Legends Of The Falls: SkyWoman And LelaWala - 48" x 24", Acrylic on Spruce, The Collection of The Fort Erie Historical Museum

It was Mewinzha when the world was covered with water and Sky Woman who lived in the sky with the sky people, was pregnant in a place where no one gave birth or died. Her husband was angry, seeing her pregnant, and uprooted a white pine. This created a great hole in the sky and in her fear she fell through. Flailing through the blue, Geese caught her mid descent and glided her down to the shiny blue where the rest of the water animals would swim, and greet then carry her. But she was heavy with her baby growing inside her and they knew they couldn't support her for a long time, so she told them what was needed, to continue on. One by one each animal dove down, to try and grasp some mud to put on turtles back and one by one they failed until lowly muskrat came back and had some in his mouth, he died with his success. Mourning him, they spread the mud of sacrifice on turtle's back, who grew and grew becoming Turtle Island and known today as North America. Skywoman stepped on Turtle Island and created the stars and the moon and then lay down on turtles back to create her daughter. She grew so pretty so fast, she caught the eye of West Wind, who married her, and she gave him twin sons. She named the first Sapling because he was kind and good and made things grow. And the other, she named Flint, for he was hard and cold and destroyed the new. He was about death and dying and darkness while Sapling was about life and living and light. They fought to the death of Flint, because he was about death and dying but Sapling lived because he was about God, creating and living. And so Turtle Island prospered with people and had its beginnings with Skywoman, her daughter, West Wind, Sappling and Flint.

And then later long ago, the peaceful tribe of the Ongiaras, who were also known as the Neutrals lived beside the Niagara River and one by one, their people were dying so they searched to find the reason why. They would send a canoe laden with fruit and flowers over the falls to satiate the Thunder God Hunin who lived in the caves behind the falls with his two sons. That was until the chief's daughter Lelawala, a beautiful virgin, decided to be the one to satiate the beast. Against her father Chief Eagle Eye's wishes, she mounded her headdress with woodland fruit and flowers and in a white doeskin robe climbed into a birch bark canoe and plunged to her death over the falls. Her father followed in his canoe in his grief over the falls. But in the spirit world, both of the Thunder God Hunin's sons caught her. Both desired her. She told them, whichever one could tell her what was killing her people would have her as his own. The youngest told her of a horned snake. So she came to her people as spirit and told them in their dreams to set a trap. The men went out and mortally wounded the snake who went back to his lair on the river, and caught his head on one side of the river and his tail on the other, creating a semi-circle and the brink of the Horseshoe Falls. Lelawala returned to the cave of the God Hunin, where she reigns today in the Mist.

LauraLee K. Harris