After reading the Iroquois and Pima creation myths in the book, I have been very intrigued by the Native American beliefs of the creation of the earth. It seems that nearly every tribe has a different belief of how it happened, though some are very similar. The Huron tribe, originally from the St. Lawrence Valley, have a very similar belief of creation as the Iroquois, where the Cherokee tribe had a totally different view than the Pima.

The Iroquois and the Huron myths are both in the Earth-Diver category. In this type of myth, animals swim deep to the bottom of the water and bring up dirt in their mouth, forming the earth. Just like the Iroquois, in the Huron myth, a divine woman falls out the sky and is swept up just before hitting water by a hawk. The hawk then calls down in the water for help, for she is too heavy for it to hold by itself. First, a turtle comes out the sea for her to sit on, and then he instructs other animals such as ducks, beavers, and even a muskrat. After the earth is built, the woman gives birth to twins, but soon dies after giving birth to her two sons. The sons in both myths represent good and evil on earth. They were to prepare the earth so that humans could live on it, but they found out that they could not live together. So, they separated, with each one taking their own portion of the earth to prepare. Once older, the good son creates a sun and moon out of the remains of its mother’s body. It continues to create the world, forming vegetation and other useful tools to help humans survive. Meanwhile, the evil brother made outrageous animals, violent and disturbing. He made wolves, bears, venomous snakes, and panthers of giant size. He made massive mosquitos, the size of wild turkeys, and he made an enormous toad, it drank up the fresh water that was on the earth. The good brother then had to kill the toad to bring water back to the