AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS

by Richard Erdoes

  LITTLE BROTHER

  SNARES THE SUN

  [WINNEBAGO]

  At the beginning when the earth was new, the animals were the chiefs. They were more powerful than humans, whom they hunted, killed, and ate. Finally they killed all the people except one girl and her little brother, who lived in hiding. The brother was very small, no bigger than a newborn child, but the girl was normal in size. Because she was so much bigger, she took care of him and did all the work.

  One winter day the girl had to go out and gather food in the woods. To keep Little Brother occupied, she gave him her bow and arrows. “Hide until a snowbird comes,” she told him. “Wait until he looks for grubs in that huge dead tree. Then kill him with one of your arrows.”

  She went off, and the snowbird came, but Little Brother’s arrows missed him. “It doesn’t matter,” the sister said when she came home. “Try again tomorrow.” The next day she went into the forest again. Once more the bird came, and this time the boy’s arrow hit and killed him. Proudly he showed the bird to his sister when she returned at night.

  “Sister, I want you to skin the snowbird and stretch the hide,” he said. “I’ll be killing more birds, and when we have enough skins, you can make a feather robe for me.”

  “But what shall we do with the meat?” asked the girl. At that time people ate only berries and other green things, because they didn’t hunt; it was the animals who hunted them.

  “Make soup out of it,” said Little Brother, who was clever in spite of his size. Every day for ten days he shot a snowbird, and his sister made him a fine feather robe from the skins.

  “Sister, are there no other people in this world?” he asked one day. “Are we the only ones?”

  “There may be others,” she said, “but we don’t dare go looking for them. Terrible animals would stalk and kill us.”

  But Little Brother was consumed with curiosity. So when his sister went off to gather food again, he set out to look for other humans. He walked a long time but met neither people nor animals. He got so tired that he lay down in a spot where the sun had melted the snow away. While he was sleeping, the sun rose and shot fiery rays upon Little Brother. Waking up, the boy found that his feather robe had scorched and tightened around him so that he couldn’t move. To free himself he had to tear it apart, ruining it. He shook his fists and shouted, “Sun, I’ll get even! Don’t think you’re so high that I can’t get at you! Do you hear me up there?”

  Angry and sad, Little Brother returned home. He wept when he told his sister how the sun had spoiled his feather robe. He lay down on his right side for ten days and refused to eat or drink. Still fasting, he lay on his left side for another ten. After twenty days he got up and told his sister to make a snare for him to catch the sun. She had only a short length of dried deer sinew, and out of that she made a noose. “I can’t catch the sun with this little thing,” he said.

  So the girl made a string for him out of her hair, but he said, “This isn’t long or strong enough.”

  “Then I’ll have to make a snare out of something secret,” she said. She went out and gathered many secret things and twisted them into a strong cord. The moment he saw it, Little Brother said, “This is the one!” To wet the cord he drew it through his lips again and again, so that it grew longer and stronger.

  Then Little Brother waited until the middle of the night, when it is darkest. He went out and found the hole through which the sun would rise, and at its entrance he set his snare. When the sun came up at the usual time, he was caught and held fast, and there was no day that day. There was no light, no warmth.

  Even though the animals were the chiefs who had killed and eaten the people, they were afraid. They called a council of all their elders and talked for a long time. At last they decided that the biggest and most fearsome of all the animals should go and gnaw through the cord holding the sun. This animal was Dormouse, who was not small, as it is now, but big as a mountain. Even so, Dormouse was afraid of the sun. “What you want me to do is dangerous,” she said, “but I’ll try.”

  Dormouse went to the place where the sun rises and found him in the snare. Struggling to free himself, the sun had grown hotter. As Dormouse approached, the hair on her back smoked and was singed off, but she crouched down and began to gnaw at the cord. She chewed and chewed and after a long time managed to bite it in two.

  Freed at last, the sun rose at once and made everything bright again. But the heat had shriveled Dormouse down to her present size, and the sun’s rays had half blinded her. So she was given the name of Kug-e-been-gwa-kwa, Blind Woman.

