Campfire Stories of Indiian Character 489 



konda. All creatures, including man, were spirits. They 

 moved about in space between the earth and the stars 

 (the heavens). They were seeking a place where they 

 could come into a bodily existence. They ascended to 

 the sun, but the sun was not fitted for their abode They 

 moved on to the moon and found that it also was not good 

 for their home. Then they descended to the earth. They 

 saw it was covered with water. They floated through the 

 air to the north, the east, the south, and the west, and 

 found no dry land. They were sorely grieved. Suddenly 

 from the midst of the water uprose a great rock. It burst 

 into flames and the waters floated into the air in clouds. 

 Dry land appeared; the grasses and the trees grew. The 

 hosts of spirits descended and became flesh and blood. 

 They fed on the seeds of the grasses and the fruits of the 

 trees, and the land vibrated with their expressions of joy 

 and gratitude to Wakonda, the maker of all things." 



THE quiche's myth OF CREATION 



This is the first word and the first speech: There were 

 neither men nor brutes, neither birds, fish nor crabs, stick nor 

 stone, valley nor mountain, stubble nor forest, nothing but the 

 sky. 



The face of the land was hidden; there was naught but the 

 silent sea and the sky. 



There was nothing joined, nor any sound, nor thing that 

 stirred; neither any to do evil, nor to rumble in the heavens, 

 nor a walker on foot; only the silent waters, only the pacified 

 ocean, only it in its calm. 



Nothing was, but stillness and rest and darkness and the night. 



Nothing but the Maker and Moulder, the Hurler, the Bird 

 Serpent. 



In the waters, in a limpid twilight, covered with green feathers, 

 slept the mothers and the fathers. 



And over all passed Hurakan, the night-wind, the black 

 rushing Raven, and cried with rumbling croak, "Earth.' 



