Ashanti Tribe on the Origins of Procreation - African Safari Campfire Stories
Long ago a man and a woman came down from heaven, while another man and woman came out of the ground.
The Lord of Heaven also sent a African python, a non-poisonous snake of Africa, which made its home in a river. In the beginning men and women had no children, they had no desire for one another and did not know the process of procreation and birth.
It was the Python who taught them. He asked the men and women if they had any children, and on being told that they had none, the Python said he would make the women conceive.
He told the couples to stand facing each other, then he went into the river and came out with his mouth full of water. This he sprayed on their bellies, saying "Kus, kus" (words that are still used in clan rituals). Then the Python told the couples to go home and lie together, and the women conceived and bore children. These children took the spirit of the river where the Python lived as their clan spirit.
Members of that clan hold the python as taboo; they must never kill it, and if they find a python that has died or been killed by someone else, they put white clay on it and bury it human fashion.
EthiopianCreation Myth
Wak was the creator god who lived in the clouds. He kept the vault of the heavens at a distance from the earth and covered it with stars. He was a benefactor and did not punish.
When the earth was flat Wak asked man to make his own coffin, and when man did this Wak shut him up in it and pushed it into the ground. For seven years he made fire rain down and the mountains were formed.
Then Wak unearthed the coffin and man sprang forth, alive. Man tired of living alone, so Wak took some of his blood, and after four days, the blood became a woman whom the man married. They had 30 children, but the man was ashamed of having so many so he hid 15 of them.
Wak then made those hidden children into animals and demons.
Egyptian Creation Myth
Only the ocean existed at first. Then Ra (the sun) came out of an egg that appeared on the surface of the water. Ra brought forth four children, the gods Shu and Geb and the goddesses Tefnut and Nut. Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere. They stood on Geb, who became the earth, and raised up Nut, who became the sky. Ra ruled over all. Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set and Osiris, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Osiris succeeded Ra as king of the earth, helped by Isis, his sister-wife. Set, however, hated his brother and killed him. Isis then embalmed her husband's body with the help of the god Anubis, who thus became the god of embalming. The powerful charms of Isis resurrected Osiris, who became king of the netherworld, the land of the dead. Horus, who was the son of Osiris and Isis, later defeated Set in a great battle and became king of the earth.
Another Egyptian Creation Myth
At first there was only Nun, the primal ocean of chaos that contained the beginnings of everything to come.
From these waters came Ra who, by himself, gave birth to Shu and Tefnut. Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture gave birth to Geb and Nut, the earth god and the sky goddess. And so the physical universe was created.
Men were created from Ra's tears. They proved to be ungrateful so Ra, and a council of gods, decided they should be destroyed. Hathor was dispatched to do the job. She was very efficient and slaughtered all but a remnant, when Ra relented and called her off.
Thus was the present world created. Against Ra's orders, Geb and Nut married.
Ra was incensed and ordered Shu to separate them, which he did. But Nut was already pregnant, although unable to give birth as Ra had decreed she could not give birth in any month of any year. Thoth, the god of learning, decided to help her and gambling with the moon for extra light, was able to add five extra days to the 360-day calendar.
On those five days Nut gave birth to Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis, and Nephthys successively.
Osiris became the symbol of good, while Set became the symbol of evil. And thus the two poles of morality were fixed once and for all.
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