Name: Joe Medicine Crow
Tribal Affiliation: Crow
Interview No.: CR001JMC022504
Topic: Anthropology – Culture – Tribal Origins
Language: English
Time Code In: 01:01:44:12
Time Code Out: 01:04:51:15
Tape 1 of 2 - Original
Q: “Our first question, is what is the Crow creation story?”
A: “Yes, it’s a simple one. At one time old man coyote, the cultural teacher was walking around and heard noise as he was going along the river bank there he heard noise. There was a log there sticking out of the water and he heard noise in there. So he went over there and reached in and pulled out a human being, took him to the shore and the human being’s eyes were closed so he open the eye. Looked around…looked around and say now you go back and bring some more, so he go back and bring them back and pretty soon they were all there. That’s how the Crows were created.
That’s one version, now these are legend tales I think. One version was that one time the first maker, “IiJick biiluaas” was walking around all by himself on the surface of the water there was no land just all water, looking around he was always talking to himself as if someone were listening. So he said now this is no good, he said lets make land. So he created some ducks. Sometimes one version says that they’re frogs, but they’re ducks. So he sent one down and said you go down there, as far as you can go and when you get down there, there will be some soft material there and get a mouth full and bring it up. So the duck went down and after awhile he came up dead and sent in another one, it came up dead. Finally, one last one, a little duck, they’re called mud hens there used to be some around here. So the little mud hen went down there. Waited, waited and pretty soon the water was bubbling up there and he ran up there and poor little duck was dead too. He went up there and opened his little beak and there was mud in there. Oh this is good! So he took that little mud and rinsed it up good and made strong medicine as white people like to say. Imagine your power. Pretty soon hills started coming up here and there… and the water started going down. Pretty soon there was land all over. Old man coyote, I mean this first maker said, “Ahh this is good, that’s good.” No more water, water is going down this way and streams forming lakes here and there, but there was land.