#1: Discrepancies In Native American Beliefs Over Time

Between the periods of approximately 1650 and 1935, there have been great alterations in the beliefs of Native Americans in the northern part of America about how creation of earth and its inhabitants were caused. Throughout these periods, the Native American and European cultures had collided a great deal. As the two cultures clashed more over time, the influence of Europeans upon the beliefs of the northern Native American tribes subsequently became larger. As each of the three stories depicts the tribes’ beliefs in different eras of time (1650, 1720, and 1935), one may conclude that the discrepancies in the stories have come to be mainly affected by European culture.

The first of the written documents, published in 1650, outlines the beliefs of the New Netherlands tribes. It discloses that creation was based upon the coming together of God and the Goddess. The Goddess then “gradually descended from heaven” in a pregnant state of being; and as she landed upon the water of earth, it transformed into land, increased its size, and began to grow trees and other such vegetation. As this Goddess was brought into labor, she begot three creatures; the first resembling that of a deer, the second resembled a bear, and the last resembled a wolf. She resided on earth a prolonged amount of time, nurturing the three animals and bearing new offspring of different species and eventually approaching the beginning of humankind. The beliefs of the New Netherlands tribes were such that everyone was born with the character of one of the prescribed animals: the deer, having a “timid and innocent” spirit; the bear, having the spirit of bravery, revenge, and fairness; and the wolf, in who’s spirit is “deceitful and bloodthirsty.” The second written document, published in 1720, is a depiction of the beliefs in the Native Americans of the Ottawa Society. It begins with the Great Hare inducing the birth of humans from the bodies of dead animals. As the story moves on, it shows that the first human inhabitants of earth soon discovered they had minds and began hunting and gathering food, creating new weaponry, and even inventing clothing for themselves. While hunting one day, they happened to come upon their creator, the Great Hare, who then decided to grant man a companion known as woman; and from then on, they would work together. Men “shalt hunt, and make canoes, and do all the things that a man must do,” and women would “do the cooking for thy husband, make his shoes, dress skins of animals, sew, and perform all the tasks that are proper for a woman.” After a long period of time came the third written document; it was published in 1935 and depicted the beliefs of the Sioux Native American tribe. They believed the creator caused a great flood that drowned all of earth’s inhabitants except the crow. He did so because he was displeased with their behavior. Following the flood, he created four animals (loon, otter, beaver, and turtle) and commanded them to dive into the water and bring back some mud from the earth; however, the only of the four that succeeded in doing this was the turtle. The creator then gathered the mud, transformed the earth into land, and cried to create the waters of earth; and after creating life, the creator promised not to flood the earth again. To serve as a symbol of this promise to humanity, the creator produced the rainbow.

As time progressed and European influence on northern Native American tribes grew, one may note the definite changes in the Native American’s beliefs of creation. Serving as the most notable change from the first two stories, the creating powers changed from God and Goddess (two creators) to one single creator…God. The second important transition was that in the second story, God created a companion (woman) for man. Another important change in the Native American’s beliefs is the removal of the focus of how humankind derived from animals. The fourth and final modification made to the Native American’s beliefs is that in the third document there is a great flood. In my perspective, these four changes were the most important of those made in the three documents because they most closely relate to that of the Europeans’ biblical view of creation. First, the biblical view has only one creator, one God; Second, God saw that man was not meant to be alone, so He created woman; finally, in the story of Noah’s Ark, God became angry with man and decided to cause a great flood and start over with the earth’s population. Therefore, as time progressed and European cultures clashed with that of northern Native Americans, one sum-up that the definite changes in the Native American’s beliefs of creation came mainly from European Influence.

Comments

[Omar Serrano]

A strength in your post is that you described the changes in the stories over time very specifically, and then related some parts of the stories to your thesis. Like the biblical relations of the stories. A suggestion for this post is to divide it up into more paragraphs. For example the second paragraph could've been divided to separate the three stories that you described. Another suggestion is you should relate more things to your thesis. The only time you related anything to your thesis was at the end. And one last suggestion is to that you coul've gone into specific ways of how European influence got into the Native American culture.

[Lauren Yates]

It's good that you gave an overview of each creation story. You may want to in the future try to break down your paragraphs into smaller paragraphs. In your thesis you kind of repeated yourself, try to make it more specific to one thing. And make sure your whole blog refers back to your thesis in every paragraph.