Before the world existed, and before mountains, men, and animals, were
created; while the sky was yet without a sun, ere the moon and stars
were hung up for the lamps of darkness, the Great Being, who is alike
the preserver and sustainer of the red man and his younger brother the
white man, was with the woman, the beautiful spirit, the Universal
Mother. This woman was not of the same nature as the Great Being. He
was a spirit, bloodless, fleshless, bodiless; she bore the form, and
was gifted with the properties of a human being.
At that time all was water, at least water covered all things. No eye
could have discovered aught else, had there been an eye to see. That
which existed was darkness--all was darkness--darkness.--Darkness was
all, in all, and over all. There were no sounds abroad, no winds swept
the face of the waters, which lay black, still, and stagnant, as the
slime of a pool surrounded by a thick copse. The waters were rotted by
their long continued stagnation, and the winds could not exist in the
heavy and murky air.
Upon a certain time, this beautiful woman descended from heaven, till
she came to the sleeping and stagnant waters. She was pregnant by the
Great Being; and her immense proportions denoted that she would bring
forth more than one. When she struck the waters, in her fall, she did
not sink deep into them, but where she settled down, immediately land
appeared, upon which she rested, and continued sitting. The land grew
by degrees, and increased around her, so that in a short time there was
so much spare room, that she could draw up her legs out of the water,
in which they had hung for so long a time, that they were covered with
grass, like logs which have been floating in the sea. And still wider
grew the space of solid earth, like that which would appear when the
water recedes from sand which it had previously covered. Gradually the
land spread itself from the seat of the beautiful woman, until its
extent was soon beyond the reach of the eye. And, as the land
increased, the motion of the waves, from the rush of the new-born
winds, threw it up into the heaps and piles which are the hills and
mountains, leaving, along its low spaces, the waters, which are the
rills and rivers of the earth.
While the woman sat thus, watching the growth of the earth, she
perceived unusual appearances upon its surface. Grass and herbs began
to appear; trees, both fruitful and unfruitful, sprang up; and, in a
short time, all things proceeded, and grew as they now are. Soon was a
robe of grass and flowers spread over the naked sod; and soon, though
not so soon, was it shadowed by a thick and almost impervious forest.
The pine, and the oak, and the walnut, and the spruce, and the
hemlock, broke through the crust of the earth, and the inferior shrubs
made themselves a way to the light of the air. Soon all things
proceeded, and grew as they now are, and the world became the
beautifully green, and verdant, and flourishing, world it is now.
When the earth had grown to its present size, and had become covered
with grass, the beautiful woman, who had carried her burthen in her
womb for forty seasons, gave it to the light. She was delivered of
three kinds of fruit. The first was like a deer, in every respect; the
second had the shape of a bear; the third had the form and nature of a
wolf. The woman nursed these fruits with great care and tenderness,
until they had attained their full growth. Then she took all the three
sons, or kinds of fruit, as husbands, living with each by turns. The
result of this connexion or cohabitation was the production of other
animals, always more than one at a birth, and from these sprung all
the other animals of the various kinds and species to be seen at this
day. In time, as well from natural instinct as suitableness, each
associated, with its own kind and species, and has so continued to do
ever since. But the connexion did not always produce progeny of
the same nature and stock as the parents. Every production and
re-production further diversified the animal race, until the almost
infinite variety of creatures was produced. The dog was the son of the
wolf, and the house-cat was the daughter of the panther; the teal was
of the children of the grey goose; and who fathered the sparrow-hawk
but the eagle?
When all things were properly disposed, and placed in a condition to
subsist, and to continue of themselves, the Universal Mother, having
accomplished her designs, joyfully ascended to the sky which she had
left. In the mean time, she told the Great Being what she had done. He
said to her, "You have done well as far as you have done, but you have
left undone one thing you ought to have done. You have created an
innumerable number of beasts, but they are without a head. You ought
to have made a being endowed with wisdom, to govern, with a little of
my help, the affairs of the world, and to preserve its less important
matters in some kind of order. The animals and creatures you have made
are, many of them, great fools, and none very wise, and, besides, are
without souls competent to receive instruction. There is not one of
them that has understanding enough to direct the feet of his neighbour
in the path he should go--it would be the blind leading the blind, and
together would they fall into the ditch. What more would the bear do,
if he were made ruler, than train his subjects to perform great feats
of strength, or to climb a tree, or to suck their paws through the
long nights of winter?--The panther would teach them savage cruelty
and a speedy step, and the deer would counsel them to fly from the
pursuit of a snail, or a land-tortoise, or the cry of a wren, or the
prate of a jackdaw; the fox might teach them cunning, and the dog
sagacity, and the wild cat nimbleness, and the antelope fleetness, and
the wolf courage, and the owl an insight into my ways. But there must
be a being to repress the insolence, and controul the rage, of the
more savage creatures, and to protect, as far as he can, the weaker
from the oppression of the stronger. Such a being must be created, and
be called MAN. Descend, once more, to the earth, beautiful and
Universal Mother! and give birth to one more being, who shall be the
lord of all the creatures that live, move, or breathe, on the land, in
the air, or in the water."
Upon receiving this command, the Universal Mother again descended to
the earth. She selected for her husband, in order to the production of
the new being, a very subtle owl, who was the half-brother of a bear
and a wolf, the cousin of a dog and a deer, and distantly related to
the panther, the fox, the eagle, and the adder. By him she had, at one
birth, two children. Men take their qualities from the beasts, to whom
they are related, and most from those of whose blood they have most in
their veins. If they have most of their great father's, the owl, they
are wise, and generally become priests; if the wolf predominates, they
are bloody-minded; if the bear, they are dirty and sluggish, great
eaters, and love to lick their fingers; if the deer, they are exceedingly
timorous and feeble; if the fox, cruel and sly; the eagle, bold,
daring, and courageous, and the adder, treacherous. Thus men have, all
their different natures and properties from the brutes, and oftentimes
are worse than brutes.