AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS

by Richard Erdoes

  And in time they did, and contrary to their elders’ expectations, they began to spend even more time with one another. White Corn Maiden began to ignore her pottery making and embroidery, while Deer Hunter gave up hunting, at a time when he could have saved many of his people from hunger. They even began to forget their religious obligations. At the request of the pair’s worried parents, the tribal elders called a council. This young couple was ignoring all the traditions by which the tribe had lived and prospered, and the people feared that angry gods might bring famine, flood, sickness, or some other disaster upon the village.

  But Deer Hunter and White Corn Maiden ignored the council’s pleas and drew closer together, swearing that nothing would ever part them. A sense of doom pervaded the village, even though it was late spring and all nature had unfolded in new life.

  Then suddenly White Corn Maiden became ill, and within three days she died. Deer Hunter’s grief had no bounds. He refused to speak or eat, preferring to keep watch beside his wife’s body until she was buried early the next day.

  For four days after death, every soul wanders in and around its village and seeks forgiveness from those whom it may have wronged in life. It is a time of unease for the living, since the soul may appear in the form of a wind, a disembodied voice, a dream, or even in human shape. To prevent such a visitation, the villagers go to the dead person before burial and utter a soft prayer of forgiveness. And on the fourth day after death, the relatives gather to perform a ceremony releasing the soul into the spirit world, from which it will never return.

  But Deer Hunter was unable to accept his wife’s death. Knowing that he might see her during the four-day interlude, he began to wander around the edge of the village. Soon he drifted farther out into the fields, and it was here at sundown of the fourth day, even while his relatives were gathering for the ceremony of release, that he spotted a small fire near a clump of bushes.

  Deer Hunter drew closer and found his wife, as beautiful as she was in life and dressed in all her finery, combing her long hair with a cactus brush in preparation for the last journey. He fell weeping at her feet, imploring her not to leave but to return with him to the village before the releasing rite was consummated. White Corn Maiden begged her husband to let her go, because she no longer belonged to the world of the living. Her return would anger the spirits, she said, and anyhow, soon she would no longer be beautiful, and Deer Hunter would shun her.

  He brushed her pleas aside by pledging his undying love and promising that he would let nothing part them. Eventually she relented, saying that she would hold him to his promise. They entered the village just as their relatives were marching to the shrine with the food offering that would release the soul of White Corn Maiden. They were horrified when they saw her, and again they and the village elders begged Deer Hunter to let her go. He ignored them, and an air of grim expectancy settled over the village.

  The couple returned to their home, but before many days had passed, Deer Hunter noticed that his wife was beginning to have an unpleasant odor. Then he saw that her beautiful face had grown ashen and her skin dry. At first he only turned his back on her as they slept. Later he began to sit up on the roof all night, but White Corn Maiden always joined him. In time the villagers became used to the sight of Deer Hunter racing among the houses and through the fields with White Corn Maiden, now not much more than skin and bones, in hot pursuit.

  Things continued in this way, until one misty morning a tall and imposing figure appeared in the small dance court at the center of the village. He was dressed in spotless white buckskin robes and carried the biggest bow anyone had ever seen. On his back was slung a great quiver with the two largest arrows anyone had ever seen. He remained standing at the center of the village and called, in a voice that carried into every home, for Deer Hunter and White Corn Maiden. Such was its authority that the couple stepped forward meekly and stood facing him.

  The awe-inspiring figure told the couple that he had been sent from the spirit world because they, Deer Hunter and White Corn Maiden, had violated their people’s traditions and angered the spirits; that because they had been so selfish, they had brought grief and near-disaster to the village. “Since you insist on being together,” he said, “you shall have your wish. You will chase one another forever across the sky, as visible reminders that your people must live according to tradition if they are to survive.” With this he set Deer Hunter on one arrow and shot him low into the western sky. Putting White Corn Maiden on the other arrow, he placed her just behind her husband.

  That evening the villagers saw two new stars in the west. The first, large and very bright, began to move east across the heavens. The second, a smaller, flickering star, followed close behind. So it is to this day, according to the Tewa; the brighter one is Deer Hunter, placed there in the prime of his life. The dimmer star is White Corn Maiden, set there after she had died; yet she will forever chase her husband across the heavens.

  —Translated from the Tewa by Alfonso Ortiz.

  We have already met a variety of culture heroes and heard how they created races or brought corn or fire to their people. Here they take center stage as dragon slayers and giant killers, calling on a wealth of fabulous powers to meet the tests which are strewn in their path in the guise of monsters, ogres, witches, and demons. The particular trials to which the hero is subjected vary widely across the continent, though most cultures tell of an ogre on a cliff; of a ferocious guardian animal who must be evaded; of a gluttonous monster (often in the shape of a bull or bear) that swallows people into its unfillable stomach; and of some kind of trial by fire or heat. Regional variations reflect specific cultures, so that one finds the harpooning test in North Pacific tales, while in the central woodlands or Great Lakes region, toboggans figure prominently. The stories themselves often merge with creation myths, using the incidents of the heros’ adventures to explain the features of the natural landscape, relics of a battle long ago.

