Legends about the origin of humanity. Legends of different nations surprisingly have many similarities. Initially, all ancient peoples had faith in one God, the most important, the creator of the entire Universe and everything that exists. It is characteristic of many ancient myths that initially everything had an anthropomorphic appearance - all creatures, animals, objects, natural phenomena. Therefore, the emergence of man is often presented not so much as his creation, but as his separation from other human-like creatures who gradually lose their human appearance, which is preserved only by humans. (Totemistic myths).
Myths of the ancient Indians. The progenitor of the world was Brahma. People emerged from the body of Purusha - the primordial man whom the gods sacrificed at the beginning of the world. From this sacrifice, hymns and chants, horses, bulls, goats and sheep were born. From his mouth arose priests, his hands became warriors, from his thighs farmers were created, and from his feet the lower class was born. From the mind of Purusha arose the month, from the eye - the sun, fire was born from his mouth, and from his breath - the wind. The air came from his navel, the sky came from his head, and the cardinal directions were created from his ears, and his feet became the earth. Thus, from a great sacrifice, the eternal gods created the world. Other gods began to arise from the descendants of Brahma, and in total there were thirty-three thousand, thirty-three hundred and thirty-three more.
According to Hindu beliefs, the Universe is divided into 14 regions, and the Earth is the seventh from the top. Along with the sun, the ruler of the solar disk also arose - the god Vishnu, who could take various forms, from a fish and a turtle to a human form. In the form of a boar, Vishnu plunged into the abyss and lifted the entire earth from the depths with his tusks. Soon the land was populated by animals and birds.
The birth of a person. In ancient Slavic mythology, people were born Gods, and considered their Gods family, relatives.
It is worth noting that the legends of ancient peoples underwent significant changes during the wars of conquest (especially the American continent). But in the mythology of various peoples, an amazing flavor of local customs has been preserved.
The creation of man.
In many ancient beliefs, people were artificially created by gods. Man was created or created by God, deified beings. So in the Sumerian myths - the origin of humanity from aliens. Perhaps this also includes Indian myths about the Lunar ancestors in the legend of the Prologue - “The Great Lords gave the order to the Lords of the Moon - the Pitris - to create people.”
Why were people created? This issue is not discussed in totemic legends. The main thing is to create a good, right person. All Sumerian and Babylonian myths converge on one thing: for a person to serve the gods, perform temple rituals and feed the gods. Also in Egyptian mythology, the gods created the world specifically for people, demanding from them in return only worship, the construction of temples and regular sacrifices. In Jewish mythology, man was created to cultivate the land.
How man was created. Norse mythology Northern, Scandinavian and Germanic, the ancient religion is known as Odinism (in honor of Odin), and also as ásatrú (an Icelandic term meaning “belief in the gods (Æsir)”) or simply as troth (from the English troth - faith or fidelity). It was believed that the structure of the world cannot be reflected in a two-dimensional or even three-dimensional model. It consists of nine worlds, or spheres. The first man and woman were created from trees by the triad of gods of consciousness (Wotan-Willi-Ve, or Odin-Henir-Lodur). The man was created from ash, and the woman from elm. The first people did not breathe, they had no spirit, no color on their faces, no warmth, and no even voice. But then Odin gave them breath, Henir - spirit, and Lodur - warmth and blush. This is how the first people appeared, and their names were: the man was Ask, and the woman was Embla.
Greece. The ancient Greeks, as far as can be judged from the sources that have come down to us, cared little about the origins of people. They were interested in the gods, their birth and death, their intrigues and exploits. The Greek gods did not separate themselves from people with an impregnable wall, but even took part in earthly affairs. In Greek mythology, a new race of people emerged from stone. The only people who were able to survive the flood were Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha. And the great gods invited them to create a new humanity. According to legend, Deucalion and Pyrrha began throwing stones behind their backs, and the stones began to turn into statues. The statues sang songs, Deucalion and Pyrrha had to choose one they liked
them a song about humanity, and from all the songs they chose a story about Greek heroes: Theseus, Hercules and other demigods. And humanity was thus reborn on earth. But not all Greeks traced their ancestry to stones. Some tribes considered themselves autochthonous, that is, arising from the earth. The Thebans, for example, thought that they came from the teeth of the dragon killed by the Phoenician Cadmus, which he sowed into the ground.
Apparently, a later borrowing from Greek mythology: People were fashioned from earth and water by Prometheus, son of the Titan Iapetus, cousin of Zeus. According to some myths, people and animals were created by the Greek gods in the depths of the earth from a mixture of fire and earth, and the gods instructed Prometheus and Epimetheus to distribute abilities between them.
The creation of people from clay or earth, by analogy with the Biblical version, is found in almost all Indo-European mythology. Linguists even note that in Hebrew the words for “earth” and “man” have similar origins. (there is a connection between the Latin words homo - man and humus earth).
Egyptian mythology In ancient Egyptian myths, practically no attention is paid to the creation of man. Although the myths make it clear that Ra - Atum - Khepri created himself, arising from chaos, which was called Nun, or the Prime Ocean. This ocean had neither physical nor temporal dimensions. The newborn god could not find a place where he could stay, and therefore created a hill, or rather, the island of Ben-ben. Already on solid ground, he began to create other gods. This is how the Great Nine of Gods arose - the Heliopolis Ennead. In Memphis, many gods were included in the creation myth, subordinating them to Ptah, who acted as the creator of everything. It is interesting that here the creation of the world was not a physical process, but exclusively of thought and word.
The Egyptians believed that people and their Ka (soul) were molded from clay by the ram-headed god Khnum. He is the main creator of the world. He sculpted the whole world on a potter's wheel, the first people and animals from clay.
Among the peoples of Africa (the supreme deity of the Dogon, Amma, makes the first human pair from raw clay.
In one version of the Sumerian myth, Enki and Ninmah first mold “successful” people from the clay of the underground world ocean, and then, after getting drunk, they create monsters.
In the Sumerian myth about Lahar and Ashnan: By order of Nammu, the mother of the gods and Ninmah, with the help of other gods, man was created by mixing water and clay.
According to the Akkadian version, Marduk (together with the god Eya) makes people from clay mixed with the blood of the monster Kingu he killed.
In the Babylonian creation myth, called the Enuma Elish, the creation of man is described in the sixth tablet (seven have been found). God Marduk, from clay mixed with the blood of the murdered god Kingu, creates people in the image and likeness of Kingu,
In Jewish mythology, there are two versions of the creation of the world. In both versions of the myth, man is created from clay, and life fills the clay in one case with the blood of Yahweh in the other with divine breath
Among the Turks. Humanity was born on the black mountain. In a cave alone
a hole was formed, which in shape resembled a human body,
streams of rain carried the clay with them and filled the mold. Clay,
warmed by the sun, she remained in shape for nine months. And through
nine months the first man came out of the cave: AY ATAM, whom
called the father of the moon.
At the Arabs. There is an option for creating the Old Testament. In their cosmogony
In order for a person to be born, earth of four different colors is needed:
blue, black, white and red. God sent the angel Gabriel for her,
but when he bent down to pick up some earth, the earth spoke
and asked what he wanted. "The earth, so that God could create
person,” Gabriel explained. The earth replied: “I can’t do that for you.”
allow it, because the person will be uncontrollable and want to destroy me.”
