AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS

by Richard Erdoes

  The box drifted for four days and four nights, until finally he felt it strike the shore at a place where two rivers join. He took the plug out of a peephole he had made and saw morning light. But when he tried to get out, he couldn’t open the door, no matter how hard he pushed. He thought he would have to die inside.

  In the middle of the afternoon a rattlesnake-girl came down to the river. When she discovered the box, she took off her mask and looked into the peephole. “What are you doing here?” she asked the boy.

  “Open the door! I can’t get out,” he said.

  The girl asked, “How can I open it?”

  “Take a stone and break it.”

  So the girl broke the door, and when the Hopi boy came out, she took him to her house. Inside he saw many people—young and old, men and women—and they were all rattlesnakes.

  “Where are you going?” they asked him.

  “I want to find my father,” the boy replied.

  The girl said, “You can’t go alone; I’ll go with you.”

  She made a small tent of rattlesnake skins and carried it to the river. They crawled into the tent and floated for four days and four nights. Finally they reached the ocean, and there they say a meteor fall into the sea on its way to the house of the sun. They asked the meteor to take them along.

  In this manner they reached the sun’s house, where they found an old woman working on turquoise, coral, and white shell. She was the moon, the mother of the sun.

  “Where is my father?” the boy asked.

  “He has gone out,” the moon replied, “but he will be home soon.”

  The sun arrived in the evening, and the old woman gave him venison and wafer bread. After he had eaten, he asked the boy, “What do you want here?”

  The boy replied, “I want to know my father.”

  “I think you are my son. And when I go into the other world, you shall accompany me,” the sun said this time. And early the next morning, he said, “Let’s go!” He opened a door in the ground, and they went out.

  Seating himself on a stool of crystal, the son took a fox skin and held it up. Daylight appeared. After a while he put the fox skin down and held up the tail feathers of a macaw, and the yellow rays of sunrise streamed out. When at last he let them down, he said to the boy. “Now let’s go!”

  The sun made the boy sit behind him on the stool, and they went out into another world. After traveling for some time, they saw people with long ears, Lacokti ianenakwe. They used their ears as blankets to cover themselves when they slept. The sun remarked, “If bluebird droppings fall on those people, they die.”

  “How is that possible?” the boy said. “How can people be killed that way? Let me kill the birds!”

  The sun said, “Go ahead! I’ll wait.”

  The boy jumped down, took a small cedar stick, and killed the bluebirds. Then he roasted them over a fire and ate them. The people shouted, “Look at this boy! He’s eating Navahos!”

  “No,” said the boy, “these aren’t Navahos, they’re birds.” Then he went back to the sun, and they traveled on.

  About noon they came to another town. The sun said, “Look! The Apache are coming to make war on the people.”

  The boy saw a whirlwind moving along. When wheat straw was blown against the legs of the people, they fell dead. “How can people be killed by wheat straw?” he said. “Let me go down and tear it up.”

  The sun said, “I’ll wait.”

  The boy jumped down, gathered the wheat straw, and tore it up. The people said, “Look at this boy, how he kills the Apache!”

  “These aren’t Apache,” the boy replied, “they’re wheat straws.” Then he went back to the sun.

  They came to another town, where the Hopi boy saw people with very long hair reaching down to their ankles. They had a large pot with onions tied to its handles. Inside it thin mush was cooking and boiling over, and when it hit a person, he died. The sun said, “Look at the Jicarilla Apache, how they kill people!”

  “No,” said the boy, “that’s not Jicarilla Apache; it’s mush. I’ll go down and eat it.”

  The sun said, “I’ll wait.”

  Then the boy jumped down, dipped the mush out of the pot, took the onions from the handles, and ate the mush with the onions. The people said, “Look how this boy eats the brains, hands, and feet of the Jicarilla Apache!”

  The boy said, “This isn’t Jicarilla Apache! It’s corn mush. Come and eat with me!”

