Post by blackcrowheart on Oct 8, 2006 13:53:17 GMT -5
Cherokee Creation Story
www.historytools.org/sources/cherokee-creation.pdf
www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/redir.htm?r_fcid=415&r_fcp=top&advanced=1&top=1&nde=1&qcat=web&q_all=&q_phrase=+Cherokee+Creation+Story&q_any=&q_not=&topadvancedsubmit=Go+Fetch%21&lang=&tviewby=1&qk=20&qafterm=01&qafterd=01&qaftery=1990&qbeforem=09&qbefored=30&qbeforey=2006&domaint=&adultfilter=heavy
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Cherokee were a numerous and
strong people who controlled an immense area of
land, spanning from the western parts of modern-day Virginia, North
Carolina, and South Carolina, well into
Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. (In the sixty years after the
American Revolution, they would lose
virtually all of their lands to the U.S., a process that culminated in
their forced removal in the late 1830s to “Indian
Territory” west of the Mississippi River.)
James Mooney (1861–1921), a researcher for the Bureau of American
Ethnology, collected materials for the following
story in the late 1880s while doing field work among the Cherokee in
western North Carolina, among a remnant that
he believed had preserved much of Cherokee culture and tradition. The
story is an amalgam assembled by Mooney to
document the Cherokee cosmology. Most parts of the story came from two
Cherokee storytellers, one of them nearly 100
years old, and neither of them speaking English. It’s important to
recognize Mooney’s role in fashioning this story, but
it’s also worth noting that he was very much dedicated to studying and
preserving authentic Cherokee beliefs, and that
he was deeply concerned about the contamination of his subjects’ beliefs
by Euro-American influences.
The basic elements of the following story had been passed down among the
Cherokee for generations. While this
account of the origins of Cherokee country has distinctive elements, it
also has much in common with many other “earth-
diver creation” accounts told by other American Indian peoples. –D. Voelker
Bibliography: James Mooney, “Myths of the Cherokee,” Nineteenth Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1897–
98, Part 1 (Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1900), 236–7, 239–40,
430–1, 435–6; L. G. Moses, “The Eastern
Cherokees,” in The Indian Man: A Biography of James Mooney (Urbana:
Univ. of Illinois Press, 1984), 18–51; David Leeming
and Jake Page, The Mythology of Native North America (Norman: Univ. of
Oklahoma Press, 1998), 77 ff.
[1] The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and
suspended at each of the four cardinal
points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid
rock. When the world grows old
and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the
earth sink down into the
ocean, and all will be water again. The Indians are afraid of this.
[2] When all was water, the animals were above in Galunlati, beyond the
arch; but it was very much
crowded, and they were wanting more room. They wondered what was below
the water, and at last
. . . “Beaver’s Grandchild,” the little Water-beetle, offered to go and
see if it could learn. It darted
in every direction over the surface of the water, but could find no firm
place to rest. Then it dived
to the bottom and came up with some soft mud, which began to grow and
spread on every side until
it became the island which we call the earth. It was afterward fastened
to the sky with four cords,
but no one remembers this.
[3] At first the earth was flat and very soft and wet. The animals were
anxious to get down, and
sent out different birds to see if it was yet dry, but they found no
place to alight and came back to
Galunlati. At last it seemed to be time, and they sent out the Buzzard
and told him to go and make
ready for them. This was the Great Buzzard, the father of all the
buzzards we see now. He flew all
over the earth, low down near the ground, and it was still soft. When he
reached the Cherokee
country, he was very tired, and his wings began to flap and strike the
ground, and wherever they
struck the earth there was a valley, and where they turned up again
there was a mountain. When
the animals above saw this, they were afraid that the whole world would
be mountains, so they
called him back, but the Cherokee country remains full of mountains to
this day.
2
[4] When the earth was dry and the animals came down, it was still dark,
so they got the sun and
set in a track to go every day across the island from east to west, just
overhead. It was too hot this
way, and . . . the Red Crawfish, had his shell scorched a bright red, so
that his meat was spoiled;
and the Cherokee do not eat it. The conjurers put the sun another
hand-breadth higher in the air,
but it was still too hot. They raised it another time, and another,
until it was seven handbreadths
high and just under the sky arch. Then it was right, and they left it
so. . . . Every day the sun goes
along under this arch, and returns at night on the upper side to the
starting place.
[5] There is another world under this, and it is like ours in
everything—animals, plants, and
people—save that the seasons are different. The streams that come down
from the mountains are
the trails by which we read this underworld, and the springs at their
heads are the doorways by
which we enter it, but to do this one must fast and go to water and have
one of the underground
people for a guide. We know that the seasons in the underworld are
different from ours, because
the water in the springs is always warmer in the winter and cooler in
the summer than the outer air.
[6] When the animals and plants were first made—we do not know by
whom—they were told to
watch and keep awake for seven nights, just as young men now fast and
keep awake when they pray
to their medicine. They tried to do this, and nearly all were awake
through the first night, but the
next night several dropped off to sleep, and the third night others were
asleep, and then others,
until, on the seventh night, of all of the animals only the owl, the
panther, and one or two more
were still awake. To these were given the power to see and to go about
in the dark, and to make
prey of the birds and animals which must sleep at night. Of the trees
only the cedar, the pine, the
spruce, the holly, and the laurel were awake to the end, and to them it
was given to be always green
and to be the greatest for medicine, but to the others it was said:
“Because you have not endured to
the end you shall lose your hair every winter.”
