Mythology consists of fantastic ideas of the world, and characteristic of a primitive man transmitted in oral narratives – myths. To a person who lived in a primal communal system based on the spontaneous collectivism of closest relatives, only their communal-clan relations were understandable. They transferred this relationship to everything around them, the earth, sky, flora, and fauna were presented in the form of a universal tribal community. All objects were thought not only as animate, and rational, but also necessarily related to each other.
Having studied the creation mythology of the world from the Cherokee and Seneca peoples, one can notice some congenialities between them and the mythologies of other peoples, for example, Judeo-Christian mythology. A specific limitation and structure of the world is similar for them: “Beyond the dome we call the sky there is another world; The Earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and suspended at each of the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock” (Hennessy, 2012). In turn, there is a precise sequence in the Judeo-Christian story: the light, land, water and earth were created alternatively on certain days. This similarity of a certain simplification and convention is a common characteristic of the mythologies of all peoples.
In the sciences of the philological cycle and, in particular, in folklore studies, it is generally accepted that there are three ways to explain the similarities between verbally existing texts. The first is genetic: the presence of a common ancestor in similar phenomena. The second method includes borrowing, interchange of oral texts in the context of cultural and linguistic bilingualism. The third way is typological, which means close, identical plots or motives have developed due to the same circumstances. In addition, the typology simply turns out to be a kind of a basket in which all coincidences that are unexplained through a common ancestor or borrowings are swept away.
Reference
Hennessy, D. (2012). Classics of American Literature. Vol. 2, David Hennessy.