The Cultural Creation: A Study of the representation of Women in Creation Myths

Abstract World Creation myth or genesis myths explain the beginnings of human life. It is a fictional as well as symbolic account of synthesizing a community’s religious, cultural, and social ethos with the origin of the world. The narrative is fictitious, but it encapsulates cosmos with the cultural symbols. These myths seamlessly coalesce geographical realities and biological facts to create fantastical images and symbols that resonate with diverse meanings. The definitions of creation myths often reverberate with religious and cultural overtones. For instance, encyclopedia Britannica’s definition of the term associates it with religion,…philosophical and theological elaboration of the primal myth of creation within a religious community. The term myth here refers to the imaginative expression in narrative form of what is experienced or apprehended as basic reality (“Long”) The above definition links creation myth to monotheistic religions especially with Christian theology and the Bible. The Bible refers to many incidents that narrate the origin. Though, “The Book of Genesis” describes how God created the heaven and the earth, other accounts like “The Tower of Babel”, “Cain and Abel” and “Noah and the flood” indicate different aspects of creation. The holy book implies that the earth is far inferior a place populated by sinned creatures because of transgressing god’s will. Creation myth in The Bible creates two worlds, the first one is for the obedient and pious beings and the second for the cursed humans. The scope of this definition is limited to religious element. But Mary Womack, an anthropologist, expands its scope beyond religion and traces its to roots to oral literature in its genesis.