Baeva Kristina
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Myths and theories about the origin of man Completed by a student of the 11th grade of MBOU Tabarsuk Secondary School Baeva Kristina
How it all began Since the dawn of human history, people have been trying to understand how they appeared on Earth. Gradually, myths emerged about the origin of people from animals, plants, and humanoid creatures, about the creation of people by gods or fantastic heroes. The whole variety of myths about the origin of man is called anthropogony (from the Greek “anthropos” - man and “gonia” - origin).
Affairs of the “Dream Times” Primitive peoples lived in harmony with nature, feeling their kinship with everything that surrounded them. All kinds of rituals were associated with the mythical ancestor of the tribe, and sacrifices were made to him. The ancestor of a tribe is called a totem. People created legends about their totem - totemic myths. Australian tribes gave this era a poetic name - “dream times”.
Egyptians about the creation of man Egyptian mythology began to take shape long before the emergence of class society. One of the Egyptian myths tells that the god Ptah conceived creation. Ptah gave birth to the first gods, then created the earth and sky, people, animals and plants. He created the first cities, built temples, erected cults of the gods and taught people all this.
Prometheus the Father of Humanity In Greek mythology, the role of the creator of people was assigned to the titan Prometheus, the brother of Atlas, who rebelled against the gods. Prometheus fashioned little people from earth and water in the image and likeness of the gods. The time has come to distribute abilities between people and animals. Zeus entrusted this work to Epimetheus, the stupid brother of Prometheus. The animals got strong claws and teeth, an excellent sense of smell and sharp eyesight, warm skins and fast legs. The man was left defenseless and naked. And then Prometheus stole fire from the gods for people. Prometheus gave people crafts, taught them to hunt and plow, as well as write, read and count.
Biblical stories According to the Old Testament, God created man on the sixth day of creation. God created man from the dust of the ground in his own image and likeness and named him Adam. God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, where all the animals and birds lived. But there was no one there equal to man. Then God brought a dream on Adam, took out his rib and created a woman from the rib, later named Eve. All people came from Adam and Eve.
The place of man in the taxonomy of the animal world People belong to the animal kingdom, to the phylum of vertebrates, to the class of mammals. The class is divided into 20 squads. Humans are classified as members of the order of primates. This order contains the family of hominids, which includes all the ancient extinct species of humans and modern humans.
Relatives or ancestors Apes have much in common with humans: similar skeletal and dental structures, chimpanzee and human DNA are 99% similar. In terms of kinship, orangutans are the furthest apart, and bonobos are the closest.
Who is he, a distant ancestor? Not far from Cairo (Egypt), fragments of the remains of the ancestors of narrow-nosed monkeys - Parapithecus Fraasov and Propliopithecus Haeckelian were found. These extinct monkeys were the predecessors of Pliopithecus, the remains of which have been discovered in a number of countries.
Harbingers of anthropology in the 18th century. naturalist and taxonomist of living nature K. Liney, classifying animals, combined humans and apes into one group. But he also did not doubt the divine origin of all living things and its immutability since the time of creation. A supporter of evolution was M.V. Lomonosov, who saw in fossils evidence that the early Earth was inhabited by other animals, the ancestors of modern species.
The teachings of Charles Darwin The famous English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), during a five-year trip around the world, collected a wealth of material, which, together with the results of a number of agricultural experiments, became the basis of the theory he outlined in the book “The Origin of Species.” Darwin tried to explain how the transformation of an ancient ape into a human took place.
Radiation... For a new species to arise, it is necessary that sufficient random hereditary changes useful for survival must accumulate in individual individuals of the original form. Each such change—mutation—occurs quite rarely, and beneficial mutations are even rarer. The radiation may have been caused by tectonic processes. In East Africa, the birthplace of humanity, there is the largest fault in the earth's crust, which arose about 6 million years ago.
... or stress??? Let's also consider the “stress theory”. Its author, Academician D.K. Belyaev, noticed that animals kept in captivity, after several generations, acquire similar hereditary characteristics, for example, changes in coat color.
The Process of Humanization The process of humanization of our animal ancestors, called hominization, took several million years. The human figure straightened up. The arms became shorter and the shoulders became wider. The legs, on the contrary, have lengthened. The foot has become arched. The brain has enlarged. Powerful fangs and jaws began to shrink.
Real "Mowgli" Scientists have long noticed that people's instincts are much less developed than animals. Only by living among people, communicating with them, imitating them, can a child grow up as a full-fledged member of society. Otherwise he will remain an animal. Dozens of stories about “wild children” - “Mowgli” can serve as proof of this. Lost in the forest or lost at a very young age, these children were raised by animals.
Bigfoot Thousands of reports of encounters with Bigfoot come from all over the world. Some of this information is a hoax, but there are also facts worthy of attention - photographs, filming, casts of footprints. Such creatures live not only in the mountains, but also in the jungles, northern forests, Africa and even Australia. Official science has not yet recognized the existence of Bigfoot. So the question of the existence of Bigfoot remains open.
Evolution continues Over the last hundred-plus thousand years, since the emergence of modern humans, we have hardly changed. However, evolutionary processes continue. Our physique becomes more graceful, the body shortens, the jaws and teeth become smaller, the brain cavity of the skull increases, and the little toes become smaller.
Evolution continues...
In the beginning, in the Universe there was only the primeval water chaos of Hun-tun, shaped like a chicken egg, and formless images wandered in the pitch darkness. In this World Egg Pan-gu arose spontaneously.
For a long time Pan-gu slept soundly. And when he woke up, he saw darkness around him, and this saddened him. Then Pan-gu broke the egg shell and went outside. Everything that was light and pure in the egg rose up and became the sky - Yang, and everything heavy and rough sank down and became the earth - Yin.
After his birth, Pan-gu created the entire Universe from the five primary elements: Water, Earth, Fire, Wood and Metal. Pan-gu took a breath, and winds and rains were born, exhaled - thunder rumbled and lightning flashed; if he opened his eyes, then day came, when he closed them, night reigned.
Pan-gu liked what was created, and he was afraid that heaven and earth would mix again into primeval chaos. Therefore, Pan-gu firmly rested his feet on the ground and his hands on the sky, not allowing them to touch. Eighteen thousand years have passed. Every day the sky rose higher and higher, the earth became stronger and larger, and Pan-gu grew, continuing to hold the sky at outstretched arms. Finally, the sky became so high and the earth so solid that they could no longer merge together. Then Pan-gu dropped his hands, lay down on the ground, and died.
His breath became wind and clouds, his voice became thunder, his eyes became the sun and the moon, his blood became rivers, his hair became trees, his bones became metals and stones. From Pangu's seed pearls arose, and from bone marrow - jade. From the same insects that crawled on Pan-gu’s body, people turned out. But there is another legend, which is no worse.
* * *
The ancestors of people are also called the pair of divine twins Fu-si and Nui-wu, who lived on the sacred mountain Kun-lun. They were children of the sea, the Great God Shen-nun, who took on the guise of half-humans, half-snakes: the twins had human heads and the bodies of sea dragon snakes.There are different stories about how Nyu-wa became the ancestor of humanity. Some say that she first gave birth to a shapeless lump, cut it into small pieces and scattered it all over the earth. Where they fell, people appeared. Others claim that one day Nyu-wa, sitting on the shore of a pond, began to sculpt a small figurine from clay - a likeness of herself. The clay creature turned out to be very joyful and friendly, and Nui-ve liked it so much that she sculpted many more of the same little men. She wanted to populate the whole earth with people. To make her work easier, she took a long vine, dipped it into liquid clay and shook it. The scattered lumps of clay immediately turned into people.
But it is difficult to sculpt clay without bending, and Nyu-wa was tired. Then she divided people into men and women, commanded them to live in families and give birth to children.
Fu-si taught his children to hunt and fish, make fire and cook food, and invented “se” - a musical instrument like a gusli, a fishing net, snares and other useful things. In addition, he drew eight trigrams - symbolic signs reflecting various phenomena and concepts, which we now call the “Book of Changes”.
People lived a happy, serene life, knowing neither hostility nor envy. The land bore fruit in abundance, and people did not have to work to feed themselves. Born children were placed in bird's nests, as if in a cradle, and the birds amused them with their chirping. Lions and tigers were as affectionate as cats, and snakes were not poisonous.
But one day the spirit of water Gun-gun and the spirit of fire Zhu-zhong quarreled among themselves and started a war. The spirit of fire won, and the defeated spirit of water, in despair, hit its head and Mount Buzhou, which supported the sky, so hard that the mountain split. Having lost its support, part of the sky fell to the ground, breaking it in several places. Underground waters gushed out of the breaches, sweeping away everything in its path.
Nuwa rushed to save the world. She collected stones of five different colors, melted them over the fire and repaired the hole in the sky. In China, there is a belief that if you look closely, you can see a patch in the sky that differs in color. In another version of the myth, Nyu-wa repaired the sky with the help of small shiny stones, which turned into stars. Then Nyu-wa burned a lot of reeds, collected the resulting ashes in a heap and dammed the water streams.
Order was restored. But after the repair, the world became slightly askew. The sky inclined to the west, and the sun and moon began to roll there every day, and in the southeast a depression formed into which all the rivers on earth rushed. Now Nyu-wa could rest. According to some versions of the myth, she died, according to others, she ascended to heaven, where she still lives in complete solitude.
“Primordial darkness” - the same chaos, was present in the ideas of the ancient Slavs, both Western and Eastern.
“And there was primordial darkness, and in that darkness lived the Mother of Time, the great Mother of darkness and eternity - Sva. And her heart yearned, she wanted to know a child’s laughter, tender little hands, and she took the warmth of her soul, and, holding it in her hands, rolled it into a spiral, rolling up a fiery embryo. And from that fiery embryo she made her son. And a son was born from a fiery embryo, and from the umbilical cord a fire-breathing serpent was born, his name was Fert.
And the wise serpent became a friend to Sva’s son Svarog. Playing, they grew up together. And Svarog and his mother became bored, for he had already become a young man. And he also wanted to have small children. And he asked his mother to help him. Mother Time agreed. She took from her soul and gave it to the wise snake to swallow. A lot of time has passed. And one day Svarog woke up. He took the heroic staff and touched the tail of the serpent-Fert. And an egg fell out of the snake.
Mother Time picked it up and, breaking it, made a star. Once again Svarog pressed his staff on the tail of the fiery serpent, and another child (son or daughter) was born to the god and goddess. This is how all the children of him and Mother of Time – Sva – were born.
How did all living things appear in the white world?
Svarog fell asleep, lay down on his friend snake, and the snake curled up, becoming a bed for his brother. Mother of Time, the goddess of Eternity, wanted to surprise her son. She took the clear stars in her hands, tore off the old skin from the snake, and ground it all into silver dust. She waved her swan-like arms, and dust scattered across the starry sky. And from that dust all living things were born. And it didn’t take a day, not two, or a thousand years.
Man was made in the same way, only the Great Mother of all things put her soul into his body. That soul is the breath of the sleeping son of Svarog. Maybe that’s why the soul sleeps in our body and wakes up only in difficult times. Maybe this is correct, because if a person thought only about the sublime, without caring about their daily bread, people would die out. Know that man was born both by God and by the serpent. That is why it contains both good and bad. The left half is serpentine, and the right half is starry. It is only important for him to ensure that good and bad, evil and good, are in balance, he will only benefit from this. If there is more evil, the soul will burn in a fiery flame, in the flame of anger and envy. And there will be no benefit or joy from that life. If the good outweighs, then that person will become boring for people; a very righteous person is more boring than necessary. He takes to teaching without measure. His instructions often do not come from the heart. Such a person is boring and funny.
