One bright day some men were playing the game of ring and javelin in the center of the camp circle. They used a red and black hoop and four long sticks, two red and two black, which they threw at the hoop as it rolled along. In order to win, a player had to throw his stick through the hoop while it was still moving.
A large audience had already gathered when a young man came from the south side of the camp circle to join them. He wore a buffalo robe with the hair turned outward. His body was painted yellow, and a yellow-painted eagle breach-feather was fastened to his head. Soon another young man dressed exactly like the first came from the north side of the circle to watch the game. They were unacquainted, but when the two caught sight of each other they moved through the crowd to talk. “My friend,” said the man from the south side, “you’re imitating my dress. Why are you doing it?” The other man said, “It’s you who are imitating me. Why?”
In their explanations, both men told the same story. They had entered the spring that flowed out from the hillside, and there they had been instructed how to dress. By now the crowd had stopped watching the game and gathered around to listen, and the young men told the people that they would go into the spring again and come out soon. As the crowd watched, the two approached the spring. The man from the south covered his head with his buffalo robe and entered. The other did the same.
The young men splashed through the water and soon found themselves in a large cave. Near the entrance sat an old woman cooking some buffalo meat and corn in two separate earthen pots. She welcomed them: “Grandchildren, you have come. Here, sit beside me.” They sat down, one on each side of her, and told her that the people were hungry and that they had come to her for food. She gave them corn from one pot and meat from the other. They ate until they had had enough, and when they were through the pots were still full. Then she told them to look toward the south, and they saw that the land in that direction was covered with buffalo. She told them to look to the west, and they saw all kinds of animals, large and small, including ponies, though they knew nothing of ponies in those days. She told them to look toward the north, and they saw corn growing everywhere.
The old woman said to them, “All this that you have seen shall be yours in the future. Tonight I cause the buffalo to be restored to you. When you leave this place, the buffalo will follow, and your people will see them coming before sunset. Take this uncooked corn in your robes, and plant it every spring in low, moist ground. After it matures, you can feed upon it.
“Take also this meat and corn that I have cooked,” she said, and when you have returned to your people, ask them to sit down to eat in the following order: First, all males, from the youngest to the oldest, with the exception of one orphan boy; second, all females, from the oldest to the youngest, with the exception of one orphan girl. When all are through eating, the rest of the food in the pots is to be eaten by the orphan boy and the orphan girl.”
The two men obeyed the old woman. When they passed out of the spring, they saw that their entire bodies were painted red, and the yellow breath-feathers on their heads had turned red. They went to their people, who ate as directed of the corn and meat. There was enough for all, and the contents of the pots remained full until they were passed to the two orphan children, who ate all the rest of the food.
Toward sunset the people went to their lodges and began watching the spring closely, and in a short time they saw a buffalo leap out. The creature jumped and played and rolled, then returned to the spring. In a little while another buffalo jumped out, then another and another, and finally they came so fast that the Cheyenne were no longer able to count them. The buffalo continued to emerge all night, and the following day the whole country out in the distance was covered with buffalo. The buffalo scented the great camp. The next day the Cheyenne surrounded them, for though the men hunted on foot, they ran very fast.
For a time the people had an abundance of buffalo meat. In the spring they moved their camp to low, swampy land, where they planted the corn they had received from the medicine stream. It grew rapidly, and every grain they planted brought forth strong stalks bearing two to four ears of corn. The people planted corn every year after this.
One spring after planting corn, the Cheyenne went on a buffalo hunt. When they had enough meat to last for a long time, they returned to their fields. To their surprise, they found that the corn had been stolen by some neighboring tribe. Nothing but stalks remained—not even a kernel for seed. Though the theft had occurred about a moon before, the Cheyenne trailed the enemy’s footprints for several days. They even fought with two or three tribes, but never succeeded in tracing the robbers or recovering the stolen crop. It was a long time before the Cheyenne planted any more corn.
—Based on a story reported by George A. Dorsey at the turn of the century.
