From the the Babylonian Gilgamesh to the Biblical Noah, from ancient India to Iceland to the indigenous Australians – why are there so many flood stories from around the world? In this article/video I explore stories from every continent. For easy navigation use the table of contents.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Ancient Mesopotamia
- Ancient Greece
- India
- China
- Europe
- Africa
- South America
- North America
- Oceania
- Cultures without a Flood legend
- Explanations
Does every culture have a flood story?
The fact that so many cultures around the world have flood legend is often used to justify the idea that there really was a global flood and every culture has a collective memory of this single event.
But when you actually drill down and look at the individual stories, is that really what’s going on?
I’m to take you on a journey around the world looking at different flood myths from every continent, well except Antarctica. Along the way we’re going to discover the answer to the question – why do so many cultures have a flood myth?
Are these echoes of a universal shared experience… or are some cultures borrowing stories from others? To explore this, let’s start with our oldest surviving flood myths from Mesopotamia.
Ancient Mesopotamia
1.1 Sumerian
The oldest surviving flood story comes from Sumeria, preserved in fragments within the proem “The Death of Gilgamesh” and the longer “Eridu Genesis.” These texts date to within a few hundred years of 2000 BCE.
In the Sumerian tale, King Ziusudra is warned by the god Enki of a plan by the others gods to send a great flood flood and destroy humanity. Ziusudra survives the flood in a large boat. When the waters recede he offers sacrifices to the gods. In the end he is granted immortality.
1.2 Assyria
The Assyrians told a version of this flood story with a different hero, Atrahasis. Enki warns Atrahasis that the chief god Enlil plans to wipe out humanity with a great flood.
One surviving text called the Ark Tablet preserves a detailed account of the instructions Enki provides. He tells him to built a circular boat, which measured to 14,400 cubits squared. And he commands Atrahasis to bring animals on board, two by two.
The flood lasts seven days and nights. Afterward, Atrahasis makes sacrifices, and while he isn’t granted immortality, in one version the gods promise not to flood the world again.
1.3 Gilgamesh
Perhaps the most famous flood story outside the Bible is Gilgamesh.
This narrative was adapted by the Babylonians in the famous “Epic of Gilgamesh,” specifically in Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian Version. This tablet dates to around 700 BCE but the story is likely older.
On a quest for immortality, the hero Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim, a human granted eternal life by the gods. Intrigued, Gilgamesh insists on uncovering the secret to Utnapishtim’s immortality.
Utnapishtim recounts how we was warned by the god Ea (another name for Enki), to build a cube-shaped vessel, measuring 14,400 cubits squared, similar to Atrahasis’s. Utnapishtim gathered his family, supplies, and animals aboard as the flood raged for six days and seven nights.
The ark eventually rested on a mountain, but unsure if the land was dry, he sent out a dove, then a swallow—both returned. Finally he sent a a raven which did not return, signalling that it was safe to leave.
Utnapishtim exited the ark and offered sacrifices. As a reward, the gods granted him and his wife immortality. Interestingly, at one point, Utnapishtim is called Atrahasis, whether deliberate or a mistake it demonstrates clear ties to the Atrahasis tradition in this version of the flood story.
1.4 Noah’s Ark
As you might have noticed, this story closely mirrors the Biblical tale of Noah’s Ark. However, in Genesis, there’s no council of gods—Yahweh alone decides to send the flood and it is also Yahweh that warns Noah.
Noah is instructed to build an ark nearly identical in size to those in the stories of Atrahasis and Gilgamesh—15,000 cubits squared—and as in the Ark Tablet he is instructed to bring animals aboard in twos.
In Genesis there are some textual difficulties and the flood either lasts 150 days or 40 days before the ark lands on the mountains of Ararat. Similar to Gilgamesh, Noah sends out a raven, then a dove twice, to check for dry land.
Once the flood subsides, Noah offers sacrifices to Yahweh, who promises never to flood the world again.
Scholars believe the Genesis authors were familiar with some form of the Mesopotamian traditions, borrowing the same basic plot and key details—such as the size of the ark, animals entering two by two, the ark resting on a mountain, birds sent out, and the divine promise not to send a great flood again.
There is even very similar language used between the two sets of traditions, for example. Noah is told to coat the ark with pitch, using the rare Hebrew word “kopher,” which appears only once and likely derives from the Akkadian “kupru,” meaning pitch, the same term used in Atrahasis and Gilgamesh.
As such, Scholars generally agree that the Noah’s Ark was inspired by earlier mesopotamian traditions, plausibly after the exile of the Judeans by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, a period when learned Judean scribes would have been exposed to Mesopotamian tales like Gilgamesh and Atrahasis.
Ancient Greece
Moving on from Mesopotamia, another region with a rich and ancient flood tradition is ancient Greece. The first story we will look at is actually a blend of the Babylonian traditions and Greek mythology.
2.1 Berossus
Berossus was a Babylonian writer who wrote in Greek having been born under Alexander the Great’s reign over Babylon between 330-323 BCE.
He recounts the Babylonian version. In his version the hero is Xisuthrus, presumably the Greek name for Ziusudra. And the god who warns him is now the greek deity Kronos.
