Nanabush and the Giant Beavers

In First Nations storytelling, the routines, actions and experiences of mythical characters are used as a vehicle for a creation storytelling. While similar in structure, Christian mythology tends towards emphasizing the use of a supernatural "power" as the primary vehicle for creation storytelling. The Nanabush story allows the reader a relative perspective when learning about the creation of the world around them. In other words, the actions of Nanabush are not necessarily "supernatural" and therefore within reach of an everyday persons ability to apply relative experiences from their own lives, making the story much more relatable. This allows the reader to form a deeper connection between elements within their local environment and the cosmology informing their beliefs system about that environment. Christian stories of creation are not so easily relatable. The use of a supernatural deity wielding unimaginable power is a derivative of the Christian ethos of "mysterium tremendom". In other words, the whole point of the story, both in its content and presentation, is designed to imbue the reader with a sense of awe, purposefully disconnecting them from powers they have no hope of understanding and ultimately imbuing them with a sense of servitude. This allows knowledge power to be centralized in the hands of Christian leadership, or the "knowledge elite".