Saturday, April 30, 2011

The woman who fell from the Sky

This story is an Iroquois creation myth. the type of creation myth i would call it would be earth-diver. in this story there are two worlds.Upper world and Lower world. the Upper world is inhabitted by the Sky people while the lower world is inhabited by animals that can survive in or on water becasue the lower world is completely covered in water. The two worlds are seperated by the Great Darkness. One day the King's, of Upper world, daughter got very sick and they could not cure her. A Sky person had a dream and told the king of their dream and how to cure his Daughter, Atahensic. To cure his daughter he would have to dig up the roots of a corn tree that was their source of food. The king felt his daughters' llife was more important than the lives of everyone else so he went to dig up its roots. Another Sky person saw him doing this and stopped him and in his anger her kicked Atahensic down the hole the king had dug and she fell to the Lower world where the anmials stopped her fall and made a raft oout of their bodies for her to sit on. They decided that this would not last very long and they needed a better plan so they put her on the Great Turtles back and dived to the bottom of the Great Water to retreive dirt from her to start make an island out of. Eventually Atahensic had made an island for her to live on and her sickness had cured.Time pasted by and she was living happly on the islannd and gave birth to a girl namde Earth Woman. Then one day as Earth Woman was digging up wild potatoes she bent over the wrong way and the West Wind blew into her body and she became pregnet. The two kids she gave birth to were Good Twin  and Evil Twin.  Evil Twin could not wait to be born and burst out of her side causing her death. Good twin took a sphere from his mother and threw it up into the great Darkness and created the sun to light  up the island each day and he took smaller spheres and threw them up to light up the island at night. Good win and Evil Twin began make animals to populate the island. Evil Twin continoiusly made animals too big and ferious while Good Twin was making things that would provide to easy of a life for the Eagwehoewe people. Finally they decided to settle these desputes with a race. Good Twin won the race and thus is why things are they way they are today. While Evil Twin rules over the dead.

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