Since April 14, my friends and I have been working on building a fictional world centered around Toki Pona. We decided to call it Ma Pona. After a long period of thought, I decided to share part of it online and see if the community has any suggestions or ideas that could help us develop it further.
In the beginning, Heaven and Earth had not yet been divided, and nothing had a name. There was neither light nor darkness; neither the high heavens nor the earth; neither time nor direction. There was only chaos. The chaos was like an endless pot of soup, churning within the void. Mud floated and sank within it, while enormous whirlpools devoured one another. Before anything could take shape, it had already begun to decay.
God walked through the chaos. He saw all things sinking into the whirlpools, saw the mud entangling itself, and saw those forms that had not yet been given names heading toward destruction before they had even been born. So he reached out his hand and took a lump of mud from the chaotic soup. With it, he shaped mountains and rivers, spread out the earth, and constructed the forms of all things.
Yet before the world was complete, the chaos began to churn once more. Enormous whirlpools rose from the depths and swallowed everything God had created. Mountains collapsed, the earth shattered, and all things decayed. The newborn world was like a brief dream: before it could ever see the dawn, it sank once again into the depths of chaos.
God gazed upon all this, pondering for a long time. He closed his eyes and fell into sleep. When he awoke, he created awen from the chaos.
God breathed his divinity into awen, as though blowing a spark into silent ashes. With awen as its foundation, God laid the first piece of land upon the endless chaos and erected the first pillar. Thus, the foundation of the stage was established.
sewi sin li mama：mama awen
Next, God gave the world a beginning, and time began to flow. At that time, the world still consisted only of chaos. Chaos was the world's primordial substance, and all of it was the same.
sewi sin li mama：open tenpo taso nasa sama
At the beginning, the world was a realm of chaos. In order to bring order to it, God created pu. When pu was born, the first sound it made was a, which was also the first sound uttered by a newborn baby. After the Tao people learned the alphabet, they placed the letter representing a first. Then, the tears flowing from his left eye became the god li; the tears from his right eye became the god e; the hum from his left nostril became the god pi; the hum from his right nostril became the god la; and the breath blown from his mouth became the god o. These five particles were appointed to guard the order he had defined.
Pu established a unique “true name” corresponding to every thing, and nimi acquired divinity. Once things had true names, order emerged as well. Since the birth of the world, pu was the new existence that came after chaos, the first law, and the source of all knowledge in the Tao language. Whenever an intelligent being became aware of pu, it would appear in whatever form was easiest for that being to understand. Thus, to humans, pu appeared as a book.
sewi sin li mama：pu kalama a li e pi la o nimi nasin sin
God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He then created water. Water merged with chaos and became an egg. The eggshell broke apart, and the shell and yolk separated, yet both came from the egg. The eggshell moved outward and became the boundary of the universe; the egg white floated upward and became the sky; the yolk gathered downward and became the earth. The earth was uneven, with rises and depressions. The heavens were vast, while the earth was small. All the gods lived in the heavens, and so they were also called divine beings. Thus, sewi came to acquire the meaning of “sacred” as well. With the birth of Heaven and Earth, everything was no longer the same. The world now possessed the distinction between Heaven and Earth, and “and” and “or” came into existence as well.
sewi sin li mama：suno telo sike pakala selo insa weka tan tawa kama sewi kon anpa ma nena lupa suli lili ante en anu
God once again created things. When light fell upon things, the god kule came into existence. He commanded the world to bring forth colors. The god kule fell into thought. He looked down upon the newborn world, where an abyss lay across the void and darkness covered the earth—and thus pimeja was born.
The god kule fell into thought once more. He remembered purity untouched by dust and a mind that was clear and lucid—and thus walo was born.
The god kule thought once again. He imagined blood flowing through the bodies of living beings and flames burning fiercely in the darkness—and thus loje was born.
The god kule thought once more. He imagined ripe fruit and fields abundant with grain—and thus jelo was born.
The god kule thought yet again. He gazed into the distance and saw the boundless sky, as well as the silent, profound depths of the sea. Thus, a vast and tranquil color arose within him—and laso was born.
(The order in which the color words appear is based on the order in which color terms emerged in human languages in the real world.)
sewi sin li mama：pali ijo kule pimeja walo loje jelo laso
When things first appeared, they remained completely still. God slept for a while, and upon awakening, he created fire. He caused water to flow downward and fire to burn upward. Water sought to extinguish fire, while fire sought to consume water. Fire was hot, while water was cold. When heat and cold collided, they produced energy, which set matter into motion. (In another parallel universe, this struggle also gave rise to a great movement—the Watt steam engine and the Industrial Revolution.)
sewi sin li mama：seli lete wawa
When Heaven and Earth had first taken shape, the heavens were vast while the earth was small. All the gods lived in the heavens and frequently interacted with the god kon. This made the god ma feel extremely lonely. He sought help from God. God caused milk to flow from the breasts of the god ma. Rivers then flowed down from the mountains of the earth, streams gathered into great rivers, and eventually flowed into the lowlands, where they became vast oceans.
