The chief asked: “When is he going to be here?”
“You will know by the star. When you see a double star, one star reflecting the other, then the Hu-Hanska-Ska will be near.”
Iktome went away. He passed two women who were looking for wild turnips and using deer horns to dig them out of the prairie. They saw Iktome walking, pointing his arm skyward. All of a sudden he drew himself up into a ball, and at the same time the thread of a spider web from the sky hit the earth, and Iktome climbed up and vanished in the air.
Now, near the village of the Kangi-Wichasha—the Crow people—two old men were gathering herbs for Indian medicine. They saw someone standing behind a tree, then saw him circling the camp. They said to one another: “He is not from our tribe. Let’s ask him what he wants.”
Ikto spoke in the Crow tongue: “The White Long-legs is coming. Look around you at the things you see—the grass, the trees, the animals. The Iktome Hu-Hanska-Ska will take them all. He will steal the air. He will give you a new, different life. He will give you many new things, but hold onto your old ways; mind what Tunkashila, the Grandfather Spirit, taught you.”
The two old men said: “We’d better bring you to our chief.” They did so, and the Crow chief asked: “What message have you for us?”
“The White Long-legs is coming! He will eat up the grass, and the trees, and the buffalo. He will bring you a new faith. I am telling you this, I, Ikto, who rolls through the air.”
The Crow chief asked: “Why is he coming? We don’t want him here. We don’t want his new things. We have everything here to make us happy.”
“He will come,” said Iktome, “whether you want him to or not. He is coming from the east.”
“How is it that your name is Ikto?”
“Because I am Iktome, the Spider Man. Remember this tree of the white ash. It is sacred. Remember Iyan, Tunka, the rock. The rocks are forever.”
One Crow woman gave Iktome a handful of wasna—jerk meat mixed with kidney fat and berries—to take with him on his travels. Iktome thanked her, saying: “You must watch this new man. Whatever he does and says and asks, say “Hiya” to him, say “No,” say hiya to everything. Now I take my message to the west, to Wiyopeyata.”
Iktome stood in the center of the tipi circle. All the Crow chiefs were standing around him wearing their warbonnets. Suddenly a great rush of power was felt by all. Iktome shrank into a ball, and the thread of the spider web which was floating in the sky hit the prairie, causing a trembling and thundering deep inside the earth. And while everybody marveled, Iktome climbed up the thread into the web and was gone.
A man was roaming in a valley. He was seen by a warrior of the Snake People, also known as Shoshone, getting his horses together. The warrior asked the man who he was and why he had come. The stranger said: “I am Ikto. I roll with the air. I come from Wiyohiyanpata, the east, a generation coming with news.”
The warrior said: “Stay here. I will bring our chief.” The Shoshone chief came, followed by his people. Ikto told him: “A new kind of man is coming, a White Long-legs with many lies and many new things. If you want them, that’s up to you.”
The chief put two sticks on the ground facing north and south. It was a symbol for saying “No.” The Chief told Ikto: “We don’t want him. Our generation is good, our nation is good, our land is good. We have no use for this new kind of man.”
Ikto told him: “He will come anyhow. I am going to Waziyata, toward the north, to bring my message to the people there.”
Ikto climbed a hill, and the Shoshone people saw lightning strike the summit, and they heard the sound of many buffalo in the earth beneath their feet.
Iktome reappeared in the north, walking toward the village of the Palani, or Pawnees, pointing his finger toward their camp, shouting: “A new generation is coming! A new kind of human is coming! He is coming to this world!”
One Palani woman asked him: “Is it a newborn child?”
“No,” said Ikto, “this is no little child. It is a man without grandmothers or grandfathers, a man bringing new sicknesses and worries.”
“We don’t want him! What shall we do?” the Pawnees asked.
“You yourselves must know what to do. I am going back to my people.”
The Pawnees said: “Don’t go yet.” But Iktome went toward the north with a pine bough in his hand, pointing it in the four directions, up to Grandfather Sky, and down to Grandmother Earth. “Remember, this will be the plant of worship in the center of the earth, and with it you will see and know.”
