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I am unfamiliar with the tale of the ship moving from sea to sea, but I do know that there are Western tribes and Southern as well that believe their people arose from below the earth. I'm uncertain if water was involved. There is an island in Oregon where Native people hold it sacred. A mountain glacier lake, perhaps the deepest in the world, and this island is said to be the origin of their people. I talk about it in the Ley Line article if in our Main Library if you're interested. That concept I am familiar with though it seems to come more from the earth itself than water. There are also coastal tribes that believe life stems from the ocean/sea. So depending on the Creation myths one studies these tales are pretty pervasive and consistent in one form or another. Like you, I'm not sure we will ever know or have valid physical proof, at least not on an earthwalk but one never knows, look how long it took to rediscover the Dead Sea Scrolls. If it's meant to be known it will be and in the meantime we have the oral and written tellings to explore.

Once there was a chief whose wife, to the fear and wonder of the people, gave birth to four little monsters. The elders said: "These strange children will bring great misfortune. It would be better to kill them right now, for the sake of the tribe."

"No way will we kill them," said their mother. "These children will turn out all right, by and by."

But they didn't turn out all right. The small monsters grew fast, much faster than ordinary children, and became very big. They had four legs and arms each. They hurt other children' they upset tipis; they tore up buffalo robes; they befouled people's food.

A wise man, who could see things in his mind which had not yet happened, said: "Kill these strange bad things before they kill you."

But their mother said: "Never. They'll be fine young men some day."

They never became fine young men; instead they started killing and eating people. At that point all the men in the village rushed at them to do away with them, but by then it was too late. The monsters had become too big and too powerful to be killed.

They grew taller and taller. One day they went into the middle of the camp and stood back to back, one facing east, one facing south, one facing west, and one facing north. Their backs grew together, and they became one.

As they grew higher and higher, most people took refuge near the monsters' feet, where the huge creatures could not bend down to catch them. But people who stayed farther off were seized by mile-long arms, killed, and eaten. The four monsters, now grown together, rose up to the clousds, and their heads touched the sky.

Then the man who could see into the future heard a voice telling him to set up a hollow reed and plant it in the ground. The man did, and the reed grew bigger and bigger very fast. In no time it rose to touch the sky. The man heard the voice again, saying: "I will make a great flood. When the signs of bad things coming appear, you and your wife climb up inside the hollow cane. Be naked as you were born, and take with you a pair of all the good animals in order to save them."

The man asked: "What sign will you be sending?"

"When all the birds in the world--birds of the woods, the sea, the deserts, and the high mountains--form up into a cloud flying from north to south, that will be the sign. Watch for the cloud of birds."

One day the man looked up and saw a big cloud made up of birds traveling from north to south. At once he and his wife moved up into the hollow reed, taking with them all the animals they wished to save.

Then it began to rain and did not stop. Waters covered the earth and kept rising until only the top of the hollow cane and the heads of the monsters were left above the surface.

Inside the hollow reed, the man and his wive heard the voice again: "Now I shall send Turtle to destroy the monsters."

The monsters' heads were saying to each other: "Brothers, I'm getting tired. My legs are weakening. I can't keep standing much longer."

The floods swirled around them with strong currents that almost swept them away. The the Great Turtle began digging down underneath the monsters' feet. It uprooted them, and they could not keep their footing but broke apart and toppled over. They fell down into the waters one sinking toward the north, one toward the east, one toward the south, and one toward the west. Thus the four directions came into being.

After the monsters had drowned, the waters subsided. First the mountaintops reappeared, then the rest of the land. Next came hard=blowing winds that dried the eart. The man climbed down to the bottom of the hollow reed and opened the hole at its foot. He looked out. He stuck out his hand and felt around. He said to his wife: "Come out. Everything is dry."

So they emerged, followed by all the animals. They left the reed, which collapsed and disappeared. But when they stepped out on the earth, it was bare; nothing was growing.

The wife said: "Husband, there's nothing here and we are naked. How shall we live?"

The man said: "Go to sleep." They lay down and slept, and when they woke the next morning, all kinds of herbs had sprung up around them.

The second night while they slept, trees and bushes grew. Now there was firewood to keep them warm, and all kinds of woods for making bows and arrows.

During the third night green grass covered the earth, and animals appeared to graze on it.

The man and his wife went to sleep a fourth time and woke up inside a grass hut. They stepped out and found a stalk of corn. Then they heard the voice say: "This will be your holy food." It told the woman how to plant and harvest the corn and ended with: "Now you have everything you need. Now you can live. Now you will have children and form a new generation. If you, woman, should plant corn, and something other than corn comes up, then know that the world will come to its end."

After that they never heard the voice again.

---Retold from various sources.

A certain man had a Dog. One day the Dog looked westward and began howling. The man also had a hen and chickens which began to dance about in the stomp dance. Then the man said to his Dog, "Why are you howling?" "I have discovered something that is making me howl. In about four days everything is going to be overflowed with water. you ought to make a raft on which to escape, gather all the wood you can on top of it, and keep a little fire burning upon it. When you have finished the raft plait a hickory rope with which to tie it so that it will not drift off into the ocean."

After the man had gotten everything gathered together the mountains burst open and water poured from them, flooding everything. He and the Dog got on the raft. The Dog had siad, "when all the mountains burst open all kinds of dangerous creatures will appear. Therefore get a forked stick made of sumac, take the bark off, and use it to push away anything that comes toward your raft." When the water rose the raft rose upon it, and many people could be seen climbing up into the trees. When it rose still higher the man could see all sorts of dangerous creatures swimming about devouring people.

Finally the flood rose so high that allliving things were drowned out and he was carried far up above the clouds where the country looked as it does on earth, all mountains and rocks. There were also all kinds of cedars and birds hanging to them. then the Dog asked him to throw him off saying, "You will go back by yourself to the place from which you started. When the water begins to fall you must return, but you must stay on the raft seven days before you get off. It will be too boggy until then."

After some hesitation the man obeyed his Dog and threw him off into the water. On the seventh day after his return people began to appear to get fire from that he had on his raft. some of them were naked, some wore ragged clothes, and some wore very good clothes. After they had divided the fire up and the ground had begun to get firm he kept hearing noises toward the east as if there were people there. He went in that direction in order to find them, but when he reached the place where he had thought they were he found none, and the noises turned out to have been made by all kinds of bugs and mosquitoes. By and by an old man came and stood near him. He said, "all these noises you hear are made by people you think are not living. You must know that they are living. The people that came to get fire were people that had died a long time ago. Some had not been dead so long as others. They have kept on living until the present time."