So Kumush finished the upper world and his work in it. Then with his daughter, he went to the place where the sun rises, at the eastern edge of the world. He traveled along the sun’s road until he reached the middle of the sky. There he built a house for himself and his daughter. There they live even today.
—Reported by Ella Clark in 1953.
[CHEYENNE]
In this epic tale, a number of different incidents in Cheyenne history from the last four hundred years are all merged into a single account of a tribe’s evolution told in terms of great migrations, tragic losses, and natural disasters.
In the beginning the Great Medicine created the earth, and the waters upon the earth, and the sun, moon, and stars. Then he made a beautiful country to spring up in the far north. There were no winters, with ice and snow and bitter cold. It was always spring; wild fruits and berries grew everywhere, and great trees shaded the streams of clear water that flowed through the land.
In this beautiful country the Great Medicine put animals, birds, insects, and fish of all kinds. Then he created human beings to live with the other creatures. Every animal, big and small, every bird, big and small, every fish, and every insect could talk to the people and understand them. The people could understand each other, for they had a common language and lived in friendship. They went naked and fed on honey and wild fruits; they were never hungry. They wandered everywhere among the wild animals, and when night came and they were weary, they lay down on the cool grass and slept. During the days they talked with the other animals, for they were all friends.
The Great Spirit created three kinds of human beings: first, those who had hair all over their bodies; second, white men who had hair all over their heads and faces and on their legs; third, red men who had very long hair on their heads only. The hairy people were strong and active. The white people with the long beards were in a class with the wolf, for both were the trickiest and most cunning creatures in that beautiful world. The red people were good runners, agile and swift, whom the Great Medicine taught to catch and eat fish at a time when none of the other people knew about eating meat.
After a while the hairy people left the north country and went south, where all the land was barren. Then the red people prepared to follow the hairy people into the south. Before they left the beautiful land, howver, the Great Medicine called them together. On this occasion, the first time the red people had all assembled in one place, the Great Medicine blessed them and gave them some medicine spirit to awaken their dormant minds. From that time on they seemed to possess intelligence and know what to do. The Great Medicine singled out one of the men and told him to teach his people to band together, so that they all could work and clothe their naked bodies with skins of panther and bear and deer. The Great Medicine gave them the power to hew and shape flint and other stones into any shape they wanted—into arrow- and spearheads and into cups, pots, and axes.
The red people stayed together ever afterwards. They left the beautiful country and went southward in the same direction the hairy people had taken. The hairy people remained naked, but the red people clothed themselves because the Great Medicine had told them to. When the red men arrived in the south, they found that the hairy people had scattered and made homes inside of hills and in caves high up in the mountains. They seldom saw the hairy men, for the hairy ones were afraid and went inside their caves when the red men came. The hairy people had pottery and flint tools like those of the red men, and in their caves they slept on beds made out of leaves and skins. For some reason they decreased in numbers until they finally disappeared entirely, and today the red men cannot tell what became of them.
After the red men had lived in the south for some time, the Great Medicine told them to return north, for the barren southland was going to be flooded. When they went back to that beautiful northern land, they found that the white-skinned, long-bearded men and some of the wild animals were gone. They were no longer able to talk to the animals, but this time they controlled all other creatures, and they taught the panther, the bear, and similar beasts to catch game for them. They increased in numbers and became tall and strong and active.
Then for a second time the red people left the beautiful land to go south. The waters had gone, grass and trees had grown, and the country had become as beautiful as the north. While they were living there, however, another flood swept over the land and scattered the red men. When the great waters at last sank and the ground was dry, the red people did not come together again. They traveled in small bands, just as they had done in the beginning before the Great Medicine told them to unite. The flood destroyed almost everything, and they were on the point of starvation. So they started back to their original home in the north as they had done before. But when they reached the north country this time, they found the land all barren. There were no trees, no living animals, not a fish in the water. When the red people looked upon their once-beautiful home, the men cried aloud and all the women and children wept. This happened in the beginning, when the Great Medicine created us.
The people returned to the south and lived as well as they could, in some years better, in others worse. After many hundreds of years, just before the winter season came, the earth shook, and the high hills sent forth fire and smoke. During that winter there were great floods. The people had to dress in furs and live in caves, for the winter was long and cold. It destroyed all the trees, though when spring came there was a new growth. The red men suffered much and were almost famished when the Great Medicine took pity on them. He gave them corn to plant and buffalo for meat, and from that time there were no more floods and no more famines. The people continued to live in the south, and they grew and increased. There were many different bands with different languages, for the red men were never united after the second flood.
The descendants of the original Cheyenne had men among them who were magicians with supernatural wisdom. They charmed not only their own people, but also the animals that they lived on. No matter how fierce or wild the beast, it became so tame that people could go up to it and handle it. This magic knowledge was handed down from the original Cheyenne, who came from the far north. Today Bushy Head is the only one who understands that ancient ceremony, and the Cheyenne consider him equal in rank to the medicine-arrow keeper and his assistants.
