AMERICAN INDIAN MYTHS AND LEGENDS

by Richard Erdoes

  By the time Running Slim reached the halfway point, she and the lark were far ahead of the field. At the hill the umpires were shouting: “Now turn and race back to the starting point, to Buffalo Gap!” The Lark heard this and thought: “I can’t make it that far.” He dropped out of the race, but already Hawk was coming on strongly.

  Now Hawk, acknowledged to be the fastest of the birds, suddenly shot ahead of Running Slim. The people shouted for joy—but not for long. Hawk’s endurance did not match his swiftness, and the sudden spurt exhausted him.

  Again Running Slim came on, thundering ahead. With her deep chest, powerful legs, and great lungs, it seemed that she could keep up the pace forever. Then far in the rear a little black and white dot could be seen, coming up, flying hard. This was Magpie, a slow bird but strong-hearted and persevering. The buffalo herd paid no attention to Magpie; they were cheering their runner while the people watched silently.

  Some of the racers were running so hard now that blood spurted from their mouths and nostrils. It colored the earth beneath, which has ever remained red along the trail where the race was run.

  At last Buffalo Gap came into sight. Powerful and confident as she was, Running Slim herself was beginning to slow down, though it was hardly noticeable. Even she was not even aware of it, but ran along feeling sure that she would win. Then very slowly, imperceptibly, Magpie began to gain on her.

  Buffalo Gap was closer now, though still a good way off, thought Slim Running. She could feel herself tiring. The buffalo were grunting and stomping, trying to encourage her. Magpie was still behind, but coming on steadily.

  Now Buffalo Gap was near. Running Slim Buffalo Woman was really tired, but she gathered all her strength for the last spurt, thundering along, her heart close to bursting. By then, however, Magpie had come up even with her.

  Both the buffalo and the people were cheering their racers on, calling out to them, yelling and stomping. So the two were speeding up, putting the very last of their strength into it—Running Slim Buffalo Woman and Magpie. Thus they neared the sticks, painted red, planted in the earth, which marked the finishing line. It was not until they were a hand breadth away from those sticks, at the last moment, that Magpie finally shot ahead. The people gave a great shout of happiness, and both racers fell exhausted.

  So the humans had won and the buffalo had lost. And ever since the people have respected the magpie, never hunting it or eating it. So the people became more powerful than the buffalo and all the other animals, and from that time on, people have hunted the buffalo for their food.

  —Recorded by Richard Erdoes on the Crow agency during the intertribal Crow fair, summer 1968.

  ORIGIN OF THE

  GNAWING BEAVER

  [HAIDA]

  The Haida of the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of British Columbia were great hunters of whales and sea otters.

  There was a great hunter among the people living at Larhwiyip on the Stikine River. Ever on the alert for new territories, he would go away by himself for long periods and return with quantities of furs and food. He had remained single, although he was very wealthy and his family begged him to take a wife. As a true hunter, he observed all the fasts of cleanliness and kept away from women.

  One day when he returned from a hunting trip, he said, “I am going to take a wife now. After that I will move to a distant region where I hear that wild animals are plentiful.” So he married a young woman from a neighboring village who, like himself, was clever and scrupulous in observing the rules. When the time came for them to go on their hunting trips, they both kept the fasts of purification, and the hunter got even more furs and food than he had before.

  Some time later, he said to his wife, “Let’s go to a new country, where we’ll have to stay a long time.” After many days of traveling, they came to a strange land. The hunter put up a hut, where they lived while he built a house. When he had finished it, he and his wife were happy. They would play with each other every night.

  Soon he said to her, “I’m going to my new hunting grounds for two days and a night. I will return just before the second night.” In his new territory he made snares in his trapline, and when these were set, he went home just before sunset on the second day. His wife was very happy, and again they played together all through the night. After several days, he visited his snares and found them full of game. He loaded his canoe and came back, again before dark on the second day. Very happy, he met his wife, and they both worked to prepare the furs and meat. When they had finished, he set out once more, saying, “This time I intend to go in a new direction, so I will be away for three sleeps.” And he did, and rejoiced in being with his wife again when he returned.

  To amuse herself when she was alone, the woman went down to the little stream flowing by the lodge. She spent most of her time bathing and swimming around in a small pool while her husband was away. As soon as he returned, she would play with him. Now he said, “Since you’ve become used to being alone, I’m going on a longer trip.” By then he had enlarged his hunting house, and it was full of furs and food.

  The woman again took to her swimming. Soon she found the little pool too small for her, so she built a dam by piling up branches and mud. The pool became a small lake, deep enough for her to swim in at ease. Now she spent nearly all her time in the new lake and felt quite happy. When her husband returned, she showed him the dam she had made, and he was pleased. Before going away once more, he said, “I’ll be gone a long time, now that I know you’re not afraid of being alone.”

  The woman built a little house of mud and branches in the center of the lake. After a swim she would go into it and rest. At night she would return to the hunting house on land, but as soon as she waked in the morning, she would go down to the lake again.

