The Yuchi People Explain Their Origins
When Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto came upon the Yuchi ca. 1550, the tribe was living in eastern Tennessee. De Soto described several settlements in the region that consisted of small, fortified villages dominated by constructed mounds, which may have functioned as tombs for elite members of society. The Yuchi language is unrelated to any other known language and currently has fewer than a dozen speakers. After European encroachment on their territory, the Yuchi first moved south into Georgia and Florida before being forced into Oklahoma by the U.S. government in the early 1800s. There, they related this story to their Creek Indian neighbors about how they came to be.
In the beginning there was only water. And Someone said, “Who will make the land?”
“I will make the land,” said Crawfish. And he dived down to the bottom of that great sea and stirred up the mud with his eight legs and his tail. And he took the mud in his fingers and made a little pile.
The owners of the mud down there said, “Who is stirring up the mud?” And they watched to see. But Crawfish kept stirring up the mud with his tail so that they could not see.
Every day Crawfish dived into the deep water and got a little more mud and put it on the pile. Day by day he piled it up. At last one day as he piled the mud on top of the pile, his hands came out of the water into the air! At last the land appeared above the water.
It was very soft, for it was mud.
Someone said, “Who will stretch out the land? Who will make it hard? Who will make it dry?”
Buzzard stretched out the earth and dried it. He spread his long wings and stretched it. He sailed over the earth; he spread it wide and dried it. Then, tiring, he had to flap his wings and this made the mountains and valleys.
Someone said, “Who will make the light?”
Star said, “I will make light.” But it was not enough.
It was said, “Who will make more light?”
“I will make light,” said Moon. But it was still night.
Someone said, “More light.”
Sun said, “I will make light. I am the mother.”
So Sun moved over into the east, and all at once a great beautiful light spread over the world. And then as Sun moved from east to west, a drop of her blood fell and sank into the earth. From this blood and this earth came forth the first people, the Yuchi Indians. They called themselves Tsohaya, People of the Sun, and every man who took this name had a picture of the sun on his door.
Maria Leach, The Beginning: Creation Myths Around the World (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1956), 88–
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