But father and mother love all their children. Each child is sweet to them in their own way. He loves Svarog and his faithful friend Firth. Once a year, Svarog walks with a staff across the sky, and from those steps the stars fall and space, form, and time are born.
But like people, the stars in the sky are not eternal. Svarog himself is not eternal. There is death and birth for everything. The hour will come when Svarog will be destroyed by his friend, his beloved friend, the fiery serpent. He will spew out from his mouth stinking fire, like a thousand hot suns. And the stars will die in flames. And every living thing in the world will perish. But, dying, will be reborn. An update will occur. It has already been so and it will be so. And at the death of the gods and the fiery serpent, their souls and the souls of people will gather into a single whole, into one common spiral, and this whole will be nurtured by the Mother of Time. And he will add a piece of his soul to it. And from this, over time, a fiery embryo will appear, and fire, earth and water will appear, and everything will repeat itself from the beginning, and will return to normal. So it was, is and will be..."
People have always sought to find out how they appeared, where the human race originates. Not knowing the answer to their question, they made guesses and composed legends. The myth of human origins exists in almost all religious beliefs.
But it was not only religion that tried to find the answer to this eternal question. As science developed, it also joined the search for truth. But within the framework of this article, emphasis will be placed on theories of human origin based precisely on religious beliefs and mythology.
In Ancient Greece
Greek mythology is known all over the world, so it is with it that the article begins to consider the myths that explain the origin of the world and man. According to the mythology of this people, in the beginning there was Chaos.
Gods emerged from it: Chronos, personifying time, Gaia - earth, Eros - the embodiment of love, Tartarus and Erebus - the abyss and darkness, respectively. The last deity born from Chaos was the goddess Nyukta, who symbolized the night.
Over time, these omnipotent creatures give birth to other gods and take over the world. Later they settled on the top of Mount Olympus, which from now on became their home.
The Greek myth about the origin of man is one of the most famous, as it is studied in the school curriculum.
Ancient Egypt
The Nile Valley civilization is one of the earliest, so their mythology is also very old. Of course, their religious beliefs also included a myth about the origin of people.
Here we can draw an analogy with the Greek myths already mentioned above. The Egyptians believed that in the beginning there was Chaos, in which Infinity, Darkness, Nothingness and Oblivion reigned. These forces were very strong and sought to destroy everything, but in contrast to them the Great Eight acted, of which 4 had a male appearance with the heads of frogs, and the other 4 had a female appearance with snake heads.
Subsequently, the destructive forces of Chaos were overcome, and the world was created.
Indian beliefs
In Hinduism there are at least 5 versions of the origin of the world and man. According to the first version, the world arose from the sound of Om produced by Shiva's drum.
According to the second myth, the world and man emerged from an “egg” (brahmanda) that came from outer space. In the third version there was “primary heat” that gave birth to the world.
The fourth myth sounds rather bloodthirsty: the first man, whose name was Purushi, sacrificed parts of his body to himself. The rest of the people emerged from them.
The latest version says that the world and man owe their origin to the breath of the god Maha-Vishnu. With every breath he takes, Brahmandas (universes) appear in which the Brahmas live.
Buddhism
In this religion there is no myth as such about the origin of people and the world. The dominant idea here is the constant rebirth of the universe, which appears from the very beginning. This process is called the wheel of Samsara. Depending on the karma that a living being has, in the next life he can be reborn into a more highly developed one. For example, a person who has led a righteous life will either be a human again, a demigod, or even a god in his next life.
Someone who has bad karma may not become a human at all, but may be born as an animal or a plant, or even an inanimate being. This is a kind of punishment for the fact that he lived a “bad” life.
There is no explanation in Buddhism about the very appearance of man and the whole world.
Viking beliefs
Scandinavian myths about the origin of man are not as well known to modern people as the Greek or Egyptian ones, but they are no less interesting. They believed that the universe emerged from the void (Ginugaga), and the rest of the material world arose from the torso of a bisexual giant named Ymir.
