Creation Myth or Reality

When I was at The Ohio State University working on my second graduate degree I remember talking about a book that, at the time, was all the rage. I think it was entitled "When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away." I know I talked about it. But I also know I never read it. I always loved the title, though. The book was about the inability of the Spanish to accept or understand the customs and difference of the indigenous people they encountered in the Southwest. The collision of two very different world views altered and changed both.

Today, I spent all morning in the desert looking at geoglyphs with couple native Americans. The geoplyphs can be interpreted as creation stories. Discussions centered around the fact that Hokam is the oldest language spoken in the US. The people are the oldest. "They were created here, born here, never left here."

"Yea, but where did they originally come from?" said I.

"Across the Bering Strait?"

"Up from South America?" said I.

"They were created here, born here, never left here."

"What, like God came to the desert and created them?" I replied in my Western Civilization perspective of the world.

"Well, something like that."

I have read creation myth stories. I have advocated their voice in museum exhibits. I have gone to the sites at Black Hand Gorge. I have even seen The Whale Rider.

But I still carry the baggage of 6000 years of Western tradition.