The story has many of the familiar beats such as sending birds to find dry land and the hero offering sacrifices. Interestingly the boat in Berossus is a longer boat like Noah’s ark rather than the cube in Gilgamesh.
2.2 Deucalion
The earliest truly Greek flood tradition appears in Plato, who briefly mentions a flood in the time of Deucalion. However, it isn’t until Ovid’s Metamorphoses in around 1 CE that we get a detailed account.
King Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, is warned by his father that Zeus is planning to destroy humankind. He builds a boat and survives a flood that covers even the mountains. Some survived by climbing hills, though in Ovid’s retelling they starve to death.
After the waters recede, Deucalion’s ship rests on a mountain, and he makes sacrifices to Zeus. The gods then help Deucalion and and his wife Pyrrha repopulate the earth by turning stones into people.
Another version from Phrygia records the goddess Athena creating mud images of humans and summoning the winds to breathe life into them.
Scholars suspect that while the Greeks had their own unique elements, the core of the story was inspired by their Near Eastern neighbours.
2.3 Other Greek Stories
The Ancient Greeks had other, less well-preserved flood legends too. Several sources mention a flood before Deucalion, survived by Ogyges, the mythical king of Thebes and Attica. This flood likely started as a local legend about Lake Copais overflowing.
Another legend tells of Dardanus the son of Zeus, who lived in Arcadia. When a great flood struck, those on the mountains survived, while Dardanus sailed to Samothrace. Unlike the Deucalion story, this flood didn’t destroy the world, and not everyone perished.
So early Greek myths may have drawn from Mesopotamian traditions, but there were also stories of local floods woven into larger mythological narratives, explaining the origins of certain peoples and places.
India
Now we move to to the region that is modern day India. The oldest surviving texts from this region: the Vedas don’t contain a flood story, but one text dating to around 1000 BCE contains a single line referring to the sliding down of a ship from a mountain (Navaprabhramsanam, “the sliding down of the ship”) – which may be a reference to a flood story.
The earliest complete Flood Story from India is found in the Shatapatha Brahmana. The written version dates to 300 BCE but scholars believe it preserves older traditions from as far back as 700BCE.
In this tale, a man named Manu is washing in a river when a fish unexpectedly lands in his hands. The fish warns him of an impending flood and promises to save Manu if he protects it from being eaten by larger fish. Manu agrees and keeps the fish in a jar, but after it grows too large, he releases it into the sea, where it continued to grow with a large horn on its head.
The fish then instructs Manu to prepare a vessel to survive the flood. When the waters rise, the fish ties a rope to the vessel and tows it through the floodwaters with its horn.
The ship eventually comes to rest on a mountain, and Manu, the lone survivor, performs Vedic sacrifices including pouring milk and butter into the waters. From the waters emerges a “daughter,” who is actually the deity Ida. The ending is somewhat obscure, but through further sacrifices, Manu repopulates the earth: “Through her, he generated this race, which is the race of Manu.”
The story’s purpose seems to be glorifying the vedic ceremonies and rites as a means to increase or create a progeny.
The story of Manu has many versions, including one found in the epic Mahabharata, which took shape over 800 years starting in the 3rd century BCE. In this telling, Manu is joined by seven divine sages, and the fish guiding him is actually the deity Prajapati Brahma.
Although the Indian stories are unique with their fish imagery, you might recognize some common elements from the Mesopotamian myths. These include a deity warning the hero to build a vessel, a ship that lands on a mountain, and the survivors repopulating the earth.
And several scholars do suggest a link between Mesopotamian traditions and the Indian accounts.
Notably, in Mesopotamian versions, the god Enki, who warns the hero, is associated with fish imagery—just like the fish that warns Manu.
In several of the Mesopotamian versions, the hero is told to bring “seed” onto the boat—a metaphor for the people and animals. In the Manu story, he is instructed to carry literal seeds of all kinds aboard the ship. Scholars suggest this may have been the result of a misunderstanding of seed in the Mesopotamian traditions.
The similarities between these flood stories might be traced to ancient trade routes linking the Indus Valley with Mesopotamian centers like Sumer. These connections could have facilitated the exchange of ideas and explain the striking similarities between traditions.
Thus far we’ve already seeing some fascinating overlaps—heroes warned by divine beings, vessels landing on mountaintops, survivors repopulating the earth. But the major traditions from the Bible, ancient Greece and even India all share some kind of link to the earlier Mesopotamian tales. They form a shared literary tradition, developed through cultural contact.
Many of the legends we have looked at describe the destruction of all people, save for a chosen few. But do all flood myths envision the destruction of humankind? As we move to ancient China we see a different kind of flood story…
China
There are early references to Yu the Great in which he is commanded by the sky to dig channels along the mountains so that rivers would flow into the sea. This is not a flood story perse, rather it explains agriculture.
The Yu legend becomes a kind of flood story in the early chapters of “Shang Shu” dating to the Warring States Period (475BCE-222CE).
In this story Emperor Yao is faced with severe flooding making human habitation difficult.
