Deluge myth

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"The Deluge", frontispiece to Gustave Doré's illustrated edition of the Bible. Based on the story of Noah's Ark, this shows humans and a tiger doomed by the flood futilely attempting to save their children and cubs.

"The Deluge", from the second bay of the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo

"The Deluge", by John Martin, 1834. Oil in canvas. Yale University

A deluge myth or flood myth is a mythical story of a great flood sent by a deity or deities to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution. It is a theme widespread among many cultures, though it is perhaps best known in modern times through the biblical account of Noah's Ark, the Hindu Puranic story of Manu, through Deucalion in Greek mythology or Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

[edit] Flood myths in various cultures

[edit] Ancient Near East

Fertile Crescent myth series
Mesopotamia
Levantine myth
Arabian myth
Yazidic religion
Mesopotamian mythology Topics
Gods Anunna & 7 who decree fate Enki & Mes Tiamat & Tablets of destiny Marduk & fiction Heroes Utnapishtim & world-flood Tammuz & Ishtar Gilgamesh & Cedar forest Enkidu, the man-beast Monsters Zu, the winged lion Qingu, mankind's blood Asag, plague and war Namtar, deadly illness Related Mesopotamian religion Sumerian religion Babylonian religion The Fertile Crescent

[edit] Sumerian

The earliest extant flood legend is contained in the fragmentary Sumerian Eridu Genesis, datable by its script to the 17th century BCE.^{[citation needed]} The story tells how the god Enki warns Ziusudra (meaning "he saw life," in reference to the gift of immortality given him by the gods), of the gods' decision to destroy mankind in a flood—the passage describing why the gods have decided this is lost. Enki instructs Ziusudra (also known as Atrahasis) to build a large boat—the text describing the instructions is also lost. After which he is left to repopulate the earth, as in many other flood legends.

After a flood of seven days, Zi-ud-sura makes appropriate sacrifices and prostrations to An (sky-god) and Enlil (chief of the gods), and is given eternal life in Dilmun (the Sumerian Eden) by An and Enlil.

[edit] Babylonian (Epic of Gilgamesh)

The "Deluge tablet" (tablet 11) of the Epic of Gilgamesh in Akkadian.

In the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, toward the end of the He who saw the deep version by Sin-liqe-unninni, there are references to the great flood (tablet 11). This was a late addition to the Gilgamesh cycle, largely paraphrased or copied verbatim from the Epic of Atrahasis^{[citation needed]} (see above).

The hero Gilgamesh, seeking immortality, searches out Utnapishtim in Dilmun, a kind of paradise on earth. Utnapishtim tells how Ea (equivalent of the Sumerian Enki) warned him of the gods' plan to destroy all life through a great flood and instructed him to build a vessel in which he could save his family, his friends, and his wealth and cattle. After the Deluge the gods repented their action and made Utnapishtim immortal.

[edit] Jewish

The best-known version of the Jewish deluge legend is contained in the Book of Genesis (Genesis 6–9). Its date of writing is unknown, somewhere between 1450BC and 450BC. Two non-canonical books, the Enoch and Jubilees, both later than Genesis, contain elaborations on the Genesis story.

Genesis tells how "...the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and was grieved in His heart. So the Lord said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am grieved that I have made them.'"^[1]

God selects Noah, a man who "found favor in the eyes of the Lord"^[2] and commands him to build an ark^[3] to save Noah, his family, and the Earth's animals and birds. After Noah builds the ark, "all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened"^[4]. Rain falls for 40 days, the water rises 150 days, and all the high mountains are covered.^[5] On the 27th of Cheshvan of the year 1657 from Creation, "the earth dried" (Genesis 8:14) completing the 365-day duration of the Great Flood. The ark rests on the mountains, the water recedes for 150 days, until the waters are gone and Noah opens up the ark. At this point Noah sends out a raven and then a dove to see if the flood waters have receded. Noah and the animals leave the ark, Noah offers a sacrifice to God, and God places a rainbow in the clouds as a sign that he will never again destroy the Earth by water.

