음양陰陽

51. The Great Flood and Humanity 3

Once, there was a great flood that turned the world into an ocean, and all humans were wiped out. At that time, only two siblings survived and drifted to the highest peak of a mountain as tall as Baekdusan.

Eventually, the floodwaters receded, and the siblings descended to the world, but they couldn't even find a trace of another human. If things continued like this, the human species would inevitably become extinct, but it was unthinkable for siblings to marry. So, they searched for other humans for a long time, wandering here and there, and gradually grew older. Left with no choice, they each took one half of a millstone and climbed to the tops of two opposing peaks. The sister ground the female millstone (雌臼), which had a hole in the center of its upper half, and the brother ground the male millstone (雄臼), which had a protrusion in the center of its lower half.

In this way, they prayed to the gods of heaven. Strangely, the two halves of the millstones fit together perfectly at the bottom of the valley, as if someone had deliberately matched them. Realizing this was the will of the gods, the siblings married and continued the human species.

This is the story that they are truly the ancestors of humanity today. However, it is also said that perhaps the siblings each burned a branch of a green pine on the two peaks, and the smoke strangely met and merged in the air. Knowing this was the will of the gods, the siblings married each other.

August 11, 1923, recounted by Mr. Kim Ho-young of Ha(Ha)dong-ri, Hamheung-gun-eup.

This story should naturally have been included in 'Myths and Legends' Episode 19, but due to my mistake, I forgot to send it to the printer, so I had no choice but to insert it here. I sincerely ask for the reader's understanding.

*The Great Flood myth, along with the egg-birth narrative, is a similar narrative found in all civilizations of extant humanity. If these stories had been consistently treated as research material from an archaeological and textual perspective, humanity would have already solved the question of human nature and put an end to the barbaric era of being mobilized for war. However, human scholarship has been replaced by religion and reduced to machines that work and earn money, and most of humanity lives as if their souls have been lost.

Folktales should be studied as a pair, like the male and female parts of a millstone, through archaeology and records. However, records are separate from relics and artifacts. Even worse, these artifacts were stolen during the Western colonial imperialist era and are now arbitrarily displayed in foreign museums. Did they really only steal the artifacts and leave the records behind? Not at all. We may not know why the millstone handle is called 'eocheoguni,' but human civilization is a mess where the 'eocheoguni' has disappeared, male and female are intertwined, and siblings engage in sexual acts.

Son Jin-tae even apologized to readers for omitting a part of the great flood myth, but his apology makes me furious. Why should he, who risked his life to convey history, even if fragmented, against Japanese imperialism, apologize to anyone? Good people are not found even if they die and become food for wild animals, but evil people are in national cemeteries after death. Does this country truly deserve to know a part of human civilization, the great flood, and the origin of humanity from an egg? I hope that in the confrontation between the 'scholar' who does not fear death and the 'evil person' who fears death, the end will be a cleansing by a great flood.