Yao initially assigns a man named Gun to manage the flood, but Gun fails in his efforts. Gun is imprisoned and ultimately succeeded by Yu, who successfully controlled the flooding by chanelling rivers and redirecting water to the sea.
In these flood stories the people are not wiped out, instead they are finding it difficult to live in the flood plains until Yu redirects the waters.
Yu’s taming of the flood is linked to the dividing up of China into regions and the importance of agriculture and sending tribute to the capital. It was not a story about a global flood.
In fact in the Middle Ages, the Chinese reportedly rejected the notion of a global flood. According to Abu Zayd al-Sirafi in the 900s CE, an Arab traveller named Ibn Wahab visited China and discussed the flood of Noah. The Emperor informed him that such a flood did not reach China. So, not all flood myths feature the total destruction of humanity. But China does have some regional traditions that bear some closer resemblance to the Biblical story
For example, the Yi people, an ethnic group in the Yunnan province do have a deluge legend. A semi-divine patriarch named Tse-gu-dzih sent a message to earth demanding flesh and blood from a mortal.
Only one man complied, Du-mu. Out of anger Tse-gu-dzih brought forth a flood. Du-mu and his four sons survived in a hollow tree with a few animals.
The Chinese descended from Du-mu’s sons, other peoples descended from wooden figures made by Du-mu
The tale was recorded by Augustine Henry in 1903. Henry suspected that the motif of surviving a flood in a vessel was influenced by the Biblical tale as there were Christian missionaries in the region from as early as 635 CE.
While we can infer some Christian influences on the legend of the Yi people, as we move to wider Europe we will see more clearly the influence of earlier traditions on later stories.
Europe
5.1 Norse
A legend from Iceland recorded in 1222 in the Prose Edda tells a story about three sons of the Norse god Bor. Odin, Willi and We. Together they slew the giant Ymir. However his wounds gushed so much blood it flooded all the other giants. One giant named Bergelmir escaped with his wife in a boat.
The sons used the carcass to form the world, and the blood became oceans and rivers.
The legend probably has a Germanic core and it is worth noting that Iceland converted to Christianity in 1000. The author Snorri Sturluson often recorded Norse myth through a Christian lens and so there’s likely Christian influence at work here.
Moving on to Wales.
5.2 Welsh
The Celtic Welsh Triads allegedly contain a flood story in which the death of the lake monster Afanc causes all the lands to flood. Only Dwyfan and Dwyfach survive on a ship they built, carrying pairs of animals.
Wales had been Christianised by the 7th century. Even so, this story does not appear in the earliest versions of the Welsh Triads; instead, it first surfaces in the 1800s in the work of Iolo Morganwg (Yolo Morganweg). Morganwg is known to have forged some of his material, and his writings reflect his Christian influences. Thus the short tale of Dwyfan and Dwyfach is probably influenced by the Biblical Noah’s Ark.
5.3 Romani
The Romani have a story about about a man who kept a fish in a small vessel. His wife wants to eat it, but the husband promised an old man he would protect it. The wife can’t help herself and roasts the fish. This causes a great flood to rain down.
The husband and wife survive by building a boat and taking animals and seeds to repopulate the earth. The fish in a vessel recalls the Indian story of Manu – which makes sense because the Romani people are believed to have migrated West from India starting in the Middle Ages.
So we’re starting to see how many flood legends around the world can trace their origins to earlier traditions
Africa
6.1 Egypt
Turning now to Africa, one of the most surprising regions that does not have a cataclysmic flood story is Egypt.
As far as we know there is no deluge myth from ancient Egypt. Which is surprising given the wealth of ancient texts we have uncovered, and the fact that Egypt bordered Mesopotamia.
The flooding of the Nile did feature prominently in Egyptian writing such as the The Hymn to the god Hapy, who represented the inundation of the Nile River. But there is nothing like the destructive flood stories we have looked at so far.
6.2 Post-Colonial Narratives
Other flood stories from Africa come to us only from post-colonial encounters.
Early explorers like the famous Dr Livingstone and missionary Dr Robert Moffat noted that they could not find any native flood stories that had not been learned from missionaries.
The Maasai in Kenya have a flood story in which the chief god is angry at the first murder and he floods the world. He chooses 1 man to save with his wives, sons and animals on a boat. The man lets a dove out to see if there’s dry land and finally a rainbow appears to show the wrath of God was over.
Researchers suggest that this tale was influenced either by Islam or Christianity. Islam was present in the region since at least the 8th century and Catholic missionaries arrived in the 1500s, well before the first recording of this story in the late 1800s.
Another story with some similarities to the Biblical tradition is a Nigerian Yoruba legend recorded in 1894. The story tells how Ọrunmila the divine spirit of divination grows tired of the world and goes to live in the sky. The people now deprived of his presence don’t know how to interpret the desires of the gods – and most of the gods grow annoyed.
The water god Olokun in a fit of rage nearly destroys the world by sending a flood. A few are saved by the divine spirit Obatala who draws people up to the sky with an iron chain. Aftwards the world is just mud so Ọrunmila comes down and made it habitable again.
