Their kinsmen, the Mohegans, varied this cosmogonical tradition, though retaining some of its main features. They taught that in the beginning there was nought but water and sky. At length from the sky a woman descended, our common mother. As she approached the boundless ocean, a small point of land rose above the watery surface, and supplied her with firm footing. She was pregnant by some mysterious power, and she brought forth on this island animal triplets— a bear, a deer and a wolf. From these all men and animals are descended. The island grew to a main land, and the mother of all, her mission accomplished, returned to her home in the sky.[231]
This creation-myth, obtained from the Indians around New York harbor in the first generation after the advent of the whites, has every mark of a genuine native production, and coincides closely with that generally believed by the early Algonkins.
It is followed by a migration myth, which ran to the effect that their early forefathers came out of the northwest, forsaking a tide-water country, and crossing over a great watery tract, called ukhkok-pek, "snake water, or water where snakes are abundant," (âkhgook, snake, and pek, standing water, probably from n'pey, water, akek, place or country). They crossed many streams, but none in which the water ebbed and flowed, until they reached the Hudson. "Then they said, one to another, 'This is like the Muhheakunnuck (tidal ocean) of our nativity.' Therefore they agreed to kindle a fire there and hang a kettle, whereof they and their children after them might dip out their daily refreshment." Hence came their name, the Tide-water People ([see ante, p. 20]).
National Traditions.
Many early writers attest the passionate fondness of the Delawares for their ancestral traditions and the memory of their ancient heroes. The missionary, David Brainerd, mentions this as one of the leading difficulties in the way of "evangelizing the Indians." "They are likewise much attached," he writes, "to the traditions and fabulous notions of their fathers, which they firmly believe, and thence look upon their ancestors to have been the best of men."[232]
To the same effect, Loskiel informs us that the Delawares "love to relate what great warriors their ancestors had been, and how many heroic deeds they had performed. It is a pleasure to them to rehearse their genealogies. They are so skilled at it that they can repeat the chief and collateral lines with the utmost readiness. At the same time, they characterize their ancestors, by describing this one as a wise or skillful man, as a great chieftain, a renowned warrior, a rich man, and the like. This they teach to their children, and embody it in pictures, so as to make it more readily remembered."[233]
The earliest writer who gives us any detailed description of what these traditions were, is the Rev. Charles Beatty, who visited the Delaware settlements in Ohio in 1767. On his way there, he met a white man, Benjamin Button, who for years had been a captive among the natives. He related to Beatty the following tradition, which he had heard recited by some old men among the Delawares:—
"That of old time their people were divided by a river, nine parts of ten passing over the river, and one part remaining behind; that they knew not, for certainty, how they came to this continent; but account thus for their first coming into these parts where they are now settled; that a king of their nation, where they formerly lived, far to the west, left his kingdom to his two sons; that the one son making war upon the other, the latter thereupon determined to depart and seek some new habitation; that accordingly he sat out, accompanied by a number of his people, and that, after wandering to and fro for the space of forty years, they at length came to Delaware river, where they settled 370 years ago. The way, he says, they keep an account of this is by putting on a black bead of wampum every year on a belt they keep for that purpose."[234]
From another source Mr. Beatty obtained the traditions of the Nanticokes, which is apparently a version of that of their relatives, the Delawares. It ran to this effect: At some remote age, while on their way to their present homes, "They came to a great water. One of the Indians that went before them tried the depth of it by a long pole or reed, which he had in his hand, and found it too deep for them to wade. Upon their being non-plussed, and not knowing how to get over it, their God made a bridge over the water in one night, and the next morning, after they were all over, God took away the bridge."[235]
A curious addition to this story is mentioned by Loskiel.[236] The number of the mythical ancestors of their race who thus were left on the shore of the great water was seven. This at once recalls the seven caves (Chicomoztoc) or primitive stirpes of the Mexican tribes, the seven clans (vuk amag) of the Cakchiquels, the seven ancestors of the Qquechuas, etc., and strongly intimates that there must be some common natural occurrence to give rise to this widespread legend.[237]