The old woman was cooking some meat. When it was done he ate it, though it didn’t taste good. Later she fixed a dirty old buffalo robe for him to sleep on, but he sensed danger and felt wide awake.
“I have a backache,” the woman said. “Before you go to sleep, I wish you would rub it for me by walking up and down my back. I am old and alone, and I have nobody to help with my pain.”
She lay down, and Stone Boy began walking on her back. As he did, he felt something sticking up under her buckskin robe, something sharp like a knife or a needle or the point of a spear. “Maybe she used this sharp tool to kill my uncles,” he thought. “Maybe she put poison from a snake on its point. Yes, that must be so.”
Iyan Hokshi, having pondered, jumped high in the air, as high as he could, and came down on that old woman’s back with a crash. He jumped and jumped until he was exhausted and the hag was lying dead with a broken back.
Then Iyan Hokshi walked over to the big bundles, which were wrapped in animal hides and lashed together with rawhide thongs. He unwrapped them and found five men, dead and dried like jerked meat, hardly human-looking. “These must be my uncles,” he thought, but he didn’t know how to bring them back to life.
Outside the ugly tipi was a heap of rocks, round gray stones. He found that they were talking and that he could understand them. “Iyan Hokshi, Stone Boy, you are one of us, you come from us, you come from Tunka, you come from Iyan. Listen; pay attention.”
Following their instructions, he built a little dome-like hut out of bent willow sticks. He covered it with the old woman’s buffalo robes and put the five dead, dried-up humans inside. Out in the open he built a big fire. He set the rocks right in the flames, picked up the old woman, and threw her in to burn up.
After the rocks glowed red-hot, Stone Boy found a deer antler and used it to carry them one by one into the little hut he had made. He picked up the old woman’s water bag, a buffalo bladder decorated with quillwork, and filled it with water. He drew its rawhide tie tight and took it inside too. Then he placed the dried humans around him in a circle.
Iyan Hokshi closed the entrance of his little lodge with a flap of buffalo robe, so that no air could escape or enter. Pouring water from the bag over them, he thanked the rocks, saying, “You brought me here.” Four times he poured the water; four times he opened the flap and closed it. Always he spoke to the rocks and they to him. As he poured, the little lodge filled with steam so that he could see nothing but the white mist in the darkness. When he poured water a second time, he sensed a stirring. When he poured the third time, he began to sing. And when he poured the fourth time, those dead, dried-up things also began to sing and talk.
“I believe they have come to life,” thought Iyan Hokshi, the Stone Boy. “Now I want to see my uncles.”
He opened the flap for the last time, watching the steam flow out and rise into the sky as a feathery cloud. The bonfire and the moonlight both shone into the little sweat lodge, and by their light he saw five good-looking young men sitting inside. He said, “Hou, lekshi, you must be my uncles.” They smiled and laughed, happy to be alive again.
Iyan Hokshi said, “This is what my mother—your sister—wanted. This is what she wished for.”
He also told them: “The rock saved me, and now it has saved you. Iyan, Tunka—rock—Tunka, Iyan. Tunkashila, the Grandfather Spirit, we will learn to worship. This little lodge, these rocks, the water, the fire—these are sacred, these we will use from now on as we have done here for the first time: for purification, for life, for wichosani, for health. All this has been given to us so that we may live. We shall be a tribe.”
—Told by Henry Crow Dog, February 26, 1968, at Rosebud, South Dakota, and recorded by Richard Erdoes.
Henry Crow Dog is a full-blooded Sioux elder with a majestic face, craggy as the Black Hills themselves. He is the grandson of the famous Crow Dog, a chief, warrior, and leader of the Ghost Dancers. The first Crow Dog once voluntarily drove 150 miles to his own hanging for killing his rival, Chief Spotted Tail, only to be freed on orders of the Supreme Court, which ruled that federal law had no jurisdiction on an Indian reservation.