The loss of corn described here may symbolize how the Cheyenne abandoned planting for buffalo hunting in the last half of the eighteenth century. The “wings” given the Plains tribes by the arrival of guns and horses at this time not only allowed them to move from being gatherers to being hunters (the reverse of the more common cultural evolution) but opened up the possibility of a more elaborate—and transportable—material culture—hence the term, golden age of the Plains Indians.
ARROW BOY
[CHEYENNE]
Arrow Boy, the wonderful boy, gives a magic performance still enacted during Sioux Yuwipi ceremonies. in which the medicine man is tied up with a rawhide thong and covered with a star blanket (formerly a buffalo robe) while eerie lights flicker and invisible rattles and strange voices are heard. The pottery-making Pueblos have another version of this tale that they call the legend of the Water-Olla Boy.
After the Cheyenne had received their corn, and while they were still in the north, a young man and woman of the tribe were married. The woman became pregnant and carried her child in the womb for four years. The people watched with great interest to see what would happen, and when the woman gave birth to a beautiful boy in the fourth year, they regarded him as supernatural.
Before long the woman and her husband died, and the boy was taken in by his grandmother, who lived alone. He learned to walk and talk very quickly. He was given a buffalo calf robe and immediately turned it inside out so that the hair side was outward, the way medicine men wore it.
Among the Cheyenne there were certain medicine men of extraordinary wisdom and superhuman powers. Sometimes they would come together and put up a lodge. Sitting in a large circle, they chanted and went through curious rituals, after which each man rose and performed wonders before the crowd.
One of these magic dances were held when the boy was about ten. He made his grandmother ask if he could take part, and the medicine men let him enter the lodge. “Where do you want to live?” the chief of the medicine men asked, meaning “Where do you want to sit?” Without ceremony the boy took his seat beside the chief. To the man who had ushered him in, the child gave directions to paint his body red and draw black rings around his face, wrists, and ankles.
The performance began at one end of the circle. When the boy’s turn came, he told the people what he was going to do. He used sweet grass to burn incense. Then he passed his buffalo sinew bowstring east, south, west, and north through the smoke. He asked two men to assist him and told them to tie his bowstring around his neck, cover his body with his robe, and pull at the ends of the string. They pulled with all their might, but they could not move him. He told them to pull harder, and as they tugged at the string, his head was severed. It rolled out from under the robe, and the men put it back.
Next the men lifted the robe up. Instead of the boy, a very old man was sitting in his place. They covered the old man with the robe and pulled it away again, this time revealing a pile of human bones with a skull. A third time they placed the robe over the bones and lifted it. Nothing at all was there. But when for a fourth time they spread the robe over the empty space and removed it, the wonderful boy sat in his place is if nothing had h
appened.
After the magic dance, the Cheyenne moved their camp to hunt buffalo. When a kill had been made, the wonderful boy led a crowd of boys who went hunting for calves that might return to the place where they last saw their mothers. The boys found five or six calves, surrounded them, and killed a two-year-old with their arrows. They began to skin it very carefully with bone knives, keeping the hide of the head intact and leaving the hooves on, because the wonderful boy wanted the skin for a robe.
While they worked, a man driving a dog team approached them. It was Young Wolf, head chief of the tribe, who had come to the killing ground to gather what bones had been left. He said, “My children have favored me at last! I’ll take charge of this buffalo; you boys go on off.”
The children obeyed, except for the wonderful boy, who kept skinning as he explained that he wanted only the hide for a robe. The chief pushed the wonderful boy aside, but the boy returned and resumed skinning. Then the chief jerked the boy away and threw him down. The boy got up and continued his work. Pretending that he was skinning one of the hind legs, he cut the leg off at the knee and left the hoof on. When the chief shouldered the boy out of the way and took over the work, the wonderful boy struck him on the back of the head with the buffalo leg. The chief fell dead.
The boys ran to the camp and told the story, which caused great excitement. The warriors assembled and decided to kill the wonderful boy. They went out to look for him near the body of their chief, but the boy had returned to camp. He was sitting in his grandmother’s lodge while she cooked food for him in an earthen pot, when suddenly the whole tipi was raised by the warriors. Quickly the wonderful boy kicked the pot over, sending the contents into the fire. As the smoke billowed up, the boy rose with it. The old woman was left sitting alone.
The warriors looked around and saw the boy about a quarter of a mile away, walking off toward the east. They ran after him but could not seem to draw closer. Four times they chased him with no success, and then gave up.
People became afraid of the wonderful boy. Still, they looked for him every day and at last saw him on the top of a nearby hill. The whole camp gathered to watch as he appeared on the summit five times, each time in a different dress. First he came as a Red Shield warrior in a headdress made out of buffalo skin. He had horns, a spear, a red shield, and two buffalo tails tied to each arm. The second time he was a Coyote warrior, with his body painted black and yellow and with two eagle feathers sticking up on his head. The third time he appeared as a Dog Men warrior wearing a feathered headdress and carrying an eagle-bone whistle, a rattle of buffalo hoof, and a bow and arrows. The fourth time he was a Hoof Rattle warrior. His body was painted, and he had a rattle to sing by and a spear about eight feet long, with a crook at one end and the shaft at the other end bent in a semicircle. The fifth time his body was painted white, and on his forehead he wore a white owl skin.
After this the wonderful boy disappeared entirely. No one knew where he went, people thought him dead, and he was soon forgotten, for the buffalo disappeared and famine came to the Cheyenne.
During this time the wonderful boy traveled alone into the highest ranges of the mountains. As he drew near a certain peak, a door opened in the mountain slope. He passed through into the earth, and the opening closed after him.
There inside the mountain he found a large circle of men. Each represented a tribe and was seated beneath that tribe’s bundle. They welcomed the wonderful boy and pointed out the one empty place under a bundle wrapped in fox skin. “If you take this seat, the bundle will be yours to carry back to the Cheyenne,” the head man said. “But first you will remain here for four years, receiving instruction in order to become your tribe’s prophet and counselor.”
The wonderful boy accepted the bundle, and all the men gave thanks. When his turn came to perform the bundle ceremony, they took it down and showed him its sacred ceremonies, songs, and four medicine arrows, each representing certain powers. Then for four years under the mountain peak, they taught him prophecies, magic, and ceremonies for warfare and hunting.
Meanwhile the Cheyenne were weak with hunger, threatened by starvation. All the animals had died, and the people ate herbs. One day as the tribe was traveling in search of food, five children lagged behind to look for herbs and mushrooms.
Suddenly the wonderful boy, now a young man bearing the name of Arrow Boy, appeared before them. “My poor children, throw away those mushrooms,” he said. “It is I who brought famine among you, for I was angry with your people when they drove me from their camp. I have returned to provide for you; you shall not hunger in the future. Go and gather some dried buffalo bones, and I will feed you.”
The children ran away and picked up buffalo bones, and the wonderful boy, Arrow Boy, made a few passes that turned them into fresh meat. He fed the children with fat, marrow, liver, and other strengthening parts of the buffalo. When they had eaten all they wanted, he gave them fat and meat. “Take this to your people,” he said. “Tell them that I, Motzeyouf, Arrow Boy, have returned.”
Though the boys ran to the camp, Motzeyouf used his magic to reach it first. He entered the lodge of his uncle and lay down to rest, for he was tired. The uncle and his wife were sitting just outside, but they did not see Arrow Boy pass by.
The boys arrived in camp with their tale, which created great excitement. The uncle’s wife went into the lodge to get a pipe, and it was then that she saw Arrow Boy lying covered with a buffalo robe. The robe, and his shirt, leggings, and moccasins, all were painted red. Guessing that he was Motzeyouf, the men went into the lodge, asked the stranger to sit up, and cried over him. They saw his bundle, and knowing that he had power, they asked him what they should do.
Motzeyouf told the Cheyenne to camp in a circle and set up a large tipi in the center. When this had been done, he called all the medicine men to bring their rattles and pipes. Then he went into the tipi and sang the sacred songs that he had learned. It was night before he came to the song about the fourth arrow. In the darkness the buffalo returned with a roar like thunder. The frightened Cheyenne went in to Arrow Boy and asked him what to do. “Go and sleep,” he said, “for the buffalo, your food, has returned to you.” The roar of the buffalo continued through the night as long as he sang.
The next morning the land was covered with buffalo, and the people went out and killed all they wanted. From that time forth, owing to the medicine arrows, the Cheyenne had plenty to eat and great powers.
—Retold from a tale reported by George A. Dorsey in 1905.
The medicine arrows brought down from the mountains by Motzeyouf still exist and are cared for by the Arrow Keeper of the Southern Cheyenne in Oklahoma.
[CHEYENNE]
The sun dance was the most important, solemn, and awe-inspiring ritual of the prairie tribes west of the Missouri. Sun dance is its Sioux name; the Cheyenne called it the new-life lodge, while for the Ponca it was the mystery dance. Closely related to the sun dance was the Okapi ceremony of the Mandans.
The dance took place once a year, at the height of summer. It lasted four days—longer, if the elaborate preparations are taken into account. In some tribes, such as the Sioux, the ritual involved the “piercing” of the dancers: the passing of sharpened skewers through the flesh of their chests and the performance of other kinds of self-torture. This is still the custom during Sioux sun dances today. In other tribes the ritual involved fasting and “looking at the sun” throughout the four long days. The most extreme form of self-torture occurred during the Okapi ceremony of the mandans, painted in great detail by Catlin in the 1830s. Dancers suffered—“they gave of their flesh so that the people might live.” They underwent piercing in obedience to a vow, or to help a sick relative recover, or to bring a beloved son back unhurt from the warpath.
The dance was a celebration of the renewal of all life, “to make the grass grow and the buffalo and the people increase and thrive” It was the one occasion when all the small hunting hands of a tribe came together, a tim
e for old friends to talk and for young men to find wives.
The Tsis-tsistas people have danced the great medicine dance for a long, long time, longer than anyone can remember or even imagine. The dance represents the making of this universe and was conceived and taught to the people by the Creator, Maheo, and his helper, Great Roaring Thunder. It portrays the making of the sun, moon, and stars; of rain, wind, and snow; of Grandmother Earth and the blue sky above her; of the mountains and rivers; of all living things, big and small. The dance is performed especially in times of starvation, distress, and widespread death. This, our most sacred ceremony, was brought to us by the Sutai medicine man Horns Standing Up, under the guidance of the Creator himself.
Long ago, when the earth and the people dwelling upon it were young, our tribe was starving. The earth itself was starving, for no rain was falling. Plants and trees wilted. Many rivers dried up. The animals were dying of hunger and thirst.
The Cheyenne had nothing to eat except some old, dried corn and their dogs, which used to carry their packs in those days before we had horses. There were not many dogs remaining, and very little corn. So the people left their old hunting grounds, left the land which had nourished them for generations, and started off in search of food. They went north, where the drought was less severe, but found little game and no buffalo at all.
One evening they came to a stream in which water still flowed. The leaders and old chiefs sat down beside this stream and sadly watched the thin, weary people pitching their tipis. Then it came to the chiefs, as in a vision, what ought to be done. They ordered all the men to go to the women, each man to the woman he felt most attracted to, and beg her to give him something to eat. The men did as they had been directed, and each chose the woman who was to feed him.
Among the warriors was a young medicine man. He went up to a beautiful woman who happened to be the wife of the head chief. She set a bowl of dog soup before him and waited for him to finish eating. Then he said: “I have chosen you from among all women to help me save our people. I want you to go north with me, as the medicine spirits have commanded. Take your dog teams and bring supplies for a long journey—now, right away!”
AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS Page 5
