Creation Myths and Legends of the Creek Indians Copyright 2002 by Bill Grantham. This work is li- censed under a modified Creative Commons Attribu- tion-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. You are free to electronically copy, distribute, and transmit this work if you attribute authorship. However, all printing rights are reserved by the University Press of Florida (http://www.upf.com). Please contact UPF for information about how to obtain copies of the work for print distribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the University Press of Florida. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author’s moral rights. Florida A&M University, Tallahassee Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers Florida International University, Miami Florida State University, Tallahassee University of Central Florida, Orlando University of Florida, Gainesville University of North Florida, Jacksonville University of South Florida, Tampa University of West Florida, Pensacola This page intentionally left blank Creation Myths and Legends of the Creek Indians Bill Grantham University Press of Florida Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers Copyright 2002 by Bill Grantham Printed in the U.S.A. on acid-free, TCF (totally chlorine-free) paper All rights reserved 07 06 05 04 03 02 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Grantham, Bill. Creation myths and legends of the Creek Indians / Bill Grantham. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8130-2451-X (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Creek mythology. 2. Creek Indians—Folklore. 3. Legends—Southern States. I. Title. E99.C9 G68 2002 398.2’089’973—dc21 2001041580 The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida. University Press of Florida 15 Northwest 15th Street Gainesville, FL 32611–2079 http://www.upf.com In memory of William Jefferson Grantham, Jr., 1934–1999 This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xi Part I. Beliefs and Ritual 1. The Role of Mythology 3 2. Cosmogony 14 3. Creek Cosmology 21 4. Souls 38 5. Spiritual Specialists 45 6. Miscellaneous Beliefs 50 7. Sacred Plants or Medicines 55 8. Sacred Time and Space 63 9. Ceremony and Ritual 68 10. Conclusions 83 Part II. Myths and Legends 11. Earth Diver Myths 89 12. Emergence Myths 106 13. Migration Legends 134 14. Relationships Between the Tribes 159 15. Journeys into the Sky World 167 16. Visitors from the Sky World 188 17. Snake Man Legends 199 18. Man-Eating Birds 228 19. Tobacco and Corn: Sacred Plants to the Creeks 235 20. Contemporary Creek Myths and Legends 254 Appendix of Sources 277 Phonetic Guides 285 Glossary of Creek Words 289 Glossary of Geographical Locations 295 Notes 301 Bibliography 313 List of Stories by Author 319 List of Stories by Cultural Group 323 Index 327 Preface In my own search for an understanding of Creek mythology and cosmol- ogy, I realized that no single work existed that encompassed the entire corpus of information available. The myths and legends collected here were published in ethnographies, magazines, travelers’ accounts, and a variety of other formats, many of which have become obscure. This work brings together for the first time an extensive collection of Creek creation myths and migration legends in a format that allows the reader to com- pare the myths and legends and to retrieve information from them easily. It is my hope that historians, anthropologists, folklorists, and students of religion will find this work a useful reference and that people of Creek descent will find it an accurate repository of their myths, legends, and religious heritage. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments I would like to thank several people who made this work possible. Charles Daniels (Sakim) generously provided me with many references and, along with Mary Johns, some of the contemporary Creek myths that are in- cluded here. Daniel Penton provided insight and in-depth discussion of many of the myths and concepts presented. Donna Cobb graciously pro- vided the cover design. Daniel Penton, Dr. Robert Pullen, Donna Cobb, and my father, William J. Grantham Jr., read early drafts of the work and offered many useful suggestions for improvement. I thank my wife, Susan, for her support and help in preparing the final manuscript. And finally, I would like to thank the many people who offered their encouragement and enthusiastic support for the project. The following institutions have given their permission to use material held under copyright: Encino Press for Howard N. Martin, Myths and