LITR 5535: American Romanticism

Student Presentation on Reading Selections, fall 2003

selection reader: “The Iroquois Creation Story”: Rosalyn Mack

Turtle significance

Within the creation story, the turtle was the animal that agreed to carry the weight of the pregnant woman descending from the sky.  Later the turtle gains mass and becomes a large island, eventually becoming the world.  Interestingly enough, Cooper's Uncas bears a tattoo of a turtle.  I believe the significance is that just as the turtle agreed to bear the weight of the world on his back, Uncas, as the hereditary chief of the Mohicans, will bear the weight of his tribe on his back. 

However, the Mohicans were not part of the Iroquois.  The Iroquois were made up of the Mohawks, Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, and Cayuga nations.  Originally known as the Five Nations, the Tuscarora joined in the early 18th century and the Iroquois became the Six Nations. 

The Iroquois Creation Story

There are over twenty-five versions of this creation story.  The editors chose this version because a native person wrote it and because it is one of the early versions.  The author of this particular story was David Cusick, a Tuscarora.  Cusick attended a mission school where he learned to read and write English.  Cusick's version of the creation story bears many similarities to other versions but it also omits material that other versions include.  Cusick was the first Native American to write his own his people's mythology.

Aside:  There is also the interesting transition of the story from female-centered to male–centered.  The Iroquois were a matriarchal society, yet this creation story, unlike other versions of it, makes both the Good and Bad Minds male.  Other versions of the story have the twins as a male/female pairing.  Within matriarchal societies it’s generally unusual for the creative force (the deity who creates life, the world, etc.) to be depicted as a male.  Yet Cusick’s story features two male deities. 

QUESTION: How does this story reflect the Christian creation story that is found in Genesis?  How does this affect our perception of the creation stories authenticity?  Do you think the author was too influenced by his Christian education?

Rosalyn:  I was struck by the similarities between the Good Mind/Bad Mind and the Cain/Abel story.

Sheila:  also Esau and Jacob

Rosalyn:  There's also the part where the Good Mind creates human beings, separates light and dark, and names everything.  That echoes Genesis very closely.

White:  Yes.  What issues are raised?

Sheila:  It seems co-mingled with Christian ideas.

Mindy:  You wonder what he had read, what he was exposed to.

Sheila:  Similarities to God battling Satan.  You begin to wonder what was the real story.

Marion:  The ape – where did that come from?

Sawsan:  God punished people by turning them to apes.

Rosalyn:  But there are no apes in the New World.

Sawsan:  Good and evil twins like Satan and God.

Emily:  There are other myths though that follow Christian stories including creation myths from other cultures.

Kristy:  Like flood narratives.

Rosalyn:  Not so much that it’s similar, that happens.  But this comes so close.  It seems like an attempt to bring Native Americans closer to Christianity so they seem less foreign, less “savage.”  It’s very like what the ex-slave narratives, where the slaves tried to make the readers empathize with there situations.

Holly:  Was this from oral history?  I wondered if he was just relating what he had heard or how much it was blended.  It’s difficult to tell how much this is just oral history.

April D:  The oral history could have been corrupted.

Rosalyn:  The only people writing things down are Christian settlers or Christianized Indians.

White:  It’s in the medium itself.

Marion:  On the male figures in matriarchal society – the men were still the ones who did fighting, etc.

Rosalyn:  Most of the other versions have the good twin/creator being a woman.

White:  This reminds us of all the complications involved in adapting these materials into a Western genre.  For example, Uncas isn’t an Iroquois; the Iroquois are his enemies.  It’s already muddled when it comes to us.

Charley:  Cooper didn’t expect anybody to be looking at these myths comparing them to his novel.