THE SHAWNEE ACCOUNT
[This comes from Albert S. Gatschet's manuscript, which was not available to me when I assembled "Man and Impact in the Americas", and so this tradition was not included in my book.]
A SHAWNEE TRADITION OF THE HOLOCENE START IMPACTS
[The following mythic tale of the Battle of the Good Creator and the Bad Creator was also held by the Tuscorora, and David Cusick's version of it from his "Sketched of the Ancient Histoy of the Six Nstions, is given complete in my own book "Man and Impact in the Americas".
This shared tradition is not surprising, as Iroquoian people comprised the first of the three streams that joined to form the Shawnee people. A later borrowing of this tale by the Shawneee can be ruled out.]
The version given here came from Thomas Staind and William Tookey, was elucidated by Thomas Dougherty, and preserved through the hard work of Albert Gatschet.
THE BATTLE OF THE GOOD CREATOR AND THE BAD CREATOR
One of the Twins was the Creator [the Good Creator - Wessi Manitou, elsewhere in the manuscript] and the other the Destroyer, or the Bad Mind (Maeche Manitou, the Bad Creator).
The first was born properly. The second was not born properly; He was born from his mother's side.
Both of them started off. The Creator headed for the Center (Taheliki), just there he came, and then they both came to the Center (Taheliki).
Then one of them wanted to know what they were going to do,
then one of them went to the East, the other to the West,
One of them by turning went towards the place where the Sun rises(East).
"Let us go (to the Center)" the Bad Creator said to the Good Creator,
"There we will look at what each of us has created.
"Too much and too good have you created everything", the Bad Creator said.
"you have given them too much - you have created too much good."
For everything was created so well that people would altogether be too lazy.
[Dougherty(?) elucidated this as
"When the Bad Creator went west, he returned, and said to the Good Creator,
"You created everything too well, the children will be too lazy."]
Then the Good Creator spoke to the Evil Creator.
"Everything too badly you have created, even large snakes [COMETS] even those which will kill people. You have badly created even worse than that."
(Dougherty(?) told this as
"To the Bad Mind the Good Mind said, "You created everything wrong while going west - big snakes would kill a person,
thorns (cactus, most likely a later western insertion of detail) - and your creations would be obnoxious to people.)
Now then they were returning back to where they started.
Then the Bad Creator asked the Good Creator, "What are you afraid of?"
"Of horns", he [the Good Creator] answered.
"And what are you afraid of?", he [the Good Creator] asked.
"Of flagweeds (hapwaki), they will strangle me if you strike me.
[Perhaps these "flagseeds" were some kind of poison used in hunting.]
Then the Bad Mind said "You first"
"Then not you will be first in turn? That is agreeable.", said the Good Creator.
Then he ran towards the sunrise (east). In that direction he ran, and the Bad Creator followed.
Ten times, twelve times, they piled the flags upon one another, until they reached the piles of flags came to an end,
and then they returned to the Center.
Then the Bad Creatror ran to the west. In that direction he ran, and the Good Creator ran after him.
Ten times, twelve times, horns were piled in that direction.
The Good Mind picked up the horns as he was running, and he stuck the Bad Creator with these horns.
Then the Good Creator put a rock on himself, and then the Bad Creator struck him with these horns until he tore to pieces his own garment. Thus he [the Good Creator] killed him [the Bad Creator].
[THE IMPACTS - The order of directions given here, south, east, north, and west is most likely ritualistic, but perhaps it may preserve some memory of sequence.]
Then the Good Creator built a fire, as he wanted to burn the Bad Creator up.
Then while the Bad Creator's heart was in the fire, it burst out, to the South.
The Good Creator went and grabbed it, caught it, and threw it back into the fire again.
Then it [the Bad Creator's heart] burst from the fire to the East, and
The Good Creator grabbed it, caught it, and threw it back into the fire again.
Then it [the Bad Creator's heart] burst from the fire to the North, and
The Good Creator grabbed it, caught it, and threw it back into the fire again.
Then it [the Bad Creator's heart] burst from the fire to the West, and
The Good Creator grabbed it, caught it, and threw it back into the fire again,
this time bursting.
