Primal Myths

by Barbara C. Sproul

  The people brought out their hurusuki; it was still the same size, although they had been eating it all this time. Looking about them, they saw they were on a little piece of land that had been the top of one of their highest mountains. All else, as far as they could see, was water. This was all that remained of the Third World.

  “There must be some dry land somewhere we can go to,” they said. “Where is the new Fourth World that Sotuknang has created for us?” They sent many kinds of birds, one after another, to fly over the waters and find it. But they all came back tired out without having seen any sign of land. Next they planted a reed that grew high into the sky. Up it they climbed and stared over the surface of the waters. But they saw no sign of land.

  Then Sotuknang appeared to Spider Woman and said, “You must continue traveling on. Your inner wisdom will guide you. The door at the top of your head is open.”

  So Spider Woman directed the people to make round, flat boats of the hollow reeds they had come in and to crawl inside. Again they entrusted themselves to the water and the inner wisdom to guide them. For a long time they drifted with the wind and the movement of the waters and came to another rocky island.

  “It is bigger than the other one, but it is not big enough,” they said, looking around them and thinking they heard a low rumbling noise.

  “No. It is not big enough,” said Spider Woman.

  So the people kept traveling toward the rising sun in their reed boats. After awhile they said, “There is that low rumbling noise we heard. We must be coming to land again.

  So it was. A big land, it seemed, with grass and trees and flowers beautiful to their weary eyes. On it they rested a long time. Some of the people wanted to stay, but Spider Woman said, “No. It is not the place. You must continue on.”

  Leaving their boats, they traveled by foot eastward across the island to the water’s edge. Here they found growing some more of the hollow plants like reeds or bamboo, which they cut down. Directed by Spider Woman, they laid some of these in a row with another row on top of them in the opposite direction and tied them all together with vines and leaves. This made a raft big enough for one family or more. When enough rafts were made for all, Spider Woman directed them to make paddles.

  “You will be going uphill from now on and you will have to make your own way. So Sotuknang told you: The farther you go, the harder it gets.”

  After long and weary traveling, still east and a little north, the people began to hear the low rumbling noise and saw land. One family and clan after another landed with joy. The land was long, wide, and beautiful. The earth was rich and flat, covered with trees and plants, seed-bearers and nut-bearers, providing lots of food. The people were happy and kept staying there year after year.

  “No. This is not the Fourth World,” Spider Woman kept telling them. “It is too easy and pleasant for you to live on, and you would soon fall into evil ways again. You must go on. Have we not told you the way becomes harder and longer?”

  Reluctantly the people traveled eastward by foot across the island to the far shore. Again they made rafts and paddles. When they were ready to set forth Spider Woman said, “Now I have done all I am commanded to do for you. You must go on alone and find your own place of Emergence. Just keep your doors open, and your spirits will guide you.”

  “Thank you, Spider Woman, for all you have done for us,” they said sadly. “We will remember what you have said.”

  Alone they set out, traveling east and a little north, paddling hard day and night for many days as if they were paddling uphill.

  At last they saw land. It rose high above the waters, stretching from north to south as far as they could see. A great land, a mighty land, their inner wisdom told them. “The Fourth World!” they cried to each other.

  As they got closer, its shores rose higher and higher into a steep wall of mountains. There seemed no place to land. “Let us go north. There we will find our Place of Emergence,” said some. So they went north, but the mountains rose higher and steeper.

  “No! Let us go south! There we will find our Place of Emergence!” cried others. So they turned south and traveled many days more. But here too the mountain wall reared higher.

  Not knowing what to do, the people stopped paddling, opened the doors on top of their heads, and let themselves be guided. Almost immediately the water smoothed out, and they felt their rafts caught up in a gentle current. Before long they landed and joyfully jumped out upon a sandy shore. “The Fourth World!” they cried. “We have reached our Place of Emergence at last!”

  Soon all the others arrived and when they were gathered together Sotuknang appeared before them. “Well, I see you are all here. That is good. This is the place I have prepared for you. Look now at the way you have come.”

  Looking to the west and the south, the people could see sticking out of the water the islands upon which they had rested.

  “They are the footprints of your journey,” continued Sotuknang, “the tops of the high mountains of the Third World, which I destroyed. Now watch.”

  As the people watched them, the closest one sank under the water, then the next, until all were gone, and they could see only water.

  “See,” said Sotuknang, “I have washed away even the footprints of your Emergence; the stepping-stones which I left for you. Down on the bottom of the seas lie all the proud cities, the flying patuwvotas, and the worldly treasures corrupted with evil, and those people who found no time to sing praises to the Creator from the tops of their hills. But the day will come, if you preserve the memory and the meaning of your Emergence, when these stepping-stones will emerge again to prove the truth you speak.”

  This at last was the end of the Third World, Kuskurza [an ancient name for which there is no modern meaning].