Angel Gabriel conveyed her opinion to God. Then God sent the angel Michael.
The same story happened. Exactly the same failure. The earth rebelled again
the birth of a person. Then God sent the angel Azrael, whose specialty was
that he was the angel of death. He was not convinced by the land's arguments. So
Thus, man exists thanks to the angel of death, and therefore man is mortal.
From the brought earth God created Adam. But for forty years he did nothing
did, just lay on the ground. The angel could not understand why the man did not move.
He looked into Adam's mouth to find out what was inside, and realized
why Adam remains motionless. Inside, the man's body was empty. Then an angel
I told God about this, and he decided to give the man a soul. Adam came to life, and God, for
in order to give it an advantage over the earth, nature, plants and
animals, allowed him to name everything that surrounded him. One person has
the right to give names even to spirits (genies) and mountains. And every time he
pronounces a name, he conquers the one he names. (Taba ri, Arabic
9th century chronicler, Abba Sid caliphate.)
In Mongol. Man was created by God, who dug a hole in the earth in the shape
human figure. Then God caused a storm, and clay with streams of water
filled the hole (very similar to the Turkish version). The rain has stopped, moisture
dried up, and the man, like a cake out of a mold, came out of the hole.
In Altai mythology (Ulgen creates the first seven people from clay and reeds),
America. Iroquois. Ioskeha sculpts the first people from clay based on his reflection in the water.
Cahuilla Indians. The demiurge Mukat, who took the black earth out of his heart, creates the bodies of people. Temayahuit, who took the white earth out of his heart, unsuccessfully sculpts people with bellies on both sides; with eyes on both sides of the head; when Mukat proved to him the failure of his creations, Temaiahuit, angry, hides with them in the underworld, trying to take the whole earth with him.
Mexicans (XVII century). The formation of the legend was equally influenced by ancient cults and Catholicism. God made a man from potter's clay and put him in the oven. But I left it in the oven for too long. The man therefore came out of the oven burnt and black. God decided that he was mistaken, threw his child to the ground and ended up in Africa. But God did not stop there and created another person, whom he left in the oven for a much shorter time. The man turned out completely white. God decided he was wrong again. And again he threw the man to the ground and ended up in Europe. The third time, God approached the process more carefully and monitored the degree of readiness of his product. He waited until the man was cooked properly, until golden brown. This time God got it right. And slowly, very carefully he placed the successful man in America. This is how the Mexicans appeared
North American Acoma tribe. The first two women learned in a dream that people live underground. They dug a hole and freed the people.
The Incas. In Tiwanaku, the creator of all things created the tribes there. He made one person from each tribe out of clay and drew a dress for them to wear; those who should have long hair were sculpted with long hair, and those who should be cut were sculpted with short hair; and each people was given its own language, and its own songs, and grains, and food. When the creator finished this work, he breathed life and soul into every man and woman and ordered them to go underground. And each tribe went out where it was ordered.
Central America. The gods molded the first people from wet clay. But they did not live up to the hopes of the great gods. Everything would be fine: they are alive and can speak, but can clay fools even turn their heads? They stare at one point and roll their eyes. Otherwise they will start to crawl, and a little rain will sprinkle them. But the worst thing is that they came out soulless, brainless... The gods got down to business for the second time. “Let's try to make people out of wood!” - they agreed. No sooner said than done. And the earth was populated by wooden idols. But they had no heart, and they were foolish.
And the gods decided to once again take on the creation of people. “To create people from flesh and blood, we need a noble material that will give them life, strength, and intelligence,” the gods decided. They found this noble material - white and yellow maize (corn). They threshed the cobs, kneaded the dough, from which they molded the first intelligent people.
Indians of Mexico. When everything was ready on Earth, Nohotsakyum created people. The first were the Calcia, that is, the monkey people, then the Koha-ko - the boar people, then the Kapuk - the jaguar people and, finally, the Chan-ka - the pheasant people. This is how he created different nations. He made them from clay - men, women, children, fitted their eyes, noses, arms, legs and everything else, then put the figures in the fire, on which he usually baked tortillas (corn cakes). The clay hardened from the fire, and people came to life.
Of great interest are Anthropogonic myths of a totemic nature, according to which man was once not different from animals (for example, he was covered with hair, as in the mythological beliefs of the Selkups, Western Siberia). In anthropogonic myths of a totemic nature, most often we are talking about the origin not of all people, but of a certain group, the zoomorphic totemic symbol of which is this or that animal.
The Tibetans arose independently. Their ancestors were the mountain spirit Aryabalo and the monkey, who was the embodiment of Darehe. According to another legend, which explains the origin not of the world, but only of the Tibetan people, Tibetans descend from the monkey and the deity of the underworld and waters Lu. According to another version of the legend, it was not Avalokiteshvara himself who took the form of a male monkey, but rather sent his disciple a monkey to Tibet. A male monkey, settled in Tibet for contemplation, became the king of the monkeys who lived there. The king of the monkeys was handsome, and the demoness of the mountains and rocks, Lu, fell in love with him. The similarity between man and monkey gave rise to two types of A. m. of opposite nature. According to one of them, existing in Tibet and among the Hadzapi tribe in South Africa, man descends from a monkey. According to another, known among the Bushmen, monkeys (baboons) were once people, but the mythological hero Tsagn turned them into monkeys, punishing them for killing his son. According to the myths of some other African peoples (Bambuti, Efe), chimpanzees are an ancient people who went into the forest because the pygmies deceived them.
America. Among the Sioux tribes. According to Sioux legend, man was created by the rabbit of the universe, who found
there's a blood clot on the road, it turned out to be a real little boy,
the first boy in the world. The rabbit called this first person a rabbit
boy This was the ancestor of the Sioux.
Myth of the North American Indians. One day there was such a hot summer that the pond in which the turtles lived dried up. Then the turtles decided to look for another place to live and hit the road. The fattest turtle, to make his way easier, took off his shell. So she walked without a shell until she turned into a man - the ancestor of the Turtle family.
Among the Navajo Indians. At first, half-humans and half-beasts lived on earth. They crossed
three heavens, from where they were expelled because of their stupid actions. In the end
they descended to earth, where there are four local gods: blue, white, black
and yellow, came to look at them. The gods tried to teach them something
the help of gestures, but the subhumans did not understand anything. Then all the gods except
they left them alone, the black one. The black god told the demihumans that they
dirty and smelly fools. “The rest of the gods will return in four days,” said
he named them “Wash yourself, and we will indulge in the ceremony of creating people.”
The gods brought with them various objects, deer skins and two ears of corn,
yellow and white. A man came out of the white cob, and a woman came out of the yellow one. They
made love under a canopy and gave birth to five pairs of twins. The first twins were
hermaphrodites, but the rest gave birth to children, and these children married the newcomer
by the people. This is how modern humanity appeared.
