WANTED "Flood Stories"

pohaikawahine

Elder Member
Messages
660
Reaction score
2
Points
0
Seeking legends and stories related to the "Flood" in other scriptures or other spiritual walks of life .... if you have a story of the Flood in your tradition and would be willing to share it please go to the Interfaith Parsha Project, Interfaith Noach and post something about it .... although the Parsha Project is discussing the story of Noah from the OT, your story need not be connected to Noah,just the concept of the Flood .... I have posted the flood story from the ancient chant of Hawaii called the Kumulipo .... all are welcomed to add a story from your own perspective or tradition or religion .... aloha nui, pohaikawahine
 
The Popol-Vuh (sacred book of the Mayans) also tells about a flood...Men were first made of clay, but they forgot to worship the gods, and so the gods made it rain until they all drowned...Men made out of wood could not think and so their land was sunk, too...(can't remember if men were first made of wood, then out of clay or viceversa, though!)
 
thank you so much bandit and miclason for sharing some flood stories ....


the Popol Vuh is a beautiful creation poem or book and it is said that it is the beginning of the ancient word in a place called Quiche and there is the original book and ancient writing, but the one who reads and assesses it has a hidden identity..... if I recall first men were made of mud, then wood, then a gruel ofyellow and white corn which was taken from its hiding plae in a sacred mountain .... so the mud is probably the clay ....

here is a story of the flood from the Gilgamesh epic ... "Gilgamesh has made a long and difficult journey to learn how Utnapishtim acquired eternal life. I answer to his questions, Utnapishtim tells the following story. Once upon a time, the gods destroyed the ancient city of Shuruppah in a great flood. But Utnapishtim, forewarned by Ea, managed to survive by building a great ship. His immortality was a gift bestowed by the repentant gods in recognition of his ingenuity and his faithfulness in reinstituting the sacrifice."

this one is part of a translation from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature ... referred to as Segment D "All the windstorms and gales arose together, and the flood swept over the .... After the flood had swept ove the land, and waves and windstorms had rocked the huge boat for seven days and seven night, Utu the sun-god came out, illuminating heaven and earth. Zi-ud-sura could drill an opening in the huge boat and hero Utu entered the huge boat with his rays. Zi-ud-sura the king prostrated himself before Utu. The king sacrificed oxen and offered innumerable sheep.

Here also is a web site (I hope it is still there) http://www.bearfabrique.org/floods/mfloods.html that has a 32 page article that supports the concept that there was in fact a major flood worldwide that occurred , it is written by a man named Charles Ginenthal who also wrote a book called "Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky" .... long, but a great article on floods ....

hope there will be other flood stories posted .... aloha nui, pohaikawahine
 
Here's a big collection, and if I may, here's a unique contribution, not of a flood exactly, but of a time of ice....

"....Ahura Mazda warned Yima that destruction was coming in the form of winter, frost, and subsequent melting of the snow. He instructed Yima to build a vara, a large square enclosure, in which to keep specimens of small and large cattle, human beings, dogs, birds, red flaming fires, plants and foodstuffs, two of every kind...."
 
once upon a time i was in a flood & it rained & rained for days.
the water kept coming & coming & coming. we put sandbags all around the house & the sub pump ran for 3 months non stopped as water kept pouring into the basement. this was just a tiny flood, when the river crested for only 2 days but man it sure did last for a long time!
some houses a few blocks away stayed a couple of feet or more in the water for almost the whole spring. that summer, for sale signs went up all over the place.
this is not a myth it is a true story.
 
The Hopi version has the Colorado overflowing its banks and the people climbing up a mesa to get away. But the waters kept rising and it looked like the water would overtop the mesa. The shamans said the gods must be very angry with the people, so they would have to make a great sacrifice, the most handsome young boy and most beautiful young girl in the tribe. Everybody agreed who the handsomest boy was, but nobody would say anything about who was the prettiest girl, because that was the chief's daughter and nobody dared say so. Finally she realized she was the one everybody was thinking of, grabbed the handsome boy and jumped off with him. So the waters went down. And on top of the mesa you can still see a pair of standing stones coiled together: that is the boy and girl, united forever.
 
bob x said:
The Hopi version has the Colorado overflowing its banks and the people climbing up a mesa to get away. But the waters kept rising and it looked like the water would overtop the mesa. The shamans said the gods must be very angry with the people, so they would have to make a great sacrifice, the most handsome young boy and most beautiful young girl in the tribe. Everybody agreed who the handsomest boy was, but nobody would say anything about who was the prettiest girl, because that was the chief's daughter and nobody dared say so. Finally she realized she was the one everybody was thinking of, grabbed the handsome boy and jumped off with him. So the waters went down. And on top of the mesa you can still see a pair of standing stones coiled together: that is the boy and girl, united forever.

Running bear and little White dove?
 
