Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Greeks? Cosmogony? Flash Animation?
After viewing the varied cosmogony accounts as portrayed by differing cultures in The Big Myth flash animation, what patterns did you notice? What are you thinking about our definition of mythology and these accounts? Please explain using specific details to argue. Please complete this blog response by 2:30p.m. on Tues, Jan. 30th.
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After viewing different cultures versions of myth i noticed that they all went through phases. Every time they didn't like something or something wasn't going well they made a new phase. I think we do this as well for example if we are unhappy with weight and we start a regamin to work out you always hear people saying ¨new me¨
After watching the Norse, Greek, and Navajo creation myths there seems to be a common pattern within. There is a beginning (usually formed out of chaos and from nothing) which leads to powerful gods who are "evil". These gods are then overthrown by one of their children who then create a better and human "friendly" earth. In the Norse the nothing is the barren wasteland, the Navajo is the first earth where there is no light. There are terrible people or gods (the cat people and Nmir) who cause the gods to recreate or move earths which finally leads to the one we live on now, and live in now.
After viewing the varied cosmogony accounts as portrayed by differing cultures, Some patterns that I noticed where that many myths believed that the Earth and the things on the earth such as the trees and rivers were created by mythological beings. Many began with these beings being created, and at the end of their lives when they died, they became part of the earth and things like their hair became their trees and their blood became the rivers. I still believe that our definition of mythology is accurate because many of these stories had mythological beings and different magical powers which had a big influence in the creation of the earth.
The myths so far are led by angry, power hungry, emotionally led gods. The gods find a way to tweak the human race so that they will not become as powerful as the gods. Myths always have conflicts between people that lead to some trick or some sort of revenge. These stories teach morals to the human race in the past generations and even in the modern generations.
- Matthew Shoemate
After watching a few of the myths from around the world, I noticed that the each one is centered around creation and the conflicts between the gods. In the greek myths, the gods planned against each other and were deceptive towards each other. In the Navajo myth, the god was displeased with the different worlds for his creations, and saw many conflicts with other people. In the Norse myth, the gods killed others to create the world, and the other gods/goddesses were sad of what Odin had done, and caused death and conflict between the people.
There are many similarities between the mythologies of different areas, and for good reason. Most cultural mythologies attempt to answer the question of, "How did we come to be?" Often times, the answer is written that is was caused by one higher power or many. This then leads to the question, "Where did the higher power come from?" This is where some creativity is required from those writing the myth, as it needs to be complicated in order to answer all future questions. Usually myths will show similar themes of generational conflict, the overall creation of humans, and especially the limiting of the power of humans. There are also similarities in the more small, less significant stories, being themes of trickery, manipulation, heroism, and conflict.
After viewing the different cosmogony accounts from these 3 unique cultures, I noticed that many of these culture begin by the creation of a smaller amount of gods or goddess who create the world and give birth to more powerful gods or goddess. The evil parents are usually overthrown by their children who create a better, more peaceful world. The creation of the world is always centered around the creations of at least 2 powerful beings. There seems to be a pattern of conflict and revenge in all of the myths that we viewed leading up to the creation of humans.
One pattern I noticed was in each of the animations they all have the main principle of creation, when their version of the Earth was created. All of the videos also portrayed limitation where the gods who created the Earth limited the power the humans they create had. It seemed as if the gods were very greedy and at times they would have too much greed and get over thrown by their children who would then restart and make the Earth a more enjoyable place
Some patterns I noticed were that there were monsters in each myth. There were the Cyclopses in Greek Mythology, the coyote in Navajo, and the giants in Norse mythology. Also, in both Greek, Zeus didn't want humans to be too powerful, and in Norse, the giants didn't want humans to be too powerful. Additionally, in all the myths there was conflict between the gods. There was war and deaths as a result of these conflicts
The patterns I noticed were that they all went threw motions. They had motions of changing up something when they didn't like it and felt when it wasn't going well. Thats understandable, but the thing is how many phases will it take to work and some people get tired of trying to figure it out. there were many conflicts and lots of plans.
Patterns that I noticed was different ages were made of clothing material, and there was definitely a lot of violence and secrets. Till this day according to the definition of mythology there is generalization conflict between parents and others. Either you lie or don't like what you get but it comes down to knowing life has a chance to be better. For example different cultures have adapted on earth that it brings us together as a whole, as it showed in the animation. Having power is another thing us humans have that we are good at but can lead to violence as well.
After viewing the many cosmogony accounts, some of the patterns I noticed were how there were gods created in the beginning, which were then deemed as evil and overthrown by their children, who became the reigning gods. I also noticed how these cultures used the life, death, and powers of the gods to explain the change of events in nature. I think these accounts continue to support our definition of mythology because we define mythology as a collection of stories to explain certain phenomenons about nature and creation, which is precisely what all of these cosmogony accounts did.
After watching the three different myths about the creation of the world, I noticed a couple of ideas that were similar between all the stories. First of all, I noticed that every single story involved life and death of many beings to explain how we arrived to where we are now. Also, I noticed how each story started with one being and then many other characters became involved in the stories. These stories aligned with our definition of mythology, as all of these stories are about something that we don't understand and sttempting to explain them to everyone.
