Post #1 Creation from Animals to Creation by a God

The children’s book Are you my mother by Dr. Seuss described the search for ones mother or, in a sense creator, much like the American Indians did. The main character of the book went through a series of trial and error attempts to find the most logical choice to answer his question. In this way American Indian’s creation stories changed throughout history due to the exposoure of new ideas. The added diversity of European religion's creation stories slowly blended with those of Native American creation stories due to the colonizing and complete take over of North America.

The first example of a completely uninfluenced creation story is in the document "The Indians of New Netherlands Account for the Creation (ca. 1650)." The Native American’s territory was in current day New York and they give their account for how the world and its inhabitants came into being. The story begins with a world completely covered by a never ending ocean of water that is overseen by a God and his Goddess from which their origin is not known. The beautiful Goddess descends from the "heavens," swollen with pregnancy, and lands in the water, only when she touched the surface a small mound of dry land appears. The land mass begins to grow and soon all the landscapes of the world appear. The Goddess then gives birth to a deer, a bear, and a wolf. After nurturing them to adulthood she gives birth to every species of animal on the earth as well as humans. Every human that the Goddess bore and the ones born today carry one of the first three animal's nature. Either, timid and innocent like the deer, brave and just of hand like the bear, or deceitful and bloodthirsty like the wolf. After the Goddess has populated the earth enough for it to self-sustain she ascends back to heaven with her upper lord where she will rest and live peacefully while her lord "loves her supremely above all things" (The Indians of New Netherlands Account for the Creation 4).

This creation story differs greatly from that of the colonist’s religions in the New Netherlands; where most believed in Christianity at the time. Little to no blending has affected the accounts of creation in this Native American story. This story was documented in 1620 which was four years before the New Netherlands was officially founded by the Dutch West India Company and there was only one fort involed in the fur trade; Fort Nassau (Davidson 80). Due to the lack of an established colony in the area and a minimal population associated with that, no influence of another European or African religion could change the Native American’s view in this widely accepted story of creation. Although, with the exposure of new ideas and outlooks; the norms of a society’s beliefs can be easily altered.

In “The Origins of Ottawa Society Recalled (ca. 1720)” by Nicholas Perrot we see a new phase in the creation stories of the Native American culture. In this story the earth and its animals were already created and the only deity is called the “Great Hare.” This form of a god had to hand in the earth’s initial creation expect for making humans. Once the very first animals died, the Great Hare would use their dead bodies to “birth” man (Perrot 4). Unlike the New Netherlands Indians who thought people took on the characteristics of the first three animals; the Ottawa believed that the animal from which they were resurrected represented them. Perrot makes the example that a whole village would claim a crane gave them life or a bear. Perrot makes a point to ask the Ottawa if they have any proof of this far fetched story about creation and when they are unable bring forth as such they say that this story is absolute fact and should not questioned. The Great Hare originally only created man and described how high the first men’s ingenuity was. How they found a way to make bows and arrows, fire, shelters, and fire. Only after man had found a way to survive successfully on their own did he make man a companion (Perrot 5). According to Perrot the Great Hare stated the jobs and functions of both man a woman when he created the man’s partner. He stated that the man, “shalt hunt, and make canoes, and do all things that a men must do; and thou woman, shalt do the cooking for thy husband, make his shoes, dress the skins of animals, sew, and perform all tasks that are proper to a woman” (Perrot 5). It is interesting that only until now do we see a definite class and status division among different genders within tribe life.

In the New Netherlands story a woman was the mother of all life to which she nurtured until it could live successfully on its own. Then, is rewarded by her upper lord for a life a luxury and where he loves her more then anything else. There is not a sign of a subservient attitude that women should have for men until the Ottawa story. The Ottawa teach this story in order to show that men are superior in thinking then women and they describe the jobs within the tribe that are suitable for which gender. One cause for this sudden shift into gender status is caused by the mass immigration and exploration into Native American territory during the 18^th century (Davidson 94-95). There was a huge jump in Scottish- Irish immigrant that traveled far to the back country of Pennsylvania close to Ottawaterritory in present day Ohio. These Scottish-Irish women served the house hold much as the Ottawa creation story stated they should. Not only having these European cultures settle in close contact with the tribe but dealing with the now extensive trade between Native Americans, English colonists, and Europe causes constant interaction with the cultures influenced by Christian and Catholic religions (Davidson 93-97).

The third version of creation investigated is that of the Sioux. In “Remaking the World: A Sioux Story (ca.1935),” The constant exposure, take over, and cultural blending of Americans and American Indians has vastly affected their past view and understanding of creation and is obvious in their story. The story talks of a single “Creating Power” that destroys the world two times because the in habitants were not living harmoniously with each other (Remaking the World: A Sioux Story 6-7).  This compares largely with the Christian story of Genesis. Also, the Creating Power destroying the world by drowning it with an end-of-the-world flood, then creating land once more for another try at life is much like the story of Moses and the Arc. According to the Sioux, the Creating Power pulls all of his animal life from his pipe bag that he carries and brings them to life through song. It then gives the animals both necessities of food and water and then creates man. When he creates man he uses all different kinds of mud to create the different skin tones of humans and teaches them different languages for which tribe they are supposed to live (Reamking the World: A Sioux Story 7). The Sioux Story also states that The Creating Power warns it’s newly created inhabitants to live together in peace on this earth or else he will wipe it clean again and start from scratch. In the Ottawa story there was a lack of physical evidence to prove it to be true and only the ideas of some new immigrants were accessible. Now, in the 20^th century when this story was documented, pieces of Genesis were selected because they made more sense then their past ideas of creation. The Ottawa type outlooks were vulnerable to new ideas on this subject because; the current outlook was unexplainable even to them.

The idea of a vengeful God that the Sioux describe verse a nurturing Goddess that the uninflunced, New Netherlands tribes describe is that it would account more for their suffering. After hundreds of years of suffering put on these Native American people by the new Americans, the idea of a much more violent and unmerciful God would account for this treatment. This gradual take over of almost all of the Native American’s original land was almost sure to be a culture killer. Even though great leaps of change have occurred from some of the first creation stories in the 1620’s to the 20^th century beliefs, other worldly religions have not completely taken over American Indian beliefs. If they had, then, the recently documented Sioux story would just be a translated version of the Bible instead of an interwoven version of both.

Davidson, Gienapp, Heyrman, Lytle, Stoff. Nation of Nations, McGraw-Hill. New York, NY.2006.

Eastman, P.D. Are You My Mother, Random House, Inc.New York, 1960.

Perrot, Nicholas. "The Origins of Ottawa Society." 1720.

"Remaking the World : A Sioux Story." 1935.

"The Indians of New Netherlands Account for the Creation." 1650.

Comments

[bpatonetz]

Candace,
I like the way you used a Dr.Seuss story in your introduction to capture the reader’s attention. Your thesis is also well-written making it clear what your blog is going to be about. It is one of the best introductions that I’ve read so far. :)
I think you spend too much time summarizing the stories instead of getting to the point about European influence. Your summaries show good examples in some cases, but I think you spent a little too much time on them. It takes away from the focus of your paper.
Try to tie your body paragraphs back to your thesis more. I think it will make it easier to see your point if you state how your examples relate to the thesis.

[bpatonetz]

Sorry to leave you two separate comments, I forgot to post the last part.(I'm not very good at computers and can't figure out how to edit)!

Your blog seems to end without much of a conclusion. I think your post could use a concluding sentence to wrap up all your good ideas.