Japanese Myth Izanami And Izagami example essay topic
477 words
Sherissa Herman English 3 9/1/03 Sherissa Herman English 3 9/1/03 Period 1 Egyptian Myths Paper The Japanese creation myth started out with the earth being a formless void of nothing but muddy water. From that water a green shoot sprung and inside it was the first god, who made all the other gods. Out of all he created though, Izagami and Izanami were the most perfect. The islands of Japan were formed when Izagami poked his staff through the clouds to see what was on the surface of the earth. As he lifted the staff from the muddy water, clumps of mud fell on top of the water and formed into the islands of Japan. The pair went down to the earth, and everywhere they went, flowers and plants sprouted. They had four children. One was the sun, one was the moon, one lived in the water and created storms and such, and from the fourth the line of the emperors of Japan was established. In the Egyptian creation myth, most of the details are very similar to the Japanese myth. The world starts out covered in water, from one god all the others are created, and two of the gods, Osiris and Isis, sort of led all the rest.
From them came all the rulers of Egypt, just like how in the Japanese myth Izanami and Izagami had a child who eventually had a child who was the first emperor of Japan. In the African origin myth of how leopards became spotted, the leopard invites fire over for dinner. Fire refuses every time he is asked, so leopard's wife takes it as an insult to their hospitality and keeps urging leopard to ask fire to come to visit, and finally he agrees, but only if leopard will cover the path between their houses with dry leaves. On the day of the visit, leopard's wife prepares a big feast for them and, as they are waiting for fire to show up, they smell something burning. They open the door to find fire burning up everything, so they jump out of the window.
Though they do, escape, they have spotted burn marks on them that stay their forever. This story is very different from our group's Egyptian origin myth. While the African one talks about animals and how they got a certain way, ours explains how the cobra became the symbol of the pharaoh's of Egypt. Because the cobra was instrumental in getting ra to give up the throne, it was always worn on the head of the ruler. Though both stories have animals in them, the similarities end there. The Egyptian myth is more of a story that explains a tradition while the African myth explains nature.
