AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS

by Richard Erdoes

  Blue Hawk’s wife had a long golden braid in the center of her abdomen which she unplaited, brushed out, braided up again, and wound around her body five times. As the girl bent and turned, the old one saw that she had a kind of black mark on her backbone.

  At daybreak the old woman got up. “Granddaughter, I am going home to feed my turkeys,” she said. And she returned to her own house, where Red Hawk had spent the night, and reported all she had seen.

  Red Hawk rode back to his friend’s camp. “I slept with your wife!” he said, but Blue Hawk would not believe it. “Well, she has long golden hair on the center of her abdomen and a black mark on her backbone.”

  Silently Blue Hawk dropped his head.

  “My friend, you gave your word, and the words of a man are worth a great deal,” Red Hawk said.

  Then Blue Hawk spoke. “There are my pack horses and my money and everything I was carrying. Take all. We will go back and I will give you everything, money, horses, cattle, and house.”

  So they returned to the village, and Blue Hawk presented his friend with all his possessions, as one would when making funeral offerings. His wife kept asking, “What are you doing? Why are you giving everything to that boy?” He did not reply but went quietly to work making a huge rawhide trunk. In it he put money, food, and cooking gear.

  At last Blue Hawk spoke to his wife. He was going to take a trip on the plains, he said—a long pleasure trip to the water. He asked her to dress in her finest clothes, and then he put her into the trunk too. “I made this case to keep you from the heat of the sun, so you won’t get burned,” he said.

  Blue Hawk hitched a cart to the horses, set out on the trip, heaved the trunk into the first large river they came to, and went back to the tribe. Everyone asked where he had taken his wife and why he had given all his property to Red Hawk, but he would not say.

  His silence was not pleasing to the girl’s father, the head chief. He worked to make a hole down to the underworld, and then he arranged for his son-in-law to fall into that hole.

  On the large river into which Blue Hawk had thrown the trunk, there was a fisherman who hooked something heavy. “A big fish,” he said as he slowly pulled. He drew it to the edge of the river, dragged it out, and found that it was a rawhide trunk. To his amazement, a very pretty girl lay inside. He wanted to take her to his camp, but before she would go, the girl insisted on switching clothes with him.

  The fisherman’s band of Apaches were preparing to go to war, and the girl, dressed in the man’s clothes, joined the warriors when they started off early the next morning. On the journey the young men talked among themselves about the handsome, well-dressed stranger. “His eyes look like a girl’s,” one said. “He moves like a girl,” another said. That night when they made camp, a boy finally said, “I’ll make friends and see if he is a boy or girl.”

  Now, the woman had told them that she was a medicine man, and she put her tent apart from the others. She said her medicine was the sun, which is why she carried a white eagle feather. The boy who wanted to make friends went over to her tent and asked if he could sleep there. After they went to bed, the boy stayed awake all night waiting for the stranger to fall asleep, but she never did. Whenever he moved slowly toward her and put his arm over her, she would say, “Don’t do that!” After a while he would try again, and she would say, “Why don’t you go to sleep?” That way they passed the night. In the morning the boy confessed his failure to the other warriors, and the next night another young man made the same unsuccessful attempt. Every night of the journey, a different boy tried fruitlessly to discover the stranger’s true sex.

  Finally the band of warriors reached enemy country. The medicine man ordered his tent pitched apart from theirs and warned them to stay inside their tents and be silent. Once she was alone, the girl spat medicine in the direction of the hostile tribe and in this way, with no assistance, killed off all their enemies.

  She gave a war whoop, at which all the young men emerged from their tents. “I fought a big battle and killed them all,” she announced. “Now I will go to the dead and cut off their ears, every one, and take their shields, bows and arrows, and war clubs.” She did, and took their scalps too. When the war party returned home with the scalps, the grateful chief picked out a young warrior to escort her back to her home, but she refused a guard and asked only for a good horse.

  At last she took off her man’s clothes, and there she was, the faithful wife whose husband had thrown her into the river. “Though I am a girl,” she said, “I did all the fighting for your young warriors. I killed your enemies—here you have their scalps and ears and weapons. My husband was once Blue Hawk, but you shut him up in the dark because of the trick that Red Hawk played on him. Now bring him to me!”

  When they brought Blue Hawk, his wife embraced him and cried, because he looked so thin and sad. “You were beaten,” she said, “by letting Red Hawk convince you that he knew my body. He deceived you. You know I love you honestly, truly. Now go and get Red Hawk and the old woman!”

  The wrongdoers were brought before the couple and the head chief. The girl said to her father, “Tell your boys to get the wildest ponies in the camp!” They fetched the two wildest horses, and she ordered them to tie Red Hawk to the tail of one and the old woman to the tail of the other. Then they turned the horses loose. Off they went, kicking and jumping, and tore Red Hawk and the old woman to pieces, away from the camp.

  —Based on a tale reported by Elsie Clews Parsons in 1940.

  COYOTE AND THE

  MALLARD DUCKS

  [NEZ PERCÉ]

  Coyote was traveling up the river when he saw five mallard duck girls swimming on the other side. He hid himself in the bushes and became aroused right away. Then he thought out a plan to satisfy himself.