—Based on George A. Dorsey’s account in 1905.
In this remarkable tale is stored the memory of much that has happened to the Cheyenne over many hundreds of years. It symbolically relates how they were once driven from their old hunting grounds in north-central America in the late 1600s, probably by the Ojibway, who had firearms from their French allies. It also describes the eighteenth or nineteenth century division of the Cheyenne into two separate bands (one of which, the Sutai, still retain certain ceremonial roles). The gaining and losing of corn may symbolize their giving up planting for buffalo hunting in the last half of the eighteenth century. The tale reflects as well the Cheyenne’s ever-present yearning for the cool, beautiful north country after white authorities removed the whole tribe to a hot and unhealthy reservation in the south, following Little Big Horn. It was from this sorry existence that in the 1880s Dull Knife led a group of sick and starving people on their back to North Montana, where those who survived were permitted at last to remain.
THE WHITE DAWN OF THE HOPI
[HOPI]
A very long time ago, there was nothing but water on the earth. In the east a Huruing Wuhti, one of the goddesses of rocks, clay, minerals, and other hard substances, lived in the ocean. Her house was a kiva, like the kivas of the Hopi today. Two fox skins, one gray, one yellow, were usually tied to the ladder leading into the house. In the west lived another Huruing Wuhti in a similar kiva, with a turtle-shell rattle attached to her ladder.
The sun rose and set on this world of water. Shortly before he appeared in the east, he dressed himself in the skin of the gray fox, creating the white dawn of the Hopi. After a little while he took off the gray skin and
put on the yellow skin, which brightened the sky into the yellow dawn of the Hopi. Then he rose, emerging from the opening in the north end of the kiva in which the Huruing Wuhti lived. When he had crossed the sky and arrived in the west, he announced his arrival at the western Huruing Wuhti’s kiva by fastening the rattle on the top of the ladder beam. Then he entered the kiva, passed through an opening in its north end, and continued his course eastward under the water.
By and by, the two goddesses caused the waters to recede eastward and westward so that some dry land appeared. The sun passing over the land noticed that no living being could be seen. When he mentioned this to the goddesses, the one in the west invited the one in the east to come and talk about it. The Huruing Wuhti of the east traveled west over a rainbow, and the two deities deliberated and decided to create a little bird. The Huruing Wuhti of the east made a wren of clay and covered it up with a piece of möchápu, native cloth. Both goddesses sang a song over it, and after a while a live bird came forth. Since the sun always passed over the middle of the earth, the deities thought that he might not have seen living creatures in the north or the south. They sent the little wren to fly all over the earth, but it returned and said that no living being existed anywhere. (Actually Spider Woman, Kóhkang Wuhti, lived in a kiva somewhere in the southwest at the edge of the water, but the little bird failed to notice her.)
The deity of the west proceeded to make many birds of different kinds, covering them with the same cloth under which the wren had been brought to life. Both Huruing Wuhtis again sang a song over them, and presently the birds began to move under the cover. The goddesses took them out, taught every bird the sound that it should make, and let them scatter in all directions.
Next the Huruing Wuhti of the west made different kinds of animals in the same way, teaching them their own sounds or languages and sending them forth to inhabit the earth. Now the goddesses decided that they would create human beings. The Huruing Wuhti of the east fashioned first a white woman and then a white man out of clay and brought them to life. She made two tablets of a hard substance (tradition does not tell whether it was stone or clay), drew characters on them with a wooden stick, and handed them to the man and woman. The humans did not know what the tablets said, so the deity rubbed the palms of her hands first against the palms of the woman and then against the palms of the man. Suddenly the couple understood the meaning of the tablets. Then the deities taught them their language, after which the goddess of the east took them out of the kiva and led them over a rainbow to her home in the east. They stayed four days, and Huruing Wuhti told them to go and select a place to live. They traveled around a while and, finding a good field, built a small, simple house, similar to those of the Hopi.
Soon the Huruing Wuhti of the west told the eastern goddess, “All this is not finished yet.” By then Spider Woman had heard what they were doing, and she also created a man and woman of clay. But she taught them Spanish and fashioned two burros for them, and the couple settled down near her.
Spider Woman continued to create people in the same manner, giving a different language to each pair. But she forgot to make a woman for a certain man, and this is the reason why today there are always some single men. Then as she continued turning out people, she found that she had failed to create a man for a certain woman. “Oh my!” she said, and told the woman, “Somewhere there is a single man who went away. Find him and if he accepts you, live with him. If he doesn’t, both of you will have to stay single. Do the best you can.”
The two finally found each other, and the woman said, “Where shall we live?”
The man answered, “Why, anywhere.” He went to work and built a house for them, but before long they began to quarrel.
