FOREWORD

      All cultures, including our own, have creation myths. They vary from simple to very complex and from almost believable to quite absurd. They all attempt to answer the question of human origin.

      Starting around ten thousand years ago, groups of people from Siberia and later China migrated across the Bering land bridge into the Americas. Over time they populated the continent from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego and their few original cultures grew into thousands of distinct groups.

      The native peoples of North America are, even today, as varied in culture, language and physical looks as those of Europe. In the past there were even more distinctions. Some of these differences have been melded under the outside influences of the European settlers.

      There was the introduction of European diseases, sometimes accidental, sometimes deliberate, into populations which had no immunity to them at all. There were too many battles to count. There was forced resettlement by the federal government which placed tribes from different geographic locations and different cultures into close proximity. In the 19th century, there were Indian Schools whose aim was to deculturize Native children by putting them into residential schools to live with those from other tribes and all were expected to speak English, become Christian and forgo their “heathen ways”. In the last half of the 20th century, television became omnipresent and there is now no reservation too remote to be reached by English language broadcasts of Sesame Street and CNN.

      Despite all this, a few tribes have managed to hold onto their language and their religion. Many more still retain some of their culture including portions of their mythology.

      We