Reading Notes: Week 9, Filipino Tales, Part B

This story had a similar structure to the book of Genesis from the Bible. Like the biblical story, the author describes the sequence of events of how God created and brought life into this earth. However, in this story, the author addresses creation in a much more brief type of way. For one, instead of distinct seven days of creation, the author describes life's beginning coming from a breath into rock. I found this to be ironic because this life comes from an object (the rock) that is stereotypically lifeless and bland. When life was begun there were many different creatures. However, according to the author, they were one in the same and were given the same powers. From this, one can infer that animals most likely did not eat eachother like they do nowadays; there was no sense of food pyramid or food web because they did not have qualities superior or inferior to eachother.
The author introduces the ant and the snake. When the snake asks God for predatory abilities, I was surprised God immediately granted this wish to the animal. Although the snake was thankful to God after the fact, the animal complained about the work done to create the creature. How did God perceive the snake when asking for the poison? The ant then asks God for the same abilities. However, the ant asks for this because he is jealous of what the snake now has. Once again, God grants the ant this wish.

Ants, Wired

Bibliography:  d. s. Fansler, Filipino Tales: The Ant (link)