The Cry
Native American Reader
Stories, Speeches and Poems
The Cry
Peter Blue Cloud (Aronia wenrate)
Turtle Clan, Mohawk Nation
It was all darkness and always had been. There was nothing there forever. Creation was a tiny seed awaiting a dream.
The dream came to be because of the cry. A howling cry which was an echo in the emptiness of nothing. The cry was very lonely and caused the dream to turn over in it's sleep. The dream did not want to awaken but the crying would not stop.
“Well,” thought the dream, opening it's mind “so now I am awake and there is something.” The dream floated above itself and looked into its mind. It wanted to see what the cry was.
What it saw was a dream within its own dreaming. And that other dream was creation. And creation was the cry seeking to begin something, but it didn't know what, and that was why it cried.
So the original dream lifted the creation dream from its mind and set it free. Then it went to the other end of nothing and let itself go back to dreamless sleep.
Creation flowed all over the nothing, dreaming of all the things it would do. Its dreaming was interrupted often by crying.
“So, it wasn't me crying after all,” Creation thought. Then it thought again, “But it is me because I dreamed it. So, I have begun creation with a cry.”
“When I began to create the universe, I must remember to give the cry a very special place. Perhaps I will call the cry, Coyote.”
Stories, Speeches and Poems
The Cry
Peter Blue Cloud (Aronia wenrate)
Turtle Clan, Mohawk Nation
It was all darkness and always had been. There was nothing there forever. Creation was a tiny seed awaiting a dream.
The dream came to be because of the cry. A howling cry which was an echo in the emptiness of nothing. The cry was very lonely and caused the dream to turn over in it's sleep. The dream did not want to awaken but the crying would not stop.
“Well,” thought the dream, opening it's mind “so now I am awake and there is something.” The dream floated above itself and looked into its mind. It wanted to see what the cry was.
What it saw was a dream within its own dreaming. And that other dream was creation. And creation was the cry seeking to begin something, but it didn't know what, and that was why it cried.
So the original dream lifted the creation dream from its mind and set it free. Then it went to the other end of nothing and let itself go back to dreamless sleep.
Creation flowed all over the nothing, dreaming of all the things it would do. Its dreaming was interrupted often by crying.
“So, it wasn't me crying after all,” Creation thought. Then it thought again, “But it is me because I dreamed it. So, I have begun creation with a cry.”
“When I began to create the universe, I must remember to give the cry a very special place. Perhaps I will call the cry, Coyote.”