And they all said: “Ohan, Yes.”
Iktome went back to his own Sioux people. He flew through the air, and the wind carried him into their camp. He told the people: “I am going back into the sea. That new man is coming. He is almost here.”
“How will he come?” asked the Sioux chief.
“He is coming in a wahté, in a boat. You are the Ikche-Wichasha—the plain, wild, untamed people—but this man will misname you and call you by all kinds of false names. He will try to tame you, try to remake you after himself. This man will lie. He cannot speak the truth.”
“When is he going to come?”
“When the white flowers bloom. Watch the buffalo: when this new man comes, the buffalo will go into a hole in a mountain. Guard the buffalo, because the White Long-legs will take them all. He will bring four things: wicocuye—sickness; wawoya—hate; wawiwagele—prejudice; waunshilap-sni—pitilessness. He will try to give you his new Great Spirit instead of your own, making you exchange your own Wakan Tanka for this new one, so that you will lose the world. But always remember Tunka, the rock. He has no mouth, no eyes, no ears, but he has the power. Hold onto it. And always remember Tunkashila, the Grandfather, the Great Spirit! This new man is coming, coming to live among you. He will lie, and his lie never ends. He is going to make a dark, black hoop around the world.”
“Is there no hope?” the people asked.
“Maybe, and maybe not. I don’t know. First it will happen as I told you, and with his long legs he will run over you. Maybe a time will come when you can break his dark hoop. Maybe you can change this man and make him better, giving him earth wisdom, making him listen to what the trees and grass tell him. I will now reveal to you his name. You shall know him as washi-manu, steal-all, or better by the name of fat-taker, wasichu, because he will take the fat of the land. He will eat up everything, at least for a time.”
Iktome left, and slowly people forgot about that White Long-legs coming, because for a while things were as they had always been. So they stopped worrying. Then one morning two Sioux women were out gathering chokecherries, and suddenly a black smog covered the place where they were.
And out of this blackness they saw a strange creature emerging. He had on a strange black hat, and boots, and clothes. His skin was pale, his hair was yellow, and his eyes were blue. He had hair growing under his nose and falling down over his lips; his chin was covered with hair; he was hairy all over. When he spoke, it did not sound like human speech. No one could understand him. He was sitting on a large, strange animal as big as a large moose, but it was not a moose. It was an animal no one knew.
This strange creature, this weird man, carried in one hand a cross and in the other a fearful firestick which spat lightning and made a noise like thunder. He took from his black coat something hard, shiny, glittering, and transparent which served him as a water bag. It seemed to contain clear water. He offered it to the women to drink, and when they tried it, the strange water burned their throats and made their heads swim. The man was covered with an evil sickness, and this sickness jumped on the women’s skin like many unnumbered pustules and left them dying. Then they realized that the wasichu had arrived, that finally he was among them, and that everything would be changed.
—Told by Leonard Crow Dog in New York City, 1972, and recorded by Richard Erdoes.
[BRULE SIOUX]
There was a world before this world, but the people in it did not know how to behave themselves
or how to act human. The creating power was not pleased with that earlier world. He said to himself: “I will make a new world.” He had the pipe bag and the chief pipe, which he put on the pipe rack that he had made in the sacred manner. He took four dry buffalo chips, placed three of them under the three sticks, and saved the fourth one to light the pipe.
The Creating Power said to himself: “I will sing three songs, which will bring a heavy rain. Then I’ll sing a fourth song and stamp four times on the earth, and the earth will crack wide open. Water will come out of the cracks and cover all the land.” When he sang the first song, it started to rain. When he sang the second, it poured. When he sang the third, the rain-swollen rivers overflowed their beds. But when he sang the fourth song and stamped on the earth, it split open in many places like a shattered gourd, and water flowed from the cracks until it covered everything.
