AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS Read online

  Copyright © 1984 by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1984.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Main entry under title:

  Amerxican Indian myths and legends.

  (Pantheon fairy tale & folklore library)

  Bibliography: p.

  1. Indians of North America—Legends. 2. Indians of North America—Religion and mythology. I. Erdoes, Richard. II. Ortiz, Alfonso, 1939– . III. Series.

  E98.F6A47 1984 389.2′08997 84–42669

  ISBN 0-394-74018-1 (Pbk.)

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-8041-5175-7

  v3.1

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint or adapt from previously published material. In the case of adaptation, the authors may have retitled the tales.

  “Origin of the Gnawing Beaver” and “The Flood,” adapted from Haïda Myths Illustrated in Argillite Carvings, edited by Marius Barbeau, Bulletin no. 127, Anthropological Series no. 32 (Ottawa, 1953), pp. 52–56 and 184–185. By permission of the National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada.

  “How Coyote Got His Cunning” and “The Coming of Thunder” from California Indian Nights Entertainments by E. W. Gifford. Copyright © 1930 by the Arthur H. Clark Company. By permission of the Arthur H. Clark Company.

  “Coyote Fights a Lump of Pitch,” “Coyote Gets Rich Off the White Men,” “Coyote Steals Sun’s Tobacco,” and “Turkey Makes the Corn and Coyote Plants It” from “Tales of the White Mountain Apache” by Grenville Goodwin in Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, vol. 33. Copyright © 1939 by the American Folklore Society. By permission of the American Folklore Society.

  “Always-Living-at-the-Coast,” “Coyote and the Mallard Ducks,” and “Coyote Takes Water from the Frog People” from Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with His Daughter by Barry Holstun Lopez. Copyright © 1977 by Barry Holstun Lopez. By permission of the author and Andrews & McMeel, Inc., Fairway, Kansas.

  “Apache Chief Punishes His Wife” from “Taos Tales” by Elsie Clews Parsons in Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, vol. 34. Copyright © 1940 by the American Folklore Society. By permission of the American Folklore Society.

  “A Legend of Multnomah Falls,” “Creation of the Animal People,” “Creation of the Yakima World,” “People Brought in a Basket,” “Kulshan and His Two Wives,” “When Grizzlies Walked Upright,” “Pushing Up the Sky,” “The Elk Spirit of Lost Lake,” and “Playing a Trick on the Moon” from Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest by Ella E. Clark. Copyright © 1953 by the Regents of the University of California. By permission of the University of California Press.

  “The Buffalo Go” from American Indian Mythology by Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin (Thomas Y. Crowell Co.). Copyright © 1968 by Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin. By permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  PART ONE

  RABBIT BOY KICKED THAT BLOOD CLOT AROUND:

  TALES OF HUMAN CREATION

  RABBIT BOY (WHITE RIVER SIOUX)

  BLOOD CLOT (SOUTHERN UTE)

  CORN MOTHER (PENOBSCOT)

  CREATION OF THE ANIMAL PEOPLE (OKANOGAN)

  STONE BOY (BRULE SIOUX)

  THE POWERFUL BOY (SENECA)

  GLOOSCAP AND THE BABY (ALGONQUIAN)

  THE OLD WOMAN OF THE SPRING (CHEYENNE)

  ARROW BOY (CHEYENNE)

  THE GREAT MEDICINE DANCE (CHEYENNE)

  THE ORIGIN OF CURING CEREMONIES (WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE)

  CREATION OF FIRST MAN AND FIRST WOMAN (NAVAJO)

  HOW MEN AND WOMEN GOT TOGETHER (BLOOD-PIEGAN)

  THE WELL-BAKED MAN (PIMA)

  THE WHITE BUFFALO WOMAN (BRULE SIOUX)

  THE ORPHAN BOY AND THE ELK DOG (BLACKFOOT)

  SALT WOMAN IS REFUSED FOOD (COCHITI)

  THE SACRED WEED (BLACKFOOT)

  HOW GRANDFATHER PEYOTE CAME TO THE INDIAN PEOPLE (BRULE SIOUX)

  THE VISION QUEST (BRULE SIOUX)

  PART TWO

  THE PLACE OF EMERGENCE:

