At home the old couple cried again and told their people that the law required them to move from their home, O-Ke-owin, and seek another place to live. Now you know why we live where we do. The tragedy that occurred at O-Ke-owin forced our people to move to Xun ochute, which is now San Juan.
—Told at San Juan Pueblo, New Mexico, in the early 1960s and translated from the Tewa by Alfonso Ortiz.
THE NEGLECTFUL MOTHER
[COCHITI]
Crow had been sitting on the eggs in her nest for many days, and she got tired of it and flew away. Hawk came by and found nobody on the nest. Hawk said to herself, “The person who owns this nest must no longer care for it. What a shame for those poor little eggs! I will sit on them, and they will be my children.” She sat for many days on the eggs, and finally they began to hatch. Still no Crow came. The little ones all hatched out and the mother Hawk flew about getting food for them. They grew bigger and bigger and their wings got strong, and at last it was time for the mother Hawk to take them off the nest.
After all this while, Crow finally remembered her nest. When she came back to it she found the eggs hatched and Hawk taking care of her little ones.
“Hawk!”
“What is it?”
“You must return these little ones you are leading around.”
“Why?”
“Because they are mine.”
Hawk said, “Yes, you laid the eggs, but you had no pity on the poor things. You went off and left them. I came and sat on the nest and hatched them. When they were hatched, I fed them, and now I lead them about. They are mine, and I won’t return them.”
“Crow said, “I shall take them back.”
“No, you won’t! I worked for them, and for many days I fasted, sitting there on the eggs. In all that time you didn’t come near them. Why is it now, when I’ve taken care of them and brought them up, that you want them back?”
Crow said to the little ones, “My children, come with me. I am your mother.”
But the little ones said they did not know her. “Hawk is our mother.” At last when she couldn’t make them come with her, she said, “Very well, I’ll take Hawk to court, and we shall see who has the right to these children.”
So Mother Crow took Mother Hawk before the king of the birds. Eagle said to Crow, “Why did you leave your nest?” Crow hung her head and had no answer to that. But she said, “When I came back to my nest, I found my eggs already hatched and Hawk taking charge of the little ones. I have come to ask that Hawk return the children to me.”
Eagle said to Mother Hawk, “How did you find this nest of eggs?”
“Many times I went to it and found it empty. No one came for a long time, and at last I had pity upon the poor little eggs. I said to myself, ‘The mother who made this nest can no longer care for these eggs. I would be glad to hatch the little ones.’ I sat on them and they hatched. Then I went about getting food for them. I worked hard and brought them up, and they have grown.”
Mother Crow interrupted mother Hawk and said, “But they’re my children. I laid the eggs.”
“It’s not your turn. We are both asking for justice, and it will be given to us. Wait till I have spoken.”
Eagle said to Mother Hawk, “Is that all?”
“Yes, I have worked hard to raise my two little ones. Just when they were grown, Mother Crow came and asked to have them back again, but I won’t give them back. It is I who fasted and worked, and they are now mine.”
The king of the birds said to Mother Crow, “If you really had pity on your little ones, why did you leave the nest for so many days? And why are you demanding to have them now? Mother Hawk is the mother of the little ones, for she has fasted and hatched them, and flown about searching for their food. Now they are her children.”
Mother Crow said to the king of the birds, “King, you should ask the little ones which mother they choose to follow. They know enough to know which one to take.”
So the king said to the little ones, “Which mother will you choose?”
Both answered together, “Mother Hawk is our mother. She’s all the mother we know.”
Crow cried, “No, I’m your only mother!”
The little Crow children said, “In the nest you had no pity on us; you left us. Mother Hawk hatched us, and she is our mother.”
So it was finally settled as the little ones had said: they were the children of Mother Hawk, who had had pity on them in the nest and brought them up.
Mother Crow began to weep. The king said to her, “Don’t cry. It’s your own fault. This is the final decision of the king of the birds.” So Mother Crow lost her children.
