AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS
Page 33
As in tales with other themes, the usual divisions in the natural world are blurred. Human lovers become mountains, stars, and trees. A maiden marries a merman, while a man weds the moon. Alliances between animals and humans are common in many tribes’ myths. They appear to be most popular in the North Pacific Coast tribes, where a whale takes a human wife, and among the Plains Indians, whose legends often feature a buffalo or bear. Many more tales of such encounters will come in Part Seven. Often the animal spouses behave better toward their mates than their human counterparts, and in a graceful version of the European “Beauty and the Beast” tale, a dreadful sea serpent teaches a temperamental woman about love and tolerance.
Speaking of love and sex, the Sioux medicine man Lame Deer once said, “Love is sacred, and sex is sacred too. The two things are not apart; they belong together.” The missionaries’ prudish attitudes toward sex always puzzled the Indians, who even as children generally took sexual expression in its many forms for granted. There are no “dirty words” in Indian languages, and therefore no separate category of “obscene” concepts. Plains tribesmen often had names like Testicles or Penis, bestowed like any other title of honor after a vision or special event.
On the Plains, seducing a pretty girl was almost like counting coup. A man might draw figures on his courting robe to indicate his conquests, much as he would draw scenes of his feats in war on his tipi. Note that the Plains people were no more promiscuous than whites—they simply lacked hypocrisy in sexual matters. If a Sioux girl did not wish to make love (and many did not), she simply tied a hair rope in a certain way between her legs, and no man would dare touch her.
In many tribes, the flute was an instrument used only for courting. Its sound was said to resemble the call of the elk, whose powerful medicine made a man irresistible. If a man drew elk tracks on a small mirror and then flashed the sun’s rays from it onto a girl’s face or heart, she was immediately his. There are also tales of men whose flutes and melodies had such power that any woman who heard them would follow the sound and surrender herself to the player. The Sioux even tell of women who were so excited by their lovers’ music that their noses started to bleed.
Faithlessness is not a theme dealt with lightly; great value is placed on the loyalty of a spouse, even under duress. One Apache women falsely accused of infidelity and banished still remains so steadfast in her commitment to her husband that she returns in the guise of a warrior to rescue him and his entire tribe.
Not all courtship or lovemaking is solemn, of course. The sacred clowns of the Southwest, the Koyemshi and Koshare, often enlivened feasts and dances with antics that mimicked sexual acts or made erotic jokes. These pantomimes had religious undertones, touching on rituals associated with the renewal of life. And of course, among almost all tribes, the antics of the trickster lend themselves perfectly to ribald or erotic themes.
[BRULE SIOUX]
Well, you know our flutes; you’ve heard their sound and seen how beautifully they are made. That flute of ours, the siyotanka, is for only one kind of music—love music. In the old days the men would sit by themselves, maybe lean hidden, unseen, against a tree in the dark of night. They would make up their own special tunes, their courting songs.
We Indians are shy. Even if he was a warrior who had already counted coup on an enemy, a young man might hardly screw up courage enough to talk to a nice-looking winchinchala—a girl he was in love with. Also, there was no place where a young man and a girl could be alone inside the village. The family tipi was always crowded with people. And naturally, you couldn’t just walk out of the village hand in hand with your girl, even if hand holding had been one of our customs, which it wasn’t. Out there in the tall grass and sagebrush you could be gored by a buffalo, clawed by a grizzly, or tomahawked by a Pawnee, or you could run into the Mila Hanska, the Long Knives, namely the U.S. Cavalry.
The only chance you had to met your winchinchala was to wait for her at daybreak when the women went to the river or brook with their skin bags to get water. When that girl you had your eye on finally came down the water trail, you popped up from behind some bush and stood so she could see you. And that was about all you could do to show her that you were interested—standing there grinning, looking at your moccasins, scratching your ear, maybe.
The winchinchala didn’t do much either, except get red in the face, giggle, maybe throw a wild turnip at you. If she liked you, the only way she would let you know was to take her time filling her water bag and peek at you a few times over her shoulder.
So the flutes did all the talking. At night, lying on her buffalo robe in her parents’ tipi, the girl would hear that moaning, crying sound of the siyotanka. By the way it was played, she would know that it was her lover who was out there someplace. And if the elk medicine was very strong in him and her, maybe she would sneak out to follow that sound and meet him without anybody noticing it.
The flute is always made of cedarwood. In shape it describes the long neck and head of a bird with an open beak. The sound comes out of the beak, and that’s where the legend comes in, the legend of how the Lakota people acquired the flute.
Once many generations ago, the people had drums, gourd rattles, and bull-roarers, but no flutes. At that long-ago time a young man went out to hunt. Meat was scarce, and the people in his camp were hungry. He found the tracks of an elk and followed them for a long time. The elk, wise and swift, is the one who owns the love charm. If a man possesses elk medicine, the girl he likes can’t help sleeping with him. He will also be a lucky hunter. This young man I’m talking about had no elk medicine.
After many hours he finally sighted his game. He was skilled with bow and arrows, and had a fine new bow and a quiver full of straight, well-feathered, flint-tipped arrows. Yet the elk always managed to stay just out of range, leading him on and on. The young man was so intent on following his prey that he hardly noticed where he went.
