Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Greek mythology gods
Ancient times gods important to greek culture
Review of greek mythology gods
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Greek mythology gods
The Maori are a group of New Zealanders, rich and deep in culture with many fascinating stories to share. Myths are a large part of this group’s lifestyle, given that they are shared every time they gather. Many myths explain the reason why humans are here, why the rain falls and mist rise, why the waves are at constant attacks with the land. Another culture that contains many legends to tell is the Greeks, whose stories are quite similar to the Maori’s. Although the Greek and Maori society have developed on opposite faces of the planet, their mythology follows along the same wavelengths such as their creation story, which both contain something bursting into the unknown world, a main hero, and each god and goddess having their own role in …show more content…
He has essentially fulfilled every one of his sibling’s wishes and brought them to the experience the unknown outside, thus earning him his title of the hero. In many tales, although all told with different dictions, all still revolve around the two lovers embracing, “Tane [lying] on his back and push[ing] with his strong legs, and…forces his parents apart, and Rangi rises high into the heavens” (Wikipedia Tane), thus discharging his brothers from their confinement, and ending with the young gods spilling out into the new world. The stories of Tane and his strength has arranged the foundation of many other myths crucial to the Maori culture and way of thinking, an example being the reason why the storms create havoc among the land through hurricanes, tsunamis, and other ocean related disasters. Along with this theme, the Greeks also made Zeus into their “hero” of their mythology and is the main god that many stories are based upon. He is known as, “…the supreme god he dispensed good and evil and was the father and ruler of all humankind, the fount of kingly power and law and order” (Credo Zeus), mainly because he is elected as king of all gods as he governs over Mount Olympus, the place where many Greek gods are from. This position is due to the bravery he exuded when confronting his father about the topic of ruling the world …show more content…
Tane, as mentioned many times, is named as the god of forestry and birds. His siblings also have aliases, such as, “Tangaroa…one of the great gods, the god of the sea” (Wikipedia Tangaroa), Rongo: the god of peace and cultivated plants, and many others. These names that are allied with each god help for them to be recognized between the many that appear within Maori myths. Each one of them has their own job to do that makes the world the way it is now. This is the same with Greek mythology, as there are also many gods with certain identifications, such as, “Poseidon…one of the twelve Olympian deities of the pantheon in Greek mythology…his main domain is the ocean, and he is called the ‘God of the Sea’” (Greek Mythology Pantheon Poseidon), which is the Greek equivalent to Tangoroa. Of course, there are many other gods and goddesses that have identities relating to their power: Hades, the god of the underworld, Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, Apollo, the god of the sun, and so on. Each one of these gods and goddesses have their own roles, hence the names affiliated with them, so the people studying mythology, or just people speaking of it in general, may have a sense of who these specific supernatural beings are and what they do for the world, both in the Maori and Greek culture. The gods of the sea take
The structure of stories, on which Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and Booker’s Seven Basic Plots elaborated, is actually only a portion of the field of study it is under. Comparative mythology not only studies the structure of hero stories, but also origins, themes, and characteristics of myths from various religions and cultures. They study the language, psychology, history, and anthropology in order to identify a common theme or beginning point. Even without delving into religion, many common elements have come to light. For instance, many cultures have tales of people with strange supernatural abilities, others speak of similar creatures that reside in water, air or land, while still others extol the importance of talisman and religious symbols. Despite cultures existing on different ends of the earth and having little contact for much of their existence, they share these common
Helios did not play a big part in Greek mythology and was eventually replaced by Apollo, but in the Odyssey he gets revenge on Odysseus for eating his cattle. Lastly, Aeolus, and this god is different because there are actually three gods with this name. The most famous, which is the one that will be talked about in the Odyssey, is the keeper of the winds, and he is also known by his other name, Hippotes. He gives Odysseus favorable winds, but when his companion opens the bad with the bad winds things turn a turn for the worse.
Through studies such as comparative mythology, researchers and philosophers have discover hundreds of parallels between the myths that make up every culture, including their creation myths. As most are deeply rooted in religion, comparisons based on geographic area, themes, and similar story lines emerge as religions form and migrate. Campbell recognized these similarities an...
Williams Paden discusses the world building character of myths and their capacity to shape time and delineate scared and profane space for the communities that believe and transmit them. In William Paden, “Myth,” in Religious Worlds: The Comparative Study of Religion, he explains that within religious worlds, myths set a foundation that advance to shape a person’s way of life. Subsequently, they shape their belief and conscience. His theory relates to an element an indigenous story which is the creation story precisely the story of the turtle island. For the Ojibway and Anishinaabe people, the creation story was used as a grounding prototype to shape their belief and their outlook on how the world was created. The story shows how myth is being
From before the dawn of civilization as we know it, humanity has formed myths and legends to explain the natural world around them. Whether it is of Zeus and Hera or Izanami-no-Mikoto and Izanagi-no-mikoto, every civilization and culture upon this world has its own mythos. However, the age of myth is waning as it is overshadowed in this modern era by fundamental religion and empirical science. The word myth has come to connote blatant falsehood; however, it was not always so. Our myths have reflected both the society and values of the culture they are from. We have also reflected our inner psyche, conscious and unconscious, unto the fabric of our myths. This reflection allows us to understand ourselves and other cultures better. Throughout the eons of humanity’s existence, the myths explain natural phenomena and the cultural legends of the epic hero have reflected the foundations and the inner turmoil of the human psyche.
