AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS

by Richard Erdoes

  The man said: “Come into the tipi. Let’s talk this over.” So the white shape went inside with him. They sat down. The man said: “I’m not quite ready to die yet. And the children are too young to die. Instead of our going with you to that spirit place, can’t you arrange it so that you come to life again and stay with us?”

  The ghost didn’t know, and said she would ask and return in four days with an answer.

  Four days later she came back, standing outside the tipi in the moonlight like a white mist. She called her husband and told him: “Well, all right; it’s arranged for me to come to life again. Make a curtain of buffalo robes that I can hide behind, and don’t look at me or try to touch me for four days. If you do I’ll remain dead, so be careful, Husband.”

  The man followed every instruction. He hung the curtain and didn’t look or let the children look behind it. He did everything right. And after four days his wife came out from behind the curtain, young and pretty as before.

  The couple and their children lived again as if she had never died. They were happy together.

  When years had passed, however, the man fell in love with another woman. He told his wife: “I shall marry a second woman, and she will share the work with you. You’ll have someone to talk to when I’m away hunting. Things will be more pleasant.”

  But things were not so pleasant. The first wife tried to get along with the second one, but the new woman was proud and jealous. And as often happens, the man paid more attention to his new wife, the younger and prettier one.

  The new woman did not like having the old one around, either, and she told her: “You’re nothing but a ghost; you’re not even real. Why do you hang around? Why don’t you go back up to the Milky Way where you belong? Go away, ghost!”

  The first wife said nothing, but the next morning she was gone, and her husband and children were gone with her. They had vanished without a trace. This time the ghost wife had taken them to the spirit land rather than stay with them down on earth. When the new wife realized what had happened, she was sorry for what she had said, but that didn’t bring them back.

  —Told by Leonard Crow Dog in 1968, and recorded by Richard Erdoes.

  The great Oglala leader Crazy Horse used to shout on his way into battle, “A good day to fight and a good day to die!” Bobtail Horse of the Cheyennes, faced with a mission which would probably cost him his life, remarked casually: “I am not afraid. I have already thrown my life away.” Elderly Cheyenne warriors, weary of the misery and boredom of old age, made elaborate preparations to end their lives in battle. Yet accepting death was also an affirmation of life, for Crazy Horse also said he could die willingly because all the things he held dear—the sun, the land, the buffalo—were close by; his willingness to die was part of his way of honoring the human spirit. It was the lot of all people. As Sioux warriors acknowledged, “Only the rocks and mountains last forever; men must die.”

  Death enters the world in many guises. The Blackfoot creator Old Man introduces it as an inherent component of life when fashioning the first men and women. Coyote, in a Caddo legend, encounters death as a whirlwind, but he too acknowledges its crucial role in life.

  Individuals are not the only ones to perish; nations and cultures crumble in mythic images, besieged from without and within. A Cheyenne proverb says, “A nation is not lost so long as its women’s hearts are high. But if ever the women’s heart should be lost, then the nation dies.” Many stories tell of the coming of the white man, with his railroads and armies, and of the disastrous consequences for the Indian. For the Sioux, his arrival meant the end of the buffalo, and with them went an entire way of life.

  Men and women die, nations disappear, and even the destruction of the world itself is foretold in apocalyptic images of the end of time. The eradication of the world by flood or fire is a widespread motif across the continent, but it is usually accompanied by tokens of renewal, for the end of this world does not mean the end of everything, but merely the passing of one state and the arrival of the next, just as other worlds were destroyed to make way for the one we live in now.

  A Hopi prophecy fortells that when the Blue Star Kachinas dance in the village plazas, then the end will be near. And when a special song is heard during the Wuwuchim ceremony, then the world will be plunged into war. This song was heard before the outbreak of World Wars I and II, and it will be heard again just before the outbreak of World War III. Then everything will be destroyed except the Four Corners area in which the Hopi live. From there a new world will start. The end of this world, in which we are living now, will come when people fly through the sky, trying to reach the stars, when the sun turns black, and when the Hopis travel to the House of Mica.

  This particular vision was embraced in a rather dramatic way in recent years when, in the 1970s, a Hopi delegation traveled to New York to address a warning to the United Nations. One Hopi spokesman, when passing through Gary, Indiana, saw the sun hidden by clouds of smoke rising from many smokestacks. The sun he was seeing was black. When he saw the United Nations building for the first time, he knew that he had arrived at the House of Mica and that the old prophecies would be fulfilled. There will be a last warning—earthquakes, eclipses, volcanic eruptions, and if this warning is not heeded, and the people of the world do not take better care of it, this world will be wiped out, and a new one will take its place.

  Long before the days of world wars or atomic weapons, however, a Paiute medicine man had another vision of a new world. 1890 witnessed the second major outbreak of the apocalyptic Ghost Dance; in 1870, tribes in California and the far west had taken up the great ceremonial dance for the first time in many years, and now it swept with increased fervor throughout the Plains. While the dancers embued it with a more violent tone in the east, where Indian tribes suffered the most severe stress from the incursions of the whites, the first dancers began with more peaceful intent. The medicine man Wovoka spoke of a fantastic vision of a world cleansed and renewed with green grass and spring rains and returned, whole again, to the Indian people. The dead returned from the North, driving before them great herds of game and buffalo, and all the people in the world thrived without death or illness. There would be great fellowship and brotherhood between all the tribes, and between man and animal.

