Most cultures have foundational stories that explain how the world was created. Sometimes referred to as cosmogonies, creation stories serve as a way of binding together individuals within a particular group by establishing a code, or belief system, by which the individuals in that group live. Like the creation stories of the Greeks and Romans, or the Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve that has dominated Western civilization for the past two millennia, Native American creation stories function as a way of making sense of the world while at the same time explaining certain aspects of human behavior (love, jealousy, fear, joy, etc.) and elements that are crucial to human sustenance (the sun, corn, rain, fire, etc.). Collectively, Native American cosmogonies reflect a view of time as cyclical rather than linear and a belief that nature possesses a mysterious power that affects every aspect of human life. Each story reflects the common belief that humankind is connected in kinship to every aspect of the natural world.
To those more accustomed to the creation stories associated with Western culture, Native American creation stories can seem confusing or incomplete because they often do not follow the linear narrative structure that governs most traditional European stories and can sometimes contain paradoxes or inexplicable turns. Take, for example, the figure of Coyote in the creation stories of the Miwok people of northern California; in these stories, Coyote is both creator and trickster, both revered and suspicious. The seemingly malleable nature of such stories is not indicative of narrative incompleteness, but should rather be read as stories whose meanings have evolved and progressed over time to reflect the changing values of the tribes to whom they belong. The most important thing that readers new to Native American stories should keep in mind is that Native texts should be evaluated within the context of the tribal cultures from which they spring and not against Western belief systems.
There are hundreds of Native American creation stories in existence; many have been told for thousands of years, and as oral stories tend to do, they have evolved to reflect the political and cultural shifts of the tribes across generations. Tribal creation stories often double as tribal histories, reflecting the collective historical experience of a particular tribe. Prior to the contact with European settlers, Native Americans did not use written languages. Instead, they relied on the oral tradition as a way of sharing their stories and preserving their tribal identities, with the tribe’s elders—or even designated storytellers—passing down the tales to the young. As a result, stories could potentially evolve to accommodate new information or to commemorate an important event in the life of a tribe. Take, for example the Sioux creation story, which centers on the vital role that water plays in the creation and sustenance of life. The central role of water in this story—and creatures associated with large bodies of water, such as the freshwater turtle, beaver, and loon—are indicative of the Sioux’s origins on the banks of Lake Superior, where they lived until prolonged warfare with the neighboring Ojibwe forced them southward and westward onto the Great Plains. A careful, historically savvy reader can often detect historical references embedded in traditional creation stories and gain important insights into how tribal groups responded to moments of great historical consequence.
Yet despite allowances for tribal specificity and geographical variation, Native American creation stories share in common a concern for the way in which the world was created and how the continued survival of that world is ultimately dependent on the balancing of opposite forces: light and dark, good and mischief, heroes and tricksters, male and female. Many scholars, including David Leeming and Jake Page, suggest that similarities among tribal creation stories can be attributed to the fact that Native Americans share a common ancestry with the peoples who crossed the Bering Strait from Asia into North America tens of thousands of years ago (Leeming and Page 1998, 3–4). The most prominent example of this shared pan-continental heritage is the earth-diver story, which is estimated to be one of the oldest creation myths in North America. This story begins with an image of the earth as covered by a primordial ocean, and features an animal—often a turtle, but sometimes other creatures such as a duck or a muskrat—that dives repeatedly into the water to retrieve bits of mud that, when gathered together, forms the material out of which the earth is constructed. In some stories, the ocean-diving creature is assisted by a creator figure that guides and directs the creation of the earth. This story is found in Asia among tribes in Japan, Mongolia, and Siberia and is perhaps the most dominant creation tale in North America, told by tribes such as the Cherokee, the Osage, the Anishinaabe, and the Iroquois, among others (Leeming and Page 1998, 5).
The other most common type of cosmogony, the emergence story, explains the creation of the present world as part of an ongoing cycle of creation and destruction of preexisting worlds. In the emergence stories of the Southwest, where such tales are predominant, all life—human, animal, and plant—is described as having been created in one or more underworlds that exist beneath the present earth and through which they had to travel to reach our present world. The journey motif is reflective of the migration process by which the ancestors of today’s Native American tribes dispersed across the North American continent and into Central and South America, and it resonates most clearly in the emergence stories of the primarily agricultural Southwestern tribes. Thus, we can ascertain that the emergence stories that are common among tribes such as the Pueblo and the Navajo explain both the gradual transition from dependence on hunting and gathering to farming and husbandry, as well as the ancient transcontinental migration from Asia.
