Primal Myths: Creation Myths Around the World – A Comprehensive Collection from Ancient Egyptian, African, and Native American Cultures

by Barbara C. Sproul

A comprehensive collection of creation stories ranging across widely varying times and cultures, including Ancient Egyptian, African, and Native American.

Genres: Mythology, Nonfiction, History, Religion, Reference, Philosophy, Folklore

373 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1979

Reviews

[M.A. Nichols · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a big DID NOT FINISH for me. I love mythology, and I've been trying to broaden my understanding of it. I picked up this book hoping to get a taste of various mythologies from the perspective of each people's creation myth. What I got was a lot of long-winded, rambling, dry overviews.

I didn't get past the first chapter because the writing is so heavy and overly intellectual without actually saying much. The myths themselves felt like reading a Wikipedia entry. They had me scratching my head wondering what details I was missing. At the same time, the author writes it like a academic paper, so it's dry with lots of massive, winding sentences. It reads like a "so and so did this and then they went over here and they did this, and then they went over here and grabbed this and..."

I think people enjoy this book because it's incredibly smart sounding and makes them feel like they accomplished something by tackling it. However, I didn't feel like I really understood the actual myths themselves because the descriptions of the myths felt like they were only giving the main bullet points and leaving out some of the details that would make the story make more sense.

[Joshua Michail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barbara Sproul has put together an excellent, reliable, and fascinating compendium of many various myths about creation from around the globe. She organized the book by the continents, first. This is handy as you can quickly see which cultures among the North American Natives had which myths, and you can read the story of the myth as it would be told by an elder of the culture. Then, see what creation stories certain African cultures, or Asian cultures, etc. had told. Sproul does not leave it as vague as suggesting one myth belongs to all Australian Aboriginal cultures, for example, rather she has presented each of the myths for each culture among them. She also includes the famous Abrahamic creation myth involving six days, Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden. The Jewish-Christian-Islamic creation story is treated equally as with all other creation myths. Some of the myths are even more imaginative than the Biblical creation myth, and far more entertaining.

[Mahir Şanlı · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zengin içerik ama bu kadar zengin olmasına gerek var mıydı? Tartışılır... :)

[Keshia Swaim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting stories, but it it was often hard to tell what was an actual myth retelling, and what was researcher summary/commentary.

[Sohail · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a conglomerate of different creation myths from various cultures across the world. The myths have been copied and reproduced from the original sources verbatim, with a brief preliminary summary and almost no commentary. It's more of a copy and paste than an scholarly collection.
2 stars for the book.
4 stars for the myths.

[Devon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have conquered you, you....you fiend! I've owned this book for five or six years. I started reading it four years ago and I had a hard time reading it. But now I have overcome it! Yay!

I think one of the biggest problems, I had with this book is that I had this single thought throughout the entire book: "Where in the seven garter belts of Batman is she getting this stuff?" I blame it on my continuous writing of academic papers and having to cite my resources. Whenever I pick up a non-fiction book, I'm always expecting or at least hoping for a bibliography or something akin to a works cited page.

Anyway, the book is divvied up by region. For example the first chapter is composed of African creation myths of different groups. Second chapter is Near Eastern myths. Then European, India, China and Japanese, Siberian and Eskimo, North American, Central and South American, and Australia and the Pacific. I think most of the myths in the book are concerned human creation myths. I had bought it thinking it would be world creation myths instead.

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a comprehensive look at the creation myth world view of cultures from around the world. The author provided a brief summary, including universal themes before each story is provided. Sometimes words are left untranslated, which can at times be frustrating, but there may not be exact equivalents. I felt more connected with all humanity as I read the stories of how human beings try to explain how things got started and what our role is in the world.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

don't forget to read the introduction...it's very good! Her notes before every myth, providing a context and analysis is also worthwhile.

[nico · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.4*

[Rahul Gupta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too drab. Could have been a great book.

[Tori Underwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was for college. Needless to say I am happy it's over

[Cristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative

I've read a few reviews before my purchase and they said about this book that it's dry. Honestly, it was very straightforward and super informative.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent compilation of creation myths from cultures throughout the world and throughout history. I would have made suggestions to change the font, paper, and stylistic organization of the book (she indents every other entry to separate myths), which is short of welcoming. But that aside, Sproul claims to have selected the best accounts available for each myth, so the language is the best you'll find (or at least would have in 1979). Descriptions vary in length and style, but for the most part are all more are less accessible, thorough and balanced, if a little dry.

This is the most exhaustive collection of mythology creation stories that I've come across yet, and for that reason alone makes it good to have for mythology or symbolism students. The general public might enjoy it, but would do well to start somewhere else, like The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology, even though that only covers European and Asian mythologies.

[Ronnie Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a collection of nearly every creation myth from every culture and time period in the world; from the Eskimos, to the Ancient Egyptians, to Native American tribes. The myths are arranged in order of geographic location. I kept this book from one of my religion classes in college.

Great book you can read at a leisurely pace, and don't have to read everyday to understand. You could read a myth a day, or once a week etc. until you finish reading it. Great resource or book to read at leisure, or put on a coffee table or something lol.

If your interested in different world cultures or creations myths its' a great book.

[RLL52014_Melanie Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primal Myths by Barbara Sproul is an extensive collection of creation myths from around the world. I like that the book is organized by world region, so it's easy to find the creation myth for a particular culture being studied in school or that you simply want to know more about. The book is extensive - I had no idea there were so many creation myths! This book is dense, so it's definitely better for older readers or for teachers to use as a reference. The lack of pictures would make the book rather unappealing to most students.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent. The editor has gathered together creation myths from around the world, and grouped them geologically. She also adds much to the myths with her introductions and explanations. She starts with African myths, and moves on to Asian, then Middle Eastern, and works her way through many cultures, ending with the Americas, North and South. It's a great great read!

[Matt Chatham]

After reading most of the African myths, I've come to realize that the rest of the book is really just icing on the cake compared to Sproul's introduction--which is really a treatise on the nature of mythology in general.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Myths of creation always interested me and this book is exceptionally good!

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was used as a reference book in a class I took, which seems to be its appropriate use, as opposed to being a book we read straight through.

[Joanna Teodosio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very heavy reading! But also interesting to read the different creations myths from around the world--

[İzzet Erten · Rating 1 out of 5]

Vasat bir kitap, yazar bir bilim insanı değil, belli.
Zaten kitap çeviri yüzünden okunamıyor. O kadar berbat bir çeviri..

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always love a good myth book!!

[Cecilia]

Interesting selections of creation myths. Very intriguing connotations and connections when reading from a Judeo-Christian context.