  Coyote lengthened his penis and let it fall into the river. It floated on top of the water. Coyote didn’t like this, so he pulled it back in and tied a rock to it to keep it below the surface of the water. He threw his penis back in and tied a smaller rock to it. This was just right. It floated just below the surface of the water, where no one could see it. He sent it across to where the girls were swimming. He began copulating with the oldest girl.

  Now, these girls did not know what was wrong with their older sister, the way she was moving around in the water and making strange sounds. Then they saw what was happening and they grabbed the penis and tried to pull it out. When they couldn’t, they got out on the bank and held down their older sister and tried to pull it out that way, but they couldn’t and they began laughing about it.

  When Coyote had satisfied himself, he called over to the girls and said, “My sisters, what is the problem over there?” They told him. He said, “Cut the thing off with some wire grass.” They did, and Coyote cut the other end off where he was and the middle section of the penis fell in the river and became a ledge.

  The eldest girl became ill then. Coyote went down the river a short distance, swam across and then came upstream to the girls’ camp where the oldest girl was almost dead.

  The girls recognized Coyote and said, “Coyote, the medicine man, has come.” They asked him to cure the sick girl. He told them that he would do it, but they had to close up all the chinks in the lodge so no one could see in and steal his medicine by watching. He told them to leave him alone with the girl for a while.

  He got the sisters together around the lodge and told them to sing a song and keep time on a log with sticks. “Keep time on the log very carefully, for now I am going to take it out.”

  Coyote began singing, “I will stick it back on, I will stick it back on.” He went into the lodge and copulated again with the mallard duck girl and recovered the end of his penis. The girl was cured.

  After that everyone said the medicine of Coyote was very powerful.

  —Told by Barry Lopez in 1977.

  THE GREEDY FATHER

  [KAROK]

  Famine descended, and the people were hungry. A man decided he woul
d go fishing to get food for his family. He left the house at dawn. As the sun rose, it shone on the water. Suddenly the string attached to the fishnet quivered. The man hauled out the net and discovered a huge salmon, which he put down in back of the fishery.

  Then he thought, “I’m so hungry, I think I’ll just cook it up right now.” So he cleaned it and cut off the tail, putting it to one side. Then he cooked the salmon, and when he devoured it all, only realizing afterwards what he had done.

  Then he went home, carrying just the tail. When he was some distance from home, he began shouting, “Here children, this is the tail! There were a lot of beggars on the way who got the rest.”

  Then the children ran out, shouting, “Hurray, we’re going to eat! Hurray, we’re going to eat!”

  The next day he went fishing again. Again he caught a big salmon, and he ate it on the spot. Again he went home and shouted, “Here, children, this is the tail! There were a lot of beggars.”

  Now his wife began to suspect that he was holding out on them. When he went fishing again the next day, she told her children, “You stay here. I’m following him.” When she arrived at the fishery, he had just pulled out a big salmon. He cut off the tail and put it down a little way off. Then he made a fire and cooked it. He was about to eat it.

  The woman ran back upriver, and she gathered her children together and told them they were leaving. They climbed uphill, and when the father returned, they heard him shouting below them, “Here, children, this is the tail! There were a lot of beggars.” But he heard only silence. He shouted again. He ran indoors, and found only mice squeaking. Then he jumped out of the house, still shouting about the tail and the beggars. He looked uphill and finally saw where they had climbed.

  His wife shouted down to him, “Eat alone there, just like you have been all along! He followed them, getting closer and closer, and still shouting. When he caught up with them, his wife told him, “You’ll be eating only mud in the creeks. But we will be sitting around in front of rich people.”

  And he reached out to grab the littlest one, but the child turned into a bear lily. He grabbed another and it turned into a hazel bush. He grabbed the wife; she turned into a pine tree. Finally he fell down back to the banks of the water, and you’ll see him like that now, eating mud on the edge of creeks. He became a water ouzel, a small gray bird which we call “moss eater.” But his wife and his children line up in front of rich people, baskets in the deerskin dance.

  —Based on a tale reported by William Bright in 1957.

  KULSHAN AND HIS TWO WIVES

  [LUMNI]

  Komo Kulshan, a very tall and handsome young man, had two wives, as was the custom of his tribe. One was named Clear Sky; the other, Fair Maiden.

  For several years Clear Sky was Kulshan’s favorite wife. She was the more beautiful of the two, and she had borne him three children. Fair Maiden was less beautiful, but she was always gentle and kind. At last she won Kulshan’s love through kindness, though as a result she gained Clear Sky’s dislike. Clear Sky had a jealous and bitter nature. Soon there was quarreling in the lodge.

  One day Clear Sky scolded Komo Kulshan at great length and concluded, “You should love me more than Fair Maiden. I am the mother of your children.”

  Kulshan smiled and said nothing.

  Clear Sky became angrier. “I’m going away,” she said. “I’ll leave you and the children and go away.”

  She expected him to answer, “Don’t go away. You’re the mother of my children, and I love you most. Don’t go.”

