{In this piece, I attempted to write a creation
myth for a civilization with an undisclosed name and setting. I was inspired by the stories we have been
reading in my Greek Mythology class, but realized how difficult the task would
be as soon as I began.}
We
were a people founded on the ideal that one’s worth is determined by his
capacity to create. Before the land came
to be inhabited by flora and fauna, the earth was a tumultuous mass of raw
material—a disorderly amalgamation of the elements floating through a void
without direction. Observing this
disarray were spirits intent on giving it form.
The first artisans, their medium was chaos, their product the
functioning world we inhabit.
The
artisans’ work was purely kinetic and ever changing. Once they linked the elements into a solid
mass, they sculpted its surface to display a multitude of landscapes and
painted them with the purest of colors. But
once it was shaped, they did not leave the world to sit motionless in space. The earth would be as futile stagnant as it was
when drifting through nothingness in fragments. The artisans infused the world with a life
force, a spirit. It breathed and changed
face with the seasons, which the artisans created to institute change
periodically. Then the artisans released
rain, wind, and fire into the world to further enforce that cycle.
Satisfied
with their work, they wished to share it.
The artisans crafted the animals and lowered them to the earth in the
palms of their hands. Beasts and all
things that crawled, slithered, or flew inhabited the environment that was most
suitable for their nature. While such
creatures were beautiful, their mental capacity was limited and they were
oblivious to how they emerged on the earth and who placed them there. The artisans were egotistical and wanted
recognition from cognizant beings other than themselves.
Humans
descended to the earth in the manner of the animals, but we were imbued with
the same ability to reason and to create possessed by the artisans. Our potential was limited compared to the
artisans, however, because our creators had considered the risks of making
people as powerful as themselves. Such
action could threaten their proficiency in regulating the cosmos and cause the
world to return to its previous state of unrestrained chaos. For the moment there was balance.
When
we were first lowered into the atmosphere, we did not forget to look up to
where we came from and smile with appreciation.
We were grateful. As a sign of our
gratitude, we resolved to emulate those that gave us life. Around us was a seemingly infinite supply of
resources with which to create, but we used only enough materials to hone our
skills and please our inventive predecessors.
Naturally humans were an omnivorous species that needed to ingest
considerable amounts of meat and plant matter to survive, but what we consumed we
tried to match with what we produced.
All for the sake of balance. In
the beginning, this ideal was at the forefront of our minds. All for the sake of balance.
As
our civilization became more structured we appointed leaders—the older, more
wise among us—to overlook daily proceedings.
They in turn assigned roles to each member of society based on the
skills they exhibited. While the
refinement of our society required the performance of particular tasks to
ensure stability, each citizen was expected to devote a sufficient sum of their
time to producing art.
Some
collected the ashes from our fires, mixed them with water, and smeared the
solution on the walls of our caves, depicting our origin and the events of
everyday life. Similar themes were
painted on the interior and exterior of shelters as our laborers experimented
with building materials. Some fashioned
string from animal hair and reeds and affixed the bones of their prey into
organic jewelry. Some molded mud into
storage vessels and struck rock with denser stones to carve sculptures from the
surfaces. Some were more inclined to
craft stories with their voice, weaving tales of how the world came to be and how
we spawned from the artisans. These were ways in which we explored our identity,
and they were ideal forms of expression when the whole of our people lived in
close quarters.
Eventually
people began to measure their work against others, and competition arose to
decide which form of art was more practical, more in tune with who we were. We placed more emphasis on outshining our
peers than pleasing the artisans, and lost sight of our origin. Disagreement became so severe that our people
split into factions and established new governing bodies within each. The elders’ influence deteriorated until
several of these groups split from the community entirely, venturing off into
distant lands to find new homesteads and begin anew. Who is to say when the artisans will
intercede to unite our people as they did the physical world?
