The Mexica believe that a ravenous crocodilian monster set in motion the creation of the world. Its lower body became the ground and sea, its upper body the sky and stars. Elsewhere in the Americas, the Hopi of the US Southwest envisioned creation as a fourth world coming into being. A spider woman, fierce but compassionate, takes pity on a group of fallen humans, guiding them through cracks in the Earth’s surface to begin life anew.
Creation stories can reveal a lot about the societies that formulate, protect, and preserve them. These stories are imbued with moral and spiritual meaning, religious attitudes, and ideas about social hierarchy. Their contours are not fixed, often shaped and remade by outside forces like cultural mixing, colonialism, and conquest. And they are prescriptive as much as they are descriptive—providing an explanation not only for why things are the way they are but how we ought to live our lives. Creation stories tell us a lot about ourselves—past, present, and future.
In Creation Stories of the Americas, you will join expert art historian Khristin Montes to encounter—and often reconstruct—creation myths across the Western hemisphere, zeroing in on cultures like the Pueblo, Mexica, Mixtec, Maya, Dine, and more. You will examine popular motifs within creation stories, from murky waters to journeys into the underworld. And you will contextualize these stories in the societies and environments from which they came, whether that’s the Caribbean, where cultures collided, or in the arctic, a place where scarcity enveloped everyday life.
Work closely with Khristin to study how creation stories are expressed in fine art, architecture, and natural landscapes. Study excavated pottery, temple architecture, sand paintings, geoglyphs, rock etchings, totem poles, and more. And examine Chicano, santos, and indigenous futurist art styles that take inspiration from creation tales to reclaim power and celebrate indigenous identity in our present moment.