The apocryphal 2nd century BCE 1st Book of Enoch adds to the Genesis flood story by saying that God sent the Great Flood to rid the earth of the Nephilim, the titanic children of the Grigori, the "sons of God" mentioned in Genesis, and of human females. The book of Jubilees is an elaboration of the Genesis account obsessed with chronology (it promotes the idea that history is based on a 49-year cycle, the biblical "jubilee".)

[edit] Islamic

The Quran tells a story similar to the Judeo-Christian Genesis flood story, the major differences being that only Noah and few believers from the laity enter the ark. Noah's son (one of four) and his wife refused to enter the ark thinking they will manage the flood by themselves. The Quranic ark comes to rest on Mount Judi, traditionally identified with a mountain near Mosul in modern Iraq; the name appears to derive from the local name of the Kurdish people, although this is not certain.

[edit] Asia-Pacific

[edit] China

There are many sources of flood legends in ancient Chinese literature. Some appear to refer to a worldwide deluge but most versions record only a regional flood - a number of them have a theme of men taming floods caused by hostile nature gods, some based on historical events.^[6]

• Shujing, or "Book of History", probably written around 500 BCE or earlier, states in the opening chapters that Emperor Yao is facing the problem of flood waters that "reach to the Heavens". This is the backdrop for the intervention of the famous Da Yu, who succeeded in controlling the floods. He went on to found the first Chinese dynasty.^[7] The translator of the 1904 edition dated the Chinese deluge to 2348 BCE, calculating that this was the same year as the biblical flood^[8]. In fact, it is considered by many historians that the Mideast flood legend (including the biblical flood) was erroneously linked to a flood mentioned in the Sumerian king list, which was actually dated to 2900 BCE.

• Shanhaijing, "Classic of the Mountain & Seas", ends with the Chinese ruler Da Yu spending ten years to control a deluge whose "floodwaters overflowed [to] heaven".^[9]

• Chuci, Liezi, Huainanzi, Shuowen Jiezi, Siku Quanshu, Songsi Dashu, and others, as well as many folk legends, all contain references to a woman named Nüwa. Nüwa repairs the broken heavens after a great flood or calamity, and repopulates the world with people. There are many versions of this legend.^[10]

The ancient Chinese civilization concentrated at the bank of Yellow River near present day Xian also believed that the severe flooding along the river bank was caused by dragons (representing gods) living in the river being angered by the mistakes of the people.

[edit] Lao (Indochina)

Legend of Khun Borom.

[edit] India

Incarnation of Vishnu as a Fish, from a devotional text.

Matsya (Fish in Sanskrit) was the first Avatara of Vishnu.

According to the Matsya Purana and Shatapatha Brahmana (I-8, 1-6), the mantri to the king of pre-ancient Dravida, Satyavata who later becomes known as Manu was washing his hands in a river when a little fish swam into his hands and begged him to save its life. He put it in a jar, which it soon outgrew; he successively moved it to a tank, a river and then the ocean. The fish then warned him that a deluge would occur in a week that would destroy all life. Manu therefore built a boat which the fish towed to a mountaintop when the flood came, and thus he survived along with some "seeds of life" to re-establish life on earth. Hindu religious tradition holds the Bhagavata Purana to be one of the works of Vyasa written at the beginning of Kali Yuga (about c.3100 BCE).

[edit] Andaman Islands

In legends of the aboriginal tribes inhabiting the Andaman Islands people became remiss of the commands given to them at the creation. Puluga, the god creator, ceased to visit them and then without further warning sent a devastating flood. Only four people survived this flood: two men, Loralola and Poilola, and two women, Kalola and Rimalola. When they landed they found they had lost their fire and all living things had perished. Puluga then recreated the animals and plants but does not seem to have given any further instructions, nor did he return the fire to the survivors^[11].

