The OLDEST Creation MYTH in World, and its Origins

Do you have any old stories you would like me to look into?

I am Native Canadian and as part of Cayuga mythology there is the story of the Sky woman who fell to earth. As the story goes, other people believe other things but this is what we believe. Early on the world was all water and there were the sky people who lived in the clouds. One day a sky woman was looking down through a hole and accidentally fell to the waters below. all the animals gather together to try and help her but they soon realized that she needed land for her to survive. All the animals tried to dive down and bring up some earth so she could have some land upon which to live. One by one they all tried and failed until finally the muskrat was able to dive deep enough to find earth and bring it back up. Eventually the land grew and became solid. The sky woman was then able to populate the land.

"Holy Diver, you've been down too long in the midnight sea" - Dio

There is an interesting creation myth from the many and varied beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. The lotus plant grows from a seed at the bottom of the water, shooting up until it hits the surface, then growing leaves which fan out and rest over the water. Some imaginative scribe saw this as a way that land could be formed from the water, a cosmic lotus seed that anchored the floating land spread out above.

In Central California your "Earth Diver" pattern is recounted by several societies. In that version, three creatures are floating on a raft in the middle of a huge flood. One is Coyote, the next is Mud Turtle, I don't recall the third but I think it was a bird. A shining being comes down to the raft from the sky on a feather(?) rope. After a discussion with the raft's occupants it transpires that all three are heartily sick of the narrow confines of the raft. The shining being then suggests that one of them dive down and bring up some material from the surface beneath the flood. Coyote can't dive well, the bird can't at all, so mud turtle dives down and it is a long difficult dive. By the time he reaches the raft again, he has lost the entire load he started to the surface with. But the shining one takes out a small stone knife and scrapes beneath the mud turtle's nails and collect enough mud to make a small ball of mud. This is cast by the shining one out into the water creating the first dryland. A primal oak tree myth also circulated.

I'm simply fascinated by the fact that we can reconstruct pieces of the culture of our ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago. This is yet another example of doing away with the prejudice about early humans being grunting and primitive imbeciles. We have to realize: they were probably very much like us today - just starting civilization from scratch. They have been asking the same questions we are looking into today. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where did the world/universe come from?

If you stay until the end of the video... who stops watching these before they end? They are fascinating from beginning to end and absolute gems. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and insights Jon.

The Finnic creation myth is a combination of the Earth Diver Myth (EDM) and the World Egg Myth (WEM), with the World Tree also present. The EDM survived in a more complete form among eastern Finnish tribes, as well as among Karelians, not to mention some of our eastern relatives further away; people like the Komi, Nenets, Khanty etc. While the Kalevala is a historic book from the mid 19th century, the sacred runic poems it contains belong to a huge corpus of Finnic mythology, collected over the past four or five centuries. The original poems are sung in an octosyllabic meter.

My daughter is Maori, we're a Kiwi family. I didn't even know much about the New Zealander creation story, so thank you for mentioning it! I always love it when our little country gets included :)

The Noah story is a good example of later writers not understanding what went on in the earlier story. Ravens were often taken on sea journeys in order to find land. If they let the raven out of the cage the raven flew up and if it didn't see any land , and being smarter than most other birds, would return to the boat. But if it saw land it would fly that direction. The sailors could then see which direction the raven flew, therefore knowing where there was land. Noah released the raven but it only flew back and forth. People assume it was that the raven was bad and the dove found land and so doves are good. Assuming the raven failed and the dove succeeded. But the phrase is odd. The raven flew back and forth until the water receeded from the land. Like it's an incomplete story which has had a lot of info deleted. Later commentators just made up the additional parts of the story making it into black is bad, white is good type.

In the Romanian creation myth, we have an Earth Diver(called not-kinsnman or the Devil) who brings out mud from the depth of the primordial sea at the behest of another being(called the kinsman or God) when said being appears out of nothing. I knew it was very old and shared by many peoples, but it's really great to hear more about it! Unfortunately we were christianized very early on so all of our mythology is coated in thick a layer of Christianity, but I always found it curious how this very obviously pagan story survived even tho it has some Christian influence because of the interpretation of the two beings as God and the Devil.

I think the earth diver myth may be counted as the single most primitive form of the ‘journey to the underworld’ archetype. Someone goes into a subnautical realm, questing, and retrieves his prize or treasure, and brings it back to the Normal world. From which his treasure brings a revolution or regeneration in some way. It’s the heroes journey at its very simplest .

My first year in college, I took a course called: "Creative Writing: Mythology." For the final project, we each had to develop our own creation myth. Wow, I wish mine had been as well formed as the one you just told! I'm thrilled to have found this channel.

it may not only be pragnancy envy, but excrement also does look like mud & undigested seeds do grow into sprigs out of it. if not for seed dispersal, just the fact that fungi & plants grow in areas with manure can be seen as the relining of creation

I also wonder how much influence other humans as Neanderthals had on our myths? How interesting that would be! Perhaps there are several original stories after all, coming from different human species... 🌻

Whenever I watch videos like this I start to feel emotional in a very profound and almost indescribable way. Like I just feel a deep sense of connection to all of humanity, and an appreciation for our shared roots, and for the ancestors we all descend from, who made myth, and art, and whose lineage survived so we could be here today. A deep sense of oneness really, for all of humanity across all of space and time. Just beautiful.

This was an incredible episode, I love it when variations of the same creation myths are retold by different cultures half a world away from each other. That's what's amazing and that's why this episode was super interesting. Surely these ancient myths have been being told ever since humans started to try and make sense of the world and learned to communicate with each other. Definitely one of your best Jon. I love having little eureka moments when you connect the dots.

I absolutely love this research and commend you for your rigorous work. As an anthropologist, I often wish I could peer into the minds of our ancestors. I believe I catch little glimpses within your stories created from your hard work. Thanks for sharing this.

Your reference to "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" is interesting , I have always found Douglas Adams books fascinating, with latent underlying spiritual / philosophical revelations , he came up with the idea that dealing with current events/ phenomenae one should seek a holistic ( historic, rational, mythical, scientific ...) causality explanation . also all our universe with all living beings might be merely a giant super-computer designed by Gods / Archons/...mice ! to find the " ultimate answer ".

After experiencing plant medicines firsthand, I completely understand how these ideas came to be. There really is a spirit realm of reality that truly does exist. Peace and love to everyone.