The Northwest Coastal People- Haida

A creation myth that involves both transformation and a trickster, the Legend of
Raven and the First Men is a myth from the Haida people. In the beginning of the
myth, there is darkness and chaos, and the world is only water. The trickster Raven
grows bored of this, causing him to fly. Through flying, he becomes hungry,
prompting him to find land to allow him to stop flying and eat.

One day, Raven came upon a clamshell on a beach. The clamshell made a strange
sound, which caught his attention. He began singing to the clam, and a small, pale
creature emerged – the first human. Raven noticed that like him, they walked on
two feet, but they looked very different otherwise. To him, these first men were
pitiful, and in need of support.

As with the water, Raven grew bored of these humans. He considered returning
them to their shell but decided instead to find female humans so they could have
companions. He enjoyed watching the men and women interact and became
protective over them.

Raven transformed himself into a human and taught the first humans how to build
fires and stay warm. He then taught them how to fish and hunt, and how to live in
harmony with the natural world. Raven even taught them how to make tools and
clothing.

As the first humans grew and multiplied, Raven watched over them and continued
to teach them. He saw that they were becoming independent and didn't need him as
much as they used to. So, he decided to leave them and return to the spirit world.

Before he left, Raven wanted to give the first humans a gift – the gift of light. He
flew up into the sky and stole the sun from the chief of the sky world. He brought it
back down to the first humans and placed it in the sky, where it has shone ever
since.
 Plains People- Blackfoot

We all start with creation. In this beginning, there was nothing but water. Napi was
on a raft with four water creatures. There was kssiskstaki, the beaver; there was
áímmóniisi, the otter; there was sa’ái, the duck and mí’sohpsski, the muskrat.

Napi wanted to create land. They were floating and there was nothing but water, so
he asked these animals if they’d go down and find some pieces of earth. The first
animal, kssiskstaki, the beaver said, “Napi I’ll go down and try to find some land
for you.” He went deep, deep down into the water, but he couldn’t find anything.
He came back up and said “Napi there’s nothing down there but water.”

Áímmóniisi, the otter said, “I’ll try Napi, to go down there and see if I can find
some land.” Áímmóniisi swam deeper than the beaver, but he came back up with
nothing. He said “Napi, there’s nothing down there but water.” So sa’ái the duck
said, “Well I’ll go down and I’ll try to find some earth.” Same thing happened-
sa’ái says “There’s nothing.”

Mí’sohpsski, the muskrat said, “Well Napi I’ll try. I’ll go down and I’ll see if
there’s some land down there.” He went down in the water and was gone for such a
long time that they thought muskrat had died. Finally, he came floating back up in
the water and they threw him up onto the raft. Muskrat was half dead and they tried
to resuscitate him. Then his paw opened up. He had a little piece of dirt in his hand.
So Napi took that piece of dirt and created everything around us, the prairies, the
rivers, the cliffs, the coulees…everything around us.

Napi explored the earth and began piling up rocks to make mountains. He gouged
out beds to make rivers and lakes and filled them with water. He covered the plains
with grass. He made the other animals and birds. Finally, from a lump of clay, he
made himself a wife.

That’s the Blackfoot story of creation.

 Inuit

At the beginning of the world there were giants.They lived on the land and ate the
fruits of the land. One year, as the days began to get shorter and colder, a baby girl
was born to two of the giants. They named her Sedna. Day by day, as the sun became
weaker and smaller, Sedna grew stronger and bigger. She grew and grew very quickly
until, in no time at all, she was huge. Soon she was bigger than her giant parents.

The bigger she got the more she ate and the more she needed to eat, but there were not
enough plants on the land to satisfy her hunger. One night, ravenously hungry, she
began to gnaw her parents legs.

‘Owww!’ they cried, ‘that's enough of that.’ With a great struggle they bundled Sedna
up in a blanket and carried her to their canoe. It was dark but they paddled out to sea
in the light of a hazy moon. When they reached the middle of the ocean, they pushed
Sedna overboard into the icy waters.

And that, they thought, was that. They started to paddle back towards the land,
shivering for the cold and also for shame at what they had done to their own daughter.
Yet before they had gone far, the canoe stopped - no matter how fast they paddled, the
canoe would not move forward. To their horror they saw two hands, Sedna's hands,
reaching out of the water to grip the canoe and then to rock it from side to side.

The giants felt the boat shaking. Soon they would be tossed into the ocean they would
surely drown, unless they did something quickly.Simply to save themselves, they
pulled out sharp knives and chopped off Sedna's fingers. One by one the fingers
splashed into the sea and, as they sank, they changed into swimming creatures. One
became a whale, one a seal, another a walrus, another a salmon. The fingers changed
into all the creatures of the seas.

As for Sedna, she drifted through new shoals of fish to the bottom of the ocean. There
the fishes built her an underwater tent. Above her, the cold waters formed a crust of
ice and sealed Sedna in her wintry, watery world. She still lives there, and whenever
the Inuit are short of food, they call on Sedna and she provides it, even in the depths
of winter.
 The Eastern Woodland Farmers- Iroquois

Long before the world was created, there was an island in the sky inhabited by sky
people. One day a pregnant sky woman drops through a hole created by an uprooted
tree and begins to fall for what seems like eternity.

Coming out of darkness, she eventually sees oceans. The animals from this world
congregate, trying to understand what they see in the sky. A flock of birds is sent to
help her. The birds catch her and gently guide her down onto the back of Great Turtle.
The water animals like the otter and beaver have prepared a place for her on turtle's
back. They bring mud from the bottom of the ocean and place it on turtle's back until
solid earth begins to form and increase in size.

Turtle's back becomes Sky Woman's home and the plants she's brought down with her
from Skyworld, including tobacco and strawberries, are her medicine. She makes a
life for herself and becomes the mother of Haudenosaunee life, as we know it today.

Even prior to their birth, these two sons are in conflict. The good twin is born in the
natural way, while his evil brother, jealous of his siblings being born first, pushes
himself out his mother's side. The birth of the twins marks the beginning of the battle
of good and evil on earth.

The brothers grow quickly and begin to fill the world with their creations. One creates
all that is good and useful to humans, while the other is destructive, and creates all
that is bad. Eventually the good twin defeats his evil brother, and banishes him to a pit
under the earth. From this pit the evil twin sends emissaries that continue to bring evil
into the world.