The story discusses Koyukon beliefs about creation and morality. It describes a time when only water and mountains existed, followed by the creation of living beings and the first humans. When these humans committed wrongdoings, their food was taken away as punishment. The narrative emphasizes that divine beings observe human actions and that moral transgressions lead to divine retribution, often through the loss of sustenance.
Source:
Ten’a Texts and Tales
(from Anvik, Alaska)
by John W. Chapman
The American Ethnological Society
Publications, Volume 6 (ed. Franz Boas)
E.J. Brill, Leyden, 1914
► Themes of the story
Creation: The narrative explains how the world and life began.
Divine Punishment: The first humans faced consequences (loss of food) for their wrongdoing.
Origin of Things: The story provides explanations for natural phenomena and human existence.
► From the same Region or People
Learn more about Koyukon people
From the same village on the Chageluk, 1910. Isaac Fisher’s uncle, now the oldest man, gives this account.
He did not know of the name “Our Father” being taught before the missionaries came. The children were taught that if they did anything wrong, some one who lives above would see it. Eating out of doors in winter was doing wrong. He believes that when the people get to doing very wrong, God punishes them by taking away their food. Then they return to the right way. He says that there spring up right-minded men who lead the people in the right paths.
As to the origin of the world, he says that at first there was nothing but water about here, except the mountains. Living things were made next, and afterwards a man and a woman were made. Food was provided for them. When they did wrong, their food was taken away.
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As to the belief in the state of the dead, it seems to rest upon a story, which they accept as true, of a woman who was met by a spirit who supposed that she was also dead, and who took her to the abode of the spirits. The spirit is supposed to stop, on the way to its final abode, at different places where flies, mosquitoes, and other insects live.
Another account of the creation of men says that one who is above made a string of mud men reaching from the earth to the sky, and animated them.
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Dreamtime Whispers 