VI. THE UNIVERSAL MOTHER.

VI. THE UNIVERSAL MOTHER.

Before the world existed, and before mountains, men, and animals, were created; while the sky was yet without a sun, ere the moon and stars were hung up for the lamps of darkness, the Great Being, who is alike the preserver and sustainer of the red man and his younger brother the white man, was with the woman, the beautiful spirit, the Universal Mother. This woman was not of the same nature as the Great Being. He was a spirit, bloodless, fleshless, bodiless; she bore the form, and was gifted with the properties of a human being.

At that time all was water, at least water covered all things. No eye could have discovered aught else, had there been an eye to see. That which existed was darkness—all was darkness—darkness.—Darkness was all, in all, and over all. There were no sounds abroad, no winds swept the face of the waters, which lay black, still, and stagnant, as the slime of a pool surrounded by a thick copse. The waters were rotted by their long continued stagnation, and the winds could not exist in the heavy and murky air.

Upon a certain time, this beautiful woman descended from heaven, till she came to the sleeping and stagnant waters. She was pregnant by the Great Being; and her immense proportions denoted that she would bring forth more than one. When she struck the waters, in her fall, she did not sink deep into them, but where she settled down, immediately land appeared, upon which she rested, and continued sitting. The land grew by degrees, and increased around her, so that in a short time there was so much spare room, that she could draw up her legs out of the water, in which they had hung for so long a time, that they were covered with grass, like logs which have been floating in the sea. And still wider grew the space of solid earth, like that which would appear when the water recedes from sand which it had previously covered. Gradually the land spread itself from the seat of the beautiful woman, until its extent was soon beyond the reach of the eye. And, as the land increased, the motion of the waves, from the rush of the new-born winds, threw it up into the heaps and piles which are the hills and mountains, leaving, along its low spaces, the waters, which are the rills and rivers of the earth.

While the woman sat thus, watching the growth of the earth, she perceived unusual appearances upon its surface. Grass and herbs began to appear; trees, both fruitful and unfruitful, sprang up; and, in a short time, all things proceeded, and grew as they now are. Soon was a robe of grass and flowers spread over the naked sod; and soon, though not so soon, was it shadowed by a thick and almost impervious forest. The pine, and the oak, and the walnut, and the spruce, and the hemlock, broke through the crust of the earth, and the inferior shrubs made themselves a way to the light of the air. Soon all things proceeded, and grew as they now are, and the world became the beautifully green, and verdant, and flourishing, world it is now.

When the earth had grown to its present size, and had become covered with grass, the beautiful woman, who had carried her burthen in her womb for forty seasons, gave it to the light. She was delivered of three kinds of fruit. The first was like a deer, in every respect; the second had the shape of a bear; the third had the form and nature of a wolf. The woman nursed these fruits with great care and tenderness, until they had attained their full growth. Then she took all the three sons, or kinds of fruit, as husbands, living with each by turns. The result of this connexion or cohabitation was the production of other animals, always more than one at a birth, and from these sprung all the other animals of the various kinds and species to be seen at this day. In time, as well from natural instinct as suitableness, each associated, with its own kind and species, and has so continued to do ever since. But the connexion did not always produce progeny of the same nature and stock as the parents. Every production and re-production further diversified the animal race, until the almost infinite variety of creatures was produced. The dog was the son of the wolf, and the house-cat was the daughter of the panther; the teal was of the children of the grey goose; and who fathered the sparrow-hawk but the eagle?

When all things were properly disposed, and placed in a condition to subsist, and to continue of themselves, the Universal Mother, having accomplished her designs, joyfully ascended to the sky which she had left. In the mean time, she told the Great Being what she had done. He said to her, "You have done well as far as you have done, but you have left undone one thing you ought to have done. You have created an innumerable number of beasts, but they are without a head. You ought to have made a being endowed with wisdom, to govern, with a little of my help, the affairs of the world, and to preserve its less important matters in some kind of order. The animals and creatures you have made are, many of them, great fools, and none very wise, and, besides, are without souls competent to receive instruction. There is not one of them that has understanding enough to direct the feet of his neighbour in the path he should go—it would be the blind leading the blind, and together would they fall into the ditch. What more would the bear do, if he were made ruler, than train his subjects to perform great feats of strength, or to climb a tree, or to suck their paws through the long nights of winter?—The panther would teach them savage cruelty and a speedy step, and the deer would counsel them to fly from the pursuit of a snail, or a land-tortoise, or the cry of a wren, or the prate of a jackdaw; the fox might teach them cunning, and the dog sagacity, and the wild cat nimbleness, and the antelope fleetness, and the wolf courage, and the owl an insight into my ways. But there must be a being to repress the insolence, and controul the rage, of the more savage creatures, and to protect, as far as he can, the weaker from the oppression of the stronger. Such a being must be created, and be called MAN. Descend, once more, to the earth, beautiful and Universal Mother! and give birth to one more being, who shall be the lord of all the creatures that live, move, or breathe, on the land, in the air, or in the water."

Upon receiving this command, the Universal Mother again descended to the earth. She selected for her husband, in order to the production of the new being, a very subtle owl, who was the half-brother of a bear and a wolf, the cousin of a dog and a deer, and distantly related to the panther, the fox, the eagle, and the adder. By him she had, at one birth, two children. Men take their qualities from the beasts, to whom they are related, and most from those of whose blood they have most in their veins. If they have most of their great father's, the owl, they are wise, and generally become priests; if the wolf predominates, they are bloody-minded; if the bear, they are dirty and sluggish, great eaters, and love to lick their fingers; if the deer, they are exceedingly timorous and feeble; if the fox, cruel and sly; the eagle, bold, daring, and courageous, and the adder, treacherous. Thus men have, all their different natures and properties from the brutes, and oftentimes are worse than brutes.