Iroquois essays

Iroquois essays Theories of literature demand the reader separate the author from the story. Millions of students engrain the mantra of the author is not a character in the novel into their memory or risk failing the most basic of English courses. While the author may not directly play a role in the novel, he does create a picture of a certain time and culture Therefore literature represents culture, especially in folklore and religious stories. This is true in the case of the creation myth; what a person believes about his creation provides insight to his cultural and personal beliefs. Comparing and contrasting the creation stories of the worlds three main religions with the creation myth of the Iroquois nation illustrates this link between culture and creation of a society. Within the stories of creation the reader gains insight to the use of symbolism in everyday life, the role of gender within society, religion as well as human relations with the earth itself. The similarities in the creation stories of several cultures can be attributed to the fact that the Judeo-Christian and Islamic versions of the creation are one in the same. The Quran does not retell the creation story; rather it makes comments and corrections on the previous Judeo-Christian creation. Therefore the symbolism between the three cultures and time periods is one and the same. This leaves many of the symbols in the works, however interesting and significant to the text, irrelevant to the topic of this paper. The only time a compare or contrast in symbols will be mentioned is when the Quran specifically addresses a change to the creation story as seen in the first five books of the Bible/Torah. The purpose of this work is to stress the symbolic significance in the Iroquois creation myth in relation to those of the East/Western religions. Readers of literature may assume the works of other cultures are a word for word account of what is meant....