God then created stone and clay, and caused the earth to gradually fill with life: vegetables, fruits, seafood, birds, reptiles, insects, and animals came into being one after another. The voices of countless beasts echoed across the earth. The milk of the earth nourished all living beings, allowing everything to grow and reproduce, filling the land with vitality. At last, the god ma was no longer lonely. (The order in which species appeared is based on the Book of Genesis.)
sewi sin li mama：kiwen ko kasi kili kala waso akesi pipi soweli mu
God was now ready to create humans. He made hair, eyes, ears, and a mouth, all of them important organs of the head. He then made hands, the body, and legs and feet. God made the brain control the body and the heart provide the power for the body's movement. Thus, humans were created. At this time, all living creatures possessed an abundance of life.
sewi sin li mama：linja lukin kute uta luka sijelo noka lawa pilin jan
Humans were beings of infinite possibility. They possessed their own will and desires. According to these distinctions of will, they differentiated between “I,” “you,” and “they.” In order to refer to other things, they developed “that,” “front,” “back,” and “beside.”
sewi sin li mama：ken wile mi sina ona ni sinpin monsi poka
They learned to speak.
sewi sin li mama：toki
God gave humans things, and humans came to possess things. Those things were tools: clothes, sticks, and a box that could not be opened. Once opened, it would bring unimaginable consequences.
The stick given to humans by God possessed divine power, but humans only knew how to use it to hit things. Humans wanted to eat. After eating their fill, they flew together and enjoyed the pleasures of flying, and then they slept.
Later, they mastered the skills of making things and hunting, and used crops to make food. They tasted the sweetness and happiness of love. Women and men had children, and humanity multiplied into groups. In order to provide more places for people to live, they began building houses and also made beds for sleeping.
As humanity grew in number, war appeared. Hunting was fighting animals; war was hunting humans. At the same time, trade gradually emerged. In order to calculate money, they invented numbers. Having nothing was ala; the appearance of something was wan; having another thing was tu; the number of fingers on one hand was luka; the total number of fingers and toes was mute; and luka multiplied by mute was ale.
sewi sin li mama：pana jo ilo len palisa poki moku unpa lape alasa pan olin suwi musi meli mije kulupu tomo supa utala esun mani nanpa ala wan tu mute ale
Humans, having eaten their fill and with nothing better to do, opened the box. Thus, they used all the tools given to them by God. The box sucked away the lives of all living things. The fullness of life became scarcity, and all creatures were constantly threatened by death. Their bodies would one day decay.
Wealthy people who pondered the meaning of life emerged. They became curious about all kinds of things and began asking questions. The results of their thoughts and studies were summarized into knowledge. Humans pondered what truth was and where the boundary between good and evil lay. In order to record these questions and answers, they learned to write and recorded their knowledge in books.
sewi sin li mama：kepeken moli jaki seme sona lon pona ike sitelen lipu
When Heaven and Earth were not yet complete, there was no moon or stars, only the sun. The light of the sun god covered everything, and all living things on the earth could not endure its intense brightness. The god ma heard the cries of all living things and pleaded with the sun to illuminate only half of the land, leaving the other half in darkness so that living things could rest. However, the sun arrogantly refused ma's request. Enraged, ma cursed the sun to be split into two halves, never again able to see or reunite with its other half.
Where light shines, darkness disappears. Therefore, the god pimeja, jealous of the sun's power, wished for the evil god to help him kill the sun. The two of them prepared a cup of sugar water mixed with alcohol (in the mythology of Ma Pona, sugar water is the favorite food of all the gods). They approached the sun and said, “Drink this.” The sun drank the liquid and fell asleep.
Seeing that the plan had succeeded, the evil god picked up a leaf and struck the sun. The sun's light split into two, and the newly created light became the moon. When ma saw this, he stood between the sun and the moon.
The sun awoke from its sleep. Upon seeing the light of the moon god, it realized that the moon's light came from its own light, and began chasing the moon. The moon saw the light of the sun god and realized that its own light came from the sun, so it began chasing the sun. Because ma stood between them, the two could never see each other directly.
As the sun chased the moon, it scattered fragments of its light, and these fragments became the stars. Every day, the sun gathered up these points of light, but when night fell, many stars still remained in the sky. This was the origin of the moon and stars.
sewi sin li mama：mun
This was the complete history of the creation of the world. At this point, God's work of creation had finally come to an end.
sewi sin li mama：pini
