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<H1><A HREF="stories0.html">Stories that Crafted the Earth</A></H1>
<H2><I>Adrian Beckingham</I></H2>
<H4>The Man from Story Mountain</H4><BR>
<P>This book explores stories of Earth Creation: how the Earth, the rivers, the lakes, the oceans, the mountains, the
valleys, the clouds, the sky, and the first animals and people came into
being.</P>
<P>These stories have been passed on orally for centuries. They not
only inspire us to reach for the stars but they also teach us to respect
the natural world, to respect other people, and to respect ourselves.</P>
<P>SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL helps tribal peoples defend their lives, protect their lands and
determine their own futures. An important part of this work involves increasing international
awareness of the diversity of tribal peoples and an understanding of their lives, cultures
and histories. This is vital because public opinion is always the most effective long-term
force for change. As more and more men, women and children learn about tribal peoples
and care about what is happening to them today, we will make it harder, and eventually
impossible, for governments and companies to continue stealing their land and violating
their rights. This book, <I>Stories that Crafted the Earth</I>, will help by introducing readers to
some of the world's 150 million tribal people through the beauty of their own stories. –
Stephen Corry, Director of Survival International</P>
<P><B>These Earth creation stories are from the following cultures:
• Aboriginal Australian: Dreamtime • Amazonian Indian: Yanomami •
American/Canadian Indian: Blackfoot • American/Canadian Indian:
Kwakiutl • American Indian: Hopi • Ancient Britain • Balinese •
Celtic • Norse Viking • Tibetan</B></P>
<P>Under the name The Man from Story Mountain, ADRIAN BECKINGHAM is a professional storyteller. Years spent
in Australia learning from Aboriginal people before settling in
England, have given him valuable first-hand insights into how tribal
cultures live. As a result, he realised that the morals of environmental
sustainability and social cohesion, which are very present
in these original creation stories, also inhabit the people's daily
lives. He is well-known in England, Europe and Australia for his
story-telling skills and is booked regularly into schools, psychiatric
units and environmental projects to not only entertain, but also to
bring alive the plight of indigenous peoples now whose land and
rights are being threatened by governments and big business.</P>
<P>ADRIAN BECKINGHAM has worked in environmental education since
the 1980s. In 1987 he won the <I>Newcastle Herald</I> English Prize
for attaining first place in the study of English Literature at Newcastle
University, Australia.</P>
<P>His roles have included being National Co-ordinator
of Greenpeace Australia's Membership Response Unit (with a paid
campaign team of 180 staff). This role put him at the cutting edge of
the fragile inter-relationship between the Earth and its inhabitants - and
the need for urgent action to counter the modern-day worldwide culture
of environmental destruction.</P>
<P>He has also spent time in the United States
working on behalf of Greenpeace USA to put the closure of the Trojan
nuclear facility on the ballot box. Since 1994 he has been based in the UK,
during which time he has studied indigenous cultures at honours degree
level and worked closely with indigenous peoples from around the
world and their representatives.</P>
<P>Adrian is a qualified youth worker, and
was one of the first people to begin using storytelling in education to
address contemporary issues in modern society. Under the name of
The Man From Story Mountain, he uses traditional stories of indigenous
peoples to focus on sustainable use of Earth's resources and our role
as human beings of being valued individuals within a wider social and
environmental framework.</P>
<P>In 1996 he began a series of community storytelling projects entitled
<I>Stories That Crafted The Earth</I> - a project which continues to this day teaching
young people the benefits of recognising value in their own lives
through the teachings of cultures which at first seem radically different
from our own.</P>
<P>He has received many national and international storytelling
commissions for his work, among these being sponsors such as
The League for The Exchange of Commonwealth Teachers (Commonwealth
Institute), The Millennium Commission, English Heritage, and
The Duke Of Edinburgh Awards Scheme.</P>
<P>His commissions as a storyteller
have taken him to countries as diverse as the United Kingdom, Australia,
