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The Creation Story and the Birth of the Devil in Manchu Mythology

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The Creation Story and the Birth of the Devil in Manchu Mythology

 

     “May I tell you a story?” I suddenly asked this question when my friend and I studied in a café.

     “Go on.” My friend calmly answered. 

     “Thank you! So, long, long ago…….”

   Long, long ago, before the world was created, there was nothing but a small piece of water bubbles in the universe. Then, this piece of water bubbles grew larger and larger and larger and larger until it became a goddess called Abukahehe (the goddess of the sky/universe). As the lighter part of her body went upward and the denser part went downward, two other goddesses grew out of her body. The lighter one is Woleduohehe, the goddess of stars, and the denser one is Balemuhehe, the goddess of earth, also known as Balejiemu, the earth mother.

     Now, since the Original Three Goddesses were young and bored in the empty universe, they decided to have some fun with their creating power. Using their flesh (which means water, air and soil,) they created vixens, does, sows, and then they created their favourite creatures.

     “Women?” My friend asked.

     “Hens and Pullets.” I answered.

     “Oh,” She nodded, “Cool.”

     “Women were created as well, imitating the image of the goddesses.” I added, “Yet such appearances did not make the goddesses prefer us. The birds are the sacred and beloved ones.”

     My friend nodded again, so I went on.

     They had a good time playing with their creatures. Sadly, their creatures had brief lives compared to them, and they needed to create new livings every day to keep the world lively. One day, exhausted by the labour of producing new animals and plants, they came up with an idea. We shall make them reproduce themselves! They said, and thus they decided to create males. 

     Because no one knew what a male should be, they created all kinds of distinctive male genitals and stuck them to all types of living things they made. Balemuhehe took a piece of soil from her shoulder when it came to humans. This piece of the earth includes a small part of her bone, some of her body hair, and a spot of dirty mud. In this way, males were created. Because of the bone, the hair, and the mud, men became stronger, hairier, and more cunning and ill-willed than women.

  Now let’s talk about the birth of the devil.

 My friend raises her eyebrow at my sudden change of topics: “Okay.”

When the Three Original Goddesses were creating living things, Balemuhehe frequently fell asleep because her dense body was quite a burden for her. To keep her awake, Abukahehe and Woleduohehe created a new goddess called Aoqin, whose job was to wake Balemuhehe up when she fell asleep in the daytime. No one knows why Aoqin was born bad-tempered. Her temper made her frequently fight with Balemuhehe. Luckily, nothing serious happened until……

     One day, when the two goddesses fought again, Balemuhehe was so angry that she took two mountains from her body and threw them to Aoqin. Compared to a goddess’s enormous body, two mountains seemed trivial. However, because of Balamuhehe’s strong creating power, horrible things happened: One mountain hit Aoqin at her head and became her horn. The other hit her between her legs and became a male genital.

“Wow.” My friend said, and I nodded.

  Aoqin screamed, and her screams soon changed into low roars. Her body grew taller and more robust, her chest flatter and broader, her chin got covered in thick beard, and her meanness became tyrannical and violent nature. She, no, He, he became Yeluli the Devil. That’s it. That is the birth of the devil.

   “Interesting.” My friend clapped, “Fascinating story. So, what’s the moral here?”

     “This is a Manchu myth. You should not try to learn morals from myths.” I laughed, “I think I am just getting tired of reading all those essays about Eve and Lilith and Pandora. I suppose a non-human-centered myth in which goddesses create women as the original humans and men as the wicked second ones would be somehow, well, I do not know, Refreshing? Contributing to the variety of stories? Anyway, we cannot count on myth to depict humanity. I just hope you find it interesting.”

Alisa Nie (Ninggunta)

Alisa is a fourth-year Chinese student who belongs to a minority call the Manchu. She studies in Honor English Program, University of Alberta.

 

 

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