Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [198]
Last of all came forth men. There were many men, but only one was white like Bumba…
…When at last the work of creation was finished,
Bumba walked through the peaceful village and said to the people, “Behold these wonders. They belong to you.” Thus from Bumba, the Creator, the first Ancestor, came forth all the wonders that we see and hold and use, and all the brotherhood of beasts and man.
—a Bantu Creation tale, “The Beginning,” Maria Leach
The world was created by one god, who is at the same time both male and female…named Nana-Buluku. In time, Nana-Buluku gave birth to twins, who were named Mawu and Liza, and to whom eventually dominion over the realm thus created was ceded. To Mawu, the woman, was given command of the night; to Liza, the man, was given command of the day. Mawu, therefore, is the moon and inhabits the west, while Liza, who is the sun, inhabits the east. At the time their respective domains were assigned to them, no children had as yet been born to this pair, though at night the man was in the habit of giving a “rendezvous” to the woman, and eventually she bore him offspring. This is why, when there is an eclipse of the moon, it is said that the celestial couple are engaged in love-making….
—Creation tale of the Fon of Dahomey From Dahomey, Melville J. Herskovits
Is there an African Creation myth?
The Garden of Eden was in Mesopotamia. The Egyptian Creation emerged from the Nile’s waters. The Chinese believed that people came from the clay of China’s Yellow River. But surely, they all had it wrong. After all, humanity was born in Africa. So it would make complete sense that Africa’s Creation stories would be particularly significant.
But myth in a preliterate society can be tricky. Though very old, Africa’s myths were not collected or written down until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Even then, they were recorded by missionaries or colonial administrators, who often had their own agendas. Perhaps this is why the Creator god Bumba is described as white. And why parallels with the Old Testament pop up in African Creation myths. These agendas acknowledged, there are still hundreds of different African stories about how the universe began and humans were created. While few complete narratives exist in a form that can be considered “authentic,” many brief tales survive, which contain some common characteristics.
Many stories, for instance, involve a cosmic egg that breaks open and lets out a primeval serpent, typically a python. The world and every living thing in it are made from the body of the snake, so common on the African continent. In many other world myths, snakes have often played some fascinating—and contradictory—roles. Dangerous yet intriguing, they shed their skins, seemingly able to take on new life, an idea found in countless stories, including Gilgamesh. Their phallic connection only adds to this view of snakes as a mystical life-force. On the other hand, they are silently deadly and are often the supreme symbol of disorder and evil, whether in the Bible or ancient Egypt, where the serpent Apep tries to kill the sun each night. But in African myth, the concept of snake as a life-force predominates. According to the Creation story of the Fon of Dahomey, the serpent Aido-Hwedo serves the Creator goddess Mawu, daughter of the older, remote Creator Nana-Buluku. The rivers of the world wind around like the serpent’s body, and the mountains are formed by great piles of the serpent’s excrement. Mawu makes the serpent lie down in the waters surrounding the earth in a perfect circle with his tail in his mouth—a widely shared symbol of eternity. Sometimes he shifts, which explains earthquakes. And someday, when he swallows his tail, the world will come to an end.
Another primordial snake in southern and central African myths is Chinawezi. Called “the mother