A Story of American Indians – How the World Began

4.9

Once there was nothing in the world but water. There was no land anywhere. And a lot of ducks swam on the water.

One day the ducks looked up and saw a woman falling down through the air. They didn’t want to let her get hurt. So they flew up together and brought her gently down to the water on their wings.

Then the ducks fed the woman. They dived to the bottom of the water and brought food up to her. This was hard work and they thought about a better plan of feeding the woman and asked the turtle to help them to carry it out.

The turtle agreed, and this is what he did. He rose slowly to the surface of the water until a little piece of his back was seen. The ducks brought some mud from the bottom of the water and put it on the turtle’s back.

The mud on the turtle’s back began to grow higher and higher and wider and wider. At last the mud on the turtle’s back was dry and big enough. So the woman could live there and find food herself.

After a while1 the woman had two sons. The two boys played on the land and every day they ran to the edge of the water. And every day they had to run farther and farther because the land went on growing. At last, it was so far to the edge of the water that they could not run there and back in one day. That was when there really was a world for men to live in.