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Mother Earth Mythology
| Article
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12534 |
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Section : |
Modern Thought
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1987 |
6,450 Words |
| Author
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Sam Gill
Sam Gill is professor of religious studies at the University
of Colorado. His two most recent books are Mother Earth: an
American Story (University of Chicago Press, 1987) and Native
American Religious Action: A Performance Approach to Religion
(University of South Carolina Press, 1987). |
Once the world was all water, and God lived alone; he was lonesome, he had no place to put his foot; so he scratched the sand up from the bottom and made the land, and he made rocks, and he made trees, and he made man, and the man was winged and could go anywhere. The man was lonesome, and God made a woman. They ate fish from the water, and God made the deer and other animals, and he sent the man to hunt, and told the woman to cook the meat and to dress the skins. Many more men and women grew up, and they lived on the banks of the great river whose waters were full of salmon. The mountains contained much game, and there were buffalo on the plains. There were so many people that the stronger ones sometimes oppressed the weak and drove them from the best fisheries, which they claimed as their own. They fought, and nearly all were killed, and their bones are to be seen in the sand hills yet. God was very angry and he took away their wings and commanded that the lands and fisheries should be common to all who lived upon them. That they were never to be marked off or divided, but that the people should enjoy the fruits that God planted in the land and the animals that lived upon it, and the fishes in the water. God said he was the father, and the earth was the mother of mankind; that nature was the law; that the animals and fish and plants obeyed nature, and that man only sinful. This is the old law.
This story was told in the late nineteenth century by a Sahaptin-speaking Native American named Smohalla, who lived in the state of Washington. He did not recognize the territory in which he lived by the name Washington. Neither did he recognize the rights to the land that Americans of European ancestry claimed--as they occupied his land, forcing him to live as an outlaw. Nor would he have recognized the word myth by which his story of the creation and history of his world would be called by them. The word myth has long been a problem for me in my study of Native American cultures. I dare not tell Native American that I consider their stories to be myths, for they know that in standard English usage myth denotes the fictitious, the unscientific the false. Native Americans do not want their stories to be thought of as false, nor do they appreciate others claiming that their beliefs are unfounded. In recognition of and respect for Smohalla and many other Native Americans, I have tried to use the word myth sparingly, if at all. When I attempt to use it, I find myself spending more time and effort clarifying and defending what I mean than I do using the word in service to the study and appreciation of stories like the one told by Smohalla. I find the word story acceptable. It can be used along with descriptive adjectives to clarify the story type. Though often misleading, the use of the word myth
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