Read Notes Part A Cherokee

The Earth is a great island floating in a sea. It is suspended at the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault.

When all was water the animals were above. One day they wondered what was below the water, so the son of the Beaver, Water Beetle, volunteered to go down and check. He couldn't find a firm place so it kept diving down deeper and deeper. It got to the bottom of the sea, and it came back up with mud. The mud began to spread until it became the land we call the Earth.

The land was fastened to the sky, but no one remembers who did it. At first the Earth was very soft and wet. Birds were sent out to see if the land was dry. At last it was time. They sent out the great buzzard. He flew all over the Earth, but it was still soft. He came to the land we now know as Cherokee Country. He was extremely tired. His wings flapped and wherever they struck the earth there was a valley, and where they turned up again there was a mountain. Cherokee country remains full of mountains to this day.

When the earth was dry and the animals came down, it was still dark, so they got the sun and set it in a track to go every day. There is another world under this, and it is like ours in everything except that the seasons are different. The streams that come down from the mountains are the trails by which we reach this underworld, and the springs at their heads are the doorways by which we enter

When the animals and plants were first made they were told to watch and keep awake for seven nights.

A buzzard

Bibliography
Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney (1900).