Earthmaker (Mą'ųna, 'Earth-maker') is the creator and supreme spirit of the Ho-Chunk. In Radin's recorded origin myth he awakens alone in empty space, and his tears form the primal waters before he calls light and the earth into being and shapes the first human from clay in his own likeness, giving tobacco to humanity as his special gift. Confronted with the suffering of human beings preyed upon by evil spirits, he fashions a series of culture-hero spirits with his own hands and sends them to earth to make it safe — Trickster, Bladder, Turtle, Redhorn, and Hare — assigning the survivors dominion over the earth and over otherworldly realms.