2
Who Was Sky Woman?
Nine years after Megapolensis
recorded his account of the Mohawk
creation story, Adriaen Cornelissen van der Donck captured another
version, this one with an interesting variation. We find it in
his Description
of New Netherland
(1653).
They
say that before the world and the
mountains, humans, and animals had come into existence God was with the
woman who dwells with him, and no one knows when that was or where they
had come from. Water was all there was or at any rate water covered and
overran everything. Even if an eye had existed at that time it could
not have seen anything but water wherever it might have been, for all
was water or covered by water. What then happened, they say, was that
the aforementioned beautiful woman or idol descended from heaven into
the water. She was gross and big like a woman who is pregnant of more
than one child. Touching down gently, she did not sink deep, for at
once a patch of land began to emerge under her at the spot where she
had come down, and there she came to rest and remained. The land
waxed greater so that some areas became visible around the place where
she sat, like someone standing on a sandbar in three or four feet of
water while it ebbs away and eventually recedes so far that it leaves
him entirely on dry land. That is how it went with the descended
goddess, they say and believe, the land ever widening around her until
its edge disappeared from view. Gradually grass and other vegetation
sprang up and in time also fruit-bearing, and other trees, and from
this, in brief, the whole globe came into being such as it appears to
this day. Now whether the world you speak of and originally came from
was then created as well, we are unable to say. At the time when all
that had been accomplished the high personage went into labor and,
being confined, gave birth to three different creatures: the first was
in every respect like a deer as they are today, the second resembled a
bear, and the third a wolf. The woman suckled those creatures to
maturity and remained on earth for a considerable time during which she
cohabited with each of the said animals and was delivered a number of
times of various creatures in multiple births. Thus were bred all
humans and animals of the several kinds and species that can still be
seen in our day. In due course they began to segregate according, to
the families and species still existing, both from an innate urge and
for the sake of propriety. When all those things had thus been disposed
and made self-perpetuating the universal mother ascended again to
heaven rejoicing at having accomplished her task. There she continues
to dwell forever, finding her entire happiness and delight in keeping
and fostering the supreme Lord’s love for her. To that she is devoted
and from it derives her complete enjoyment and satisfaction; therefore,
God vouchsafes her his fondest love and highest esteem. Here below
meanwhile humans and animals of all the various species that were the
result of miscegenation increase and multiply, as does all creation the
way we find it still. That is why human beings of whatever condition
still exhibit the innate characters of one or other of the three
animals mentioned, for they are either timid and harmless in the nature
of deer, or vindictive, cruel, bold, and direct in the nature of bears,
or bloodthirsty, greedy, subtle, and treacherous like wolves.
Van der Donck’s version of the
creation story leaves out the “Turtle
Island” imagery but retains the celestial woman who falls to earth and
brings forth life, in this case by giving birth to a deer, a bear, and
a wolf. Other versions, such as those told by elders today, say
that Sky Woman gave birth not to three animals, but to a daughter who
would later give birth to twin sons, variously known as Sapling and
Flint or Teharonhiawá:kon
and Tawískaron.
(Some say Sky Woman herself gave birth to the twin sons.) These
twins created many of the things on earth but eventually had a great
battle to determine who would rule the world.
Teharonhiawá:kon is of
course the Tharonhij-Jagon that
Megapolensis’s elderly Mohawk informant mentioned, the very same “God”
who went out walking with his brother and killed him over a
dispute. Megapolensis assumed that this was just a garbled
version of the Cain and Abel story from the Bible that somehow found
its way into the Mohawk legends, perhaps from earlier contacts with
Europeans, but today we are more inclined to recognize a universal
duality going on in this story rather than just a case of cultural
contamination.
Perhaps the identities of Sky
Woman and her battling progeny aren’t
quite as mysterious as all of this may seem. Perhaps we’re really
talking about real, flesh and blood people, our own ancestors.
Sky Woman may have been the original woman who led us to our historic
place on the turtle’s shell, and Sapling and Flint may have been her
sons or grandsons, perhaps leaders of rival factions. Maybe she
isn’t just one woman, but a symbolic representation of the women who
were in control back then. Her giving birth to various animals in
the van der Donck version may simply explain the origin of various
clans.
An archaeologist who has
studied the Mohawk Valley believes that when
our ancient ancestors established themselves there, they already had a
matrilineal society. The Iroquoian mix of horticulture, hunting,
and fishing required a more sophisticated social and political
structure than your typical roving band of male-dominated
hunters. The prominence of a “Sky Woman” in our creation story
not only gives our matrilineal society an ancient pedigree, but a sense
of divinity. Who can argue with something sent from heaven?
