The OLDEST Creation MYTH in World, and its Origins

The first and oldest stories in the world maybe lost to us, but we can reconstruct them by finding their motifs and piecing them together. In this video I look at the earliest creation myth motifs, focused particularly on the Earth Diver and Tree of Life, to do this. I will tell a few different creation stories, and discuss how motifs have evolved, mixed, and dispersed. And finally I tell a story, reconstructed from all these motifs.

*References*
Berezkin, Yuri (2007). "“Earth-diver” and “emergence from under the earth”: Cosmogonic tales as evidence in favor of the heterogenic origins of the American Indians". In: Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 32: 110–123. 10.1134/S156301100704010X.
Napolskikh, Vladimir. "The Earth-Diver Myth (А812) in Northern Eurasia and North America: Twenty Years Later". Frog; Siikala, Anna-Leena; Stepanova, Eila (2012). Mythic Discourses: Studies in Uralic Traditions. Finnish Literature Society. pp. 120–140. ISBN 978-952-222-376-0.

Chapters
=====================================
0:00 Introduction
2:28 The Beginning was made from The Nothing?
3:52 The Research
5:50 The Underworld and Earth Divers motifs
7:30 Understanding motif changes, The Bird Scout
9:42 The Oldest Creation Myth Motifs, The Earth Driver
11:59 Creation Myth Structure
13:30 Looking for the Motifs of Voids and Chaotic Waters
16:02 The Tree of Life or World Tree
18:13 Mixed Motifs in the Creation Myth
20:20 North American motifs
22:07 Where did the Creation Myth with these motifs originate?
22:48 But why an Earth Diver?
23:57 The earliest mythology of our ancestors?
22:57 The Magic of Wind from Vedic to Abrahamic religions
27:37 Putting it all together and conclusion

[Crecganford]

Do you have any old stories you would like me to look into?

[davidjuby]

I am Native Canadian and as part of Cayuga mythology there is the story of the Sky woman who fell to earth. As the story goes, other people believe other things but this is what we believe. Early on the world was all water and there were the sky people who lived in the clouds. One day a sky woman was looking down through a hole and accidentally fell to the waters below. all the animals gather together to try and help her but they soon realized that she needed land for her to survive. All the animals tried to dive down and bring up some earth so she could have some land upon which to live. One by one they all tried and failed until finally the muskrat was able to dive deep enough to find earth and bring it back up. Eventually the land grew and became solid. The sky woman was then able to populate the land.

[Astro-Markus]

I'm simply fascinated by the fact that we can reconstruct pieces of the culture of our ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago. This is yet another example of doing away with the prejudice about early humans being grunting and primitive imbeciles. We have to realize: they were probably very much like us today - just starting civilization from scratch. They have been asking the same questions we are looking into today. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where did the world/universe come from?

[Kompieter]

If you stay until the end of the video... who stops watching these before they end? They are fascinating from beginning to end and absolute gems. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and insights Jon.

[ayyylien]

Whenever I watch videos like this I start to feel emotional in a very profound and almost indescribable way. Like I just feel a deep sense of connection to all of humanity, and an appreciation for our shared roots, and for the ancestors we all descend from, who made myth, and art, and whose lineage survived so we could be here today. A deep sense of oneness really, for all of humanity across all of space and time. Just beautiful.

[vemuriyasaswini]

Its really interesting. In Hindu stories we believe the goddess (Mata) who was a Shaktiswarupini (who is the form of energy) existed in dormant state and was surrounded by Om (believed as the first sound of universe) and when Om requested Mata to wake up, seeing the vast nothingness around her she created 3 entities Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara who had to attain knowledge and once they were ready each was given a task to perform. Brahma was to create life, Vishnu was to help it sustain and thrive, Maheswara was to end it to continue the cycle. Brahma's creations were the Rishi's one of whom along with his wives gave rise to Suras, Asuras, Pakhu, Naga, Manushyas. Suras and Asuras had conflict of interest and later came to be known as Devas and Danavas respectively whom most people translate to Gods and Demons. According to Hindu Myths there is a difference between Good and Evil however all Suras(Gods) aren't Good and all Asuras(Demons) aren't bad. Either way, only after Suras were created is when humans came about. We have many instances when creation might cease to exist in our mythology however one of the three main entities Vishnu helps in sustaining us. One of such times is when Vishnu takes the form of a tortoise to save Earth and another time he takes the form of a wild bore to save Bhudevi (probably land but usually depicts the entire earth).

[jach]

In the Romanian creation myth, we have an Earth Diver(called not-kinsnman or the Devil) who brings out mud from the depth of the primordial sea at the behest of another being(called the kinsman or God) when said being appears out of nothing. I knew it was very old and shared by many peoples, but it's really great to hear more about it! Unfortunately we were christianized very early on so all of our mythology is coated in thick a layer of Christianity, but I always found it curious how this very obviously pagan story survived even tho it has some Christian influence because of the interpretation of the two beings as God and the Devil.