THE POWERFUL BOY
[SENECA]
The Seneca, one of the Iroquois nations of the Northeast, have their own version of the all-conquering little one.
A man and his wife lived with their five-year-old son in an ugly-looking lodge in the woods. One day the woman died giving birth to another boy, who was bright and lively but no longer than a person’s hand. Thinking that the infant would not live, the father wrapped it carefully and placed it in a hollow tree outside the lodge. After that he burned the body of the mother.
Then as he had done before, the man went hunting every day. The five-year-old played around the lodge by himself, feeling lonely. After a time he heard crying from the hollow tree, for the baby too was lonely, and hungry as well. When he discovered his little brother, the boy made him some soup from deer intestines, which the baby drank with relish. Much stronger, the newborn crawled out of the tree, and the two played together. The older brother made a little coat out of fawn skin; when he put it on, the baby looked like a chipmunk scampering around.
When he came home, the father noticed that the deer intestines were gone and asked the boy what he had done with them. “Oh,” said the child, “I was hungry.”
Seeing a small track of very short steps around the fire, the father said, “Here are a boy’s tracks. Who is it?” So his son confessed that he had found his little brother in a hollow tree, and that he had given him soup and made him a fawn-skin coat.
“Go and bring him,” said the father.
“He’s shy; he won’t come for anything,” the boy said.
“Well, we’ll catch him. Ask him to hunt mice with you in the old stump behind the hollow tree, and I’ll get him.”
Gathering a great many mice, the man hid them in his clothes. Then he walked beyond the tree and crouched down so that he looked like an old stump.
The boy went to the tree and called, “Come on, let’s catch some mice.” The baby climbed out, and they rushed around the stump catching mice. Wild with excitement, the tiny thing laughed and shouted; he had never had so much fun.
Suddenly the stump turned into a man, who caught the little one in his arms and ran to the lodge. The infant screamed and struggled, but it was no use; he couldn’t get away, and he would not be pacified until his father put a small club into his hand and said. “Now hit that tree.” The baby struck a great hickory. The tree fell. Then he laid about him with the club, and everything he hit at was either crushed or killed. He was delighted and stopped crying.
Now the baby stayed with his older brother while their father went hunting. “You must not go to the north while I’m away,” the father told them. “Bad, dangerous people live there.”
But when the father had left, the tiny one said to his brother, “Oh, let’s go north; I want to see what’s there.”
The boys started off and walked until they came to wooded, marshy ground. Then they heard what sounded like many people calling, “My father! My father!” Actually they were frogs singing the frog song, “Nohqwa! Nohqwa!”
“Oh, these people want to hurt my father!” the little boy cried. He fixed himself a pile of red-hot stones and, hurling them at the frogs, killed every one.
When the boys came home, their father was very angry. “You must not go again,” he said. “And you must not go west; it’s dangerous there too.”
But the next day when their father had left, the little boy said, “I want to see what’s in the west; let’s go there.” So they traveled westward until they came to a tall pine tree, with a bed made of skins at the very top. “That’s a strange place for a bed,” the little boy said to his brother. “I’ll climb up and look at it.”
Up he went. In the bed at the top he found two naked, frightened children, a boy and a girl. He pinched the naked boy, who called out, “Father, Father! Some strange child has come a
nd scared me nearly to death!”
Suddenly the voice of Thunder was heard in the far west. It rumbled toward them faster and faster until it reached the bed in the treetop. Raising his club, the little boy, the powerful one, struck Thunder and crushed his head, so that he fell dead to the ground.
Then the boy pinched the naked girl, which made her call, “Mother! Mother! Some strange boy is tormenting me!” Instantly the voice of Mother Thunder sounded in the west and grew louder until she stood by the tree. The powerful boy struck her on the head as he had done with her husband, and she fell dead.
The powerful one thought, “This Thunder boy would make a fine tobacco pouch for my father. I’ll take him home.” He struck the boy with his club and then threw both children to the ground.