[edit] Indonesia

In Batak traditions, the earth rests on a giant snake, Naga-Padoha. One day, the snake tired of its burden and shook the Earth off into the sea. However, the God Batara-Guru saved his daughter by sending a mountain into the sea, and the entire human race descended from her. The Earth was later placed back onto the head of the snake.

[edit] Australia

According to some Aboriginal Australians, in the Dreamtime a huge frog drank all the water in the world and a drought swept across the land. (Tidalik — this story originates from the Murray-Darling riverina of New South Wales and Victoria. The Murray-Darling frequently experiences drought-flood cycles lasting up to years at a time, linked to El Niño/La Niña events in the Pacific) The only way to finish the drought was to make the frog laugh. Animals from all over Australia gathered together and one by one attempted to make the frog laugh. When finally the eel succeeded, the frog opened his sleepy eyes, his big body quivered, his face relaxed, and, at last, he burst into a laugh that sounded like rolling thunder. The water poured from his mouth in a flood. It filled the deepest rivers and covered the land. Only the highest mountain peaks were visible, like islands in the sea. Many men and animals were drowned. The pelican who was blackfella at that time painted himself with white clay and went from island to island in a great canoe, rescuing other blackfellas. Since that time pelicans have been black and white in remembrance of the Great Flood^[12].

[edit] New Zealand

In a tradition of the Ngati Porou, a Māori tribe of the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, Ruatapu became angry when his father Uenuku elevated his younger half-brother Kahutia-te-rangi ahead of him. Ruatapu lured Kahutia-te-rangi and a large number of young men of high birth into his canoe, and took them out to sea where he drowned them. He called on the gods to destroy his enemies and threatened to return as the great waves of early summer. As he struggled for his life, Kahutia-te-rangi recited an incantation invoking the southern humpback whales (paikea in Māori) to carry him ashore. Accordingly, he was renamed Paikea, and was the only survivor (Reedy 1997:83-85).

Some versions of the Māori story of Tawhaki contain episodes where the hero causes a flood to destroy the village of his two jealous brothers-in-law. A comment in Grey's Polynesian Mythology may have given the Māori something they did not have before — as A.W Reed put it, "In Polynesian Mythology Grey said that when Tawhaki's ancestors released the floods of heaven, the earth was overwhelmed and all human beings perished — thus providing the Māori with his own version of the universal flood" (Reed 1963:165, in a footnote). Christian influence has led to the appearance of genealogies where Tawhaki's grandfather Hema is reinterpreted as Shem, son of Noah of the biblical deluge.

[edit] Malaysia

According to the legend of the Temuan, one of the 18 indigenous tribes of peninsular Malaysia, the "celau" (storm of punishment) is for the sin of the people who angered the gods and ancestors so much that a great flood was sent in punishment. Only two of the Temuan tribes, Mamak and Inak Bungsuk, survived the flood by climbing the Eaglewood tree at "Gunung Raja" (Royal Mountain), which thereafter became the birth place and ancestral home of the Temuan tribe.

[edit] Europe

[edit] Greek

Greek mythology knows three floods. The flood of Ogyges, the flood of Deucalion and the flood of Dardanus, two of which ended two Ages of Man: the Ogygian Deluge ended the Silver Age, and the flood of Deucalion ended the First Bronze Age.

[edit] Ogyges

The Ogygian flood is so called because it occurred in the time of Ogyges,^[13] a mythical king of Attica. Ogyges is somewhat synonymous with "primeval", "primal" and "earliest dawn". Others say he was the founder and king of Thebes. In many traditions the Ogygian flood is said to have covered the whole world and was so devastating that Attica remained without kings until the reign of Cecrops.^[14]

Plato in his Laws, Book III, estimates that this flood occurred 10,000 years before his time. Also in Timaeus (22) and in Critias (111-112) he describes the "great deluge of all" happening 9,000 years before the time of Solon, during the 10th millennium BCE. In addition, the texts report that "many great deluges have taken place during the nine thousand years" since Athens and Atlantis were preeminent.^[15]

Map of eastern Mediterranean and Greece during 10,000 BCE.

