The Ob-Ugric creation myth is the genesis story of the world in the mythology of the Khanty and Mansi people of Western Siberia. It tells of an old man and an old woman (sky god Numi-Toorum and fertility goddess Kaltaš), who live in a cottage on an endless primordial sea. One day, a loon flies out of the sky, and dredges some mud up from the depths of the water, inadvertently creating the world. (Or purposefully, it’s not quite clear.)
Primordial Waterfowl
Existence is a brief and fleeting act
when set beside the endless, rushing void.
Outside of time, stability’s abstract;
uncertainty makes everyone annoyed.
We tried to take our comfort from the sea
but dark uncanny surges whispered words
of disconcerting volant sorcery;
a new beginning, heralded by birds.
The glassy blankness of his gazing eye,
this feathered harbinger of metaphor.
He dove beneath the waves to claim his prize
and turned the world to earth and sand and shore.
Creation is a brief and fleeting act;
reality condensed in the abstract.
LM
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