Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
was hooked out of the water on his fishing line. In the Admiralty
Islands a snake that floated across the surface of the water was thought
to have produced its island chain.
Some cultures believe that their islands were dropped into the
ocean from above. The Hawaiian view is that Hawaii formed after a
bird dropped an egg into the Pacific. The wood shavings discarded by
a god as he laboured in his heavenly workshops gave rise to the island
of Tonga, while sand scattered on the ocean produced several island
groups including parts of Sumatra.
Geographical characteristics of certain islands were also attrib-
uted to folklore. In Borneo the valleys were said by the Kayan people to
have been excavated by a giant crab using his pincers rather like a
hydraulic grab on a modern mechanical earth-mover; the crab was
thought to have fallen from the sky rather than come out of the sea.
Other ideas from Borneo explained the unevenness of the Earth by
involving two birds and two eggs. One egg became the heavens while
the other became the Earth. Unfortunately the latter was larger than
the former which was supposed to surround it. Unperturbed, the birds
crushed the Earth egg so that it could be enveloped by the heavenly
egg, and this crushing produced the mountains and valleys familiar
today.
Many of these stories are very ancient, and most follow a similar
pattern: they evoke a higher being or god. As early thinkers did not
travel widely they had little perception of the vastness and complexity
of the regions in which they lived and formulated these ideas. The
ability to think beyond the human condition is an advance in terms of
philosophy, but frequently it was found that many natural features
could not be logically explained. It was difficult enough thinking
about local topography without having to take on a global perspective.
The development of creation stories circumvented the difficulties of
having to understand the origin of the Universe and the Earth. The
invocation of gods and deities allowed the inexplicable to be reasoned
without having to delve too deeply.