Bali and Egypt, and he is annually invited as a storyteller to the world's
largest Book Fair, Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany.</P>
<P>Adrian's work as a
storyteller has taken him into hundreds of schools, as well as many health
care centres, hospitals, homes for the elderly, youth clubs, libraries, arts
centres, theatres, castles, camps and festivals. Adrian is also a teacher of
storytelling and creative writing in colleges, health care centres and
schools. Adrian has four children and was midwife during their births.</P>
<BR>
<H3>CONTENTS</H3>
<P><B>Introduction</B></P>
<H4>ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIAN: DREAMTIME</H4>
<P><B>The Rainbow Serpent</B><BR>(creation of our world)</P>
<P><B>Platypus the Peacekeeper</B><BR>(origin of our one world family)</P>
<P><B>Koala and the Butterfly</B><BR>(origin of death and rebirth)</P>
<H4>AMAZON INDIAN: YANOMAMI</H4>
<P><B>Voices from the Forest</B></P>
<P><B>When the Sky Fell</B><BR>(creation of the Earth and the first animals)</P>
<P><B>How Omao Made the People</B><BR>(creation of the first people)</P>
<H4>AMERICAN/CANADIAN INDIAN: BLACKFOOT</H4>
<P><B>The Legend of Poia</B></P>
<P><B>Feather Woman and Morning Star</B><BR>(origin of Poia)</P>
<P><B>How Scarface Saved the Light</B><BR>(origin of the Sun Dance)</P>
<H4>AMERICAN/CANADIAN INDIAN: KWAKIUTL</H4>
<P><B>Raven</B></P>
<P><B>How Raven Made Our World<BR>and Called Forth the People</B><BR>(creation of the Earth, the oceans, the first plants, the first people, and the salmon)</P>
<P><B>How Raven Brought Fresh Water</B><BR>(origin of fresh water)</P>
<P><B>How Raven Brought the Light</B><BR>(origin of the stars, moon, sun, and animals)</P>
<H4>AMERICAN INDIAN: HOPI</H4>
<P><B>The Four Worlds of Maasaw</B></P>
<P><B>The Forging of the Birds</B><BR>(origin of the people, plants, fire, and birds)</P>
<P><B>The Message of Maasaw</B><BR>(origin of people reaching the Earth's surface, creation of the sun, moon, tribal clans and languages)</P>
<H4>ANCIENT BRITAIN</H4>
<P><B>The Legend of GogMagog</B></P>
<P><B>The Princesses who Named Albion</B><BR>(origin of the first people to reach the islands today called Britain)</P>
<P><B>GogMagog's Battle of the Giants</B><BR>(origin of the name 'Britain', and of the sites named after GogMagog across the British Isles)</P>
<H4>BALINESE</H4>
<P><B>The Spinning of the Mountain of Fire</B><BR>(origin of holy water, of immortality, of rice, of the sun and moon, of the eclipse)</P>
<H4>CELTIC</H4>
<P><B>Brigit Ker</B></P>
<P><B>The Youthful Goddess<BR>and the Cauldron of Souls</B><BR>(origin of the last Ice Age)</P>
<P><B>The End of Death<BR>and the Beginning of Life</B><BR>(origin of Spring, barley corn, the sacred sow, the moon, and the cycle of death and rebirth)</P>
<H4>NORSE VIKING</H4>
<P><B>The Death of Balder the Sun God</B><BR>(origin of our world)</P>
<P><B>Balder's Dream</B></P>
<P><B>The God of Courage<BR>and the Goddess of the Underworld</B></P>
<P><B>The Battle of Ragnarok</B></P>
<H4>TIBETAN</H4>
<P><B>The Banyan Deer King</B><BR>(origin of peace between people and the animal kingdom)</P>
<P><B>Survival</B></P>
<P><B>Bibliography and Further Reading</B></P>
<P><B>About the Author</B></P>
<H3>INTRODUCTION</H3>
<BR>
<P>Ever since the dawn of language, Story has taught people important lessons about the cultures they live in and about the cultures of other times and peoples. Stories form an important part of our local, national and global heritage. They also enthrall the mind, open up the heart, and help make learning fun.</P>
<P>The Earth Creation stories of tribal peoples provide a lavish platform from which to investigate 'modern day' social and environmental concerns and solutions. Here, in the dawn of the second millennium, the technology-based inhabitants of the modern world are beginning to learn with gathering speed just how important respect for the Earth is to our existence.</P>
<P>When I was a co-ordinator of a major division of Greenpeace Australia, back in the early 1990s, very few scientists, let alone governments, believed that global warming even existed. Even fewer believed it could be a phenomenon created by modern day humanity's industrial lifestyle. Now, a mere decade later, global warming is widely accepted as the most dire threat facing the future quality of life for humans on this small planet we call home. Even the leading scientists of the planet's most powerful nation, and the nation to most drag its feet on environmental issues - the United States - are finally putting pressure on their government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the problems do not stop there. From the ozone hole to deforestation and the collapse of fish stocks in our oceans and seas, the lifestyle of everyday citizens living in the industrialised world has much to answer for. Yet all these devices and ailments seem a world away to the peoples of our planet's tribal nations.</P>
