The Oldest Flood Myth and its Origin

If you think flood myths started with the Biblical story of Noah, or the Epic of Gilgamesh, you'd be mistaken. In this video I look at a phylogenetic study about the origin of the Flood Myth, to find out where it started, and when. And in doing so I also discover a very early form of creation myth, and you won't find these answers in Genesis, in fact what we discover are versions of a very old flood story indeed, one of the oldest stories in the world.

References:
Berezkin, Yuri E. 2007. “‘Earth-Diver’ and ‘Emergence from under the Earth’: Cosmogonic Tales as Evidence in Favor of the Heterogenic Origins of the American Indians”. Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 32(1): 110–123
Frazer, James. 1918. Folk-Lore in the Old Testament. London: MacMillan & Co
Gaster, Theodor H. Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament, Harper & Row, New York, 1969. (Most of the flood stories in this work are taken from Frazer, 1919
d’Huy, Julien. 2013. “Le motif du dragon serait paleolithique: Mythologie et archeologie”. Prehistoire du Sud-Ouest 21(2): 195–215
d’Huy, Julien. 2014a. “Recueils de contes et nuages de mots”. Mythologie francaise 255: 14–18
d’Huy, Julien. 2014b. “Motifs and Folktales: A New Statistical Approach”. RMN Newsletter 8: 13–29
d’Huy, Julien. 2016. “Premiere reconstruction statistique d’un rituel paleolithique: Autour du motif du dragon”. Nouvelle Mythologie Comparee – New Comparative Mythology 3: 15–47
d’Huy, Julien. 2017a. “Entre Ciel et Terre: Reconstruction d’une mythologie paleolithique”. Mythologie francaise 267: 4–9
d’Huy, Julien. 2017b. “Un recit de plongeon cosmogonique au Paleolithique superieur?”. Prehistoire du Sud-Ouest 25(1): 109–117
d’Huy, Julien. 2017c. “Matriarchy and Prehistory: A Statistical Method for Testing an Old Theory”. Les Cahiers de l’AARS 19: 159–170
d’Huy, Julien. 2020a. Cosmogonies: La Prehistoire des mythes. Paris: La Decouverte.
d’Huy, Julien. 2020b. “Premiere mythologie du serpent et art rupestre saharien”. Les Cahiers de l’AARS 21: 135–144
d’Huy, Julien, & Yuri E. Berezkin. 2017. “How Did the First Humans Perceive the Starry Night? – On the Pleiades”. RMN Newsletter 12–13: 100–122
Witzel, E.J. Michael. 2012. The Origins of the World’s Mythologies. Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press

Chapters
===============
0:00 Introduction
2:42 Hidden Flood Myths
3:56 Are all Flood Myths the same?
5:56 Berezkin's Database of Motifs
7:11 How the data was analyzed
8:02 Potential issues and their potential effect
10:47 How do myths spread?
13:09 The spread of myth
14:57 Results of the Study - The Diffusion of Myth
18:47 Study 1: Out of Africa?
21:19 Study 1: Out of America or Asia?
22:10 Study 2: Evolution of Motif
23:39 Finding a Creation Myth
26:52 The Deluge and Conflagration Combined
27:39 Hurting someone to trigger a Deluge
28:23 Conclusion

[Crecganford]

Would you like to hear more about the Creation Myth mentioned in this video? Or is there another myth you want to hear more about?

[Ewr]

There's an amazonian myth from the yawanawa people, called "Awara Nane Putane" in which a hunter abandons his family and goes to live with two sister snakes and their father, he drinks Ayahuasca, realizes they're snakes and a fish warns him to go back, the fish drags him down the river and he goes back to his world, but it started raining for days because the snakes were mad at him, so his tribe hid him and after the snakes couldn't find him they stopped the rain and went back to their world.


I hadn't realized it was a flood myth until you talked about snakes controlling rain, it's also the myth for the origins of the traditional use of Ayahuasca.

[gaufrid]

Another great video Jon! I wanted to mention a few things that I have learned since living in Northern Mindanao Philippines. My wife is Higaonon, one of the Lumad (native) tribes in Bukidnon Province. One version of the flood myth is that only one man survived by climbing to the top of Mount Kitanglad. "Tanglad" is the word for "lemongrass", and the implication is that the flood covered all the earth except for the length of a stalk of lemongrass at the top of the mountain. The story goes on to say that he found and rescued a woman who had been smart enough to hold onto a tribal drum so she would not drown. They then went on to repopulate the land after the flood receded. The Talaandig, another Bukidnon tribe, say that the flood was caused by a giant crab going back into the sea and causing the sea to inundate the land. A wise man told the people to build a large raft before the flood came. They were the only ones to survive except for a woman who held onto a tribal drum. The flood covered all the earth except for the top of Mount Dulangdulang which is the tallest mountain in the Kitanglad range and the second tallest in Mindanao after Mount Apo near Davao. Kitanglad is the third tallest. Both the Higaonon and Talaandig stories of the Flood mention Magbabaya, "The one who oversees all", the Creator, and who subsequent to the Flood indicated that a brother could not marry his next youngest sister, hence giving rise to the incest laws of the Bukidnon tribes. I also know that both the Tagalog people in Luzon and the Visayan people in Cebu, Negros, Bohol and Samar and Leyte also believed that the first man and woman emerged from a stem of bamboo, each stem having been pecked open by a giant bird. Here I think we have a few of the motifs you mentioned. The sea creature causing the Flood. The first people emerging from the earth. I think these motifs are very ancient. The Bukidnon creation myth involves Magbabaya and two other beings, one providing the material for creation, a bird-like "referee", and Magbabaya providing the thought. They were all in a very small space called the "banting" before creating everything. The "Bukidnon Trinity" also bears some resemblance to the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. I have a feeling that the Flood myth is somewhat older than their creation story.

