Josh Hughey

Creation of Hostilities

            It has always been my personal opinion, though I believe many also share this belief, that much can be told about any particular culture by examining its myths or religion.  One very important story, though not the same story, that the vast majority of cultures share is one of creation.  If one were to ignore all other myths and stories I believe any given culture could be very well analyzed by examination of its creation story alone.  Examination and interpretation of creation stories can also do more than just analyze a culture.  Looking at multiple creation stories belonging to several groups that interacted with one another could shed light on why these groups behaved the way they did.  This is not meant to justify or condemn the actions of any particular group but merely to try and understand them.

            The cultures of Native Americans, or Indigenous Peoples, are as vast and varying as any throughout the world.  For the purpose of this essay, however, a few of their creation stories will be grouped together for they have more in common with each other than with the creation story they are being compared to.  My hope is to shed light on why Native Americans and Christian Europeans interacted with each other the way they did based on interpretation of their creation stories. 

            The first, and perhaps most important, difference between Native American creation stories and Genesis can be seen in the actual creation of everything.  In Genesis, the Christian creation story, there is one all-powerful being, God, who is alone responsible for the creation of everything.  He created all the animals, plants and people.  It is also important to note that though most Christian sects agree that God has no sex or gender he is almost always referred to as male.  The fact that the Christian creation story attributes everything to a single all-powerful being can explain much about the Christian European’s treatment of the Native Americans.  Perhaps it is because the Europeans view creation and religion in terms of power and authority that they felt justified in asserting their own power and authority over the Native Americans and determined that they had the right, being more powerful, to do as they pleased with the existing people and land.

            Native American creation stories on the other hand, often have many powerful beings, both male and female, who are responsible for different aspects of creation, both good and bad.  In the Iroquois creation story, for example, there is a very powerful male who is the Chief of the SkyWorld.  Aside from uprooting the Celestial Tree, however, he really has nothing to do with the creation of the world.  His wife takes the seeds and gives birth to the lineage that creates everything.  Also, her two grandsons Good Mind and Bad Mind, who are responsible for the majority of creation, split responsibility by creating either good things or bad things.  Like this story, the Zuni creation story also has many different powerful beings, both male and female, who are responsible for creation.  The fact that their creation stories did not include a strong emphasis on power, but rather a joint effort for the purpose of creation, is a possible indicator as to why many Native American nations acted the way they did.  Of course many nations engaged in war, both on each other and on the Europeans, but their hostility was different.  No one nation ever felt the need to completely conquer everything and they all lived with great respect for the land. 

            To put it simply, the fact that the Europeans’ creation story put great emphasis on power may have led them to assert their own power over the Native Americans.  On the other hand, the fact that the Native Americans’ creation stories put great emphasis on joint effort and diversity of forces may explain why they generally returned hostility rather than initiating it.

            There are also other differing aspects of the creation stories that are evident in the cultures’ behaviors as well.  One of the most important of these is the way people or beings are treated for transgressions as well as what constitutes a transgression in the first place.  Genesis, again, puts emphasis on power and authority.  Adam and Eve are banished from paradise and suffer many other punishments because they disobey God and eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil even though he specifically told them not to.  No real harm needed to come to them from eating the fruit.  The transgression was merely that they disobeyed God.  Also important is that even though the serpent is ultimately responsible for their disobedience Eve is given harsher punishment than Adam.  This whole scenario in the Christian creation story is very important when examining the Europeans’ social hierarchy and the fact that it is all based on authority and power and that at the time men always held the power. 

            The Iroquois creation story, on the other hand, takes a different view of authority and what is right and wrong.  First of all, women and men are not treated any differently and neither really holds more power or authority than the other.  Second, whether or not one is punished is not based on their disobedience but rather their actions.  Good Mind creates all the good things in the world such as rivers and medicinal plants.  Bad Mind created all the bad things such as rapids in the rivers and poisonous plants.  Bad Mind is only punished because he created things that could cause harm to others not for disobedience.  Stories like this can explain why many Native American nations did not initially act hostilely toward the Europeans nor feel the need to assert their dominance over them.  They merely reacted, as if to punish actions that brought harm to others like Good Mind had done.

            The main difference between Native American and European creation stories is what they put importance on in terms of behavior.  Genesis is all about power and authority whereas many Native American creation stories, such as those of the Iroquois and Zuni, place importance on balance.  This is echoed in the groups’ behavior toward one another.

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