The Iroquois

The Iroquois never had myth. David Cusick was the first to record one on his people. It is called the “A Tale of the Foundation of the Great Islands, the Two Infants Born, and the creation of the Universe. This writer is using logos to catch the attention of the audience. The central contention of this passage is the two twin brothers fighting about the creation of earth. The story begins with the lower world and the upper world.

A woman has two twin boys who are born and raised in darkness. One’s name was Enigorio, who was the good mind and Enigonhahetgea, the bad mind. The good mind decided not to stay in the dark so he decided to create light. He created light from the sun, light from the moon and light from the stars. The bad mind was not too pleased with this but the good mind continued to create things. He made rivers, animals, forests, and fish. After creating the universe he felt like something was missing so that’s when he decided to create male and female. He named them Ea-gwe-howe which means real people. The good mind created thunder and rain to make the island more fruitful. The bad mind tried to do the same thing as his brother and create human life but he failed to do that. With the bad mind getting irritated by his brother he decides to challenge him. Whoever gains victory will govern the universe. The good mind accepts his challenge. The battle lasted for 2 days and the good mind ended up winning by crushing his brother into the earth. The bad mind’s last words were that he would equal power over the souls of the universe after death. At the end the bad mind sinks into the ground and becomes the evil spirit and the good mind retires from earth.

The next story is Pima stories of the beginning of the world. The Pimas got their name from the Spanish. Most Pimas are Christians. This passage also uses logos to catch the reader’s attention. The central contention is that Juhwertamahkai can’t seem to make the men and women the way he want s to make them. So he keeps recreating them until he is satisfied with the results.

In the beginning there was no earth, there was only one person whose name was Juh-wert-a-Mah-kai. He created the world by holding out his perspiration and tipping over 4 times. The first thing he mad was a bush for ants. Then he created a bigger bush that he was able to fit in. The next thing he created was a person. He made him with the shadow of his eyes. He created this human to help him with creating tree, humans and everything else that needed to be done on earth. The next thing he created was the sun, but in order to create the sun he first need water. After creating the sun he places in the east because it wouldn’t work anywhere else, as well as the moon. Next he created the star by putting water in his mouth and spurted it into the sky. After doing this the stars weren’t bright enough so he took stones and mixed them in with the water. After created his world with man and women who never grew old Juhwertamahkai realized that all there wasn’t enough food so the human began eating each other. Juhwertamahkai doesn’t like this so he lets the sky fall on them and kill them all. He then recreates man and women but this time they all turn gray. He didn’t like them gray so he let the sky fall on them once again. In conclusion he ended up making the world the way it is today.