CREATION STORIES - VARIOUS
Salish:The ancients all had greater powers
and cunning than either animals or people. Besides the ancients, real
people lived on the earth at that time. Old One made the people out of
the last balls of mud he took from the earth. They were so ignorant
that they were the most helpless of all the creatures Old One had made.
The difficulty with the early world was that most of
the ancients were selfish, and they were also very stupid in some ways.
They did not know which creatures were deer and which were people, and
sometimes they ate people by mistake.
At last Old One said,"There will soon be no people
if I let things go on like this." So he sent Coyote to teach the
Indians how to do things. And Coyote began to travel on the earth,
teaching the Indians, making life easier and better for them, and
performing many wonderful deeds.
Iroquois: The Iroquois trace the beginning
of human life to a time when Skywoman fell to an island created by a
giant turtle. The island grew in shape and size and became North
America. There, Skywoman gave birth to a daughter whose children
propagated the human race.
Penobscot: When Kloskurbeh, the All-Maker,
lived on earth, there were no people yet. But one day a youth appeared,
born from the foam of the waves, and became his chief helper. After
these two beings had created all manner of things, there came to them a
beautiful girl. She was born of the wonderful earth plant, and of the
dew, and of warmth.
First Mother (as she was called) married the chief
helper of Kloskurbeh. When their children multiplied until there was
not enough game to feed them all, First Mother made her husband kill
her. Then he and his children dragged her body back and forth across a
barren plot of land, as she had ordered, and buried her bones in the
center of the field. Seven months later they returned and found the
field green with ripe corn and, in the center, fragrant tobacco.
Tewa/Hopi: Way back in the distant past,
the ancestors of humans were living down below in a world under the
earth. They weren't humans yet, they lived in darkness, behaving like
bugs.
Now there was a Great Spirit watching over
everything; some people say he was the sun. He saw how things were down
under the earth, so he sent his messenger, Spider Old Woman, to talk to
them. She said, "You creatures, the Sun Spirit doesn't want you living
like this. He is going to transform you into something better, and I
will lead you to another world."
When they came out on the surface of the earth,
that's when they became humans. In the journeys that followed, they
were looking for a place of harmony where they could follow good
teachings and a good way of life.
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