Reading Notes W2: The Creation Part A

• The basic plot of this story was about how the land was created with all the creatures and people in different areas.
• There were a few different characters that were noted of: Earthmaker, Coyote, and Meadowlarke.
• Coyote talked about painting the land with blood, he talked about every creature no matter what would be created from blood.
• Earthmaker had Coyote lay on his belly to stretch the land to create the world.
• Earthmaker then went and made different creatures, always in pairs of two, throughout the land.
• The use of the pairs of two could be used to symbolize the creation of life and how there needs to be a male and female to reproduce.
• The pairs of two also reminds me of the biblical story of Noah and the Ark and how each animal came in pairs of two.
• Earthmaker is pretty fascinating, he seemed like he was very calm and decisive on how he wanted the earth and the creatures to look.
• The author creates of a visual of an empty body of water and slowly land is produced on top of the water and then a sort of traveler goes around the newly created land to create every little living thing, including people who, some, wouldn't grow or even exist until far later in life or as the author says, winters.
• "And then, Earthmaker was standing there alone. Standing there, they say he went somewhere to the south. He went traveling along. Afterwards, going across the rim of the world to somewhere near where the sun floats away, he came elsewhere, into a different part of the country, traveling always from one place to another. And, when the had gone toward where the sun rises, he came to a place where he had once turned aside before, and he stopped and got things ready. Then, he made creatures, two by two" (Maidu,"Origins and the Way of the World", 28)