Australian myths. At first, the Earth was covered with sea, and at the bottom of the dried-up primeval ocean and on the slopes of rocks protruding from the waves, there were already... lumps of helpless creatures with glued fingers and teeth, closed ears and eyes. Other similar human “larvae” lived in water and looked like shapeless balls of raw meat, in which the rudiments of human body parts could only be discerned. The flycatcher bird used a stone knife to separate human embryos from each other, cut out their eyes, ears, mouth, nose, fingers... She taught them how to make fire by friction, how to cook food, gave them a spear, a spear thrower, a boomerang, and provided each one with a personal churing-ga ( guardian of the soul).
Various Australian tribes consider the kangaroo, emu, opossum, wild dog, lizard, crow, and bat as their ancestors.
Once upon a time there lived two brothers, two twins - Bunjil and Palian. Bunjil could transform into a falcon, and Palian into a raven. One brother made mountains and rivers on the earth with a wooden sword, and the other made salt water and fish that live in the sea. One day Bunjil took two pieces of bark, put clay on them and began to crush it with a knife, sculpting legs, torso, arms and head - so he created a man. He also made a second one. He was pleased with his work and performed a dance with joy. Since then people have existed, since then they have been dancing for joy. He attached wood fibers to one man as hair, and to another too - the first had curly hair, the second had straight hair. Since then, men of some births have curly hair, while others have straight hair.
PS/ Preliminary version. A brief incomplete overview of the mythology of the peoples of the World, materials of scientific research works, numerous Internet articles
Alexander Sokolov, portal "Anthropogenesis.ru"
Elizaveta Vlasova, Educational and Scientific Center for Typology and Semiotics of Folklore of the Russian State University for the Humanities
Svetlana Borinskaya, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Institute of General Genetics named after. N. I. Vavilova RAS
Yuri Berezkin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography named after. Peter the Great (Kunstkamera) RAS
"Nature" No. 10, 2017
From time immemorial, people have wondered about the origins of man. In our seemingly enlightened times, the ideas of many people differ significantly from scientific ones (Fig. 1). The percentage of people who agree that humans descended from pre-existing primate species ranges from less than 40% (Turkey and the USA) to more than 70% (Sweden, Denmark, Iceland) in different countries (Fig. 2). The rest hold different views or don’t think about this topic at all.
In Russia, according to the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), with different wording of the question, only from 19% to 36% of respondents believe that humans and monkeys descended from a common ancestor (Tables 1, 2) [,]. Among other versions, the biblical one is widely known, according to which man was created by the Creator from the dust of the earth, while even the majority of Russian believers do not deny that living nature evolves, but an exception is made for man. Sometimes you have to deal with allegations that a person was sent to Earth by aliens, whose origins and goals are worthy of a thriller or comedy. It is clear that stories about aliens appeared only in the 20th century. - along with the growing popularity of science fiction novels and the beginning of space exploration.
Table 1. Russians' ideas about human origins (according to the results of a survey by VTsIOM in November 2009)
Table 2. Russians' ideas about human origins (based on the results of a VTsIOM survey in 2006 and 2009)
Modern ideas about the evolution of the living world and man as part of it are also of relatively recent origin, although ancient philosophers spoke about the possibility of evolution. The assertion that man descended from apes was formulated in the 18th century. Scottish lawyer and researcher D. Burnett is a friend of the poet R. Burns and an opponent of the French naturalist J. Buffon. At that time, little was known about apes, as well as about the inhabitants of other continents, so some considered chimpanzees to be wild people, while others classified representatives of different races as different biological species. Charles Darwin, in his book “The Descent of Man and Sexual Selection” (1871), wrote that “mankind was given its origin by some ancient member of the anthropoid subgroup,” and believed that the place of origin of man was the African continent, and the chimpanzee and gorilla are not our ancestors , but kind of cousins .
If the history of scientific thought has been studied quite well, then the time of the appearance of ideas about the creation of man by God is unknown. The most ancient written sources that have reached us in the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, which describe the creation of people from clay, date back to the Old Babylonian period (XX-XVI centuries BC). One of the texts tells about the god Enki and his mother Ninmah (aka Nammu). It says that the gods, tired of work, decided to create people so that they would work instead of them. Enki molds people from clay, and Ninmah determines their destinies. People are defective, but everyone has a use - a blind man can be a singer, a bow-legged man can be a jeweler, etc. It is possible that Enki added his own blood to the clay, as in the Akkadian version, which directly speaks of blood mixed with clay.
Let one of the gods be overthrown,
May the gods be cleansed by plunging into blood,
From his flesh, on his blood
Let Nintu mix the clay!
Truly God and man will unite,
Mixed in clay!
So that we can always hear the beating of our hearts,
May reason live in the flesh of God,
Let the living man know the sign of his life,
I would not forget that he has reason!
She broke off fourteen pieces of clay.
She put seven to the right
She put seven to the left.
The brick is in the middle between them.
<...>
They created seven men,
They created seven women.
Foremother, creator of destinies,
I connected them in pairs,
The fate of people was written by Mami.
We can guarantee that this plot was known in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC. e. What's in the 4th or 5th? Was it familiar to the inhabitants of Western Asia “from Adam” or did it appear later (maybe it was borrowed from someone)? Were there any ideas about the origin of man before the appearance of the myth about the creation of the world by deities? To try to understand this, let's look at a comparison of different mythological traditions.
Ancient stories
To date, ethnographers, linguists, folklorists, and earlier travelers and missionaries have recorded many hundreds of thousands of texts of legends, myths and fairy tales from different peoples of the world. The vast majority of records were made in the 19th–20th centuries. and only a small (although, of course, very valuable) part is contained in medieval and ancient written monuments. The earliest Sumerian and Egyptian texts conveying the content of the myths date back to the 3rd millennium BC. e., Semitic - to the 2nd, Greek and Chinese - to the 1st. However, early written sources obviously do not contain information about all the folklore plots of the corresponding eras: the authors simply did not have such a goal, and only fragments of the most ancient texts have reached us. At the same time as the Egyptians and Greeks, thousands of tribes and peoples lived, whose folklore no one recorded. What do we know about the folklore and mythology of the Slavs of the 6th century, when they began to settle in the Balkans and Eastern Europe? Almost nothing. Moreover, compared with the history of mankind or even with the time that has passed since the end of the last glaciation, two, three or even four thousand years is not so long.
Does this mean that the folklore and mythological heritage of humanity has been almost completely lost? Not entirely, although it is really unlikely that it will be possible to reconstruct specific texts of the ancestors of the Slavs, Celts or Albanians. But it is possible to approximately determine the time of spread of certain mythological subjects, as well as the territories for which they were characteristic. Using only the folklore material itself, this cannot be done, but if you plot the areas of distribution of certain mythological episodes and images on a geographical map, and then compare this information with the data of geneticists and archaeologists about the routes and times of migration of ancient people, then some assumptions can be made.
This work was carried out on the basis of the “Analytical Catalog of Mythological Motifs,” which includes recurring elements of folklore (narrative episodes and images), isolated from more than 50 thousand texts recorded in different languages among the peoples of the Old and New Worlds. Although the catalog does not include all the published and archived records (as already mentioned, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions), it contains a fairly representative sample of data and - what is extremely important - reflects the folklore traditions of all continents to approximately the same extent.