  TALES OF WORLD CREATION

  THE GOOD TWIN AND THE EVIL TWIN (YUMA)

  THE JICARILLA GENESIS (JICARILLA APACHE)

  WHEN GRIZZLIES WALKED UPRIGHT (MODOC)

  OLD MAN COYOTE MAKES THE WORLD (CROW)

  HOW THE SIOUX CAME TO BE (BRULE SIOUX)

  PUSHING UP THE SKY (SNOHOMISH)

  EMERGING INTO THE UPPER WORLD (ACOMA)

  EARTH MAKING (CHEROKEE)

  THE EARTH DRAGON (NORTHERN CALIFORNIA COAST)

  PEOPLE BROUGHT IN A BASKET (MODOC)

  GREAT MEDICINE MAKES A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY (CHEYENNE)

  THE WHITE DAWN OF THE HOPI (HOPI)

  CREATION OF THE YAKIMA WORLD (YAKIMA)

  CHILDREN OF THE SUN (OSAGE)

  THE VOICE, THE FLOOD, AND THE TURTLE (CADDO)

  A TALE OF ELDER BROTHER (PIMA)

  PART THREE

  THE EYE OF THE GREAT SPIRIT:

  TALES OF THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS

  SUN CREATION (BRULE SIOUX)

  WALKS-ALL-OVER-THE-SKY (TSIMSHIAN)

  THREE-LEGGED RABBIT FIGHTS THE SUN (WESTERN ROCKIES)

  COYOTE STEALS THE SUN AND MOON (ZUNI)

  KEEPING WARMTH IN A BAG (SLAVEY)

  THE HOPI BOY AND THE SUN (HOPI)

  A GUST OF WIND (OJIBWAY)

  DAUGHTER OF THE SUN (CHEROKEE)

  GRANDMOTHER SPIDER STEALS THE SUN (CHEROKEE)

  THE STORY OF THE CREATION (DIEGUEÑOS)

  THE FOOLISH GIRLS (OJIBWAY)

  MOON RAPES HIS SISTER SUN (INUIT)

  SUN TEACHES VEEHO A LESSON (CHEYENNE)

  LITTLE BROTHER SNARES THE SUN (WINNEBAGO)

  THE SCABBY ONE LIGHTS THE SKY (TOLTEC)

  PLAYING A TRICK ON THE MOON (SNOQUALMIE)

  THE THEFT OF LIGHT (TSIMSHIAN)

  COYOTE PLACES THE STARS (WASCO)

  DEER HUNTER AND WHITE CORN MAIDEN (TEWA)

  PART FOUR

  ORDEALS OF THE HERO:

  MONSTERS AND MONSTER SLAYERS

  GLOOSCAP FIGHTS THE WATER MONSTER (PASSAMAQUODDY, MICMAC, AND MALISEET)

  LITTLE-MAN-WITH-HAIR-ALL-OVER (METIS)

  HOW MOSQUITOES CAME TO BE (TLINGIT)

  HIAWATHA THE UNIFIER (IROQUOIS)

  THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SWEET MEDICINE (NORTHERN CHEYENNE)

  THE QUILLWORK GIRL AND HER SEVEN STAR BROTHERS (CHEYENNE)

  ROLLING HEAD (WINTU)

  SON OF LIGHT KILLS THE MONSTER (HOPI)

  THE COMING OF THUNDER (MIWOK)

  WAKINYAN TANKA, THE GREAT THUNDERBIRD (BRULE SIOUX)

  COYOTE KILLS THE GIANT (FLATHEAD)

  A LEGEND OF DEVIL’S TOWER (SIOUX)

  THE FLYING HEAD (IROQUOIS)

  THE FIRST SHIP (CHINOOK)

  CHASE OF THE SEVERED HEAD (CHEYENNE)

  UNCEGILA’S SEVENTH SPOT (BRULE SIOUX)

  PART FIVE

  COUNTING COUP: WAR AND THE WARRIOR CODE

  LITTLE MOUSE COUNTING COUP (BRULE SIOUX)

  TWO BULLETS AND TWO ARROWS (BRULE SIOUX)

  A CHEYENNE BLANKET (PAWNEE)

