Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906]New York State Historical Association. Meeting
History
Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906]
New York State Historical Association. Meeting
New York (State) -- History -- Periodicals; New York State Historical Association -- Periodicals
"Then Loon said, 'Come, you deep divers, dive and bring up earth.'
Many dived into the water, and Beaver was a long time gone. When his
back appeared he was dead, and when they examined his paws, they found
no earth. Then Otter said, 'It is my turn.' Whereupon he dived, and
after a longer time he also came up dead. Neither did he bring up any
earth. It was then that Muskrat said, 'I also will make the desperate
attempt.' It was a still longer time that he was under water, but
after a while he also floated to the surface, dead. In his paws was
mud and his mouth was full of mud. And they took this mud and coated
the edge of Great Turtle's shell all around, and other muskrats dived
and floated dead, but brought up mud, which was placed on Great
Turtle's back. And the female man-being sat on the back of Great
Turtle and slept. And when she awoke the earth had increased in size,
and she slept again, and when she awoke, willows were growing along
the edge of the water. And then, also, when she again awoke, the
carcass of a deer recently killed, lay there, and a fire was burning,
and a sharp stone. And she dressed, cooked, and ate her fill. And
after a while a rivulet appeared and rapidly the earth increased to
great size, and grass and herbs sprung from the earth and grew to
maturity.
"And after a while the female man-being gave birth to a girl child,
who grew rapidly to maturity, and not long after gave birth to two
male man-beings, but the daughter died in giving birth to the twins.
And the grandmother cut off the head of her dead daughter and hung her
body in a high place and it became the sun, and the head she placed in
another place and it became the moon.
"And when she examined one of the infants she found his flesh was
nothing but flint and there was a sharp comb of flint over the top of
his head, but the flesh of the other was in every respect like a
man-being.
"It seems that these two were antagonistic from their birth, the
grandmother clinging to the flint child and driving the other into the
wilderness; and in his wanderings he came to the shore of a lake and
saw a lodge standing there. Looking in the doorway he saw a man
sitting there, who said to him, 'Enter thou here. This man was Great
Turtle, who gave him a bow and arrow, and also gave him two ears of
corn, one in the milky state, which he told him to roast and eat as
food, and the other, which was mature, he should use for seed corn.
"He also endowed him with preternatural powers. And when he was about
to depart, he said to the young man, 'I am Great Turtle, I am thy
parent.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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