AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS

by Richard Erdoes

  “Let me try,” said Buzzard. “I know better than to hide a piece of stolen light in my tail. I’ll put it on my head.” He flew to the other side of the world and, diving straight into the sun, seized it in his claws. He put it on his head, but it burned his head feathers off. The people grabbed the sun away from him, and ever since that time Buzzard’s head has remained bald.

  Then Grandmother Spider said, “Let me try!” First she made a thick-walled pot out of clay. Next she spun a web reaching all the way to the other side of the world. She was so small that none of the people there noticed her coming. Quickly Grandmother Spider snatched up the sun, put it in the bowl of clay, and scrambled back home along one of the strands of her web. Now her side of the world had light, and everyone rejoiced.

  Spider Woman brought not only the sun to the Cherokee, but fire with it. And besides that, she taught the Cherokee people the art of pottery making.

  —From a tale reported by James Mooney in the 1890s.

  THE STORY OF THE CREATION

  [DIEGUEÑOS]

  When Tu-chai-pai made the world, the earth was the woman, the sky was the man. The sky came down upon the earth. The world in the beginning was pure lake covered with bulrushes. Tu-chai-pai and Yo-Ko-mat-is, his brother, sat together, stooping far over, bowed down under the weight of the sky. The Maker said to the brother, “What am I going to do?”

  “I do not know,” said Yo-ko-mat-is.

  “Let us go a little farther,” said the Maker.

  Then they went a little farther and sat down again. “Now, what am I going to do?” said Tu-chai-pai.

  “I don’t know.”

  All this time Tu-chai-pai knew what he would do, but he was asking the brother.

  Then he said, “We-hicht, we-hicht, we-hicht,” three times; and he took tobacco in his hand, and rubbed it fine, and blew upon it three times, and every time he blew, the heavens rose higher above their heads. Then the Maker told his brother to do the same thing, and he did. The heavens went high, and there was the sky. Then they did it both together, “We-hicht, we-hicht, we-hicht”; and both took the tobacco, and rubbed it, and puffed upon it, and sent the sky up.

  Then they placed the north, south, east, and west. Tu-chai-pai made a line upon the ground.

  “Why do you make that line?”

  “I am making the line from east to west, and I name them thus, Y-nak, east; A-uk, west. Now you may make it from north to south.” Then Yo-ko-mat-is was thinking. “Why are you thinking?”

  “Oh, I must think; but now I have arranged it. I draw a line thus (a crossline), and I name it Ya-wak, south; Ka-tulk, north.”

  “Why have we done this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then I will tell you. Three or four men are coming from the east, and from the west three or four Indians are coming.”

  The boy asked, “And do four men come from the north, and two or three men come also from the south?”

  Then Tu-chai-pai said, “Now I am going to make hills and valleys, and little hollows of water.”

  “Why are you making all these things?”

  The Maker said, “After a while, when men come and are walking back and forth in the world, they will need to drink water, or they will die.” He had already put the ocean down in its bed, but he made these little waters for the people.

  Then he made the forests, and said, “After a while men will die of cold unless I make wood for them to use. What are we going to do now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re going to dig up some mud and make the Indians first.” And he formed the men and did it well, but he didn’t do such a good job on the women because they were hard to make, and it took a long time. He gave beards to the men and boys, but not to the women. After the Indians he made the Mexicans, and he finished all his creating. Then he called out very loud, “You can never die, and you can never be tired, but you shall walk all the time.” After that he made them so that they could sleep at night, and need not walk around all the time in the darkness. At last he told them that they must travel toward the east, toward the light.

  The people walked in darkness till he made the light. Then they came out and searched for the light, and when they found it they were glad. Then he called out to Yo-ko-mat-is, “You may make the moon, as I have made the sun. Sometime it is going to die. When it grows very small, men may know that it is going to die, and at that time all men, young and old, must run races.”

  All the people talked about the matter, and they understood that they must run these races, and that Tu-chai-pai was looking at them to see that they did this. After the Maker did all this, he did nothing more, but he was thinking many days.

  —Based on a tale reported by Constance Goddard du Bois in 1901.

  THE FOOLISH GIRLS

  [OJIBWAY]

  In the world long ago, some people were camping in birchbark lodges. There were two very foolish girls who always slept outside the lodge, in the open. Self-respecting girls didn’t do this, only foolish, man-hungry ones. So there they were, lying outside, looking at the sky, giggling.

  One of the girls said to the other, “Look at those stars, the white one and the red one.”

  “I’d like to sleep with a star. They must be good lovers, real hot ones,” said the other.

  “Me too—I want a star under the blanket with me,” said her friend. “I’ll take the red star to bed, and you can have the white one.”

  “All right,” said her companion, and they drifted off to sleep. When they awoke, they found themselves in an upper world—in star country. The stars were men, and they spoke to the girls: “You wanted to sleep with us. Well, here we are; let’s do it!”

  So they did. The girl who had chosen the red star found that he was a vigorous young man, and he kept her busy all night. She was content. Not so the other, because her star, the white star, was very old. His hair was white, and he couldn’t perform very well. She said to her friend, “Let’s swap husbands for a while,” but the friend didn’t want to.

