American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends)

by Richard Erdoes

  Little Club refused, saying, “I don’t know you. You are not my master.”

  Again and again Raven told Little Club to knock Walrus dead, and again and again Little Club refused. Then Raven got very angry and smashed Little Club to pieces. Raven said, “I am powerful, I made the world, but I could not force this small thing to obey me. It is time for me to take a respite from work.” Then he cried, “Gaah,” and sat down for a long rest.

  APPENDIX

  Algonquian

  The Algonquian (or Algonkin), 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.

  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 fifteen hundred to two thousand, 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 six thousand on the 1.6-million-acre Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona. In 1905, there were only twenty-five Lipan survivors left, and they were eventually placed on the Mescalero Apache Reservation.

  Arapaho

  The Arapaho, belonging to the Algonquian language family, were one of the hard-riding, buffalo-hunting Plains tribes. Like the Sioux and Cheyenne, the Arapaho celebrated the Sun Dance and had a number of warrior societies. Though speaking different languages, the Arapaho and Cheyenne were allies during the nineteenth century and intermarriage between the two tribes was common. The Arapaho are noted for their fine beadwork. Today some five thousand Arapaho share Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation with the Shoshone tribe.

  Arikara

  The Arikara, also known as Ree, are a tribe belonging to the northern Caddoan linguistic family. They are closely related to the Pawnee. Their name means “Horn,” from their custom of wearing two upright bones on each side of their hair crest. When first encountered by whites, they occupied a number of villages on bluffs above the Missouri River, dwelling in partially subterranean lodges. They were expert farmers, calling corn their “Mother” and worshipping it as “the Giver of Life.” In 1837, they were decimated by smallpox, which was introduced by white traders. They now live at the Fort Berthod Reservation in North Dakota, which they share with members of the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes.

  Assiniboine

  The Assiniboine (also spelled Assiniboin) were a warlike, buffalo-hunting Plains tribe. Though belonging to the Siouan language group, and though the Assiniboine and the Dakota languages are almost identical, the Assiniboine and the Sioux were bitter enemies throughout most of the nineteenth century. Culturally, the Assiniboine are a typical Plains tribe. Today’s Assiniboine live on two reservations in Montana—the Fort Belknap Reservation, which they share with the Gros Ventre tribe, and the Fort Peck Reservation, which is also the home for a number of Sioux.

  Athapascan

  Athapascan refers to a language group, and it represents the most far-flung of the original North American tongues. Athapascan dialects or related languages are spoken by people in the interior of what is now Alaska, on the western coast of Canada, among some tribes in northern California, and by the Navajo and Apache of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.

  Biloxi

  Now practically extinct, the Biloxi were a small tribe living in the southern part of Mississippi. Belonging to the Siouan language group, some descendants of this tribe are said to live near Lecompte, Louisiana.

  Blackfoot

  The Blackfoot people were really three closely allied Algonquian tribes—the Siksikas, or Blackfoot proper; the Bloods; and the Piegans. Siksikas means Black-footed People, and they may at one time have worn black moccasins. The Bloods probably got their name from the vermilion color of their face paint. Pieganmeans “People with Poor or Badly Dressed Robes.”

  These tribes drifted down from Canada into what is now Montana, driving the Kootenay and Shoshone before them. They were much feared by early white trappers and fur traders, because they killed all white men who entered their hunting grounds in search of beaver. Though they inhabited the northern edge of the buffalo range, the Blackfoot tribes lived in tipis and hunted bison like other Plains Indians.

  The Piegans’ main ceremonials were the Sun Dance and the All Comrades Festival held by the warrior societies.

  About seven thousand Blackfoot, twenty-one hundred Piegans, and two thousand Bloods now live on the Blackfoot reservation at Browning, Montana, at the southern edge of Glacier National Park, and some have joined the Piegan Agency in Alberta, Canada.

  Cherokee

  The name Cherokee probably comes from chiluk-ki,the Choctaw word meaning “Cave People.” The Cherokee are one of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes, a term that first occurs in 1876 in reports of the Indian Office; these tribes had their own constitutional governments, modeled on that of the United States, the expenses of which were paid out of their own communal funds. They also farmed after the manner of their white neighbors.

