Limericks about Native American mythology

Before the arrival of the Catholic conquistadors and the runaway Puritans, the continents of the New World were abloom with colorful, magical, mystical traditions. Honoring all things on earth, both living and inanimate, as vessels of the Great Spirit, the native population lived in lofty harmony with nature.

Most indigenous people understood nature as a kind of pageantry in which they participated, rather than a nuisance to be dominated. Similarly, they did not see themselves as subjects to be ruled over by the gods, but as companions living in cooperation with the divine.

But these crude words are doomed to fall short of capturing the essence of Native American religion. Theirs was a belief system conveyed through the imagery of stories and legends, not through dialectical discourse. So without further exegesis, let’s enjoy a handful of those stories in limerick form.

Of Man and Clam
In a slippery mollusk, abandoned and feeble
The Raven arrived and he found the First People
Respecting this story
They gave him the glory
Erecting a totem instead of a steeple

Hiawatha
Hiawatha he warned us with words for the clan
The prophecy spoken and thus it began
A new day was coming
With colonists drumming
And paleface boding ill omens for man

Spider Woman of the Hopi
By Tawa, the Sun, all creatures were born
And from Spider Grandmother came people and corn
A goddess, protector
And cosmic connector
Who spins the fine web between darkness and morn

Trickster of the Navajo
A bag full of tricks and he can’t help but play them
Aware of the rules but he cannot obey them
His singular notion
Creating commotion
The wily coyote a master of mayhem

Big Turtle
The Iroquois people who speak of the tortoise
Have told of a place in the sky so enormous
The Great One descended
With all things invented
But only the turtle below can support us

Further Reading

In the beginning was the worm

The night before Christmas, revisited

Grateful Limericks for the Soul