  Though brave Dormouse had freed the sun, everybody realized that Little Brother, who had snared the sun, was the wisest being in this world, and the one with the greatest power. Since that time the humans have been the chiefs over the animals, the hunters instead of the hunted.

  —Told by David Red Bird in New York City.

  In a Canadian Métis variation of this tale, the sun’s rays are too close and burn the earth, so First Real Boy snares him in a pit and plunges the world into darkness. When First Boy goes to imprison the moon too, he himself is tricked into the trap and now hangs forever from a tree, taking the sun’s proper place.

  THE SCABBY ONE

  LIGHTS THE SKY

  [TOLTEC]

  This thousand-year-old myth comes from Central rather than North America, but it is included here as a touching counterpoint to tales of sun worship from north of the Rio Grande. Nanautzin, a Toltec Prometheus, offers his own life to bring light into the world, underscoring the tradition of sacrifice, especially self-sacrifice and self-torture, which figures in the worship of the sun in some Indian cultures even in North America.

  Five worlds and five suns were created one after the other. There were the suns of earth, fire, air, water, and rock. The first world was destroyed because its people acted wrongfully: they were devoured by ocelots, and their sun also died. The second sun, the pure orb, saw his human beings changed into monkeys for their lack of wisdom. Next came the sun of fire, whose world was destroyed by flames, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions because the people living in it were impious and did not sacrifice to the gods. The fourth world perished in a great flood which also drowned its sun. Before the dawn of the fifth, our present world, all the gods assembled in darkness to decide who should have the honor—and a dangerous honor it turned out to be—to light up the fifth world, and with it the fifth sun. One god named Tecciztecatl volunteered, thinking to get much praise from the other gods. After days of purification, the gods built a huge fire on the top of a pyramid and told Tecciztecatl: “Light up the world!”

  “How?” asked Tecciztecatl, dressed in irridescent hummingbird feathers and jewels of gold and turquoise.

  “By jumping into the fire, O Tecciztecatl,” said the gods. But Teccitztecatl was afraid; he didn’t want to be burned up. Four times he tried to immolate himself, and four times the heat, the flames, and his fear drove him back.

  Then the lowliest of all the gods, Nanautzin, dressed in humble garments of woven reeds, misshapen, ugly, and covered with scabs, offered to renew the world and light up the sun by jumping into the fire. None of the gods had paid him the slightest attention before, but now they all cried with one voice:

  “O, Scabby One, be thou he who brings back the Sun!”

  Without a moment’s hesitation Nanautzin hurled himself into the flames, burning up with a great crackling sound, his blazing garments of reeds lighting up the sky. And ashamed of his cowardice, Tecciztecatl followed his example and was cremated also. At once the sun rose to light up the new fifth world, and it was the despised Scabby One, brave Nanautzin, who by his death had given life to the sun.

  —Based on Nahua versions of a lost Toltec legend.

  [SNOQUALMIE]

  Long ago, Snoqualm, or Moon, was chief of the heavens. One day he said to Spider, “Make a rope of cedar bark and stretch it from the earth to the sky.”

  Soon Fox and Blue Jay found the rope
and climbed up it. Late at night they came to the place where it was fastened to the underside of the sky. Blue Jay picked a hole in the sky, and the two of them crawled through.

  Blue Jay flew to a tree, and Fox found himself in a lake. There he changed himself into Beaver. Moon had set a trap in the lake, and Beaver got caught in the trap. Next morning Moon took Beaver out of the trap, skinned him, stretched his skin out to dry, and threw the body into a corner of the smokehouse.

  The next night Beaver waited until Moon was asleep and snoring loudly. Then he got up, took his skin from the place where it was stretching, and put it back on. While Moon was still snoring, he examined the house and the sky world.

  Outside he found a great forest of fir and pine and cedar trees. He pulled some of them up by their roots and then, with his spirit powers, made them small enough to carry under one arm. Under his other arm he put Moon’s tools for making daylight. He took some fire from below the smoke hole, put ashes and leaves and bark around it, and carried it in one hand. He found the sun hidden in Moon’s house and carried it away in his other hand.