It burst under the ground.
"That's what I want to do with him", and then the Good Creator stamped on top of the ground.
He jumped up and down on where the Bad Creator's heart had finally burst.
Then the Good Creator thought of going home.
When he came there close to where they lived [Kokumthena (Grandmother, the Creator), the Good Creator, and the Bad Creator], and then he heard somebody at where they stayed.
He stopped a little while, and then started to go to the place again.
There he met Grandmother [Kokumthena, the Creator], and she told him
"You [the Good Creator] have been naughty", she said.
"You have BURNT THE SKIN OFF OF HIM [the Bad Creator]."
THE CREATION OF PEOPLE
Then the Good Creator felt bad, and he started to go about feeling very bad.
Then he went to the Buffalo Lick, and there he sat down.
[After this the Good Creator created the first man and woman at the Buffalo Lick.
This Buffalo Lick may be identified with Big (Salt) Lick, just to the south of the modern city of Cincinnati, Ohio, as the active flint quarries show this area to have been occupied by the survivors after the Holocene Start Impacts.]
ANOTHER SOUTH EAST TRADITION
The following is usually understood as an explanation for the fossils found at Big Bone Lick, but Jefferson's telling of the (Lenape) (Delaware) tradition from "Notes on the State of Virginia" holds something more:
"Our quadrupeds have been mostly described by Linnaeus and Mons. de Buffon. Of these the Mammoth, or big buffalo, as called by the Indians, must certainly have been the largest. Their tradition is, that he was carnivorous, and still exists in the northern parts of America.
"A delegation of warriors from the Delaware tribe having visited the Governor of Virginia, during the present revolution, on matters of business, after these had been discussed and settled in council, the Governor asked them some questions relative to their country, and, among others, what they knew or had heard of the animal whose bones were found at the Saltlicks, on the Ohio.
Their chief speaker immediately put himself into an attitude of oratory, and with a pomp suited to what he conceived the elevation of his subject, informed him that it was a tradition handed down from their fathers,
"That in ancient times a herd of these tremendous animals came to the Big-bone Licks, and began an universal destruction of the bear, deer, elks, buffaloes, and other animals, which had been created for the use of the Indians;
that the Great Man above, looking down and seeing this, was so enraged that he seized his lightning,
descended on the earth, seated himself on a neighbouring mountain, on a rock, of which his seat and the print of his feet are still to be seen,
and hurled his bolts among them till the whole were slaughtered, except the big bull, who presenting his forehead to the shafts, shook them off as they fell;
but missing one at length, it wounded him in the side; whereon, springing round, he bounded over the Ohio, over the Wabash, the Illinois, and finally over the great lakes, where he is living at this day.'
To this account Jefferson added further information supporting speculation that the mammoth was still alive.
As the Lenapewak were on the west coast of Canada at the time of the Holocene start impacts, they most likely inherited this tradition from the Shawnee. Besides the existing distinct holocene start account of the Lenepwak, the following leads me to suspect borrowing or adoption of the information given to Jefferson. It was noted by Adrienne Mayor:
http://members.aol.com/afmayor/myhomepage/writing.html
and her book is advertised there. If I had a copy of it then I would have the originals of her extracts:
"In 1762, John Wright of Kentucky talked with several Shawnee about big skeletons found along the Ohio River. The Shawnee said the bones belonged to an immense animal, the "grandfather of all buffalo," and that they had been hunted by "great men" of the distant past. But after all those supermen died out, THE GREAT SPIRIT DESTROYED THE ENORMOUS ANIMALS WITH LIGHTNING so that they wouldn't harm smaller men of the present day.
"The Delaware elders told Thomas Jefferson a similar story, only they claimed that the gigantic animals were driving away smaller game, like deer and bear. This angered their god, WHO BLASTED THE MASSIVE ANIMALS WITH LIGHTNING BOLTS. Only their petrified remains could be seen today, although it was possible that some had escaped to the far north. Jefferson hoped that Lewis and Clark would discover living specimens of the fossil mammoths so abundant along the Ohio River.