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Sioux creation myth [archive]

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Sioux creation myth

NOTE: The following is taken from Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Conditions of the North Amencan Indians, written by George Catlin, early explorer, painter, and writer.

Before the creation of man, the Great Spirit (whose tracks are yet to be seen on the stones, at the Red Pipe, in the form of a large bird) used to slay buffaloes and eat them on the ledge of the Red Rocks, on top of the Coteau 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 pipestone to throw at the snake, moulded [sic] 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 a 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.

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Sioux creation myth [archive]

Sioux creation myth

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