Hunt 1

Zachary Hunt
Tina Katsanos
LBST 2102
November 1, 2017
Cherokee Cosmogony

A cosmogony is a myth that explains the creation of the world. There are many different

cosmogonies from almost every known culture. The Cherokee Nations earth diver myth has the

characteristics of earth diver cosmogony, an etiology, and the creation of man-kind.

Before there was any dirt on the earth there was only water. There was a water beetle

that climbed down from the sky realm and swam down through the depths of the ocean and

got some mud from the sea floor. The beetle brought the mud to the surface and the mud

spread in each direction, North, South, East, and West. When the mud spread, it created the

landmass that would later be the land that all life would live upon. There were other animals in

the sky realm that wanted to come down to earth but the mud had not fully dried. Among the

first animals that came to earth were the birds; their job was to see if the mud had dried. The

mud that created the earths landmass was still damp and mushy. With the company of the

birds there was the buzzard and as the birds flew over the landmass the buzzard became

exhausted and dropped in his flight dangerously close to the earth and flying at such a low

altitude his wings shaped the earth giving it various mountainous regions. The earth then dried

and the shape that had been made by the buzzard was then permanent. After it was fully dried

the animals came down from the sky realm and inhabited the earth[1].

Though the earth was dark, the animals took the sun and adjusted its path to where it

would rise in the east and set in the west, to ease the strife of the intense heat. They also

adjusted the height from the ground as well to change the temperature so it was not so hot.
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During this process, the lobster got scorched giving it a red color. The animals were supposed to

remain awake for the first seven days. Some did not reach the goal and some did. The ones that

did were rewarded. A couple of examples were that the cougar and the owl were given a

nocturnal advantage of night vision and the trees that stayed awake are now classified as ever-

greens. The first humans that inhabited the earth in this myth were said to be brother and

sister. The sister gave birth to children once every week to the point where the human

population became so big that there was a law that the women could only have a child once a

year[1].

From reading this brief summary this myth can be classified as a cosmogony because it

provided an explanation for how the earth came to be. To be more precise, this is a type of

cosmogony that can be classified as an earth diver myth. An earth diver myth is defined as a

creation myth that an entity goes to the bottom of the ocean and brings land to the surface to

create a landmass. This Cherokee cosmogony fits the criteria of the earth diver myth because

the water beetle dove to get mud and brought it to the surface to create the primary landmass.

This myth had aspects of several different myths included into it. One classification of a myth

that was embedded within this cosmogony is etiology.

The placement of the sun in the myth above contributed to an aspect of an etiology. An

etiology is an explanation of the origin of a specific thing. In this case the myth explains how the

lobster is red. In the story, they placed the sun on its path, but it was still low and they had not

found the right distance from the ground it needed to be. The sun rose and it was so close to

the ground that it scorched the lobster which turned him red. This fits the description of an

etiology because it explained the reason the lobster is red. The story also told why some of the
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trees were ever-green, while some lost their leaves, and how the owl and cougar got night

vision.

Like other cosmogonies this one addressed man-kind. In this creation tale, the earth

started by only having two individuals, much like the creation tales of Christianity. There are

differences though the two humans in this story were brother and sister, where Adam and Eve

were not. When the humans decided to start reproducing in this myth it was said that the

brother threw a fish at his sister and said to reproduce. She then would start producing

offspring weekly and pretty soon the earth was overrun with man-kind. This spawned the law

that women should reproduce only once a year. This part of the story explains how mankind

became the dominant species.

In this Cherokee cosmogony the characteristics of an earth diver myth, an etiology, and

the creation of man-kind were observed and discussed. The tale was an earth diver cosmogony

because mud was taken from under the ocean to create the earth. The aspects of an etiology

were the way the plants and animals got certain physical traits. The origin of man-kind is a

staple of this cosmogony and its relevance to one of the most profound questions pondered by

the human inquisition, the origin of man, makes its importance insurmountable.
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References

[1] Sproul, Barbara C. (1979). Primal Myths. HarperOne HarperCollinsPublishers.

ISBN 978-0-06-067501-1. pages 254-255