AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS

by Richard Erdoes

  The day after that, Blood Clot went farther and killed a badger. “I have killed an animal in a hole in the ground,” he said, and the man brought the creature home and cooked it. The following day when the boy returned, he said, “I have killed an animal with black ears and a black tail.” To the old man’s joy, it was a female deer. The three of them ate and were happy.

  Next Blood Clot said, “I have killed a big fellow with big antlers.” It was an elk, so again the family feasted on meat. The old man gave the boy a full-sized bow and arrows, and Blood Clot went into the mountains and shot a mountain goat. “I have killed an animal with big horns in the mountains,” he said when he came down. “Every day,” the old man said proudly, “he kills a different kind of animal.”

  Now their troubles were over, and they had an easy time. Blood Clot killed a mountain lion. Then he tracked and shot an otter: “I have killed an animal with nice fur, living in the water.” The old man tanned the skin to make strings for tying the boy’s braids. The following day Blood Clot found a beaver: “I have killed a water animal with a tail of this size.”

  At last there came a day when Blood Clot said, “I want to visit the village where many people live. Before that, I will go on my last hunt for you, all day and all night. First I want you to tie up the tent, put rocks on the edge, and fasten the door lest the night wind carry it away. Though the wind will be strong, don’t go outdoors and don’t be afraid. I will call when you can come out.”

  The old couple obeyed, and he hunted all night while they were sleeping. About daybreak they heard a big noise, forerunner of a wind that threatened to tip over the tent. The man was frightened and wanted to go out, but the wife held him back, reminding him of what their son had said.

  When daylight came, they heard their son’s voice: “Come on out; I’ll show you something.” They unfastened the door and saw dead buffalo lying all around.

  “I have done this for you,” Blood Clot said. “Dry the meat and hides; save the meat and it will last you for a long time.” The young man asked his mother to fix him a lunch, and she gave him pemmican. “Now my parents have plenty of food,” he said. As he left, they cried and asked him to return.

  Wearing buckskin leggings, carrying a quiver of mountain lion skin, Blood Clot began to travel. After a few days he reached the village. At the outskirts he asked for the chief’s house, and a man told him, “It is in the center.” There he found the chief with his wife and daughter. They invited him to sit down, and the chief asked him where he came from and what his tribe was.

  “I don’t know what tribe I belong to. I have come to visit you,” Blood Clot replied. The chief stepped outdoors and shouted to the people to come and meet their visitor. The villagers were starving for lack of game, but all gathered at the chief’s house and sat down.

  The chief said, “Do any of you know the tribe of this young man?” People named the tribes—Deer, Elk, Otters, Beavers, and others. They asked him whether he belonged to any of these, but he thought not. At last one old man said, “I think I know from the power in him, although I may be mistaken. I think he is one of the Buffalo.” Blood Clot thought about it, and finally agreed.

  The people of the village asked Blood Clot to stay and marry the chief’s daughter. He agreed to this as well, and the wedding was held.

  That evening he asked his father-in-law to bring one arrow from the tipi. When the chief returned, Blood Clot told him to have all the tipis fastened and to warn the people that they should stay indoors, for there would be a great storm. The chief told the villagers, and at daybreak when they heard a big noise, they cried out in fear but did not leave their tipis.

  Then Blood Clot called to the chief, who came out to find dead buffalo before every lodge. At his son-in-law’s bidding he summoned the whole village for a feast, and all were happy.

  Blood Clot stayed there until one day when a group of villagers went out to hunt buffalo. Long before this, he had told his wife, “You know the Buffalo Calf? I am part of that, it is part of me, so you must never say the word ‘calf.’ ” When the party killed some buffalo and were butchering, another herd came running past. His wife pointed and called, “Kill that calf!” Immediately Blood Clot jumped on his horse and galloped away, changing as he did so into a buffalo. His wife cried and attempted to catch him, but in vain. From that time on, Blood Clot ran with the buffalo.

  —Based on a story reported by Robert Lowie in the 1920s.

  CORN MOTHER

  [PENOBSCOT]

  What the buffalo represented to the nomadic tribes of the Plains, corn was to the planting people of the East and the Southwest—the all-nourishing sacred food, the subject of innumerable legends and the central theme of many rituals. Derived from a wild grass called teosintl, corn was planted in Mexico’s Tehuacan Valley as early as 8,000 years ago. The oldest corn found north of the border was discovered in New Mexico’s Bat Cave. It is about 5,500 years old. The Hopis say: “Moing’iima makes corn. Everything grows on his body. He is short, about the height of a boy. He has a female partner. Every summer he becomes heavy, his body is full of vegetables: watermelon, corn, squash. They grow in his body. When the Hopi plant, they invariably ask him to make the crop flourish; then their things come up, whether vegetables or fruit. When he shaves his body, the seeds come out, and afterward his body is thin. He used to live on this earth and go with the Hopi. When things grow ripe, he becomes thin and is unhappy. He stays in the west.” Corn had equal significance for tribes in the East, as we see in this tale from a New England tribe.