This giant was raised by the sacred cow Audhumla. The stones that she licked to get salt became the basis for the appearance of gods, including the main god of Scandinavian mythology, Odin.
Odin and his two brothers Vili and Ve killed Ymir, from whose body they created our world and man.
Ancient Slavic beliefs
As in most ancient polytheistic religions, according to Slavic mythology, in the beginning there was also Chaos. And in it lived the Mother of darkness and infinity, whose name was Sva. She once wanted a child for herself and created her son Svarog from a fiery embryo, and from the umbilical cord the serpent Fert was born, who became her son’s friend.
Sva, in order to please Svarog, took off the old skin from the snake, waved her hands and created all living things from it. Man was created in the same way, but a soul was put into his body.
Judaism
It is the first monotheistic religion in the world, from which Christianity and Islam originate. Therefore, in all three faiths, the myth about the origin of people and the world is similar.
Jews believe that the world was created by God. However, there are some discrepancies. Thus, some believe that the sky was created from the radiance of his clothes, the earth from the snow under his throne, which he threw into the water.
Others believe that God wove several threads together: he used two (fire and snow) to create his world, and two more (fire and water) went to create the sky. Later, man was created.
Christianity
This religion is dominated by the idea of creating the world from “nothing.” God created the entire world using his own power. It took him 6 days to create the world, and on the seventh he rested.
In this myth, which explains the origin of the world and man, people appeared at the very end. Man was created by God in his own image and likeness, therefore people are the “highest” beings on Earth.
And, of course, everyone knows about the first man Adam, who was created from clay. Then God made a woman from his rib.
Islam
Despite the fact that Muslim doctrine takes its roots from Judaism, where God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, in Islam this myth is interpreted somewhat differently.
There is no rest for Allah, he created the whole world and all living things in six days, but fatigue did not touch him at all.
Scientific theories of human origins
Today it is generally accepted that humans emerged through a long biological process of evolution. Darwin's theory states that humans evolved from higher primates, so humans and apes had a common ancestor in ancient times.
Of course, in science there are also different hypotheses regarding the appearance of the world and people. For example, some scientists put forward a version according to which man is the result of a merger of primates and alien aliens who visited the Earth in ancient times.
Today even bolder hypotheses have begun to appear. For example, there is a theory according to which our world is a virtual program, and everything that surrounds us, including the people themselves, is part of a computer game or program used by more developed beings.
However, such bold ideas without proper factual and experimental confirmation are not much different from myths about the origin of people.
Finally
This article examined various options for the origin of man: myths and religions, versions and hypotheses based on scientific research. Today no one can say with 100% certainty what actually happened. Therefore, each person is free to choose which theory to believe in.
The modern scientific world is inclined towards the Darwinian theory, since it has the largest and best evidence base, although it also has some inaccuracies and shortcomings.
Be that as it may, people strive to get to the bottom of the truth, so more and more new hypotheses, evidence appear, experiments and observations are carried out. Perhaps in the future it will be possible to find the only correct answer.
In ancient times, humanity developed civilizations. These were isolated nationalities that were formed under the influence of certain factors and had their own culture, technology and were distinguished by a certain individuality. Due to the fact that they were not as technologically advanced as modern humanity, ancient people were largely dependent on the vagaries of nature. Then lightning, rain, earthquakes and other natural phenomena seemed to be a manifestation of divine powers. These forces, as it seemed then, could determine the fate and personal qualities of a person. This is how the very first mythology was born.
What is a myth?
According to the modern cultural definition, this is a narrative that reproduces the beliefs of ancient people about the structure of the world, about higher powers, about man, the lives of great heroes and gods in verbal form. In some way, they reflected the then level of human knowledge. These tales were recorded and passed down from generation to generation, thanks to which we can today find out how our ancestors thought. That is, then mythology was a certain form of social consciousness, as well as one of the ways of understanding natural and social reality, which reflected the views of man at a certain stage of development.