I remember being told the same story as a kid in Arizona...except it ended with the waters receded and he was still jumping after her for eternity...

hence the signs...

watch for falling rocks...
 
mahalo nui (thank you much) everyone for the stories shared so far .... it shouldn't be a surprise that there are flood stories with all cultures and religions .... how are they linked will be a question to be answered in time ....

bandit - thank you for sharing your personal story of a flood ....

the "stones" in the Hopi legend are also important and in the Grand Canyon there is another story connected with "stones" and "stones" are really important in Hawaiian legends .... they are also linked in meaning ....

there is a man who does predictions based on one of the Hawaiian chants and he says that the chant reflects a second great flood .... I will write more about this again ....

the flood is a metaphor however and not to be feared as an actual earth event that will wipe out civilization .... we know that real floods exist and there have been some really massive ones, but there is another flood and it is related to spirituality .... that is what I am looking for in the seeds of the "flood stories" .... I'm not writing a book or anything, just continuing a 40+ year search for meanings within meanings ....

keep the flood stories coming .... as soon as I have a chance I'm going to summarize them and bring them back for your review ....

aloha nui, pohaikawahine
 
The fact that there are not merely a few but perhaps hundreds of different stories about that great Deluge, and that such stories are found among the traditions of many primitive races the world over, is a strong proof that all these people had a common origin and that their early forefathers shared that Flood experience in common

The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Chinese, the Druids of Britain, the Polynesians, the Eskimos and Greenlanders, the Africans, the Hindus, and the American Indians—all of these have their Flood stories. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Vol. 2, p. 319) states: "Flood stories have been discovered among nearly all nations and tribes

 
Sometime after the Flood, when God-defying people built the Tower of Babel, Jehovah confused their language and scattered them "over all the surface of the earth." (Ge 11:9) It was only natural that these people took with them stories of the Flood and passed them on from father to son

 
The fact that there are not merely a few but perhaps hundreds of different stories about that great Deluge, and that such stories are found among the traditions of many primitive races the world over, is a strong proof that all these people had a common origin and that their early forefathers shared that Flood experience in common
I think it only proves everyone has a flood experience. As we sit around talking, with three or four people we can talk about a car wreck or a broken romance and everyone has a similar experience and one upmanship gets involved... 'you think that was bad, you shoulda seen...'

Anyone who has ever been in a flood, sees it as an all encompassing experience, we've seen the helicopter arial views over the years with rivers or areas flooding, it is an emmense experience and whe you are in the middle it goes on.

It is not hard at all to believe that flood experiences were exagerated to improve egos around the campfire...and then repeated until they were written down...but PROOF of actual world wide occurance? Seems more like fodder for discussion.

namaste,
 
I'm sure that flood experience are common and they are not easily forgotten, however the question I have is why do they show up in religious texts and other traditional legends and chants .... we also have many storms, and great ones at that, but they are not as common in stories .... I do think it points to a common origin, but not necessarily based on the biblical tradition ....


in the south pacific there are several stories similar to the flood, but have as their basis a wave or flow of ocean water that flows upwards through the trunk of a tree and brings fish to feed the people ....

I'l use a term that more people are probably familiar with "kundalini" .... the concept that the kundalini energy flows both upwards and downwards in the human body is connected with meditation and the ultimate goal to reach enlghtnment with the upward flow opening the crown chakra ....

there is another concept that the ancient ocean resides within our own bodies .... and the great "flood" or "deluge" is related to the uprising of this energy .... the great ships, or an ark, that ride these waves carry the people to safety .... these are metaphors for a deeper meaning of the "flood" .... even the ancient continents of atlantis and lemuria are connected with the flood stories .... they disappeared beneath the great waves .... but what if atlantis and lemuria are also metaphors for two of the hemispheres of our own brains .... (atlantis is the left, and lemuria is the right) .... perhaps we have never found them because we keep looking outside for the answers when they reside within us all along ....

the flood stories are always connected with creation stories or legends or chants .... this is an important connection in my view of all religions and other ancient traditions .... there is more, but the flood story is the most common ... we have flood stories in hawaii-nei (ancient hawaiian traditions) and our chant of creation prophecizes another wave to come that will be called Kai-a-ka-hulumanu which means sea of the bird feathers because the sea or waves will pour over the mountains killing the birds that live in the trees .... but it is only a metaphor, because the mountaintop is our own head and the next great wave will flow high and open the crown chakra (or the topknot as seen on the moai of rapa nui 'easter island' stone heads) ....

I only wanted to move this out of the context of only religion to show that we are are connected in more ways than we realize when we begin to see with our souls instead of our physical eyes .... isn't this also what a comparative religion site is all about .... looking for what we have in common and learning to respect and honor the traditions of each of us .... maybe then we will begin to change our world ....we are all the chosen ones .... just my two cents .... he hawai'i au, pohaikawahine
 
love the cleansing providing metaphor...it resonates more with me by far than a big flood we all have in common.

ditto to the oneness and common origin...this also resonates but not because of some relgious geneology.

I heard two speakers from the Samueli Institute discussing healing and consciousness and oneness and results from EEGs and external stimuli with one person watching and one person receiving quite extraordinary....
 
Back
Top