Tag Archives: creation myth

Cherokee Creation Myth

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 3/23/12
Primary Language: English

Adopted by parents of Native American descent, my informant has no Native American “blood” in him but still values the traditions and stories of his family. This is the creation myth his grandpa told him.

“So, basically, all the animals are living in this land in the sky, and it starts to get crowded. So the water beetle gets sent down to swim around in the water and try to find land. And it doesn’t find any at first, but then it swims deeper until it comes against something solid, which is mud. And it brings up to the surface and the mud spreads out, like all across the earth until a third of it is covered. Then there were four strings made to attach the land to the sky. After that, the great buzzard flew down to check if the land was dry. And when it got too close to the land, the flaps of its wings created mountains and valleys. That’s how the world was created.”

My informant, though he doesn’t believe the story, says it’s important to him because it links him to his parents and family, making him feel like he belongs with them because they wanted to share their culture with him, since he is adopted.

I think the story’s interesting because of the way animals existed before humans did. This gives animals a kind of mystical quality and exalts them to an extent. Native American culture does tend to give animals more respect than modern Western culture, so this makes sense. The story also shows how our world is supported by strings, which could be taken to mean existence is fragile.

The Story of the Zodiac

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 04/22/12
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Transcribed Text:

“The animals had a race to determine the order of the Zodiac. They had to cross a river. So the mouse used his brain instead of his brawn because he knew he couldn’t win with brawn. So he hitched a ride on the water ox because it’s the fastest swimmer. So the rat was able to jump off the ox and finish first. The ox finished second. Tiger was third. The rabbit jumped across and was fourth. The dragon came next. And then, I think, the snake like, hitched a ride on the horse and scared it. So then it was sixth. The horse came after the snake. And then, the sheep, the monkey, and the chicken, also made it across. And then the dog decided taking a bath was more important, so it finished eleventh. And then the last was the pig because it stopped half way to have a meal and rest.”

The informant heard about this piece of folklore from a taxi driver in Taipei, Taiwan when she was about 8 years old. This story is based off of the way that the current Chinese zodiac is formatted. She says that she believes that this story isn’t true but was made up for children to learn about the zodiac in Chinese culture. I think it’s a creation myth of the Chinese culture, as the zodiac is a very prominent part of the culture. It is obviously a myth as it is not fully a tale where it is obviously not real, but it is not a legend where things could have been necessarily true. I think that although it is not sacred to the informant, this story would be sacred to many Chinese people who put a lot of faith in the zodiac and therefore, would tell this story to future generations with a sense of revery.

Creation Myth: Raven, the Trickster

Nationality: Caucasian- American
Age: 20
Occupation: Commercial Fisherman/ Student
Residence: Homer, Alaska/ Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

This myth is known to mirror Christian theology and was spread by the natives of Alaska, specifically the Inuit culture.

Inuits first of all believe in a “divine spirit” that created the Raven. The Raven was originally a seagull, who was brilliantly white and pure. The “divine spirit” also created man and the man lived in a hut. The divine spirit forbade the raven from going in to the man’s hut. However the raven would continually intrude on the man’s hut. Yet one day the raven was caught by the divine spirit in the hut. The raven in fear of the divine spirit escaped through the smokehole, and thus turned black due to all the soot. This is the story of how the seagull became a Raven and from then on the Raven became a trickster. The raven is known as the source of sin and trickery to humans, as this Raven taught humankind to lie, steal, and other evils.

My informant stated that in Alaska, that many regions have variations of this story. This version of the story comes from the Chignik Tradition. My informant has heard this from elders of Chignik as he was listening to their stories while at a fishing stop. He shares this myth as he belives that it is very interesting as it is a variation of the fall of Lucifer. My informant states that the elders love to share this myth and keep the Inuit stories alive and he also think it is a creative take.

This is a very entertaining creation myth as seagull must be prevalent on Alaska, yet so are raven. It is an interesting connection that the Inuit people have made that the a raven use to be a seagull. What is also interesting is how similar this story is to the fall of Lucifer: the raven betrayed the divine spirit’s trust and thus spread evil to get back at the divine spirit, Lucifer betrayed God and thus has a vendetta against him. This legend also has a nice narrative structure where a seagull which is white is pure, and a raven which is black contains all of mankind’s evil. Not only is this a creation myth about the raven, but also the birth of all the sins in the world.