[meteorite-list] A Shawnee tradition of the Holocene Start Impacts

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2007 20:02:07 -0500
Message-ID: <107601c807b4$8560cb00$b92ee146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, E.P., List,

E.P. writes:
> ...After this the Good Mind created the first man and
> woman at the Buffalo Lick...may be identified with
> Big (Salt) Lick, just to the south of... Cincinnati, Ohio...

This would put the spot where Humanity was created
right on the site (or within a very few miles) of the new
Creation Museum. I wonder if they know they built
their Biblical Theme Park in the Garden of Eden?

And, you know? There are people that think that
God doesn't have a sense of humor?


Sterling
-----------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "E.P. Grondine" <epgrondine at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 7:41 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] A Shawnee tradition of the Holocene Start Impacts


Hi all -

I hope you will bear with me here, as I need to make a
record of this Shawnee tradition of the Holocene Start
Impacts. It 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.

You may want to watch the National Geographic Channel
this Sunday at 10 Eastern time for the first broadcast
of their new documentary on the Holocene Start
Impacts.

A SHAWNEE TRADITION OF THE HOLOCENE START IMPACTS

The following mythic tale of the Battle of the Good
Mind and the Bad Mind was also held by the Tuscarora,
and David Cusick's version of it from his "Sketches of
the Ancient History of the Six Nations, was 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 Shawnee 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 BATTTLE OF THE GOOD MIND AND THE BAD MIND

One of the Twins was the Creator [the Good Mind -
Wessi Manitou, elsewhere in the manuscript] and the
other the Destroyer, or the Bad Spirit (Maeche
Manitou, the Bad Mind). 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 Mind said to the
Good Spirit (Mind),
"There we will look at what each of us has created.

"Too much and too good have you created everything",
the Bad Mind 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 Mind
went west, he returned, and said to the Good Mind,
"You created everything too well, the children will be
too lazy."]

Then the Good Mind spoke to the Evil Mind.
"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 Mind asked the Good Mind, "What are you
afraid of?"
"Of horns", he [the Good Mind] answered.
"And what are you afraid of?", he [the Good Mind]
asked.
"Of flagweeds (hapwaki), they will strangle me if you
strike me.
[I now think it most likely that these "flags" 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 Mind.
Then he ran towards the sunrise (east). In that
direction he ran, and the Bad Mind 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 Mind ran to the west. In that direction
he ran, and the Good Mind 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 Mind with these horns.

Then the Good Mind put a rock on himself, and then the
Bad Mind struck him with these horns until he tore to
pieces his own garment. Thus he [the Good Mind] killed
him [the Bad Mind].

[THE IMPACTS - The order of directions given here,
south, east, north, and west may be ritualistic or may
preserve some actual memory of sequence.]

Then the Good Mind built a fire, as he wanted to burn
the Bad Mind up.

Then while the Bad Mind's heart was in the fire, it
burst out, to the South.
The Good Mind went and grabbed it, caught it, and
threw it back into the fire again.

Then it [the Bad Mind's heart] burst from the fire to
the East, and
The Good Mind grabbed it, caught it, and threw it back
into the fire again.

Then it [the Bad Mind's heart] burst from the fire to
the North, and
The Good Mind grabbed it, caught it, and threw it back
into the fire again.

Then it [the Bad Mind's heart] burst from the fire to
the West, and
The Good Mind 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
Mind stamped on top of the ground.
He jumped up and down on where the Bad Mind's heart
had finally burst.

Then the Good Mind thought of going home.
When he came there close to where they lived
[Kokumthena (Grandmother, the Creator), the Good Mind,
and the Bad Mind], 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 Mind] have been naughty", she said.
"You have burnt the skin off of him [the Bad Mind]."

THE CREATION OF PEOPLE

Then the Good Mind 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 Mind 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.]

Cusick added: "It is said in an account which I
believe to be fiction that these beings had the most
knowledge of good and evil. It is also said that the
beings became civilized people, and that they made
their residence in the south part of the Great Island.
 It is said that afterwards they were destroyed by
barbarous nations, and their fortifications remain
ruined unto this day."


Good Hunting,
E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas



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Received on Fri 05 Oct 2007 09:02:07 PM PDT