If this or that mythological story was recorded in places that lie on the path of known migrations, and is not found in other regions or is found sporadically, then it is logical to assume that it spread precisely during these migrations. The key points in dating the spread of folklore episodes and images are the time of the emergence of modern man from Africa and the settlement of the New World. According to archaeologists and geneticists, our ancestors penetrated from Africa to Eurasia 70–50 thousand years ago. The settlement of America began 17–15 thousand years ago and lasted approximately three millennia. Later, separate groups of people from Siberia penetrated only into Alaska and the American Arctic. The first groups of migrants to America most likely moved along the ocean coast, and when the Canadian and Alaskan glaciers began to melt, those who lived in continental Siberia also passed to the New World. Datings of 15 or 50 thousand years ago are approximate, they will still be refined, but the sequence of processes and their epoch-making affiliation have been established quite reliably.
The area of distribution of several mythological stories coincides with the routes of settlement of people from their African ancestral home along the coast of Asia and then America. Most of these stories describe the origin of death and explain why people lost the ability to live forever or why not people, but snakes (or lizards, spiders, etc.) became immortal. The most common stories about the origin of death include the plot of changing skin (according to one version, people, like snakes, changed their skin and rejuvenated themselves; according to another, the ability to change skin should have gone to people, but for various reasons it went to other creatures). The contrast between mortal people and the immortal, ever-regenerating month is also widespread. There are other subjects - more rare, but widespread in the same territories, i.e. in Africa, Southeast and partly South and East Asia, Australia, Melanesia, America. So, according to one of them, the character threw chips into the water and said that just as the chips float in the water, so people will be reborn after death. However, another character threw a stone, and since it sank, the people became mortal. This same set of ancient motifs includes the identification of the rainbow with the snake and, possibly, the theme of the origin of fire. In any case, only in Africa and the Indo-Pacific world is it common to believe that before people had fire, they cooked food in the sun or warmed it under their arms. In these same regions, it is often believed that the original owner of the fire was a certain woman. In continental Eurasia, such ideas have not been recorded. Here the woman, but also often the man, is the spirit of fire, the fire itself.
The fact that the first topic that attracted the attention of our ancestors was human mortality is completely logical - is there anything more mysterious and more important? The mastery of fire was the oldest and most important step in the development of technology, so here everything is natural.
Let us emphasize once again: the age of the corresponding myths is evidenced by their presence in territories, contacts between which took place only in the distant past, and then were interrupted for a long time. Myths about human mortality not only penetrated into the New World, but were recorded mainly in South America, where the cultural heritage of the earliest migrants was better preserved than in North America. As for the parallels between Africa and the Indo-Pacific edge of Asia and Australia, they prove the appearance of similar myths earlier than 50 thousand years ago. Judging by genetic data, the flow of the first African migrants headed primarily along the southern coast of Asia and further to Australia. The people who settled continental Eurasia also came out of Africa, but their culture had to undergo much greater changes than the culture of those who headed east along the coast of the Indian Ocean, because the “northern Eurasians” came from the tropics to cold forests and tundra-steppes. In addition, a significant part of these early settlers died out during the glacial maximum era (24–18 thousand years ago). As a result, little remained of African cultural roots in continental Eurasia, while in Indo-Pacific Asia the ancient African heritage was relatively well preserved.
In the myths and folklore of the peoples of the world
The plot of the creation of man by a deity in sub-Saharan Africa is missing, which suggests that it appeared later than 50 thousand years ago. More precisely, in Africa, as well as in Melanesia and Australia, similar narratives, although occasionally found, are little similar to each other, so nothing indicates their origin from the same center. But in the same regions where myths about the mortal nature of man are widespread, stories are almost universally recorded that people were not created by a deity, but came out of the ground - alone or together with animals. Here they say that people descended from the sky (Fig. 3). It can be assumed that these stories already existed before man left Africa, and therefore their age is more than 50 thousand years. Whether they are of the same age as the myths about the origin of death or appeared earlier or later than them is impossible to judge. In principle, it is possible that some myths appeared in Africa earlier than 50 thousand years ago, but we are unable to either prove or disprove this assumption.
The option with people coming out of the ground is more indicative than the one that describes the descent of people from the sky. According to him, there were many people, among them were men and women, children and adults. This is a completely different concept than most myths about the creation of man by a deity. As for the descent of people from heaven to earth, there are different versions - both with many people of different sexes and ages, and with a couple of first ancestors, from whom humanity then descended. This last variant (with a pair of first ancestors) is occasionally found in continental Eurasia (for example, among the Khanty). However, in general, both the “descent from the sky” and the “emergence from the ground” are confined to those territories in which other scenes were recorded, which probably arose among our African ancestors.
The idea of the origin of people from plants or the story that people grew up like grass may also be very ancient. However, the specific versions of these narratives vary greatly, so the independent emergence of similar narratives in different regions is likely.
The next group of myths about human origins is found in the Indo-Pacific regions of Asia and the Americas, but is absent from Africa and much of continental Eurasia. To reach the New World, these stories must have been known in East Asia at least 15 thousand years ago, while the lack of African analogies indicates that such stories had not yet emerged 50 thousand years ago. An age of 15, maximum 20, at most 30 thousand years is more likely than 30–50 thousand years, since modern people apparently did not exist in East Asia before 30 thousand years ago. Following along the ocean coast, they penetrated into Australia a long time ago, but no analogues to such stories were found in the folklore of the Australian aborigines.
A group of myths that probably first spread within the Indo-Pacific fringe of Asia include ideas about the origin of people from drops of blood. On the Admiralty Islands they say that people arose from drops of the blood of a goddess who cut her finger with a shell, among the Nanai the deity bit her finger, among the Yuchi in the southeastern United States the first people arose from the menstrual blood of the Sun, and the Yanomami in southern Venezuela believe that that a certain hero shot the Moon and from his blood the ancestors of the tribe were born. The same group includes stories about the origin of people from grains, about their creation from skin scales or dirt collected from his chest by a god who had not washed for a long time. During the same period, stories spread in East Asia that people in general or certain clan groups and tribes are descendants of dogs (Fig. 4). It is characteristic that in South America all these plots are either completely absent or are found only in areas relatively close to the Isthmus of Panama, but in Tierra del Fuego and in the east of Brazil they are not found. They are mainly characteristic of the western and northern regions of North America. This distribution indicates that in the mythology of the very first migrants to the New World there were no corresponding plots. At the same time, in the Old World they are characteristic not of Siberia, but of Southeast Asia, and they probably penetrated into America with those settlers who walked along the ocean coast.
This group may also include stories that the first people were created from fragile, unsuitable material (oil, wax, snow or dough) and therefore turned out to be inferior. Only on the second, third, or even fourth attempt do the deities manage to create real people. However, such a motif is rarely found in creation myths. It is much more typical for stories that talk not about people in general, but about a specific character (such as the Snow Maiden).