—Recorded by Ruth Benedict in 1931.
[HAIDA]
This story of the Haidas of Queen Charlotte’s Island, British Columbia, was told in 1873 by a Haida named Yak Quahu, who heard it related around the evening fires by the old people of his tribe. Yak Quahu began: “Not long ago, as our old people tell us, the bears were a race of beings less perfect than our fathers. They used to talk, walk upright, and use their paws like hands. When they wanted wives, they were accustomed to steal the daughters of our people.”
Quiss-an-kweedass and Kind-a-wuss were a youth and maiden in my native village, she the daughter of one of our chiefs, he the son of one of the common people. Since both were about the same age and had been playmates from youth, their fondness in later years ripened into a love so strong that they seemed to live for each other. But while they loved each other, they knew that they could never live as husband and wife, because both were of one crest, the Raven. By the social laws of the Haidas a mother gives her name and crest to her children, whether Raven, Eagle, Frog, Beaver, or Bear. A man is at liberty to take a wife from any other crest except the one to which he himself belongs.
While the youth and maiden continued to love each other, time passed unnoticed. Life to them seemed a pleasing dream—from which they were awakened when both sets of parents reminded them that the time had come for each to marry someone else. Seeing that these admonitions passed unheeded, their parents resolved to separate them. The lovers were confined in their homes, but they contrived to slip away and meet outside the village. They escaped to the woods, resolved to live on the meanest fare in the mountain forests rather than return to be separated.
In a lonely glen under a shady spruce by a mountain stream, they built a hut, to which they always returned at night. While wandering in search of food they were careful lest they should meet any of their relations.
Thus they lived until the lengthening nights and stormy days reminded them of winter. Quiss-an-kweedass resolved to revisit his home, and to make the journey alone. Kind-a-wuss preferred to remain in the solitude of the forest rather than face her angry relations. He promised, however, to return before nightfall of the fourth day.
When he reached home, his parents welcomed him and asked about Kind-a-wuss and her whereabouts since they had departed. He told them all, and when they heard how they lived, and how she had become his wife, their wrath was great. They told him that he would never go back, and they decided to keep him prisoner until she also returned.
When Quiss-an-kweedass could not get away, he urged his people to let him go and get Kind-a-wuss, for she would never return alone. They were unmoved by his appeal. After a considerable time, he managed to escape. He hastened to his mountain home, hoping to meet Kind-a-wuss, yet fearing that something might be wrong.
When he arrived at the place where they had parted, he found by the footprints on the soft earth that she had started to return to their hut. Drawing near it, he listened but heard no sound and saw no trace of her. When he went inside, he was horror-stricken to find that she had not been there since he left. Where was she? Had she lost her way? Hoping to find some clue, he searched the hut, looked up and down the stream, went through the timber up to the mountains, calling her by name as he went along: “Kind-a-wuss, Kind-a-wuss, where are you? Kind-a-wuss, come to me; I am your own Quiss-an-kweedass.
Do you hear me, Kind-a-wuss?” To these appeals the mountain echoes answered, Kind-a-wuss.
After searching for days, feeling sorrowful and angry, he turned homeward, grieving for the dear one whom he had lost, and angry with his parents, whom he blamed for his misfortune. Once there, he told the villagers of his trouble and claimed their assistance. Many responded, among them the two fathers, one anxious for his daughter’s safety, the other disturbed because he had detained his son.
Early on the morning of the third day after Quiss-an-kweedass arrived, he led a party out for a final search to try and find her, dead or alive. But after ten days, during which they discovered nothing except a place where traces of a struggle were visible, they abandoned the effort.
As weeks gave place to months and months to years, Kind-a-wuss seemed to have been forgotten. She was seldom mentioned, or was referred to only as the girl who was lost and never found. Yet her lover never forgot; he believed her still alive and did all in his power to find her. Having failed so often, he thought he would visit a medicine man, or skaga, who was clairvoyant.
