Flood Myths: Montagnais and Quechua Culture
Myths of the New World might surprise someone unfamiliar with the multiple iterations of the universal flood myth. The Montagnais culture depicts a story where the hero, Messou, is faced with the problem of losing his dogs to a large lake. After being informed by a bird about the whereabouts of his dog, the brave Messou attempts to rescue his canine companion from the lake, but the lake overflows and the world is ruined. Furthermore, with the aid of a muskrat, Messou manages to form the land that we stand upon and he marries the muskrat and repopulates the earth (Brinton 1876: 225).
Additionally, Quechuan culture has a somewhat different way of depicting the famous worldwide catastrophe myth. The Huarochiri Manuscript’s view of the flood myth is that the end was desired by the world (Salomon & Urioste: 59-60). A depressed llama alarms his human owner by not eating and informing …show more content…
These stories both portray archetypes because the archetypal hero listens and obeys the will of their archetypal sage, the dog or the llama. Also, the tales coincide with Jung’s notion of a universal collective unconscious, as they were created separately, yet they both create an image of animals being the wise guide or sage (Stein and Stein: 42-43).
A 2014 film, Noah is an example of a movie with flood motifs. Noah and his family are forced to begin building an ark to save mankind when he has a dream where the Creator tells him about the flood. So Noah, along with many other followers, build the ark and many pairs of animals begin to arrive to evade the oncoming disaster. He faces moral decisions like whether or not to kill his grandchildren, but Noah realizes the Creator gave him this daunting choice. Consequently, by the end of the movie, the hero Noah manages to save mankind and all of the animals from the
Myths of the New World might surprise someone unfamiliar with the multiple iterations of the universal flood myth. The Montagnais culture depicts a story where the hero, Messou, is faced with the problem of losing his dogs to a large lake. After being informed by a bird about the whereabouts of his dog, the brave Messou attempts to rescue his canine companion from the lake, but the lake overflows and the world is ruined. Furthermore, with the aid of a muskrat, Messou manages to form the land that we stand upon and he marries the muskrat and repopulates the earth (Brinton 1876: 225).
Additionally, Quechuan culture has a somewhat different way of depicting the famous worldwide catastrophe myth. The Huarochiri Manuscript’s view of the flood myth is that the end was desired by the world (Salomon & Urioste: 59-60). A depressed llama alarms his human owner by not eating and informing …show more content…
These stories both portray archetypes because the archetypal hero listens and obeys the will of their archetypal sage, the dog or the llama. Also, the tales coincide with Jung’s notion of a universal collective unconscious, as they were created separately, yet they both create an image of animals being the wise guide or sage (Stein and Stein: 42-43).
A 2014 film, Noah is an example of a movie with flood motifs. Noah and his family are forced to begin building an ark to save mankind when he has a dream where the Creator tells him about the flood. So Noah, along with many other followers, build the ark and many pairs of animals begin to arrive to evade the oncoming disaster. He faces moral decisions like whether or not to kill his grandchildren, but Noah realizes the Creator gave him this daunting choice. Consequently, by the end of the movie, the hero Noah manages to save mankind and all of the animals from the