Friday, January 22, 2010
Thompson's creation of the World
Lucy Thompson's story of the creation of the world was very interesting in that God created man and woman pure, but also created sin. Why would God just create the experience of sin as it happened with the snake? In comparison to my own religious ideology, sin was just brought upon to them, not something made from the humans or another naturally sinful thing. There seems to be no purpose of the creation of people other than to "marry and bring forth children" (71). This sparks interesting thoughts of indigenous living. Did they know what they served for as individuals of a simple world?
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It seems to me that Thompson's creation story is incredibly similar to that of Christian ideology. If God created man and woman, and he is an omniscient being, then he would have known that they would have ultimately succumb to sin. I think Thompson's story is really no different than the Christian view of sin and creation.
ReplyDeleteI understand the difference that you see in the two stories and think that it is interesting to consider how that affected the way that they viewed themselves in terms of their purpose, identity, and whatnot. It seems to me that in the Christian creation story God created sin by creating beings capable of sinning. I don't know that if by saying that God created sin explicitly as in this creation story it is somehow condoning it. The same ideas about redemption and forgiveness can exist under these conditions. It is also interesting to consider why the two stories are so similar.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it seems as though the Indigenous creation story as portrayed by Thompson, greatly reflects that of the creation story told through Christianity. This notion raises question about the Christian influence that the story was exposed to during its publishing. For example, it would be interesting to compare Thompson's creation story to that of older Indigenous creation stories such as the "Popol Vuh", and look at not only the content of the story but also the amount of Christian influence in their communities at the time.
ReplyDeleteHow do we know that Thompson is telling the real Yurok creation story?
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