What is the Haudenosaunee Concept of Creation?
History begins with Creation. There are several versions of the Creation story. This is one of them: Our world began with the creation of the earth, which is seen as the horizontal plane that separates the world above from the world below. In the Sky-World lived a fellow named “The Sky Holder.” Next to his lodge was the Great Tree of Light, for which he was the caretaker. The flowers of this tree gave off bright light. His wife, named “Mature Flowers,” fell through a hole created when he uprooted that tree at her urging. She fell into the dark world below, a world of endless water. The water animals decided to save her because she had the power to create life. The birds flew up and caught her in their inter-locked wings. They decided to place her on the back of a giant snapping turtle. The muskrat was the only animal that could dive deep enough to retrieve some mud from the bottom of the sea. The mud was placed on the back of the turtle and it began to grow. As she walked about in an e