  THE WARRIOR MAIDEN (ONEIDA)

  THE SIEGE OF COURTHOUSE ROCK (WHITE RIVER SIOUX)

  CHIEF ROMAN NOSE LOSES HIS MEDICINE (WHITE RIVER SIOUX)

 
BRAVE WOMAN COUNTS COUP (WHITE RIVER SIOUX)

  SPOTTED EAGLE AND BLACK CROW (WHITE RIVER SIOUX)

  WHERE THE GIRL SAVED HER BROTHER (CHEYENNE)

  TATANKA IYOTAKE’S DANCING HORSE (BRULE SIOUX)

  PART SIX

  THE SOUND OF FLUTES:

  TALES OF LOVE AND LUST

  THE LEGEND OF THE FLUTE (BRULE SIOUX)

  TEACHING THE MUDHEADS HOW TO COPULATE (ZUNI)

  THE FIGHT FOR A WIFE (ALEUT)

  TEETH IN THE WRONG PLACES (PONCA-OTOE)

  THE STOLEN WIFE (TEWA)

  TOLOWIM WOMAN AND BUTTERFLY MAN (MAIDU)

  APACHE CHIEF PUNISHES HIS WIFE (TIWA)

  THE HUSBAND’S PROMISE (TEWA)

  THE MAN WHO MARRIED THE MOON (ISLETA PUEBLO)

  WHY MOLE LIVES UNDERGROUND (CHEROKEE)

  A LEGEND OF MULTNOMAH FALLS (MULTNOMAH)

  THE INDUSTRIOUS DAUGHTER WHO WOULD NOT MARRY (COCHITI)

  THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED A MERMAN (COOS)

  COYOTE’S STRAWBERRY (CROW)

  THE FAITHFUL WIFE AND THE WOMAN WARRIOR (TIWA)

  COYOTE AND THE MALLARD DUCKS (NEZ PERCÉ)

  THE GREEDY FATHER (KAROK)

  KULSHAN AND HIS TWO WIVES (LUMNI)

  MEN AND WOMEN TRY LIVING APART (SIA)

  A CONTEST FOR WIVES (COCHITI)

  THE SERPENT OF THE SEA (ZUNI)

  PART SEVEN

  COYOTE LAUGHS AND CRIES: TRICKSTER TALES

  COYOTE, IKTOME, AND THE ROCK (WHITE RIVER SIOUX)

  WHAT’S THIS? MY BALLS FOR YOUR DINNER? (WHITE RIVER SIOUX)

  COYOTE AND WASICHU (BRULE SIOUX)

  HOW BEAVER STOLE FIRE FROM THE PINES (NEZ PERCE)

  THE RAVEN (ATHAPASCAN)

  THE BLUEBIRD AND COYOTE (PIMA)

  ADVENTURES OF GREAT RABBIT (ALGONQUIAN)

  TURKEY MAKES THE CORN AND COYOTE PLANTS IT (WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE)

  COYOTE TAKES WATER FROM THE FROG PEOPLE (KALAPUYA)

  HOW THE PEOPLE GOT ARROWHEADS (SHASTA)

  IKTOME AND THE IGNORANT GIRL (BRULE SIOUX)

  COYOTE FIGHTS A LUMP OF PITCH (WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE)

  ALWAYS-LIVING-AT-THE-COAST (KWAKIUTL)

  GLOOSCAP GRANTS THREE WISHES (ALGONQUIAN)

  COYOTE’S RABBIT CHASE (TEWA)

  COYOTE GETS RICH OFF THE WHITE MEN (WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE)

  IKTOME SLEEPS WITH HIS WIFE BY MISTAKE (BRULE SIOUX)

  HOW TO SCARE A BEAR (TEWA)

  COYOTE STEALS SUN’S TOBACCO (WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE)

  DOING A TRICK WITH EYEBALLS (NORTHERN CHEYENNE)

  IKTOME HAS A BAD DREAM (BRULE SIOUX)

  HOW COYOTE GOT HIS CUNNING (KAROK)

  COYOTE AND THE TWO FROG WOMEN (ALSEA)

  COYOTE DANCES WITH A STAR (CHEYENNE)