  TUWAQACHI: THE FOURTH WORLD “I have something more to say before I leave you,” Sotuknang told the people as they stood at their Place of Emergence on the shore of the present Fourth World. This is what he said:

  “The name of this Fourth World is Tuwaqachi, World Complete. You will find out why. It is not all beautiful and easy like the previous ones. It has height and depth, heat and cold, beauty and barrenness; it has everything for you to choose from. What you choose will determine if this time you can carry out the plan of Creation on it or whether it must in time be destroyed too. Now you will separate and go different ways to claim all the earth for the Creator. Each group of you will follow your own star until it stops. There you will settle. Now I must go. But you will have help from the proper deities, from your good spirits. Just keep your own doors open and always remember what I have told you. This is what I say.”

  Then he disappeared.

  The people began to move slowly off the shore and into the land, when they heard the low rumbling noise again. Looking around, they saw a handsome man and asked, “Are you the one who has been making these noises we have heard?”

  “Yes. I made them to help you find the way here. Do you not recognize me? My name is Masaw. I am the caretaker, the guardian and protector of this land.”

  The people recognized Masaw. He had been appointed head caretaker of the Third World, but, becoming a little self-important, he had lost his humility before the Creator. Being a spirit, he could not die, so Taiowa took his appointment away from him and made him the deity of death and the underworld. This job Below was not as pleasant as the one Above. Then when the Third World was destroyed, Taiowa decided to give him another chance, as he had the people, and appointed him to guard and protect this Fourth World as its caretaker.

  He was the first being the people had met here, and they were very respectful to him. “Will you give us your permission to live on this land?” they asked.

  “Yes, I will give you my permission as owner of the land.”

  “Will you be our leader?” the people then asked.

  “No,” replied Masaw. “A greater one than I has given you a plan to fulfill first. When the previous parts of the world were pushed unde
rneath the water, this new land was pushed up in the middle to become the backbone of the earth. You are now standing on its atvila [west side slope]. But you have not yet made your migrations. You have not yet followed your stars to the place where you will meet and settle. This you must do before I can become your leader. But if you go back to evil ways again I will take over the earth from you, for I am its caretaker, guardian, and protector. To the north you will find cold and ice. That is the Back Door to this land, and those who may come through this Back Door will enter without my consent. So go now and claim the land with my permission.”

  When Masaw disappeared, the people divided into groups and clans to begin their migrations.

  “May we meet again!” they all called back to one another.

  This is how it all began on this, our present Fourth World. As we know, its name is Tuwaqachi, World Complete, its direction north, its color sikyangpu, yellowish white. Chiefs upon it are the tree kneumapee, juniper; the bird mongwau, the owl; the animal tohopko, the mountain lion; and the mixed mineral sikyapala.

  Where all the people went on their migrations to the ends of the earth and back, and what they have done to carry out the plan of Creation from this Place of Beginning to the present time, is to be told next by all the clans as they came in.

  —Frank Waters. The Book of the Hopi. New York: Ballantine Books, 1963, pp. 3–28.

  ZUNI

  The Beginning of Newness Like the Hopi, the Zuni Pueblo Indians also managed to escape pervasive foreign influence. Although they were attacked by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1540, on the mistaken assumption that their villages were the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, repositories of fabulous gold stores, they repulsed attempts to Christianize them in the centuries that followed.

  While the Zuni have a long myth of emergence and migrations like other Indians of the Southwest, this first part of their cosmology describes the origin of the world. In the beginning, only Awonawilona, the Father of Fathers, existed. The ground of being, or Being-Itself, Awonawilona conceived within himself and in effect divided himself into chaos and order, not-being and being: he conceived a thought within himself and thereby gave birth first to the “mists of increase” and “streams potent of growth”—to creative potentiality, the primordial waters, chaos; and secondly to himself as the sun—creative reality, fire, order. As the sun, he mated with the waters (that is, being merged with not-being) and produced heaven and earth and, as parallel Chinese myths relate, “all the myriad creatures.”

  BEFORE the beginning of the new-making, Awonawilona (the Maker and Container of All, the All-father Father), solely had being. There was nothing else whatsoever throughout the great space of the ages save everywhere black darkness in it, and everywhere void desolation.

  In the beginning of the new-made, Awonawilona conceived within himself and thought outward in space, whereby mists of increase, steams potent of growth, were evolved and uplifted. Thus, by means of his innate knowledge, the All-container made himself in person and form of the Sun whom we hold to be our father and who thus came to exist and appear. With his appearance came the brightening of the spaces with light, and with the brightening of the spaces the great mist-clouds were thickened together and fell, whereby was evolved water in water; yea, and the world-holding sea.

  With his substance of flesh outdrawn from the surface of his person, the Sun-father formed the seed-stuff of twain worlds, impregnating therewith the great waters, and lo! in the heat of his light these waters of the sea grew green and scums rose upon them, waxing wide the weighty until, behold! they became Awitelin Tsita, the “Four-fold Containing Mother-earth,” and Apoyan Ta’chu, the “All-covering Father-sky.”

  From the lying together of these twain upon the great world-waters, so vitalizing, terrestrial life was conceived; whence began all beings of earth, men and the creatures, in the Four-fold womb of the World.