AB Ellis who recorded the story suspected the Yoruba adapted it from Islamic missionaries, but we can’t know for sure. Regardless, it is clear that at least some stories flood stories on the African continent have somelinks to the Biblical tradition.
But many of the other stories from the African continent are not about widespread destruction, rather they explain local traditions or geographic features like lakes.
A Kaka legend from Cameroon first recorded in 1966 tells of a girl grinding flour when she is approached by a Goat trying to eat the flour. She tries to drive the Goat away but the goat persists. She eventually lets the goat eat its fill, in return the goat warns her of an impending flood and that she should flee with her brother. The village is destroyed but the brother and sister survive by fleing to a remote place. One day the goat returns to them and tells them they can marry in order to have children and repopulate.
What is interesting is the motif of a brother and sister being saved from a calamity and having to reproduce can also be found in China and India.
A Tanzanian Kwaya story recorded in the 1960s tells of a man who kept a small pot that contained the ocean. He warned his daughter-in-law not to touch the pot. But one day she grew curious and touched it. It shattered and water gushed out and drowned everything. The story explains how the lakes and rivers formed.
There are other stories that explain the existence of local geographical features, such as a legend from Zaire about a Chiefteainess named Moena Monenga who sought food and shelter at a village on her travels. When they refused she bagan an incantation which flooded the area and became Lake Dilolo.
These are all very different to the cataclysmic deluge stories about a flood sent by an angry deity.
South America
As we move to South America we start to see just how diverse and varied flood legends can be. All of the tales we have from South America are first recorded after Portuguese and Spanish colonists arrived in the 1500s.
Frenchman Andre Thevet recounts a story from Cape Frio of two brothers who are having an argument. During their fight, their village gets transported up to the heavens but they remain on earth. The first brother stomps his foot in anger so hard that a spring of water bursts up. Water continues to gish out until the whole world is covered.
The two brothers survive by climbing trees with their wives while All the other people drown.
It is said that two different tribes who are always feuding are descended from these two couples.
Further south, the Kaingang have a story about a great flood that covered all but the Serra do Mar mountains. Three tribes swam on the waters towards the mountains, but only the Kaingang tribe survived. They made it to the mountains and climbed trees to avoid the waters.
The waters showed no sign of receding until the people saw some waterfowl birds carrying baskets of earth. When they dropped the earth into the waters the flood started to recede. More birds joined in until there was enough room for all the survivors
When the Kaingang descended and settled the land, the souls of those who drowned were released and they formed many species of native animals including dangerous animals like pumas and snakes.
In a Macusi story from British Guiana a divine good spirit sends a great flood to defeat an evil spirit on the earth, only one man is saved in a Canoe. He sends out a rat out to swim to see if the flood was receding. The rat returned with a cob of corn. When the flood subsided, to repopulate the earth he throws stones behind him. James Frazer who recounts this tale suspects the European influence of missionaries.
The Incas have a Flood Story called Unu Pachakuti. In one version recorded in the 1500s by Sarmiento de Gamboa recounts how the deity Viracocha created a race of giants, but they became unruly so Viracocha wiped them out with a flood.
Two brothers survived on a high mountain. As the waters rose, the mountain also got higher. The two men eventually encounter two women, however, one one day of the brothers drowns and the surviving brother has offspring with the women.
It’s important to note that In recounting these stories Sarmiento de Gamboa had severe contempt for the native people, thinking their stories to be the devil’s lies, in a passage he writes:
As these barbarous nations of Indians were always without letters, they had not the means of preserving the monuments and memorials of their times, and those of their predecessors with accuracy and method. As the devil, who is always striving to injure the human race, found these unfortunates to be easy of belief and timid in obedience, he introduced many illusions, lies and frauds…
Colonial accounts often portrayed Indigenous cultures as inferior, which can affect the accuracy and authenticity of their retellings.
Similarly, another flood legend was recorded by Spanish clergyman Cristóbal de Molina in the 1500s in which the deity repopulates the earth by forming humans out of clay. Molina is accused of merging myths from the Incas with the Biblical tradition. This highlights anissue we face when evaluating these stories.
The early colonialists who recounted these stories many times thought the Indigenous flood stories to be inferior or a corruption of the Biblical tradition – and so it’s difficult to know how that colored their retellings of the stories.
But as we have seen in Africa and South America many these stories are very unlike the Biblical tradition. Instead they are etiological, they explain local geographic features or tribal origins and how people came to settle in specific areas. But we have very little idea how old these traditions are.
North America
But as we move up to Central and North America we have some of the few examples of flood stories that are definitely pre-colonial on the continent.
The Maya were an indigenous people from the southern gulf of Mexico. A temple at the Palenque archeological site in Mexico dating to the eighth century CE depicts what might be a flood myth. Hieroglyphs in the temple allude to the sacrifical decapitation of of a celestial water animal called the Starry Deer Crocodile followed by a great outpouring of blood. Scholars believe the passage may allude to Mayan ideas about he decapitation of a celestial crocodilethe causing world being destroyed and renewed through a deluge of blood.
