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==The origins of Man according to non-Abrahamic religions==  

==The origins of Man according to non-Abrahamic religions==  

According to Hindus, humans were created from a part of the cut up body of Purusha.  According to the Iroquois, humans came about fully formed in the Sky World before descending through a hole caused by the uprooting of a tree into a lower world, originally a sea, which the humans manipulated by sending creatures to dive to the sea bottom and bring up mud for the creation of earth on which they could dwell.  Various creation myths exist in China, the most popular being the story of Nuwa.  Nuwa was a lonely goddess, who one day looked in a pool and decided to create figures from mud based on her image in the water; creating many figures of grown ups, children, males and females (where the inspiration for males and children came from is not explained) and blowing on them to give them life (the idea here being that breath is the most important thing to all humans), Nuwa saw that the world became much livelier, and she appreciated it.  She decided, too, that creating humans one-by-one was too slow, so she picked up a rope and whipped it into the mud, and many figures tumbled out, which she again blew on to give them life.  This kind of creation of humans is common in cultures that have a strong pottery tradition.  In the pre-modern Chinese scientific tradition, no creator is ascribed to creation - simply, one became two, two became three, and three generated all things in the universe, and this includes humans.  In any case, myths about the creation of mankind are an important method by which anthropologists may discover more about the societies they are studying.

According to Hindus, humans were created from a part of the cut up body of Purusha.  According to the Iroquois, humans came about fully formed in the Sky World before descending through a hole caused by the uprooting of a tree into a lower world, originally a sea, which the humans manipulated by sending creatures to dive to the sea bottom and bring up mud for the creation of earth on which they could dwell.  Various creation myths exist in China, the most popular being the story of Nuwa.  Nuwa was a lonely goddess, who one day looked in a pool and decided to create figures from mud based on her image in the water; creating many figures of grown ups, children, males and females (where the inspiration for males and children came from is not explained) and blowing on them to give them life (the idea here being that breath is the most important thing to all humans), Nuwa saw that the world became much livelier, and she appreciated it.  She decided, too, that creating humans one-by-one was too slow, so she picked up a rope and whipped it into the mud, and many figures tumbled out, which she again blew on to give them life.  This kind of creation of humans is common in cultures that have a strong pottery tradition.  In the pre-modern Chinese scientific tradition, no creator is ascribed to creation - simply, one became two, two became three, and three generated all things in the universe, and this includes humans.  In any case, myths about the creation of mankind are an important method by which anthropologists may discover more about the societies they are studying, as they show the important facets of human life to that culture. A list of creation myths in various cultures can be found at http://www.plesiosaur.com/creationism/creationmyths/index.php

==References==

==References==