Miwok Creation Myth

The Miwok, an American west coast tribe, have a story in which originally there is “no earth, only water” (3). Silver Fox (a female) expresses her loneliness in a sort of prayer-song and encounters Coyote. That it takes two to create makes perfect mythological sense, as does Silver Fox’s artistic proposal: “We will sing the world” (4). Here, creation is not the relatively severe “dividing” that God does, but artistic expression. “They danced and sang and beneath them Earth took shape” (4).


“Silver Fox and Coyote Create Earth.” Native American Animal Stories. Ed. Joseph Bruchac. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Pub., 1992. 3-4.


Creation Myths