The two brothers went home, and the tiny one said, “Oh, Father! I have brought you a splended pouch!”
“What have you done?” the father said when he saw the dead Thunder baby. “These Thunders have never harmed us. They bring rain and do us good, but now they will destroy us to revenge their children.”
“Oh, they won’t hurt us—I’ve killed the whole family,” the powerful boy replied. So the father took the skin for a tobacco pouch, but he said, “You must never go north to the country where Stone Coat lives.”
The next day the older brother would not disobey his father, so the powerful boy headed north by himself. About noon he heard the loud barking of Stone Coat’s dog, which was as tall as a deer. Thinking that the master must be close by, the little boy jumped into the heart of a chestnut tree to hide. The dog kept barking, and Stone Coat came up to look around. “There’s nothing here,” he said, but the dog barked and stared at the tree. Finally Stone Coat struck the tree with his club and split it open.
“What a strange little fellow you are,” Stone Coat said, looking at the boy as he came out. “You’re not big enough to fill a hole in my tooth.”
“Oh, I didn’t come to fill holes in your teeth. I came to go home with you and see how you live,” said the boy.
“All right, come on,” Stone Coat said, and began walking with enormous steps. In his belt he carried two great bears, which seemed as small as squirrels. Once in a while he would look far down and say to the boy running by his side, “You’re a funny little creature!”
His lodge was huge and very long; the boy had never seen anything like it. Stone Coat skinned the two bears, put one before his visitor, and otok the other for himself. “You eat this bear,” he said, “or I’ll eat you and him together.”
“If you don’t eat yours before I eat mine, may I kill you?” asked the boy.
“Oh, yes,” said Stone Coat.
The little boy cut off pieces of meat, cleaned them as fast as he could, and put them into his mouth. Then he ran out of the lodge to hide the meat. He kept running in and out, in and out, until all the flesh of his bear had disappeared. “You haven’t finished yours yet,” he said to Stone Coat. “I’m going to kill you!”
“Wait until I show you how to slide downhill,” Stone Coat said, and took him to a long, slippery hillside which ended in a cave. Putting the boy in a wooden bowl. Stone Coat sent him down at great speed. But presently the powerful boy ran up the slope again.
“Where did you leave the bowl?” asked the surprised Stone Coat.
“Oh, I don’t know—down there, I suppose,” the boy replied.
“Well, let’s see who can kick this log highest,” said Stone Coat.
“You try first,” said the little one.
The log was two feet thick and six feet long. Putting his foot under it, Stone Coat kicked the log up twice his own height. Then the boy, slipping his foot under the log, sent it whistling through the air. It was gone a long time. Then it came down on Stone Coat’s head and crushed him to death.
“Come here,” said the boy to Stone Coat’s dog. The dog came, and the little one climbed on his back and rode home. “Now my father will have a fine hunting dog,” he said.
When the father saw the dog, he cried, “What have you done? Stone Coat will kill us all!”
“I have killed Stone Coat. He won’t trouble us any more,” replied the boy, the powerful one.
“Now, boys,” said the father, “you must never go to the southwest, the gambling place.” But the next day about noon, the younger brother started walking southwest. He came to a beautiful opening in the woods, with a lean- to at the farther end. Sitting under the lean- to a man with a large head, much larger than a buffalo’s, played dice for the heads of all who came along. He used wild-plumpits with designs on them for dice.
Crowds of people were betting in groups of three. When they lost, as all did, the big-headed man put the three persons to one side. Then he played with three more, and when they lost he put them with the first three, and so on—until he decided that the number was large enough. Then he got up and cut all their heads off.
As the boy approached, a number of people who had lost their bets were waiting to be killed. Hope came to them all, for they sensed that this child had great orenda—power, or medicine.
The boy took his place, and the game began immediately. When the big-headed man threw the dice, the bay caused some to remain in the dish and others to go high, so that the dice came to rest with different designs showing. But when the boy threw, the dice turned into woodcocks, flew high, and came down as dice of the same design.