<P>The tales of the hunter-gatherer tribespeople carry some important social and ecological lessons for us.</P>
<P>Some of these stories have been passed on for over 60,000 years of oral tradition. They are told with a rich celebration of dance, movement, music, costume, colour. Though diverse in content and cultural origin, Earth Creation tales often share common ground when illustrating humanity's fragile position as a tiny cog in an enormous life macrocosm. They teach us to respect the natural world, to respect other people, and to respect ourselves.</P>
<P>The stories tell how the Earth, the rivers, the lakes, the oceans, the mountains, the valleys, the clouds, the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the first animals and people came into being. These tales influence and enrich the daily lives of the people whose tribal cultures hold them as sacred.</P>
<P>The modern contemporary technological world suffers from a deluge of fast-paced environmental degradation. In our so-called advanced societies, all too often the elderly are cast out and isolated into homes for the old, to see out the end of their days surrounded by death and dying. Our children are comforted in front of television sets and video games, so that increasingly more young children arrive at school unable to communicate with the live human beings around them. Marriage vows regularly last only as long as it takes for the divorce papers to arrive. Alcoholism and drug abuse are rife. Adolescents are expected to grow toward adulthood with no suitable guidance or initiations, no pride in themselves or their communities.</P>
<P>In direct opposition to this, the tribal cultures, whose stories appear in this book, have often managed to maintain societies in which environmental sustainability is a reality, and in which everyone, regardless of standing or age, has a valued role to play. In this book we touch upon many valuable teachings which tribal and ancient societies can offer, and we look at how the modern world has already eroded much that is valuable in the tribal societies mentioned here, illustrating the need to respect these peoples and their cultures, rather than destroy them.</P>
<P>This book is all about giving tribal peoples a voice. So I would now like to quote from Francis Firebrace, a good friend of mine with whom I have been on tour. I have taken him to a few of my more sacred storytelling sites, such as Chalice Well Gardens in Glastonbury, England, Spirit Horse in Wales, and Rainbow Camps, and he has taken me to a few of his. Francis is an Aboriginal Elder of the Yorta Yorta people in Australia. As the child of a European mother and Aboriginal father, Francis experienced the bitter racism which, from meagre beginnings, led to his parents fleeing 10,000 miles on a horse and sulky. Now he is a major spokesman for Aboriginal Australian people. He is celebrated as a vibrant and active custodian of Aboriginal Australian culture, receiving commendations not only from Australian Government High Commissioners, but most importantly, from other prominent Aboriginal Australians and their formal bodies. Nowadays he is internationally recognised as an Aboriginal Australian storyteller, artist, and dancer, and he spreads his message regularly through Europe and the United States. His work is a vital contribution to reconciliation in Australia and overseas. You will find some of his artwork and poetry in this book, which he has kindly donated. Here is some of his story:</P>
<P><I>When the Europeans first landed, my people thought they were dead people - because of their white skin and soulless eyes. Two vastly different cultures clashed and of course they began to shoot and kill all the animals for sport, as the English do. My people had never killed for sport, they kill only to eat. They objected. The guns were turned on them. Very soon hostilities broke out to such a degree that when Captain Cook himself arrived, it is estimated that there were between six and eight thousand Aboriginals in the area. In fifty years there was less than five hundred. To get rid of us, to make way for the sheep and cattle, they poisoned water holes with arsenic, gave us flour with arsenic in it, killed whole families, and they gave us smallpox blankets from the victims on the ships and we died so fast we couldn't bury our dead. Atrocities were committed left right and centre.</I></P>
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