  Wealth and fertile land were the Cherokees’ undoing. Under the “Indian removal” policy of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, troops commanded by General Winfield Scott drove the Indians out of their ancestral lands so that white settlers could occupy them. Herded into the so-called Indian Territory west of the Mississippi, one-third of those removed perished on the march, remembered by them as the infamous Trail of Tears.

  Most Cherokee now live in Oklahoma, though a small number managed to stay behind. Their population has increased to about seven thousand people, living on about 56,600 acres on the Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina.

  Cheyenne

  The name Cheyenne derives from the French chien,“dog,” because of their ritual dog eating. The Cheyenne call themselves Tis-Tsis-Tas, the People
. They are an Algonquian Plains tribe that came to the prairies from the Great Lakes region some two to three hundred years ago. They lived in tipis and were buffalo hunters, great horsemen, and brave warriors. They were closely allied with the Western Sioux tribes and fought with them at the Little Bighorn against Custer. Forced after the last battles into a malaria-infested part of the Indian Territory, one group under Dull Knife and Little Wolf made a heroic march back to their old hunting grounds, eventually settling on the Lame Deer Reservation in Montana. Another part of the tribe, the southern Cheyenne, remained in Oklahoma.

  Comanche

  The Comanche, “Lords of the Southern Plains,” were famous for their horsemanship. Early visitors described them as the “finest light cavalry in the world.” An offshoot of the Shoshone, the Comanche were a nomadic buffalo-hunting tribe, forever on the move. One of their most famous chiefs was Quanah Parker, the founder of the Native American Church, which uses peyote as its holy sacrament. Today they are part of the Kiowa agency in Oklahoma.

  Cree

  The Cree (abbreviated from Kristeneaux) are a large tribe of Algonquian Indians living mainly on the Canadian Plains. Linguistically and culturally closely related to the Chippewa (Ojibway), they are settled nowadays on various Canadian reserves, mostly in Manitoba. A few of them still remain on the Fort Belknap and Fort Peck Reservations in Montana, intermingled with Assiniboine and Gros Ventre. Among some of the Canadian Cree, trapping is still a way of life.

  Creek

  One of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes, the Creek formed a powerful confederacy within the larger Muskogean family. Once occupying the greater part of Alabama and Georgia, they were fierce fighters, defending their territory from encroachment by whites. They were defeated in the great Creek War of 1813—1814, by General Andrew Jackson. Most of them were forcibly removed to Indian Territory in Oklahoma.

  Crow

  The Crow, or Absaroke (“Bird People”), are a Siouan tribe, formerly a part of the Hidatsa. Originally living along the Missouri River, they moved to the eastern shelf of the Rocky Mountains. A typical buffalo-hunting Plains tribe, they were continually at war with the Lakota (Western Sioux) and the Cheyenne. During the Indian Wars of the 1870s, they sided with the whites, serving as scouts for the U.S. Army.

  Great Lakes Tribes

  Such tribes as the Ojibway, Menomini, Winnebago, and Potawatomi are sometimes refered to as Great Lakes People.

  Gros Ventre

  The Gros Ventre (from the French for “Big Bellies”) are a Plains tribe, originally from the vicinity of the Missouri River. The name Gros Ventre was bestowed on two different tribes—the Atsina, an offshoot of the Arapaho, and the Hidatsa, or Minitaree. Being culturally typical Plains Indians, they lived in earth lodges rather than in tipis like the Sioux or Cheyenne. Today most Gros Ventre live on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana, which they share with the Assiniboine.

  Haida

  The Haida (Xa‘ida—“the People”) live on Queen Charlotte Island off the coast of British Columbia. The first European to visit them was Juan Pérez, who arrived in 1774 in the Spanish corvette Santiago, followed in 1786 by the famous French explorer La Pérouse. Contact with Europeans, as in most cases for Indians, was catastrophic for the Haida, bringing them impoverishment, smallpox epidemics, and venereal diseases.

  The Haida were great hunters of whales and sea otters. Canoes were to them, as one visitor remarked, what horses were to the Plains Indians. Their sometimes very large vessels were hollowed out of single huge cedar trunks. The Haida are best known as totem-pole carvers and as the builders of large, decorated wooden houses. Their gifted artists are still turning out splendid masks and other carved objects.

