Buzzard

Mark Isaak

Flood Stories from Around the World

He collected tail-feathers of owls, hawks, eagles, and buzzards and traveled with them all over the earth.

Some birds, including the swallow, buzzard, raven, oriole, and hummingbird, clung to the sky with their bills.

They became dogs and buzzards and cleaned up the earth.

Tlapanac (south central Mexico):A buzzard told a man working in the fields not to work anymore and caused all the trees that had been cut to rise again.

The buzzard told the man to make a box for himself and take along in it a dog and a chicken.

When the waters lowered, the chicken turned into a buzzard, and the man lived with the dog.

When the waters receded, Noéh sent out a buzzard to see if the world was dry, but it stayed out to eat dead animals.

The buzzard became ugly because of his actions, and the trip of a person unmindful of his mission is called a "buzzard's trip." Petela, a great Zapotec chieftain of Ocelotepeque, was descended from the survivors of the flood.

In another version, the buzzard stayed to eat the dead and was condemned to be a scavenger.

God smelled the smoke and sent buzzard down to investigate, but buzzard stayed to eat the dead animals, and God condemned him to eat only rotten flesh thereafter.

God sent the buzzard, turkey buzzard, and churn-owl to investigate, but they stayed to eat dead bodies.

Some other angels were sent down; they were turned into buzzards when they ate the dead.

Christ sent a buzzard to investigate, but the buzzard stayed to eat fish.

The buzzard was condemned to eat only carrion thereafter.

He turned the man into a buzzard and his children into monkeys.

Creation Story

Cherokee Creation Story

Eventually, they sent out the Buzzard, the great Buzzard, the father of all buzzards we see now.

When the animals above saw this, they feared that the entire world would be covered in mountains, so they called the Buzzard back.