  Unfortunately, this vision was shattered in the cold and bloody snow of Wounded Knee in December, 1890, and little progress seems to have been made towards reaching it again since then. The belief that it will come some day, however, endures, and with it the vitality of Wovoka’s image of all the people in the world joining hands and dancing together in a single harmonious circle: a peaceful world for all its creatures.

  WOMAN CHOOSES DEATH

  [BLACKFOOT]

  Old Man decided that something was missing in the world he had made. He thought it would be a good thing to create a woman and a child. He didn’t quite know how they should look, but he took some clay and mud and for four days tried out different shapes. At first he didn’t like the looks of the beings he formed. On the fourth day, however, he shaped a woman in a pleasing form, round and nice, with everything in front and back, above and below, just right.

  “This is good,” Old Man said, “this is the kind of woman I like to have in my world.” Then he made a little child resembling the woman. “Well,” said Old Man, “this is just what I wanted, but they’re not alive yet.”

  Old Man covered them up for four days. On the first day he looked under the cover and saw a faint trembling. On the second day the figures could raise their heads. On the third day they moved their arms and legs. “Soon they will be ready,” said Old Man. And on the fourth day he looked underneath the cover and saw his figures crawling around. “They’re ready now to walk upon my world,” thought Old Man. He took the cover off and told the woman and the child: “Walk upright like human beings.” The woman and the child stood up. They began to walk, and they were perfect.

  They followed Old Man down to the river, where he gave them
the power of speech. At once the woman asked: “What is that state we are in, walking, moving, breathing, eating?”

  “That is life,” said Old Man. “Before, you were just lumps of mud. Now, you live.”

  “When we were lumps of mud, were we alive then?” asked the woman. “No,” said Old Man, “you were not alive.”

  “What do you call the state we were in then?” asked the woman. “It is called death,” answered Old Man. “When you are not alive, then you are dead.”

  “Will we be alive always?” asked the woman. “Will we go on living forever, or shall we be dead again at some time?”

  Old Man pondered. He said: “I didn’t think about that at all. Let’s decide it right now. Here’s a buffalo chip. If it floats, then people will die and come back to life four days later.”

  “No,” said the woman. “This buffalo chip will dissolve in the water. I’ll throw in this stone. If it floats, we’ll live forever and there will be no death. If it sinks, then we’ll die.” The woman didn’t know anything yet, because she had been walking on earth for just a few hours. She didn’t know about stones and water, so she threw the stone into the river and it sank.

  “You made a choice there,” said Old Man. “Now nothing can be done about it. Now people will die.”

  —Retold from several nineteenth-century sources.

  COYOTE AND THE

  ORIGIN OF DEATH

  [CADDO]

  In the beginning of this world, there was no such thing as death. Everybody continued to live until there were so many people that the earth had no room for any more. The chiefs held a council to determine what to do. One man rose and said he thought it would be a good plan to have the people die and be gone for a little while, and then return.

  As soon as he sat down, Coyote jumped up and said he thought people ought to die forever. He pointed out that this little world is not large enough to hold all of the people, and that if the people who died came back to life, there would not be food enough for all.

  All the other men objected. They said that they did not want their friends and relatives to die and be gone forever, for then they would grieve and worry and there would be no happiness in the world. Everyone except Coyote decided to have people die and be gone for a little while, and then come back to life again.

  The medicine men built a large grass house facing the east. When they had completed it, they called the men of the tribe together and told them that people who died would be restored to life in the midicine house. The chief medicine man explained that they would sing a song calling the spirit of the dead to the grass house. When the spirit came, they would restore it to life. All the people were glad, because they were anxious for the dead to come and live with them again.

  When the first man died, the medicine men assembled in the grass house and sang. In about ten days a whirlwind blew from the west and circled about the grass house. Coyote saw it, and as the whirlwind was about to enter the house, he closed the door. The spirit of the whirlwind, finding the door closed, whirled on by. In this way Coyote made death eternal, and from that time on, people grieved over their dead and were unhappy.

  Now whenever anyone meets a whirlwind or hears the wind whistle, he says: “Someone is wandering about.” Ever since Coyote closed the door, the spirits of the dead have wandered over the earth trying to find some place to go, until at last they discovered the road to the spirit land.

  Coyote ran away and never came back, for when he saw what he had done, he was afraid. Ever after that, he has run from one place to another, always looking back first over one shoulder and then over the other to see if anyone is pursuing him. And ever since then he has been starving, for no one will give him anything to eat.

  —From a tale reported by George A. Dorsey in 1905.