When night came, he found himself deep inside a thick forest. The tracks had disappeared and so had the elk, and there was no moon. He realized that he was lost and that it was too dark to find his way out. Luckily he came upon a stream with cool, clear water. And he had been careful enough to bring a hide bag of wasna—dried meat pounded with berries and kidney fat—strong food that will keep a man going for a few days. After he had drunk and eaten, he rolled himself into his fur robe, propped his back against a tree, and tried to rest. But he couldn’t sleep; the forest was full of strange noises, the cries of night animals, the hooting of owls, the groaning of trees in the wind. It was as if he heard these sounds for the first time.
Suddenly there was an entirely new sound, of a kind neither he nor anyone else had ever heard before. It was mournful and ghost-like. It made him afraid, so that he drew his robe tightly about himself and reached for his bow to make sure that it was properly strung. On the other hand, the sound was like a song, sad but beautiful, full of love, hope, and yearning. Then before he knew it, he was asleep. He dreamed that the bird called wagnuka, the redheaded woodpecker, appeared singing the strangely beautiful song and telling him: “Follow me and I will teach you.”
When the hunter awoke, the sun was already high. On a branch of the tree against which he was leaning, he saw a redheaded woodpecker. The bird flew away to another tree, and another, but never very far, looking back all the time at the young man as if to say: “Come on!” Then once more he heard that wonderful song, and his heart yearned to find the singer. Flying toward the sound, leading the hunter, the bird flitted through the leaves, while its bright red top made it easy to follow. At last it lighted on a cedar tree and began hammering on a branch, making a noise like the fast beating of a small drum. Suddenly there was a gust of wind, and again the hunter heard that beautiful sound right above him.
Then he discovered that the song came from the dead branch that the woodpecker was tapping with his beak. He realized also that it was the wind which made the sound as it whistled through the holes the bird had drilled.
He took the branch, a hollow piece of wood full of woodpecker holes that was about the length of his forearm. He walked back to his village bringing no meat, but happy all the same.
In his tipi the young man tried to make the branch sing for him. He blew on it, he waved it around; no sound came. It made him sad, he wanted so much to hear that wonderful new sound. He purified himself in the sweat lodge and climbed to the top of a lonely hill. There, resting with his back against a large rock, he fasted, going without food or water for four days and nights, crying for a vision which would tell him how to make the branch sing. In the middle of the fourth night, wagnuka, the bird with the bright-red top, appeared, saying, “Watch me,” turning himself into a man, showing the hunter how to make the branch sing, saying again and again: “Watch this, now.” And in his dream the young man watched and observed very carefully.
When he awoke, he found a cedar tree. He broke off a branch and, working many hours, hollowed it out with a bowstring drill, just as he had seen the woodpecker do it in his dream. He whittled the branch into the shape of a bird with a long neck and an open beak. He painted the top of the bird’s head with washasha, the sacred red color. He prayed. He smoked the branch up with incense of burning sage, cedar, and sweet grass. He fingered the holes as he had seen the man-bird do in his vision, meanwhile blowing softly into the mouthpiece. All at once there was the song, ghost-like and beautiful beyond words drifting all the way to the village, where the people were astounded and joyful to hear it. With the help of the wind and the woodpecker, the young man had brought them the first flute.
In the village lived an itanchan—a big chief. This itanchan had a daughter who was beautiful but also very proud, and convinced that there was no young man good enough for her. Many had come courting, but she had sent them all away. Now, the hunter who had made the flute decided that she was just the woman for him. Thinking of her he composed a special song, and one night, standing behind a tall tree, he played it on his siyotanka in hopes that it might have a charm to make her love him.
All at once the winchinchala heard it. She was sitting in her father’s tipi, eating buffalo-hump meat and tongue, feeling good. She wanted to stay there, in the tipi by the fire, but her feet wanted to go outside. She pulled back, but the feet pulled forward, and the feet won. Her head said, “Go slow, go slow!” but the feet said, “Faster, faster!” She saw the young man standing in the moonlight; she heard the flute. Her head said, “Don’t go to him; he’s poor.” Her feet said, “Go; run!” and again the feet prevailed.
So they stood face to face. The girl’s head told her to be silent, but the feet told her to speak, and speak she did, saying: “Koshkalaka, young man, I am yours altogether.” So they lay down together, the young man and the winchinchala, under one blanket.
Later she told him: “Koshkalaka, warrior, I like you. Let your parents send a gift to my father, the chief. No matter how small, it will be accepted. Let your father speak for you to my father. Do it soon! Do it now!”
And so the two fathers quickly agreed to the wishes of their children. The proud winchinchala became the hunter’s wife, and he himself became a great chief. All the other young men had heard and seen. Soon they too began to whittle cedar branches into the shape of birds’ heads with long necks and open beaks. The beautiful love music traveled from tribe to tribe, and made young girls’ feet go where they shouldn’t. And that’s how the flute was brought to the people, thanks to the cedar, the woodpecker, and this young man, who shot no elk, but knew how to listen.