Nearby to the Maya were the Aztecs. But first a little note on the term Aztec. It’s a term most people are familiar but it is debated. It’s a loose umbrella term for pre-columbian tribes indigenous to central Mexico who trace their origin to Aztlán a legendary paradise. But it doesn’t encompass all tribes from Central Mexico.
With that caveat in mind, the The Aztec Sun Stone a carving produced in the 1500s describes how humans were destroyed four times
First Jaguars ate all the humans
Then the Hurricanes wreaked havoc and all the humans turned into monkeys
Then the world was destroyed by fire and all the humans turned into turkeys
Finally, a great flood destroyed the world and all the humans turned into fish.
According to this legend, the world we live in is then in its fifth and final iteration.
This is generally called “5th world” mythology and it’s not unique to the Aztexcs. It can be found in several mesoamerican tribes as well as further north among the Navajo.
A written version of the Aztec legend called Leyenda de los Soles “Legend of the Suns” was recorded in 1558
This version details how Tezcatlipoca warned a man and his wife about the coming flood. They survived in a huge hollow log. After the flood they were famished so they made a fire and cooked fish. The smoke rose up to the gods which made them angry. So Tezcatlipoca descended and turned them into dogs.
Another Indigenous Mexican people, the Huichol have flood legend about a woodsman who gets warned by the goddess of Earth Nakawe in the form of an old woman. She warns him of a flood and to build a box and take grains and beans and a black female dog. He was at sea for 5 years until he landed near Santa Catarina.
The world was still underwater but the birds like Macaws and Parrots started pecking at the mountains with their beaks turning them into valleys and the flood subsided. The woodsman lives with the dog until one day the dog takes off its skin and becomes a woman. They live together and have a large family, repopulating the earth.
This is just one of at least dozen different “Dog-wife” stories where a dog becomes a woman that can be found in Central America and even the Pacific.
It’s also worth noting the similarity to the South American legend we looked at where birds create the land by dropping it from the sky.
There also many flood stories from central America which are clearly adaptions of Noah’s ark learned from missionaries. The Cora, Zapotec and Tarascan tribes all have myths incorporating Biblical characters like “Noéh”, Adam and Eve and more in a flood myth.
Moving further north, American Indian tribes also had flood myths, though they are only recorded in post-colonial times, after the 1800s. Tribes in California like the Acjachemen sang songs of a flood that covered the hills and only a few survived by going to a high mountain.
The Cherokee have a tradition where a dog warns a man about a flood. The man builds a boat and saves his family, and from him the population of the world is descended.
There is a story among several tribes such as the Kathlamet, Montagnais and Chippewa, where a man is saved from a flood on a raft. He has a beaver dive down to get some mud but it’s too deep. Next an otter tries but also fails. Finally he has a muskrat dive down, this time the rat comes back with a little mud.
The man uses that mud to form the world and all the people.
There’s many other stories, but these give you a sense of the diversity of traditions.
Finally, some tribes like the Tsimshian have a Canoe story in which people survive a flood in Canoes and are scattered to different parts of the country, leading to the diversity of tribes. This is particularly interesting because many Pacific Island nations also have Canoe flood stories which serve a similar purpose.
Oceania
This brings us to Oceania. The Indigenous Australians are believed to have lived on the continent around 50,000 years ago. While they did have a vibrant artistic tradition preserved today in rock art as old as 17000 years ago – they did not have a written language. As such all of our accounts of Indigenous flood stories come from after the post-colonial period beginning in 1788. Some stories betray missionary influence but others do preserve pre-colonial traditions.
One such story, and perhaps the most well known is a Dreamtime story, believed to have originated from the Gippsland region called Tiddalik the Frog.
There was once a terrible drought that scorched the land. All the animals, Emus, wombats Koalas, Kangaroos and more gathered together for a meeting. They discovered an enormous frog had swallowed all the water causing the drought.
They decided if they could make the frog laugh then all the water would be spat out.
The Kookaburra tried laughing but Tiddalik gave no reaction. The frill neck lizard tried expanding its frill, but it still didn’t work.
Then the eel suggested it could do the job. Eel began contorting and twisting itself into all sorts of shapes. At this the frog burst out laughing and all the water gushed out. There was so much water that only the highest peaks remained dry.
In some versions there were no survivors
In others the Pelican is rescuing survivors in a Canoe, but after a woman betrays him he paints himself half white in war paint. The story explains why the Pelican is black and white.
In modern times it has become a popular childrens tale, usually omitting death and destruction in favor of a moral lesson about greed.
However, we don’t know in exactly what contexts the original story may have been told. One theory is that the story is connected to burrowing frogs which in times of drought gorge themselves on water and burrow underground until the next rainfall. One scholar writes, “the people know this when there is a drought, they dig them up for water”
But it is also a cosmological story about balance in the environment, and the way people relate to each other.
In the the Northern Territory there are also many stories about the Rainbow Serpent. In one the Wawalik sisters were camping with their children when some menstrual blood fell into a waterhole. The rainbow serpent smelled it and crawled out of his well. He spit some water into the sky and it started to rain. Before the women could escape, he swallowed them and their children. The serpent then stood up straight and tall and the flood waters rose as high as he did – when he fell the waters receded and there was dry ground. In some versions the serpent releases the women at the end.
