The Ononadaga Creation Myth

The story of creation is left up to the person you ask. Different cultures and societies have different stories about how the world was created, also known as creation myths. A creation myth is a story that shows how the world they lived in was created or how the first people came to inhabit it. It usually reflects their culture and beliefs. The Native Americans have very elaborate creation myths. Culture plays a big part in their creation myths. They used their views to make a creation myth that applied to their lives and values. Even though the Modoc and Lakota creation myths focus on respecting living creatures, the Ononadaga creation myth in contrast focuses on not giving up.
In the Modoc creation myth, family and the value of parents,

or elders, rules are greatly present. In the Modoc's creation myth, the Sky Spirit told his daughter not to stick her head out the top of the lodge because she might blow away. One day the girls curiosity got the best of her and she stuck her head out of the lodge despite what her father had told her. Her hair gets caught in the wind and she is blown away. When the sky spirit finds him daughter much later he curses the grizzlies that she has started a family with saying, "Get down on your hands and knees. You have wronged me, and from this moment all of you will walk on four feet and never talk again" (Modoc). The Sky Spirit was upset that his daughter was a grown woman now and had a family of a different race, one not of his own. The Modoc's creation myth has strong family values that the Sky Spirit reacted to when they were not to his liking. The sky spirit has lots of respect for his way of life and family. The values and respect of others is portrayed through out their creation myth.