The Creation/Flood According to the Carriers

The Carriers give the following account of the tradition, which they believe, respecting the formation of the earth, and the general destruction of mankind, in an early period of the world. Water at first overspread the face of the world, which is a plain surface. At the top of the water, a muskrat was swimming about, in different directions. At length he concluded to dive to the bottom, to see what he could find, on which to subsist; but he found nothing but mud, a little of which he brought in his mouth, and placed it on the surface of the water, where it remained. He then went for more mud, and placed it with that already brought up; and thus he continued his operations, until he had formed a considerable hillock. This land increased by degrees, until it overspread a large part of the world, which assumed at length its present form. The earth, in process of time, became peopled in every part, and remained in this condition for many years. Afterwards a fire run over it all, and destroyed every human being, excepting one man and one woman. They saved themselves by going into a deep cave, in a large mountain, where they remained for several days, until the fire was extinguished. They then came forth from their hiding place; and from these two persons, the whole earth has been peopled.

Harmon, Daniel Williams, A Journal of Voyages and Travels in the Interior of North America, Andover: printed by Flagg and Gould, 1820, pp. 302-303.

The Hawaiian Creation and Fall (version 5)

(e) Westervelt version. On the island-like peninsula of Mokapu on Oahu is the crater hill Mololani. On the east side near the sea red earth lies beside black soil. Kane makes an image of a man out of earth. . . . Ku and Lono catch a spirit of the air and give Kane’s figure life. They name him Wela-ahi-lani-nui. The man notices his shadow (aka) and wonders what it is. The woman is torn out of the man’s body by the god Kane; Ku and Lono heal the body. When the man sees her he names her Ke-aka-huli-lani after his own shadow.

Beckwith, Martha Warren, Hawaiian Mythology, new intro. Katharine Luomala, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1970, p. 46.

The Hawaiian Creation and Fall (version 4)

(d) Kamakau version. Kane, assisted by Ku and Lono and opposed by Kanaloa, makes the heaven and the earth. All is chaotic. Nothing exists but the upper regions and the spirit gods. Kane excels among the gods in wisdom and power. The triad of gods unite in forming the world. They begin on the twenty-sixth day of the month, the day dedicted to Kane, and in six days, including the days of Kane, Lono, Mauli, Moku, Hilo, Hoaka, form the heavens and the earth. The sabbath or holy day of Ku is established on the seventh day.

On Oahu between Kualoa and Kaneohe lies the first land planned by the gods. On the eastern flank of Mololani (a crater hill on Mokapu), at a place where fine red earth is mixed with bluish and blackish soil, the first man is formed by the three gods Kane, Ku, Lono. Kane draws a likeness of the gods with head, body, hands, and legs like themselves. Then he makes the image live and it becomes the first man. The gods place him in a house of kou wood and name him Huli-honua because he is “made out of earth.” The first man notices that his shadow always clings to him. While he sleeps the god makes a good-looking woman and when he awakes she lies by his side. He calls her Ke-aka-huli-lani (The shadow from the heavens).

Beckwith, Martha Warren, Hawaiian Mythology, new intro. Katharine Luomala, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1970, p. 45.

The Hawaiian Creation and Fall (version 3)

(c) Kepelino version. Kane as a triad, Kane, Kana (Ku), Lono, exists alone in the deep intense night which he has created, and brings about, first light, then the heavens, then the earth and the ocean, then sun, moon, and stars. Kane existing alone chants,

“Here am I on the peak of day, on the peak of night.
The spaces of air,
The blue sky I will make, a heaven,
A heaven for Ku, for Lono,
A heaven for me, for Kane,
Three heavens, a heaven.
Behold the heavens!
There is the heaven,
The great heaven,
Here am I in heaven, the heaven is mine.”

During the first five periods the heavens and earth are created and the sun, moon, and stars, and plants to clothe the earth. In the sixth period man is formed.

