In the beginning of time, the Great Spirit, Kitchi Manitou, dreamed of mountains and valleys, rivers and forests, animals and birds. When he had finished dreaming, he understood he was meant to create the world he had dreamed. And so he did.
In this world the sun had the power to light the Earth and to warm it, and the Earth had the power to heal and grow. Water could renew and purify, and wind offered music and the breath of life. And to human beings Kitchi Manitou gave the power to dream.
But human beings had much to learn, so the Great Spirit sent them a teacher, Nanabush. Son of the West Wind, grandson of the Moon, Nanabush was a good teacher, though he was also a trickster. Nanabush had brothers, who were much lazier than he. He was forever warning them to be careful. Though Nanabush and his brothers enjoyed the companionship of birds and beasts, there was one enemy in this world. These were the Serpent People.
One winter day, one of Nanabush's brothers went out to hunt, but when he had not returned by the next morning, Nanabush realized something was wrong. He had warned his brothers never to walk across the frozen lake, but he suspected this brother had disobeyed him.
All that winter Nanabush searched for his brother, but as time passed he became more and more convinced the Serpent People had drowned him. They had the power to live beneath the frozen lake for months at a time, and if they had taken his brother there, he would not survive.
At long last, one day he heard a loud booming sound. He scrambled to the top of a hill to see what he could see, and what he saw amazed him. Spring had come, and there, in the valley below, beside a lake lay two Serpent People sunning themselves. The booming sound was only the beating of their hearts.
Anger welled up in Nanabush when he saw them, for he knew they had stolen his brother. He drew his bow and shot an arrow into each serpent, and though the arrows hit their marks, the serpents simply slipped into the melting lake and disappeared.
Moments later the water in that little lake began to rise, and before long the whole valley was flooded.
Now Nanabush understood. The Serpent People meant to drown him too.
Quickly he climbed to the top of the tallest pine tree, but the water continued to rise. Soon it was near his feet, rising still, and then as it reached his chin, a peculiar thing happened. The water began to recede, draining away as quickly as it had risen.
Nanabush knew he had been warned.
When the flood waters were gone, Nanabush climbed down from the top of the tree and began to take down the trees around him. With these logs he built a giant raft, and this he left at the top of the highest hill.
Then he wandered once again into the valley below.
Suddenly he saw a woman on a log. She was weeping.
"What's wrong?" Nanabush asked as he approached her.
"The wicked Nanabush has wounded my brothers," the woman cried.
Now Nanabush understood this was a serpent woman, but she did not recognize him.
"Ah, that trickster," Nanabush said, "he cannot be trusted. Allow me to help you."
"I am gathering basswood bark and making a string," she said. "When Nanabush walks this way, he'll trip the string, and when we see the vibrations, we'll know where he is. We shall kill him."
"Where do you live?" asked Nanabush. "I will go help tend to your brothers."
"Down this path," she said. "When you reach the lake, walk right in, and there you will find a door. Behind that door are my people."
"Until later," Nanabush called, moving swiftly into the lake, transforming himself as he moved into a serpent woman. When he found the door, he opened it and entered an enormous lodge.
There lay the two wounded serpents, arrows still piercing their skin. Many other fierce creatures guarded them, but there in a far corner Nanabush saw his brother. And it was true; his brother had been drowned.
Nanabush leaped forward and pushed the arrows deep into the two serpents. A moment later they were dead.
"I have paid you for my brother's death!" Nanabush cried, and before the other creatures could recognize who this intruder was, he was gone.
The guardians roared. Soon they caused the lake to rise again.
But this time Nanabush was ready. He raced to his raft, calling to every creature as he ran. "Come to my raft. Climb aboard."
And so they did.
But the flood waters continued to rise until every part of the world the creatures had known was covered. Nanabush and the others floated safely on their raft. For days and nights they floated, until a month had passed.
Now Nanabush saw the world that they had always known was drowned, and gone with it were the wicked Serpent People.
Nanabush called Loon to his side. "Loon," he said, "you are a good swimmer. Dive down below the water and bring me some mud so that I can create a new world."
And Loon dived, and dived deeper still, but at last she gave up. "I cannot reach the world," she said.
So Nanabush called Beaver to do the same, but Beaver failed. "The world is too deep below," he told Nanabush.
Then Nanabush called Muskrat. He was gone for a long, long time, and everyone thought they had lost him.
Then someone cried, "Look there," and Nanabush reached into the water and pulled out the nearly drowned Muskrat. He dried him and warmed him and brought him to life, and then he saw that in his paw he held a few tiny grains of sand.
Nanabush dried the sand, and from these tiny specks he made a tiny globe, and he breathed life into that globe and placed it in the water.
"Grow," he commanded the globe, and it began to spin, and as it spun, it grew larger, until it was large enough to hold two ants. The ants climbed on and began to run, making the globe spin faster, and it grew large enough to hold two mice that jumped aboard. The mice made the globe spin faster still, and so it grew, and grew, and grew, until at last it was large enough to hold all the birds and animals.
And that, so the Objibwa say, is how Nanabush made the world we know today.
COPYRIGHT 2005 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE
