Creation Re-imagined

Before there were people on the earth, it was made completely out of water. There was no land. There was a eagle who flew over all of the earth for millions of years. He would fly as high as he could in the atmosphere and he would dip as low as he could to the water. Around and around the earth he would go. There was a powerful creator who created the eagle. This old man lived in the sky and was the only person that the eagle could communicate with over the millions of years he flew alone. The eagle had respect for the old man as if he was his own father.

The eagle eventually grew tired of all of the flying and decided that he needed a place to land. The old man in the sky saw that his dear friend was exhausted, so he decided to create land where the eagle rest. The land came up out of the ocean at once and the eagle lay down to rest. When he woke up, he roamed and roamed the land by himself. At first, he was simply exploring the new land. Eventually, he began to look for another creature to interact with. He found himself getting lonely as the only creature on earth. He then asked the old man in the sky to create a friend for him to be with.

The old man in the sky was hurt that the eagle needed a friend other than him but had compassion on the eagle and created the coyote to roam around the earth. The eagle and the coyote became best friends and did everything together. The eagle would fly above the coyote as he ran through the lands. They created a home together on the land.

The old man in the sky was hurt by the way the eagle and the coyote became friends. In a jealous rage, he created hunger so that neither the eagle or the coyote could live without eating. The eagle would stoop down and eat berries and other plants . The eagle eventually began to grow weaker, as living on the berries was not sustainable for him. What he really needed was meat. However, the berries gave him the least amount of nutrients to survive.

The coyote also needed more than just the plants he was eating. One day, in a fit of hunger and desperation, he ate his eagle friend, leaving behind only feathers and bones. The eagle died then but his remains became the rest of the earth, his feathers turning into trees, his bones becoming mice for the coyote.

The old man in the sky watched as the coyote killed his dear friend, the eagle. He figured out that there must be some kind of order to be sure that his favorite creation, the eagle, be take care of. He decided after this to create the rest of the animals on earth as well as humans. He created humans to be able to be in relationship with him and therefore gave them authority over all living things on earth.

The old man in the sky continued to take care of his creation, especially the humans, for the rest of eternity.

Author's Note:

This week, I read the Great Plains unit. The whole first part of this unit was tales of creation. I think that these were cool to read because they were so far out of normalcy that they were super creative. I realized that it would be really interesting to write my own story of creation. I wanted to see how far I could stretch a creation story and make it new. Even though a lot of it is illogical, I took a lot from the stories in the Great Plains. For instance, a lot of the stories named eagles and coyotes as their first living creatures on earth. For this reason, I also chose to use coyotes and eagles as the first creation on earth. There was specifically a story in the Great Plains unit that is called "The Creation" that I took a lot from. In the Osage creation story, they began with the earth completely covered in water. I added this aspect into my story as well. Also, in the Great Plains unit, there was a story in which eagle feathers turned into trees so I included that.

Coyote and Eagle. Source.

Myths and Legends of the Great Plains by Katharine Berry Judson. Source.