[7] Men came after the animals and plants. At first there were only a
brother and sister until he
struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven
days a child was born to her,
and thereafter every seven days another, and they increased very fact
until there was danger that the
world could not keep them. Then it was made that a woman should have
only one child in a year,
and it has been so ever since.
www.historytools.org/sources/cherokee-creation.pdf
www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/redir.htm?r_fcid=415&r_fcp=top&advanced=1&top=1&nde=1&qcat=web&q_all=&q_phrase=+Cherokee+Creation+Story&q_any=&q_not=&topadvancedsubmit=Go+Fetch%21&lang=&tviewby=1&qk=20&qafterm=01&qafterd=01&qaftery=1990&qbeforem=09&qbefored=30&qbeforey=2006&domaint=&adultfilter=heavy
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Cherokee were a numerous and
strong people who controlled an immense area of
land, spanning from the western parts of modern-day Virginia, North
Carolina, and South Carolina, well into
Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. (In the sixty years after the
American Revolution, they would lose
virtually all of their lands to the U.S., a process that culminated in
their forced removal in the late 1830s to “Indian
Territory” west of the Mississippi River.)
James Mooney (1861–1921), a researcher for the Bureau of American
Ethnology, collected materials for the following
story in the late 1880s while doing field work among the Cherokee in
western North Carolina, among a remnant that
he believed had preserved much of Cherokee culture and tradition. The
story is an amalgam assembled by Mooney to
document the Cherokee cosmology. Most parts of the story came from two
Cherokee storytellers, one of them nearly 100
years old, and neither of them speaking English. It’s important to
recognize Mooney’s role in fashioning this story, but
it’s also worth noting that he was very much dedicated to studying and
preserving authentic Cherokee beliefs, and that
he was deeply concerned about the contamination of his subjects’ beliefs
by Euro-American influences.
The basic elements of the following story had been passed down among the
Cherokee for generations. While this
account of the origins of Cherokee country has distinctive elements, it
also has much in common with many other “earth-
diver creation” accounts told by other American Indian peoples. –D. Voelker
Bibliography: James Mooney, “Myths of the Cherokee,” Nineteenth Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1897–
98, Part 1 (Washington: Govt. Printing Office, 1900), 236–7, 239–40,
430–1, 435–6; L. G. Moses, “The Eastern
Cherokees,” in The Indian Man: A Biography of James Mooney (Urbana:
Univ. of Illinois Press, 1984), 18–51; David Leeming
and Jake Page, The Mythology of Native North America (Norman: Univ. of
Oklahoma Press, 1998), 77 ff.
[1] The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and
suspended at each of the four cardinal
points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid
rock. When the world grows old
and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the
earth sink down into the
ocean, and all will be water again. The Indians are afraid of this.
[2] When all was water, the animals were above in Galunlati, beyond the
arch; but it was very much
crowded, and they were wanting more room. They wondered what was below
the water, and at last
. . . “Beaver’s Grandchild,” the little Water-beetle, offered to go and
see if it could learn. It darted
in every direction over the surface of the water, but could find no firm
place to rest. Then it dived
to the bottom and came up with some soft mud, which began to grow and
spread on every side until
it became the island which we call the earth. It was afterward fastened
to the sky with four cords,
but no one remembers this.
[3] At first the earth was flat and very soft and wet. The animals were
anxious to get down, and
sent out different birds to see if it was yet dry, but they found no
place to alight and came back to
Galunlati. At last it seemed to be time, and they sent out the Buzzard
and told him to go and make
ready for them. This was the Great Buzzard, the father of all the
buzzards we see now. He flew all
over the earth, low down near the ground, and it was still soft. When he
reached the Cherokee
country, he was very tired, and his wings began to flap and strike the
ground, and wherever they
struck the earth there was a valley, and where they turned up again
there was a mountain. When
the animals above saw this, they were afraid that the whole world would
be mountains, so they
called him back, but the Cherokee country remains full of mountains to
this day.
2
[4] When the earth was dry and the animals came down, it was still dark,
so they got the sun and
set in a track to go every day across the island from east to west, just
overhead. It was too hot this
way, and . . . the Red Crawfish, had his shell scorched a bright red, so
that his meat was spoiled;
and the Cherokee do not eat it. The conjurers put the sun another
hand-breadth higher in the air,
but it was still too hot. They raised it another time, and another,
until it was seven handbreadths
high and just under the sky arch. Then it was right, and they left it
so. . . . Every day the sun goes
along under this arch, and returns at night on the upper side to the
starting place.
[5] There is another world under this, and it is like ours in
everything—animals, plants, and
people—save that the seasons are different. The streams that come down
from the mountains are
the trails by which we read this underworld, and the springs at their
heads are the doorways by
which we enter it, but to do this one must fast and go to water and have
one of the underground
people for a guide. We know that the seasons in the underworld are
different from ours, because
the water in the springs is always warmer in the winter and cooler in
the summer than the outer air.
[6] When the animals and plants were first made—we do not know by
whom—they were told to
watch and keep awake for seven nights, just as young men now fast and
keep awake when they pray
to their medicine. They tried to do this, and nearly all were awake
through the first night, but the
next night several dropped off to sleep, and the third night others were
asleep, and then others,
until, on the seventh night, of all of the animals only the owl, the
panther, and one or two more
were still awake. To these were given the power to see and to go about
in the dark, and to make
prey of the birds and animals which must sleep at night. Of the trees
only the cedar, the pine, the
spruce, the holly, and the laurel were awake to the end, and to them it
was given to be always green
and to be the greatest for medicine, but to the others it was said:
“Because you have not endured to
the end you shall lose your hair every winter.”
[7] Men came after the animals and plants. At first there were only a
brother and sister until he
struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven
days a child was born to her,
and thereafter every seven days another, and they increased very fact
until there was danger that the
world could not keep them. Then it was made that a woman should have
only one child in a year,
and it has been so ever since.