  So they lived for a time with their chosen stars. Then the one who had married the young redheaded star began to complain: “This man wears me out. It’s too much; I can’t stand doing it all the time.”

  The other said, “This star lover of mine is so old that he can’t do anything.”

  And after having stayed there for a long while, they both concluded that it wasn’t as much fun being with star men as they had imagined. All the stars did was eat star food, sleep with the girls, and shine. They didn’t play games; they didn’t hunt. The girls became bored and homesick. It was winter, and one said to the other, “Down in our country they’re playing snow-snake now. I wish I could be there.”

  Old Woman sat on a hole in the sky all the time. Once when those foolish girls passed by, she moved a little bit and let them look down through the hole. They saw their village and watched the people playing snow-snake. They heard singing and dancing coming up through the hole, and they felt very sad.

  “How can we get down there?” they asked. Old Woman gave them plants of various kinds and said, “Twist them into fibers. Make a long rope. That’s the only way to get down where you came from.”

  For days the girls twisted fibers into ropes. They needed a very, very long rope, and they got tired. They were lazy as well as foolish, and they said, “Surely this rope is long enough. No use working any more.” They went to their two star men and told them: “We want to visit our folks down there, just for a little while. Then you can haul us up again.”

  Of course they didn’t mean it. They had discovered that sleeping with stars was no different from sleeping with humans. Now they wanted young Ojibway men, they were so foolish and fickle.

  “Hold these ropes; help us down,” they told the stars. But the ropes were too short, which is what comes of being lazy. The cords reached almost all the way down, but not quite—just to the top of a very, very high tree, the highest tree in the world. At its tip was an aband
oned eagle nest, and there the two foolish ones were stuck. “Oh! What are we going to do? How are we going to get down?”

  They saw a bear passing by below. “Hey, Bear, you sure must be looking for some women to sleep with. If you get us down safely, you can do it with us!” The bear saw that these girls were good-looking, but he was wise and noticed that they were also very foolish and forward. He wanted nothing to do with them. He pretended he couldn’t climb, though he could easily have made it up the tree. The bear went off, not even looking back.

  Next a buffalo passed under the tree. “Hey, Powerful One,” the girls shouted, “get us down from here. If you do, you can sleep with us.” Seeing that the girls were pretty, the buffalo didn’t care whether they were stupid or not. He tried to climb up, tried a long time, but couldn’t do it. He gave up and shouted to the girls, “Hooves are no good for this kind of thing. Get somebody with claws!” Then he went off.

  The third one to pass by was Old Man Coyote. “Hey, friend!” the girls called down to him, “Do you want some good-looking young women to sleep with? You can, if you get us down.”

  “I sure would like to,” shouted Old Man Coyote, “but I have a young, jealous wife. She gets mean if I fool around with the girls.” And he went off too.

  The fourth one to pass under that tree was Wolverine, who is so ugly no girl will sleep with him. “Hey, Handsome,” the two girls called, “you sure are a good-looking man. Get us down from here, and you can enjoy us.”

  They didn’t have to say it twice; with his powerful claws Wolverine shinnied up that largest of all trees in no time. He threw the first girl down and immediately made love to her. There was no use resisting, he was so strong and greedy. Then he did the same with the second girl. He had never had such a good time, but they enjoyed it a lot less, since Wolverine was the ugliest man they had ever seen. “Friend,” one girl said to the other, “I think we’ve done a dumb thing. When I get home I’ll never sleep outside the lodge again.”

  “How right you are,” said the other girl. “This man is truly ugly, and so rough that it really hurts. I’m never sleeping outside again, either.”

  But they had a problem, because after making love to them, Wolverine always fed them and then carried them back up, willy-nilly, to that eagle’s nest. He didn’t want them to get away—ever. He knew when he had a good thing.

  One day when Wolverine was out hunting, what did those suffering girls see from their nest but Wolverine Woman. Wolverine Woman hadn’t met up with Wolverine Man yet, and she was so ugly, truly surpassingly ugly, that no man wanted her.

  “Hey, beautiful woman down there,” the two girls called, “up here, Doll Baby! If you get us down and take our place in this nest, we promise you a handsome young man to sleep with. He comes up here to make love to us, but we’re humans and we have to get home to our people. But he’s such a nice man, we don’t want to disappoint him. He should have a good woman to sleep with.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” answered Wolverine Woman, “and so generous! I sure would like to meet that handsome man.”

  Wolverine Woman got those two girls down safely, and they hurried off as fast as they could. They had never run so hard in their lives.

  At night Wolverine Man arrived, climbed the tree, and got Wolverine Woman down. He was in such a hurry he didn’t even notice that there was only one woman in the eagle nest. He made love to her all night, and when dawn finally came, Wolverine Woman said, “You’re not as handsome as I was told.”

  Wolverine Man saw that he had been tricked. “You’re not a raving beauty either,” he told her.

