The story of the wise badger, brave muskrat, and big crow tells the listener an earth diver creation story. Earth diver creation stories require that the Earth is not yet formed, and instead of being created from nothing (ex nihilo stories), it is formed from sand, dirt, or mud recovered from under a vast expanse of water. In this story, Wise Badger goes under the water himself, but in other stories, a supreme being gives the order to mystical beings, animals, to create a world to live on. Earth diver creation stories are often Native American, but they are also found in Finnic and Uralic regions. Historians suggest that the stories create a pattern of migration west into North America and west into Siberia.
