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The origin of death is the theme of many myths. In Africa, hundreds of stories of this kind have been recorded. The influential anthropologist, Sir James George Frazer devised four general classifications into which many of the stories could be grouped:

1. The Story of the Two Messengers
2. The Story of the Waxing and Waning Moon
3. The Story of the Serpent and his Cast Skin
4. The Story of the Banana

Nigeria

The Bura people of northern Nigeria say that, at first, neither death nor disease existed but, one day, a man became ill and died. The people sent a worm to ask the sky deity, Hyel, what they should do with him. The worm was told that the people should hang the corpse in the fork of a tree and throw mush at it until it came back to life. But a malicious lizard, Agadzagadza, hurried ahead of the worm and, instead, told them to dig a grave, wrap the corpse in cloth and bury it instead. The people did this so when the worm arrived and said that they should dig up the corpse, place it in a tree, and throw mush at it, they were too lazy to do this and so death remained on Earth. This Bura story has the common mythic motifs of a vital message which is diverted by a trickster.

North America

Among the native peoples of the west, a common explanation of death was that it was the result of a debate between two people or animals in which one would favour death and the other immortality. For example, the story of the Thompson Indians was that Raven wanted death as there would otherwise be too many men. Coyote preferred sleep to death but was outvoted by Crow, Fly and Maggot, who sided with Raven. Raven's daughter was then the first to die and so Raven wanted to reverse his choice. But Coyote, the trickster, said that the decision was now irrevocable.

References

1. Patricia Ann Lynch, Jeremy Roberts (2010), "Chameleon", African Mythology A to Z, pp. 24–25, ISBN 9781604134155
2. John S. Mbiti (1992), "The Origin of Death", Introduction to African religion, pp. 116–117, ISBN 9789966469281
3. Janet Parker, Alice Mills, Julie Stanton (2007), "Myths of Death", Mythology: Myths, Legends and Fantasies, Struik, p. 306, ISBN 9781770074538{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
4. J. G. Frazer (1913), The Belief in Immortality and The Worship of the Dead, Macmillan, ISBN 9781440045141
5. Arthur Cotterell (1999), "Death comes into the world", Encyclopedia of World Mythology, ISBN 9780760728550, Long ago, there was no such thing as death. All were therefore surprised when a man died. They sent a worm to the sky to ask Hyel, the supreme deity (Bura, Pabir/Nigeria), what they should do.
6. Scheub, Harold (1990), The African storyteller: stories from African oral traditions, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, p. 52, ISBN 9780840360373, the Bura people had an unusually full system of culture embedded in their folk tales. {{citation}}: More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help)
7. Scheub, Harold (1994), Meanings: Manual for the African Storyteller, Kendall/Hunt, p. 27, ISBN 9780840399342, The motif is a venerable mythic motif, the interrupted message,and raises the question of what would have happened if only, if only . . . A worm, in this incarnation of the motif, is to inform the humans that life is everlasting. But a trickster of a lizard overtakes the worm, and gives the wrong message: humans are evanescent. So it is that death comes permanently into the world. And the storyteller adds a scene in which the onus for death is placed entirely on the backs of humans: people are too lazy to retrieve the corpse and hang it on a tree.
8. Franz Boas (1917), "The Origin of Death", The Journal of American Folklore, 30 (118), American Folklore Society: 486–491

Bibliography

• Eva M. Thury, Margaret K. Devinney (2005), Introduction to Mythology, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195179682
• Ulli Beier (1966), The origin of life and death, East African Publishers, ISBN 9780435900236

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