Beginnings

The First Americans

The First Arrivals

• The first people began to arrive on

this continent as early as 20,000 years ago

But Where did they come from?

• Due to recent archeological and

anthropological evidence, authorities

have been able to determine that it was not just one race of people who settled this land, but

many.

• We can now safely say that the first

settlers came from not only Siberia,

but the coasts of Australia through the South Pacific and from Norway via the North

Atlantic.

Major American Tribes

• Navajo• Iroquois • Algonquin • Cherokee

• Zapotec• Olmec• Maya• Aztec • Toltec

Literature

• The literature of the early Americans is mostly religious or mythical in nature.

• One commonality of Native American literature is the creation myth.

Creation Myths

• Of all the archetypal stories that have transcend race, culture, and geographic separation, the creation myths are the most common. Almost every civilization has created one.

• There are common themes, such as:

• Order from chaos

• One supreme creator

• A great flood

• Other times, some stories can be quite unique.

Pima Iroquois

Maya

Examples from Around the WorldKoran/Old Testament

• 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Examples from Around the WorldThe Sumerians

• When in the height heaven was not named,And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them bothTheir waters were mingled together,And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;When of the gods none had been called into being,

Examples from Around the WorldThe Greeks

• In the beginning there was an empty darkness. The only thing in this void was Nyx, a bird with black wings. With the wind she laid a golden egg and for ages she sat upon this egg. Finally life began to stir in the egg and out of it rose Eros, the god of love. One half of the shell rose into the air and became the sky and the other became the Earth. Eros named the sky Uranus and the Earth he named Gaia.

Then Eros made them fall in love.

Examples from Around the World

• Here is the story of the beginning,when there was not one bird,not one fish,not one mountain.Here is the sky, all alone.Here is the sea, all alone.There is nothing more–no sound, no movement.Only the sky and the sea.

• Only Heart-of-Sky, alone.And these are his names:Maker and Modeler,Kukulkan,and Hurricane.But there is no one to speak his names.There is no one to praise his glory.There is no one to nurture his greatness.

The Mayans