The theory of the flood in the Aegean Basin proposes that a great flood occurred at the end of the Late Pleistocene or beginning of the Holocene. The Holocene is a geological period that began approximately 11,550 calendar years BP (or about 9600 BCE) and continues to the present. This flood would coincide with the end of the last ice age, estimated at approximately 10,000 years ago, when the sea level rose as much as 130 metres, particularly during Meltwater pulse 1A when sea level rose by about 25 metres in some parts of the northern hemisphere over a period of less than 500 years.^[16]

The map on the right shows how the region would look about 12,000 years ago, or 10,000 BCE, when the sea level would have been 125 meters lower than today. The Peloponnese was connected to the mainland and the Corinthian Gulf was not formed. Islands around Attica, such as Aegina, Salamis and Euboea, were part of the mainland. The Cyclades formed a big island known as Aegeis, while the Bosporus and Hellespont were not formed yet.

These geological findings support the hypothesis that the Ogygian Deluge may well be based on a real event.

[edit] Deucalion

The Deucalion legend as told by Apollodorus in The Library has some similarity to Noah's Ark: Prometheus advised his son Deucalion to build a chest. All other men perished except for a few who escaped to high mountains. The mountains in Thessaly were parted, and all the world beyond the Isthmus and Peloponnese was overwhelmed. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, after floating in the chest for nine days and nights, landed on Parnassus. An older version of the story told by Hellanicus has Deucalion's "ark" landing on Mount Othrys in Thessaly. Another account has him landing on a peak, probably Phouka, in Argolis, later called Nemea. When the rains ceased, he sacrificed to Zeus. Then, at the bidding of Zeus, he threw stones behind him, and they became men, and the stones which Pyrrha threw became women. Appollodorus gives this as an etymology for Greek Laos "people" as derived from laas "stone". The Megarians told that Megarus, son of Zeus, escaped Deucalion's flood by swimming to the top of Mount Gerania, guided by the cries of cranes.

[edit] Dardanus

This one has the same basic story line. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dardanus left Pheneus in Arcadia to colonize a land in the North-East Aegean Sea. When the Dardanus' deluge occurred, the land was flooded and the mountain on which he and his family survived, formed the island of Samothrace. He left Samothrace on an inflated skin to the opposite shores of Asia Minor and settled at the foot of Mount Ida. Due to the fear of another flood they didn't build a city, but lived in the open for fifty years. His grandson Tros eventually built a city, which was named Troy after him.

[edit] From The Theogony of Apollodorus

This one has the same basic story line as Deucalion. Prometheus moulded men out of water and earth and gave them also fire, which, unknown to Zeus, he had hidden in a stalk of fennel. But when Zeus learned of it, he ordered Hephaestus to nail his body to Mount Caucasus, which is a Scythian mountain. On it Prometheus was nailed and kept bound for many years. Every day an eagle swooped on him and devoured the lobes of his liver, which grew by night. That was the penalty that Prometheus paid for the theft of fire until Hercules afterwards released him.

And Prometheus had a son Deucalion. He reigning in the regions about Phthia, married Pyrrha, the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, the first woman fashioned by the gods. And when Zeus would destroy the men of the Bronze Age, Deucalion by the advice of Prometheus constructed a chest, and having stored it with provisions he embarked in it with Pyrrha. But Zeus by pouring heavy rain from heaven flooded the greater part of Greece, so that all men were destroyed, except a few who fled to the high mountains in the neighbourhood and Peloponnesus was overwhelmed. But Deucalion, floating in the chest over the sea for nine days and as many nights, drifted to Parnassus, and there, when the rain ceased, he landed and sacrificed to Zeus, the god of Escape. And Zeus sent Hermes to him and allowed him to choose what he would, and he chose to get men.