The most recent may be stories that have a regional distribution: such as the origin of people from pigs or stories about how fruits or coconut leaves that fell from a tree turned into women. Both subjects occur in very limited areas in Asia and Oceania (Fig. 5). It is logical that the legend about the origin of women from coconuts is found in Southeast Asia and Melanesia, that is, exactly where the coconut palm comes from.
The following myth, characteristic of Southeast Asia with the adjacent regions of India and Southern China, deserves more attention: a woman gives birth to a pumpkin, a bag of eggs, a piece of meat, etc.; what is born is cut, chopped, and the pieces turn into people; Numerous people also come out of the pumpkin or bag - usually the ancestors of individual tribes. As a rule, this plot is part of a long mythological narrative, which begins with the story of how a brother and sister managed to escape the flood and how they decided to break the ban and get married. Along with the Indian-Siberian-North American plot of extracting land from the bottom of the ocean (which is often followed by the appearance of people), the myth of the flood and the “birth of people from pieces” is the most complex and developed in all world mythology. Since it is not known either in America, or even in Northern China or Indonesia, this cycle as a whole is unlikely to have formed in the Paleolithic. However, it is based on a more general theme: the generation of modern people by brother and sister, usually survivors of a catastrophe that destroyed ancient humanity. This motif exists in America, and its distribution in the Old World clearly indicates its initial appearance within the Indo-Pacific margin of Asia; Accordingly, its age may well be more than 15 thousand years. As for the motif of the appearance of the first pumpkin people, judging by the images of the ancient Mayans and some of their neighbors, it was known in Mesoamerica, although this plot was not recorded in the texts written down after the arrival of the Spaniards. It is unlikely that the myth reflected in these Mesoamerican images is historically related to variants from Southeast Asia, but rather a coincidence.
Some of the stories are found only or predominantly among the American Indians, and not everywhere, but only in certain regions: people arose from sticks or from the bones of former people, or were caught like fish (Fig. 5). As for the Old World, over vast areas from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean in recent times (hardly earlier than the middle of the 1st millennium), a myth spread about how God made people, left a dog as a watchman, and himself went to bring souls to people. At this time, the enemy of God bribed the dog, giving it a warm skin, and ruined the human preparations - he spat on them or revived them himself, thereby depriving them of immortality. The origins of this plot are complex and intricate and reflect the transcontinental connections of the last millennia. It seems that the plot was formed by the Indo-Europeans who lived during the Bronze Age in the Eurasian steppes. In this original version, the enemy of God was a horse that tried to trample human figures, and the dog valiantly defended them. In a similar form, the plot was preserved in India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Abkhazia, Georgia (among the Svans), and Armenia. Its echoes are noted among the Western Mongols, the Kyrgyz, and even in the far north among the Nganasans. After the radical cultural and linguistic transformation of the second half of the 1st millennium, when Zoroastrianism (where it existed) gave way to Islam, and Iranian languages were largely replaced by Turkic languages, the plot turned out to be “turned inside out”: the place of the “devil horse” was taken earlier revered dog. For her “betrayal,” God forced her to be a servant of man and endure hardships. In Indian and Caucasian versions, the horse is subjected to a similar punishment, and the dog receives a reward.
Was the myth about the horse, the dog and the creation of man familiar to most Indo-Europeans, and not just to the inhabitants of the steppe zone (probably the Indo-Iranians)? There are some parallels in Danish, Norwegian or Lithuanian folklore, but they mainly concern only the idea of the horse as the creation of the devil. The pre-Christian mythology of the population of Spain, France, and Italy is very poorly known (Latin sources mainly follow Greek models). So it is difficult to reconstruct any plot that is typical specifically for ancient Europe, especially for the period before the Neolithic.
Let's return to the biblical myth of the creation of man. It is likely that it belongs to the Mesopotamian tradition, which also includes the Sumerian-Akkadian variants. However, it is impossible to judge a more distant relationship - there are practically no detailed matches, and the general motive for creation from clay (essentially from earth) is too simple. In large parts of Eurasia and Africa, possible ancient local variants are overlapped and assimilated by Christian and Islamic tradition. We can only say with a high probability that the topic of the creation of the first man (and not the appearance of people who came to earth from some container or were born by a divine couple) is not one of those that from the very beginning attracted the attention of our ancestors. It cannot be ruled out that stories of this kind appeared here and there at different times, but they did not turn into a popular, widespread plot for a long time. In the western half of the ecumene, the situation began to change in recent millennia, when Christianity (and other Abrahamic religions) spread here. It is possible that the steppe Indo-European (as we believe) myth about a horse, a dog and the creation of man (namely a man, maybe a couple of people, but not about the appearance of many people at once) is somehow connected with the Western Asian versions, but this is difficult to prove . In the eastern half of the ecumene, the creation of man by a deity from earth (clay) is found only as one of many variants of myths about the appearance of people. In this case, most often the act of creation itself is of little importance; attention is focused on something else - the opposition of two creators whose creations are different, or again on why created people do not live forever.
In general, a review of myths and legends on a global scale shows that the diversity of ideas about the origins of people is extremely large. In addition to the listed versions, there are many more local options. People's ancestors were recorded as dwarfs and giants, various plants and animals - not only fish, dogs and pigs, but also ants, frogs, worms, and birds. There was also a place for monkeys in the pantheon of ancestors. The Makua myth (Mozambique) reports that the creator Muluku created a man and a woman and tried to teach them the basics of culture, but they did not want to learn and ran away into the forest. Then the annoyed creator trained two monkeys, who turned out to be very smart. Having cut off their tails, Muluku turned the monkeys into people, and attached the tails to careless people, turning them into monkeys. So people are the descendants of smart monkeys, and monkeys are descended from careless people.
The wide dissemination of some stories about the origin of man is associated with their inclusion in world religions. At the same time, new versions arose in which local and borrowed motifs formed bizarre combinations. For example, in Siberia, among the Khakass, Khanty, Mansi, Yakuts, and Evenks, the biblical story about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise as punishment for eating a fruit that God forbade them to eat received its own interpretation. The first people, who could not be called people in the full sense of the word, ate blueberries, lingonberries or other wild berries. After this, the fur or horny covering fell off their bodies and they gave birth to numerous offspring. By the way, it is not at all obvious that the motif of the forbidden fruit was borrowed by the Siberian aborigines from the Russians; it could have penetrated here from the Middle East through Central Asia much earlier.
In fairy-tale folklore, the plots of which have spread widely across Eurasia and North Africa over the past fifteen hundred years, sometimes the same motifs are found as in myths about the origin of man. Most often it is impossible to say how random such coincidences are. Having ceased to be part of the mythological tradition, fairy tale motifs were easily borrowed and spread over vast distances. In this case, it is difficult to determine their original range. Here, for example, is a fairy tale about a smart man Gavril, recorded 100 years ago by ethnographer V.N. Dobrovolsky in the Smolensk province. Formally, it corresponds to the plot about the emergence of people from fragile materials, but this story in this case is perceived as a deliberate fiction, and the corresponding myth was hardly ever known in Europe. They say that Gavrila wanted to mold a clay man so that he would command the men. But the clay man died in the rain. The second option - made from rye dough - was eaten by a pig. They began to beat the pig with an oak stick and a vine - this is how the masters Dubinsky and Lozinsky turned out.
