ABSTRACT
The Native peoples of North America historically believed that animals helped bring about the world as we know it. According to the Iroquois, for example, it was Muskrat who dived to the bottom of the waters to gather the mud that he spread on Turtle’s back to make the world we inhabit today. Algonquian peoples who lived along the present-day Potomac River saw in the hares that scurried through the forest undergrowth reminders of Ahone who had once fashioned the earth in his forepaws. With help from the winds the Great Hare then populated the world with men and women before creating the sh, deer, and other beings that would feed and clothe those rst people.1
