Oranda Davis
Like many others in class, I have never read the Bible. I have also never kept a blog. Though I did once read Genesis for high school AP English. That was about a million years ago, but I remember thinking that the very first verses, the seven days that God spent creating the earth, were some of the most beautiful words I've ever read. I was not disappointed the second time around.
In Genesis 1:21 God creates "great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind...." This struck me as similar to many Native American religions which have one Creator, who was responsible for making animal Spirits. These Spirits would in turn create their own children in their likeness to dwell on Earth. I found this association intriguing, so I asked my friend, Charles, who is a Crow Indian and an anthropology major, about his people's creation story. I was actually hoping to draw comparisons between Adam and Eve, and a story containing First Man and First Woman. The Crow, however, do not spring from a first couple (though Charles assured me that most Native creation stories do in revolve around a first man and woman). In the beginning there was one supreme being, the Creator, and Old Man Coyote. The Earth was composed entirely of water, but Old Man Coyote asked several different birds to dive to the bottom and retrieve mud to make dry land. The duck was the one who succeeded. Charles noted that Noah also sent birds (a raven and a dove) out after the flood to find dry land. Once the earth was brought up from beneath the water, Old Man Coyote made clay figures to represent all the different races of people. To test their bravery (or perhaps faith?), Old Man Coyote set them atop a giant slide and told them to descend into to stakes planted at the bottom. Each figure leaped off the slide at the last minute for fear of death. All but the Crow figure, who died and was subsequently resurrected. And that is how the Crow became Old Man Coyote's favorite people.
I also found similarities in other tribes' myths. The Blackfeet's Creator was called Old Man. He made all the plants, roots, berries, trees, and animals. When he made people he created a woman and her son, and he covered the clay figures for four days. On the fourth and final day he bade them to get up and walk. I found this significant because four is a sacred number to most Native American tribes. It represents the number of seasons and the four sacred directions of East, West, North, and South. The first people were also described as "poor and naked," and the myth clearly states that Old Man breathed life into the people and the bison he made to sustain them; just as God breathed life into the people he raised from the dust. Old Man left his people and travelled west, but vowed always to take care of them. He also promised to someday return.
I also found a story about a flood on Superstition Mountain in Arizona. This story comes from the Pima tribe and it is strikingly similar to the story of Noah. The creator in this story is actually the Great Butterfly, or Earth-Maker, who created man out of his own sweat. Over time, the people grew to be ungrateful and contentious. Earth-Maker, being fed up with how the people had become, decided to drown them. Earth-Maker warned the people to change their wicked ways, but they merely laughed. Four warnings were sent via the East, West, North, and South Winds, but the only one who listened was a righteous shaman named Suha. The South Wind instructed Suha and his wife to build a giant ball of spruce gum to weather the impending flood. After many months, the giant ball settled high atop a mountain. The people eventually repopulated the earth, but were warned to maintain more pious lives lest Earth-Maker again decided to drown the wickedness from the world. It was also clearly stated that "only good people would be able to eventually go to live with the Sun God."
The last myth I want to discuss is the Plains Indians' stories of Morning Star, the son of the Sun and Moon. Morning Star fell in love with a human named Feather Woman. She went to live with him in the Sky World, where her new father-in-law disapproved of her relationship with his son. In the Sky World there was a giant turnip which was never to be disturbed. Feather Woman's curiosity eventually got the best of her. One day she decided that it wouldn't hurt to just take a peek beneath the root and attempted to dig it out, but her digging stick was too weak. At that same moment two huge, white cranes came to her aid; unfortunately, the cranes were the "sworn enemies of the Star People." Through the hole of the uprooted turnip, Feather Woman saw Earth and became homesick. When she returned to her lodge that night the Sun immediately knew she had done something wrong. She confessed and was sent back to Earth with her son. This story bears striking similarities to that of the forbidden fruit of the sacred tree in Eden. It is interesting that rather than being persuaded by malicious intentions of the cranes, as Eve is by the serpent, Feather Woman makes her own conscious decision. She is subsequently punished by being cast out of the Sky World and never able to return.
Alas, I had to tear myself away from these stories with the reminder that I am enrolled in a Bible as literature class, and not a mythologies course. I found these stories and several more at www.indigenouspeople.net/legend.htm. Of particular interest are the stories of how Indians and white people came to exist (Salish/Flathead), and the great flood of the Yellowstone Valley.
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