Personal Lit & Media Lesson: Sun and Moon Myths

For this blog post I would like to discuss how people from long ago explained the theories of some unanswered questions through stories and legends of all cultures. Nowadays, most of those questions have been answered and are now common facts thanks to science. Back then, they did not have the science we have now, instead they made interesting stories and myths explaining their theories based on history and or religion of their culture. Some of these questions includes how the world was created, how humans were created, why do seasons change, how does it rain or snow, what are those bright dots in the sky, why does the sun and moon come in different times of the day, etc. Each of these questions has been made into a story or myth in every culture, and each of the cultures has their own unique version to the theory. Many of these stories had been passed on through oral tradition since they were very popular and well known. From one generation to another these stories have been passed on and expressed in a different manner. For example from the concept theory of  'The Origin of Night and Day' I found a variety of interesting versions. Each culture has their own version and reason on how the sun and moon can only appear in certain times of the day and why they cannot be together (not including solar eclipses since I will be referring to night and day, and back then people would assume it was a bad omen because of their rare occurrence). The Japanese version is the legend I personally enjoy the most. In Japanese Shinto belief, everything in nature is represented by deity, and the head of the Shinto pantheon is the sun goddess Amaterasu. The legend describes a banquet where the gods were attending. The two main gods Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi, her younger brother the moon god, were also attending. When all the gods arrived at the banquet, Uke Mochi, the goddess of food, came out to serve the meal to everyone by vomiting all the food and ingredients on the table. Tsukuyomi was disgusted by her actions and decided to kill her. Amaterasu got very upset at her brother's behavior for killing Uke Mochi at the banquet that she vowed to never speak and see him ever again. Eventually the two siblings ended up on opposite ends of the Earth resulting on day and night. There are many different versions of this legend, but this is the one I am more familiar with. I like the Japanese version because of the cause of separation between the sun and the moon. The description of the argument between the siblings gave me a big impression to my imagination. I can picture the sun goddess acting like a stubborn girl and using the silent treatment on her brother.

Below is the link to the article with the list of ten different cultural versions of the day and night origin myths. However, the link has the Japanese legend that I mentioned but in an alternate version of the one I know.

http://listverse.com/2013/12/20/10-mythological-origins-of-day-and-night/