I am very glad to have this time to send a message to you. We are celebrating a time in our history which is both filled with joy and sadness.

I am very glad that our Hindu brothers have given us this opportunity to share these feelings with you because we know many of you are having the same troubles

Choctaws are an ancient people, but by their own account, they were the last of earth's inhabitants to appear.

Everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence.

~Morning Dove, Salish

The Navajo creation story involves three underworlds where important events happened to shape the Fourth World where we now live.

As told by Lame Deer

A long time ago, a really long time when the world was still freshly made, Unktehi the water monster fought the people and caused a great flood. Perhaps the Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka, was angry with us for some reason. Maybe he let Unktehi win out because he wanted to make a better kind of human being.

Animals, elements, the solar system, and natural phenomena are revered by the Apaches. That which is beyond their understanding is always ascribed to the supernatural.

In the beginning nothing existed--no earth, no sky, no sun, no moon, only darkness was everywhere.

As told by the Wichita chief, Towakoni Jim, to George Dorsey

In the beginning there were neither sun, nor stars, nor anything else that we know today. For a long time, the only man was Man-never-known-on-Earth. He created everything. When he created the world, he created land and water, but they were not separate, and still everything was dark. Then Man-never-known-on-Earth created a man who was known as Man-with-the-Power-to-Carry-Light and a woman named Bright-Shining-Woman. Everything that they needed, they dreamed of, and it was there when they awoke. Bright-Shining-Woman received an ear of corn and knew that it would be the food of generations to come.

As told by Abraham Johnny-John, Solomon O'Bail, George Titus, George Armstrong, Zachariah Jimeson, Andrew Fox, Henry Jacob, Henry Silverheels, Peter White, Black Chief, Phoebe Logan, Truman Halftown, and Chief Priest Henry Stevens

Long ago, before this earth existed, humans lived in the sky, and they were ruled by a great chief. This chief's lodge was near a tall tree that had white blossoms and that every year produced corn for the people to eat. When this tree bloomed, there was light, but once its blossoms fell, darkness descended until its next flowering.

This story comes from Hawaii, where it was part of the Kumulipo, a chant recounting both the origin of the world and the genealogy of Hawaii's reigning family. The Kumulipo is a work of poetry with many shades of meaning and plays on words, and it also contains many subtle parables and parodies of rivals of the royal family. It is difficult to render the native Hawaiian word-play and rhyme into English prose, and while this version tries to maintain some of the juxtaposition of organisms with similar names, it can do so only in a limited way. In each section of the story, shades of darkness, each of which have their own names in Hawaiian, progress toward daylight and give birth to the life of the world.

Earthmaker made the world with trees and fields, with rivers, lakes, and springs, and with hills and valleys. It was beautiful. However, there weren't any humans, and so one day he decided to make some.