Flood Legends (4 page)
Authors: Charles Martin
Tags: #History, #Biblical Studies, #World, #Historiography, #Religion, #Chrisitian
In Burma, for example, the Gherko Karens tell of a story in which the people decided to build a pagoda that would reach to heaven. Their god, in his wrath, came down, confused their language, and scattered the people about the earth.
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In the Congo, they balanced on poles, and in Mexico, they built a tower out of clay. Each of these versions tells of a god who becomes angry at their endeavors and scatters them abroad. In India, a Hindu legend tells of a group of demons that attempted to build an altar that would reach the sky, but whose completion was thwarted by Indra, the sky-god.
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And the parallels do not stop with just these aforementioned cultures. Indeed, the story is almost as universal as the story of the Deluge. In some cases, however, a particular culture contains only one element of the story. It may, for example, tell only of the construction of the tower, while leaving out the confusion of languages. For example, the Ba-Luyi, an African tribe in the Upper Zambesi region, tells of a great tower made of "masts" that, because of its instability, falls down and kills all who are involved in the project. The purpose for the tower is to reach the sun-god Nyambe,
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though it is not Nyambe who punishes them. The destruction of their tower arises, instead, from the natural consequences of their actions. In a remarkably similar story from the Congo, it is said that the Wangongo wanted to see what the moon was, and so fastened one pole to another, until everyone in the village was climbing the poles. With that much weight, it is said that the tower suddenly collapsed and "since that time no one has tried to find out what the moon is."
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These versions all have the thwarting of a construction project, but they lack the "confusion of tongues" element.
On the other hand, many cultures have the story of the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of people, but leave out the construction of a tower. The Greeks, for example, used to tell that the god Hermes separated mankind into different nations and introduced different types of speech. The action does not appear to be wrathful punishment, but merely a sort of divine practical joke. In Assam, the Kachcha Nagas told of a story in which a band of warriors, attacking a python, suddenly found themselves to be speaking different languages. "The men of the same speech," it says, "now drew apart from the rest and formed a separate band."
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If the myth is to have credibility, how do we account for so much variance? We account for it by applying telephone mythology.
If
a central culture experienced such a life-altering event as this diaspora, then we would expect the story to be passed down from generation to generation. It's what people do. It's why Independence Day is celebrated every July fourth in America, and Passover is still celebrated by the Jewish people today. In addition, as each culture separated from the others and began to develop its own set of beliefs and values, then we would expect the stories to change. Just like the telephone game, certain details get lost or added during the transmission. We see it today in the so-called urban legends. Though the stories are usually similar, some of the details change depending on where in the country you are. "Ghost lights," one of the more popular legends, is an excellent example of this.
The basic phenomenon is always the same: a bright ball of light inexplicably travels, usually at high speeds, down an open road or an abandoned railroad track. The phenomenon itself is incredibly well documented from all over the United States. Several counties in North Carolina experience them, as do many towns in the Midwest and western United States. In Richmond, Virginia, there is a location that often has these "ghost lights." The origin of the lights is officially attributed to either swamp gas or a form of lightning known as ball lightning, but that fact does not stop the numerous other "explanations" that have arisen. In some localities, the lights are said to be the spirits of departed souls. In other localities, they are said to be ghost trains. In still others, they are said to be the lanterns of dead railway men who wander the tracks, looking for something (a lost soul mate, their missing
heads
,
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etc
.). The numerous versions don't take away from the fact that the lights
do
exist — again, they are too well documented — the explanations simply change to suit the location and storytellers. For ghost lights near old abandoned tracks, a railroad explanation is devised; scientists hold to swamp gas/lightning explanations; Civil War hospitals are evoked in the South.
The details change with the culture.
This is all well and good, you may be asking, but why should we believe it? Isn't the conventional interpretation — that the stories are simply
fictional
tales — good enough? Why must we assume that the events depicted actually happened?
We would easily dismiss the stories as purely fictional if it were not for their
universality
. Yes, I would expect cultures to invent a myth explaining the existence of other cultures around them. That is logical. What is not logical is that almost every culture in the world would invent a
similar
, if not virtually
identical
myth, explaining the existence of other cultures. Because this story exists almost
everywhere
, what seems more probable is that the event
really happened
.
If, therefore, we take the stories of a diaspora as fact — not necessarily choosing one particular version over another, but simply acknowledging the spread of cultures after a deluge — then the various versions of the Flood (and a lot of other mythology, as well) begin to seem a little more reasonable. In fact, as we look at the various versions and begin to compare them to each other using telephone mythology, we begin to see that, not only does an actual global Deluge seem
possible,
it seems to be, at least from a literary standpoint, quite
probable
. In addition, to claim that the three versions were
carried
to their respective regions lends an amount of credibility to the story as a whole, because the story's
very claims are supported by its retelling
.