Kane, Ku, Lono, conceived as a single godhead, mold Kumuhonua, the first man, out of wet soil and he becomes living soil. They make him a chief to rule over the whole world and place him with his wife Lalo-honua in Ka-aina-nui-o-Kane (The great land of Kane), where they live happily until Lalo-honua meets the “Great seabird with white beak that stands fishing” (Aaia-nui-nukea-a-ku-lawaia) and is seduced to eat the sacred apples of Kane. She goes mad and becomes a seabird. The seabird carries them both away into the jungle, the trees part and make a path for them, but the trees return to their places and the path is lost, hence the name “Hidden land of Kane” for this first garden home. . . . Death is the penalty for Kumuhonua because he did not keep the command of the god. He gains the name Kane-la‘a-uli and is jeered at by the people as he goes weeping and lamenting along the highway. For countless years he dwells as a refugee on the hill called Pu‘u-o-honua, then he returns to Kahiki-honua-kele and is buried on a mountain called Wai-hon(u)a-o-Kumuhonua. There his descendants also are buried and the place is called “the heaping place of bones” (O-ke-ahuna-iwi).

Beckwith, Martha Warren, Hawaiian Mythology, new intro. Katharine Luomala, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1970, pp. 44-45.

The Hawaiian Creation and the Fall (version 2)

(b) Fornander version (2). The three gods Kane, Ku, Lono come out of the night (po) and create three heavens to dwell in, the uppermost for Kane, the next below for Ku, and the lowest for Lono, “a heaven for the parent (makua), a heaven for Ku, a heaven for Lono.” Next they make the earth to rest their feet upon and call it “The great earth of Kane” (Ka-honua-nui-a-Kane). Kane then makes sun, moon, and stars, and places them in the empty space between heaven and earth. He makes the ocean salt, in imitation of which the priests purify with salt water. Next an image of man is formed out of earth, the head out of white clay brought from the seas of the north, south, east, and west, the body out of red earth (apo ula) mixed with spittle (wai nao). The right side of the head is made of clay brought from the north and east, the left side is made of clay from the south and west. Man is formed after the image of Kane with Ku as the workman, Lono as general assistant. Kane and Ku spit (or breathe) into the nostrils, Lono into the mouth, and the image becomes a living being. “I have shaped this dirt (lepo); I am going to make it live,” says Kane. “Live! live!” respond Ku and Lono. The man rises and kneels. They name him Ke-li‘i-ku-honua (the chief Ku(mu)-honua) or Honua-ula because made out of “red earth.” They give him a delightful garden to live in called Kalana-i-hauola, but later Paliuli, situated in the land of Kahiki-honua-kele (The land that moved off), and fashion a wife for him out of his right side and call her Ke-ola-Ku-honua (or Lalo-hana). “Great Hawaii of the green back and mottled seas” this land is called. A law is given him but he breaks the law and is then known as Kane-la‘a-(kah)uli, “a god who fell because of the law.”

In the original garden of Kumuhonua and Lalo-hana his wife, are to be found the pig, dogs of various varieties, mo‘o of many sorts. A tapu tree, sacred apples which cause death if eaten by strangers, and tapu bark cloth forbidden to all but the high chiefs are spoken of. Some think that the laau (law or tree) which caused the expulsion of the pair from the garden refers to these things. The garden, which is very sacred, goes by a multiplicity of names. It is the great white albatross of Kane that drove them out of the garden (Ka Aaia-nukea-nui-a-Kane). Kumuhonua-mokupuni is the land to the eastward to which Kumuhonua retreats after he has broken the law, and he returns to Kapakapa-ua-a-Kane and is buried in a place called Kumu-honua-pu‘u, which was afterwards called Ka-pu‘u-po‘o-kanaka (the hill of human heads).

Beckwith, Martha Warren, Hawaiian Mythology, new intro. Katharine Luomala, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1970, pp. 43-44.

Hawaiian Creation and Fall (version 1)

(a) Fornander version (1). In the first era Kane dwells alone in continual darkness (i ka po loa); there is neither heaven nor earth. In the second era light is created and the gods Ku and Lono, with Kane, fashion the earth and the things on the earth. In the third era they create man and woman, Kumu-honua (Earth beginning) and Lalo-honua (Earth below). In the fourth era Kane, who has lived on earth with man, goes up to heaven to live and the man, having broken Kane’s law, is made subject to death.

Beckwith, Martha Warren, Hawaiian Mythology, new intro. Katharine Luomala, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1970, pp. 42-43.

The Origin of Man According to the Taino of Hispaniola

They believed that mankind issued from another cavern, the large men from a great aperture, the small men from a little cranny. They were for a long time destitute of women, but, wandering on one occasion near a small lake, they saw certain animals among the branches of the trees, which proved to be women. On attempting to catch them, however, they were found to be as slippery as eels, so that it was impossible to hold them. At length they employed certain men, whose hands were rendered rough by a kind of leprosy. These succeeded in securing four of these slippery females, from whom the world was peopled.

