Cherokee Legend
Stainless steel and brass
14' x 22 running feet (one of two pieces)
U.S. Xpress Enterprises
National Headquarters

 
The legend goes like this:
    The Earth is a great island floating in a sea of water and suspended at each of the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock.
    When all was water the animals were above, but it was crowded and they wanted more room.  They wondered what was below the water.  The little water beetle offered to go and see if it could learn.  It darted in every direction over the surface of the water but could find no firm place to rest.  Then it dived to the bottom and came up with some soft mud, which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island we call the Earth.
  At first the Earth was flat and very soft and wet.  The animals sent down the great buzzard, and he flew all over the Earth, and when he reached Cherokee country he was very tired and his wings began to flap and strike the ground, and wherever they struck the Earth there was a valley, and where they turned up again there was a mountain.  When the animals above saw this, they were afraid that the whole world would be mountains, so they called him back, but the Cherokee country remains full of mountains to this day.