THE WOMAN FALLEN FROM THE SKY

In his relation, written in 1636, the Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune reports for the first time the myth of the origin of the world, as it had been narrated by the Hurons, among whom he was carrying out his activity of evangelization. The text he has transcribed is as follows:

 

“They recognize as head of their Nation a certain woman whom they call Ataentsic, who fell among them, they say, from Heaven. For they think the Heavens existed a long time before this wonder; but they cannot tell you when or how its great bodies were drawn from the abysses of nothing. They suppose, even, that above the arches of the Sky there was and still is a land like ours, with woods, lakes, rivers and fields, and Peoples who inhabit them. They do not agree as to the manner in which this so fortunate descent occurred. Some say that one day, as she was working in her field, she perceived a Bear; her dog began to pursue it and she herself afterwards. The Bear, seeing himself closely pressed, and seeking only to escape the teeth of the dog, fell by accident into a hole; the dog followed him. Aataentsic [sic], having approached this precipice, finding that neither the Bear nor the dog were any longer to be seen, moved by despair, threw herself into it also. Nevertheless, her fall happened to be more favorable than she had supposed; for she fell down into the waters without being hurt, although she was with child, - after which, the waters having dried up little by little, the earth appeared and became habitable” (Jesuit Relations, vol. 10: p. 127).

 

Oil painting by Ernest Smith, titled "Sky Woman", 1936, illustrating the Iroquois myth of the woman who fell from the sky (Rochester Museum and Science Center)

 

According to the myth, the world of the origins was a space completely covered by water: il world above was a domain inhabited by human-like divine persons, organized in social systems and kinship groups, with chiefs and shamans, but who did not know yet death. In the world below only some beings existed, similar to humans in certain respects, but in an animal shape: water birds or quadrupeds living in the waters. In the various versions, a group of birds, geese or loons, put themselves under the woman, while she was falling, to cushion her landing on the back of a great turtle. Then, some of the animals dive in the waters, trying to reach the bottom and to bring up to the surface a little lump of earth. The  toad is successful and supplies the first nucleus which, with successive extensions, produces the spreading of the earthen surface. The woman was pregnant with two twins, who are the protagonists of the first phase of the mythological story of the Huron-Iroquois. One of the twins is good and the maker of many things: he creates the animals and plants utilized by humankind. The other twin is malignant and destructive and gives birth to monsters and dangerous animals. The opposition between the twins must not be interpreted in moral terms (good vs. evil), as the missionaries tended to do, but instead as the expression of opponent and complementary forces of nature. The woman dies in giving birth to her children: from her body the main food plants originated, on which the diet and wellbeing of the Native peoples were founded – the corn, squashes and beans. The fact that among the Iroquois one of the names of the first woman was Awenhai, signifying “Fertile Earth” (Johansen-Mann 2000: p. 86), is sufficiently eloquent as regards the meaning of this character, who represents the fertility of the earth, transferred from the divine world above to the lower world, populated by humans.

Mackinac Island, on Lake Huron, near the strait separating the waters of the lake from those of Lake Michigan, recalled for its shape, according to the Ojibwa, the first extension of the earth formed on the back of the primordial turtle. The name of the Island derives from the French Michilimackinac, which in turn reproduces an expression in the Ojibwa language meaning “Great Turtle”.

 

 

View of Mackinac Island, Michigan