  The Indian hero displays awesome talents; he can change into any shape he wants or make himself invisible at will. His supernatural powers often come to him from earth and sky spirits in dreams, or are given to him by magicians. He may have to seize power by conquering another supernatural, perhaps the first in a series of tests he faces; sometimes he simply steals it, showing his cunning as well as his strength. The tokens or medicine he receives are associated with contemporary ceremonies as well, particularly in the Southwest.

  The birth of a hero is shrouded in mystery. His mother may be visited in a dream or impregnated in some other unusual fashion; the hero is often the son of the sun or the morning star, and will display human desires and frailties as well as traits of his divine heritage. The child-hero grows up rapidly, and even at age six or seven he may be a match for any monster or giant. Daring and inquisitive, he quickly demonstrates that he will not be controlled by his parents. In one case, a brother and sister must fight off an attack by a parent.

  The Indian hero relates comfortably to the natural world; he speaks to animals and they speak to him, often revealing knowledge or aiding him in other ways. He assumes their shape, and they carry or hide him. Often the hero himself is an animal, or rather a human who is at the same time an animal, like Old Man Coyote, Bear-Man, Spider Woman, or the ferocious Man-Eagle.

  Europeans enter some of these tales obliquely, as beings (some evil, some benign) from another place who may have special powers or such gifts as metal tools and weapons. A few epic tales of the Northeast coast reflect as well the slow but steadily intrusive influence of European sagas on Indian storytellers.

  Though the hero may win the day, it is his terrifying opponent who gives vitality to these tales. Monsters and dragons come in all shapes—and can, of course, shift shapes at will. Common to many tribes is the great water monster, Unktehi or Uncegila to the Sioux, whose huge fossil bones are strewn across the Badlands of Nebraska and the Dakotas. Many tribes east and west tell about No Body, the Great Rolling Head, a creature who r
olls over prairies and mountains, crushing all in his path, seizing and devouring men with his enormous teeth. Other heros have had to contend with the likes of Yeitso, the terrible giant of the East; Delgeth, a monstrous flesh-eating antelope; or with huge, man-eating birds. The Tlingit hero Stone Ribs, protected by his magic halibut skin, fights the Lord of Killer Whales, and there are always wicked witches and ghosts ready to prey on an unsuspecting human. Evil may enter the world in the guise of a single creature, but its family multiplies quickly, and there is never an end to the trials of a true hero.

  GLOOSCAP FIGHTS THE

  WATER MONSTER

  [PASSAMAQUODDY, MICMAC, AND MALISEET]

  Glooscap yet lives, somewhere at the southern edge of the world. He never grows old, and he will last as long as this world lasts. Sometimes Glooscap gets tired of running the world, ruling the animals, regulating nature, instructing people how to live. Then he tells us: “I’m tired of it. Good-bye; I’m going to make myself die now.” He paddles off in his magic white canoe and disappears in misty clouds. But he always comes back. He cannot abandon the people forever, and they cannot live without him.

  Glooscap is a spirit, a medicine man, a sorcerer. He can make men and women smile. He can do anything.

  Glooscap made all the animals, creating them to be peaceful and useful to humans. When he formed the first squirrel, it was as big as a whale. “What would you do if I let you loose on the world?” Glooscap asked, and the squirrel attacked a big tree, chewing it to pieces in no time. “You’re too destructive for your size,” said Glooscap, and remade him small. The first beaver also was as big as a whale, and it built a dam that flooded the country from horizon to horizon. Glooscap said, “You’ll drown all the people if I let you loose like this.” He tapped the beaver on the back, and it shrank to its present size. The first moose was so tall that it reached to the sky and looked altogether different from the way it looks now. It trampled everything in its path—forests, mountains, everything. “You’ll ruin everything,” Glooscap said. “You’ll step on people and kill them.” Glooscap tapped the moose on the back to make it small, but the moose refused to become smaller. So Glooscap killed it and recreated it in a different size and with a different look. In this way Glooscap made everything as it should be.

  Glooscap had also created a village and taught the people there everything they needed to know. They were happy hunting and fishing. Men and women were happy making love. Children were happy playing. Parents cherished their children, and children respected their parents. All was well as Glooscap had made it.

  The village had one spring, the only source of water far and wide, that always flowed with pure, clear, cold water. But one day the spring ran dry; only a little bit of slimy ooze issued from it. It stayed dry even in the fall when the rains came, and in the spring when the snows melted. The people wondered, “What shall we do? We can’t live without water.” The wise men and elders held a council and decided to send a man north to the source of the spring to see why it had run dry.

  This man walked a long time until at last he came to a village. The people there were not like humans; they had webbed hands and feet. Here the brook widened out. There was some water in it, not much, but a little, though it was slimy, yellowish, and stinking. The man was thirsty from his walk and asked to be given a little water, even if it was bad.