This is another example of a dreamtime flood story that is pre-colonial.
However, other flood stories are clearly influenced by missionaries.
In another flood legend from Western Australia (Fitzroy) there is an Ark that floats over the St Georges ranges and carrie Indigenous people, Noah and animals. In some versions, the white people perished in the flood and this is why they didn’t return until Captain Cook’s arrival.
Also in some versions the “ark” has a mast like a tallship. Researchers discovered this flood myth may have developed to explain a rock site which to some resembles a ship. The original reteller of this story was an indigenous man who was well versed in the Biblical traditions.
Australia is a good example of how pre-colonial flood legends like Tiddalik and the Rainbow Serpent can be quite diverse and different from the well known mesopotamian and Biblical tradition. Yet, post-colonial legends adopted some of the well-known Biblical motifs through after contact with missionaries.
Across the ditch in New Zealand, there is a Maori myth known as Parawhenuamea. In this story, the tribes split and forgot the worship of their founding gods. Parawhenuamea and his father tried to keep the faith but were derided.
They wanted to convince the people of the god’s power so they made a raft and prayed for rain. The rains came and everyone on the raft survived, but the others perished. Those on the raft thanked Parawhenuamea and they repopulated the country.
Prof. Paul Moon sees this as a blend of an indigenous tale that both assimilated but also resisted the Christian missionary traditions. Many Maori were caught between a desire for the material benefits of Christianity, yet they did not wish to reject and anger their native gods.
The story encourages the Maori to retain their traditional beliefs while also assimilating elements from the missionary story. (see ER Peschel, Noah and the Maori).
Another clear example of Missionary influence is found in Hawaii.
The Hawaiian flood legend is found in a story about the discovery of Hawaii called Hawai‘iloa.
A Hawaiian named Nu’u survives a great flood in a giant Canoe with a house on top of it. The vessel lands on the peaks of Mauna Kea. Nuu made an offering to the god Kane and in response Kane descends and speaks to Nuu. Afterward he ascends on a rainbow which he leaves as a sign of his forgiveness.
Now Hawaiians acquired writing during the 19th century from Christian missionaries who taught them the Bible, so there are no “pre-Christian” writings. The authors of the tradition of Hawai‘i Loa, were Chrisitian converts and were influenced in their translation by biblical motifs such as Noah, the Ark and the rainbow.
As one scholar put it “At the time it was recorded in writing, many Hawaiian had become Christianized and were familiar with Biblical history. The temptation to interpret certain incidents similar to those in Biblical history as being in fact the Hawaiian rendering of Biblical events seems to have influenced the translators.”
While like many cultures, there was probably a pre-Christian flood tradition but we do not know its details.
Cultures without a Flood legend
While many regions of the world have a flood legend, there are also many that do not.
Egypt
Egypt has no true deluge legend. There is a tale of flood of beer, however it is very unlike the deluge legends we have covered. The absence of a widespread flood legend in Egypt is somewhat surprising, given the close proximity and trade with both Babylon and Greece.
Iran/Persia
Another region missing a flood legend is ancient Persia, now Iran. In Zoroastrian texts there is a tale of a widespread winter, but no flood.
Japan
The Japanese have a writing system that dates back to the 5th Century CE, yet there is no preserved deluge legend.
There are also thousands of unique people groups all around the world that have no flood legends that don’t predate the arrival of Christian and Islamic missionaries.
So while it is a very widespread legend, it is not universal.
Explanations
No Evidence for a Worldwide Flood
Despite popular claims, scientists overwhelmingly agree: a global flood never happened. First, earth lacks enough water to submerge all land;
second, there’s no supporting geological evidence for such a catastrophe,
and finally there is evidence of continous humans and animals populations during the variously proposed flood periods.
While flood myths can be found all around the world, the actual stories are so diverse and varied, ruling out the possibility that they stem from a single event. These stories are not historical accounts of a worldwide deluge.
But do flood legends preserve memories of more localised flood events?
Are Flood Legends Based on Local Floods?
The idea that myths may preserve memories of real natural disasters is known as geomythology, a term coined by geologists in the 1960s. It is likely that some of these stories had their origins in the memory of a real local flooding event. Floods are terrifying, even today. So it makes sense that myths would develop around floods.
But it’s rarely possible to make definitive claims linking particular stories to historic flood events, especially the further you go back in history.
An example of this is in the 1990s there was a popular theory that the flooding of the Black Sea 8,000 years ago inspired the Mesopotamian flood myths and Noah’s Ark. However, a 2022 review of all papers published on the topic found there was no sudden flood, rather the sea level rose gradually.
Moreover, while some flood stories may have once upon a time been inspired by a real flood, the written stories that survive do not preserve the details of a historic flood. The flood is usually a plot device in a larger narrative about the humans relationship with the gods, each other and nature. None of the stories we have looked at contain the kinds of detail that could link them to a specific event.
