Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chad Nichols
Professor K. Worley
ANTH 334
11 November 2015
Thoughts on the Creation Myths of the Cree, the Mohawk, and the Cherokee
The Native peoples of North America are many and varied, and so too are their
beliefs about the creation of the earth and the people: the Dine believe that the first
people climbed up from an underworld, one of many, into the light and plenty of this
world; the Inuit believe that the trickster Raven pinned the land in place with his beak,
then accidentally put a hole in his father's bladder of light and created day and night; The
Apache believe that the earth was created from the sweat of the Creator. As the creation
tales of all the North American Native peoples would (and probably have) fill a large
book, I will focus only on those of the three Native American groups I have any
connection to – the Cherokee, the Cree, and the Mohawk. My wife has Mohawk and
The Cree turned out to be the most elusive to find, as there are few online sources
for their mythology. The Cherokee legends are all over the Internet, and the Mohawk
tales are scarcely less prevalent. I have found a couple of examples for each, which will
be compiled and detailed below, and then I will address the similarities and differences
The Cherokee legend was the most detailed of the three, focusing mainly on the
details of creating the physical world. In the tale, the Earth was once only water,
underneath a sky-vault of solid rock. There was a land above the sky-vault called
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Galun'lati, where all the animals lived. It so happened that Galun'lati was becoming
water to find out what was beneath it. According to one legend, he "repeatedly dived to
the bottom and came up with soft mud eventually forming the island we call earth"
(Mooney). One of the animals, although it isn't clear who, then fastened the Earth to the
sky-vault with four cords as they all waited for it to dry. Several times, birds were sent
from Galun'lati to ascertain if the mud had dried, but there was no dry land for them yet.
Finally, the animals sent Buzzard to prepare the land. According to Katharine Berry
Judson,
"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; his wings began to flap and strike the ground. Wherever they
struck the earth there was a valley; whenever the wings turned
upwards 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
After the formation of the Earth, the animals all moved down to the ground. However,
there was no light, so they got the sun and set it in a track to take it east to west. They set
it too close to the Earth, and it was too hot there, so the medicine men raised it, a
handsbreadth at a time, until it was in the seventh track. This was just right. Thus the
The Mohawk (or Kanien’kehaka) creation myth also begins in a land beyond the
sky, inhabited by man-like beings called "Onkweshana." Less detailed than the
Cherokee, the story nonetheless gives an account of how the world was made: the
Onkweshana's land held a large tree in the center, and one day a woman walking nearby
fell through a hole under its roots. The birds in the Land Below saw her falling, and
flocked together to fly under the woman and slow her descent. The being known as the
Great Turtle saw this, and offered his back to set the woman down on. The sky-woman
was grateful, but since her people chose to leave her to her fate, she needed the animals to
Hertzberg,
"The woman asked for the help of the water animals. She told them
if they could get dirt she would be able to plant some of the roots
she had brought from the Sky-World. Many animals tried; finally it
was the muskrat’s turn. He dove into the water and they all waited.
After a while his body floated to the top. But he had a crumb of
The Sky-Woman (in some versions called Aientsik, or "Fertile Earth") sang and danced
her way counter-clockwise around the Great Turtles back, and by her magic made the
earth grow and cover the shell. Corn, beans, and squash, the "Three Sisters," grew from
the roots planted by Sky-Woman on the Turtle's back, and became the staple food for her
and her descendants the Kanien'kehaka. Some also say that when Sky-Woman passed
away, her head was flung into the night sky to become Grandmother Moon, where she is
The Cree creation myth was the most difficult to find, as most of the versions I
could locate proved to operate under the assumption that the world was always there. In
light of this, and the sketchiness of the one account I did find, I'll combine the creation of
In my opinion, Joachim Fromhold recorded the most evocative opening for the
"In the beginning there was nothing. There was Emptiness, and
Darkness filled the emptiness. And then there was a spark in that
darkness, and that spark was Thought. And with that Thought the
The tale goes on to describe the Great Spirit speaking the heavens and the earth into
being, and that He created Mother Earth to care for it all. In the Canadian version, O-ma-
ma-ma, the Earth Mother, gave birth to all the spirits of the world, beginning with what
Fromhold had described as the "Four Grandfathers, to watch over and protect the earth"
shapeshifting trickster, and Ma-heegun the Wolf (Native Creation Myths). O-ma-ma-ma
gave birth to all other beings as well: "Fish, rocks, grasses, and trees all came from the
womb of O-ma-ma-ma" (Native Creation Myths). Eventually, the Great Spirit decides
something is missing, something between the animals and the spirits. According to
Fromhold, the Creator then creates "...a living creature, that comes from the animal but
can become of the spirits, and I will call it Man" (Fromhold). The Fromhold version of
this tale is unusually similar to the Biblical creation story, which I will address during
analysis.
