How the Hills and Valleys were Formed - Winnebago Version 1 (of the Waterspirit Clan). When Earthmaker created the earth it was perfect: its surface was as flat and smooth as a piece of ice. But when the people of this new earth tried to walk upon it, they slipped and slid and could not keep their footing. When they cried out to Earthmaker to pity them, the Creator was moved to tears by their plight. His first tear fell from the sky with such force that the whole earth quaked, and the ground reverberated in colliding ripples. When his second tear struck the earth, craters appeared and mountains were forced up from the impact. His tears soon formed rivers, lakes, and the ocean, making the land so uneven everywhere that the people could now walk without any worry of falling. [1] Version 2 (of the Thunderbird Clan). When the earth was young it had neither hill nor valley, but was without any contour. Then the Thunders strode forth upon the land, and where they stepped the valleys formed, and where they struck the land with the Thunderbird Warclub, great indentations were pressed upon it. [2] Version 3 (of the Thunderbird Clan). When living things were newly created, the ground that they lived on was perfectly flat so that both men and animals found it easy to travel over its surface. In this limitless prairie-earth was a village where a young man named Wakâjagiciciga ("Bad Thunderbird") lived with his grandmother. His uncles, who loved him very much, were Thunderbirds. One day Wakâjagiciciga went on a hunt with the approval of his uncles. On the fourth day out he spotted a herd of elk, but they escaped before he could kill any. Later he ran across a herd of deer, but the same thing happened. Finally he came to a village where an evil chief lived with his son. The chief told his people that they were about to be attacked by an enemy. So when Wakâjagiciciga approached, the chief's son riddled him with arrows. The Thunderbirds were furious, and sought revenge. They put charcoal upon their faces and fasted. Over the face of the land they wandered ceaselessly and struck the earth with their mighty warclubs until countless valleys and ravines were hammered into the ground. The chief and his son fled in terror to the Lower World where they devolved into earthworms. The earthworm is the lowest of Earthmaker's creations, for they are food even for the fishes. [3] Notes: [1] Keeley Bassette (Waterspirit Clan), "Legend," in David Lee Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 149. [2] Charles E. Brown, Wisconsin Indian Place Legends (Madison: Works Progress Administration, Wisconsin, 1936): 5; Paul Radin, The Winnebago Tribe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990 [1923]) 166. [3] David Lee Smith (Thunderbird Clan), "How Valleys and Ravines Came to Be," in David Lee Smith, Folklore of the Winnebago Tribe (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) 100-101.