And at the bidding of Zeus he took up stones and threw them over his head, and the stones which Deucalion threw became men, and the stones which Pyrrha threw became women. Hence people were called metaphorically people (Laos) from laas, "a stone." And Deucalion had children by Pyrrha, first Hellen, whose father some say was Zeus, and second Amphictyon, who reigned over Attica after Cranaus, and third a daughter Protogonia, who became the mother of Aethlius by Zeus. Hellen had Dorus, Xuthus, and Aeolus by a nymph Orseis. Those who were called Greeks he named Hellenes after himself, and divided the country among his sons. Xuthus received Peloponnese and begat Achaeus and Ion by Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, and from Achaeus and Ion the Achaeans and lonians derive their names. Dorus received the country over against Peloponnese and called the settlers Dorians after himself.

Aeolus reigned over the regions about Thessaly and named the inhabitants Aeolians. He married Enarete, daughter of Deimachus, and begat seven sons, Cretheus, Sisyphus, Athamas, Salmoneus, Deion, Magnes, Perieres, and five daughters, Canace, Alcyone, Pisidice, Calyce, Perimede. Perimede had Hippodamas and Orestes by Achelous; and Pisidice had Antiphus and Actor by Myrmidon. Alcyone was married by Ceyx, son of Lucifer. These perished by reason of their pride, for he said that his wife was Hera, and she said that her husband was Zeus. But Zeus turned them into birds; her he made a kingfisher (alcyon) and him a gannet (ceyx).

[edit] Germanic

In Norse mythology, there are two separate deluges. According to the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson, the first occurred at the dawn of time before the world was formed. Ymir, the first giant, was killed by the god Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve, and when he fell, so much blood flowed from his wounds that it drowned almost the entire race of giants with the exception of the frost giant Bergelmir and his wife. They escaped in a ship and survived, becoming the progenitors of a new race of giants. Ymir's body was then used to form the earth while his blood became the sea.

The second, in the Norse mythological time cycle, is destined to occur in the future during the final battle between the gods and giants, known as Ragnarök. During this apocalyptic event, Jormungandr, the great World Serpent that lies beneath the sea surrounding Midgard, the realm of mortals, will rise up from the watery depths to join the conflict, resulting in a catastrophic flood that will drown the land. However, following Ragnarök the earth will be reborn and a new age of humanity will begin.

The mythologist Brian Branston noted the similarities between this legend and an incident described in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, which had traditionally been associated with the biblical flood, so there may have been a corresponding incident in the broader Germanic mythology as well as in Anglo-Saxon mythology.

[edit] Irish

According to the apocryphal history of Ireland Lebor Gabála Érenn, the first inhabitants of Ireland led by Noah's granddaughter Cessair were all except one wiped out by a flood 40 days after reaching the island. Later, after Partholon's and Nemed's people reached the island, another flood rose and killed all but thirty of the inhabitants, who scattered across the world. As it was Christian monks who first wrote the story down^{[citation needed]} (it had previously been oral tradition), it is likely that references to the Biblical Noah were inserted into the story, in an attempt to Christianise it.

[edit] Finnish

In the Kalevala rune entitled "Haava" (The Wound, section 8),^[17] Väinämöinen attempts a heroic feat that results in a gushing wound, the blood from which covers the entire earth. This deluge is not emphasized in the Kalevala version redacted by Elias Lönnrot, but the global quality of the flood is evident in original variants of the rune. In one variant collected in Northern Ostrobothnia in 1803/04, the rune tells:

The blood came forth like a flood
the gore ran like a river:
there was no hummock
and no high mountain
that was not flooded
all from Väinämöinen's toe
from the holy hero's knee.^[18]

In the analysis by Matti Kuusi, he notes that the rune's motifs of constructing a boat, a wound, and a flood have parallels with flood legends from around the world.^[19]

[edit] North America

Nanabozho in Ojibwe flood story from an illustration by R.C. Armour, in his book North American Indian Fairy Tales, Folklore and Legends, (1905).