  Then Beaver found the hole Blue Jay had made, changed himself back to Fox again, and went down the rope to the earth. There he gave the fire to the people. He set out the trees. He made the daylight. He set the sun in its place so it would give light and heat to all. The people were happy because of the things Fox brought from the sky.

  By this time Moon had awakened. When he found the beaver skin gone and the sun stolen, he was very angry. He knew that one of the earth people had tricked him. Noticing footprints around the house, he followed them to the top of the rope Spider had made.

  “I’ll follow him to the earth world,” Moon thought.

  But as he started down, the rope broke. Both Moon and rope fell down in a heap and were transformed into a mountain.

  Today the peak is called Mount Si. The face of Snoqualm, Moon, can still be seen on one of its rocky walls. The trees which Fox brought down from the sky and planted have become the great forests of the Cascade Mountains.

  —Recorded by Ella Clark in 1953.

  Mount Si is a solitary, sharp peak in what is today the Snoqualmie National Forest, east of Seattle, Washington.

  THE THEFT OF LIGHT

  [TSIMSHIAN]

  This sun-stealing legend features Raven the Giant, a favorite hero of many Northwest Coast tribes.

  At one time there was always darkness, never daylight. Giant put on his raven skin and left the heavens, flying across the water for a long time. When he was very tired, he dropped a little round stone that his father the chief had given him. It fell into the sea and turned into a large rock, where he lighted to rest. Then he flew east again until he reached the mainland at the mouth of the Skeena River, and there he scattered salmon roe and trout roe, saying, “Let every river and creek have all kinds of fish!” Opening a dried sea-lion bladder that he had packed with fruits, he strewed them over the land and said, “Let every mountain, hill, valley, and plain be filled with these!”

  When the sky in this world of darkness was clear, a little light came from the stars, but when it was cloudy there was only black night. The people were distressed by this, and Giant was too when he realized how hard it would be to get food in the dark. There was light where he had come from, and he made up his mind to bring it down. Putting on his raven skin, he flew upward until he found the hole in the sky and went through. He took off the raven skin and placed it near the hole, then traveled until he came to a spring near the house of the chief of heaven. There he sat down and waited.

  Soon the chief’s daughter appeared with a small bucket to fetch water. When Giant saw her coming to the spring, he transformed himself into the leaf of a cedar and floated on the water. Without noticing the leaf, she dipped it up with some water and swallowed it.

  After a short time she was with child, and soon she gave birth to a boy. The chief and his wife were delighted and took care of the baby as he grew strong and began to creep about. Then, however, he began to cry, “Hama, hama!” all the time. Nothing they could do would soothe him, until finally the chief called his wise men together and asked them why the baby was crying.

  One of the men listened to the cries and understood them. He told the chief, “He is crying for the mā.” This was the box in which the daylight was kept and which hung in one corner of the chief’s house. It was what Giant had remembered when he descended to our world. The chief immediately ordered it taken down and placed near the fire. Suddenly the boy stopped crying and began to roll the mā about inside the house. He played with it for four days, until the chief became so used to the child’s games that he did not notice them. Then the boy (who was, of course, Giant) grabbed the mā, put it on his shoulders, and ran out of the house. Seeing him, someone said, “Giant is running away with the mā!” and all the hosts of heaven pursued him. But he reached the hole in the sky, put on the raven skin, and flew down carrying the mā, and his pursuers went back home.

  This time Giant started at the mouth of the Nass River and traveled up it in the dark. After a while he heard the noise of some people, who were catching olachen in bag nets from their canoes. Holding the mā, Giant sat on the shore and asked them to throw him one of their fish. They refused, calling him a liar, for though he was wearing his raven skin, they knew it was Giant.

