Zuni Creation Stories The Gestation of Men and the Creatures
   Then came among men and the creatures, it is said, the wisest of wise men and the foremost, the all-sacred master, Póshaiyank'ya, he who appeared in the waters below, even as did the Sun-father in the wastes above, and who arose from the lowermost sea, and pitying men, won upward, gaining by virtue of his (innate) wisdom-knowledge issuance from that first world-womb through ways so dark and narrow that those who, seeing somewhat, crowded after, could not follow, so eager were they and so mightily did they strive with one another! Alone, then, he fared upward from one womb (cave) to another out into the great breadth of daylight. There, the earth lay like a vast island in the midst of the great waters, wet and unstable. And alone he traveled forward to the daylight, seeking the Sun-father and begging him to deliver mankind and the creatures there below.

The Birth from the Sea of the Two Deliverers of Men

World Cultures

©1996, Richard Hooker

For information contact: Richard Hines
Updated 6-6-1999