The Cosmogony of the Turks - The Myth of Creation            

 

       When there was no earth, sky and anything else, the world consisted of water lying endlessly. The God Ulgen flied throughout this endless world continually. A voice from the skies told god Ulgen to hold the stone to come out of the sea. Having found somewhere to sit on by the order of the skies, god Ulgen thought it was time to create and said:
I want a world which I would create with a race. How should this world be and with what clan should I create it? What is the means for it and with what way should I create it?

 

        The White Mother living under water appeared on the surface of the water and said to God Ulgen: If you want to create Ulgen, learn the holy word as a creator. Always say "I did and it became"; do not say anything else. Especially while creating, do not say "I did and it did not became". The White Mother told these and disappeared.  God Ulgen never forgot this order. And he never got bored of conveying this order to the man:"Listen you people, do not cal existent as non-existent. Do not become non-existent by calling the being as non-being."

 

         God Ulgen looked down to the earth saying: "Let the earth be created!" Looking at the sky saying: "Let the sky be created!" When these orders were given, the earth and the sky were created. God Ulgen created three great fish and the world was placed on these fish. So, the world became fixed instead of moving. God Ulgen made Mandishire supervise the fish so that the world would not move. After god Ulgen created the world, he sat on the top of the great Golden Mountain, whose top reached the moon and the sun and whose skirts did not touch the earth.

 

         The world was created in six days and on the seventh day god Ulgen fell asleep. When he woke up, he looked at what he had created: In addition to the moon and the sun, he had created nine worlds, one hell for each and an earth. One day, god Ulgen saw a piece of clay on a piece of soil floating on the sea. He said "let this be the man and let there be a father for man", and the clay on the soil suddenly became a man. God Ulgen called this man "Erlik" and took him as his brother. However, Erlik's soul was full of jealousy and ambition. He was very angry as he was not as strong as and a creator like god Ulgen. God Ulgen created seven men whose bones were of reeds and whose flesh were of soil.

 

        Having created a hero called Mandishire to protect man as he thought Erlik would harm the world, he gave soul to the seven men blowing in from their ears and gave them minds by blowing in from their noses. God Ulgen created May-Tere to manage people and made him the Khan of the people. The creation myths collected from Yakut (Saka) have the quality of similar variants of the Altay creation myths.