The skaga asked Quiss-an-kweedass if he had anything that the maiden had worn. He gave a part of her clothing to the skaga, who took it in his hand and said: “I see a young woman lying on the ground; she seems to be asleep. It is Kind-a-wuss. There is something in the bushes, coming toward her. It is a large bear. He takes hold of her; she tries to get away but cannot. He takes her with him, a long way off. I see a lake. They reach it and stop at a large cedar tree. She lives in the tree with the bear. I see two children, boys, that she has had by the bear. If you go to the lake and find the tree, you will discover them all there.”
Quiss-an-kweedass lost no time in getting together a second party led by the skaga, who soon found the lake and then the tree. There they halted to consider what it was best to do.
It was agreed that Quiss-an-kweedass should call her by name before venturing up a sort of stepladder which leaned against the tree. After he called her several times, she looked out and said, “Where do you come from? And who are you?” “I am Quiss-an-kweedass,” said he. “I have sought long years for you. Now that I have found you, I mean to take you home. Will you go?” “I cannot go with you until my husband, the chief of the bears, returns.” After a little conversation, she consented to come down among them; and when they had her in their power, they hastily carried her off home.
Her parents were glad to have their lost child, and Quiss-an-kweedass was overjoyed to recover his loved one. Although she was at home and kindly welcomed, she was worried for her two sons and wished to return for them. This her friends would not allow, though they offered to go and fetch them. She replied that their father would not let them go. “But,” said she, “there is a way you might get them.” She explained that the bear had made up a song for her, and if they would go to the tree and sing it, the bear chief would give them whatever they wished.
After learning the song, a party went to the tree and began to sing. As soon as the bear heard the song he came down, thinking that Kind-a-wuss had returned. When he saw that she was not there, he was upset and refused to let the children go. When the party threatened to take them by force, however, he agreed to send them to their mother.
Kind-a-wuss told the following story of how she had fallen into the power of the bear. After she had parted from Quiss-an-kweedass and turned back toward the hut, she had not gone far before she felt tired and sick at heart for her lover. Deciding to rest a little, she lay down in a dry, shady place and fell asleep.
There the bear found her, took her and carried her to his home near the lake. As the entrance to his house was high above the ground, he had a sort of stepladder whereby he could get easily up and down. He sent some of his tribe to gather soft moss to make her a bed.
She used to wonder why no one came to look for her; and when the bear saw her downhearted, he would do all in his power to cheer her up. As the years passed and none of her relations nor her lover came near her, she began to feel at home in the bear’s tree house. By the time the search party arrived, she had given up all hope of being found. The bear tried to make her comfortable and please her. He composed a song which to this day is known among the children of the Haidas as the Song of the Bears. I have heard it sung many times. In 1888 an old acquaintance gave me the words:
I have taken a fair maid from her Haida friends as my wife. I hope her relatives won’t come and carry her away from me. I will be kind to her. I will give her berries from the hill and roots from the ground. I will do all I can to please her. For her I made this song, and for her I sing it.
This is the Song of the Bears, and whoever can sing it has their lasting friendship. Many people learned it from Kind-a-wuss, who never went again to live with the bear. Out of consideration for her, as well as for the hardships that the lovers had suffered, they were allowed to live as man and wife.
As for the two sons, Soo-gaot and Cun-what, they showed different dispositions as they grew up. Soo-gaot stayed with his mother’s people, while the other returned to his father and lived and died among the bears. Soo-gaot, marrying a girl belonging to his parental tribe, reared a family from whom many of his people claim to be descended. The direct descendant of Soo-gaot is a pretty girl, the offspring of a Haida mother and Kanaku father, who inherits all the family belongings, the savings of many generations. The small brook which flowed by the mountain home of Quiss-an-kweedass and Kind-a-wuss grew to be a large stream, up which large quantities of salmon run in season. That stream is in the family to this day, and out of it they catch their food.
