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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 4 page review of the flood stories of these three distinct Native American cultures. The authr emphasizes that while there are distinct differences in detail, each of these stories share certain commonalities. Bibliography lists seven sources.
Page Count:
4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: AM2_PPnaFloodStories.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
a tremendous body of accounts of how the world and the life that it houses came to be. Flood stories are among those accounts. While there are distinct
differences, there are often many similarities between the flood stories of Native American cultures and other world cultures. There are also both similarities and differences between the Native American
cultures themselves. The flood stories of the Toltec, Mayan, and Navajo, for example, parallel one another in many respects yet they differ significantly in terms of details.
Toltec, Mayan, and Navajo flood stories are particularly similar in their symbolism. Native American stories as a whole, in fact, relay on a complexity
of symbolic systems to convey themes that are important to the culture in question (Tenfelde, 1993). These themes are, of course, largely consistent across cultures. It is just
the details that change. In the Toltec flood story, for example, both the sun and the earth are destroyed by a great flood. Most of the people miraculously
transformed into fish and only a handful of them survived, at least temporarily, in their human form (Leon-Portilla). Only two, Coxcox (variously called Teocipactli) and Xochiquetzal survived to repopulate
the earth (Leon-Portilla). In the Toltec version of the flood the gods had been angered by another gods transformation into the Sun and
creation of human beings. The flood was their retaliation. In the Mayan version the god Jesucristo brought the flood because the humans that then occupied the world (the
dwarf people called the Puzob) did not abide by custom like He expected (Horcasitas, 1953). Despite the Puzobs attempts to survive by sitting upon stones, they were destroyed (Horcasitas,
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