“I hear no longer the voices of men supplicating me for favours; they no longer thank me for what I send them. I must sweep, wash, and purify the earth; I must destroy all living creatures from off the face of it.”
Then Sakechah said, “What have I done, Master of Life, that I should be involved in this general destruction?”
The Master answered, “No, Sakechah, thou hast been a good servant; I will except thee from the general doom. Go now, cut thee a hemlock, knock off the cones, and bring them, together with the trunk and leaves, to the bottom of the hill Wecheganawan. Burn them in a fire made of the dry branches of the oak, kindled with the straw of wild rice. When the heap is reduced to ashes, take the ashes and strew them in a circle round the hill. Nothing need be gathered within the circle, for the living creatures will of themselves retreat to it for safety; but when this is done, take the trunk of the hemlock, and strike it into the earth at the spot where the large tuft of grass is growing on the barren hill. There lies the great fountain of waters; and when the staff is struck into the earth the fountain shall burst forth, and the earth be swept and washed and purified by the great deluge that shall overwhelm it. Sakechah and his family shall alone, of all the inhabitants of the earth, be saved; and the creatures he assembles around him on the hill Wecheganawan be alone those exempted from the all-sweeping destruction.”
The hunter obeyed. He took the staff and stuck it deep into the earth at the place indicated, and the great fountain was broken up, and the waters burst forth in a mighty volume. Slowly the element began to cover the earth, while the hunter and his family looked on. Now the low grounds appeared but as they appear in the season of showers; here a little water, and there a little water; soon they became one vast sheet. Now a little hill sank from view, then the tops of the trees disappeared; again a tall hill hid its head. At length the waves rose so high that Sakechah could see nothing more; he stood as it were in a well. The waters were piled up on every side of him, restrained from harming him, or his, or the beasts that had clustered around him, by the magic belt of hemlock ashes.
“Sakechah!” said the Master of Life, “when the moon is exactly over thy head, she will draw the waters on to the hill. She is angry with me because I scourged a comet. I cannot prevent her revenge unless I destroy her, and that I may not do, as she is my wife. Therefore bid every living creature that is on the hill take off the nail from the little finger of his right hand, if a man; if a bird, or beast, of the right foot or claw. When each has done this, bid him blow in the hollow of the nail with the right eye shut, saying these words, ‘Nail become a canoe, and save me from the wrath of the moon.’ The nail will become a large canoe, and in this canoe will its owner be safe.”
The Great Spirit was obeyed, and shortly every creature was floating in a boat on the surface of the water. And, lest they should be dispersed, Sakechah bound them together by thongs of buffalo-hide.
They continued floating for a long time, till at last Sakechah said, “This will not do—we must have land. Go,” said he to a raven that sat in his canoe near him, “fetch me a little earth from the bottom of the abyss. I will send a female, because women are quicker and more searching than men.”
The raven, proud of the praise bestowed on her sex, left her tail feathers at home, and dived into the abyss. She was gone a long time, but, notwithstanding her being a woman, she returned baffled of her object. Whereupon Sakechah said to the otter, “My little man, I will send you to the bottom, and see if your industry and perseverance will enable you to accomplish what has been left undone by the wit and cunning of the raven.” So the otter departed upon his dangerous expedition. He accomplished his object. When he again appeared on the earth, he held in his paw a lump of black mud. This he gave into the hands of Sakechah; and the Great Master bade him divide the lump into five portions; that which came out of the middle of the lump he was commanded to mould into a cake and to cast into the water: he did so, and it became dry land, on which he could disembark; and the earth thus formed was repeopled from his time. No matter whether the men of the earth be red or white, all are descended from Sakechah.[[234]]
The Iroquois tell a very similar story, differing from the above in merely few trivial particulars. According to the tradition of the Knistineaux on the Upper Missouri, all men perished in the Deluge except one woman, who caught the leg of a bird which carried her to the top of a rock, where she was confined of twins, of whom the earth was peopled.[[235]]
The Appalachian tribe in Florida is a relic of a more ancient nation than the North American Indian tribes. They relate that the lake Theomi burst its bounds, and overflowed the earth, and stood above the top of the highest mountains, saving only the peak Oldamy, on which stood a temple to the sun. Those men who had succeeded in reaching this temple were saved, but all the rest of mankind perished.[[236]]