Among the many questions that worried humanity in those distant times, the problem of the emergence of the world and man in it was especially relevant. Due to their curiosity, people tried to explain and understand how they appeared and who created them. It is then that a separate myth about the origin of people appears.
Due to the fact that humanity, as already mentioned, developed in large isolated groups, the legends of each nationality were in some way unique, since they reflected not only the worldview of the people at that time, but also were an imprint of cultural, social development, and also carried information about the land where the people lived. In this sense, myths have some historical value, since they allow us to make some logical judgments about a particular people. In addition, they were a bridge between the past and the future, a connection between generations, passing on the knowledge that was accumulated in stories from the old family to the new, thus teaching it.
Anthropogonic myths
Regardless of civilization, all ancient people had their own ideas about how man appeared in this world. They have some common features, but they also have significant differences, which are determined by the peculiarities of life and development of a particular civilization. All myths about the origin of man are called anthropogonic. This word comes from the Greek "anthropos", which means man. Such a concept as a myth about the origin of people exists among absolutely all ancient peoples. The only difference is their perception of the world.
For comparison, we can consider individual myths about the origin of man and the world of two great nations, which significantly influenced the development of mankind in their time. These are the civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient China.
Chinese view of the creation of the world
The Chinese imagined our Universe in the form of a huge egg, which was filled with a certain matter - Chaos. From this Chaos, the first ancestor of all humanity, Pangu, was born. He used his ax to break the egg in which he was born. When he broke the egg, Chaos burst out and began to change. The sky (Yin) was formed - which is associated with the light principle, and the Earth (Yang) - the dark principle. This is how the world was formed in the beliefs of the Chinese. After that, Pangu placed his hands on the sky and his feet on the ground and began to grow. It grew continuously until the sky separated from the earth and became what we see it today. Pangu, when he grew up, fell into many parts, which became the basis of our world. His body became mountains and plains, his flesh became earth, his breath became air and wind, his blood became water, and his skin became vegetation.
Chinese mythology
As the Chinese myth of the origin of man says, a world was formed that was inhabited by animals, fish and birds, but people still did not exist. The Chinese believed that the creator of humanity was the great female spirit - Nuwa. The ancient Chinese revered her as the organizer of the world; she was depicted as a woman with a human body, the legs of a bird and the tail of a snake, who holds in her hand a lunar disk (the Yin symbol) and a measuring square.
Nuiva began to sculpt human figures from clay, which came to life and turned into people. She worked a lot of time and realized that her strength was not enough to create people who could populate the entire earth. Then Nuiva took the rope and passed it through the liquid clay, and then shook it. People appeared where lumps of wet clay fell. But still they were not as good as those that were molded by hand. This is how the myths of China substantiated the existence of the nobility, which Nuwa molded with her own hands, and people of the lower classes, created with the help of a rope. The goddess gave her creations the opportunity to reproduce on their own, and also introduced them to the concept of marriage, which was observed very strictly in Ancient China. Therefore, Nuiva can also be considered the patroness of marriage.
This is the Chinese myth about the origin of man. As you can see, it reflects not only traditional Chinese beliefs, but also some of the features and rules that guided the ancient Chinese in their lives.
Greek mythology about the emergence of man
The Greek myth about the origin of man tells how the titan Prometheus created people from clay. But the first people were very defenseless and did not know how to do anything. For this act, the Greek gods were angry with Prometheus and planned to destroy the human race. However
Prometheus saved his children by stealing fire from Olympus and bringing it to man in an empty reed stalk. For this, Zeus imprisoned Prometheus in chains in the Caucasus, where the eagle was supposed to peck his liver.
In general, in Greek mythology, any myth about the origin of people does not provide specific information about the emergence of humanity, focusing more on subsequent events. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Greeks considered man insignificant compared to the omnipotent gods, thus emphasizing their importance for the entire people. Indeed, almost all Greek legends are directly or indirectly related to the gods, who guide and help human heroes such as Odysseus or Jason.
