Flood myths are common across a wide range of cultures, extending back into Bronze Age and Neolithic prehistory. These accounts depict a flood, sometimes global in scale, usually sent by a deity or deities to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution.
Although the continent has relatively few flood legends,[1][2][3][4] African cultures preserving an oral tradition of a flood include the Kwaya, Mbuti, Maasai, Mandin, and Yoruba peoples.[5]
Egypt
Floods were seen as beneficial in Ancient Egypt, and similar to the case with Japan, Ancient Egypt did not have any cataclysmic flood myths picturing it as destructive rather than fertile force. One "flood myth" in Egyptian mythology involves the god Ra and his daughter Sekhmet. Ra sent Sekhmet to destroy part of humanity for their disrespect and unfaithfulness which resulted in the gods overturning wine jugs to simulate a great flood of blood, so that by getting her drunk on the wine and causing her to pass out her slaughter would cease. This is commemorated in a wine drinking festival during the annual Nile flood.[6]
Japan lacks a major flood myth. The namazu is considered a creature that brings earthquakes, which in turn bring tsunamis, but they do not count as floods in a strict mythological sense. Japanese scholars in the 19th century such as Hirata Atsutane and Motoori Norinaga have used the global flood myths of other cultures to argue for the supremacy of Shinto and promote Japanese nationalism.[23] They claimed that the fact that Japan has no flood myth showed that it was both the centre and highest point on Earth, making it the closest place on Earth to the heavens. As such, to them this demonstrates the veracity of the Japanese creation myth, where Japan comes first and foremost.
There are many folktales among Tai peoples, included Zhuang, Thai, Shan and Lao, talking about the origin of them and the deluge from their Thean (แถน), supreme being object of faith.