FOLK-TALES AND MYTHS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. Creation Myths.— When primitive man began to reason about himself and the world around him, among the first questions he was bound to ask himself were how he came to be upon the earth and what was the origin of the earth itself and the creatures on it and the inhabitants of the heavens above. All these questions he settled to his own satisfaction, however childish his reasoning may seem to us with our more per fect knowledge of the laws of nature. Very various are the answers given to these ques tions. The Bella Coola tell us that their great goddess, Afraid of Nothing, who dwells in the Far East, created the world. Then the moun tains were monster human beings and tyrants. She defeated them, made them smaller and confined them each to a certain place so that they might no longer do harm. In general, however, the Indian mind accepts the eternal existence of the world or of primary matter; and he troubles himself only with accounting for its specific forms. The Zufii Awonawilona, the Maker and Container of All, created the primal fogs and mists and took upon himself the form of the Sun with all his personal at tributes. Then, by his own brightness and light, he thickened the cloud-mists into water, •thus creating the World-holding Sea. With his own flesh he fecundated the sea and made two worlds. Out of this came Mother Earth, she of the four divisions or wombs from which sprang all beings. In the lower cave or womb of the earth remained many half-formed beings crawling over one another. Then • up sprang Poshaiyandlcya, the All-wise-one, from the sea, after passing through a long and ter ribly dark passage and made his way to the Father-sun and begged him to deliver the men and creatures in the earth-cave. Thus was the Earth Mother delivered. The Thompson River Indians combine the functions of the Creator and the culture god in The Old One Who created the earth and the people and taught them how to spear fish, to make bows and arrows and spears, to shoot the deer, to dress skins, cook and preserve meats and, in fact, all they know and do. Another version of the myth, which is probably the earlier, says that Old One taught them whence they came, which would seem to imply that he had no hand in their creation. According to a west-coast myth the Raven-man was the creator of the sun, the moon and the stars. The •Maidu have a com plete chain of creation myths which divide themselves naturally into periods, much as the Aztec and the Maya myths do. In the first of these is the discoverer and Codoyanape is the • of this world. Together they prepare if for the first people. Then fol low the creation of the First People, the mak ing and planting of the germs of human be ings. The third witnesses the transformation of the human race into animals, after period of strife. Another cycle descry dark tricks of Coyote and the attempts Earth-namer to overcome him. Find
latter is defeated in the contest and uk! • departure to the bright Eastern-lano, afte appearance upon earth of the present race. The Achomawi, a neighboring have the same myth, hut say that, in ;le ginning there was nothing but the vast s., less sea and the cloudless sky above first a tiny cloud appeared in the sky condensing, became the Creator, Silver Fox. A fog arose, condensed and Coyote. Thus we have the birth of creators. The Wyandot people once lived:: Land-beyond-the-sky until one day the told them to dig round the roots of a ; ' apple tree which stood in the great lodge : chief. They broke through the floor c: sky-land and the chief's daughter fell tie: the hole thus made. Below on the e World of Waters a white swan Sikl=. heard a heavy peal of thunder, the fire earth, and saw the apple tree and the falling from the sky-land. On the soft of the swan's back she fell and rested Big Turtle called a council of all the a= and they decided to try to get earth free apple tree's roots at the bottom of the Otter, Muskrat and Beaver all were sively drowned in attempting to dive i Finally Frog too came up dead but with a grains of earth between her toes. From grains an island was made around the be: Big Turtle, which finally grew into tht earth world. When there are earthquake. because Great Turtle gets tired, or is e_ his feet. The second part of this myth.. some slight variations, is told by the Wisagatka, sailing on a raft on the pest ocean, tied a string to a muskrat and sea down to bring up some mud from the ters of the waters; but he was drowned I Crow was sent on the same errand; b: came back without performing his tiv. Than Wisagatka took some small pies moss from the raft and medicine' them. Then he gave the moss to told him to run round the raft. Woli tl tinued running for a week and the ra: larger and larger, till it grew into a grey' Wolf never came back. The reason the so many springs on earth is because the comes up between the logs of Wisagath: raft. According to the Xhompson Rise divas Old One lives in the Sky-land, whe reached only from the tops of the high, capped mountains. Once there was no e but only a great waste of waters. Old took some earth from the Sky-land, ma-. large, hollow ball and threw it down cr waters, where it flattened out into a vets island. This is why the earth is full of hollows and mountains, with islets, river lakes. Then Old One came down and r grass and trees to grow. This is why around the earth is water. The Hai& • that at first there was no land, but only a r sea. Then the Raven appeared upon a s1 of earth. This increased rapidly; and Fn. divided it into two parts, one large and small. Practically all the Indian tribe America have their creation myths; it there are literally hundreds of them; but the above will give a general idea of what they are all like.