Features of mythology
What features does mythological thinking have?
As can be seen above, myths and legends interpret and describe the origin of man in completely different ways. You need to understand that the need for them arose at an early stage of human development. They arose from the need of man to explain the origin of man, nature, and the structure of the world. Of course, the method of explanation that mythology uses is quite primitive; it differs significantly from the interpretation of the world order supported by science. In myths, everything is quite concrete and isolated; there are no abstract concepts in them. Man, society and nature merge into one. The main type of mythological thinking is figurative. Every person, hero or god necessarily has a concept or phenomenon that follows him. This type of thinking denies any logical arguments, based on faith rather than knowledge. It is unable to generate questions that are not creative.
In addition, mythology also has specific literary techniques that allow us to emphasize the significance of certain events. These are hyperboles that exaggerate, for example, the strength or other important characteristics of heroes (Pangu, who was able to lift the sky), metaphors that attribute certain characteristics to things or beings that do not actually possess them.
Common features and influence on world culture
In general, one can trace a certain pattern in how the myths of different nations explain the origin of man. In almost all versions, there is some kind of divine essence that breathes life into lifeless matter, thus creating and shaping a person. This influence of ancient pagan beliefs can be traced in later religions, such as Christianity, where God creates man in his own image. However, if it is not entirely clear how Adam appeared, then God creates Eve from a rib, which only confirms this influence of ancient legends. This influence of mythology can be traced in almost any culture that existed later.
Ancient Turkic mythology about how man appeared
The ancient Turkic myth about the origin of man calls the goddess Umai the progenitor of the human race, as well as the creator of the earth. She, in the form of a white swan, flew over the water, which had always existed, and looked for land, but did not find it. She laid the egg straight into the water, but the egg immediately sank. Then the goddess decided to make a nest on the water, but the feathers from which she made it turned out to be fragile, and the waves broke the nest. The goddess held her breath and dived to the very bottom. She carried out a piece of earth in her beak. Then the god Tengri saw her suffering and sent Umai three fish made of iron. She put the earth on the back of one of the fish, and it began to grow until the entire earth's land was formed. After which the goddess laid an egg, from which the entire human race, birds, animals, trees and everything else appeared.
What can be determined by reading this Turkic myth about the origin of man? One can see a general similarity with the legends of Ancient Greece and China already known to us. A certain divine force creates people, namely from an egg, which is very similar to the Chinese legend about Pangu. Thus, it is clear that initially people associated the creation of themselves by analogy with living beings that they could observe. There is also an incredible reverence for the maternal principle, for women as the continuer of life.
What can a child learn from these legends? What new things does he learn by reading the myths of peoples about the origin of man?
First of all, this will allow him to become familiar with the culture and life of the people who existed in prehistoric times. Since myth is characterized by a figurative type of thinking, a child will perceive it quite easily and will be able to assimilate the necessary information. For children, these are the same fairy tales, and, like fairy tales, they are filled with the same morals and information. When reading them, the child will learn to develop his thinking processes, learn to benefit from reading and draw conclusions.
The myth about the origin of people will give the child an answer to the exciting question - where did I come from? Of course, the answer will be incorrect, but children take everything on faith, and therefore it will satisfy the child’s interest. By reading the above Greek myth about the origin of man, a child will also be able to understand why fire is so important to humanity and how it was discovered. This will be useful in the child’s subsequent education in primary school.
Variety and benefits for the child
Indeed, if we take examples of myths about the origin of man (and not only them) from Greek mythology, we will notice that the colorfulness of the characters and their number are very large and interesting not only for young readers, but even for adults. However, you need to help the child figure it all out, otherwise he will simply get confused in events and their causes. It is necessary to explain to the child why God loves or does not love this or that hero, why he helps him. In this way, the child will learn to build logical chains and compare facts, drawing certain conclusions from them.
