Earth-Initiate (Kodoyanpe, the Earth-Maker)
Earth-Initiate (Maidu Kodoyanpe, also Wonomi, 'the immortal') is the benevolent creator of the northeastern and northwestern Maidu of the upper Sacramento Valley and the Sierra foothills below Mount Lassen. In the creation recorded by Dixon, the world is at first all dark water; a raft bearing Turtle and the Father-of-the-Secret-Society floats out of the north, and down a rope of feathers from the sky comes Earth-Initiate, who has Turtle dive for a little mud and from it grows the land, then makes the sun, the moon, the trees, the animals and the first people. In the version dictated by the storyteller Hanc'ibyjim and translated by Shipley, the creator sings the world into being and names all things. He is set against his companion Coyote, with whom he disputes whether human beings shall be immortal, and whom he opposes when Coyote spoils the perfect world.
Domains
- creation
- earth
- sky
Powers
- to make the dry earth grow from a handful of mud taken from beneath the primal waters
- to call the features of the world and its creatures into being by naming and singing them
- to fashion the first man and woman and the peoples of the several countries
Epithets
- KodoyanpeRoland B. Dixon, 'Maidu Myths', Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. XVII, part II (1902) (secondary)
- WonomiA. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78 (1925) (secondary)
Relations
- companion: CoyoteAt the making of the world Coyote travels with Earth-Initiate, advising him and watching the new creation take shape.Roland B. Dixon, Maidu Texts, Publications of the American Ethnological Society IV (E. J. Brill, 1912) (secondary); William Shipley (ed. and trans.), The Maidu Indian Myths and Stories of Hanc'ibyjim (Heyday Books, 1991) (secondary)
- rival: CoyoteThe two contend over the nature of the world: the creator would have people live forever, but Coyote insists that human beings must die, and so brings mortality into the world.William Shipley (ed. and trans.), The Maidu Indian Myths and Stories of Hanc'ibyjim (Heyday Books, 1991) (secondary); A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78 (1925) (secondary)
- ally: MeadowlarkIn one version of the origin it is Meadowlark's nest that the creator and Coyote draw out to begin the earth, so that the bird assists in the first shaping of the land.Roland B. Dixon, Maidu Texts, Publications of the American Ethnological Society IV (E. J. Brill, 1912) (secondary)
Sources
- Earth-Initiate, called Kodoyanpe and Wonomi, is the benevolent creator of Maidu cosmology, who descends from the sky and makes the land from mud raised by Turtle the diver.: Roland B. Dixon, 'Maidu Myths', Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. XVII, part II (1902) (secondary); Roland B. Dixon, Maidu Texts, Publications of the American Ethnological Society IV (E. J. Brill, 1912) (secondary); A. L. Kroeber, Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78 (1925) (secondary)