Some mythological stories are now experiencing a rebirth in popular culture, when they try to find a reflection of real events that took place in ancient times in the myths of different peoples. This includes attempts by creationists to provide a scientific basis for the biblical tradition of the creation of the world. Or, for example, people descending to Earth from the sky - what is not a naive interpretation of “paleocontact”, the idea of the alien origin of man. However, the question arises: why does the myth about ancestors descending from the sky reflect reality to a greater extent than legends about people crawling out of the ground, from a crack in a rock, or from a growth on a tree? Pseudoscientific films about ancient giants - the ancestors of modern people - were even shown on federal Russian television channels. Here folk tales about giants intertwined with the teachings of 19th century mystics. and formed the basis of illiterate, but absurd hypotheses that were attractive to the public.
Traditional folklore, including myths, is the key to the past. There are several such keys, some are managed by archaeologists, others by geneticists, others by linguists, etc. Comparison of the results obtained by these sciences, their synthesis, makes it possible to identify not only the routes of ancient migrations and contacts between different cultures that left material traces, but also ideas people of the distant past about the world around them, what worried them, and what they told their children. Folklore remains a unique source of data for reconstructing elements of the spiritual culture of ancient societies, and much remains to be explored along this path.
This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (project 14-18-03384).
Literature
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Funk C., Rainie L. Public and Scientists’ Views on Science and Society // .
Ward G., Brookfield M. The dispersal of the coconut: did it float or was it carried to Panama? // J. Biogeogr. 1992; 19: 467–480.
Substitute for knowledge
The science of human origins—anthropology—appeared relatively recently. Until this moment, humanity was content with myths that people themselves invented. Unlike scientific research, such legends did not require proof - only faith was enough. And only over time, as science developed, many began to question the myths.
Nevertheless, these legends live on today - no longer as sources of knowledge about the world, but as historical monuments. Studying ancient myths can be very interesting and educational, especially if you try to imagine the history of their origin or, say, look for common features in the mythology of different peoples. For the most part, such legends are fascinating and poetic, something that modern ideas about the origin of man cannot boast of.
From clay or from dust
The Christian, in particular the Orthodox, myth about the origin of people is especially widely known. This is not at all surprising: many people profess Christianity, and Christian subjects have been used in literature and painting for centuries.
Egyptians and Sumerians 
also adhered to the idea that people were created by gods. The deities used clay mixed with the blood of the gods as a building material, and the purpose of creating humanity was purely practical: people were required to do obedient and high-quality work for the benefit of higher powers.
Chinese myths tell about the ancestor of humanity named Nyu-wa. This goddess was half woman and half snake (dragon). They were busy making people out of clay. The more thorough her work was, the richer the race of the molded Nü-wa man turned out to be. And the lumps of clay that fell off during work turned into poor people. It is interesting that along with this myth about the origin of man, the Chinese also had another - it featured the first man hatched from an egg.
God's creatures
According to the Indians, people were created by the gods by the power of spirit - and no clay, dust, or other building materials were used. Moreover, first Brahma created his own sons, and they, in turn, became the ancestors of both gods and people. Thus, the deities became to some extent human relatives rather than masters and rulers. However, in Hinduism there were at least four different myths about the creation of mankind:
- Human beings originated from the sound "Om" made by Shiva's drum;
- Humans hatched from the egg created by Brahma;
- The reason for the appearance of people was the first man Purusha, who sacrificed himself;
- People emerged from the “primordial heat.”
In Greek mythology, almost no attention is paid to the origin of the human race: the stories of the gods themselves, who led a rather stormy life, seemed much more interesting. The Greeks happily told each other about how the earth goddess Gaia appeared, the sky god Uranus was born to her, and then the titans and giants appeared. The god of time Kronos cunningly took power from his father, but over time his youngest son Zeus restored order and sent Kronos to Tartarus, simultaneously freeing his brothers. After this, the Gods went to live on Olympus, and people appeared on Earth. At the same time, the gods had quite close contact, compared with other deities, with their charges, which led to the birth of such heroes as, for example, Prometheus or Hercules.
Unconventional stories
Buddhists, adhering to the idea of the cyclical nature of the existing world, did not pay much attention to how man and other creatures appeared. Regarding what happened at the very beginning of the appearance of this world, and whether, in principle, there is a beginning to the wheel of samsara, Buddha, and then all his followers, maintained a “noble silence.” And even the revered Brahma is not recognized by Buddhists 
as the Creator of this world.
The Taoists also did not concentrate on the issues of creating the world in general and humanity in particular. From the vacuum and emptiness, the two main energies of Yin and Yang were formed, which interacted in various ways, striving for harmony. As a result of this interaction, this world and everyone living in it were formed.
Animal children
It is a mistake to think that the idea of human origin 
from animals - a conquest of modern times. Many Indian tribes, for example, believed that they were descended from animals. The Papuans shared the same point of view. In two different parts of the world - in Siberia and North America, there are surprisingly similar legends, according to which people descended from bears. Even the habit of calling bears “fathers” or “grandmothers” has been preserved, and in general, treating them with respect. So, in Siberia they often call the clubfoot “Boss”.
According to representatives of one of the Indian tribes, the ancestor of man was not an animal, but a bird. The first representatives of the human race hatched from the eggs of this bird.
Maria Bykova
The debate between supporters of the theory of creationism and evolutionary theory continues to this day. However, unlike the theory of evolution, creationism includes not one, but hundreds of different theories (if not more). In this article we will talk about ten of the most unusual myths of antiquity
The debate between supporters of the theory of creationism and evolutionary theory continues to this day. However, unlike the theory of evolution, creationism includes not one, but hundreds of different theories (if not more). In this article we will talk about ten of the most unusual myths of antiquity.
The Myth of Pan-gu
The Chinese have their own ideas about how the world came into being. The most popular myth is the myth of Pan-gu, the giant man. The plot is as follows: at the dawn of time, Heaven and Earth were so close to each other that they merged into a single black mass.
According to legend, this mass was an egg, and Pan-gu lived inside it, and lived for a long time - many millions of years. But one fine day he got tired of such a life, and, swinging a heavy ax, Pan-gu got out of his egg, splitting it into two parts. These parts subsequently became Heaven and Earth. He was of unimaginable height - about fifty kilometers in length, which, by the standards of the ancient Chinese, was the distance between Heaven and Earth.
Unfortunately for Pan-gu and fortunately for us, the colossus was mortal and, like all mortals, died. And then Pan-gu decomposed. But not the way we do it - Pan-gu decomposed in a really cool way: his voice turned into thunder, his skin and bones became the firmament of the earth, and his head became the Cosmos. Thus, his death gave life to our world.
Chernobog and Belobog
This is one of the most significant myths of the Slavs. It tells the story of the confrontation between Good and Evil – the White and Black gods. It all started like this: when there was only one continuous sea around, Belobog decided to create dry land, sending his shadow - Chernobog - to do all the dirty work. Chernobog did everything as expected, however, having a selfish and proud nature, he did not want to share power over the firmament with Belobog, deciding to drown the latter.