“I want to live alone,” the woman said. “I can cook for myself.”
“Yes, but who will get the wood for you and work the fields?” the man said. “We had better stay together.” They made up, but it didn’t last. They quarreled, separated, came together again, separated again. If they had managed to get along, all the Hopi would live in peace today. But other couples learned quarreling from them; this is why there are so many arguments between husbands and wives.
These were the kind of people that Spider Woman created—rough-mannered. The Huruing Wuhti of the west heard about it and soon called the goddess of the east to come over. “I don’t want to live here alone,” the deity of the west said. “I want some good people around me.” So she created a number of people, always in pairs. But wherever Spider Woman’s people came into contact with them, there was trouble. Human beings at that time led a nomadic life, feeding mostly on game. Whenever they found rabbits or antelope or deer, they would kill and eat. This led to many quarrels.
Finally the goddess of the west said to the people: “You stay here; I’m going to live in the middle of the ocean in the west. When you want anything, pray to me there.” Her people were sorrowful, but she left them. The Huruing Wuhti of the east did the same, and that’s the reason why their kivas are never seen today. Hopi who want something from them must deposit their prayer offerings in the village. And when they say their prayers, they think of the two goddesses who live far away, but who, the Hopi believe, still remember them.
—Based on a story reported in 1905 by H. R. Voth.
CREATION OF THE
YAKIMA WORLD
[YAKIMA]
In the beginning of the world, all was water. Whee-me-me-ow-ah, the Great Chief Above, lived up in the sky all alone. When he decided to make the world, he went down to the shallow places in the water and began to throw up great handfuls of mud that became land.
He piled some of the mud so high that it froze hard and made the mountains. When the rain came, it turned into ice and snow on top of the high mountains. Some of the mud was hardened into rocks. Since that time the rocks have not changed—they have only become harder.
The Great Chief Above made trees grow on the earth, and also roots and berries. He made a man out of a ball of mud and told him to take fish from the waters, and deer and other game from the forests. When the man became lonely, the Great Chief Above made a woman to be his companion and taught her how to dress skins, how to find bark and roots, and how to make baskets out of them. He taught her which berries to gather for food and how to pick them and dry them. He showed her how to cook the salmon and the game that the man brought.
Once when the woman was asleep, she had a dream, and in it she wondered what more she could do to please the man. She prayed to the Great Chief Above for help. He answered her prayer by blowing his breath on her and giving her something which she could not see or hear, smell or touch. This invisible something was preserved in a basket. Through it, the first woman taught her daughters and granddaughters the designs and skills which had been taught her.
But in spite of all the things the Great Chief Above did for them, the new people quarreled. They bickered so much that Mother Earth was angry, and in her anger she shook the mountains so hard that those hanging over the narrow part of Big River fell down. The rocks, falling into the water, dammed the stream and also made rapids and waterfalls. Many people and animals were killed and buried under the rocks and mountains.
Someday the Great Chief Above will overturn those mountains and rocks. Then the spirits that once lived in the bones buried there will go back into them. At present those spirits live in the tops of the mountains, watching their children on the earth and waiting for the great change which is to come. The voices of these spirits can be heard in the mountains at all times. Mourners who wail for their dead hear spirit voices reply, and thus they know that their lost ones are always near.
We did not know all this by ourselves; we were told it by our fathers and grandfathers, who learned it from their fathers and grandfathers. No one knows when the Great Chief Above will overturn the mountains. But we do know this: the spirits will return only to the remains of people who in life kept the beliefs of their grandfathers. Only their bones will be preserved under the
mountains.
—Reported by Ella Clark in 1953.
CHILDREN OF THE SUN
[OSAGE]
Way beyond the earth, a part of the Osage lived in the sky. They wanted to know where they came from, so they went to the sun. He told them that they were his children. Then they wandered still farther and came to the moon. She told them that she gave birth to them, and that the sun was their father. She said that they must leave the sky and go down to live on earth. They obeyed, but found the earth covered with water. They could not return to their home in the sky, so they wept and called out, but no answer came from anywhere. They floated about in the air, seeking in every direction for help from some god; but they found none.
The animals were with them, and of these the elk inspired all creatures with confidence because he was the finest and most stately. The Osage appealed to the elk for help, and he dropped into the water and began to sink. Then he called to the winds, and they came from all quarters and blew until the waters went upward in mist.
At first only rocks were exposed, and the people traveled on the rocky places that produced no plants to eat. Then the waters began to go down until the soft earth was exposed. When this happened, the elk in his joy rolled over and over, and all his loose hairs clung to the soil. The hairs grew, and from them sprang beans, corn, potatoes, and wild turnips, and then all the grasses and trees.
—From Alice Fletcher and Francis LaFléche, who recorded this myth in 1911.
[CADDO]
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.”
AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS Page 15