—Told by Henry Crow Dog in New York City, 1967, and recorded by Richard Erdoes.
TEACHING THE MUDHEADS
HOW TO COPULATE
[ZUNI]
Practically all Indian pueblos of the Southwest have their sacred clowns—the Koshare, Koyemshi, or Chiffonetti, depending on the tribe. Among the Zuni they are known as the Koyemshi, or more colloquially, the Mudheads. In intervals between solemn, exalted masked dances, the clowns appear to do ridiculous things and make ribald jokes, often at the expense of the local missionary or the white tourist. They provide relief from rituals that are highly emotional, sometimes even a little frightening. But their occasionally gross antics are really only the comic counterpart of solemnity, the underscoring of the duality of life. Clowning is serious business, because the Mudheads too are holy people. Their performance is not an antithesis to solemn rites, but an integral part of them.
The Mudheads are not very bright. Long ago they didn’t know many things, even very simple, everyday actions. So a man tried to instruct them.
He tried to teach them how to go up a ladder. He showed them how to do it, and they tried to copy him, but they couldn’t. One tried to go up the ladder with his feet upmost, standing on his head. Another tried to climb the back of the ladder. A third kept falling through the rungs, while a fourth got all tangled in the rungs. They just couldn’t do it.
Then the man tried to teach them how to build a house. He showed them the right way to do it, and they tried to imitate his actions. But one started with the roof and made the others hold up the ceiling while he tried to build downward from it. Another put together a house with no doors and windows. He built it from the inside, and when he wanted to go out, he found he had walled himself in. The others had to break down the walls to let him out. Still another made the mud bricks out of sand. When it rained, his house collapsed into a sandpile. Try as they would, the Mudheads just couldn’t do it right.
Then the man tried to show them a really simple thing—how to sit on a chair. They watched and tried to do as he did. One sat on top of the chair back and tumbled over. Another sat underneath the chair.
Another sat on the chair with his back to the front. A fourth tried to sit upside down with his head where his rump ought to have been. They just couldn’t get the point.
“Well,” said their instructor, “I’ll try one thing more. I’m going to show you how to copulate.” There was a fat old woman who hadn’t had a man in her for a long time. “They can all practice on me,” she said, “I don’t mind.” So she lifted up her manta and bent over, and the instructor copulated with her in the simplest way—from the back as dogs do. The Mudheads watched closely, and then they all wanted to try. But none of them could find the right opening. One did it in the anus, another in the knee bend, another in the arm bend, another in the armpit, another in the navel, another in the ear. They tried and tried. They really wanted to do it right, but they couldn’t. “I give up on you,” said the instructor. The fat old woman just laughed.
—Told in several versions during a sacred clown dance and pantomime at Zuni Pueblo, 1964, and recorded by Richard Erdoes.
THE FIGHT FOR A WIFE
[ALEUT]
Once upon a time there was a boy who lived all alone, far from other people. He had a habit of lifting stones, at first small ones, then larger and larger ones as he grew and became stronger. When he was old enough to marry, he decided to go out in the world to get a wife, peaceably if he could, but if not, then by fighting for her.
After several days’ paddling, he came by night to a village. In one hut he saw a light, so he went there and found a young girl who gave him something to eat and a place to sleep.
The whole village heard that a stranger had arrived. Soon an old man presented himself and shouted through the window of the hut: “Our champion would like to try his strength with the new arrival.” The girl explained the meaning of the challenge to the young man and advised him to accept.
The first test consisted of a hunt for beluga. Watched by all the people, the village champion and the stranger went off, each in his own boat. In the evening when they returned, it was the newcomer who had killed the largest number of the animals and was declared the winner.
On the following day another challenge was delivered in the same manner. This time the contest was a boat race
around a large island facing the village. When the rivals met on the beach, their bidarkas—boats—were side by side. Between them was placed a bow and arrow, to be used by the victor on the vanquished.
The two men got away together, and for a time the contest was in doubt as first one and then the other took the lead. But as the race progressed, the local champion gradually drew ahead of his rival until they lost sight of one another. So certain of the outcome were the old men on the shore that they did not even stay to see the finish. But the newcomer spoke to his boat, which was made of beluga skin, and commanded it to change into the beluga, swim under the water, and overtake the other boat. When the young man was close to shore, he and his boat came up, assumed their usual shapes, and landed.
When the local champion had lost sight of his rival, he had slowed up because he felt certain of victory. Great was his astonishment and fright when he saw the young stranger on the beach with the bow in his hand. He had little time to think, for the twice-victorious hero shot him. While the hero was eating supper at the young girl’s home, an old man came to ask him to go to the beach and withdraw the arrow from the defeated champion, since no one else could do it. The newcomer went to the beach and pulled the arrow out, and the villager became well again.
On the evening of the third day, the young man was challenged once more, this time to a wrestling match in the village Large House. In its center was a fenced-in pit containing many bones and shaman worms. The victor was to throw his opponent into the pit, where the worms would eat him. Life, love, glory hung on the outcome, and both men fought hard and long. In this contest the young man’s strength, derived from lifting stones, proved decisive. With a skillful movement he picked the local champion off his feet and heaved him into the pit.