured Big Bang. Each is told with the same reverence, and none is asked to win. Every telling here comes from the documented record, named and cited. Where a story belongs to a living tradition, it is handled as a guest handles an heirloom.
6 entries on these shelves · growing moon by moon
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- In the Beginning: Four Openings of the World Genesis, the Rig Veda, the Popol Vuh, and the Big Bang, side by side four cosmogonies · three millennia apart
- The Kalevala: The World from a Bird's Egg The Finnish beginning: an air-maiden on the sea, and seven eggs on her knee Finnish & Karelian oral tradition · compiled by Lönnrot, 1849
- Ginnungagap: The World from Fire and Ice The Norse beginning: a yawning void, a body made world Norse · Poetic Edda & Snorri's Prose Edda, 13th c. Iceland
- The Hopi Emergence: Through Four Worlds The people who climbed upward into this world, as the documented record tells it Hopi (Hopituh Shi-nu-mu) · northeastern Arizona · as recorded 1905
- The Slavic Beginning: The Diver and the Sea Two figures over the primal waters, and a forgery every seeker should know by name Slavic folk tradition · recorded from oral tellings, 19th c.
- Sky Woman and Turtle Island The Haudenosaunee beginning: a fall from the sky, and the earth that grew on a turtle's back Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) · recorded 1827 & 1903