Creation Stories- Anna L. and Maria

In both of the Native American creation stories we read, there were many similar as well as differing themes. One similarity between both of them and the Biblical creation story is the use of the world being started out of the darkness. In the Iroquois creation story, the good mind is "anxious to create a great light in the dark world." On the other hand, the bad mind wished to remain in darkness. This is a good example of how the light vs. dark theme is parallel with the good vs. evil theme in each story. In the Pima creation story, the Doctor of the Earth wanders around in nothing, in darkness, "which was Darkness itself," and then creates the world. This is much like the Judeo-Christian creation story which begins with total darkness and only one spirit or person decides then to create the world. The fact that both Native American creation stories go into a lot of detail concerning how the celestial lights were made, suggests that the theme of dark vs. light is a very important one and has some significance.

In both stories of Iroquois and Pimas there was a similarity between good vs. evil. In the Iroquois story, the good brother wanted to create light and happiness in the world. However, the bad brother wanted to keep the dark and destroy what his brother had made. The bad brother wanted to fight with the good brother to see who the ruler of the world would be. In the Pimas story the creator would try inventing a world that he beleived was good. Multiple times things would happen to the people who lived in the world. First, too many people were in the world with not enough food so they resorted to eating one another. The creator hated the idea of this, and started a whole new world. Other things such as people smoking at a young age and greying too soon had happened. This picture shows the difficulties between Good vs. Evil because it shows the light of the good, and the dark of the evil.