  When Kloskurbeh, the All-maker, lived on earth, there were no people yet. But one day when the sun was high, a youth appeared and called him “Uncle, brother of my mother.” This young man was born from the foam of the waves, foam quickened by the wind and warmed by the sun. It was the motion of the wind, the moistness of water, and the sun’s warmth which gave him life—warmth above all, because warmth is life. And the young man lived with Kloskurbeh and became his chief helper.

  Now, after these two powerful beings had created all manner of things, there came to them, as the sun was shining at high noon, a beautiful girl. She was born of the wonderful earth plant, and of the dew, and of warmth. Because a drop of dew fell on a leaf and was warmed by the sun, and the warming sun is life, this girl came into being—from the green living plant, from moisture, and from warmth.

  “I am love,” said the maiden. “I am a strength giver, I am the nourisher, I am the provider of men and animals. They all love me.”

  Then Kloskurbeh thanked the Great Mystery Above for having sent them the maiden. The youth, the Great Nephew, married her, and the girl conceived and thus became First Mother. And Kloskurbeh, the Great Uncle, who teaches humans all they need to know, taught their children how to live. Then he went away to dwell in the north, from which he will return sometime when he is needed.

  Now the people increased and became numerous. They lived by hunting, and the more people there were, the less game they found. They were hunting it out, and as the animals decreased, starvation came upon the people. And First Mother pitied them.

  The little children came to First Mother and said: “We are hungry. Feed us.” But she had nothing to give them, and she wept. She told them: “Be patient. I will make some food. Then your little bellies will be full.” But she kept weeping.

  Her husband asked: “How can I make you smile? How can I make you happy?”

  “There is only one thing that will stop my tears.”

  “What is it?” asked her husband.

  “It is this: you must kill me.”

  “I could never do that.”

  “You must, or I will go on weeping and grieving forever.”

  Then the husband traveled far, to the end of the earth, to the north he went, to ask the Great Instructor, his uncle Kloskurbeh, what he should do.

  “You must do what she wants. You must kill her,” said Kloskurbeh. Then the young man went back to his home, and it was his turn to weep. But
First Mother said: “Tomorrow at high noon you must do it. After you have killed me, let two of our sons take hold of my hair and drag my body over that empty patch of earth. Let them drag me back and forth, back and forth, over every part of the patch, until all my flesh has been torn from my body. Afterwards, take my bones, gather them up, and bury them in the middle of this clearing. Then leave that place.”

  She smiled and said, “Wait seven moons and then come back, and you will find my flesh there, flesh given out of love, and it will nourish and strengthen you forever and ever.”

  So it was done. The husband slew his wife and her sons, praying, dragged her body to and fro as she had commanded, until her flesh covered all the earth. Then they took up her bones and buried them in the middle of it. Weeping loudly, they went away.

  When the husband and his children and his children’s children came back to that place after seven moons had passed, they found the earth covered with tall, green, tasseled plants. The plants’ fruit—corn—was First Mother’s flesh, given so that the people might live and flourish. And they partook of First Mother’s flesh and found it sweet beyond words. Following her instructions, they did not eat all, but put many kernels back into the earth. In this way her flesh and spirit renewed themselves every seven months, generation after generation.

  And at the spot where they had burned First Mother’s bones, there grew another plant, broad-leafed and fragrant. It was First Mother’s breath, and they heard her spirit talking: “Burn this up and smoke it. It is sacred. It will clear your minds, help your prayers, and gladden your hearts.”

  And First Mother’s husband called the first plant Skarmunal, corn, and the second plant utarmur-wayeh, tobacco.

  “Remember,” he told the people, “and take good care of First Mother’s flesh, because it is her goodness become substance. Take good care of her breath, because it is her love turned into smoke. Remember her and think of her whenever you eat, whenever you smoke this sacred plant, bcause she has given her life so that you might live. Yet she is not dead, she lives: in undying love she renews herself again and again.”

  —Retold from three nineteenth-century sources, including Joseph Nicolar.

  CREATION OF THE

  ANIMAL PEOPLE

  [OKANOGAN]

  The earth was once a human being: Old One made her out of a woman. “You will be the mother of all people,” he said.

  Earth is alive yet, but she has been changed. The soil is her flesh, the rocks are her bones, the wind is her breath, trees and grass are her hair. She lives spread out, and we live on her. When she moves, we have an earthquake.

  After taking the woman and changing her to earth, Old One gathered some of her flesh and rolled it into balls, as people do with mud or clay. He made the first group of these balls into the ancients, the beings of the early world.

  The ancients were people, yet also animals. In form some looked human while some walked on all fours like animals. Some could fly like birds; others could swim like fishes. All had the gift of speech, as well as greater powers and cunning than either animals or people. But deer were never among the ancients; they were always animals, even as they are today.

  Besides the ancients, real people and real animals lived on the earth at that time. Old One made the people out of the last balls of mud he took from the earth. He rolled them over and over, shaped them like Indians, and blew on them to bring them alive. They were so ignorant that they were the most helpless of all the creatures Old One had made.