[Sammenluola]

The Finnic creation myth is a combination of the Earth Diver Myth (EDM) and the World Egg Myth (WEM), with the World Tree also present. The EDM survived in a more complete form among eastern Finnish tribes, as well as among Karelians, not to mention some of our eastern relatives further away; people like the Komi, Nenets, Khanty etc.

While the Kalevala is a historic book from the mid 19th century, the sacred runic poems it contains belong to a huge corpus of Finnic mythology, collected over the past four or five centuries. The original poems are sung in an octosyllabic meter.

[enjarichards]

There is an interesting creation myth from the many and varied beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. The lotus plant grows from a seed at the bottom of the water, shooting up until it hits the surface, then growing leaves which fan out and rest over the water. Some imaginative scribe saw this as a way that land could be formed from the water, a cosmic lotus seed that anchored the floating land spread out above.

[loricrane]

The older you get and the more you learn the more you see the basic pattern. Fascinating.

[umwha]

I think the earth diver myth may be counted as the single most primitive form of the ‘journey to the underworld’ archetype. Someone goes into a subnautical realm, questing, and retrieves his prize or treasure, and brings it back to the Normal world. From which his treasure brings a revolution or regeneration in some way. It’s the heroes journey at its very simplest .

[monstonegirl]

My daughter is Maori, we're a Kiwi family. I didn't even know much about the New Zealander creation story, so thank you for mentioning it! I always love it when our little country gets included :)

[theeddorian]

In Central California your "Earth Diver" pattern is recounted by several societies. In that version, three creatures are floating on a raft in the middle of a huge flood. One is Coyote, the next is Mud Turtle, I don't recall the third but I think it was a bird. A shining being comes down to the raft from the sky on a feather(?) rope. After a discussion with the raft's occupants it transpires that all three are heartily sick of the narrow confines of the raft. The shining being then suggests that one of them dive down and bring up some material from the surface beneath the flood. Coyote can't dive well, the bird can't at all, so mud turtle dives down and it is a long difficult dive. By the time he reaches the raft again, he has lost the entire load he started to the surface with. But the shining one takes out a small stone knife and scrapes beneath the mud turtle's nails and collect enough mud to make a small ball of mud. This is cast by the shining one out into the water creating the first dryland. A primal oak tree myth also circulated.

[algernoncalydon]

The Noah story is a good example of later writers not understanding what went on in the earlier story. Ravens were often taken on sea journeys in order to find land. If they let the raven out of the cage the raven flew up and if it didn't see any land, and being smarter than most other birds, would return to the boat. But if it saw land it would fly that direction. The sailors could then see which direction the raven flew, therefore knowing where there was land.
Noah released the raven but it only flew back and forth. People assume it was that the raven was bad and the dove found land and so doves are good. Assuming the raven failed and the dove succeeded. But the phrase is odd. The raven flew back and forth until the water receeded from the land. Like it's an incomplete story which has had a lot of info deleted. Later commentators just made up the additional parts of the story making it into black is bad, white is good type.

[wendychavez]

My first year in college, I took a course called: "Creative Writing: Mythology." For the final project, we each had to develop our own creation myth. Wow, I wish mine had been as well formed as the one you just told! I'm thrilled to have found this channel.

[HarantheBlue]

"Holy Diver, you've been down too long in the midnight sea"

- Dio

[crowolfe]

I absolutely love this research and commend you for your rigorous work. As an anthropologist, I often wish I could peer into the minds of our ancestors. I believe I catch little glimpses within your stories created from your hard work. Thanks for sharing this.

[majidbineshgar]

Your reference to "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" is interesting, I have always found Douglas Adams books fascinating, with latent underlying spiritual / philosophical revelations, he came up with the idea that dealing with current events/ phenomenae one should seek a holistic ( historic, rational, mythical, scientific ...) causality explanation . also all our universe with all living beings might be merely a giant super-computer designed by Gods / Archons/...mice ! to find the " ultimate answer ".

[eardwulf]

This was an incredible episode, I love it when variations of the same creation myths are retold by different cultures half a world away from each other. That's what's amazing and that's why this episode was super interesting.
Surely these ancient myths have been being told ever since humans started to try and make sense of the world and learned to communicate with each other.
Definitely one of your best Jon. I love having little eureka moments when you connect the dots.

[ske-pho]

As you were describing more and more on the earth diver motif, there was a thought I couldn’t shake. That everything that is, came from the deep. That land, life, everything was tilled from it like a farmer tills the land. Everything was tilled from nothing.

It made me think of why people would see it like this in early times. As they were surrounded by life, they saw that plants and “trees” came from the ground and as such people and other life did too. Then where did the land come from? From the deep. And where did the deep come from? From nothing. Or the void. Thus begs the question is who or what started tilling. What set it in motion? Gods, super beings, big bang, etc.