Sir James G. Frazer in his 3 volume set of "Folk-lore in the Old Testament" 1918, stated in vol. 1, pg.105-106 "It has long been known that legends of a great flood, in which almost all perished, are widely diffused over the world; ...what I have tried to do is to collect and compare these legends...My purpose is to discover how the narratives arose; and how they came to be so widespread over the earth...Apart from the intrinsic interest of such legends as professed records of a catastrophe which destroyed at a blow almost the whole human race,...How are we to explain the numerous and striking similarities which obtain between the beliefs and customs of races inhabiting distant parts of the world?" He and others struggled with these concepts because they did not accept the Noah Account as a true narrative-yet the anthropological evidence supported such an event.
Zuni Flood Story in Southwest US (Dowa Yalanne is the Mesa in the Story of the Zuni Flood-seen below)
The Zuni Flood Story goes as follows (though there is some variation among accounts-probably due to oral transmission). People were living at Itiwana, but they were practicing sin by having sex within the clan-which was forbidden.One man did not participate and contacted a dead relative to help him. The dead relative went throughout the kivas warning them and some listened. These fled to the top of Dowa Yalanne, taking some corn with them. Kolowisi, the water serpent, held back the flood waters till they reached the top and then released the waters which flooded the valley destroying everything. The waters came up the sides of the mountain to just below the top. The people on the top then took a maiden and young man, dressed them in ceremonial dress, and threw them into the flood waters, and prayed as well-stating that they would not continue the sinful practices. The two children became stone which can still be seen today (see the spire of rock in the middle of the mesa photo).The waters abated till the ground in the valley below was dry. The surviving people came down and began their lives again. The white markings on the side of the mountain (mesa) are the water marks of the flood according to the story. Note: parts of the story were collected by F.H. Cushing and published in the late 1800's in a booklet titled Outlines of Zuin Creation Myths. The parts of the Zuni Flood Story similar to the biblical Flood Narrative are in bold. The act of sacrificing the children is not part of the biblical account-and not part of the commandments of the God of the Bible.
Hopi Flood Story in Southwest US
The Hopi Flood Story is a recurring theme of the people corrupting themselves except for a few, who the god Sotuknang chooses to save to rebuild a new earth. In Frank Waters Book of the Hopi (1963) pg. 18-19 he recorded, "So corruption and war came to the Third World as it had to the others. This time Sotuknang came to Spider Woman and said, 'Something has to be done lest the people with the song in their hearts are corrupted and killed off too...I will help them.'"He then commands that he will destroy the rest of the world once she has protected the ones with the song in their heart. She asks Him, "How shall I save them?" He tells her when she has traveled to where they are, "You will see these tall plants with hollow stems. Cut them down and put the people inside...she put them inside with a little water and hurusuki (white cornmeal dough)...and sealed them up." After she was done Sotuknang "loosed waters upon the earth. Waves higher than mountains rolled in upon the land. Continents broke asunder and sank below the seas...still the rains fell...they felt themselves tossed high in the air and dropping back to the water." The story goes on to say that once the movement had stopped Spider woman unsealed the reeds and the people with the song in their hearts came out to see that the world that was had perished, and that they were on a mountain, and it was all watery below. It goes on to say they sent out birds repeatedly but they returned. The people were then guided by Spider Woman to get back into reed boats and traveled over water to many islands till at last they reached the 4th world. And they went onto dry land.
It should be noted that there are at least 7-9 similarities to this story and the Noah Flood Account. But there is an added section about them having to travel a long distance by reed boats, island to island, keeping the "doors open" (to their minds) to guide them to the 4th world. This could well describe the passage from the area of the Uratu Mountains to the Americas after the Flood.
It should be noted that there are at least 7-9 similarities to this story and the Noah Flood Account. But there is an added section about them having to travel a long distance by reed boats, island to island, keeping the "doors open" (to their minds) to guide them to the 4th world. This could well describe the passage from the area of the Uratu Mountains to the Americas after the Flood.