  “No! they said. “We’re not cannibals; we don’t eat Apache warriors!” Then the boy went back to the sun, and they traveled on.

  Finally they came to the house of the sun in the east. There the sun’s sister gave them venison stew for supper. After they had eaten, the sun said to his sister, “Wash my son’s head!”

  The sun’s sister took a large dish, put water and yucca suds into it, and washed the boy’s head and body. Then she gave him new clothing, the same kind that the sun was wearing—buckskin trousers, blue moccasins, blue bands of yarn to tie under the knees, a white sash and belt of fox skin, turquoise and shell earrings, a white shirt, silver arm rings, bead bracelets, and a bead necklace. She put macaw feathers in his hair and a miha, sacred blanket, over his shoulder, and gave him a quiver of mountain lion skin.

  Then the sun told him, “Go ahead! I’m going to follow you.” The boy opened the door in the ground and went out. He sat down on the crystal stool, took the fox skin, and held it up to create the dawn. Then he put it down and raised the macaw feathers, holding them up with the palms of his hands stretched forward until the yellow rays of sunrise appeared. After that he dropped his hands and went on into the upper world. As he did, the people of Laguna, Isleta, and the other eastern pueblos looked eastward and sprinkled sacred meal. The sun behind him said, “Look at the trails, the life of the people! Some are short, others are long. Look at this one! He is near the end of his trail; he’s going to die soon.” The boy saw an Apache coming, and in a short time the Apache had killed that man whose trail had been so short. The Hopi boy said to the sun, “Let me go and help the people!”

  “I’ll wait,” the sun replied.

  The boy jumped down into the territory where the Laguna people were fighting the Apache. He told the people to wet their arrow points with saliva and hold them up to the sun, for this would help them in battle. The boy himself killed ten Apaches, then went back to his father.

  They traveled on, and when they saw a group of Navahos setting out to make war on the Zuni, the boy killed them. He and his father crossed the land of his own people, the Hopi, and then came to Mexican territory.

  A Mexican was playing with his wife. When the sun saw them, he threw the Mexican aside and cohabited with the woman. “I don’t need a wife,” he told his son, “because all the women on earth belong to me. If a couple cohabits during the daytime, I interfere as I just did. So I’m the father of all children conceived in the daytime.”

  In the evening the sun entered his house in the west. By then the boy wanted to go back to his own people, so the sun’s mother made a trail of sacred flour, and the boy and the rattlesnake-woman went back eastward over it. At noon they came to the rattlesnakes’ home. The rattlesnake-woman said, “I want to see my father and mother. After that, let’s go on.” They entered the house, and she told her relatives that the Hopi boy was her husband. Then they resumed their journey.

  That evening they arrived in the Hopi village. The boy made straight for his grandmothers house, but an old chief said, “Look at the handsome man going into that poor home!” He invited the boy into his own house, but the boy replied, “No, I’m going here.” The war chief said, “We don’t want you in that dirty house.”

  “The house is mine,” the boy replied, “so tell your people to clean it up. When all of you treated me badly, I went up to the sun and he helped me.”

  On the following evening the boy appeared before a village council and told all that had happened to him. “You must teach the people how to act ri
ghtly. The sun says that you should forbid all bad actions.” The people accepted his words, and everyone worked hard at cleaning his house. In return the boy gave peaches, melons, and wafer bread to the poor. Every evening after sunset the women would come with their dishes, and he would offer them venison stew and peaches. He said to the chief, “I teach the people the right way to live. Even if you are my enemy, I must show you how to behave well.”

  Twin children, a boy and a girl, were born to his wife. They had the shape of rattlesnakes, but they were also humans.

  —Based on a legend reported by Franz Boas in 1922.

  A GUST OF WIND

  [OJIBWAY]

  This story has many variations. The following version is notable because Stone Boy, sometimes conceived when his mother swallows a pebble, appears in creation legends from several Plains tribes.