And that’s not unique to flood stories, there are also earthquake and tornado myths from around the world across history, and these natural disasters occur with a regular frequency. But it is not possible to link myths around these disasters to specific tornadoes, earthquakes and floods.
The reason flood legends are so much more prevalent than other disaster myths is explained by Geologist Dorothy Vitaliano “Flood traditions are nearly universal . . . mainly because floods in the plural are the most universal of geologic catastrophes”
How to explain the similarities?
Intuitive
So then how do we explain the similarities in the stories? The first reason is that numerous details in these stories are intuitive.
Many flood myths from different continents share common themes, such as a flood being a punishment from a deity or survivors repopulating the earth. These similarities, however, can often be attributed to their intuitive nature. For example, in the contexts these stories were produced it made sense to interpret a catastrophic event as the result of a deity’s anger, as this offers a clear explanation for the disaster.
Intuitive details are found in other types of legends too, earthquake myths among ancient Greeks, the Incas and the Māori often involve a god or monster whose movements cause the shaking of the earth. Tornado and whirlwind myths are also found in many cultures. Among numerous North American tribes, the whirlwind is typically personified as a female deity linked to agriculture and seasonal change. In contrast, in regions such as Africa and Australia, the whirlwind is usually seen as a male fertility spirit who impregnates women.
The similarities among earthquake and whirlwind myths do not suggest a single historical event or shared origin. It is intuitive to attribute an earthquake to the movement of a god. It was intuitive to attribute a catastrophic flood to a deity. Likewise, if a story involves survivors of a flood, there are only so many plausible ways for them to escape. A boat is the most obvious solution, but myths from around the world also include other methods, such as climbing a mountain or a tree
Etiological
Some stories are also etiological, they explain why things are the way they are. Some are creative attempts to account for specific local geographical features like lakes. Other tales may explain why tribal ancestors settled and lived in certain places. Still other tales are cosmological—they explain human origins and why the world is the way it is and humanity’s relationship with the gods.
Learned from Missionaries
Finally, only a small subset of flood stories are truly ancient. Many—especially those that resemble the story of Noah’s Ark—were shaped by the influence of the Bible, spread by Christian and Islamic missionaries. This is complicated by the fact that most of the stories we have were recorded only in post-colonial times. Sometimes it’s clear that colonial historians brought their own biases into the recording of these tales, at other times indigenous people’s blended parts of their stories with details learned through missionary contact.
References
Mesopotamia
Similarities between Noah’s Ark and the Biblical account
Finkel, Irving. The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2014.
Norsker, Amanda. Genesis 6,5–9,17: A Rewritten Babylonian Flood Myth. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2013.
John Day, From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1–11 LHBOTS, 592 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 61–76 and 98–112
Hebrew KPR and Akkadian Kupru connection
Finkel, Ch 7, see also “Cultural Connections Between Near Eastern Flood Traditions: Towards an Understanding of the Transmission of Cultural and Conceptional Tradition in Epic Literature.” Essay for Genesis 1–11: In the Beginning…, taught by Dr. Tarja Philip, May 1, 2020
Ancient Greece
Berossus and Noah
Day, John. “The Flood and the Ten Antediluvian Figures in Berossus and in the Priestly Source in Genesis.” In From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1-11, edited by John Day, 215–234. London and New York: Bloomsbury
Deucalion
Early mentions in Plato: Timaeus, section 22 and Critias 111–112
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
Links between Greek and Mesopotamian myths: West, S. R. “Prometheus Orientalized.” Museum Helveticum 51, no. 3 (1994): 129–149.
Ogyges and Lake Copias
Fontenrose, Joseph Eddy. Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959
Dardanus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
India
Dating the Vedas
Witzel, Michael (2001), “Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts” (PDF), Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, 7 (3): 1–115
Ship sliding down
Atharvaveda XIX 39.8
Links between Indian and Mesopotamian tradition
Abusch, Tzvi and Emily Blanchard West. “Sowing the Seeds of Uncertainty: The Transmutation of the Mesopotamian Flood Myth in India, Iran, and the Classical World.” Journal of Indo-European Studies 48, no. 3–4 (2020): 325–351
Vassilkov, Yaroslav. “Some Observations on the Indian and the Mesopotamian Flood Myths.” In The Black and the White: Studies on History, Archaeology, Mythology and Philology in Honor of Armen Petrosyan on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, edited by Aram Kosyan, Yervand Grekyan, and Arsen Bobokhyan, 262–81. Aramazd (Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies) 8 (no. 1–2, 2013–14)
China
Yu myth analysis
Lewis, Mark Edward. The Flood Myths of Early China. SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006, 47.
The Lolos/Yi People
Henry, A. “The Lolos and Other Tribes of Western China.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 33 (1903): 96–107.
Missionary influence in regional China
Zhang, Emma. “Flood Myths and Domination: A Comparison of the Flood Myths in Chinese and Abrahamic Traditions.” Paper presented at the International Symposium & Exhibition on Mythology, Ardahan, Turkey, 2021
Europe
Norse myth
Frazer, James George. Folk-Lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law. 3 vols. London: Macmillan, 1918 (Hereafter Frazer).
