Eskimo (Lower Yukon)

IN the beginning there was water over all the earth. There were no people. It was very cold. The water was covered with ice, and the ice pieces ground together, making long ridges and hummocks.

Then a man came from the other side of the great water and stopped on the ice hills. He took for his wife a wolf. Then their children grew up. Each pair spoke a different language from that of their parents, or from that of their brothers and sisters. So each pair went out in a different direction and built houses on the ice hills. Then the snow melted and ran down the hillsides. It scooped out ravines and river beds and made the earth. Thus the earth was made and the people. That is why so many different languages are spoken.