Just as a tribe’s values and customs are informed by and reflected in its creation stories, so too are these stories’ reflections of the tribe’s geographical territory, the regional climate, and the ways in which its members obtain and prepare food. Many scholars of Native American culture classify tribes by region as a way of enabling closer examination of commonalities among neighboring groups as well as distinguishing the characteristics between regions. These geographical spaces, sometimes referred to as culture areas, are defined by shared stories as well as by confluences in lifestyle, cultural traditions, and sometimes even language. Although the boundaries of these culture areas are sometimes contentious, it is useful when discussing Native American creation stories as a collective to divide them into subcategories based on the seven culture areas of North America: the Northeast, the Southeast, the Plains, the Southwest, California and the Great Basin, the Northwest, and the Subarctic. Viewed through regional lenses, we can see how creation stories from tribes in a particular culture area typically share certain traits in common. For example, groups that traditionally relied on the ocean for sustenance, like the Chumash and the Tolowa of California, feature creation stories that emphasize the importance of the ocean, while those tribes that were dependent on the corn harvest, such as the Pueblo tribes of the Southwest, tell stories in which the corn goddess Iyatiku plays a central role. By the same token, tribes that alternated between farming and hunting to survive, like the Iroquois of the Northeast, have stories that differ greatly from the nomadic groups of the Plains like the Blackfoot. Every tribe—and often family groups within tribes—tell stories that explain features of local geography, such as the placement of a plateau, the genesis of a river, or how the mountains were formed.
A Black Separatist Story of Genesis
The Nation of Islam, an influential black separatist group founded by Wallace D. Fard—succeeded by Elijah Muhammad—is perhaps best known to most Americans through the person of Malcolm X (who eventually rejected its teachings) and to a lesser extent through that of Louis Farrakhan. According to Nation of Islam theology, a black earthly paradise was destroyed 6,000 years ago by Yacub, an evil sorcerer who created the white devil. Only by throwing off the ensuing yoke of white oppression and reasserting the rights of the Original People, the story continues, may this paradise be restored.
C. Fee
The stories of the Northeast typically include a variation on the earth-diver story. The stories of the Onondaga and Seneca tell the story of Sky Woman, the young wife of the chief in the sky, who falls through a hole in the sky in her eagerness to view the watery world below. In each of these stories, Sky Woman is saved from drowning by animals and birds that quickly form a landmass from the mud beneath the water’s surface. The Cherokee, whose territory traditionally extended to the area south of the Iroquois and whose language shares roots with the Iroquoian tongue, also have a story about Sky Woman. In addition, many tribes of the Northeast share a belief in a supreme creator figure and revere the shamans, or medicine people, who are believed to have special spiritual powers.
In the stories of the Southeast, the earth-diver myth is also dominant, but there is also a prevalence of origin stories that attempt to explain the genesis of specific tribes. The Choctaw and Chickasaw stories, which explain the geographical migration of the two related tribes, present examples of this. One common version of this shared tale explains that at one time the Choctaws and Chickasaws were a single tribe that occupied a land to the west of where they were living when first contact was made with European settlers. Guided by a pair of brothers, Chahta and Chikasa, the tribe journeyed eastward with the bones of their ancestors until they arrived at a mound in present-day Mississippi known as Nanih Waiya, where they deposited their ancestors’ remains. To this day, the site is referred to as a sacred, spiritual place. The Creek story, like that of the Choctaw and Chickasaw, does not explain how the world was created, but rather focuses on addressing certain aspects of its existence. In the Creek story, the Creator strives to achieve a balance in the coexistence of humans and animals by simultaneously separating them (by making it impossible for them to communicate) while at the same time connecting them (by creating spirit animals to whom humans can turn for protection and guidance). In many of these stories, rituals are emphasized as a way of connecting the tribes with their supreme creator.