  “We can’t give you any water,” said the people with the webbed hands and feet, “unless our great chief permits it. He wants all the water for himself.”

  “Where is your chief?” asked the man.

  “You must follow the brook further up,” they told him.

  The man walked on and at last met the big chief. When he saw him he trembled with fright, because the chief was a monster so huge that if one stood at his feet, one could not see his head. The monster filled the whole valley from end to end. He had dug himself a huge hole and dammed it up, so that all the water was in it and none could flow into the stream bed. And he had fouled the water and made it poisonous, so that stinking mists covered its slimy surface.

  The monster had a mile-wide, grinning mouth going from ear to ear. His dull yellow eyes started out of his head like huge pine knots. His body was bloated and covered with warts as big as mountains. The monster stared dully at the man with his protruding eyes and finally said in a fearsome croak: “Little man, what do you want?”

  The man was terrified, but he said: “I come from a village far downstream. Our only spring ran dry, because you’re keeping all the water for yourself. We would like you to let us have some of this water. Also, please don’t muddy it so much.”

  The monster blinked at him a few times. Finally he croaked:

  Do as you please,

  Do as you please,

  I don’t care,

  I don’t care,

  If you want water,

  If you want water,

  Go elsewhere!

  The man said, “We need the water. The people are dying of thirst.” The monster replied:

  I don’t care,

  I don’t care,

  Don’t bother me,

  Don’t bother me,

  Go away,

  Go away,

  Or I’ll swallow you up!

  The monster opened his mouth wide from ear to ear, and inside it the man could see the many things that the creature had killed. The monster gulped a few times and smacked his lips with a noise like thunder. At this the man’s courage broke, and he turned and ran away as fast as he could.

  Back at his village the man told the people: “Nothing can be done. If we complain, this monster will swallow us up. He’ll kill us all.”

  The people were in despair. “What shall we do?” they cried. Now, Glooscap knows everything that goes on in the world, even before it happens. He sees everything with his inward eye. He said: “I must set things right. I’ll have to get water for the people!”

  Then Glooscap girded himself for war. He painted his body with paint as red as blood. He made himself twelve feet tall. He used two huge clamshells for his earrings. He put a hundred black eagle feathers and a hundred white eagle feathers in his scalp lock. He painted yellow rings around his eyes. He twisted his mouth into a snarl and made himself look ferocious. He stamped, and the earth trembled. He uttered his fearful war cry, and it echoed and re-echoed from all the mountains. He grasped a huge mountain in his hand, a mountain composed of flint, and from it made himself a single knife sharp as a weasel’s teeth. “Now I am going,” he said, striding forth among thunder and lightning, with mighty eagles circling above him. Thus Glooscap came to the village of the people with webbed hands and feet.

  “I want water,” he told them. Looking at him, they were afraid. They brought him a little muddy water. “I think I’ll get more and cleaner water,” he said. Glooscap went upstream and confronted the monster. “I want clean water,” he said, “a lot of it, for the people downstream.”

  Ho! Ho!

  Ho! Ho!

  All the waters are mine!

  All the waters are mine!

  Go away!

  Go away!

  Or I’ll kill you!

  “Slimy lump of mud!” cried Glooscap. “We’ll see who will be killed!” They fought. The mountains shook. The earth split open. The swamp smoked and burst into flames. Mightly trees were shivered into splinters.

  The monster opened its huge mouth wide to swallow Glooscap. Glooscap made himself taller than the tallest tree, and even the monster’s mile-wide mouth was too small for him. Glooscap seized his great flint knife and slit the monster’s bloated belly. From the wound gushed a mighty stream, a roaring river, tumbling, rolling, foaming down, down, down, gouging out for itself a vast, deep bed, flowing by the village and on to the great sea of the east.

  “That should be enough water for the people,” said Glooscap. He grasped the monster and squeezed him in his mighty palm, squeezed and sqqueezed and threw him away, flinging him into the swamp. Glooscap had squeezed this great crea
ture into a small bullfrog, and ever since, the bullfrog’s skin has been wrinkled because Glooscap squeezed so hard.

  —Retold from several nineteenth-century sources.

  [MÉTIS]

  Little-Man was hairier than a skunk. Hair grew out of his nose and nostrils. He had thick, matted hair between his buttocks. He was not particularly good-looking and he smelled as if he didn’t wash often, but he was a merry fellow who laughted a lot, and he never had any trouble finding pretty girls to share his blanket. He was always on the move, eager to discover new things.

  Little-Man-with-Hair-All-Over was small, but he succeeded in everything he did. He was tough in a fight, so they called for him whenever there was something dangerous to do. When a bear monster went on a rampage, ripping up lodges with his huge claws and eating the people inside, Little-Man-with-Hair-All-Over had no trouble killing it. For this his grateful people gave him a magic knife.

  One time when Little-Man was traveling, he met two brothers and asked what they were up to. “We’re looking for adventure,” they answered.