—Based on Yak Quahu’s story recorded in 1873 and published by James Deans in the 1880s.
[KWAKIUTL]
The totem poles of the Northwest Coast tribes were actually family crests rather than religious icons, denoting the owners legendary descent from an animal such as the bear, raven, wolf, salmon, or killer whale. Coming into a village, a stranger would first look for a house with the totem pole of his own clan animal. Its owner was sure to receive him as a friend and offer him food and shelter. Totem poles “also preserved ancient customs by making sure that in every region within visiting distance of others the old stories were repeated, and the old beliefs about the spirits, the origins of fire and other myths, were basically the same despite linguistic differences between main tribal groups.”*
Wakiash was a chief named after the river Wakiash because he was open-handed and flowing with gifts, even as the river flowed with fish. It happened once that the whole tribe was having a dance. Wakiash had never created a dance of his own, and he was unhappy because all the other chiefs had fine dances. So he thought: “I will go up into the mountains to fast, and perhaps a dance will come to me.”
Wakiash made himself ready and went to the mountains, where he stayed, fasting and bathing, for four days. Early in the morning of the fourth day, he grew so weary that he lay upon his back and fell asleep. Then he felt something on his breast and woke to see a little green frog.
“Lie still,” the frog said, “because you are on the back of a raven who is going to fly you and me around the world. Then you can see what you want and take it.” The raven began to beat its wings, and they flew for four days, during which Wakiash saw many things. When they were on their way back, he spotted a house with a beautiful totem pole in front and heard the sound of singing inside the house. Thinking that these were fine things, he wished he could take them home.
The frog, who knew his thoughts, told the raven to stop. As the bird coasted to the ground, the frog advised the chief to hide behind the door of the house.
“Stay there until they begin to dance,” the frog said. “Then leap out into the room.”
The people tried to begin a dance but could do nothing—neither dance nor sing. One of them said, “Something’s the matter; there must be something near us that makes us feel like this.” And the chief said, “Let one of us who can run faster than the flames of the fire rush around the house and find what
it is.” So the little mouse said that she would go, for she could creep anywhere, even into a box, and if anyone were hiding she would find him. The mouse had taken off her mouse-skin clothes and was presently appearing in the form of a woman. Indeed, all the people in the house were animals who looked like humans because they had taken off their animal-skin clothes to dance.
When the mouse ran out, Wakiash caught her and said, “Ha, my friend, I have a gift for you.” And he gave her a piece of mountain-goat’s fat. The mouse was so pleased with Wakiash that she began talking to him. “What do you want?” she asked eventually. Wakiash said that he wanted the totem pole, the house, and the dances and songs that belonged to them. The mouse said, “Stay here; wait till I come again.”
Wakiash stayed, and the mouse went in and told the dancers, “I’ve been everywhere to see if there’s a man around, but I couldn’t find anybody.” And the chief, who looked like a man but was really a beaver, said, “Let’s try again to dance.” They tried three times but couldn’t do anything, and each time they sent the mouse to search. But each time the mouse only chatted with Wakiash and returned to report that no one was there. The third time she was sent out, she said to him, “Get ready, and when they begin to dance, leap into the room.”
When the mouse told the animals again that no one was there, they began to dance. Then Wakiash sprang in, and at once they all dropped their heads in shame, because a man had seen them looking like men, whereas they were really animals.
The dancers stood silent until at last the mouse said: “Let’s not waste time; let’s ask our friend what he wants.”
So they all lifted up their heads, and the chief asked the man what he wanted. Wakiash thought that he would like to have the dance, because he had never had one of his own. Also, he thought, he would like to have the house and the totem pole that he had seen outside. Though the man did not speak, the mouse divined his thoughts and told the dancers. And the chief said, “Let our friend sit down. Well show him how we dance, and he can pick out whatever dance he wants.”
AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS Page 49