  Eventually she slept in her lake lodge all night, and when her husband came back, she felt uncomfortable staying with him at the house. Now she was pregnant and kept more to herself, and she preferred to stay in her lake lodge even when her husband was at home. To pass the time, she enlarged the lake by building the dam higher. She made another dam downstream, and then another, until she had a number of small lakes all connected to the large one in which she had her lodge.

  The hunter went away on a last long journey. He had enough furs and food to make him very wealthy, and he planned that they would move back to his village after this trip. The woman, whose child was due any day, stayed in the water all the time and lived altogether in the lodge. By now it was partly submerged, and its entrance was under water.

  When the hunter returned this time, he could not find his wife. He looked all over, searching the woods day after day without discovering a trace of her. He was at a loss, unwilling to go back to his people without knowing her fate, for fear that her family might want to kill him. He returned sadly to his hunting house every night and each morning resumed the search.

  One evening at dusk, he remembered that his wife had spent much of her time in the water. “Perhaps she traveled on downstream,” he thought. The next day he walked down to the lake that his wife had dammed and went around it, but he saw nothing of her.

  After many days of searching, the hunter retraced his steps. When he came to the large lake, he sat down and began to sing a dirge. Now he knew that something had happened to his wife; she had been taken by a supernatural power. While he was singing and crying his dirge, a figure emerged from the lake. It was a strange animal, in its mouth a stick which it was gnawing. On each side of the animal were two smaller ones, also gnawing sticks.

  Then the largest figure, which wore a hat shaped like a gnawed stick, spoke. “Don’t be so sad! It is I, your wife, and your two children. We have returned to our home in the water. Now that you have seen me, you will use me as a crest. Call me the Woman-Beaver, and the crest Remnants-of-Chewing-Stick. The children are First Beaver, and you will refer to them in your dirge as the Offspring of Woman-Beaver.”

  After she had spoken, she disappeared into the water
s, and the hunter saw her no more. At once he packed his goods, and when his canoe was filled, traveled down the river to his village.

  For a long while he did not speak to his people. Then he told them what had happened and said, “I will take this as my personal crest. It shall be known as Remnants-of-Chewing-Stick, and forever remain the property of our clan, the Salmon-Eater household.” This is the origin of the Beaver crest and the Remnants-of-Chewing-Stick.

  —Based on two versions of the same myth, reported by William Beynon in 1949 and by Marius Barbeau in 1953.

  HOW THE CROW CAME

  TO BE BLACK

  [BRULE SIOUX]

  In days long past, when the earth and the people on it were still young, all crows were white as snow. In those ancient times the people had neither horses nor firearms nor weapons of iron. Yet they depended upon the buffalo hunt to give them enough food to survive. Hunting the big buffalo on foot with stone-tipped weapons was hard, uncertain, and dangerous.

  The crows made things even more difficult for the hunters, because they were friends of the buffalo. Soaring high above the prairie, they could see everything that was going on. Whenever they spied hunters approaching a buffalo herd, they flew to their friends and, perching between their horns, warned them: “Caw, caw, caw, cousins, hunters are coming. They are creeping up through that gully over there. They are coming up behind that hill. Watch out! Caw, caw, caw!” Hearing this, the buffalo would stampede, and the people starved.

  The people held a council to decide what to do. Now, among the crows was a huge one, twice as big as all the others. This crow was their leader. One wise old chief got up and made this suggestion: “We must capture the big white crow,” he said, “and teach him a lesson. It’s either that or go hungry.” He brought out a large buffalo skin, with the head and horns still attached. He put it on the back of a young brave, saying: “Nephew, sneak among the buffalo. They will think you are one of them, and you can capture the big white crow.”

  Disguised as a buffalo, the young man crept among the herd as if he were grazing. The big, shaggy beasts paid him no attention. Then the hunters marched out from their camp after him, their bows at the ready. As they approached the herd, the crows came flying, as usual, warning the buffalo: “Caw, caw, caw, cousins, the hunters are coming to kill you. Watch out for their arrows. Caw, caw, caw!” and as usual, all the buffalo stampeded off and away—all, that is, except the young hunter in disguise under his shaggy skin, who pretended to go on grazing as before.

  Then the big white crow came gliding down, perched on the hunter’s shoulders, and flapping his wings, said: “Caw, caw, caw, brother, are you deaf? The hunters are close by, just over the hill. Save yourself!” But the young brave reached out from under the buffalo skin and grabbed the crow by the legs. With a rawhide string he tied the big bird’s feet and fastened the other end to a stone. No matter how the crow struggled, he could not escape.

  Again the people sat in council. “What shall we do with this big, bad crow, who has made us go hungry again and again?”

  “I’ll burn him up!” answered one angry hunter, and before anybody could stop him, he yanked the crow from the hands of his captor and thrust it into the council fire, string, stone and all. “This will teach you,” he said.

  Of course, the string that held the stone burned through almost at once, and the big crow managed to fly out of the fire. But he was badly singed, and some of his feathers were charred. Though he was still big, he was no longer white. “Caw, caw, caw,” he cried, flying away as quickly as he could, “I’ll never do it again; I’ll stop warning the buffalo, and so will all the Crow nation. I promise! Caw, caw, caw.”

