Blackfoot Creation Myth

It all began, as it does sometimes, with a vast body of water. The Sun, or Old Man as we refer to him, was afloat a raft with all the animals in existence. And they were content.

As time wore on, they all realized this raft was entirely too small for all of them. Utterly crowded, Old Man had enough. He had an idea and sent the beaver to the bottom of the water to collect mud.

Beaver was unsuccessful. So, he asked the loon to dive. Loon wasn't successful either. So, he asked the otter. And otter was also without success.

Finally, Old Man called on the muskrat.
"Muskrat, dive to the bottom of the water and bring me mud."

Little ol' Muskrat was happy to oblige. He dove and swam and swam, finally reaching the bottom. There, he grabbed a small amount of mud and swam back to the surface. With this, Old Man dried out every spec Muskrat brought to him and spread it over the water, creating land.

Old Man ventured across his creation, adding mountains and valleys, rivers, and plants: trees to the hills, grass to the plains.

Before long, Old Man became lonely. He decided to form a woman and a child from the clay found in the land. After crafting them perfectly, he buried them and covered the spot with his robe. Four days had past until his newest creations were in full human form. Old Man was so pleased, he created many more sons and daughters; they also contributed to populating this new land. He taught them how to make weapons, hunt, and maximize the use of the buffalo.




**While looking for a photo of our little muskrat friend, "muskrat love" came up as a popularly searched term. Curiosity got the best of me and I clicked. This is what I found:

                                                                                                         :).**