[eubalenaglacialis]

Nice video! I am a evolutionary biologist from Taiwan and I really enjoy your video about myth origins. There are lots of flood myth in the various indigenous Austronesian-speaking people in Taiwan. One of the most famous one was told by the Bunun people in Central Taiwan. In the myth, a giant snake blocked the outlet of a river, causing the entire world to be flooded. People and animals seek refuge at mount Jade, the tallest peak in Taiwan. The people seeking refuge suffered from unbearable coldness because of high altitude. Suddenly, someone noticed that there is something burning on another peak across the ocean. After failed attempt to retrieve fire by animal volunteers (a toad and a deer), a black bubul eventually flew back with the fire, reddening its beak and talon, and burned its body in the process. Which is by the way why black bubul is a sacred bird for the Bunun people. Finally, a crab defeated the giant snake and there goes the flood.

[joshuamartin]

I am always so impressed by your ability to make these concepts interesting and comprehensible. This channel is such a powerful learning resource and I'm extremely grateful for the time and energy that you put into it.

[alesslak]

What is a simple concept yet mindblowing for me is that at some point, a long time ago, a single person started one of these myths. One person narrated, for the first time, to a group of people a story, and we can still hear his distant echo. We have no clue who he (they) was, what he looked like, how sounded his language, yet all humankind can still hear part of his story.

[j.lawsonmyers]

This is the kind of history lessons I wish schools taught me, love the content!

[gamediverbr]

It is not exactly a myth of the Flood, but Akuanduba is a characteristic figure of the Araras tribe (inhabitants of northern Brazil), being an entity famous for playing his flute to bring order to the world. It is said that he once threw an entire tribe into the sea to see if they would learn the virtues of obedience. They survived and gave a new direction to their existence.

[Spengleman]

I reckon fans of this channel would love a deep dive into the younger dryas impact hypothesis. The supporting evidence for a huge volume of meltwater raising sea levels by up to 400 feet around 12, 500 years ago is now overwhelming.

[tooeytime]

Been binging your videos for about 3 days now right when I get home from work, this is probably my favorite one so far! Keep up the good work.

[Strajer]

This channel is just perfect. I love the subject, there are some things I knew but lots I didn't and I found out and it gave me the kick to start reading about pre ancient history. And the voice of the narrator is very comforting! Great job!

[marteenie]

i love that you reference the statistical analysis used for these published articles in the database. i'm more used to statistical methods used in psychology and medical field so i'll definitely be looking into phylogenetics because i've never studied it before. thank you!

[nicholaspikos]

There was definitely movement between Australia and pre-European Indonesia and New Guinea as well as post Dutch colonization of those places so even though this movement was rare the nature of it definitely makes cultural & mythological exchange recently a definite possibility. Love your show and this vid

[JCRS]

Iorubá mythology has a version of the flood myth also:

Yemanjá, queen of the ocean, had a beatiful son, who shone like the sun and was as black as the night. Humanity, envious of his beauty, tricked and killed him (and in some versions ate his flesh). Yemanjá then, angered and heartbroken, sent the waves to invade the dry lands and rid the Earth of humanity as a whole. Then, when the waves receded, she allowed a new humanity to be born, which might be us.

[dianarising]

This is very interesting. I love how statistics are helping in the analysis of mythology and in determining the migration of peoples with these ideas.
Young-earth Christian creationists talk like the existence of flood myths in diverse peoples means there was, in reality, a world-wide flood. What it actually indicates is that humans had myths many, many years ago and migrated all over the world and remembered the ancient stories. Another indication that young-earth creationists are very silly.

[kdzlshzl]

Great job! Very interesting and I really like that your theories are based on a collection of scientific studies, connecting understandings rather than simply linking the myths.

[mathildequimbel]

Thank you so much for making scholar works available in such a great way, I owe you hours of enjoyment since I discovered this channel! Please keep giving us those amazing analysis and stories, you became one of my favorite channels ever

[frujf]

I've just stumbled upon you in a search for information about the Great Flood Myth. Thank you so much for this. It is the first comprehensive look at this subject I've seen and it answers many questions that I've had about the plausibility of the popular thinking that a Sumerian myth in the Middle East 5000 years ago traveling all around the world.

[MrRabiddogg]

I seem to remember from High School mythology class several myths that included the survivor clinging to a mountain for survival. The Japanese and some of the Polynesian myths seem to come to mind. (its been 35 years). In my mind, the myths of various cultures seem to fit their region especially if you take into account the ice age sea levels. Japan was once connected to Asia. Polynesian was probably a small continent of some kind. Both of which became a series of islands when the seas rose. Randall Carlson on his podcast seems to think there were a series of survivor groups after the flood(s) each in their own pocket of isolation which is where these myths come from. On a side note, I find it interesting that the green dot formed right around where they think the PIE language first formed as well. That's probably not a coincidence either.

[JCetto.]

Yes! Here in Perú there's the flood myth that states that there was a survivor called Konpanama, he became a god and rebuilt mankind...

I cannot tell how much I love your content and how great are your narrations. Thank you for sharing this great stories!