Week 2 Analysis: Close Reading of The Creation

My Thesis: This is how the Earth was created and there are good and bad on this Earth, but we have a higher power.




Earthmaker made creatures two by two. He made two creatures at a time that were the same color but did not look identical. Earthmaker told off all the lands and then he counted them. He gave to the lands the creatures he had made. He said, “‘this place will have this creature. Each one of you will have a place to be. These creatures will keep growing and growing while many winters come and many mornings dawn. They will grow and grow until the winters pass and the mornings pass. When they are done growing, they will be born. Then they will have young, both female and male, and when these are grown, they will also have young, both female and male, and when these are grown, they will also have young, and when many winters have gone by, there will be many creatures.’”(qtd.in Maidu 29).


Earthmaker gave all the creatures names and named all the places that each creature will have. Each creature will speak differently. When many winters have gone by the grown creatures will be born as human beings.


Earthmaker named all the countries. He then made two people and then two more. He kept count of them. He assigned each human a country. When a several winters pass, they will be grown. When they are grown then other humans will be born. Then different kinds of food will be grown. Then when more humans are born, they will be clever enough to survive. He said that they will not push other humans from out of their country. Each human will have a different name. The cycle of growing and having children continues. There then will be enough humans on Earth. Humans will then be able to go to a different country and know the name of it. Humans will be able to communicate and know where the country another human went to is by its name. Meadowlark was the first being created and the first being to travel across the meadows.


Earthmaker said that if things are not just right in this country, he shall make them right. Before Earthmaker said this Coyote said, “‘this earth is going to shift...it will be an unstable world…’” (qtd.in Maidu 34). Earthmaker shut Coyote down and stayed positive by singing.




Maidu, “The Creation.” The Literature of California: Writings from the Golden State, edited by Jack Hicks, James D. Houston, Maxine Hong Kingston and Al Young, University of California Press, 2000.pgs. 23-35.