- Areop-Enap
In the indigenous creation myths of the people of
Nauru , Areop-Enap ('old spider') played a major part in the creation of the world.Searching for food
At the beginning of Creation, the only things in existence were Areop-Enap and the sea. Areop-Enap searched for food in the darkness and found an enormous
clam , but before she could stun it, the clam swallowed her and snapped shut again. Exploring the clam's insides, Areop-Enap found a tiny snail (or in some accounts, a Triton's Horn shellfish). Instead of killing it, she asked it to climb to the hinge of the shell and prise the clam open. As the snail moved across the clam's flesh, it left a phosphorescent trail, in the light of which Areop-Enap saw a white worm (or in some accounts, a caterpillar) called Rigi. Ignoring the snail, Areop-Enap cast a strength spell on Rigi and persuaded him to try to open the clam.Creation
Time and again Rigi set his head against the upper shell and his tail against the lower shell, and heaved. The clam resisted and sweat poured from Rigi, making a pool in the lower shell, then a lake and finally a sea. The saltiness of the water killed the clam and opened the shell. Areop-Enap made the lower shell into
Earth and the upper shell intoSky and set the snail high in the sky-shell where it became theMoon . She made islands from clam-flesh and clothed them in vegetation made from her own web-thread. Finally she turned to Rigi and found that he had drowned in his own sweat, killed by his own exertions. Areop-Enap wrapped him in a cocoon of silk and hung him in the sky to become theMilky Way .Areop-Enap created humans from stones so they could support the sky, and then discovered there were other creatures in the newly-created world. So she created a winged creature or "flying bird" from the dirt under her nails and set it to annoy the creatures so that they called to each other to kill it. Thus the Areop-Enap learned the names of the inhabitants of the world.
See also
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Creation myth
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