An Iroquoian story of creation

Continued from last week

So again, as they say, “as the time went on”, this young woman, she had a dream. And they say, in this dream, she was approached by a handsome young man. And he said that he was the spirit of the west wind. And he was also the bringer of the water. And, they say, how he had found out about his young woman was that the spirit of the west wind - this young man, the spirit of the west wind – traveled, and knew very well this young girls father, who traveled all over the globe of water, throwing fire sticks at the serpents. Sometimes they traveled together, the spirit of the west wind and this “old man”, they say he called him. And the old man would always brag of the beauty and the intelligence of his daughter. And the spirit of the west wind the young man, he said that one day he called this old man’s bluff. He said, “She can’t be as beautiful as all that, or as intelligent as what you say.” He said, “Next time, I’m going to see for myself.”

Although he had been there many times, he had never paid attention to them. So the next time he went over where the two women were living he was going there to take the water, and to put it down on the earth, to fill up some of the pools for them to drink. And they say that at that time, the first time he saw what young woman, he fell in love with her right away, and that he kind of hung around there, maybe longer than he should have. And they say, the ponds and creeks got a little deeper that they normally would have, that time. So they had a lot of water to drink.

So, anyway, he moved on eventually. And it was that night that he came to this young woman in her dream and introduced himself. And he said that he would like to come back and visit with her again. So they agreed. And the young woman had also fallen in love with him, as well. And they say that they, three times they had met in their dreams and they had agreed they would be partners for all time. And they would have children.

And they say, some time after that, the young woman was waking up in the morning. And her mother was also was waking up at the same time. And the mother had had a dream that night as well. When the mother woke up and looked over at her daughter, she was just beginning to stir. She saw a couple of arrows lying across her daughter’s abdomen. And the daughter woke up. And she held one up and the head of the one arrow was extremely sharp. And, they say, it was very useful, a very good arrow. And the other one had a blunt tip on it. And they say it was not much good for anything. And her mother looked at those and she said that she had a dream that night and that those two arrows mean that she’s going to have twins. The young woman is going to have twins. And they’ll also be boys. And she was also told, the grandmother, she was told that the name of these boys, one would be Teharonhiawako, the holder of the skies, and the other one, his name would be Sawiskera, or the mischievous one. And they say that you can tell that the head of each of those arrows indicates the personality of each of these boys, one will be very useful. And the other one won’t be of much good at all.

So, they say, some time went on, the young woman’s pregnancy developed and she had a very, very hard time with these two boys, even in the womb. She never got any rest, because these two boys were always in conflict, fighting and arguing even at that stage in their life. And they say that when it came time for them to be born, that these two boys had developed such a jealousy of each other that Teharonhiawako, the holder of the skies was going to be born first. He was in that position to be born. And his brother Sawiskera, the mischievous one, he was so upset with his brother that he was going to be born first, that they say his jealousy and anger towards his brother got to such an all time high for that short time of their life, that as his brother was being born what we know as the natural way, Sawiskera was so consumed by his anger, that he forced his way our through his mother’s side. And they say he ended up killing the young woman.

And, they say, the grandmother – the sky woman, we’ll call her that, the grandmother, never seeing human death before, wasn’t sure what to do with her daughter. She made the two babies safe and she put them to the side for the time being. And then, hey say, a long time ago that when she remembered back to the otter and to the muskrat, those tow animals that lost their lives trying to get this soil for her, from the bottom of the ocean, what she did in honor of those two animals, was she covered them up with this soil that they had lost their lives trying to get for her. So she remembered that, all of those years before. So she thought that’s what she’d do for her daughter as well. So she covered her daughter up with this soil.