  Before there was a man, two women, an old one and her daughter, were the only humans on earth. The old woman had not needed a man in order to conceive. Ahki, the earth, also was like a woman—female—but not as she is now, because trees and many animals had not yet been made.

  Well, the young woman, the daughter, took her basket out one day to go berrying. She had gathered enough and was returning home when a sudden gust of wind lifted her buckskin dress up high, baring her body. Geesis, the sun, shone on that spot for a short moment and entered the body of the young woman, though she hardly noticed it. She was aware of the gust of wind but paid no attention.

  Time passed. The young woman said to the old one: “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but something is.” More time passed. The young woman’s belly grew bigger, and she said: “Something is moving inside me. What can it be?”

  “When you were going berrying did you meet anyone?” The old woman asked.

  “I met nobody. The only thing that happened was a big gust of wind which lifted my buckskin dress. The sun was shining.”

  The old woman said: “I think you’re going to have a child. Geesis, the sun, is the only one who could have done it, so you will be the mother of a sun child.”

  The young woman gave birth to two boys, both manitos, supernaturals. They were the first human males on this earth—Geesis’s sons, sons of the sun.

  The young mother made cradleboards and put the twins in these, hanging them up or carrying them on her back, but never letting the babies touch the earth. Why didn’t she? Did the Old Woman tell her not to? Nobody knows. If she had put the cradleboards on the ground, the babies would have walked upright from the moment of their birth, like deer babies. But because their mother would not let them touch earth for some months, it now takes human babies a year or so to walk. It was that young woman’s fault.

  One of the twins was Stone Boy, a rock. He said: “Put me in the fire and heat me up until I glow red hot.” They did, and he said: “Now pour cold water over me.” They did this also. That was the first sweat bath. The other boy, named Wene-boozhoo, looked like all human boys. He became mighty and could do anything; he even talked to the animals and gave them their names.

  —Told by David Red Bird in New York City, 1974, and recorded by Richard Erdoes.

  David Baker Red Bird is a young Green Bay Indian with a great sense of humor. He is a well-known singer and musician.

  [CHEROKEE]

  Many Indian legends, such as the two previous selections, depict the sun as a male being who impregnates mortal women. The Cherokees are one of three tribes who view the sun as female. In this classic tale with an Orpheus theme, the sun is an old woman with a grown daughter and human emotions.

  The sun lived on the other side of the sky vault, but her daughter lived in the middle of the sky, directly above the earth. Every day as the sun was climbing along the sky arch to the west, she used to stop at her daughter’s house for dinner.

  Now, the sun hated the people of this earth, because they never looked straight at her without squinting. She said to her brother, the moon, “My grandchildren are ugly; they screw up their faces whenever they see me.

  But the moon said, “I like my younger brothers; I think they’re handsome.” This was because they always smiled pleasantly at his mild glow in the night sky.

  The sun was jealous of the moon’s popularity and decided to kill the people. Every day when she got near her daughter’s house, she sent down such sultry heat that fever broke out and people died by the hundreds. When everyone had lost some friend and it seemed as if no one would be spared, the humans went for help to the Little Men. These men, who were friendly spirits, said that the only way the people could save themselves was to kill the sun.

  The Little Men made medicine to change two humans into snakes—the spreading adder and the copperhead—who could hide near the daughter’s door and bite the old sun. The snakes went up to the sky and lay in wait until the sun arrived for dinner. But when the spreading adder was about to spring, her bright light blinded him and he could only spit out yellow slime, as he does to this day when he tries to bite. The sun called him a nasty thing and went into the house, and the copperhead was so discouraged that he crawled off without trying to do anything.

