Different Versions Of The Choctaw Creation Myth

Peace Mecha

Professor Hamm

ENGL 1200-37

5 April 2017

Draft

For as long as I can remember, I have always been curious to know how everything came into existence. Growing up, my parents would read me the story of creation in the Bible, which explained how everything was created from a Christian point of view. Just like me, the Choctaw also wanted to make sense of such a complex phenomenon: how everything was created. In an effort to explain this came up with creation myths. Unlike the Bible’s one creation story, the Choctaw people have different versions of their creation myth. The Choctaw creation stories are classified as myths because they are “imaginative stories that present events that took place at the beginning.” (Ryan, 2016). These

The first category is the emergence myth. This category of Choctaw creation myths usually has people, insects and plants just emerge from the ground just as they are. (Ryan, 2016). There are different versions of these emergence myth. The first story is about a sacred hill called Nane Chaha. Deep inside the earth, Aba, the great spirit created man and grasshoppers. After the earth was created, men and grasshoppers came to the earth’s surface through a passageway that came deep into the earth’s interior and to the top of Nane Chaha. (Bushnell, 1910). In the second emergence myth, the Nane Chacha is created first with a passageway leading from the summit to the bottom of the earth. After everything was created on earth, including trees, plants and lakes, the Choctaw emerged through the passageway and were scattered all over the place. The last emergence myth is about how Aba, created the Choctaw people out of yellow clay who emerged to the earth’s surface and they were the first inhabitants of the earth. (Bushnell, 1910). The second category of the Choctaw creation myth is the earth diver story. In this category, there is a story of how the people were children of the sun and the moon and they lived in the sky. However, they had to leave the sky and go the earth, which was at the time covered by water and there was no food. The elk helped them retrieve the earth’s surface and also helps them grow food from his