Did native Americans claim that there were people in America before them and that when they arrived they ran away and hid themselves?

20 comments

1. Where did you hear that?

2. No they dont. Not in the slightest.

3. Maybe some did. They had a wide variety of creation stories, like we do.

4. The Native Americans still exist! In Texas the Apache, Comanche, and Tonkawa still live here. Where did you get your question from?

5. The difficult part about Native American history prior to Europeans arriving is it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish legend from fact.

   Often when speaking about Native American history it’s often prefaced by “it’s believed” or “it quite possibly”.

6. If you find a Native American who believes in Mormonism they might believe that

7. Disclaimer: I’m white.

   To the best of my knowledge, most indigenous Americans believe they’ve been here since the beginning of time. That doesn’t mean they don’t understand or acknowledge the scientific evidence that has them coming here from SE Asia many thousands of years ago, but their religions have stories that place them as being created here.

8. Which Native Americans? Each tribe has its own mythology. But to answer your question, I’ve never heard of anything like that.

9. Do you mean people *before* the Native Americans? I’ve never heard that. But, I’m not well-versed in Native American mythology (which is quite variable, there are many tribes with very different histories).

10. Only native American origin story I’ve ever heard is that they were always here from the beginning of time

11. Native Americans still exist, by the million. If you’re interested in learning origin stories or beliefs try /r/indiancountry

12. Are you referring to the [moon-eyed people?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon-eyed_people) That’s supposedly a Cherokee legend but I have no idea if it’s a widely held belief.

13. I have never heard that story.

14. Every Tribe has its own origin story, and they’re prolly fairly accurate beside the mythical aspects.

    Some Tribes have stories of existing people when they moved into a area ect,

    The History of People in the Americas is constantly being updated and the dates pushed back. Last I seen was like 200K years BC or such. People have existed here for a long time, and prolly came in many different waves. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Neanderthals or Some other pre-modern humans here.

15. Doubt it as many of the Native American tribes descended from the first people to inhabit North America. The Clovis People immigrated from Asia over 13K years ago over the ice spanning between Russia and Alaska.

16. Maybe? I have not heard that one.

    One thing you have to realize about native Americans is that it’s a diverse group.

17. Many of the tribe creation myths in the new world have people there already. I don’t know of any that claimed they hid though. The oldest sites in the new world predate the Native Americans coming to the new world however.

18. For a long time the agreed upon “facts” were that the Clovis people were the earliest inhabitants of North America, but there is a lot of evidence of what are referred to as Pre-Clovis people that is now becoming more and more accepted by academia. That said, academia is slow (and sometimes unwilling) to accept theories that disprove the generally accepted narratives they’ve been putting forth.

    I’m sure there is native lore that refers to some of these peoples in some fashion or another.

    Very interesting stuff to learn about!

19. Sadly, when the settler arrived… they had a whole bunch of diseases that killed a huge number of native Americans.

20. Every Tribe has their own mythos but I have never heard on that is as you describe.