Chapter 1 Out of Old Worlds, New Worlds

“Earth,” according to the Cherokee legend of creation, “is a great island floating in a sea of water, and suspended at each of the four [main compass] points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock.” Earth’s creation began when little Water Beetle, tired of being crowded in the sky with all the other animals, dove below the water to find a new place to live. Water Beetle “came up with some soft mud, which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island which we call the earth.” As the mud was drying, Great Buzzard flew about, and “wherever his wings struck the earth there was a valley, and where they turned up again there was a mountain.” And so the Cherokee country was full of mountains and valleys.

Eventually other animals arrived, carried by the streams that flowed out of the mountains, and they commanded a sun to cross the sky each day. The animals were divided according to their needs and abilities, and “plants and people were made, we do not know by whom.” “At first there were only a brother and sister until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven days a child was born to her, and thereafter every seven days another, and they increased very fast until there was danger that the world could not keep them. Then it was made that a woman should have only one child in a year, and it has been so ever since.” But all Cherokee know, and fear, that “when the world grows old and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the earth sink down into the ocean, and all will be water again.” The Cherokees feared this.

This origin legend helped Cherokees understand their world, just as other peoples throughout time have tried to explain theirs. Often, as in the Cherokee legend of creation, certain themes sound familiar to listeners or readers because different cultures share certain views of the world. For example, accounts of migrations, floods, or daily affairs may seem similar across geographies and cultures. But the stories are more than mere fictions intended to entertain people. Over the centuries the Cherokee retold and reshaped the details of their creation legend, putting together the component parts of the world as they knew it, and giving names to physical and psychological phenomena as they understood them. Their legend helped explain the causes of what they experienced daily as individuals and gave their wider communities a collective expression of core values, even their reasons for existence.

By at least 10,000 b.c.e., millions of Native Americans populated the Western Hemisphere and developed hundreds of different cultures. Their environments, family lives, religions, and political structures varied from one region to another and each of them changed over time. Meanwhile, great transformations—political, social, economic, and cultural—also took place in Europe and Africa for centuries before these two “old worlds” came to North America.

Africans, most of whom were forcibly transported to North America as slaves, brought new ways of farming and cooking, as well as new family and religious traditions, which set them apart from Indians and Europeans. Europeans, who frequently dismissed Indian legends as fireside stories or, worse, the myths of “uncivilized savages,” tended to believe that the rise of printing and books made them superior, even though very few Europeans were themselves literate when they came to the Americas and strong oral traditions still prevailed on every continent. In addition, the early Spanish, French, English, and Dutch colonizers sometimes marveled at the contrasts among African, Indian, and European values and customs, but often they found differences objectionable. Most Native Americans did not share the biblical narration of creation or European Christian values. By European standards, Indians and Africans had “peculiar” ways of working, structuring families, defining the meaning of property, telling time, creating political authority, and using the resources of their environments. Over time Europeans developed a new cultural and political hierarchy in North America that sought to subjugate Native Americans and Africans. Differences in appearance and behavior quickly turned into social and legal distinctions governing use of the land and its resources. In a short time, the encounters of Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans became nothing other than transformative for all three cultures as they made a New World together.

This chapter will explore the following questions: