creation myths
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2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Podolecka

Abstract Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa (1921–2020) was one the most famous and controversial sangomas in South Africa. He is the first sangoma who published books about sangomas’ vocation and work, and revealed his version of Zulu myths. This paper first establishes if Mutwa’s tales can be considered myths, then if those stories are cohesive with versions known to academics and contemporary sangomas. The aim of this article is to analyse the creation myths that Mutwa presents, establish if they are original Zulu myths or his creations, and find international mythological motifs that could have influenced him. Mutwa’s myths are compared with myths collected by other researchers. Mutwa’s opinions, gained during a 2013 field visit to his home in Kuruman, South Africa, are also presented. The field studies among contemporary sangomas were financed by the Polish National Science Centre (Narodowe Centrum Nauki), Poland, project no. 2017/25/N/HS1/02500.


2021 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Marc Thuillard

For millennia, people have seen a man, an animal, or an object as they look at the moon. The motif of the ‘frog/toad in the Moon’ was recorded in writing in the Book of Changes (I Ching) over 2400 years ago. The ‘man in the Moon’ theme is found in old Norse literature in the Younger Edda. In Mesoamerica, the story of the ‘rabbit in the Moon’ is pre-Columbian. This study analyses the different versions by combining areal studies as well as structural and statistical analyses with information from ancient texts and archaeological artefacts. In particular, I compare the geographic distribution of the main motifs to the 2,278 motifs in Yuri Berezkin’s database. In this context, I report on the observed similarities between the geographic distribution of the ‘man or animal in the Moon’ motifs and the two of the most widespread earth creation myths.


Author(s):  
Andrew A. Erish

For more than a century, the origin story of the American film industry has been that the founders of Paramount and Fox invented the feature film, that Universal created the star system, and that these three companies (along with the heads of MGM and Warner Bros.) were responsible for developing the multi-billion-dollar business we now know as Hollywood. Unfortunately for history, this is simply not true. Andrew A. Erish's definitive history of this important but oft-forgotten studio compels a reassessment of the birth and development of motion pictures in America. Founded in 1897, the Vitagraph Company of America (later known as Vitagraph Studios) was ground zero for American cinema. By 1907, it was one of the largest film studios in America, with notable productions including the first film adaptation of Les Misérables (1909); The Military Air-Scout (1911), considered to be one of the first aviation films; and the World War I propaganda film The Battle Cry of Peace (1915). In 1925, Warner Bros. purchased Vitagraph and all of its subsidiaries and began to rewrite the history of American cinema. Drawing on valuable primary material overlooked by other historians, Erish challenges the creation myths marketed by Hollywood's conquering moguls, introduces readers to many unsung pioneers, and offers a much-needed correction to the history of commercial cinema.


Author(s):  
Queen Ijeoma Sokwaibe ◽  
Ijeoma Genevieve Anikelechi ◽  
T.D. Thobejane

In Genesis 2-3, the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden has served as a major tool in the justification of women as evil, seductive, temptress, and the subordination of women. This paper explores the concept of creation and fall (sin) of humanity both in the biblical and some African creation myths. It also underscores the prevalent belief of all subsequent women as daughters of Eve and thus, responsible for bringing evil and death into the world. This perception of women and Eve has endured with remarkable tenacity and persists today as a major stumbling block in attempts by women to correct gender-based inequalities. The paper argues that the downgraded status of women stemmed from the patriarchal society of the Hebrews and the African cultural worldview at large. It examines the African biblical interpretation method which is a biblical interpretation that analysis the biblical text from the perspective of African worldview and culture and has set out to examine the perceived role of Eve and subsequent women in the introduction of original sin both biblical and at the African cultural level. This paper explores this methodology in order to re-appraise ancient biblical tradition, African cultural worldview and life experience with the purpose of correcting the effect of the negative cultural ideological conditioning to which women have been subjected. This paper advocates for a feminist reconsideration along with the existing traditional interpretation of the fall of man in the biblical book of Genesis 2-3 and in African myths on the origin of sin.


Author(s):  
Stephen R. Wilk

The Book of Genesis famously opens with God ordering “Let there be Light!” as the first step in the Creation. This stands in contrast to most of the creation myths of other cultures, which do not begin with the creation of light. What is the significance of this? Is it meant to be taken literally (so that God can see what He is doing and Creation is visible to all), or metaphorically (that is, is light meant to stand for Knowledge, Wisdom, or Understanding)? Do any other cultures also start things off with the creation of light?


Author(s):  
Paul Earlie

This chapter explores a series of ‘creation myths’ in the reception of Freud’s work in France. In understanding myth as a fictive unity that conceals otherwise troubling ‘aporias’ (a term developed here in detail), Derrida’s work provides a useful lens through which to understand a number of recurrent gestures on the part of Freud’s French inheritors, from passionate devotion to forceful denials of indebtedness, from open hostility to bitter personal and professional rivalries. The resistance of Freud’s textual legacy to interpretation means that it is always accompanied by attempts to mythologize what remains irreducibly plural or undecidable in Freud’s writings, an argument tested here through readings of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jacques Lacan. If each of the latter seek to recuperate the singular meaning of Freud’s work for a particular concern of the present (anthropological, clinical, existentialist, or linguistic), for Derrida the legacy of psychoanalysis can never be appropriated without remainder, an impossibility which is also the paradoxical source of the rich possibilities generated by Freud’s thought.


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