From: Mineke Schipper, Humanity’s End as a New Beginning: World Disasters in Myths

25. Cracking rawhide

(Cherokee, Oklahoma)

The earth is like a great island floating on the waters. It is held up by rawhide at the four points of the compass. The rawhide has been fixed to a ceiling of rock crystal high up in the heavens. Sooner or later, this rawhide will grow old and crack, and ultimately it is going to break. And the earth is going to plunge back under the waters, so that all life will end. But then, for sure, as he did last time, the creator will pull the earth back out of the water, and he will re-create the world.