[edit] Menominee

In Menominee mythology, Manabus, the trickster, "fired by his lust for revenge" shot two underground gods when the gods were at play. When they all dived into the water, a huge flood arose. "The water rose up .... It knew very well where Manabus had gone." He runs, he runs; but the water, coming from Lake Michigan, chases him faster and faster, even as he runs up a mountain and climbs to the top of the lofty pine at its peak. Four times he begs the tree to grow just a little more, and four times it obliges until it can grow no more. But the water keeps climbing "up, up, right to his chin, and there it stopped": there was nothing but water stretching out to the horizon. And then Manabus, helped by diving animals, and especially the bravest of all, the Muskrat, creates the world as we know it today.

[edit] Mi'kmaq

In Mi'kmaq mythology, evil and wickedness among men causes them to kill each other. This causes great sorrow to the creator-sun-god, who weeps tears that become rains sufficient to trigger a deluge. The people attempt to survive by traveling in bark canoes, but only a single old man and woman survive to populate the earth.^[20]

[edit] Caddo

In Caddo mythology, four monsters grew in size and power until they touched the sky. At that time, a man heard a voice telling him to plant a hollow reed. He did so, and the reed grew very big very quickly. The man entered the reed with his wife and pairs of all good animals. Waters rose, and covered everything but the top of the reed and the heads of the monsters. A turtle then killed the monsters by digging under them and uprooting them. The waters subsided, and winds dried the earth.

[edit] Hopi

In Hopi mythology, the people moved away from Sotuknang, the creator, repeatedly. He destroyed the world by fire, and then by cold, and recreated it both times for the people that still followed the laws of creation, who survived by hiding underground. People became corrupt and warlike a third time. As a result, Sotuknang guided the people to Spider Woman, and she cut down giant reeds and sheltered the people in the hollow stems. Sotuknang then caused a great flood, and the people floated atop the water in their reeds. The reeds came to rest on a small piece of land, and the people emerged, with as much food as they started with. The people traveled on in their canoes, guided by their inner wisdom (which is said to come from Sotuknang, through the door at the top of their head). They travelled to the northeast, passing progressively larger islands, until they came to the Fourth World. When they reached the fourth world, the islands sank into the ocean.

[edit] Mesoamerica

A large number of flood myths are known from Mesoamerica, some clearly have Christian influence, but others are believed by scholars to represent native flood myths of precolumbian origin.^[21] One myth documented among the Tlapanec and Huaxtecs has a man and his dog as the sole survivors of the deluge, but the man finds out that the dog takes the shape of a woman during the day when he is away - the man and the dogwoman then repopulates the earth. Another myth found among the Aztec and Totonac peoples relate how a human couple survive by hiding in a hollow vessel and start to cook a fish when the water subsides - when the smoke reaches the heaven the gods become angry and punish them by turning them into dogs or monkeys depending on the version.

In Maya mythology as expressed in the Popol Vuh the creator gods attempted to create creatures who would worship them three times before finally succeeding in creating a race of humans that would pay proper homage to their creatores. The three previous creations were destroyed. The third race of humans carved from wood were destroyed by a flood, mauled by wild animals and smashed by their own tools and utensils.^[22][23] Maya flood myths recorded by Diego de Landa and in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel holds that the only survivors of the flood were the four Bacabs who took their places as upholders of the four corners of the sky.^[24]