  The people, still dying from the terrible heat, went a second time to the Little Men for help. Again the Little Men made medicine and changed one man into the great Uktena, the water monster, and another into a rattlesnake. As before, the serpents had instructions to kill the old sun when she stopped at her daughter’s house. Uktena was large and fierce, with horns on his head, and everyone thought he would be sure to succeed. But the rattlesnake was so eager that he raced ahead and coiled up just outside the house. When the sun’s daughter opened the door to look for her mother, he struck and she fell dead in the doorway. Forgetting to wait for the old sun, he went back to the people, and Uktena was so angry at the rattlesnake’s stupidity that he went back too.

  Since then we pray to the rattlesnake and don’t kill him, because he wishes people well and never tries to bite if we don’t disturb him. But Uktena grew angrier and more dangerous all the time. He became so venomous that if he even looked at a man, the man’s whole family would die. Eventually the people held a council and decided that he was just too dangerous, so they sent him to Galun’lati, the end of the world, where he still is.

  When the sun found her daughter dead, she shut herself up in the house and grieved. Now the people were no longer dying from the heat, but they lived in darkness. Once more they sought help from the Little Men, who said that in order to coax the sun out, they must bring her daughter back from Tsusgina’i. This is the ghost country, which lies in Usunhi’yi, the Darkening Land in the west.

  The people chose seven men to make the journey. The Little Men told the seven to take a box, and told each man to carry a sourwood rod a handbreadth long. When they got to Tsusgina’i, the Little Men explained, they would find all the ghosts at a dance. They should stand outside the circle, and when the sun’s daughter danced past them, they must strike her with the rods and she would fall to the ground. Then they could put her in the box and bring her back to her mother. But they must not open the box, even a crack, until they arrived home.

  The seven men took the rods and the box and traveled west for seven days until they came to the Darkening Land. There they found a great crowd of ghosts having a dance, just as if they were alive. The sun’s daughter was in the outside circle. As she danced past them, one of the seven men struck her with his rod. As she swung around a second time, another touched her with his rod, and then another and another, until at the seventh round she fell out of the ring. The men put her into the box and closed the lid, and the other ghosts never seemed to notice what had happened.

  The seven took up the box and started home toward the east. In a while the girl came to life again and begged to be let out, but the party went on without answering. Soon she called again and said she was hungry, but they did not reply. When at last the group was very near home, the daughter of the sun cried that she was smothering and begged them to raise the lid just a little. Now
they were afraid that she was really dying, so they barely cracked the lid to give her air. There was a fluttering sound, and something flew past them into the bushes. Then they heard a redbird cry, “Kwish! Kwish! Kwish!” Shutting the lid, they went on again. But when they arrived at the settlements and opened the box, it was empty.

  So we know that the redbird is the daughter of the sun. And if the party had kept the box closed, as the Little Men told them to, they could have brought her home safely, and today we would be able to recover our friends from the Ghost Country. Because the seven opened the box, however, we can never bring back people who die.

  The sun had been hopeful when the party had started off for the Darkening Land, but when they came back without her daughter, she wept until her tears caused a great flood. Fearing that the world would be drowned, the people held another council and decided to send their handsomest young men and women to amuse the sun and stop her crying. This group danced before her and sang their best songs, but for a long time she kept her face bowed and paid no attention. At last when the drummer suddenly changed the song, she looked up and was so pleased at the sight of the beautiful young people that she forgot her grief and smiled.

  —Based on James Mooney’s account in the 1890s.

  GRANDMOTHER SPIDER

  STEALS THE SUN

  [CHEROKEE]

  In the beginning there was only blackness, and nobody could see anything. People kept bumping into each other and groping blindly. They said: “What this world needs is light.”

  Fox said he knew some people on the other side of the world who had plenty of light, but they were too greedy to share it with others. Possum said he would be glad to steal a little of it. “I have a bushy tail,” he said. “I can hide the light inside all that fur.” Then he set out for the other side of the world. There he found the sun hanging in a tree and lighting everything up. He sneaked over to the sun, picked out a tiny piece of light, and stuffed it into his tail. But the light was hot and burned all the fur off. The people discovered his theft and took back the light, and ever since, Possum’s tail has been bald.