Culture, History, and Philosophy and How it Effected Utopia

1. Culture, History, and Philosophy and How it Effected Utopia By Matt Sasaki

2. The Different Cultures • Egypt • Greece • Central America • Norse • Native America note-(I am studying the ancient civilizations, not the modern ones.)

3. Historical Events That May Have Affected the Idea of Utopia • 1450-Johannes Guttenberg invents the printing press, allowing books to be more widely distributed • 1095-1291a.d.- The Crusades (multiple ones) • 1453-Ottoman capture of Constantinople • 1480-1612-Spanish Inquisition* • *-this event went farther into history, but not as a powerful influence

4. More Events • 14th-17th century-The Renaissance revolutionizes European life. • 1066-William the Conqueror takes control of England. • 1205-1234-Mongols invade Northern and Western China. • 1492-Columbus sails the ocean blue. Just joking. Columbus “discovers” the Americas.

6. Comanche Creation Story • One day the Great Spirit collected swirls of dust from the four directions in order to create the Comanche people. These people formed from the earth had the strength of mighty storms. Unfortunately, a shape-shifting demon was also created and began to torment the people. The Great Spirit cast the demon into a bottomless pit. To seek revenge the demon took refuge in the fangs and stingers of poisonous creatures and continues to harm people every chance it gets.

7. Iroquois Creation Story • The Iroquois account of demiurge is that in the beginning there was no earth to live on, only a watery abyss, but up above, in the Great Blue, there was a community called the Sky World including a woman who dreamed dreams. One night she dreamed about the tree that was the source of light. The dream frightened her, so she went and asked the men in the Sky World to pull up the tree. They dug around the trees roots to make space for more light, and the tree fell through the hole and disappeared. After that there was only darkness. Distraught, they pushed the woman through the hole as well. The woman would have been lost in the abyss had not a fish hawk come to her aid using his feathers to pillow her. The fish hawk could not keep her up all on his own,

8. Cont. • The fish hawk could not keep her up all on his own, so he asked for help to create some firm ground for the woman to rest upon. A helldiver went down to the bottom of the sea and brought back mud in his beak. He found a turtle, smeared the mud onto its back, and dove down again for more. Ducks also brought beakfulls of the ocean floor and to spread over the turtle's shell. The beavers helped build terrain, making the shell bigger. The birds and the animals built the continents until they had made the whole round earth, while the woman was safely sitting on the turtle's back. The turtle continues to hold the earth on its back. After this, one of the Spirits of the Sky World came down and looked at the earth. As he traveled over it, he found it beautiful, and so he created people to live on it and gave them special skills; each tribe of the Iroquois nation was given special gifts to share with the rest of humanity.

9. Greek Creation Story • Greek- The titans Prometheus and Epimetheus, two brothers, created man and beast after a gigantic flood wiped all life off of the face of the earth. Epimetheus thoughtlessly lavished the gifts given to them by Zeus, upon the beasts. While, Prometheus carefully created man in the form of the gods.

10. Egyptian Creation Story • The universe was filled with the dark waters of chaos. The first god, Re-Atum, appeared from the water as the land of Egypt appears every year out of the flood waters of the Nile. Re-Atum spat and out of the spittle came out the gods Shu(air) and Tefnut (moisture). The world was created when Shu and Tefnut gave birth to two children: Nut (sky) and Geb (the Earth). Humans were created when Shu and Tefnut went wandering in the dark wastes and got lost. Re-Atum sent his eye to find them. On reuniting, his tears of joy turned into people.

11. Mayan Creation Story • Tepeu and Gucumatz hold a conference and decided that, in order to preserve their legacy, they must create a race of beings who would worship them. Huracan, another god, does the actual creating while Tepeu and Gucumatz guide the process. Earth is created, but the gods make several false starts in setting humanity upon the earth. Animals were created first; however, with all of their howling and squawking they did not worship their creators and were thus banished forever to the forest. Man is created first of mud, but they just dissolved and crumbled away. Other gods are summoned and man is next created of wood but has no soul, and they soon forgot their makers. Finally man is formed of masa, or corn dough. As such, the Maya believed that maize was not just the cornerstone of their diet, but they were also made out of it.

12. Norse Creation Story • In the beginning of time there was a immense void. Ginnungagap was the name of the void. Along with the void existed an island of ice and fog and another island of fire. Only two figures existed, Ymir and a cow, Audhumla. From Ymirs sweat two frost giants were formed. The cow, constantly licking the ice, formed the god Buri, Who had a son named Bor. Bor was the father of Odin, Vili, and Ve. For some reason the sons of Bor decided to kill poor Ymir. His blood caused a flood which killed all of the frost giants except for two, Bergelmir and his wife, who escaped the deluge in their boat. Odin, Vili, and Ve put Ymir's corpse into the middle of ginnungagap and created the earth and sky from it. They also created the stars, sun, and moon from sparks coming out of Muspelheim. Finally, the brothers happened upon two logs lying on the beach and created the first two humans Ask and Embla from them.

14. Bibliography • Wikipedia.com. May, 2, 2007. Wikimedia Foundation. May, 5, 2007.