Western Woods Cree

(map)

This account shows clear Christian influence.

A man survived the deluge in his canoe. He sent forth a raven, but it did not return, and in punishment it was changed from white to black. He next sent out a wood pigeon; it returned with mud in its claws, by which the man inferred that the earth had dried, so he landed.

Frazer, 1919, 297.

Wissaketchak was an old magician. A certain sea monster hated him and, when the old man was paddling his canoe, the monster lashed the sea with its tail, causing waves that flooded the land. Wissaketchak, though, built a great raft and gathered on it pairs of all animals and birds. The sea monster continued its exertions, and the water continued to rise, until even the highest mountain was covered. Wissaketchak sent a duck to dive for earth, but the duck could not reach the bottom and drowned. He then sent the muskrat, which, after a long time, returned with its throat full of slime. Wissaketchak moulded this slime into a disk and floated it on the water; it resembled a nest such as muskrats make on ice. The disk swelled, and Wissaketchak made it grow more by blowing on it. As it grew and hardened, he sent the animals onto it. It became the land we now inhabit.

Frazer, 1919, 309-310.