If the diaspora occurred, then the scattered people would have the same history. If they carried that history with them, they would retell the stories of their past. As the stories move further and further from the original source — in terms of both distance and time — we would expect the stories to change. However, because each version has its roots in the actual event, we would also look for a common core in the stories. This is precisely what we find in the diaspora myths. It's also what we find in the Deluge myths.
So now we look at the versions of the Flood themselves. Over the course of the next few chapters, we will examine several characteristics of the stories. First, we will look at the heroes. That is, we will examine the characteristics of the main character in each version. Then we will look at the rest of the passengers, as well as the cargo. We will look, as well, at the final resting place of the vessel and, lastly, the use of animals in the different versions of the myth. All of these common threads contain details that often seem quite at odds with each other, and have presented a problem for people trying to reconcile the various versions of the Deluge. Telephone mythology, however, helps us immensely in this endeavor.
We will be exploring this idea of telephone mythology by consulting several Deluge myths. Primarily, we will be looking at the
Mahābhārata
, the Kariña story of the Flood, and the Genesis account.
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We will be considering, as well, Babylonian, Australian, and East Asian literature. Before we begin, however, I want to look briefly at the origins of our three primary sources. The differences in their styles are as vast as the differences between the cultures that produced them. This is what makes them so fascinating. It is also, perhaps, what enables their similarities to stand out so vividly.
Endnotes
3-1
3-2
3-3
3-4
3-5
3-6
Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament
(New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1969), p. 135–136.
3-7
3-8
3-9
3-10
A Short Account of the Kachcha Nâga (Empêo) Tribe in the North Cachar Hills
(Schillong: The Assam Secretariat Press, 1885), p. 15.
3-11
3-12
Chapter 4
The Sources
In days long-past, the sky-god, Kaputano, came down to the kingdom of the Kariña.
— The Flood According to the Kariña
Part of the appeal of the Flood account is its widespread popularity among ancient cultures. It is found on every continent (with the exception of Antarctica, of course), in many different countries, and across a variety of people groups. These reasons alone are why I chose this particular myth. However, its prevalence did not mean my task was particularly easy. Because there are innumerable sources from which I could have drawn, selecting only three primary sources was far from simple. After much reading and studying, however, I finally settled on the Kariña, Jewish, and Hindu versions.
Geographically speaking, the three primary sources stand in stark contrast to each other. The Hindu myth — written in Sanskrit — was well-known throughout much of southeastern Asia. The Jewish myth — written in Hebrew and later translated into Greek — became widespread throughout much of the Middle East, spreading with its people through Egypt and Babylonia. The Kariña myth — told in an obscure Cariban dialect — was only popular with one particular tribe of Native South Americans who still live today in eastern Venezuela. Because the sources are so varied, the ideological frameworks in which we find each of these myths are vastly different, as well. We'll take a look at the cultural origins of each of these versions. In addition, I will give my reasons for selecting each legend as a primary source.
The
Mahābhārata
The
Mahābhārata
is one of two great Sanskrit poems, an epic on par with the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
of Greek mythology. It is one of the many sources from which Hindus draw an understanding of both their religion and their history. The poem itself deals primarily with a land dispute. Woven into the main story, however, are thousands of side stories and myths that teach a good deal of the history and belief of the ancient Aryan people.
The Aryans are referred to in several of the ancient Hindu works, most notably in a work known as the
Rig Veda
. The word
Arya
, means "noble" or "cultured" in Sanskrit. In the early 19th century, it became the long-standing assumption that the Aryans were European invaders that conquered the more primitive Dravidian people living in India at the time. However, the idea formed less from any evidence than from simple, unadulterated racism. The Europeans who conquered India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries simply assumed that such an intelligent and "noble" race
must
have come from Europe, and could not have been indigenous to Asia. This idea of a vastly superior race of Europeans known as "Aryans" was the basis for Hitler's blond-haired, blue-eyed "Aryan race" that he was attempting to create during the Third Reich.
Now, as more and more — and older — references to the Aryans have cropped up in the past few decades, historians have been forced to abandon this idea of a superior invading race slaughtering inferior natives. It is currently believed, therefore, that the word simply references the earliest sages of India, known as the "Nobles" by later people. This is not unheard of. Even in America, we tend to refer to the "Founding Fathers" when we speak of the great minds that drafted the Constitution of the nation. In any event, within the
Mahābhārata
lay several stories that reveal the history and belief of that ancient culture.
The name of the book itself comes from two words,
mahā
, meaning "great" or "large," and
bhārata
, meaning "[battle of] the Bhāratas." The Bhāratas were a tribe in India that had eventually split into two clans: the Kurus and the Pāņdus. At some point in time, the two clans began warring over a parcel of land that had belonged to their ancestors. By the time of the poem, the battle is over, the Kurus have been annihilated, and the Pāņdus alone survive. The
Mahābhārata
is the story of the initial dispute, and the years leading up to the great battle.