  Old One made people and animals into males and females so that they might breed and multiply. Thus all living things came from the earth. When we look around, we see part of our mother everywhere.

  The difficulty with the early world was that most of the ancients were selfish and some were monsters, and there was much trouble among them. They were also very stupid in some ways. Though they knew they had to hunt in order to live, they did not know which creatures were deer and which were people, and sometimes they ate people by mistake.

  At last Old One said, “There will soon be no people if I let things go on like this.” So he sent Coyote to kill all the monsters and other evil beings among the ancients and teach the Indians how to do things.

  And Coyote began to travel on the earth, teaching the Indians, making life easier and better for them, and performing many wonderful deeds.

  —Reported by Ella Clark in the 1950s.

  STONE BOY

  [BRULE SIOUX]

  Depending on the individual storyteller, the Sioux legend of Stone Boy takes many different forms. The following version from the Cheyenne River Reservation was heard by Henry Crow Dog around 1910, when he was a child listening to the storytellers at the campfire.

  Back in the great days of the Indians, a maiden and her five brothers lived together. People in those times had to look for food; it was their main occupation. So while the sister cooked and made clothes, the brothers spent their days hunting.

  It happened once that this family moved their tipi to the bottom of a canyon. It was a strange, silent place, but there was water in a creek and the hunting was good. The canyon was cool in the summer and shielded from wind in the winter. Still, when the brothers went out hunting, the girl was always waiting for them. Waiting and listening, she heard noises. Often she thought they were footsteps, but when she looked outside, no one was there.

  Then one evening, only four of the five brothers came back from hunting. They and the sister stayed awake all night, wondering what could have happened to the other. The next day when the men went hunting, only three returned. Again they and the sister stayed awake wondering. The next evening only two came home, and they and the girl were afraid.

  In those early days the Indians had no sacred ceremonies or prayers to guide them, so it was hard for the maiden and her two brothers to watch through the night in that ghostly place. Again the brothers went out in the morning, and only a single one returned at night. Now the girl cried and begged him to stay home. But they had to eat, and so in the morning her last and youngest brother, whom she loved best of all, went out to hunt. Like the others, he did not come back. Now no one would bring the maiden food or water, or protect her.

  Weeping, the girl left the canyon and climbed to the top of a hill. She wanted to die, but did not know how to. Then she saw a round pebble lying on the ground. Thinking that it would kill her, she picked it up and swallowed it.

  With peace in her heart the maiden went back to the tipi. She drank some water and felt a stirring inside her, as if the rock were telling her not to worry. She was comforted, though she could not sleep for missing her brothers.

  The next day she had nothing left to eat except some pemmican and berries. She meant to eat them and drink water from the creek, but she found she wasn’t hungry. She felt as if she had been to a feast, and walked around singing to herself. The following day she was happy in a way she had never been before.

  On the fourth day that the girl had been alone, she felt pain. “Now the end comes,” she thought. “Now I die.” She didn’t mind; but instead of dying, she gave birth to a little boy.

  “What will I do with this child?” she wondered. “How did it come? It must be that stone I swallowed.”

  The child was strong, with shining eyes. Though the girl felt weak for a while, she had to keep going to care for the new life, her son. She named him Iyan Hokshi, Stone Boy, and wrapped him in her brothers’ clothes. Day after day he grew, ten times faster than ordinary infants, and with a more perfect body.

  The mother knew that her baby had great powers. One day when he was playing outside the tipi, he made a bow and arrows, all on his own. Looking at his flint arrowhead, the mother wondered how he had done it. “Maybe he knows that he was a stone and I swallowed him,” she thought. “He must have a rock nature.”

  The baby grew so fast that he was soon walking. His hair became long, and as he matured his mother became afraid that she would lose him as she had lost her brothers. She cried o
ften, and though he did not ask why, he seemed to know.

  Very soon he was big enough to go hunting, and when she saw this, his mother wept more than ever. Stone Boy come into the tipi. “Mother, don’t cry,” he said.

  “You used to have five uncles,” she said. “But they went out hunting. One after another, they did not come back.” And she told him about his birth, how she had gone to the top of the hill and swallowed a stone, and how she had felt something moving inside her.

  “I know,” he said. “And I am going to look for your brothers, my uncles.”

  “But if you don’t return,” she sobbed, “what will I do?”

  “I will come back,” he told her. “I will come back with my uncles. Stay in the tipi until I do.”

  So the next morning Iyan Hokshi started walking and watching. He kept on till dusk, when he found a good place to sleep. He wandered for four days, and on the evening of the fourth day he smelled smoke. Iyan Hokshi, this Stone Boy, he followed the smell. It led him to a tipi with smoke coming from its smoke hole.

  This tipi was ugly and ramshackle. Inside Iyan Hokshi could see an old woman who was ugly too. She watched him pass and, calling him over, invited him to eat and stay the night.

  Stone Boy went into the tipi, though he was uneasy in his mind, and a little timid. He looked around and saw five big bundles, propped up on end, leaning against the tipi wall. And he wondered.