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This student worksheet aims to explore the role of creation stories and ancient administrative documents in the community and the associated cultural beliefs as expressed in stories about the origins of the community and its environment.

1 Creation Tale

In this activity you will write a creation tale to explain the origins of a natural phenomenon or an important aspect of life, so that the story can be told to inform your community.

What To Do

1. Read the story about 'The Creation of Heaven and Earth'.
   http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/CREAT1.HTM
   Read the footnote to help you understand the story.

2. Make notes of the story in your own words. Discuss the story with your group members (and if necessary your teacher), so that you understand the story.

3. Read the story about the origins of rice in Chapter 1 of Reflections and discuss with your group what features the two stories have in common. Who are these stories for? Why is it considered necessary for the community to have such stories? How are the stories told? What kinds of characters are responsible for the events which occur? Are we told why they carry out the acts that they do? Why might this be?

4. When you have arrived at some conclusions about these questions, either individually, or as a group, write a creation story of your own. It should be about the same length as the examples, and should explain a natural occurrence.

5. Discuss your draft with others in the group or with your teacher, rewrite it as necessary and prepare a final draft of your story. The story should be in an appropriate form for a community reading, or a retelling from memory, as would have been the case in ancient times. Arrange a story-telling session for the class to share their creation stories.

2 The Nihongi

Here you will prepare an oral report for your class describing the Nihongi, including the period in which it was written, its content, its styles of writing and what you think was its purpose.

What To Do

1. For this task you will need to look at least two creation stories from ancient Japan so you will need to locate the 'Ancient Japan: Shinto Creation Stories Contents' website:
   http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/CREAT.HTM

2. Read the story 'Sosa no wo and Ama-terasu' (http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/CREAT5.HTM) carefully and read the footnotes to help you understand the story. The story explains the origin of day and night.

3. Read one of the other creation stories appearing after this one and make brief notes about the purpose and content of each and the structure - the way the information is told.

4. Discuss the stories with your group members (and if necessary your teacher), so that you understand these features.

5. Read the other extract from the Nihongi in Chapter 5 of Reflections. This is a record of day-to-day activities of the court of the ruling family. How does this differ from the stories? Why do you think that the stories were also included in the Nihongi (records of the court)?

   Note: These records are seen as important information for the following generations, to preserve information about how things were done and why. They also to show that the rulers of the past have done good deeds and have therefore left a legacy of good, or 'merit', for the following generations. You may also see other purposes in the document.

6. Read some of the information in 'Yamato Glossary/Characters'. This will give you a little more information about the Nihongi.
   http://ias.berkeley.edu/orias/hero/yamato/characters_yamato.html

3 A Day at Court

In this activity you will prepare an oral report for your class describing an imaginary day at court as seen by a court official. This could take the form of a dramatic piece to be acted out in class.

What To Do

1. Locate this website and read some of the Shinto creation stories:
   http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/ANCJAPAN/CREAT.HTM

2. Read some of the information at:
   'Yamato Glossary/Characters'
   http://ias.berkeley.edu/orias/hero/yamato/characters_yamato.html
   This contains information about the Nihongi.

3. Discuss the stories with your group members, so that you understand these features.

4. Read the other extract from Nihongi in Chapter 5 of Reflections. This is a record of day to day activities at the court of the ruling family. Discuss how these two kinds of literature might be used in court life, and perhaps incorporate story telling as one of the court activities.