  “Throw me one, or I’ll break the mā!” Giant said. Still they scolded and taunted him. Giant repeated his request four times and then broke the mā. Suddenly there was daylight. The north wind began to blow hard, and all the fishermen, who were actually frogs, were driven downriver until they arrived at a large, mountainous island. Here the frogs tried to climb up, but they were frozen by the icy wind and turned into stones that stuck to the rock. They are there to this day, and to this day all the world has daylight.

  —Based on a legend reported by Franz Boas in 1916.

  COYOTE PLACES THE STARS

  [WASCO]

  One time there were five wolves, all brothers, who traveled together. Whatever meat they got when they were hunting they would share with Coyote. One evening Coyote saw the wolves looking up at the sky.

  “What are you looking at up there, my brothers?” asked Coyote.

  “Oh, nothing,” said the oldest wolf.

  Next evening Coyote saw they were all looking up in the sky at something. He asked the next oldest wolf what they were looking at, but he wouldn’t say. It went on like this for three or four nights. No one wanted to tell Coyote what they were looking at because they thought he would want to interfere. One night Coyote asked the youngest wolf brother to tell him, and the youngest wolf said to the other wolves, “Let’s tell Coyote what we see up there. He won’t do anything.”

  So they told him. “We see two animals up there. Way up there, where we cannot get to them.”

  “Let’s go up and see them,” said Coyote.

  “Well, how can we do that?”

  “Oh, I can do that easy,” said Coyote. “I can show you how to get up there without any trouble at all.”

  Coyote gathered a great number of arrows and then began shooting them into the sky. The first arrow stuck in the sky and the second arrow stuck in the first. Each arrow stuck in the end of the one before it like that until there was a ladder reaching down to the earth.

  “We can climb up now,” said Coyote. The oldest wolf took his dog with him, and then the other four wolf brothers came, and then Coyote. They climbed all day and into the night. All the next day they climbed. For many days and nights they climbed, until finally they reached the sky. They stood in the sky and looked over at the two animals the wolves had seen from down below. They were two grizzly bears.

  “Don’t go near them,” said Coyote. “They will tear you apart.” But the two youngest wolves were already headed over. And the next two youngest wolves followed them. Only the oldest wolf held back. When the wolves got near the grizzlies, nothing happened. The wolves sat down and looked at the bears, and the bears sat there looki
ng at the wolves. The oldest wolf, when he saw it was safe, came over with his dog and sat down with them.

  Coyote wouldn’t come over. He didn’t trust the bears. “That makes a nice picture, though,” thought Coyote. “They all look pretty good sitting there like that. I think I’ll leave it that way for everyone to see. Then when people look at them in the sky they will say, ‘There’s a story about that picture,’ and they will tell a story about me.”

  So Coyote left it that way. He took out the arrows as he descended so there was no way for anyone to get back. From down on the earth Coyote admired the arrangement he had left up there. Today they still look the same. They call those stars Big Dipper now. If you look up there you’ll see that three wolves make up the handle and the oldest wolf, the one in the middle, still has his dog with him. The two youngest wolves make up the part of the bowl under the handle, and the two grizzlies make up the other side, the one that points toward the North Star.

  When Coyote saw how they looked, he wanted to put up a lot of stars. He arranged stars all over the sky in pictures and then made the Big Road across the sky with the stars he had left over.

  When Coyote was finished he called Meadowlark over. “My brother,” he said, “When I am gone, tell everyone that when they look up into the sky and see the stars arranged this way, I was the one who did that. That is my work.”

  Now Meadowlark tells that story about Coyote.

  —Told by Barry Lopez in 1977.

  DEER HUNTER AND

  WHITE CORN MAIDEN

  [TEWA]

  Long ago in the ancient home of the San Juan people, in a village whose ruins can be seen across the river from present-day San Juan, lived two magically gifted young people. The youth was called Deer Hunter because even as a boy, he was the only one who never returned empty-handed from the hunt. The girl, whose name was White Corn Maiden, made the finest pottery, and embroidered clothing with the most beautiful designs, of any woman in the village. These two were the handsomest couple in the village, and it was no surprise to their parents that they always sought one another’s company. Seeing that they were favored by the gods, the villagers assumed that they were destined to marry.