Hamilton Tyler comments in his book Pueblo Gods and Myths (1964)pg. 108-109, "Since stories of the great flood are universal, and as it is the world's best known myth, there is no need to make a general introduction...They (the Pueblos) place the event in very close order with emergence itself,and often the two are joined. With one exception, the waters do not come from rain, but spring miraculously from the earth. Most frequently the great flood is loosed by some form of the Horned Water Serpent." His report is somewhat different from Frank Waters as the waters come from above (rain) and below in the Waters account- which is more similar to the Biblical Account.
Petroglyph Portrayal of the Flood from Southwest US-Albuquerque ?
Petroglyph meanings are usually quite subjective as there is no "rosetta stone" to help decifer them. Probably P. Schaafsma's Indian Rock Art of the Southwest (1980) has the most complete collection of petroglyphs images. But her commentary is mostly descriptive. However, it is my impression that the creators of the petroglyphs were telling a story or an event. Often there are images of what appears to be a supernatural being in association with mankind. I offer the petroglyph below as a possible example of a portrayal of a Flood Account (similar to the Noah one). As the Albuquerque National Monument petroglyphs are thought to have been done by the ancestors of the local pueblo tribes, dated about 900-1100 AD, it is very possible that the creator of the petroglyph knew about the Flood.
Petroglyph Portrayal of the Flood from the Southwest US-Chaco Canyon ?
Ancestral Puebloans
" Anasazi sites in the Southwest.
By 900 BC, Archaic people lived at Atlatl Cave and like sites. They left little evidence of their presence in Chaco Canyon. By AD 490, their descendants, of the Late Basketmaker II Era, farmed lands around Shabik'eshchee Village and other pit-house settlements at Chaco.
A small population of Basketmakers remained in the Chaco Canyon area. The broad arc of their cultural elaboration culminated around 800, during the Pueblo I Era, when they were building crescent-shaped stone complexes, each comprising four to five residential suites abutting subterranean kivas, large enclosed areas reserved for rites. Such structures characterize the Early Pueblo People. By 850, the Ancient Pueblo population—the "Anasazi", from a Ute term adopted by the Navajo denoting the "ancient ones" or "enemy ancestors"—had rapidly expanded: groups resided in larger, denser pueblos. Strong evidence attests to a canyon-wide turquoise processing and trading industry dating from the 10th century. Around then, the first section of Pueblo Bonito was built: a curved row of 50 rooms near its present north wall.
The cohesive Chacoan system began unravelling around 1140, perhaps triggered by an extreme fifty-year drought that began in 1130; chronic climatic instability, including a series of severe droughts, again struck the region between 1250 and 1450."
From Wikipedia online 11-14-14
A pamphlet obtained from the visitor’s center at the park made a comment regarding the petroglyph displayed here. “On the cliff face above the Wetherill Cemetery you can see human-like figures standing on a line. The use of this line in southwestern petroglyph panels is very unusual.”
" Anasazi sites in the Southwest.
By 900 BC, Archaic people lived at Atlatl Cave and like sites. They left little evidence of their presence in Chaco Canyon. By AD 490, their descendants, of the Late Basketmaker II Era, farmed lands around Shabik'eshchee Village and other pit-house settlements at Chaco.
A small population of Basketmakers remained in the Chaco Canyon area. The broad arc of their cultural elaboration culminated around 800, during the Pueblo I Era, when they were building crescent-shaped stone complexes, each comprising four to five residential suites abutting subterranean kivas, large enclosed areas reserved for rites. Such structures characterize the Early Pueblo People. By 850, the Ancient Pueblo population—the "Anasazi", from a Ute term adopted by the Navajo denoting the "ancient ones" or "enemy ancestors"—had rapidly expanded: groups resided in larger, denser pueblos. Strong evidence attests to a canyon-wide turquoise processing and trading industry dating from the 10th century. Around then, the first section of Pueblo Bonito was built: a curved row of 50 rooms near its present north wall.
The cohesive Chacoan system began unravelling around 1140, perhaps triggered by an extreme fifty-year drought that began in 1130; chronic climatic instability, including a series of severe droughts, again struck the region between 1250 and 1450."
