Iroquois Creation Story
The Iroquois Creation Story is a foundational myth that explains the origins of the Earth, humanity, and the balance of good and evil through the lens of Iroquois culture. Central to the narrative is Sky Woman, who, after being cast from the heavens by the Great Spirit, lands on the back of Great Turtle. Her arrival leads to the creation of the Earth, referred to as Turtle Island. Sky Woman gives birth to twin sons, Teharonghyawago and Tawiskaron, who embody opposing forces. As they grow, their rivalry manifests in a struggle that symbolizes the dynamics of nature and human existence.
The story not only accounts for the physical world but also signifies the Iroquois' agricultural practices and social structure, particularly their matrilineal traditions. Variants of the tale exist across different tribes, highlighting diverse interpretations of key figures and events. While some versions emphasize female deities and their nurturing roles, others, including John Norton's account from 1816, reflect influences that may diminish the feminine aspect. Overall, the Iroquois Creation Story serves as a rich cultural narrative that illustrates the importance of balance, respect for nature, and the complexity of human relationships within the Iroquois worldview.
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Subject Terms
Iroquois Creation Story
Author: Traditional Iroquois
Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE
Country or Culture: North America
Genre: Myth
PLOT SUMMARY
In the beginning, the Great Spirit rules over other superior beings in the otherworld beyond the clouds. One day, his daughter (called Sky Woman in most versions) becomes pregnant illegitimately. In a rage, the Great Spirit reaches down, yanks out a great tree, and pushes her through the newly opened hole. She falls through the sky onto Great Turtle, whose shell oozes with mud, and together they form the earth.
Sky Woman gives birth to the first child on earth, a daughter. When the young woman reaches the age of maturity, various spirits disguised as humans make offers of marriage, but her mother rejects all until a certain middle-aged hunter appears. She invites him into the house to spend the night with her daughter. As she spies on them from the other side of the hearth, she notices that the hunter does not lie down beside her daughter but rather pulls two bows from his quiver and mysteriously sets them beside her. At dawn, he removes the bows and disappears.
The young woman becomes miraculously pregnant and gives birth to twins who are polar opposites, Teharonghyawago (“Holder of Heaven”) and Tawiskaron (“Flinty Rock,” named for the covering on his skin). The younger, Tawiskaron, insists upon using his flintlike skin to cut through his mother’s side, creating a slit that kills her as he enters the world.
While the twins grow up under the guardianship of their grandmother, they spend most of their time apart. Teharonghyawago resents Tawiskaron for killing their mother and for doing evil. Upset over his inability to stop the evil doings, Teharonghyawago seeks solace in the woods. There, he meets his father, Great Turtle, who gives him the first ear of corn to plant. In addition to ushering in agriculture, Teharonghyawago also bears responsibility for peopling the earth and seeing to it that clans are happy.
Tawiskaron, who spends most of his time hunting, has begun to capture elk and other gentle animals and imprison them in a cave for his own use, a practice that defies the relationship between humans and animals as set forth by the Great Spirit. Teharonghyawago spies on Tawiskaron from a tree and frees the captured beasts when Tawiskaron is away from the cave. Angered by this, Tawiskaron retaliates by antagonizing the people Teharonghyawago nurtures.
Eventually, the brothers fight each other in a prolonged contest, with battles taking place over the region that would later become the land of the Iroquois Confederacy. Teharonghyawago is victorious, killing Tawiskaron. The story ends by linking the sites of the widespread battles with the evolution of different languages spoken by the different tribes of the confederacy.
SIGNIFICANCE
This version of the Iroquois creation story was recorded in 1816 by John Norton, who was of mixed Cherokee and Scottish descent and had been adopted by Joseph Brant, chief of the Mohawks and a Christian missionary. The purpose of the story is to account for the creation of North America (or the earth), called Turtle Island by the Iroquois Confederacy (or Haudenosaunee League), as well as its people, plants, and animals. It also explains the origin of good and evil. At the time Norton collected the story, the Iroquois Confederacy had grown into the Six Nations (the Cayugas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Tuscaroras, whose territory originally stretched across the woodlands of what is now central New York and southern Ontario and Quebec). While they relied heavily on hunting for survival, the Iroquois were also known for their agricultural expertise, having developed maize, beans, and squash crops. Each tribe spoke a different language, although they shared some similarities, and each tribe was divided into matriarchal clans, with the mother at the center of the clan.
While Norton’s version is representative of the confederacy’s belief in the Great Turtle as a major force in creation, the Iroquois creation story varies in the details of key events, the names of spiritual beings, and other elements from tribe to tribe. In most cases, Sky Woman is identified as the bearer of medicinal plants into the world, the originator of plant and human life on earth, the moon (which controls the seas and menstruation), and the feminine force that presides over all of humanity and nature. In some versions, her daughter becomes a corn mother after her body fertilizes the ground and yields the first corn, beans, and squash plants. She is often considered the mother earth. Sky Woman and her daughter’s roles as major deities or spirits reflect the matrilineal society and respect for the feminine.
Norton’s version, however, seems to subordinate the role of the feminine while crediting most of creation to male deities or spirits. The female beings are unnamed, simply referred to as the young woman, the old woman, the daughter, the mother, or the grandmother. In most versions, Sky Woman is either in an equal relationship with the Great Spirit or married to another supernatural being, instead of being depicted as a pregnant daughter. The illicit nature of the pregnancy is a common motif, however; in some variants, Sky Woman is accused of adultery. Some say she creates the hole through which she accidentally falls, and many say the birds in the sky call upon Great Turtle to rescue her, as opposed to the angry Great Spirit pushing his disparaged daughter through the hole that he created and, seemingly as an afterthought, commanding Great Turtle to save her.
Related to this alteration are the Christian influences seen throughout the Norton narrative: the apparent virgin birth; the attention given to the Great Spirit as a supreme deity; and the focus on the twin brothers, who are in some ways reminiscent of the biblical first brothers, Cain and Abel. Therefore, while Norton’s version remains an important account, its authenticity as a traditional American Indian narrative is questionable.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bierhorst, John. The Woman Who Fell from the Sky: The Iroquois Story of Creation. New York: Morrow, 1993. Print.
Doxstater, Elizabeth. “Creation Story.” Iroquois Museum. Iroquois Indian Museum, n.d. Web. 28 May 2013.
Elm, Demus, and Harvey Antone. The Oneida Creation Story. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2000. Print.
Hewitt, John N. Iroquoian Cosmology. New York: AMS P, 2004. Print.
Olan, Kay. “Creation Story.” Iroquois Museum. Iroquois Indian Museum, n.d. Web. 28 May 2013.
Norton, John. “Iroquois Creation Myth, 1816.” The Journal of Major John Norton, 1816. Ed. Carl F. Klinck and James J. Talman. Toronto: Champlain Soc., 1970. 88–91. Print.
Vecsey, Christopher. “The Story and Structure of the Iroquois Confederacy.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 54.1 (1986): 79–106. Print.