  But Kulshan did not beg her to stay. Though he loved her and didn’t want her to leave, he was too proud to say so.

  Instead he told her, “If you want to, you may go as soon and as far as you wish.”

  Slowly, taking her time, Clear Sky packed her things. She packed all her seeds and bulbs, packed her roots and berries, packed all her flowering plants. At last she was finished, and her children cried loudly when they saw her leaving. This pleased Clear Sky, who felt sure that Kulshan would call her back when she had gone a little distance.

  She started down the mountain valley slowly, alone. When she had gone a short distance, she stopped and looked back. But Kulshan did not say, “Come home.”

  She went a little farther and paused on a hill to look back at Kulshan and the children. When she stood on tiptoe, she could see them. But still Kulshan did not say, “Come back, Clear Sky.”

  She went on farther south. She was still among the hills and mountains, mountains not so high as Komo Kulshan. He still did not call her, though she stood on the very tips of her toes. Farther south she climbed to the top of a high hill, rose on tiptoe, and made herself as tall as she could. That way she could just see Kulshan and the children, and they could see her.

  By this time she had stretched herself so often that she had become much taller. Sure now that her husband did not want her to return, she decided to make camp where she was. At least on a clear day she would be able to see her family. So she put down her packs and took out all the seeds and bulbs and roots. She planted them around her, and there she stayed, cultivating them.

  Fair Maiden lived with Kulshan for a long time. One day she said to him: “I want to visit my mother. I’m going to have a baby, and I want to see my mother.”

  “How can you go to your mother?” asked Kulshan. “There’s no trail, nothing but rocks and trees and mountains between us and Whulge.”

  “I don’t know how I can get there, but you’ll have to make a passageway for me. I want to see my mother.”

  So Komo Kulshan called together all the animals that have claws—the beavers, the marmots, the cougars, the bears, even the rats and mice and moles—and told them to dig a big ditch. The animals dug a deep one that was wide enough for two canoes to pass. Then Kulshan turned all the water from the mountains near him into the ditch until there was enough to float a fair-sized canoe. Today the stream is called the Nooksack River.

  Before starting, Fair Maiden gathered many kinds of food to take with her. Then she went down the river and out into the salt water of Whulge.

  She ate mussels at one of the islands and left some there. That’s why mussels are found on the same island today. She ate clams at another island and left some there. She ate camas at another, and that’s why a lot of camas grow on Matia Island today. She ate devilfish and berries at another island and left some. At every island on her journey she left some kind of fish or root or berry, and that’s why the Indian names for these islands are the names of food.

  When she got to Flat Top Island, she decided to stay somewhere near it. She stood looking over the water for a long time, trying to choose the best place. The winds blew round her tall figure and made a number of whirlpools. The whirlpools sucked many people in, even some who lived far away, and devoured them.

  Fair Maiden kept on standing there, and the winds kept blowing round her. At last the Changer came to her and said, “Why don’t you lie down? If you stand, the winds will create whirlpools, and the whirlpools will suck all the people in.”

  So Fair Maiden lay down, and the Changer transformed her into Spieden Island. When her child was born, it was a small island of the same shape as Spieden and lying beside it. Today it is called Sentinel Island.

  Kulshan, left with his children in the mountains of the Northwest coastal range, kept stretching upward, trying to see his wives. So did his children. The three of them grew taller and taller and became high mountains. One is Shuksan, a little east of Kulshan and almost as tall. Some people say the others are Twin Sisters, a little west and south of Kulshan.

  A long journey south of them stands their mother, Clear Sky. You know her as Mount Rainier. The seeds and roots she planted there grew and spread, and that’s why the lower slopes bloom with flowers of every color. Often on a clear day or night, the mountain dresses in sparkling white and looks with longing at Komo Kulshan and the mountain children near him.

  —Reported by Ella Clark in 1953.

 
; [SIA]

  Before Ut’sět, Mother of the People, left this world, she selected six Sia women and sent one to the north, one to the west, one to the south, one to the east, one to the zenith, and one to the nadir, and told them to make their homes at these points for all time. That way they would be near the cloud rulers of the cardinal points, and they could intercede for all the people of Ha’arts. Ut’sět told her people to remember these women in times of need, and they would appeal to the cloud people for them.

  The Sia alone followed the command of Ut’sět and took the straight road, while all other pueblos advanced by various routes to the center of the earth. After Ut’sět’s departure the Sia traveled some distance and built a village of beautiful white stone, where they lived, declared, for a long duration. At one time all the parents suffered tragically at the hand of the ti’ämoni, who, objecting to the increase of his people, caused all children to be put to death. The Sia had scarcely recovered from this calamity when another serious difficulty arose.

  The Sia women worked hard all day, grinding meal and singing; and at sundown, when the men returned to the houses, the women would often abuse them, saying: “You are no good; you do not care to work. All you want to do is be with women all the time. If you would allow four days to pass between, the women would care more for you.”

  The men replied: “You women really want to be with us all day and all night. If you could have the men only every four days, you would be very unhappy.”