The two played until the boy won back all the people and the gambler lost his own big head, for the boy instantly cut it off. The whole crowd shouted, “Now you must be our chief!”
The boy said, “How could a little thing like me be a chief? Maybe my father would be willing to do it; I’ll ask him.” The boy went home with the story, but his father would not move to the land of gambling.
“Now,” said the father, “you must never go to the east, where they play ball.”
But the next day the boy traveled east until he came to a great, level country of beautiful plains. There the Wolf and the Bear clans were playing against the Eagle, the Turtle, and the Beaver clans.
The boy took the side of the Wolf and the Bear. “If you win,” they told him, “you will own all this country.” They played, and the boy won. “Now,” they said, “you are the owner.”
The powerful boy went home and told his father, “I have won all the beautiful country of the east; come and be chief of it.”
His father consented and moved with his two boys to the country of the east, and there they lived. That is the story.
—Based on a legend reported by Jeremiah Curtin and
J. N. B. Hewitt around 1910.
While archeological evidence confirms that the Iroquois have inhabited upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania continuously for literally thousands of years, their cultural myths still include tales of a great migration into the beautiful country of the East from a previous homeland. This may refer to the arrival of other related tribes from the south and west who joined the core population during different periods.
GLOOSCAP AND THE BABY
[ALGONQUIAN]
For many Algonquian tribes, such as the Passamaquoddy of Maine, the great Glooscap was First Man, culture hero, demiurge, trickster, and god.
Glooscap, having conquered the Kewawkqu’, a race of giants and magicians, and the Medecolin, who were cunning sorcerers, and Pamola, a wicked spirit of the night, besides hosts of fiends, goblins, cannibals, and witches, felt himself great indeed, and boasted to a woman that there was nothing left for him to subdue.
But the woman laughed and said: “Are you quite sure, Master? There is still one who remains unconquered, and nothing can overcome him.”
In some surprise Glooscap inquired the name of this mighty one.
“He is called Wasis,” replied the woman, “but I strongly advise you to have no dealings with him.”
Wasis was only a baby, who sat on the floor sucking a piece of maple sugar and crooning a little song to himself. Now Glooscap had never married an
d was ignorant of how children are managed, but with perfect confidence he smiled at the baby and asked it to come to him. The baby smiled back but never moved, whereupon Glooscap imitated a beautiful birdsong. Wasis, however, paid no attention and went on sucking his maple sugar. Unaccustomed to such treatment, Glooscap lashed himself into a rage and in terrible and threatening accents ordered Wasis to come to him at once. But Wasis burst into dire howls, which quite drowned the god’s thundering, and would not budge for any threats.
Glooscap, thoroughly aroused, summoned all his magical resources. He recited the most terrible spells, the most dreadful incantations. He sang the songs which raise the dead, and those which send the devil scurrying to the nethermost depths. But Wasis merely smiled and looked a trifle bored.
At last Glooscap rushed from the hut in despair, while Wasis, sitting on the floor, cried, “Goo, goo!” And to this day the Indians say that when a baby says “Goo,” he remembers the time when he conquered mighty Glooscap.
—From a tale reported by Lewis Spence around the turn of the century.
[CHEYENNE]
This tale about the gifts of corn and buffalo to the Cheyenne is related to the legend which follows it about Arrow Boy. In the Cheyenne manner, a storyteller will say, “Let’s tie another story to the end of this one,” and go on from there. North, as it is spoken of at the beginning of both tales, is a nostalgic reference to the Cheyenne hunting grounds in north-central America, from which they were driven by invading tribes, probably the Ojibway.
When the Cheyenne were still in the north, they camped in a large circle at whose entrance a deep, rapid spring flowed from a hillside. The spring provided the camp with water, but food was harder to find. The buffalo had disappeared, and many people went hungry.
AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS Page 4
