I like origin stories. Nearly every culture and religion throughout history has one, including the Wendat people of Quebec.
The Wendat are a First Nations group who originally lived in the general region of Quebec province. Today, the tribe’s headquarters and many of its people live in an area of Quebec city which they govern, called Wendake.
Today, I was fortunate to have visited the Musee (Museum) Huron-Wendat in Wendake. It was a great experience and I learned a lot. I’ll share about the whole thing in a future post but right now- back to the origin story.
This story was presented at the Wendat center.
In the beginning, the Wendat lived in the sky world, up in the clouds.
There was a woman named A’taentsik, who was pregnant. Not feeling well, she paid a visit to the medicine man, who prescribed to her medicine made from the roots of a great tree. The medicine man began digging a hole around the tree, to expose its roots for A’taentsik to use. But he dug too deep, and caused a hole in the cloudy ground of Sky World.
The tree fell through the hole toward earth, dragging the pregnant A’taentsilk along with it. At that time, the earth was totally covered with water, and as A’taentsilk sped towards it, a flock of water birds came to her rescue, joining together to break her fall as the tree plunged into the deep.
Not knowing what to do with this human, the water birds summoned the Animal Council. The council figured that if some of the soil, attached to the tree roots, could be brought up from the bottom of the water and spread out on the shell of the great turtle, A’taentsilk would then have an island on which to live.
But no animal was able to retrieve any soil. Each failed, until old Grandmother Toad gave it a try. She was successful, and the soil was spread onto the back of turtle’s shell, making a continent.
The effort had used up Grandmother Toad’s last bit of energy, and she passed away. A’taentsilk was able to live and give birth to her baby, a girl. Overtime she grew into a woman who miraculously became pregnant. She died while giving birth to her twin sons, Tawiskaron and Tsetsa. She was buried. Her body nourished the soil and enabled it to grow the Three Sister crops that would eventually sustain humans; corn, beans, and squash.
Devastated by her daughter’s death, A’taentsilk fled West, to the Land of the Dead.
Tawaskaron and Tsetsa grew in different ways. Tsetsa worked to create good on the earth and to prepare it for the arrival of humans. But Tawiskaron was the bringer of chaos, working to destroy his brothers efforts and spread evil.
Eventually, the two battled. Tsetsa was victorious. He was able to restore the Earth, but not completely able to rid it of the evil his brother had sown. Tsetsa went into a cave in the Wendat region, sculpted humans out of red clay, and set them out to inhabit the earth.
Our visit to Wendake was excellent! More to come!
Five O'Clock Shadow 
There was a terrible storm and flood in the Skyworld. Bugan and Balitok were washed down and landed safely in the mountains of Kiangan. This first woman and man became the ancestors of the Ifugao people in the Philippines.
That creation story was recorded in English by Robert Barton.
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There was a terrible storm and flood in the Skyworld. Bugan and Balitok were washed down and landed safely in the mountains of Kiangan. This first woman and man became the ancestors of the Ifugao people in the Philippines.
That creation story was recorded in English by Robert Barton.
LikeLike
There was a terrible storm and flood in the Skyworld. Bugan and Balitok were washed down and landed safely in the mountains of Kiangan. This first woman and man became the ancestors of the Ifugao people in the Philippines.
That creation story was recorded in English by Robert Barton.
LikeLike