  Thereupon the Earth-mother repulsed the Sky-father, growing big and sinking deep into the embrace of the waters below, thus separating from the Sky-father in the embrace of the waters above. As a woman forebodes evil for her first-born ere born, even so did the Earth-mother forebode, long withholding from birth her myriad progeny and meantime seeking counsel with the Sky-father. “How,” said they to one another, “shall our children when brought forth, know one place from another, even by the white light of the Sun-father?”

  Now like all the surpassing beings the Earth-mother and the Sky-father were changeable, even as smoke in the wind; transmutable at thought, manifesting themselves in any form at will, like as dancer may by mask-making.

  Thus, as a man and woman, spake they, one to the other. “Behold!” said the Earth-mother as a great terraced bowl appeared at hand and within it water, “this is as upon me the homes of my tiny children shall be. On the rim of each world-country they wander in, terraced mountains shall stand, making in one region many, whereby country shall be known from country, and within each, place from place. Behold, again!” said she as she spat on the water and rapidly smote and stirred it with her fingers. Foam formed, gathering about the terraced rim, mounting higher and higher. “Yea,” said she, and from my bosom they shall draw nourishment, for in such as this shall they find the substance of life whence we were ourselves sustained, for see!” Then with her warm breath she blew across the terraces; white flecks or the foam broke away, and, floating over above the water, were shattered by the cold breath of the Sky-father attending, and forthwith shed downward abundantly fine mist and spray! “Even so, shall white clouds float up from the great waters at the borders of the world, and clustering about the mountain terraces of the horizons be borne aloft and abroad by the breaths of the surpassing of soul-beings, and of the children, and shall hardened and broken be by thy cold, shedding downward, in rain-spray, the water of life, even into the hollow places of my lap! For therein chiefly shall nestle our children mankind and creature-kind, for warmth in thy coldness.”

  Lo! even the trees on high mountains near the clouds and the Sky-father crouch low toward the Earth-mother for warmth and protection! Warm is the Earth-mother, cold the Sky-father, even as woman is the warm, man the cold being!

  “Even so!” said the Sky-father; “Yet not alone shalt thou helpful be unto our children, for behold!” and he spread his land abroad with the palm downward and into all the wrinkles and crevices thereof he set the semblance of shining yellow corn-grains; in the dark of the early world-dawn they gleamed like sparks of fire, and moved as his hand was moved over the bowl, shining up from and also moving in the depths of the water therein. “See!” said he, pointing to the seven grains clasped by his thumb and four fingers, “by such shall our children be guided; for behold, when the Sun-father is not nigh, and thy terraces are as the dark itself (being all hidden therein), then shall our children be guided by lights—like to these lights of all the six regions turning round the midmost one—as in and around the midmost place, where these our children shall abide, lie all the other regions of space! Yea! and even as these grains gleam up from the water, so shall seedgrains like to them, yet numberless, spring up from thy bosom when touched by my waters, to nourish our children.” Thus and in other ways many devised they for their offspring.

  —F. H. Cushing. Outlines of Zuni Creation Myths. Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Washington, D.C.: 1896, pp. 379–381.

  EIGHT

  CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN MYTHS

  QUICHÉ MAYA

  From the Popol Vuh The Popol Vuh (Book of the Community) is the sacred history of the Quiche Maya, the most powerful tribe in the western highlands, which form the southern branch of the great Mayan civilization. After the Quiche were conquered in 1524 by Pedro de Alvarado and their religious books destroyed, the Popol Vuh was rewritten in native language but with Latin letters by a converted member of the tribe. Although this manuscript is now lost, a copy made by Father Ximenez in the late 1600s survived.

  The Popol Vuh recounts the history of the Quiche f
rom the beginning of creation down through the Mayan kings in 1550. At times wandering and interrupted with side issues, it is a difficult myth to interpret. Not only was it written several centuries after the decline of the Mayan civilization (whose classic age spanned 317–889 A.D.), leading to questions of interpolation and changes, but also the significance of many names and the precise nature and relationship of many deities are now confused. Nevertheless, the outlines of the first, cosmological section of the myth are clear: in the beginning, only Tepeu and Gucumatz existed as sun-fire powers in the middle of the dark waters of the void. They thought and spoke together and then, joined in agreement, created the world by command: “Let the emptiness be filled!” and it was. The earth rose out of the water, and the gods made all the animals and birds to live on it. But these creatures were flawed in that they could not speak to praise their creators, so the gods set out to make people.

  The first attempt failed because the clay they were using melted in the waters. By contrast, the second race of people, carved wooden creatures, were too solid and inflexible; they were without souls and minds. Destroyed by monsters and by all the things in their world that they had offended in the course of their existence, the second race of people devolved into monkeys and fled to the forests.

  So the gods tried a third time, and with greater haste, because the dawn of the world was approaching. Aided by the animals, they gathered plants (mostly varieties of corn and beans, the main diet of the Maya) and made four people (one for each cardinal direction) out of these. While the names of the first four men are difficult to translate with certainty, they seem to be kinds of sorcerers or wizards, that is, men of very great power. And indeed they were. Gifted with great vision and understanding, they frightened even the gods, who limited the wizards’ powers somewhat before proceeding with creation. Next the gods formed four women (whose names all indicate affinity with water, the passive and receptive side of the primary duality).