Recently I have taken an interest in reading myths of the creation of human kind from various cultures. And I started to notice a curious element of similarity that is almost haunting.

In the Bible, Adam and Eve choose to eat the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and were cast out of the Garden of Eden.

In malaysian myth, the ancestors of mankind received gifts from the sky through a hole. When the gods gave them a rock, they asked for something else they could eat. The gods sent them a banana, and when Men wat it, they told them that by choosing the ephemeral fruit instead of the sturdy rock they chose a finite life instead of an eternal one.

The japanese story is similar to the malaysan one. Ninigi, an ancestor of the emperor, meets KonohaSakuya-hime, the cherry blossom princess and ishes to marry her. Her father proposes Iwa-Naga-hime, the rock princess but Ninigi insists on his purpose and obtains her and. Since Ninigi chose the princess representing the fleetingness of cherry blossoms, humans are condemned to be just as fleeting.

In greek myth, the suffering of mankind began after Pandora, the first woman opened her jar, or box, because she was curious about its contents and the gods told her to not do it. From inside all the world’s ills escape.

In Ivory Coast folklore, God advises Men to not go away, but Men does it anyway. Man is given a shot at immortality by betting on a race between a lizard and a cameleon. He bets on the cameleon, the slower animals and loses, therefore becoming mortal.

In Kenya and north Tanzania, God instructs a wise man Le-eyo to perform a ritual when the first child dies to return it to life. However, since the first child to die is not from Le-eyo’s tribe, he does nothing. When a child form his tribe dies, he attempts the ritual but it does not work, and Men become mortal.

This myths have two common points. The first is that, despite being born in a world with predetermined rules, symbolized by God, Men is responsible by his own fate. It is not the established rules of the universe, that bring misfortune and sorrow to human’s life but their own, frequently selfish and misguided actions and decisions.

The second is that mortality is always considered some kind of punishment. We created myths to justify our fear of death instead of accepting it as a fact and plan acordingly.

References:

B. Sylvie, B. Émilie, A Mitologia, Fleurus Livros e livros, 2001

http://www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-zen/069.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konohanasakuya-hime