Belobog got out of this situation, did not allow himself to be killed, and even blessed the land erected by Chernobog. However, with the advent of land, one small problem arose: its area grew exponentially, threatening to swallow everything around.
Then Belobog sent his delegation to Earth with the goal of finding out from Chernobog how to stop this matter. Well, Chernobog sat on a goat and went to negotiate. The delegates, seeing Chernobog galloping towards them on a goat, were imbued with the comedy of this spectacle and burst into wild laughter. Chernobog did not understand the humor, was very offended and flatly refused to talk to them.
Meanwhile, Belobog, still wanting to save the Earth from dehydration, decided to spy on Chernobog, making a bee for this purpose. The insect coped with the task successfully and found out the secret, which was as follows: in order to stop the growth of land, you need to draw a cross on it and say the cherished word - “enough.” Which is what Belobog did.
To say that Chernobog was not happy is to say nothing. Wanting revenge, he cursed Belobog, and he cursed him in a very original way - for his meanness, Belobog was now supposed to eat bee feces for the rest of his life. However, Belobog was not at a loss, and made the bee excrement as sweet as sugar - this is how honey appeared. For some reason, the Slavs did not think about how people appeared... The main thing is that there is honey.
Armenian duality
Armenian myths resemble Slavic ones, and also tell us about the existence of two opposite principles - this time male and female. Unfortunately, the myth does not answer the question of how our world was created; it only explains how everything around us works. But that doesn't make it any less interesting.
So here's the quick gist: Heaven and Earth are a husband and wife separated by an ocean; The sky is a city, and the Earth is a piece of rock, which is held on its huge horns by an equally huge bull - when it shakes its horns, the earth bursts at the seams from earthquakes. That, in fact, is all - this is how the Armenians imagined the Earth.
There is an alternative myth where the Earth is in the middle of the sea, and Leviathan floats around it, trying to grab onto its own tail, and constant earthquakes were also explained by its flopping. When Leviathan finally bites its tail, life on Earth will cease and the apocalypse will begin. Have a nice day.
Scandinavian myth of the ice giant
It would seem that there is nothing in common between the Chinese and the Scandinavians - but no, the Vikings also had their own giant - the origin of everything, only his name was Ymir, and he was icy and with a club. Before his appearance, the world was divided into Muspelheim and Niflheim - the kingdoms of fire and ice, respectively. And between them stretched Ginnungagap, symbolizing absolute chaos, and there, from the fusion of two opposing elements, Ymir was born.
And now closer to us, to the people. When Ymir began to sweat, a man and a woman emerged from his right armpit along with the sweat. It’s strange, yes, we understand this - well, that’s how they are, harsh Vikings, nothing can be done. But let's get back to the point. The man's name was Buri, he had a son Ber, and Ber had three sons - Odin, Vili and Ve. Three brothers were gods and ruled Asgard. This seemed to them not enough, and they decided to kill Ymir’s great-grandfather, making a world out of him.
Ymir was not happy, but no one asked him. In the process, he shed a lot of blood - enough to fill the seas and oceans; From the skull of the unfortunate man, the brothers created the vault of heaven, broke his bones, making mountains and cobblestones out of them, and made clouds from the torn brains of poor Ymir.
Odin and the company immediately decided to populate this new world: so they found two beautiful trees on the seashore - ash and alder, making a man from the ash, and a woman from the alder, thereby giving rise to the human race.
Greek myth about marbles
Like many other peoples, the ancient Greeks believed that before our world appeared, there was only complete Chaos around. There was neither the sun nor the moon - everything was dumped into one big pile, where things were inseparable from each other.
But then a certain god came, looked at the chaos reigning around, thought and decided that all this was not good, and got down to business: he separated the cold from the heat, the foggy morning from a clear day, and everything like that.
Then he set to work on the Earth, rolling it into a ball and dividing this ball into five parts: at the equator it was very hot, at the poles it was extremely cold, but between the poles and the equator it was just right, you couldn’t imagine anything more comfortable. Further, from the seed of an unknown god, most likely Zeus, known to the Romans as Jupiter, the first man was created - two-faced and also in the shape of a ball.
And then they tore him in two, making him a man and a woman - the future of you and me.
Egyptian god who loved his shadow very much
In the beginning there was a great ocean, whose name was “Nu,” and this ocean was Chaos, and besides it there was nothing. It was not until Atum, by an effort of will and thought, created himself out of this Chaos. Yes, the man had balls. But further - more and more interesting. So, he created himself, now he had to create land in the ocean. Which is what he did. After wandering around the earth and realizing his total loneliness, Atum became unbearably bored, and he decided to plan on more gods. How? And just like that, with an ardent, passionate feeling for your own shadow.
Thus fertilized, Atum gave birth to Shu and Tefnut, spitting them out of his mouth. But, apparently, he overdid it, and the newborn gods were lost in the ocean of Chaos. Atum grieved, but soon, to his relief, he found and rediscovered his children. He was so glad to be reunited that he cried for a long, long time, and his tears, touching the earth, fertilized it - and people grew out of the earth, many people! Then, while people impregnated each other, Shu and Tefnut also had coitus, and they gave birth to other gods - more gods to the god of gods! - Gebu and Nutu, who became the personification of the Earth and the sky.
There is another myth in which Atum is replaced by Ra, but this does not change the main essence - there, too, everyone fertilizes each other en masse.
The myth of the Yoruba people - about the Sands of Life and the chicken
There is such an African people - the Yoruba. So, they also have their own myth about the origin of all things.
In general, it was like this: there was one God, his name was Olorun, and one fine day the idea came to his mind that the Earth needed to be equipped somehow (at that time the Earth was one continuous wasteland).
Olorun didn’t really want to do this himself, so he sent his son, Obotala, to Earth. However, at that moment, Obotala had more important things to do (in fact, there was a gorgeous party planned in heaven, and Obotala simply could not miss it).
While Obotala was having fun, all the responsibility fell on Odudawa. Having nothing at hand except chicken and sand, Odudawa nevertheless set to work. His principle was the following: he took sand from a cup, poured it onto the Earth, and then let the chicken run around in the sand and trample it thoroughly.
After carrying out several such simple manipulations, Odudawa created the land of Lfe or Lle-lfe. This is where Odudawa's story ends, and Obotala appears on the stage again, this time completely drunk - the party was a great success.
And so, being in a state of divine alcoholic intoxication, the son of Olorun set about creating us humans. It turned out very badly for him, and he created disabled people, dwarfs and freaks. Having sobered up, Obotala was horrified and quickly corrected everything by creating normal people.
According to another version, Obotala never recovered, and Odudawa also made people, simply lowering us from the sky and at the same time assigning himself the status of ruler of humanity.
Aztec "War of the Gods"
According to Aztec myth, there was no primordial Chaos. But there was a primary order - an absolute vacuum, impenetrably black and endless, in which in some strange way lived the Supreme God - Ometeotl. He had a dual nature, possessing both feminine and masculine principles, was good and at the same time evil, was both warm and cold, truth and lies, white and black.
He gave birth to the remaining gods: Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca and Xipe Totec, who, in turn, created giants, water, fish and other gods.