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In order to successfully analyze these myths, one should understand the context
within which these peoples lived. Each group has their own take on creation, and as we
know, all myths were designed to explain otherwise unexplainable natural phenomenon
or to transmit the particular culture's history from one generation to the next. Accounts
passed orally, however, have been proven to change in the retelling (anyone who has
played "telephone" can attest to that!) even from one day to the next, let alone over
several hundreds or even thousands of years. In the analyses below, I will posit potential
occurrences to which the myths could refer, thereby offering one interpretation of the
events that generated each story. According to their oral history, the Cherokee migrated
south from the Great Lakes region (as evidenced by the Iroquoian origin of their native
language) and settled in the American Southeast many years before contact with
Europeans. The word "Cherokee" may be derived from an Iroquoian or Choctaw word
meaning "those who live in cave country" ("Cherokee"), indicating that at least for part of
their history the Aniyunwiya people lived in the aforementioned caves. This would in
part explain their belief that the sky-vault was solid rock, and as water action is the most
common method of cave formation, the flooded earth is also explained. The ground
being formed bit by bit describes the gradual drying of such caves well, and a torch or
lamp hoisted on high is represented by the placement of the sun in track after track until
the right amount of light and heat is reached. Overall, the myth does a fine job of
The Kanien'kehaka (Mohawk) name means "Flint Stone Place", and their stock-
in-trade during the precontact era was flint for stone tools. They hail from the Mohawk
Valley in what is now upstate New York, and have ranged from present-day
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Pennsylvania, through Vermont, and into what is now Quebec. For hundreds of years, the
Kanien'kehaka have been the "Keepers of the Eastern Door" for the Iroquois
Confederacy, protecting the Eastern flank of their alliance ("Mohawk people"). They
believe that the continent of North America is where Sky Woman fell from the sky, and
therefore it is called Turtle Island in memory of the Great Turtle who provided Sky
Woman his back upon which to rest. Unlike the Cherokee, the Mohawk myth isn't as
detailed about the origin of the Earth: the Mohawk creation stories seem to focus more on
the origin of the people than on the creation of the physical world.
The Moose Cree come from the southern area of St. James Bay, in the middle of
the lands the Cree call home. Divided into several separate clans, the Cree were
instrumental in the early fur trade. As a people, they stretched from Eastern Quebec as
far as Montana, belonging to the Algonquin language group. In contrast to the others, the
Cree myth barely touches on the physical world, preferring to focus on the creation and
early lives of people and animals, and the relationship between them, indicating that they
were more accepting of where they lived and more concerned about who they interacted
with. This is backed up by their clans' historical habits of remaining independent from
The similarities between the Cherokee and the Mohawk legends is clear: the
world was water, and there was a land beyond a sky; someone from the sky-world came
to the Earth and eventually dry land was created, requiring a significant amount of effort
to fully realize; and the land was subsequently shaped by another expenditure of effort.
The similarity surprised me, until I learned through this research that the Cherokee are an
The relation of the Cree myth to the others, is non-existant. Their tale is so
similar to the Biblical creation that Joaquin Fromhold claims "The question therefore
exists, is the Cree myth indiginous (sic), or was it influenced by Christian Stories"
(Fromhold)? Given the proximity with which the Cree and the Mohawk existed, one
would reasonably expect similarities in the myths if they were based solely on the
ancestral homes of each, as I posited the Cherokee legend was. Belonging to a different
language group, however, provides a reason for the disparity: tales cannot be shared
In conclusion, the research I performed indicates that the only true point of
comparison is between the Mohawk and the Cherokee, both of Iroquoian ancestry. The
differences between them seem to be of relatively recent incorporation – within the last
six millennia, roughly speaking – which can be attributed to the distance between the
nations. While disappointing, this result was not entirely unexpected once I discovered
the link between the Cherokee and the Mohawk nations: sharing a creation myth is a
logical inference from sharing the Iroquoian language family, as language has been long
Works Cited
Carr, Karen Eva, PhD. "Cherokee Creation Myth." Cherokee Creation Myth - Native
John, Sharron. "Grandmother's Creation Story." Totem Talk. Terri Benning, 1 Sept.
Judson, Katharine Berry. "How the World Was Made." NATIVE AMERICAN
Mooney, James. James Mooney's History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the
Cherokees: Containing the Full Texts of Myths of the Cherokee (1900) and
"Native Creation Myths." Creation Stories: Canadian First Nations. Ed. Mrs.