The Creating Power floated on the sacred pipe and on his huge pipe bag. He let himself be carried by waves and wind this way and that, drifting for a long time. At last the rain stopped, and by then all the people and animals had drowned. Only Kangi, the crow, survived, though it had no place to rest and was very tired. Flying above the pipe, “Tunkashila, Grandfather, I must soon rest”; and three times the crow asked him to make a place for it to light.
The Creating Power thought: “It’s time to unwrap the pipe and open the pipe bag.” The wrapping and the pipe bag contained all manner of animals and birds, from which he selected four animals known for their ability to stay under water for a long time. First he sang a song and took the loon out of the bag. He commanded the loon to dive and bring up a lump of mud. The loon did dive, but it brought up nothing. “I dived and dived but couldn’t reach bottom,” the loon said. “I almost died. The water is too deep.”
The Creating Power sang a second song and took the otter out of the bag. He ordered the otter to dive and bring up some mud. The sleek otter at once dived into the water, using its strong webbed feet to go down, down, down. It was submerged for a long time, but when it finally came to the surface, it brought nothing.
Taking the beaver out of the pipe’s wrapping, the Creating Power sang a third song. He commanded the beaver to go down deep below the water and bring some mud. The beaver thrust itself into the water, using its great flat tail to propel itself downward. It stayed under water longer than the others, but when it finally came up again, it too brought nothing.
At last the Creating Power sang the fourth song and took the turtle out of the bag. The turtle is very strong. Among our people it stands for long life and endurance and the power to survive. A turtle heart is great medicine, for it keeps on beating a long time after the turtle is dead. “You must bring the mud,” the Creating Power told the turtle. It dove into the water and stayed below so long that the other three animals shouted: “The turtle is dead; it will never come up again!”
All the time, the crow was flying around and begging for a place to light.
After what seemed to be eons, the turtle broke the surface of the water and paddled to the Creating Power. “I got to the bottom!” the turtle cried. “I brought some earth!” And sure enough, its feet and claws—even the space in the cracks on its sides between its upper and lower shell—were filled with mud.
Scooping mud from the turtle’s feet and sides, the Creating Power began to sing. He sang all the while that he shaped the mud in his hands and spread it on the water to make a spot of dry land for himself. When he had sung the fourth song, there was enough land for the Creating Power and for the crow.
“Come down and rest,” said the Creating Power to the crow, and the bird was glad to.
Then the Creating Power took from his bag two long wing feathers of the eagle. He waved them over his plot of ground and commanded it to spread until it covered everything. Soon all the water was replaced by earth. “Water without earth is not good,” thought the Creating Power, “but land without water is not good either.” Feeling pity for the land, he wept for the earth and the creatures he would put upon it, and his tears became oceans, streams, and lakes. “That’s better,” he thought.
Out of his pipe bag the Creating Power took all kinds of animals, birds, plants and scattered them over the land. When he stamped on the earth, they all came alive.
From the earth the Creating Power formed the shapes of men and women. He used red earth and white earth, black earth and yellow earth, and made as many as he thought would do for a start. He stamped on the earth and the shapes came alive, each taking the color of the earth out of which it was made. The Creating Power gave all of them understanding and speech and told them what tribes they belonged to.
The Creating Power said to them: “The first world I made was bad; the creatures on it were bad. So I burned it up. The second world I made was bad too, so I drowned it. This is the third world I have made. Look: I have created a rainbow for you as a sign that there will be no more Great Flood. Whenever you see a rainbow, you will know that it has stopped raining.”
The Creating Power continued: “Now, if you have learned how to behave like human beings and how to live in peace with each other and with the other living things—the two-legged, the four-legged, the many-legged, the fliers, the no-legs, the green plants of this universe—then all will be well. But if you make this world bad and ugly, then I will destroy this world too. It’s up to you.”
The Creating Power gave the people the pipe. “Live by it,” he said. He named this land the Turtle Continent because it was there that the turtle came up with the mud out of which the third world was made.
“Someday there might be a fourth world,” the Creating Power thought. Then he rested.