Folktales of the Alabama- Coushatta Indians of Texas (Austin, 1977), pp. 2–3, 67–70, 84–85. The Georgia Historical Society for Benjamin Hawkins, A Sketch of the Creek Country, in the years 1798 and 1799. And Letters of Benjamin Hawkins 1796–1806. Spartanburg, S.C.: The Reprint Company, 1982. From the Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, vol. 3, part 1, pp. 81–83. The Oklahoma Historical Society for two articles from The Chronicles of Oklahoma: Anna Lewis, “Nunih Waiya,” vol. 16 (1938): 214–20, and Rev. J. J. Methvin, “Legend of the Tie-Snakes,” vol. 5 (1927): 391–96. The Texas Folklore Society for two articles in Straight Texas (1937), ed- ited by J. Frank Dobie and Mody C. Boatright, Texas Folklore Society Publications no. 13: G. T. Bludworth, “How the Alabamas Came Southward,” pp. 298–99, and Frances Densmore, “The Alabama Indi- ans and Their Music,” pp. 276–77. xii | Acknowledgments The University of Georgia Press for Shem, Ham and Japheth: The Papers of W. O. Tuggle (Athens, 1973), pp. 173–74, 175–76. Reprinted as Shem, Ham, and Japheth: The Papers of W. O. Tuggle Comprising His Indian Diary Sketches and Observations, Myths and Washington Jour- nal in the Territory and at the Capital, 1879–1882, edited by Eugene Current-Garcia with Dorothy B. Hatfield. Ann Arbor, University Mi- crofilms International, 1989. Part I Beliefs and Ritual This page intentionally left blank 1 The Role of Mythology Their medicine has no strength anymore to help them. The In- dian has lost all his knowledge. And so their medicine and their pleasure are all different now. The life ruler had given them all these things for their use but they did not take care of them. The medicine that they have now and their clothing is all different, they wear clothes of the “water-foam-people”; their own dresses are lost, their own way of thinking has been lost, and they do not know any more what the old people have taught. These words, recorded during the summer of 1928 and the winter of 1929, were spoken by Maxey Simms about his own people, the Yuchi.1 While it is perhaps true that much of “what the old people have taught” is forgotten, it is not all lost. Some of the mythological stories describing the creation of the worlds and the earliest times of the Creek Indians who once populated southeastern North America are still to be found scattered through obscure academic journals and among the descendants of those earliest Creek people. Mythology and Religion Unfortunately, a negative connotation is often attached to the term myth. Myths are commonly seen as untrue or fanciful explanations of the past. E. B. Tylor viewed myths as logical associations of ideas that account for nature with the aid of analogies and comparisons.2 Often confused with folktales, which are flighty, fantastic, and migratory, and with legends, which are locally bound and historically rooted, the myth portrays gods and supernatural beings and all kinds of metamorphoses.3 Myths reveal the world of the gods and the cosmic order through which the social order and cultural values of a society are confirmed.4 4 | Part I. Beliefs and Ritual Some of the earliest treatments of North American mythology are cred- ited to D. G. Brinton, who focused on the solar aspects of North American myths, and to H. Kunike, who focused on lunar themes.5 During the early part of this century, Franz Boas in anthropology and Krohn in folklore took a historico-geographic approach to North American mythology. Boas’s Tsimshian Mythology and Gladys Reichard’s An Analysis of Coeur d’Alene Myths provide examples of Boas’s diffusionist influence, while Stith Thompson’s work provides examples of Krohn’s influence.6 It was also during the early part of the twentieth century that John R. Swanton urged scholars to compile a concordance of North American myths, and the concepts of “tale type” and “motif index” began to be applied to North American myths.7 During the 1930s and 1940s, Bronislaw Malinowski’s functionalism greatly influenced the study of mythology in other parts of the world, but, because of Boas’s considerable influence, it had little impact in North America. During the same period, some European scholars began taking a psychoanalytic approach to mythology, and much of their attention was turned toward North American myths. The “culture hero” and “trick- ster,” common characters in North American legends and folktales, at- tracted the interest of such scholars as Geza Róheim and Carl Jung.8 In this analytic approach to mythology, irrational man, particularly his id and sublimations, provides the central focus.