  PART EIGHTH

  FOUR LEGS, TWO LEGS, AND NO LEGS:

  STORIES OF ANIMALS AND OTHER PEOPLE

  THE GREAT RACE (CHEYENNE)

  ORIGIN OF THE GNAWING BEAVER (HAIDA)

  HOW THE CROW CAME TO BE BLACK (BRULE SIOUX)

  THE GIRL WHO MARRIED RATTLESNAKE (POMO)

  WHY THE OWL HAS BIG EYES (IROQUOIS)

  THE OWL HUSBAND (PASSAMAQUODDY)

  THE DOGS HOLD AN ELECTION (BRULE SIOUX)

  THE SNAKE BROTHERS (BRULE SIOUX)

  BUTTERFLIES (PAPAGO)

  THE REVENGE OF BLUE CORN EAR MAIDEN (HOPI)

  THE MEETING OF THE WILD ANIMALS (TSIMSHIAN)

  A FISH STORY (TEWA)

  THE NEGLECTFUL MOTHER (COCHITI)

  THE BEAR AND HIS INDIAN WIFE (HAIDA)

  WAKIASH AND THE FIRST TOTEM POLE (KWAKIUTL)

  PART NINE

  SOMETHING WHISTLING IN THE NIGHT:

  GHOSTS AND THE SPIRIT WORLD

  TWO GHOSTLY LOVERS (BRULE SIOUX)

  THE MAN WHO WAS AFRAID OF NOTHING (BRULE SIOUX)

  THE LAND OF THE DEAD (SERRANO)

  THE DOUBLE-FACED GHOST (CHEYENNE)

  A JOURNEY TO THE SKELETON HOUSE (HOPI)

  THE SKELETON WHO FELL DOWN PIECE BY PIECE (ISLETA PUEBLO)

  THE SPIRIT WIFE (ZUNI)

  THE TRANSFORMED GRANDMOTHER (PIMA-PAPAGO)

  BIG EATER’S WIFE (PEQUOD)

  THE ORIGIN OF THE HOPI SNAKE DANCE (TEWA)

  BLUE JAY VISITS GHOST TOWN (CHINOOK)

  THE GHOST WIFE (BRULE SIOUX)

  PART TEN

  ONLY THE ROCKS AND MOUNTAINS LAST FOREVER:

  VISIONS OF THE END

  WOMAN CHOOSES DEATH (BLACKFOOT)

  COYOTE AND THE ORIGIN OF DEATH (CADDO)

  THE FLOOD (HAIDA)

  THE SEER WHO WOULD NOT SEE (PIMA)

  THE ELK SPIRIT OF LOST LAKE (WASCO)

  THE DEATH OF HEAD CHIEF AND YOUNG MULE (NORTHERN CHEYENNE)

  THE GHOST DANCE AT WOUNDED KNEE (BRULE SIOUX)

  THE GNAWING (CHEYENNE)

  THE END OF THE WORLD (WHITE RIVER SIOUX)

  MONTEZUMA AND THE GREAT FLOOD (PAPAGO)

  THE BUFFALO GO (KIOWA)

  THE COMING OF WASICHU (BRULE SIOUX)

  REMAKING THE WORLD (BRULE SIOUX)

  APPENDIX

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INTRODUCTION

  The 166 legends recorded here come from the heart and soul of the native people of North America. Some have been told for thousands of years, and they are still being told and retold, reshaped and refitted to meet their audience’s changing needs, even created anew out of a contemporary man’s or woman’s vision. They arise out of the earth—the plants, herbs, and animals which are integral parts of the human realm. They are imbedded in the ancient languages and flow according to the rhythms of the natural world—a different pace indeed from that of a technological, man-made environment. Most industrialized people, eyes ever on the clock, fragmented by the pressing problems of a split-second, microchip society, have little time or inclination, it seems, to speculate on the communal nature of the universe. Mutually shared and supportive legends about the beginning and end of the world (and what happens in between) seem hopelessly beyond their vision.