  “Let’s stop this,” she said. “Face it: we’re incredibly ugly. Nobody else would have us, so let’s stay together.”

  “I guess you’re right,” said Wolverine Man, so they stayed together. There’s nobody so ugly that he can’t find a mate.

  When the two girls played that trick on Wolverine Man, it was the first time they stopped being foolish and got smart.

  —Told by David Red Bird in New York City, 1974, and recorded by Richard Erdoes.

  [INUIT]

  This violent story tells of a stormy encounter between a female sun and a male moon.

  In the old days, when everything began, a brother lived with his sister in a large village which had a dance house. At night it was lit with stone lamps burning seal oil, and once the sister was dancing and singing there when a big wind blew all the lamps out. While everything was black, a man copulated with her. She struggled against him, but he was too strong, and it was too dark to see who he was.

  Thinking he might come again, before she went back there next she blackened the palms of her hands with soot. Again a great gust of wind blew out all the lamps. Again that man threw her upon her back, got on top of her, and entered her. But this time she smeared his back with soot. When the lamps were rekindled, she looked for the one with a sooty back and was enraged to see that it was her brother.

  She cried, “Such things are not done! Such things are unheard of!”

  She was so angry that she took her sharp knife and cut off both her breasts. Flinging them at her brother, she cried, “As you seem to enjoy me, as you seem to have a taste for my body, eat these!”

  She grabbed a brightly burning torch and, maddened and wild-eyed, ran out of the dance house into the dark night. Her brother snatched up another torch and ran after her, but stumbled and fell down in the snow. The snow put out the flames of his torch so that only its embers flickered feebly.

  Then a big windstorm lifted both the sister and her brother high up into the sky. The girl was turned into the sun, and her brother into the Moon. She stays as far away from him as she can. As long as the moon shines, she hides herself, coming out only after he is gone. If the brother had not let his torch fall into the snow, the moon would be as bright as the sun.

  —Retold from four nineteenth-century sources.

  SUN TEACHES VEEHO A LESSON

  [CHEYENNE]

  Sun had beautiful, wonder-working leggings which could set the prairie on fire and drive the game toward the hunter’s bow. Veeho, the clever trickster, greatly admired them, and one day when he came to visit, he sneaked off with them when Sun was not looking.

  Chuckling, Veeho said to himself, “Now I can work many miracles and be the world’s greatest hunter.”

  Toward evening he was tired from running so fast and far. “Sun can’t catch up with me now,” he decided. Rolling up the magic leggings and placing them under his head for a pillow, he lay down to sleep. He slept well, but in the morning he found himself back inside Sun’s tipi. Veeho is so stupid he didn’t know that all the world is contained within Sun’s lodge. But though he was surprised to wake up there after having run so far and fast, he is hard to embarrass.

  Sun smiled and said: “What are you doing with my leggings?”

  Veeho may be stupid, but he is never at a loss for an answer. He said, “I just put my head on them to sleep softly. I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Sun. “You can use them as a pillow if you want to.” Sun knew very well that Veeho was lying, as usual, and meant to steal the wonder-working leggings again. But he only said, “Well, I must go walk my daily path.”

  “Don’t hurry back,” said Veeho. “I’ll keep an eye on your lodge.”

  Once he could no longer see Sun, Veeho ran off with the leggings again, this time twice as fast and twice as far. Again he went to sleep, and again woke to find himself back inside Sun’s tipi.

  Sun laughed and told Veeho, “If you’re that fond of my leggings, you can keep them. Let’s pretend that I’m holding a giveaway feast and that you got these as a present.”

  Veeho was overjoyed. “I never meant to steal these beautiful leggings, friend Sun. You know me—I’m always up to some trick; I was only fooling. But now that you’ve given them to me of your own free will, I gladly accept.”

  Veeho could hardly wait to get away from Sun’s lodge and put on the legg
ings. Wearing them, he ran over the prairie and ignited the grass to drive the buffalo toward him. But Veeho did not have Sun’s power; he couldn’t handle such a big fire, and it scorched his soles and blistered his feet. “Friend Sun, come and help me!” he cried. “Help your poor friend! Where are you, Sun? Come put the fire out!”

  But Sun pretended not to hear, and soon Veeho’s leggings were on fire. Crying from pain, he plunged into the nearest stream. By then it was too late; the leggings were ruined and Veeho’s legs blistered.

  When Veeho begged Sun to make him a new pair of leggings, Sun said, “Even I can’t make magic leggings but once. I’m sorry, friend. Be more careful in the future.”

  Sun could easily have made another pair, of course, but then Veeho wouldn’t have learned a lesson.

  —Told by Strange Owl in Birney, Montana, and recorded by Richard Erdoes.

  Veeho is a prototype trickster, and the word is used today to mean white man. In a Blackfoot variation of this tale, Sun visits the same retribution on Old Man, who has stolen his porcupine-quill leggings.

  The Strange Owl family are traditional Cheyennes who live in Birney, Montana, on the Lame Deer Cheyenne Reservation, and in other Western states. Many members of this family are known for their fine beadwork and knowledge of Indian crafts.