The Maori myth is a Polynesian story about the creation of the universe which according to Rosenberg was different from other creation myths because it begins with nothing and then progresses through a process of “nonbeing to thought to the creation of the universe and human beings” (351). Even though it may be different because it goes from “nonbeing to thought” instead of nothingness to a spoken word or action, it has many similarities to other creation myths in how it explains the origins of the Gods and how each one represents a natural event or aspect of nature and humanity. The myth begins with an “idea” that “was remembered” and then “became conscious” and then “a wish to create”, all of which created a “power to live and to grow, even in emptiness” (352). At this point there was still no being, only thought and desire which gives the idea that what is being addressed are the human attributes of feeling, sensing, desire and thought, this is where this story is different from other creation myths.
When we look at Greek Mythology we often run into the gods of that era. Sometimes they are merely backdrops to the human element of the story but in stories such as The Odyssey the gods play a prominent if not vital role to the central themes of the story.
Myths relate to events, conditions, and deeds of gods or superhuman beings that are outside ordinary human life and yet basics to it” ("Myth," 2012). Mythology is said to have two particular meanings, “the corpus of myths, and the study of the myths, of a particular area: Amerindian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and so on as well as the study of myth itself” ("Mythology," 1993). In contrast, while the term myth can be used in a variety of academic settings, its main purpose is to analyze different cultures and their ways of thinking. Within the academic setting, a myth is known as a fact and over time has been changed through the many different views within a society as an effort to answer the questions of human existence. The word myth in an academic context is used as “ancient narratives that attempt to answer the enduring and fundamental human questions: How did the universe and the world come to be? How did we come to be here? Who are we? What are our proper, necessary, or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and to the world at large? What should our values be? How should we behave? How should we not behave? What are the consequences of behaving and not behaving in such ways” (Leonard, 2004 p.1)? My definition of a myth is a collection of false ideas put together to create
UVW. (2014, April 29th). TAKITIMU: The Gods of Maori. Retrieved from VIctoria University of Willington: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-MitTaki-t1-body-d1-d4-d1.html
The tales of Greek heroes and the gods are older than all of us. Most of these tales are thought to be myths, but every interpretation of Greek mythology and the stories that it contains correlates with something in the real world today. The story of the creation of the world, and the stories of the heroes Hercules, Perseus and Theseus, are only but a few of the compelling stories Greek mythology has to offer.
The gods and goddesses were thought to control different parts of the universe. For example, Zeus is the king of the gods, controlled weather. Or like Athena who was the goddess of wisdom. You learn about different gods and goddesses in myths. A myth is a story about a god or goddess. Homer, a blind poet, is famous for telling myths. He told myths because no one could read or write.
The gods and their fighting are responsible for much of the weather. Tawhiri, who is the god of wind, creates the winds and hurricanes. Tane is a god specifically for forests, typical of a tropical island. Tangaroa is the god of the sea, given that the Polynesians are an island culture. He accounts for the waves and whirlpools. Rangi and Papa’s tears due to separation are responsible for rain and dew in the mornings. (“Creation Myth – Maori”) The Polynesian diet consists of many organic roots and crops. Rongo is the god of sweet potato and other cultivated foods, illustrating the importance of sweet potato itself, being that it has its own god. Rongo also means “peace,” further strengthening the importance of their agricultural lifestyle. (“Maori Gods and Goddesses”) There is also a god for fern root and wild edible plants, named Haumia. Earthquakes are explained in the creation myth as well. The Polynesian are located in the Ring of Fire, an area in the Pacific of active volcanoes and earthquakes, which explains it scientifically. However, in their creation myth, Hine Timata’s son, Ruaumoko, causes earthquakes when he walks around in the Underworld. The creation of New Zealand segments provides a detailed explanation of the mountainous formation of the island, due to Maui’s mischievousness and the inability of his brother’s to follow orders. The Polynesians have carefully supplied explanations and corresponding gods and goddesses for each part of their culture and environment. Much of the Maori creation myths intertwine emotion and divinity together to form realistic situations on a larger scale in order to explain the formation of the world the Maoris know
Every ancient society and civilization has creation myths that were passed down and keep alive throughout the passing of time by word of mouth. These myths are the world’s oldest stories and are vital to these cultures because they explain their beginnings and give purpose to their existence. By analyzing and interpreting different creation myths it becomes easier to understand different cultures and their connections and relationships with heir beliefs and god(s).
The practicers of Greek mythology place a great deal of importance on the afterlife, and how one might get there. The underworld exists, there is no heaven, and the only way to receive eternal life is to be a god, or to be given this gift by a god. This is in no way trying to say the underworld is without a hierarchy of its own. The underworld is a hopeless place, divided into three levels: Elysium, Asphodel, and The Fields of Punishment. Burial is remarkably important in mythology, if buried incorrectly, the soul could lose fundamental rights in the underworld.
Throughout studying many myths, I came up with many new observations. Many questions came into my mind about these myths. Greek mythology takes us back to a time when people had a connection with nature and when nature played a major role in people’s lives. The religious beliefs of the people who wrote the myths are found in the background of these myths; however, they are not to be read like religious texts. The myths try to offer explanations of “how”, which makes us think deeply about the purpose of these myths and the questions they draw to our minds. According to the myths we studied in class, the world created the gods, not the other way around. The gods were always created in the image of man, which shows how much men were important in their society. Furthermore, many of these Greek myths show us the difference between the views of the Greek then and our view towards many aspects of the society, including nature. Monsters appear in Greek myths and have different representations and roles. Greek mythology reflects a view of the Greeks towards the world and how certain aspects of their lives are similar and different to modern society.