Welsh myth
Frazer
Iolo Morganwg forgeries: Jones, Mary. “Y Myvyrian Archaiology.” In Jones’ Celtic Encyclopedia, 2003. Accessed June 11, 2009. https://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/myvyrian.html. Archived via Wayback Machine.
Romani
Frazer (under Transylvania)
Africa
The lack of stories in early colonial accounts is discussed in Frazer
Masai
Frazer
Influence of missionaries on the Masai story: Kelley, Gayle R. A Cross-cultural Anthology of Mythological Flood Stories. Cedar Falls: University of Northern Iowa, 1994.
Yoruba
AB Ellis cited in Frazer
“Ifa’s Departure Upsets the Gods.” In A Dictionary of African Mythology, edited by Harold Scheub. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000
Kaka
Kahler-Meyer, Emmi. “Myth Motifs in Flood Stories from the Grasslands of Cameroon.” In The Flood Myth, edited by Alan Dundes, 249–253. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Kwaya
Kahler-Meyer
South America
Cape Frio
Frazer
Kaingang
Frazer
Unu Pachakuti
Sarmiento de Gamboa, History of the Incas https://archive.org/details/historyofincas00sarm
Cristóbal de Molina, cited in Frazer (under Incas)
North America
Maya
Velásquez García, Erik. “The Maya Flood Myth and the Decapitation of the Cosmic Caiman.” The PARI Journal 7, no. 1 (Summer 2006): 1–10.
Leyenda de los Soles
Velázquez Rodríguez, Primo Feliciano, translator. Códice Chimalpopoca: Anales de Cuauhtitlán y Leyenda de los Soles. Preface by Miguel León-Portilla. 2nd ed. Primera Serie Prehispánica 1. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1975.
Tezcatlipoca
Graulich, Michel, Doris Heyden, Ulrich Köhler, Berthold Riese, Jacques Soustelle, Rudolf Van Zantwijk, Charles R. Wicke, and Karl A. Wipf. “Myths of Paradise Lost in Pre-Hispanic Central Mexico [and Comments and Reply].” Current Anthropology 24, no. 5 (December 1983): 575–588; Discussion 25, no. 1 (February 1984): 134–135.
Dog-Wife Stories
Horcasitas, Fernando. “An Analysis of the Deluge Myth in Mesoamerica.” In The Flood Myth, edited by Alan Dundes, 183–219. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988
Cora, Zapotec and Tarascan “Noah” myths
Horcasitas, Fernando
Acjachemen
Geronimo Boscana, Chinigchinich, trans. Alfred Robinson (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846), 44–45.
Cherokee
Frazer
Otter/Muskrat Stories
Frazer
Tsimshian
Frazer
Oceania
Tiddalik
Morton, John. “Tiddalik’s Travels: The Making and Remaking of an Aboriginal Flood Myth.” In Advances in Ecological Research, Vol. 39, edited by Guy Woodward, 139–158. London: Academic Press, 2006
Rainbow Serpent
Buchler, Ira R. & Kenneth Maddock (eds.). The Rainbow Serpent, A Chromatic Piece. Mouton Publishers, The Hague, 1978.
St Georges Ranges Flood Myth
Kolig, Erich. “Noah’s Ark Revisited: On the Myth–Land Connection in Traditional Aboriginal Thought.” Oceania 51, no. 2 (December 1980): 118–132
New Zealand / Maori
Paul Moon, Discovery Myths of New Zealand: Some Cultural, Historical, and Philosophical Perspectives (2015)
Enid Rhodes Peschel, Structural Parallels in Two Flood Myths: Noah and the Maori (1971)
Hawaii
Cartwright, Bruce. “The Legend of Hawaii-Loa.” Journal of the Polynesian Society. Vol. 38: 1929. 105-121.
Fornander, Abraham. Hawaiian antiquities and folklore. Bishop Museum Memoirs, Vols 4, 5, and 6. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1916-1920.
See also notes and comments by Dennis Kawaharada on https://www2.hawaii.edu/~dennisk/voyaging_chiefs/hawaiiloa.html
Explanations
Do flood myths point to a global flood?
Allen, Don Cameron. “Science and the Universality of the Flood.” In The Flood Myth, edited by Alan Dundes, 357–82. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988
David R. Montgomery, The Rocks Don’t Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah’s Flood (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012)
Geomythology
Dorothy B. Vitaliano, Legends of the Earth: Their Geologic Origins
Note: I am critical of the extent to which “geomythology” can be practiced in the video, regardless her quotes are frequently cited in other papers/books on Flood myths.
The paper on the Black Sea
Aksu, A. E., and R. N. Hiscott. “Persistent Holocene Outflow from the Black Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea Still Contradicts the Noah’s Flood Hypothesis: A Review of 1997–2021 Evidence and a Regional Paleoceanographic Synthesis for the Latest Pleistocene–Holocene.” Earth-Science Reviews 227 (April 2022): 103960. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2022.103960.
All about Tornado Myths
Pybus, Nani Suzette. Whirlwind Woman: Native American Tornado Mythology and Global Parallels. PhD diss., Oklahoma State University, 2009.
Tablets and Temples 