In Mesoamerican myth a variety of reasons are given for the occurrence of the flood: either the world was simply very old and needed to be renewed, or the humans had neglected their duty to adore the gods, or they were punished for a transgression for example cannibalism. Many of the modern myths included obviously Christian references such as the murder of Abel by Cain as the reason. In Mesoamerican myth the flood was but one of several destructions of the creation - usually the first of three or four such cataclysmic events, although there is some evidence that the Aztecs considered the flood to be the fourth of them. A large number of Mesoamerican flood myths, especially recorded among the Nahua (Aztec) peoples tell that there were no survivors of the flood and creation had to start from scratch, while other accounts relate that current humans are descended from a small number of survivors, in some accounts the survivors transgress against the gods by lighting a fire, and consequently are turned into animals. Horcasitas acknowledges that the dog-wife tale and the tale of transgression by fire and subsequent turning into animals of the flood survivors may be of precolumbian origin.^[25]

[edit] South America

[edit] Inca

In Inca mythology, Viracocha destroyed the giants with a Great Flood, and two people repopulated the earth. Uniquely, they survived in sealed caves. See Unu Pachakuti.

[edit] Mapuche

In Mapuche mythology, the Legend of Trentren Vilu and Caicai Vilu says that a battle between two mythical serpents provoked a Great Flood; and subsequently created the Mapuche world as we know it today.

[edit] Polynesian

Several different flood stories are recorded among the Polynesians. None of them approaches the scale of the Biblical flood.

The people of Ra'iatea tell of two friends, Te-aho-aroa and Ro'o, who went fishing and accidentally woke the ocean god Ruahatu with their fish hooks. Angered, he vowed to sink Ra'iatea below the sea. Te-aho-aroa and Ro'o begged for forgiveness, and Ruahatu warned them that they could escape only by bringing their families to the islet of Toamarama. These set sail, and during the night, the island slipped under the ocean, only to rise again the next morning. Nothing survived except for these families, who erected sacred marae (temples) dedicated to the god Ruahatu.

A similar legend is found on Tahiti. No reason for the tragedy is given, but the whole island sank beneath the sea except for Mount Pitohiti. One human couple managed to flee there with their animals and survived.

In Hawaii, a human couple, Nu'u and Lili-noe, survived a flood on top of Mauna Kea on the Big Island. Nu'u made sacrifices to the moon, to whom he mistakenly attributed his safety. Kane, the creator god, descended to earth on a rainbow, explained Nu'u's mistake, and accepted his sacrifice.

In the Marquesas, the great war god Tu was angered by critical remarks made by his sister Hii-hia. His tears tore through heaven's floor to the world below and created a torrent of rain carrying everything in its path. Only six people survived.

[edit] Hypotheses of origin of flood legends

The publication of The First Fossil Hunters by Adrienne Mayor, followed by Fossil Legends of the First Americans, have caused the hypothesis that flood stories have been inspired by ancient observations of seashells and fish inland and on mountains to gain ground. Though the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, and Chinese all commented in ancient writings about seashells and fish that they found inland and in the mountains, it was Leonardo da Vinci who postulated that an immediate deluge could not have caused the layered and neatly-ordered strata he found in the Italian Apennines. The Greeks hypothesized that Earth had been covered by water several times, and noted the seashells and fish fossils found on mountain tops as the evidence for this belief. Native Americans also expressed this belief to early Europeans, though they had not written these ideas down previously.^{[citation needed]}

Some geologists believe that quite dramatic, greater-than-normal flooding of rivers in the distant past might have influenced the legends. One of the latest, and quite controversial, hypotheses of this type is the Ryan-Pitman Theory, which argues for a catastrophic deluge about 5600 BCE from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea. This has been the subject of considerable discussion, and a news article from National Geographic News in February 2009 reported that the flooding might have been "quite mild".^[26]

There has also been speculation that a large tsunami in the Mediterranean Sea caused by the Thera eruption, dated ca. 1630–1600 BCE geologically, was the historical basis for folklore that evolved into the Deucalion myth. However, the tsunami hit the South Aegean Sea and Crete; it did not affect cities in the mainland of Greece such as Mycenae, Athens, and Thebes which continued to prosper, therefore it had a local rather than a regionwide effect^[27].