From Wikipedia online 11-14-14
A pamphlet obtained from the visitor’s center at the park made a comment regarding the petroglyph displayed here. “On the cliff face above the Wetherill Cemetery you can see human-like figures standing on a line. The use of this line in southwestern petroglyph panels is very unusual.”
Flood Story in Malay (Maritime Southeast Asia)
"The Benua-Jakun, a primitive aboriginal tribe of the Malay Penninsula, in the State of Johor, say that the ground on which we stand is not solid, but is merely a skin covering the abyss of water. In ancient times Pirman, that is the deity, broke up this skin, so that the world was drowned and destroyed by a great flood. However, Pirman had created a man and a woman and put them in a ship of pulai wood, which was completely covered over and had no opening. In this ship the pair floated and tossed about for a time, till at last the vessel came to rest, and the man and woman nibbling their way through its side, emerged on dry ground and beheld this our world stretching away on all sides to the horizon....some time afterwards the woman conceived in the calves of her legs, and from the right calf came forth a male, and from the left calf came forth a female. That is why the offspring of the same womb may not marry. All of mankind are the descendants of the two children of the first pair." Frazer Vol. 1 pg. 211. Note: the creation and birthing of the children has a unrealistic quality to it, in contrast to the biblical account.
Flood Story in East Africa
"In those days the world was thickly peopled, but men were not good. On the contrary they were sinful and did not obey God's commands...This was more than God could bear, and he resolved to destroy the whole race of mankind. Only pious Tumbainot found grace in the eyes of God, who commanded him to build an ark of wood, and go into it, with his two wives, his six sons, and their wives, taking with him some animals of every sort. When they were all safely aboard, and Tumbainot had laid in a great stock of provisions, God caused it to rain so heavily and so long that a great flood took place, and all men and beasts were drowned, except those which were in the ark; for the ark had floated on the face of the waters...At last the rain stopped...Tumbainot let a dove fly out of the ark. In the evening it came back tired, so Tumbainot knew that the flood must still be high...Several days later he let a vulture fly out of the ark...when the water had all run away, the ark grounded on the steppe, and men and animals disembarked...Tumbainot saw no less than four rainbows,...he took them as a sign that the wrath of God was over." Frazer vol. 1 pg. 331
Flood Story in Central America
"The Indians about Panama 'had some notion of Noah's flood, and said that when it happened one man escaped in a canoe with his wife and children, from whom all mankind afterwards proceeded and peopled the world.' The Indians of Nicaragua believed that since the creation the world had been destroyed by a deluge, and that after its destruction the gods had created men and animals and all things afresh." Frazer vol 1 pg. 274.
Lithuanian (European) Flood Story
"One day it chanced that the supreme god Pramzimas was looking out of a window of his heavenly house, and surveying the world from this coign(sp?) of vantage he could see nothing but war and injustice among mankind. The sight so vexed his righteous soul that he sent two giants, Wandu and Wejas, down to the sinful earth to destroy it. Now the two giants were no other than Water and Wind, and they laid about them with such a hearty good will, that after twenty nights and twenty days there was very little of the world left standing. The deity now looked out of the window again to see how things were progressing, and, as good luck would have it, he was eating nuts at the time. As he did so, he threw down the shells, and one of them happened to fall on the top of the highest mountain, where animals and a few pairs of human beings had sought refuge from the flood...everybody clambered into it, and floated about on the surface of the far-spreading inundation. At this critical juncture the deity looked out ot the window for the third time, and, his wrath being now abated, he gave orders for the wind to fall and the water to subside. So the remnant of mankind were saved, and they dispersed over the earth. Only a single couple remained on the spot, and from them the Lithuanians are descended." Frazer vol.1 pg. 176
Flood Stories in Australia
There are several flood stories that parallel the Flood Narrative of the Bible. In the Bundaba Flood Story some children mistreated a bird, plucking out its feathers. It went to "Ngowungu, the Great Father" and told him. He got angry and decided to flood the earth and kill all the people. All the people drown except a man and woman in a canoe who were told by another bird, with a leaf in its mouth, to follow it. It took them to Mt Broome the peak of which was still above the flood. They and some others survived there. When the flood waters went down they came off the mountain. Paraphrased from CMI-see link below.