Two pages of endnotes describe brief origins for each story, including common cultural roots for a given concept. This hardback print edition includes a brief introductory page about creation and pourquoi tales. The stories abound with fanciful gods of human or animal form, and include artwork supportive of key ideas for each. These brief stories explain natural phenomena, such as why there are people of all colors, the origins of the sun, stars, and moon, and how knowledge of fire came about. Two pages o Pourquoi is a French word translated as why, and the author retells ten multicultural creation stories.
Pourquoi is a French word translated as why, and the author retells ten multicultural creation stories. Ra, the Shining Sun God - Egyptian story which tells us about the creation of people, why monkeys look like people and why the sun is in the sky, amongst other things.įeathered Snake and Huracan - Quiché Maya - It took the gods several tries to get people that were clever enough to worship them, but not so clever to see them as equals. Turtles seem to be particularly popular in creation stories. The Mud on Turtle's Back - Another pretty well known Native American (Iroquois/Huron) story of how the earth is created. I'm rather intrigued by the women who work the millstones although I tend to think they're more like the Norns than the Valkyries, which Mayo also mentions. It's all down to greed and a set of magic millstones apparently. The Magic Millstones - A Scandinavian tale about, of all things, why the sea is salty. Kookaburras become mother nature's alarm clock. The moon is created to make sure the night-owls of the animal world still get up on time. His descendants become the ravens we know today.Įmu and Eagle's Great Quarrel - An Aboriginal story about the sun being created from the golden yolk of the emu's egg, kicked out of the nest by the eagle after they bump into each other in the dark. Raven and the Pea-Pod Man - This Eskimo/Inuit legend places a raven as god and creator. They all willingly choose death so that they might have children. To do so, the god tells them that if they have children, they have to give up eternal life and one day die (or there would become too many people/tortoises/etc). Tortoise's Big Idea - A really sweet story, this one, in which tortoises and people (but not rocks) decide they want to have children. Maui and His Thousand Tricks - A Polynesian story in which the title character catches the sun to make daytime longer. I particularly liked how the fire was hidden in the tree - explaining why rubbing sticks together can make fire. This particular version involves Nyame - sky god of the Akan-Ashanti.Ĭatch It and Run - Animals steal the first fire from the gods.
The Girl Who Did Some Baking - Why do people come in different colours? It depends how long you leave them in the oven of course! This is a pretty popular concept in stories worldwide. I love mythology and folklore and few things give such an insight into a group of people as where they believe they came from and how they explain the world around them. A few I was aware of, but one or two were new to me, particularly The Magic Millstones. An interesting collection of stories about how the world/people/life etc came to be. The stories include: The Girl Who Did Some Baking - Why do people come in different colours? It depends how long you leave them in the oven of cour 3.5 stars.