Some patterns I noticed between the three creation myths we viewed were that the gods who came to rule the earth had to overthrow the previous deities. They all include the idea of "ages" of earth. In the Greek myth we see ages of men while in the Navajo and Norse myths we see different ages of earth. Another connection between the Greek and Navajo myths is the idea of a great flood. This is also a Biblical idea and it is interesting to see different cultures all including this similar event in their idea of creation. Also in the Greek and Norse myths, humans are introduced to suffering through some event, either Pandora's Box or the Tree of Life.
With the different cultures in the video I noticed a lot of similarities as well as differences. They all have a story and go through phases almost of each world and in how it changes. They all also start small and have so much creativity to make things bigger with bigger ideas and explain things in a fun way almost. The way they created things and started the world and change things is all different between but the ideas are quite similar.
I noticed a lot of similarities in the way flaws and evils were portrayed through the idea that their presence is because for some reason we had to exit a "perfect world" and so we live in a less great current world, such as the "Golden Age" to the Silver Age and so in Greek Mythology. It was interesting that so few creation myths were monotheistic and this was a trend that humans grew into. I wonder if the simplicity of there only being one god instead of several was more believable for most?
After viewing The Big Myth animation, I noticed similar concepts throughout the different cosmogonies. These patterns including the existence of a higher being who ruled a celestial object divided into ages. Seeing these consistencies throughout different myths aids us in understanding the human races' explanation for the natural world over time and through different cultures. For example, the use of Prometheus and Epimetheus in Greek mythology provides an explanation for why the human race and evil exist in the world. Some parallels in Norse myth and Greek myth are the succession of the gods. In Norse myth, two beings, Buri and his goddess wife, gave birth to Bor, the king of all the gods and parallel to this, in Greek myth, two titans, Cronus and Rhea, gave birth to the king of all gods, Zues. I think our definition of mythology in accordance with these accounts is even more valid because each myth is explaining the way the earth works and has a unique perspective on how life was formed.
After watching The Big Myth video, I saw a lot of the beliefs are the same only with minor differences. some of the similarities would include things like the phases. first a story will start out with two beings that are more powerful than most. Those two start the family by making a lot of children with god like powers and so on, and so on. The differences are normally small things the type of powers that they poses or even their symbol.
I noticed that every myth is centered around a big chaos or something being destroyed, which creates a god, or large beings which then create a world and something happens in that world or to that world which causes some kind of destruction that needs to be fixed by the gods or be remade entirely, more and more conflicts happen and the cycle repeats until the gods are satisfied
All myths and Stories start with nothing or Chaos, As expected, Life as we know is Controlled and UN-chaotic. Chaos is pretty much a bad thing in everyone's eyes this is because everyone loves to have a sense of repetition and unvaried change in their lives as change is scary and can lead to more failures than not
I notice that almost all myths start out from nothing or chaos, they usually have 1 or more gods. I also notice that a lot of myths are very similar with only minor differences such as instead of humans being created by the gods out of nothing they were sculpted out of clay or from wood and ice.
After viewing the many cosmogony videos including the ones from Greek, Norse and Navajo videos from the account the biggest pattern I noticed was all of them fallow a phase change. Every time something went wrong or they disliked something they would move onto something else. Like with the Navajo and the 1st and 2nd worlds. The first they left because it was mostly underground and there was no sunlight. The second they had to fight the cat people and the 3rd the great sea monster drown the world after the coyote stole his son. Then there is the Greeks which you can look at the different ages of men. The gold, silver, bronze and finally iron and every time they didn’t like them they got rid of them and created a new race. Then there is the fact of the Norse in which they did not want to look after Midgard so they made people to look after it and they went up to Asgard. There was also always starting for somewhere in which the world was created from. “The beginning”, which was Gaia and Sky for the greeks. The 6 original beings for the Navajo and Yumir and Buri the first beings and parents to the gods in the Norse. There was also some sort of violence and overthrow. Cronus killed Sky in the greeks. The gods killed Ymir in the Norse and in a way every time the 6 original being left a world it died and a new one was created. All of these aspects set up together as a way to do creation myths.
The myths so far are mostly about the creation stories of their world. The gods find a way to mess something up and they decide to restart their world whether it be in a grande flood or growing to another world to establish civilizations. It's not necessarily the Gods because man created by god rebels against the gods that made them or angers a god figure. They have a lot of similarities and differences but they mostly look a like.
After viewing the different cultures it seems like they all have different ages of men and different worlds. They all went through trials and tribulations to get to the world where they really started the civilizations that stories grew off of.
After looking at the different cultures of myths and learning more about them I saw that most if not all myths have a similar origin of the world. At first there was either nothing or there was chaos. Out of this chaos or nothingness, a god, or gods, emerged to create the world and humans and life as we know it today. It is a way for people of the past to answer the questions that have no cognitive capability.
As a comparison of the three different cultures on their takes on how the world and the universe were created, there are very clear similarities and differences. For the most part, all three were heavily reliant on symbolism. Water, fire, colors, objects, etc. All used to convey meanings of different aspects of life. Although the cultures differ from their central beliefs on gods/goddesses (Greeks have many, used to explain the universe, compared to others that more rely on inanimate objects or nature to explain the universe). All have a relatively similar beginning to the universe, came out of chaos or nothingness, then gods and goddess were born. So although those different cultures have different ways to explain how everything came to be, they are resoundingly similar in terms of symbolism and explanation.
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