Creation of world according to Santal


Every native group has its own mythology and that further recreates the specific culture, Santals do have the mythology of creation of world.
They believe that in the beginning, there was only water and this primitive world was filled with water everywhere. God pondered about how he could form the land where man can live . To operate both land and water he created seven amphibian animals which were –crab, crocodile, eel, pawn, earthworm and tortoise. For creating land, God then asked the king of these species to help him figure out how to make land. The entire king appeared before God one by one, but none of them couldn’t solve out the problem. Finally, earthworm came and succeeded, it is said that for seven day and seven nights earthworm ate at the bottom of the water which excreted on the back of tortoise. The tortoise anchored himself on the both side firmly and brought up the earth when he swam to the top of the water, and thus the earth formed.
This is why there is a belief among Santals that movement of tortoise causes earthquake. In other words, when tortoise moves or shakes, earthquakes occur in earth. Santals myth about the creation of world is substantially different from myth associated with creation of world among the other indigenous peoples of India and in many sense it is unique that it ascribe the creation of earth with the help of amphibian animals, specially the earthworm and tortoise. This is all about the story of creation of earth. We also get this story on folk songs of Santal which tells about the creation of world.


creation of world according to santal myth .


In this story, the animals are created in order to help God, it is the lowly king of earthworm that helps God create the land, we can get this true even from scientific viewpoint, because earthworm do aid in the formation of soil, thus this story from Santals  captures some empirical truths.




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