We asked him, where he believed he came from? He answered
from his father. " And where did your father come from? " we
said, "and your grandfather and great-grandfather, and so on to
the first of the race?" He was silent for a little while, either as
if unable to climb up at once so high with his thoughts, or to
express them without help, and then took a piece of coal out of
the fire where he sat, and began to write upon the floor. He first
drew a circle, a little oval, to which he made four paws or feet, a
head and a tail. " This," said he, " is a tortoise, lying in the water
around it," and he moved his hand round the figure, continuing,
"This was or is all water, and so at first was the world or the
earth, when the tortoise gradually raised its round back up high,
and the water ran off of it, and thus the earth became dry." He
then took a little straw and placed it on end in the middle of the
figure, and proceeded, " The earth was now dry, and there grew a
tree in the middle of the earth, and the root of this tree sent forth
a sprout beside it and there grew upon it a man, who was the
first male. This man was then alone, and would have remained
alone; but the tree bent over until its top touched the earth, and
there shot therein another root, from which came forth another
sprout, and there grew upon it the woman, and from these two
are all men produced."
Danckaerts, Jasper, Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1913, pp. 77-78.
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