Kevin Wilson
Bozho (hello). Please, sit down. Close your eyes. Imagine we sit in front of small fire just after dusk. The smoke rises to the stars above us and your breath frosts in the sky; otherwise, the chill air is motionless. You can hear the chirp of crickets and calls of owls in the trees. Every so often a small bat flutters overhead. Tonight, if any night is, is the perfect night to tell a story. That’s what I would like to do. I would like to tell you a story. It’s not my story alone; it belongs to me, it belongs to all those who have told it before me, and it belongs to all those who will one day tell it after. This is the origin story of my people, the Potawatomi. This is the story of Skywoman.
Skywoman was the first woman, the first of all of us, to call this place edat (home). But, she didn’t start here. As her name suggests, she first lived in the sky, high above Turtle Island. Skywoman was naturally curious. She wanted to know everything she could about her skyworld. So, she talk to the trees and the plants, she talked to the rocks, and she listened to what they all had to say. She learned from them. And they learned from her.
Skywoman worked well with the plants and the rocks. They worked together, to help each other. But one day, her curiosity took hold. She gathered seeds in her pouch, with the intention to root new plants, and she started to dig some holes. As she dug, she wondered to herself, what might happen if I dig just a little bit further. And so she did.
But the trees and the rocks saw this right away. They said, “wait Skywoman, be careful, you could fall through.”
She kept digging and assured them that she would be careful. She dug and she dug, until there was no more to dig. She watched as some soil crumbled down, falling through to the other side. Since she was curious, she wanted to know what was on the other side. She leaned down, putting her face in the hole to get a better look. On the other side she saw a small blue dot off in the distance, and that was all she saw.
Some people tell this part differently. Some say Skywoman’s curiosity got the best of her; that she wasn’t carful enough, so she leaned too far and slipped from her skyworld. I don’t quite think that’s how it happened. I think she let her curiosity take hold, and she jumped. After all this time, she knew what her skyworld was like; she wanted to learn about another world. It so happened that this new world was the world of water, our world.
And so, Skywoman started her long fall. She fell for a very long time, at least a few rises of our sun. This is important because as she fell, those who lived in the water world took notice. They saw her off in the distance and they needed time to plan.
The flying animals and the swimming animals got to talking. “She doesn’t have wings, so she’s falling too fast,” Goose pointed out. “We have to help her slow down.”
“Can you fly up and catch her with your feet?” asked Trout.
“No, our legs aren’t strong enough,” the flying animals replied.
Everyone pitched ideas: Beaver, Muskrat, Sturgeon, Eel, Pelican, Duck, but it wasn’t until Otter came around that they found the right answer. See, Otter loved to hold hands, to never work alone. And so, Otter suggested to the air animals, “What if you all catch her together? You could link together and distribute her weight among all of you.” And so, that is what they did.
Goose, Duck, Pelican, Swan, Crane all rose together and linked to form a net. They timed it perfectly. Just as they finished linking, Skywoman’s fall was cushioned by their feathers. They worked together to fly her down to the water. But as they did so, they discovered another problem.
Sturgeon shouted out, “Oh, no! She doesn’t have fins or gills. She won’t be able to swim like us.”
Beaver and Otter then asked together, “Skywoman, are you able to float like us?”
She replied, “I have never floated before. So, I don’t know how.”
“Oh dear, this is not good,” Said Pelican. “We will not be able to hold her above water for long. What should we do?”
“Is there dry land nearby? Or someplace flat where I can stand?” asked Skywoman.”
There was no land in the world of water. But there was one place large enough for Skywoman to stand. Mshiké (Turtle) swam over and offered his back to her. Gently, the birds helped her onto his back. There wasn’t much room on Mshiké’s back, but it was big enough for her.
She lived on his back for some time. But eventually, the animals noticed that she was pregnant, and it became apparent that she would need land. The animals of the water world didn’t know what land was like, they only knew what Skywoman had told them. “It’s rich, thick with nutrients for plants. It’s a dark brown color. When it’s too wet, it runs like water; too dry, it cracks and breaks apart; just in-between it is sturdy, it holds itself together and supports all those living on it.”
“But what good will it do even if we find it?” Skywoman questioned. “What am I to do with it?”
Mshiké answered, “You will spread it across my back, and I will be home to you and all those after you.”
Eventually, Skywoman remembered the day of her fall. She said to the animals, “just before I fell, some soil fell before me. Did any of you see it? It probably sank in the water.”
“Oh, yes. We saw that!” the animals exclaimed.
“Would any of you be able to swim down and gather some of that soil for me? I could then place it on Mshiké’s back.”
“Yes! Most of us are really good swimmers and can dive very deep,” they replied. The water animals all took it in turn to attempt to gather the soil. But the water was too deep. Beaver, Otter, Sturgeon, Duck, Trout all tired but failed to dive deep enough.
“We’re sorry Skywoman, it’s just too deep,” they said to her.
“I’ll give it a try,” said Muskrat. He was the smallest and therefore weakest of the divers. But, he dove down before the other animals could protest. Muskrat was gone too long. They waited several days and nights for his return. They concluded that he had swam too far—that he had been lost to the water. They lost hope that he would ever return. Many days after his departure, while they continued to think of how they could get to the soil, Muskrat’s body floated up to the top. As they feared, it seemed he swam too far for his little lungs to handle.
But, Duck saw something no one else did. As they swam toward Muskrat, Duck said, “look in his hands!” Sure enough, Muskrat’s hands were clenched around soil.
Carefully, the water animals swam Muskrat’s body over to Skywoman. She lifted his body from the water and placed him beside her on Mshiké’s back. Before she took the soil from his hands, she sat with him, in thanks to what he had given her.
For several months, Skywoman tended to the land, spreading it at first on Mshike’s back and then further. After she finished spreading the land, she remembered her pouch from the skyworld, full of seeds. She began to plant them. It is said that Sweetgrass and Maple were among the first seeds to be planted. Shortly after, the three sisters—beans, squash, and corn—must have followed. During these months, as she tended to the land and plants, some of the animals decided to leave the water and join her. At the end of these months, Skywoman gave birth to her children, twins. Her first born was a gentle soul, a dark skinned boy. Her second born—though good hearted—was a bit more rambunctious, a lighter skinned girl.
She taught them about the land, about the plants, about the animals, and about her skyworld. Soon, they too began to tend to the land. Skywoman’s son was intentional. He planted forests in nice neat rows, so they would be easy to navigate. He dug rivers and lakes, so the water animals could also live on land. He made sure rivers flowed in both directions, so it would be easy to get from one place to the next. Skywoman’s daughter liked to tease her brother a bit. So after his work, she pushed the forests around, making them dense and difficult to navigate in places, but thin and easy in others. She made the rivers flow in only one direction. She stomped and dug the ground deep, forming canyons. And she piled the excess land high in other places, making hills and mountains. The land was no longer easy to travel, but the animals appreciated the beauty she added. Some of her rivers had waterfalls, and in the mist of the falls were rainbows. In time the animals spread to the places that they liked the best. Some stayed near the costs, some went to the gentle rivers and lakes, some liked the white water of the rivers in the mountains, some liked the forests.
Eventually, they were all pleased with the land. Skywoman, her children, the plants, and—perhaps most importantly—the original inhabitants of the water world found it beautiful; the land they tended to now tended to all kinds of life. But, it can still use some work from time to time, and that’s why they left it to us. Now, we give the responsibility of the land to the water clans of our tribe. Like me and my family, we belong to the Mshiké clan. We are the Turtle clan, the protectors of this land.