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Copyrighted Material 1 1492 and Before Before Europeans In 1492, Europeans believed that they had “discovered” a “new world” when Italian explorer Cristóbal Colón (later anglicized into Christopher Columbus), sailing under the Spanish flag, returned from his first voyage. Native Americans would have dismissed both notions, first by noting that they had long known of the two con­ tinents that would eventually be known as the Americas and, therefore, they did not need to be discovered. They would have also refuted the idea that their lands constituted “a new world.” They and their ancestors had lived here for several millennia; if anything, Colón merely managed to connect two old worlds. Native Americans claimed that they had always been here, and like peoples all over the world, had their own explanations as to how the world began and as to where their ancestors came from. On the eve of contact with Europeans, over 500 different Native American communities, bands, and tribes, who spoke approximately 350 different languages, called North America home. With such a diversity of languages and communities, it should not be surprising that native peoples also had varying sets of beliefs concerning their origins. The creation ­stories ofCOPYRIGHTED Native Americans often reflected MATERIAL the environments in which they lived. “Times Are Altered with Us”: American Indians from First Contact to the New Republic, First Edition. Roger M. Carpenter. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 8 0002171953.INDD 8 9/13/2014 9:34:55 AM 1492 and Before A common theme among native peoples of both the Northeastern and Southeastern Woodlands is the notion that at one time the earth consisted of nothing but water. The Iroquoian peoples of the Northeast, for example, believe they are descended from Aataentsic, a woman who fell from the sky into this world, which at the time consisted of nothing but one vast ocean. One day in the sky world, a tree fell down. Aataentsic looked through the hole, astonished to see a world composed entirely of water, miles below her own. As she gazed through the hole, she accidentally slipped and fell through it. Despite frantically clawing at the sides of the hole for something to hang on to, she plunged downward through space, toward the world made of water. Seeing her fall from the sky, the aquatic animals inhabiting the water world – the beaver, otter, and muskrat – decided they must do something to save her. They asked the geese for help, who caught Aataentsic and placed her on the back of an enormous turtle. Aataentsic began to weep, and the aquatic animals asked her what was wrong. She explained that she could not survive without land. The aquatic animals dived to the bottom of the ocean, found a bit of mud, and gave it to Aataentsic, who placed it on the back of the turtle and watched as it expanded and became Turtle Island, or as we call it, North America. Pregnant when she fell into this world, Aataentsic soon gave birth to a daughter, who years later bore male twins. Continually at odds with one another, the twins often fought each other in the womb. When it came time to be born, one of the twins entered the world in the usual way, encouraging his brother to follow him. But the other twin ignored his sibling’s advice and introduced death into the world when he entered the world via his mother’s armpit. The twin who had been born in the usual way set about the business of improving the world, creating edible plants and rivers that ran both ways, so that people would find travel eas­ ier. Lacking his brother’s ability to create, the twin who killed his mother attempted to spoil his brother’s work, adding thorns and briars to plants and changing the rivers so that they ran only one way. In short, one twin made everything that is good in the world, while his brother did all he could to make the world unpleasant. In one of the final conflicts between the two siblings, the malevolent twin locked all of the animals in an underground cave. Humankind, lacking a source of meat, suffered because of this. Discovering what his brother had done, the benevolent twin freed the animals, setting up an epic battle between the two. The good twin beat his evil brother, striking him repeatedly with a set of buck’s antlers. The 9 0002171953.INDD 9 9/13/2014 9:34:55 AM 1492 and Before blood the evil twin shed as he fled from his brother transformed into flint, which Iroquois peoples used to make tools and weapons. The Cherokee likewise believed that the earth at one time consisted wholly of water. In the beginning, all of the world’s animals lived in a stone vault in the sky. As the animals reproduced, the vault became crowded. The animals sent a water beetle to search for another place to live. The beetle found this world, but could only skip along its watery surface. Diving underwater, the beetle found some mud and placed it on the surface, where it magically began to grow and became land. Eager to leave the stone sky vault, the animals waited impatiently as their sodden and muddy new world dried. Each day, the animals sent one of the birds to fly over the earth to examine closely whether or not it had dried enough so that they could live on its surface. One day the animals sent the vulture to scout the drying earth, but he flew too low and his large wings inadvertently carved into its smooth damp surface, creating the hills and valleys of the Cherokee country of northern Georgia, the western Carolinas, and Tennessee. Peoples that lived in other regions, such as the Pacific Northwest, had creation stories that reflected their environment as well. A com­ mon creation story of the Pacific Northwest begins with a beach pea (an aquatic plant) that, much like other beach peas, washed up on shore. But unlike other beach peas, this one contained a man, who snapped into consciousness. In this first moment of awareness, he realized he was in a place that was dark, clammy, and cramped. Stretching his arms and legs, the man burst out of the beach pea and stood on the beach, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the sunlight. As he looked around, he saw only earth, sky, and ocean. After a while, the man saw something flying in the sky. The object drew closer, circled the man, and landed several feet from him. The object turned out to be the Raven, who stood gazing at the man for some time. The Raven finally spoke and asked the man “what are you?” The man replied that he did not know. The Raven then asked the man where he came from and the man gestured toward the shattered remains of the beach pea. The Raven expressed surprise, indicating that he created all the man saw, including the beach pea, but he did not expect the man to burst out of it. Raven asked the man how he felt and the man gestured toward his stomach, indicating he felt hungry. The Raven showed the man how to get food and created animals for him to hunt. In time, he realized the man felt lonely, and made him a mate. 10 0002171953.INDD 10 9/13/2014 9:34:55 AM 1492 and Before Remarkably common throughout Native North America, the flooded world motif reflected a blend of traditional creation stories and the post­contact influence of Christian missionaries. Whereas the western religious tradition relies on an all­powerful being who creates all that exists, deities – or perhaps near deities – in the Native American spiritual convention are powerful, but usually not all­ powerful – nor are all wise. In the Cheyenne creation story, a near­ omnipotent being creates light, sky, air, water, and the creatures that live in water and sky. But he cannot create land until he secures help from birds who dive under water and find a little bit of mud which he uses to make earth. Native deities and powerful spiritual beings can also be fallible, and can sometimes be the subject of mirth in stories that emphasize their all too human failures and foibles. For example, Nanabush, the Great Hare of the Anishinabeg people, helped create the world, and could vanquish powerful enemies. Yet he also managed to be entertaining (or offensive depending on your perspective), such as when he amused himself after learning how to propel himself through the air with his own flatulence. European explorers and missionaries often noted that the native peoples of the Americas lacked literacy, and concluded that this somehow deprived them of the ability to record the past, and that they therefore must lack history. But all peoples, logically speaking, have a past and preserve some knowledge of it in some fashion. Europeans did not seem to realize that while native peoples did not record events in writing, they developed their own ways of remem­ bering their past. The peoples of the Great Plains recorded important events in winter counts, which consisted of pictographs painted on animal hides. Often begun by one person and continued by another, some of these winter counts recorded more than a century’s worth of events. Peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands made belts or used strings of sewan (wampum) made from whelk shells that served as mnemonic devices. In the hands of individuals who knew what the strings and designs woven into the belts meant, the past could be preserved.
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