  THE FLOOD

  [HAIDA]

  Behind Frederic Island there was a village with many people in it. A crowd of boys and girls was playing on the beach when they saw a strange woman wearing a fur cape such as they had never seen before. A little boy walked up to her to find out who she was, and the others followed. She was indeed strange. One boy pulled at her garment, which was like a shirt. He pulled it way up and saw her backbone, a funny-looking thing with “Chinese slippers,” a plant that grows on the seashore, sticking out of it. This made the children laugh and jeer.

  When they heard the children’s clamor, the old people told them to stop laughing at the stranger. At that moment the tide was at its low ebb, and the woman sat down at the water’s edge. The tide began to rise, and the water touched her feet. She moved up a little and again sat down. The water rose again, and again she moved back. Now she sat down at the edge of the village. But the tide kept rising; never before had it come so high. The villagers grew frightened and awe-struck. Having no canoes, they did not know how to escape, so they took big logs, tied them together into a raft, and placed their children on it. They packed the raft with dried salmon, halibut, and baskets of spring water for drinking.

  Meanwhile the stranger kept sitting down, and when the tide came up to her, moving away to higher ground, up the hillside, up the mountain. Many people saved themselves by climbing onto the raft with the children. Others made more rafts, until there were a number afloat. The whole island now was covered by the sea, and the hundreds and hundreds of survivors were drifting about without being able to stop, since they had no anchors.

  By and by the people saw peaks sticking out of the ocean. One of the rafts drifted to a piece of land and its survivors stepped off there, while other rafts were beached elsewhere. It was at that time that the tribes became dispersed.

  —Based on a tale related by Henry Young in 1947 and reported by Marius Barbeau in 1953.

  THE SEER WHO WOULD NOT SEE

  [PIMA]

  Earth Maker took some clay in his hands, mixed it with his own sweat, and formed it into two figures—a man and a woman. He breathed life into them and they began to walk around. They lived. They had children. They peopled the land. They built villages.

  At a time when there were already numbers of people living, Szeukha, Earth Maker’s son, dwelled in the valley of the Gila River. Near him lived a famous seer who could foretell the future.

  One night while this seer slept, someone came to speak to him, making a great noise at his door. The seer woke up and looked out. Silhouetted against the light of the moon was a big bird standing in the doorway. It was the great eagle, who said, “Wake up! Stir yourself! You’re a seer; you’re a healer. Don’t you know that a great flood is coming?”

  “I know nothing about a flood,” said the seer, laughing at the eagle. “Go away and let me sleep.”

  The great eagle came three times more to warn the seer, who ridiculed and scolded him. “Don’t bother me, bird of misfortune. We all know what kind of person you are. You roam the villages in the shape of an old woman, and afterwards some girls and children have disappeared and are never seen again. We don’t want you around here.”

  “You’d better believe what I’m telling you,” said the great eagle. “This whole valley will be flooded. Everything will be destroyed.”

  “You’re a liar,” said the seer.

  “And you’re a seer who sees nothing,” said the great eagle.

  The bird flew away, and hardly had he gone when a tremendous thunderclap was heard, the loudest there has ever been. Even children in the womb heard it. It began thundering continuously as great flashes of lightning lit up the sky. When morning came, the sun remained hidden behind dark clouds, and there was only twilight, gray and misty. Then the earth trembled, and there was a great roar of something immense moving. The people saw a sheer green wall advancing toward them, filling the valley from one side to the other. At first they did not know what it was, and then they realized that it was a wall of green water. Destroying everything in its path, it came like a huge beast, a green monster, rushing upon them foaming, hissing, in a cloud of spray. It engulfed the seer’s house and carried it away with
the seer, who was never seen again. Then the water fell upon the villages, sweeping away homes, people, fields, and trees. The flood swept the valley clean as with a broom. Then it rushed on beyond the valley to wreak havoc elsewhere.

  When the next day dawned, there was nothing alive except Szeukha, Earth Maker’s son, floating on a lump of pine resin. The waters abated a little, and his strange craft bumped into a mountain above the Salt River. He stepped ashore and lived for a while in a cave on that mountain. The cave is still there, and so are some of the tools and weapons that Earth Maker’s son used.

  Now, Szeukha was going up to fight the great eagle. He was furious at this bird, who, he thought, had caused the great flood. Szeukha took wood from different kinds of trees and made a ladder. He leaned it against the cliff atop which the great eagle had his home, and the ladder reached into the clouds. Szeukha climbed it, found the great eagle, and fought him. It was a big fight and lasted a long time, for both Szeukha and the great eagle were powerful and had strong magic. But Szeukha was more powerful, his magic more potent, and at last he killed the great eagle.

  Looking around, Szeukha saw the corpses and bones of all the people the great eagle had abducted and killed. He brought them all back to life, fed and clothed them, and told them to spread out and repeople the land. Inside great eagle’s house he found a woman and her child alive. The eagle had stolen her from a village and taken her for his wife. Szeukha fed and clothed her and the child also, and sent them on their way. The woman was pregnant at the time, and she became the mother and begetter of the Hohokam people, from whom the Pimas are descended.