6 Most Bizarre World Origin Myths From Cultures Across The Globe

How did the Universe with all its realms, planets, animals, monsters, and forces of nature came to be? And how about us, humans – when and how did we appear and what is our place in all of this? We’ve been trying to answer these questions since the dawn of times, ever since we became intelligent enough to form them, but even before that we were gazing into the skies wondering what it is up there, making up stories to explain how everything appeared. Needless to say, human imagination knows no boundaries, so each culture had its own version of world origin heavily flavoured with their own mythology, its deities and cosmogony. Here are 6 most bizarre world origin myths from cultures across the globe.

Ancient Egypt

Found in the ancient Pyramid Texts, Egyptian creation myths are among the earliest religious mentions of such kind. Different parts of the country had their own take on how everything appeared due to the gods that were prevailing there, yet most of them had common elements: the world as we know it emerged from an infinite, lifeless sea of chaos called Nu. First there emerged a pyramid-shaped mound, and out of it the Sun in a form of a scarab beetle, falcon, or child. The primeval waters were ruled by Ogdoad, eight deities that represented different aspects of the chaos, out of which creation was performed by Amun, closely associated with Ra, the Sun god. According to another version, god Ptah, the master artisan, started envisioning the Universe and as he did so everything he was imagining started coming into existence.

Central Africa

The Kuba people from the Democratic Republic of Congo have their own take on how we all came to be – and, basically, it’s from god’s vomit. Yep, simple as that! Their main creator is a white giant named Mbombo. He was all alone in the darkness, there was nothing but the primordial waters covering the Earth. Then Mbombo felt acute pain in his stomach, and vomited Sun, Moon, and stars. The Sun evaporated some of the water, creating clouds and letting the land and mountains emerge from water. Then he vomited nine sacred animals – Nyanyi Bumba, a heron, who created all birds; goat Budi Bumbs, who created all horned animals; Ganda Bumba, the crocodile, who created all lizards and snakes; Yo Bumba, the fish, who created all aquatic creatures; Koy Bumba, the leopard; Ponga Bumba, the eagle; Kono Bumba, the tortoise; and Tsetse Bumba, a black leopard creature, who was later cast from earth and became lightning.