The First Man and Woman: Sioux (Upper Mssouri)

Tradition of the Sioux.—“Before the creation of man, the Great Spirit (whose tracks are yet to be seen on the stones, at the Red Pipe, in form of the tracks of a large bird) used to slay the buffaloes and eat them on the ledge of the Red necks, on the top of the Côteau des Prairies, and their blood running on to the rocks, turned them red. One day when a large snake had crawled into the nest of the bird to eat his eggs, one of the eggs hatched out in a clap of thunder and the Great Spirit catching hold of a piece of the pipe stone
to throw at the snake, moulded it into a man. This man’s feet grew fast in the ground where he stood for many ages, like a great tree, and therefore he grew very old; he was older than an hundred men at the present day; and at last another tree grew up by the side of him, when a large snake ate them both off at the roots, and they wandered off together; from these have sprung all the people that now inhabit the earth.” 

The above tradition I found amongst the Upper Missouri Sioux, but which, when I related to that part of the great tribe of Sioux who inhabit the Upper Mississippi, they seemed to know nothing about it. The reason for this may have been, perhaps, as is often the case, owing to the fraud or excessive ignorance of the interpreter, on whom we are often entirely dependent in this country; or it is more probably owing to the very vague and numerous fables which may often be found, cherished and told by different bands or families in the same tribe, and relative to the same event.

Catlin, George, 1796-1872, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians; Written During Eight Years’ Travel (1832-1839) Amongst the Wildest Tribes of Indians in North America, 2 vols, intro. Marjorie Halpin, 250 photographic reproductions of paintings in the Catlin collection of the United States National Museum, New York: Dover Publications, 1973, letter 54, vol. 2, pp. 168-169.

Catlin, George, 1796-1872, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians; Written During Eight Years’ Travel (1832-1839) Amongst the Wildest Tribes of Indians in North America, 2 vols, London: published by the author, at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, 1841, letter 54, vol. 2, pp. 168-169.