  The native American, following the pace of “Indian time,” still lives connected to the nurturing womb of mythology. Mysterious but real power dwells in nature—in mountains, rivers, rocks, even pebbles. White people may consider them inanimate objects, but to the Indian, they are enmeshed in the web of the universe, pulsating with life and potent with medicine. As Ernst Cassirer has written, “The mythical world is at a much more fluid and fluctuating stage than our theoretical world … The world of myth is a dramatical world—a world of actions, of forces, of conflicting powers. In every phenomenon of nature it sees the collision of these powers. Mythical perception is always impregnated with these emotional qualities.”*

  The world of the Pueblo Indians is bounded mythically and geographically by four sacred mountains, where holy men still go on pilgrimages to pray for rain and to gather medicines. The associations between geography and mythic events are strong; the mountains of the Northwest, for example, were believed by the native inhabitants to have once been people who fought, schemed, loved, and were eventually given the form they now have by the all-powerful One, mostly as punishment for making trouble. The firmament is filled with stars and planets who were once on earth, human lovers fated to chase each other across the evening sky into eternity. Such roles are not fixed, either; the sun, moon, and morning star seem free to take human form and roam the earth, seeking love and other adventures.

  The links between the historic past and the present through myth are strong. Archeologists’ evidence shows that the Iroquois of the Northeast have possessed a viable material culture continuously for several thousand years, a chain reflected in an extant body of folklore which has survived despite the attempts of many generations of white society to eradicate (or negatively stereotype) Indian history and culture. The effects of white culture on many other regions, with the notable exceptions of the Southwest and the Plains, and to a degree the Northwest, have been devastating, with whole bodies of Indian literature e
rased, or warped beyond recognition in their contemporary representations.

  Where legends endure, they do so fiercely. Tunka, the stone god, is the Sioux’s oldest god, and men still carry oddly shaped pebbles, bits of flint, or lumps of fossil agate in their medicine bundles. They still pray to special sacred rocks and tell legends about them. Rivers, lakes, waterfalls, and mountains are the abodes of spirits and often appear as living characters in stories. Even today a Sioux or Cheyenne might say, “I felt the sacred pipe move in my hands. It was alive. Power flowed from it.” Or, “When I touched the sacred sun dance pole, I felt that it was flesh, warm flesh.” The ancient tokens and symbols still exist and are carefully preserved. Modern equipment is no match. When the Sioux medicine man Lame Deer first traveled on a modern jet, he immediately related his Boeing 707 to the Wakinyan, the Thunderbirds, whose awesome power ignites the lightning. The airplane suffered greatly by comparison.

  To those used to the patterns of European fairy tales and folktales, Indian legends often seem chaotic, inconsistent, or incomplete. Plots seem to travel at their own speed, defying convention and at times doing away completely with recognizable beginnings and endings. Coyote is a powerful creator one moment, a sniveling coward the next. Infants display alarming talents or powers; births and deaths alternate as fast as night and day. To try to apply conventional (Western) logic is not only impossible but unnecessary; spinning out a single image or episode may be the salient feature of—indeed, the whole reason for—telling a tale, and stories are often told in chains, one word, character, or idea bringing to mind a related one, prompting another storyteller to offer a contribution. The howling wind, the bubbling brook, the shrieking magpie all suggest, in their vital immediacy, stories, out of which legends are created. Stories are told for adults and children alike, as elements in solemn ceremonies and as spontaneous creations. Rather then being self-contained units, they are often incomplete episodes in a progression that goes back deep into a tribe’s traditions.

  Long ago Hubert Howe Bancroft wrote, “Language is thought incarnate; mythology soul incarnate. The one is the instrument of thought, the other the essence of thought. In mythology, language assumes personality and independence. Often the significance of the words becomes the essential idea.”† Thus the word for “sun” becomes the name of the sun god, the word for “moon” the name of the moon goddess. The words themselves take on potency, as the Sioux medicine man Leonard Crow Dog explains:

  Our modern Sioux language has been white-manized. There’s no power in it. I get my knowledge of the old tales of my people out of a drum, or the sound of a flute, out of my visions and out of our sacred herb pejuta, but above all out of the ancient words from way back, the words of the grandfathers, the language that was there at the beginning of time, the language given to We-Ota-Wichasha, Blood Clot Boy. If that language, these words, should ever die, then our legends will die too.