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1 Wussuckwheke, or the Painted Letter Glimpses of Native Signification Acknowledged and Unwitnessed (1492–1643) Wussuckwheke: A letter which they so call from Wussuckwhommin, to paint; for having no letters, their painting comes nearest. —Roger Williams, A Key into the Language of America The advent of Native written literature did not, in any way, mark the passing of Native oral literature. In fact, they occupy the same space, the same time. And, if you know where to stand, you can hear the two of them talking to each other. —Thomas King, The Truth About Stories Eden as Ground Zero: Oral Engagements and Western Epistemologies of Containment In an indigenous creation account often referred to as the “earth-diver” narrative, a number of animals agree to dive into the water one by one in search of mud that they might carry back to the surface in order to create land upon which humans, animals, and plants can live.1 As Arthur Parker, an early twentieth-century Seneca historian and ethnographer, tells it, SkyWoman , or Iagen’`tci, was pushed through a hole in the clouds left by the uprooting of the celestial tree and plummeted toward earth. As she fell, the creatures of the watery world below collaborated to cushion her fall. The duck-creatures received her “on their interknit wings,” and the great turtle from the underworld arose to “make his broad back a resting-place.” Having secured a safe haven for the woman to land, there remained, however, a need for soil so things might grow. Therefore the creatures dove “to the bottom of the water seeking to find earth to plant upon the turtle’s back.” 29 30 Red Ink In Parker’s version, first the duck descended, then the pickerel. Each creature that went down into the watery depths failed in its attempt to find earth until, at last, the unassuming muskrat succeeded in touching bottom with its nose. This proved sufficient, for he was able to make his way back to the surface and smear the collected mud “upon the [turtle’s] shell and the earth immediately grew,” providing a home for Sky-Woman and her ancestors.2 The story of the “earth-diver,” overheard and recorded by many a colonial observer, was often equated with the biblical tale of the flood. In 1634 the French Jesuit Paul Le Jeune had a version recounted to him by the Montagnais to which he responded, “you see they have some traditions of the deluge, although mingled with fables.”3 For Le Jeune and his fellow Jesuits such tales were not to be credited, or were regarded as gross corruptions of the “true” biblical version. Le Jeune felt that the Native story had indeed sprung from the tradition of Noah and the arc, but “that the first ones who came to their country did not know how to read and write, and that was the reason their children remained in ignorance.”4 The lack of writing amongst the Native peoples of America was, for the colonist, a vital referent to their overall barbarity. As a result of this absence, there could be no possibility of keeping records, preserving history, or maintaining the integrity of spiritual narratives. It was generally perceived that a people without writing were a people without law, without culture, without religion. In 1636 Le Jeune’s contemporary and colleague Father Brebeuf recounted a similar version of the earth-diver tale told to him by the Huron. In this story, a sky woman, known to the Huron as Ataentsic, had gone to a certain tree to attain a healing “fruit” for her husband. Having split the tree with her “axe,” she immediately fell into the hole there created and found herself plummeting down into the world below. As in Le Jeune’s version, the animals expressed concern for the falling woman and consulted with her about what to do in this crisis. The result of their cooperative effort was that the sky woman “fell very gently on this Island,” and made of it her home, shortly thereafter giving birth to a daughter who in turn gave birth to feuding twins. Brebeuf saw in this tale “some relation to the case of Adam,” but he quickly concludes that “falsehood makes up the greater part of it.” Ask how the daughter became pregnant, he scoffed, “and you puzzle them very much.” Although decidedly untroubled by similar inconsistencies at the center of his own culture’s spiritual narratives, Brebeuf summarily dismissed...

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