Another theory is that a meteor or comet crashed into the Indian Ocean in prehistoric times around 2800-3000 BCE, created the 30 kilometres (19 mi) undersea Burckle Crater and generated a giant tsunami that flooded coastal lands.^[28]

It has been postulated that the Deluge myth may be based on the sudden rise in sea levels caused by the sudden draining of prehistoric Lake Agassiz at the end of the last Ice Age, roughly 8,400 years before the present.^[29]

[edit] Biblical deluge

[edit] Flood geology

Proponents of flood geology contend that the biblical deluge, Noah's ark, is to be taken literally in which most observed geological processes (like fossilization and sedimentary strata) are a later result of this event.

While some people hold the belief there was a worldwide flood, flood geology itself has been rejected by mainstream geologists, biologists, and historians, most of whom consider it pseudoscience.^[30] Though at one time even prominent workers in biblical archaeology were willing to argue support for flood geology,^[31][32] this view is no longer widely held.^[33]

[edit] Sumerian king list flood

The Sumerian king list mentions a flood which divides older, possibly mythic kingships from more recent and possibly historic kingships in Sumer. In the 1920s, archaeologists associated this historic flood with a layer of riverine deposits which interrupted Sumerian settlements over a wide area of southern Mesopotamia. This led to speculation at the time that the flood mentioned in Noah's ark had been found, by trying to connect the Ancient Near East flood legend (beginning with the Sumerian Eridu Genesis and continuing with the later Atra-Hasis legend, the Utnapishtim episode in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Noah's Ark) with this historic flood. However, there is no evidence that the flood legend in the Eridu Genesis was the same as the historic flood mentioned in the king list, or that the Sumerians themselves ever linked them together.

[edit] Popular culture

As a well-known part of Genesis the flood myth has appeared in various films and stories. A notable example is Robert A. Heinlein's Lost Legacy, which combines a worldwide flood with the sinking of the Lost Continents of Atlantis and Mu. A recent example is the 2009 film "2012" by Roland Emmerich who portraits a worldwide flood and crust shift that only a selected group survives using specially-built modern arks. Expeditions searching for Noah's ark on Mount Ararat have been filmed and shown on television. In Orson Scott Card's sci-fi book Pastwatch a character uses a machine to look into the past and see the moment rising sea levels led to the sudden flooding of the Red Sea, which was a lowland pasture until the ocean crumbled the narrow isthmus and let the waters from the Gulf of Aden coming pouring in.

[edit] See also

Religion portal

[edit] References

[edit] Other

• Alan Dundes (editor), The Flood Myth, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988. ISBN 0-520-05973-5 / 0520059735
• Lloyd R. Bailey. Noah, the Person and the Story, University of South Carolina Press, 1989, ISBN 0-87249-637-6
• John Greenway (editor), The Primitive Reader, Folkways, 1965
• G. Grey, Polynesian Mythology, Illustrated edition, reprinted 1976. (Whitcombe and Tombs: Christchurch), 1956.
• A.W. Reed, Treasury of Maori Folklore (A.H. & A.W. Reed:Wellington), 1963.
• Anaru Reedy (translator), Nga Korero a Pita Kapiti: The Teachings of Pita Kapiti. Canterbury University Press: Christchurch, 1997.
• W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, Eisenbrauns, 1999, ISBN 1-57506-039-6.
• Faulkes, Anthony (transl.) (1987). Edda (Snorri Sturluson). Everyman. ISBN 0-460-87616-3.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Deluge (mythology)

• The Great Flood All texts (Eridu Genesis, Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, Bible, Berossus), commentary, and a table with parallels
• Mark Isaak (1996-2002). "Flood stories from around the world". http://home.earthlink.net/~misaak/floods.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-27. 

  "Mirror from September 2002". http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html. Retrieved 2007-06-27. 

• Ballard & The Black Sea National Geographic
• Flood Legends from Around the World
• The Flood myth as preserved by the Uru-Muratos of Bolivia's Altiplano.
• http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html