The Coming of Cluscabi
(Abenaki Northeast Woodlands)

After Tabaldak had finished making human beings,
he dusted his hands off and some of that dust sprinkled on the earth.

From that dust Gluscabi formed himself. He sat up from the Earth and said
“Here I am.” So it is that some of the Abenaki people call Gluscabi by
another name, “Odzihozo,” which means,
“the man who made himself from something.”
He was not as powerful as Tabaldak, The owner, but like his
Grand-children, the human beings, he had the power to change things,
Some times for the worse.

When Gluscabi sat up from the Earth, The Owner was astonished.
“How did it happen now that you came to be?” He said

Then Gluscabi said, “Well, it is because I formed myself from the dust left
over from the first humans that you made.”
“You are very wonderful,” The Owner told him.

“I am wonderful because you sprinkled me,” Cluscabi answered.
“Let us roam around now,” said the Owner. So they left that place and
went up the hill to the top of a mountain. There they gazed about,
open-eyed, so far around they could see. They could see the lakes,
the rivers, the tree, how all the land lay, the Earth.

Then the Owner said, “Behold here how wonderful is my work.
By the wish of my mind I created all this existing world, oceans, rivers, lakes.
”And he and Gluscabi gazed open-eyed.