Religion in the New World: Native American Myths

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Oral Culture. Native American culture has been traditionally oral. Indians did not write down their myths and sacred histories; rather, they told and retold their stories. While the tales would, no doubt, change in each generation’s retelling, the fundamental vocabulary, intended moral, and mood remained the same. They gave to a tribe a sense of being and a sense that they had much to learn from the spiritual and natural worlds. The myths’ repetitions, through the generations, gave them spiritual power and authority. At the same time, as the historian of religion Mircea Eliade has postulated, by hearing a myth, listeners could put themselves into the spiritual sphere just as their ancestors had so placed themselves.

Creation Myths. One important theme of Native American myth is the creation of the world. Common to all of such stories are the animal and spiritual assistants who helped humans in the creation. Most of the tales relate that people came from Mother Earth. For example, the Cherokee tell the story of the Earth’s beginnings as a “great island floating in a sea of water,” flat, soft, and wet. Finally, the Earth dried, and the animals waiting between heaven and Earth came down upon the advice of the Great Buzzard. Animals and plants came first, followed by humans. Despite the differences, the myths gave the Native Americans a sense of their history and confirmed their belief in a higher power and in the power of the natural world.

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Bruce G. Trigger, The Children of Aatenaetsic: A History of the Huron People to 1660, 2 volumes (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1976).