  Thus the crow escaped. But ever since, all crows have been black.

  —Told by Good White Buffalo at Winner, Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota, 1964.

  Recorded by Richard Erdoes.

  [POMO]

  At a place called Cobowin there was a large rock with a hole in it, and many rattlesnakes lived inside this hole. Nearby at Kalesima there was a village with four large houses, and in the one with a center pole lived a girl. In the spring when clover was just right to eat, this girl went out to gather some. While she was working, she was watched by a rattlesnake.

  The snake followed her back to the village, and close to her house he transformed himself into a handsome young man with a net on his head and fine beads around his neck. Then he climbed up onto the top of the house and came down the center pole. The family was surprised to see him, but he told the girl that he wanted to marry her. He remained with the family overnight and the following morning went home again. He arrived and left like this for four days; then on the fifth evening he came back, but this time did not change his form. He simply slithered into the house and began conversing just as before. The girl’s mother, waiting for her daughter’s suitor, said she heard someone talking in the house. She took a light and looked in the place where she heard the sound, and there was Rattlesnake. He shook his snake’s head, and she dropped the light and ran in terror.

  On the following morning Rattlesnake took the girl home with him, and there she remained. In time she bore him four boys. Whenever these children saw any people from the village, they would coil to strike, but their mother would say, “No, you mustn’t bite your relatives.” And the children would obey her.

  As the four rattlesnake boys grew older, they also grew more curious, and one day they came in from playing and asked their mother, “Why don’t you talk the way we do? Why are you different?”

  “I’m not a rattlesnake, like you and your father,” she replied. “I’m a human being.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of our father?” asked the boys, and she shook her head.

  Then the oldest said that he had heard the other rattlesnakes discussing her differences and deciding to crawl over her body to find out what kind of creature she was. While this might have alarmed another human, the rattlesnake’s wife was not at all afraid. When the other rattlesnakes came, she calmly let them crawl over her.

  Then she said to her oldest boy, “It’s impossible for you to become a human being, and though I’m not really human any longer, I must go back to my parents and tell them what has happened.” And so she returned to the house with the center pole and said to her parents, “This is the last time that I will be able to talk to you and the last time that you can talk with me.” Her father and mother were sad, but they said nothing until the daughter started to leave. Then her mother ran and caught her by the door, brought her back into the house, and wept over her because she was so changed. But the girl shook her body, and suddenly she was gone. No one knew how or where she went, but they think she returned to Rattlesnake’s house and has lived there ever since.

  —Based on a legend recorded by Samuel Barrett in 1933.

  WHY THE OWL HAS BIG EYES

  [IROQUOIS]

  Raweno, the Everything-Maker, was busy creating various animals. He was working on Rabbit, and Rabbit was saying: “I want nice long legs and long ears like a deer, and sharp fangs and claws like a panther.”

  “I do them up the way they want to be; I give them what they ask for,” said Raweno. He was working on Rabbit’s hind legs, making them long, the way Rabbit had ordered.

  Owl, still unformed, was sitting on a tree nearby and waiting his turn. He was saying: “Whoo, whoo, I want a nice long neck like Swan’s, and beautiful red feathers like Cardinal’s, and a nice long beak like Egret’s, and a nice crown of plumes like Heron’s. I want you to make me into the most beautiful, the fastest, the most wonderful of all the birds.”

  Raweno said: “Be quiet. Turn around and look in another direction. Even better, close your eyes. Don’t you know that no one is allowed to watch me work?” Raweno was just then making Rabbit’s ears very long, the way Rabbit wanted them.

  Owl refused to do what Raweno said. “Whoo, whoo,” he replied, “nobody can forbid me to watch. Nobody can order me to close my eyes. I like watching you, and wa
tch I will.”

  Then Raweno became angry. He grabbed Owl, pulling him down from his branch, stuffing his head deep into his body, shaking him until his eyes grew big with fright, pulling at his ears until they were sticking up at both sides of his head.

  “There,” said Raweno, “that’ll teach you. Now you won’t be able to crane your neck to watch things you shouldn’t watch. Now you have big ears to listen when someone tells you what not to do. Now you have big eyes—but not so big that you can watch me, because you’ll be awake only at night, and I work by day. And your feathers won’t be red like cardinal’s, but gray like this”—and Raweno rubbed Owl all over with mud—“as punishment for your disobedience.” So Owl flew off, pouting: “Whoo, whoo, whoo.”

  Then Raweno turned back to finish Rabbit, but Rabbit had been so terrified by Raweno’s anger, even though it was not directed at him, that he ran off half done. As a consequence, only Rabbit’s hind legs are long, and he has to hop about instead of walking and running. Also, because he took fright then, Rabbit has remained afraid of most everything, and he never got the claws and fangs he asked for in order to defend himself. Had he not run away then, Rabbit would have been an altogether different animal.

  As for Owl, he remained as Raweno had shaped him in anger—with big eyes, a short neck, and ears sticking up on the sides of his head. On top of everything, he has to sleep during the day and come out only at night.