Major types of myth
Myths of origin
Cosmogony and creation myth are used as synonyms, yet properly speaking, cosmogony is a preferable term because it refers to the origin of the world in a neutral fashion, whereas creation myth implies a creator and something created, an implication unsuited to a number of myths that, for example, speak of the origin of the world as a growth or emanation, rather than an act. Even the term origin should be used with caution for cosmogonic events (as well as for other myths purporting to describe the beginning of things), because the origin of the world hardly ever seems the focal point of a mythological narrative—as a mythological narrative is not a matter of inquiry into the first cause of things. Instead, cosmogonic myths are concerned with origins in the sense of the foundation or validity of the world as it is. Creation stories in both primitive and advanced cultures frequently speak of the act of creation as a fashioning of the earth out of raw material that was already present. In African cosmogonies, especially, the earth is preexistent. A creation out of nothing occurs as a theme much less frequently, for all that such creation myths are more satisfying to the philosophical mind. Philosophical questions, however, are less important in the justificatory systems set up by myth.
Water, though important everywhere as a source of life and image of endless potentiality, has a special role in Asia and North America, where the creator (often an animal) is assisted by another figure, who dives for earth in the primordial ocean. The earth-diver helper sometimes develops into an opponent, or Satan-like character, in other areas—e.g., those touched by Zoroastrianism, an ancient Persian dualistic religion. Though hardly an explanation in the ordinary sense of the word, the theme accounts for the fact that evil is constitutive of the cosmos without holding the creator responsible for it. Other widely diffused motifs are: the cosmogonic egg, found in the Pacific world, parts of Europe and southern Asia (e.g., in Hinduism); the world parents (usually in the image of sky and earth); and creation through sacrifice or through a primordial battle. Creation through the word of the creator also occurs outside the biblical account (in Polynesia).
Cosmogony sets the pattern for everything else in most traditions; other myths are related to it or derived from it. Because man’s inhabitable world, the cosmos, is the crucial issue, no matter how various the contents may be and how different from one period to another, cosmogony probably is the clearest expression of man’s basic mythological propensity. All cosmogonic accounts have certain formal features in common. They speak of irreconcilable opposites (e.g., heaven and earth, darkness and light) and, at the same time, of events or things totally outside the common range of perception and reason (e.g., a “time” in which heaven and earth were not yet separated and darkness and light intermingled). In other words, the basic ingredients of man’s world and orientation are presupposed yet are realized, constituted, or brought about anew in the narration. The narrative can arrive at such a reconstitution only by transcending the limits of ordinary perception and reason.
The origin of man is usually linked immediately to the cosmogony. Man, for instance, is placed on the earth by God, or in some other way his origin is from heaven. Nevertheless, it is only in mythologies influenced by philosophical reflections that the place of man becomes the conspicuous centre of the cosmogony (e.g., Pythagoreanism, a Greek mystical philosophical system; Orphism, a Greek mystical religious movement; Gnosticism, a Christian dualistic and esoteric movement; and Tantrism, a Hindu and Buddhist esoteric meditation system). Man is sometimes said to have ascended from the depths of the earth (as with the Zuni, an American Indian people) or from a certain rock or tree of cultic significance. These images are often related to the idea of a realm of ancestors as the origin of newborn children. Man is also said to be fashioned from the dust of the ground (as in Genesis) or from a mixture of clay and blood (as in the Babylonian creation myth). In all cases, however, man has a particular place (because of his duties to the gods, because of his limitations, or even because of his gifts), even though—especially in many hunters’ civilizations (e.g., the African San peoples and many North American Indian tribes)—the harmony of man and other forms of nature is emphasized.
In most cosmogonic traditions the final or culminating act is the creation of man. The condition of the cosmos prior to man’s arrival is viewed as separate and distinct from the alterations that result from the beginning of the human cultural world. Creation is thus seen as a process of periods or stages, frequently in a three-stage model. The first stage consists of the world of gods or primordial beings; the second stage is the world of the ancestors of man; and the third stage is the world of man. The three stages are sometimes seen as interrelated; for example, the gods may be the creators of man or the ancestors of man, or ancestors may undergo a transformation to become men.
Among innumerable tales of origin, one of the most common types is related to the origins of institutions. Certain initiation ceremonies or ritual acts are said to have originated in the beginning, in mythical times, this primeval moment of inception constituting their validity.