The stories of the Plains reflect the nomadic lifestyles of the tribes located in that region, such as the Osage, the Blackfoot, the Cheyenne, the Arapaho, the Lakota Sioux, the Pawnee, and others. Because the tribes of this culture area moved throughout the year to follow the buffalo herds, their cosmogonies present an interesting amalgamation of traditions and stories from all over North America. Most of these tribes believe in a supreme being that is typically translated as the Great Spirit, and many include trickster figures, such as Iktomi the Spider or Coyote, who play important intermediary roles between the spirit and human worlds. One such example is the creation story of the Crows, which features Old Man Coyote as a trickster-creator figure that directs not only the creation of the earth, humankind, and animals, but also the cultivation of fires, teepees, and weapons. Tricked by his assistant, Little Coyote, Old Man Coyote also gives humankind different languages, leading to misunderstanding, violence, and war. The Osage creation story similarly draws upon the earth-diver story found in the eastern regions of North America, but instead of the earth being created by humans or small animals, the Osage tell of a great elk that sank from the heavens to the waters below and made the world hospitable for human and animal life. The centrality of the elk to this story is indicative of the importance of the elk, an animal hunted on the Plains, to the survival of Plains tribes.
In the Southwest, where emergence stories are predominant, there is also a concomitant emphasis on creators or a creatrix that direct the four worlds through which life emergences. Both the Acoma and Laguna tribes tell of Ts’ist’tsi’nako, alternately translated as Spider Woman or Thought Woman, who thinks the world into being with the help of twin female spirits that are sometimes identified as her daughters. Similarly, Hopi creation stories center on a Spider Woman figure that is also sometimes called Hard Beings Woman. Described as an Earth Mother, Spider Woman’s maternal power is counterbalanced by Tawa, a male deity associated with the creative energy of the sun. Together, the two create life, and Spider Woman eventually leads humankind and the animals through the four underworlds to our present world. The emergence stories of the Southwest often form the basis of oral epics that tell of cultural heroes who journey through the underworlds and undergo great trials for the benefit of their people.
The California and the Great Basin regions encompass the present-day state of California and the region west of the Rocky Mountains. Because these tribes have distinctive linguistic and cultural traditions, and because so many were almost nearly eradicated by European and American settlers, it is sometimes challenging to identify common creation motifs across the many groups in this region. Versions of the earth-diver story are common among inland tribes such as the Modoc and the Maidu, while other stories emphasize the role of a trickster figure in the creation of the world, such as the Wolf in the Shoshone stories. Flood stories are also common along the coastal region and appear in stories from tribes such as the Shasta and the Kato.
In the Northwest, origin stories that explain the genesis of certain rituals and stories are far more common than are creation stories. Dominant in this region are stories of sacred animals that sacrifice themselves to sustain human life, such as Salmon Boy and Bear Mother. The importance of animals in the lives of the Northwestern peoples is reflected in the existence of totem poles, carved and painted logs that feature images of animals and spirits that are central to a particular tribe’s stories. Tales that explain the origins of tribes are particularly common in this region as well, such as the Chinook tale that describes the first Chinook tribe as having descended from the sky, offspring of a god called Thunderbird. As with the tribes of the Plains, many Northwestern tribes tell origin stories that involve trickster figures.
Creation stories told among the peoples of the Subarctic region often include a hybrid of the flood and earth-diver stories. As with the stories of the Northwest, Subarctic cosmogonies include tales about cultural heroes and tricksters who play an important role in the development of our present world. The trickster is especially important in the creation stories of the Cree, which has bands dotted across the Subarctic region. The Cree story presents an interesting synthesis of the earth-diver and flood tales, at the center of which is the trickster figure, Wisakedjak, who influences both the destruction of the earth in the great deluge as well as its restoration. As with the tales of other regions, the hybrid quality of tales found in the Subarctic region reflect the extent of tribal intermingling and sharing of stories.
Collectively, Native American creation stories reflect a very human need to understand and make sense of the natural world, its processes, and our place within it. Thus, while it is critical to understand the tribal context of each particular story, each story possesses a certain degree of universal appeal.
Stella Setka
See also Birth of Good and Evil, an Iroquois Myth; Blessing Way; Circle of Life and the Clambake, The; Coyote Tales; Creation Myth of the Tewa; Great Spirit; Iktomi; Spider Woman; Woman Who Fell from the Sky
Further Reading
Brown, Dee. 1979. Folktales of the Native American: Retold for Our Times. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Duane, O. B. 1998. Native American Myths and Legends. London: Brockhampton Press.
Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonso Ortiz. 1984. American Indian Myths and Legends. New York: Pantheon Books.
Leeming, David, and Jake Page. 1998. The Mythology of Native North America. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Leeming, David, and Margaret Leeming. 1995. A Dictionary of Creation Myths. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pritchard, Evan T. 2005. Native American Stories of the Sacred: Annotated and Explained. Woodstock, VT: SkyLight Paths.