Summary Of Iroquois Creation Story

The native American tribe known as the Iroquois, have a unique creation story. For this story sky, people and water exist but there is no land to speak of. It’s funny how most creation stories start off with the earth and sky already in existence. The Iroquois story starts with sky people that live high above the waters in the clouds. The sky people could not die, have children or experience sadness. Nonetheless; one day a sky woman realized she had become pregnant with twins. When she told her husband he became confused and upset, this had never happened before. There was a tree of light in the center of the sky city that had healing powers, he pulled the tree to retrieve the healing root for his wife. After he pulled the tree, his wife decided
Soon after she gave birth to twin sons. The two sons were very different; the fist was named Sapling. He was very kind, respectful and gentle to the animals and world around. The other was named Flint; he had a cold, angry heart. Both sons grew very quickly and began to fill this world with creations. All the good things in the world were created by Sapling. He made animals for humans to use and plants for humans to eat. He also made rivers with fish that had no bones. With Saplings creations, there would be no strife or suffering in the world. The other brother, Flint created all the is bad or evil in the world and began twisting and destroying what Sapling had created. He made the rivers flow one way, gave fish bones, and gave trees and bushes thorns. Flint also created winter, but his brother made it so that winter would end and become spring. Flint also created monsters to help him, but his brother, Sapling captured them and drove them underground. Eventually, Flint and Sapling came across each other and decided to end this conflict with a battle. The battle raged on for a long time and Sapling became the victor. Both brothers were immortal and could not die, so Sapling made Flint live on the turtle's back under the ground. The Iroquois believe that they can feel Flint's anger in the form of a