Tezcatlipoca ascended to the heavens, sacrificing himself and becoming the Sun. However, there he encountered Quetzalcoatl, entered into battle with him and lost to him. Quetzalcoatl threw Tezcatlipoca from the sky and became the Sun himself. Then, Quetzalcoatl gave birth to people and gave them nuts to eat.
Tezcatlipoca, still harboring a grudge against Quetzalcoatl, decided to take revenge on his creations by turning people into monkeys. Seeing what happened to his first people, Quetzalcoatl flew into a rage and caused a powerful hurricane that scattered the vile monkeys throughout the world.
While Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoc were at war with each other, Tialoc and Chalchiuhtlicue also turned into suns in order to continue the cycle of day and night. However, the fierce battle between Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca affected them too - then they, too, were thrown from heaven.
In the end, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoc stopped their feud, forgetting past grievances and creating new people - the Aztecs - from the dead bones and blood of Quetzalcoatl.
Japanese "World Cauldron"
Japan. Again Chaos, again in the form of an ocean, this time as dirty as a swamp. In this ocean-swamp, magical reeds (or reeds) grew, and from this reeds (or reeds), like our children from cabbage, gods were born, a great many of them. All of them together were called Kotoamatsukami - and that’s all that is known about them, for, as soon as they were born, they immediately hastened to hide in the reeds. Or in the reeds.
While they were hiding, new gods appeared, including Ijinami and Ijinagi. They began to stir the ocean until it thickened, and from it the land was formed - Japan. Ijinami and Ijinagi had a son, Ebisu, who became the god of all fishermen, a daughter, Amaterasu, who became the Sun, and another daughter, Tsukiyomi, who became the Moon. They also had one more son, the last - Susanoo, who, for his violent temper, received the status of the god of wind and storms.
Lotus flower and "Om-m"
Like many other religions, Hinduism also features the concept of the world emerging from the void. Well, as if out of nowhere, there was an endless ocean in which a giant cobra swam, and there was Vishnu, who slept on the cobra’s tail. And nothing more.
Time passed, days followed each other one after another, and it seemed that it would always be like this. But one day, everything around was filled with a sound that had never been heard before - the sound of “Om-m”, and the previously empty world was overwhelmed with energy. Vishnu awoke from sleep, and Brahma appeared from the lotus flower at his navel. Vishnu ordered Brahma to create the world, and in the meantime he disappeared, taking with him a snake.
Brahma, sitting in the lotus position on a lotus flower, set to work: he divided the flower into three parts, using one to create Heaven and Hell, another to create Earth, and the third to create heaven. Brahma then created animals, birds, people and trees, thus creating all living things.
The history of the origin of man from the ape, despite its numerous confirmations, is still called into question. Let's figure out what is a myth in evolution and what is reality.
10. Most scientists do not agree with the theory of the origin of man from apes
Scientists from various disciplines have been arguing about the origins of man for a very long time. The hypothesis put forward by Charles Darwin is now being questioned for a number of reasons. Yes, man, of course, has more similarities with monkeys than with other inhabitants of the Earth. However, this is not proof that humans evolved from apes. The opinion of geneticists contradicts the fact of the origin of humans from monkeys. The scientific world says that most likely, these two species: humans and monkeys, apart from the similarity of behavior and external similarity, have nothing in common.
9. Fossils found by scientists - who are they? Ancestors of ancient people or ancient monkeys?
The remains found by anthropologists relate to both ancient humans and ancient apes. Surprisingly, even scientists find it very difficult to determine which species these or other finds belong to. This suggests that the differences, at least in appearance, between humans and apes of the ancient world were minimal. This fact confirms Darwin's theory of human origins.
8. A pig is more similar to humans in genetics than a monkey
Indeed, pig heart valves are transplanted into people, however, we are not talking about whole organs. Perhaps this is a matter for the future. But geneticists categorically disagree that humans descended from artiodactyls. Yes, some pig tissues take root in humans, but this has nothing to do with genes. Interestingly, stem cells from animals such as mice are used to create artificial skin for humans. It turns out that the similarity between humans and pigs is a myth that has no place in real life. And the fact that pigs are used as donors for organ transplants is true. There are many pigs on the planet, there are many more of them than monkeys, so they are used.
7. Darwin's theory is based primarily on the external similarity between humans and apes
In fact, the use of external similarities as the main evidence of the similarity of species was only possible many centuries ago. Today, the theory of the origin of man from the ape is based on genetic, anatomical, embryological, paleontological, biochemical and behavioral similarities. It turns out there are a lot of points of contact between humans and monkeys as species. This once again confirms Darwin's theory.
6. Charles Darwin decided to renounce his theory towards the end of his life
This myth appeared only in 1915 and has nothing to do with reality. Charles Darwin never renounced the main theory of his life. We will not find confirmation of the rumor either in the writer’s autobiography or in the memoirs of his friends and relatives. The legend of abdication came out of nowhere and made a lot of noise in the press, but it remained an unconfirmed fiction.
5. Various fossil human ancestors were described from just one find
In fact, anthropologists study a lot of findings before making a definite conclusion. However, as a rule, only the first discoveries are remembered and go down in history. One of the first finds was the well-known Lucy, who is considered to be the ape-ancestor of man. In schools and other educational institutions, when studying history, it is Lucy who is most often mentioned, forgetting to talk about the other remains found.
4. It is impossible to accurately determine the age of the bones found
In the modern world, you can easily find out the age of certain remains. To do this, there are more than ten different high-precision methods that are constantly used by scientists to study the age of found remains. For example, the bones of the first Australopithecus, whose name was Lucy, are more than 2.5 million years old - this age was determined using different types of analysis: potassium-argon and track division methods. Both analyzes performed showed approximately the same results with acceptable errors.
3. It is actually impossible to reconstruct the appearance of ape-like ancestors. It is only a fiction of scientists
The reconstruction method is related to the structural features of human bones. It has been proven that soft tissues are formed depending on the human bones. Therefore, by studying the bones, we can draw a conclusion about a person’s appearance. This method is widely applicable, in addition to anthropology, in criminology. Mikhail Gerasimov made a number of great scientific discoveries related to this method, and he himself repeatedly recreated the external images of people based on the found remains. Reconstruction today is an accurate way of recreating the external image of ancient ancestors.
2. Most of the evidence found for the origin and evolution of man from apes is fake
Yes, forgeries have a place in the world of evidence of the origin of man from apes. However, fakes, among other finds, can be counted on one hand. In addition, scientists easily detect forged finds using various analyzes and do not attach much importance to them. Therefore, to say that the entire evolution of the origin of man from the ape is just a fiction is a mistake. Counterfeits are not given any attention and no one takes them seriously, such things are easy to detect.
1. Anthropologists have found too few finds to draw any conclusions based on them
If we are honest and take a good look at the world of discoveries made by anthropologists, then we can confidently say that there is plenty of evidence for evolution. All the remains found number hundreds and thousands of the most important specimens, each of which is a separate proof of the origin of man. Therefore, scientists cannot be reproached for allegedly building their conclusions from scratch. Today, the world is full of facts that confirm Charles Darwin's theory of human origins.
