In the beginning there were no people on the earth. Lumawig,1 the Great Spirit, came down from the sky and cut many reeds.2 He divided these into pairs which he placed in different parts of the world, and then he said to them, “You must speak.” Immediately the reeds became people, and in each place was a man and a woman who could talk, but the language of each couple differed from that of the others.  
Then Lumawig commanded each man and woman to marry, which they did. By and by there were many children, all speaking the same language as their parents. [100]These, in turn, married and had many children. In this way there came to be many people on the earth.
 
Now Lumawig saw that there were several things which the people on the earth needed to use, so he set to work to supply them. He created salt, and told the inhabitants of one place to boil it down and sell it to their neighbors. But these people could not understand the directions of the Great Spirit, and th............