Wyandotte (Huron) Creation Legend and How the Sun was Made
How The Sun Was Made
The Woman who fell down from Heaven was unhappy on the Great Island. She was alone. There was no one to whom she could speak. She wept and wrung her hands. She was sorry she had done wrong. She had lost her country. She had lost her home and her husband. She wanted to go back to the land above the sky.
One day Hoo-wa’ neh heard her weeping. She was his lost wife. He had great pity for her. He could not take her back to the skyland, but he told her what to do.
The Woman did just as he said. She went into the hills. She came to a place where tall trees grew. It was like a beautiful park. A clear, swift river ran there, and the leaning trees along its bank made shadows on the water.
From the hill the Woman looked far off. She saw an Indian lodge in a clump of trees on the river bank. From its top rose the smoke of a fire. She came to the lodge, and she sat on a stone before its door. A woman came out to speak to her. It was her mother. She had been sent there by Hoo-wa’ neh. So the Woman lived with her mother and was happy.
Before the Woman came, all the Lower World was dark. Now the Woman was its light. But when she went into the lodge, darkness fell again over the earth.
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Having had the light of the Woman, the Animals did not like this darkness. They called the Great Council to plan how they might have more light. The Little Turtle said, “Let me go into the sky. I will put a light there to shine so that we shall not be in darkness when the Woman goes into the lodge.”
All the Animals thought this a good plan. A cloud, black and terrible, was called down. Heno rode in it. Harsh thunder and red lightning came out from it. The Little Turtle went into the cloud, and was carried away into the sky. There she took the lightning and kindled a great fire, which we call the sun.
This sun stood still in the middle of the sky. Its light did not reach the far sides of the Great Island. At the lodge of the Woman the heat was too great. Something had to be done about this.
Then the Animals made the sun alive so that It could move about in the sky. The Mud Turtle was directed to dig a great hole or way through the Great Island. The Sun was made to go by a certain path across the sky every day.
Through the hole he went under the earth each evening, making night when the Woman was in the lodge and the Animals, the beasts, and the birds could sleep. Then the Sun rose again in the east, bringing a new day to the world.
This hole or passageway which the Mud Turtle dug from side to side through thc Great Island was more than a mere tunnel. It was almost as broad as the Great Island itself. It had a sky and stars and clouds.
Heno sent one of his sons to live there and make the thunder. There were rivers and lakes and seas in that land.
Fishes were in the rivers, and great fishes swam in the lakes and seas. There were trees and grass and corn, beans, pumpkins, and squashes in that beautiful country. The same animals found in the Great Island lived there, also.
All the Animals of the Great Council were gods. The Mud Turtle was one of the greatest of these and created the Little People to live in the Under World. It was called the Land of the Little People. And it became the country of the dead for the Wyandots -their happy hunting grounds.