—Told by Leonard Crow Dog at Grass Mountain, Rosebud Indian Reservation, 1974. Recorded by Richard Er does.
APPENDIX
ACOMA
Acoma is, along with the Hopi town of Oraibi, the oldest inhabited settlement in the United States; it was already well established when the Spaniards first saw it in 1540. The ancient pueblo, known as the Sky City, is spectacularly situated like a medieval fortress atop its 600-foot-high rock, halfway between Gallup and Albuquerque in New Mexico. In the midst of the village stands the seventeenth-century Church of San Esteban with its wonderful polychrome altar, one of the great architectural treasures of the Southwest.
ALEUTS
The Aleuts’ name derives from the Chukchi word aliat, meaning “island” or “islanders.” They call themselves Unung’un, the People. The Aleuts are a branch of the Inuit family, with whom they share common ancestors and also vocabulary. They occupy the chain of islands forming the “bridge” between Siberia and Alaska over which man first came to the Western Hemisphere tens of thousands of years ago. The Aleuts fish and hunt in kayaks.
ALGOHQUIAN
The Algonquians (or Algonkins), are possibly the largest group of linguistically related tribes in North America, scattered over the whole continent from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. They include the Algonkin of Ottawa proper, the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ojibway, Sac and Fox, Pottawatomi, Illinois, Miami, Kickapoo, and Shawnee. However, if an Indian legend is said to be of Algonkin origin, it generally means that it comes from an East Coast tribe, such as the Pequod, Mohegan, Delaware, Abnaki, or Micmac.
ALSEA
The Alsea were a small tribe of Yakonan Indians from western Oregon. Once numerous, by 1906 they were reduced to about a dozen individuals who took refuge among the Siletz tribe, which has since disappeared also. Their vestiges have been absorbed by a number of other Oregon tribes.
APACHE
The name Apache comes from the Zuni word apachu, meaning “enemy.” Their own name for themselves is N’de or Dineh, the People. In the early 1500s, a group of Athapascan-speaking people drifted down from their original home in western Canada into what is now Arizona, New Mexico, and the four-corners area. They were split into smaller tribes and bands, including the Lipan, the Jicarilla (from the Spanish for “little basket,” referring to their pitch-lined drinking
cups), Chiricahua, Tonto, Mescalero, and White Mountain Apaches.
The Apache were a nomadic people and lived in conical brush shelters (wickiups) to which they often attached a ramada—four upright poles roofed over with branches. They hunted and gathered wild plants; much later they also began to plant corn and squash. They usually dressed in deerskin and wore their hair long and loose, held by a headband. Men also wore long, flapping breechcloths. Their soft, thigh-high moccasins were important in a land of chaparral, thorns, and cacti, since they were primarily runners of incredible stamina rather than riders (though they acquired horses early and were excellent horsemen). Their main weapon was the bow, and it was used long after they had guns.
Apache women wove particularly striking baskets, some made so tightly that a needle could not be inserted between their coils. They carried their babies on cradleboards. Women played an important role in family affairs; they could own property and become medicine women.
The Lipan Apache at first kept peace with the whites, whom they encountered in the sixteenth century. Fierce nomadic raiders, the Lipans roamed west Texas and much of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande, and eventually became the scourge of miners and settlers, particularly in Mexico. Their great chiefs included Cochise and Mangus Colorado, as well as Goyathlay, the One Who Yawns, better known as Geronimo. Apache attacks on whites were not unprovoked, for these tribes had often been victims of treachery, broken agreements, and massacres by white Americans and Mexicans. They were not finally subdued until the 1880s.
The Jicarillas, now numbering 1,500 to 2,000, live on a 750,000-acre reservation high in the mountains of northern New Mexico. The White Mountain Apaches (also called Sierra Blancas or Coyoteros) live in Arizona and New Mexico, including about 6,000 on the 1,600,000-acre Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona.
In 1905, there were only 25 Lipan survivors left, and they were eventually placed on the Mescalero Apache Reservation.
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