Yuki Creation Story - Lessons of Our Land

Yuki Creation
Story
As told to Edward Curtis
Recorded between 1907-1930
by a Round Valley Yuki
There was only water
and over
it was a fog.
on the water was foam.
The foam moved round and round
continually, and from it came a voice.
After a time a person
came from the foam.
This was Taiko’-mol or Solitude Walker.
He floated on the water and sang.
He stood on the foam which still
revolved.
There was no light.
He walked on water as if it were land.
he made a rope
and laid it from north to south, and he
walked along it, revolving his hands one
about the other.
and behind him the earth was
heaped up along the rope.
But the water
overwhelmed it.
Again he did tried to make earth by heaping
it on the rope. He tried four times, and the
water washed the earth away.
Taiko’-mol was talking to
himself.
• “I think we had
better do it this way.
I think we had
better try it that
way.”
• So he talked to
himself and made a
new plan.
He made four stone crooks.
and planted one in the north and the others
in the south, west, and east.
He stretched them
out...
until they were continuous lines crossing
the world in the center.
He spoke a word, and the
earth appeared.
Then he went along the
edge and lined it with
So the ocean could not wash away the
earth.
He shook the earth to
see if it was solid.
He still makes
this test,
causing
earthquakes.
the land was flat and
barren.
without vegetation and rivers.
still there was
no light.
In the ocean
were fish and
other
creatures
but on earth
was nothing.
yet taiko`-mol had the
feathers of various
birds.
he laid buzzard and eagle feathers on the ground.
they became
mountains.
with lightning he
split the
mountains.
and from the
mountains he made
our rivers and
creeks.
He made
birds and
beasts,
which in
that time
were
persons.
afterward he changed them into their
present forms and created real
human beings.
Creation story interpreted by Round
Valley High School
Multi-Media Class
2010
Shanice Britton, 9th Grade
Ashantey Case, 9th Grade
Laureen Fulwider, 10th Grade
Shelby Merrifield, 10th Grade
Clay Rabano, 10th Grade
Alexis Britton, 11th Grade
John Thomas Hanover, 11th Grade
Utahna Sausedo, 11th Grade
Kristina Perez, 11th Grade
Brandon Woods, 11th Grade
Cheryl Tuttle, Teacher