The Great Elk
Osage · numen · Osage traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
The Great Elk is the world-shaping animal person of the Osage genesis. When the sky-born ancestors came down and found the earth still covered with water, the Elk threw himself upon the flood and, thrashing, caused the ground to appear. Then rolling his body over the wet earth he loosened his hairs, which clung to the soil and sprang up as the grasses, the trees, and all the growing things, making the world fit for the people to live upon. He is honored as one of the great life-symbols of the Osage divisions, a figure of the earth's fertility and of the power that turned bare ground into a living land.
Domains
- earth
- vegetation
Powers
- throws himself upon the waters to lay bare the land
- rolls upon the earth so his hairs become the plants
Epithets
- Oⁿ-poⁿ toⁿ-ga — the Great ElkFrancis La Flesche, The Osage Tribe: Rite of the Chiefs, 36th Annual Report BAE (1921). (primary)
Sources
- The Great Elk cast himself on the waters to expose the land and rolled so that his hairs became the earth's grasses and trees.: Francis La Flesche, The Osage Tribe: Rite of the Chiefs, 36th Annual Report BAE (1921). (primary); Osage Creation Story, Arkansas Archeological Survey, 'Indians of Arkansas.' (secondary)