I vaguely recall reading that there are cultures that do not have any native deluge myths. A quick google search shows that it is easy to find the ones that do, but difficult to totally rule out the floodless ones! Would any of you happen to know off the top of your head any societies that did not have a primeval flood story?
I had read the oposite - that every culture had such a myth. But I have no site either.
Inuit? Polynesians? I’d venture that any culture that has no flood myth has never experienced a flood.
IIRC, there are no native flood myths in Polynesia, or at least no myth which posits a world-destroying deluge. They are accustomed to finding that one or another island might have been wiped clean by storm or tsunami, but they know that most other habitations are unaffected.
Are you certain about Polynesia? While Hawai’i is not Polynesia, I think it’s generally accepted that Hawai’ians came from Polynesia, and there is a flood myth in Hawai’ian culture. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the flood myth didn’t arise until after the arrival of the first immigrants, but I would expect the most ancient myths of both to match.
Tangentially and IIRC, one of the reasons there is such a strong LDS presence there is due to a commonality between biblical and Hawai’ian myths up to the flood, and this commonality leads some to believe Polynesians are one of the Lost Tribes (although the reason why the CoJCoLDS would take such interest in a possible Lost Tribe escapes me). I can’t find my copy now, but there is a book written by King David Kalakaua which delineates a creation and flood story quite similar to that of Christianity.
I would be very interested in hearing the flood myths of the original inhabitants of Tibet, Nepal, the Alto Plano, Mongolia, or any of the various deep deserts of the world.
Tris
Do the Egyptians have a worldwide flood myth?
Put “No flood myth” into Google, complete with quotes.
Hawaii was one of the last island chains in the Pacific that was settled. While I am not familiar with Polynesian mythology, I can tell you that the ocean levels increased dramatically (50 metres or so) at a time when islands in Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia were populated. I can look up the deatailed information if anybody is interested, but Pacific islanders knew about raising sea levels, without a doubt.