"Thereupon. Loon, looking into the water and seeing her reflection, shouted, 'A man-being, a female is coming up from the depths of the waters.' The Bittern, answering, said, 'She is not indeed coming up out of the depths of the water, she is falling from above.' Thereupon they held a council to decide what they should do to provide for her welfare.
"They finally invited Great Turtle to come. Loon, thereupon, said to him, 'Thou should float thy body above the place where thou art in the depths of the water.' And then as Great Turtle arose to the surface, a large body of ducks of various kinds arose from the face of the water, elevated themselves in a very compact body, and went up to meet her. And on their backs did she alight, and they slowly descended, bearing her body on their backs, and on the back of Great Turtle they placed her.
"Then Loon said, 'Come, you deep divers, dive and bring up earth.' Many dived into the water, and Beaver was a long time gone. When his back appeared he was dead, and when they examined his paws, they found no earth. Then Otter said, 'It is my turn.' Whereupon he dived, and after a longer time he also came up dead. Neither did he bring up any earth. It was then that Muskrat said, 'I also will make the desperate attempt.' It was a still longer time that he was under water, but after a while he also floated to the surface, dead. In his paws was mud and his mouth was full of mud. And they took this mud and coated the edge of Great Turtle's shell all around, and other muskrats dived and floated dead, but brought up mud, which was placed on Great Turtle's back. And the female man-being sat on the back of Great Turtle and slept. And when she awoke the earth had increased in size, and she slept again, and when she awoke, willows were growing along the edge of the water. And then, also, when she again awoke, the carcass of a deer recently killed, lay there, and a fire was burning, and a sharp stone. And she dressed, cooked, and ate her fill. And after a while a rivulet appeared and rapidly the earth increased to great size, and grass and herbs sprung from the earth and grew to maturity.
"And after a while the female man-being gave birth to a girl child, who grew rapidly to maturity, and not long after gave birth to two male man-beings, but the daughter died in giving birth to the twins. And the grandmother cut off the head of her dead daughter and hung her body in a high place and it became the sun, and the head she placed in another place and it became the moon.
"And when she examined one of the infants she found his flesh was nothing but flint and there was a sharp comb of flint over the top of his head, but the flesh of the other was in every respect like a man-being.
"It seems that these two were antagonistic from their birth, the grandmother clinging to the flint child and driving the other into the wilderness; and in his wanderings he came to the shore of a lake and saw a lodge standing there. Looking in the doorway he saw a man sitting there, who said to him, 'Enter thou here. This man was Great Turtle, who gave him a bow and arrow, and also gave him two ears of corn, one in the milky state, which he told him to roast and eat as food, and the other, which was mature, he should use for seed corn.
"He also endowed him with preternatural powers. And when he was about to depart, he said to the young man, 'I am Great Turtle, I am thy parent.'
"Sapling, which was the name of the young man-being, created animals out of earth, and birds by casting handfuls of earth into the air. He also formed the body of a man and the body of a woman, and gave them life and placed them together. Returning shortly after he found them sleeping. Again and again he returned and still they slept. 'Thereupon he took a rib from each and substituted the one for the other and replaced each one in the other's body. It was not long before the woman awoke and sat up. At once she touched the breast of the man lying at her side, just where Sapling had placed her rib, and, of course, that tickled him. Thereupon he awoke. Awoke to life and understanding.'"
As in the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, the two brothers fought and in the end one was slain. But is was the unrighteous one, the one with the flint body, who lost his life.
Nearly three hundred years ago, the Jesuits recorded traditions of the Algonquins and Huron-Iroquois of Canada, which were practically the same in their main features as the above. (See Jesuit Rel. vol. 10, pages 127-129.)