Most countries around the world have archetypes in their creation myths, even countries as far apart as Japan and Greece. The Japanese religion, Shintoism, tells stories of sibling marriages and the rejection of malformed children. Greek myths have similar plots in their stories. There are reasons why these two completely different cultures have similar histories. The next three paragraphs explain why there are archetypes and differences in the creation myths of Japan and Greece. Both Shinto and Greek myths have siblings marrying each other. For example, in a Shinto myth, Izanagi-no-mikoto and Izanami-no-mikoto were "united as husband and wife", and in a Greek myth, "Cronos married his sister" Rhea. Additionally, the couples in both myths produced many children: Izanagi and Izanami gave birth to "the great land of eight islands, with mountains, rivers, grasses and trees", and many gods and goddesses. Kronos and Rhea gave birth to five gods and goddesses. From these two myths, it is evident that Japan and Greece did not view marriage between siblings as something evil. When these myths were created thousands of years ago, people in these two countries did not know that it was possible for a child to have problems if born to sibling parents. Furthermore, it may have been thought in both countries that siblings would give birth to a virtuous child, because siblings love each other from the beginning and therefore have a high chance of becoming successful parents. However, even though ancient Japan and Greece believed that siblings and parents can be caring, both cultures have histories of rejecting children. In Shinto myth, the sibling parents gave birth to a “leech child”, so they “abandoned it to the winds”. The Greek myth middle of paper ......en is that for the Japanese, family pride and dignity were perhaps too strong for parents to keep their deformed child. For the Greeks, the gods were thought to have the form of humans; therefore, children who did not have human form were not real humans. One difference between the myths of these two cultures is that the land was perceived in different ways. Japanese myths depicted the earth as different from the gods, while the Greeks viewed the earth as a god, showing that the cultures of these countries affect the way they perceive their world. These archetypes and the differences in myths prove that humans, whether from different parts of the globe or from different eras, have archetypal ideas. Humans around the world share certain ideas, but these ideas will be slightly different because the cultures they come from are distinct..