Irving, Washington, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 4 vols., London: John Murray, 1828, v. 2, pp. 117-118.

The Māori Creation of Man

Of Tiki little is preserved: his great work was that of making man, which he is said to have done after his own image. One account states, that he took red clay and kneaded it with his own blood, and so formed the eyes and limbs, and then gave the image breath. Another, that man was formed of clay, and the red ochreous water of swamps, and that Tiki bestowed both his own form and name upon him, calling him Tiki-ahua, or Tiki's likeness.

Taylor, Richard, Te Ika a Maui or New Zealand and its Inhabitants, London: Wertheim and Macintosh, 1855, p. 23.

The Appearance of the First Man and the First Woman Involves a Tree According to the North American Indians

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.

According to the Hindus, In the Beginning...

Waters were the world at fi rst, the moving ocean; Prajapati, becoming wind, rocked about on a lotus leaf; [...]

Taittiriya Sanhita, v, 6.4.
(Keith, Arthur Berriedalle, The Veda of the Black Yajus School entitled Taittiriya Sanhita, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Harvard University Press, 1914, v. 2, p. 458.)

This was in the beginning the waters, the ocean. In it Prajapati becoming the wind moved.

Taittiriya Sanhita, vii, 1.5.

(Keith, Arthur Berriedalle, The Veda of the Black Yajus School entitled Taittiriya Sanhita, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Harvard University Press, 1914, v. 2, p. 560.)

Chipewyan Creation and Fall

The notion which these people entertain of the creation, is of a very singular nature. They believe that, at the first, the globe was one vast and entire ocean, inhabited by no living creature, except a mighty bird, whose eyes were fire, whose glances were lightning, and the clapping of whose wings were thunder. On his descent to the ocean, and touching it, the earth instantly arose, and remained on the surface of the waters. This omnipotent bird then called forth all the variety of animals from the earth, except the Chepewyans, who were produced from a dog; and this circumstance occasions their aversion to the flesh of that animal, as well as the people who eat it. This extraordinary tradition proceeds to relate, that the great bird, having finished his work, made an arrow, which was to be preserved with great care, and to remain untouched; but that the Chepewyans were so devoid of understanding, as to carry it away; and the sacrilege so enraged the great bird, that he has never since appeared.

Mackenzie, Alexander, Voyages from Montreal, on the river St. Laurence, through the continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, London: , 1801, pp. cxvii-cxviii.

The Hindu Náráyana

The waters are called nárá, because they were the production of NARA, or the spirit of GOD; and, since they were his first ayana, or place of motion, he thence is named NÁRÁYANA, or moving on the waters.

Menu, The Laws of Menu, son of Brahmá, ch. 1, vs. 10.

(Jones, William, Sir, Institutes of Hindu Law, Calcutta: printed by order of the government; London: reprinted, for J. Sewell ...; and J. Debrett, 1796, p. 2.)

The Suebi (Germanic tribe), a Grove where the Race Arose and their god Dwells, and Withing Like a Snake?

They describe the Semnones as the most ancient and best-born tribe of the Suebi: this credibility of their antiquity is confirmed by religion: at fixed seasons all tribes of the same name and blood gather through their delegations at a certain forest—

“Haunted by visions beheld by their sires and the awe of the ages”

—and after publicly offering up a human life, they celebrate the grim “initiation” of their barbarous worship. There is a further tribute which they pay to the grove: no one enters it until he has been bound with a cord: he puts off equality and advertises in his person the might of the deity: if he chance to fall, he must not be lifted up or rise—he must writhe along the ground until he is out again: the whole superstition cames to this, that it was here where the race arose, here where dwells the god who is lord of all things; everything else is subject
to him and vassal. The prosperity of the Semnones enforces the idea: they occupy one hundred cantons, and from their large number it results that they consider themselves the head of the Suebi. 

Tacitus, Cornelius,  Germania, 39.

(Agricola, trans. M. Hutton, rev. by R. M. Ogilvie, Germania, trans. by M. Hutton, rev. by E. H. Warmington, Dialogus, trans. by W. Peterson, rev. by M. Winterbottom, London: W. Heinemann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980, p. 194, 195).

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.