Loon (Creation Bird)
The loon, also called the golden or diving bird, is the creation bird of Altai mythology, small but infinitely courageous, diving into the infinite primordial ocean and risking its life to bring up the mud from which the earth is made. Central to the Altai creation account, the diving-bird motif connects Altaian tradition to the broader family of Siberian and circumpolar earth-diver cosmogonies.