  Hoh

  The Hoh are a small offshoot of the Qtileute tribe, a fishing people from the Pacific Coast living in Washington.

  Hopi

  The Hopi (from Hopitu—the “Peaceful Ones”) are the westernmost Pueblo Indians, living in six villages within their reservation in Arizona. Members of the Spanish Coronado expedition reached the Hopi Pueblos in 1540. One of their villages, Oraibi, is thought to be the oldest permanently occupied site in the United States, possibly founded as long as one thousand years ago. Peaceful, settled farmers, the Hopi were known as Moquis or Mokis during the nineteenth century. The Hopi are known for their beautiful traditional ceramics and jewelry. They belong to the Shoshonean language family and are the only Pueblos who perform the famous Snake Dance. The well-known Hopi Kachina dolls are made to familiarize children with the supernatural spirits called Kachinas, represented by masked dancers during solemn tribal ceremonies. The Hopi reservation is an enclave within the larger Navajo reservation.

  Kalispel

  The Kalispel, or Pend d‘Oreille (“Ear-Drop”), Indians are a Salishan tribe, originally living near the lake of the same name in Montana. They were Plateau Indians, hunters and fishermen, roaming over parts of Idaho, eastern Oregon, and eastern Washington. They now occupy the Kalispel Reservation in Washington.

  Karok

  The Karok (from karuk—“upstream”) called themselves Arra-Arra, meaning “Men” or “Humans.” A tribe of salmon fishers, they lived along the Klamath River between the more numerous Yurok below and the Shasta above them. Due to the absence of redwood in their own area, they made no canoes but bought them from the Yurok. Their culture closely resembled that of their Hupa and Yurok neighbors.

  Klamath

  Together with the Modoc, the Klamath are part of the Lutuamian language family. Calling themselves the People of the Lakes, they lived in north-central Oregon, at peace with the whites. They did not join their brother tribe in the great Modoc War of 1872—1873. They had a reputation for being excellent bowmen, able to send their arrows through, and beyond, the body of a horse or buffalo.

  Kutenai

  The Kutenai, or Kootenai, are a small Plateau tribe, settled on their own reservation in Idaho. A nomadic hunting and fishing tribe, they acquired horses in the early 1700s and became breeders of the famous Appaloosas. The Kutenai were also fine basket makers.

  Menomini

  The Menomini, or Menominee, the “Wild Rice People,” are a tribe of Wisconsin Indians belonging to the Algonquian language family. They are a forest and lakes tribe that lived by hunting, fishing, and harvesting wild rice. They used birch-bark canoes for their journeys. They also used birch bark for their handicrafts. Their wigwams of saplings and birch bark were easily moved and put up.

  Métis

  The Métis, who are part French and part Indian, live in Canada. Their name comes from the French métis, “mixed.” The Ojibway called them wissakodewinini, “burned trees” or “half-burned wood man,” alluding to their part-light, part-dark complexions. Some Métis have adopted Indian customs and speak a patois made up of Indian, French, and English words. Some consider themselves white Canadians; others proudly call themselves Métis and stress their Indian ancestry. Their tales show marked European influences.

  Micmac

  Micmac comes from migmak, or nigmak, meaning “allies.” The Micmac are a large Algonquian tribe of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. They were first visited by Cabot in 1497; in fact, the three Indians he took back to England were probably Micmacs. The Micmacs were expert canoeists and fishermen. Fierce and warlike, they sided with the French during the French and Indian Wars.

  Miwok

  The Miwok, whose name means “Man,” were a central California tribe of Penutian stock, living between what is now the modern city of Fresno and the Sierras. They ate nuts, acorns, even grasshoppers; fished; and hunted deer and rabbit. They lived in conical houses made of poles, and their women used communal, many-holed grinding stones to make meal from seeds, nuts, and acorns. Their mystery ceremony was the kuksu dance, in which the participants wore feathered headdresses. The Miwok had a rich mythology and, before the gold rush, were a large tribe occupying a hundred villages. They are now practically extinct.

 
Navajo

  The Navajo are an Athapascan tribe that drifted down from northwestern Canada into the Southwest around 1300. They call themselves Dineh, the People, as do their linguistic cousins in Canada and Alaska, from whom they are separated by some fifteen hundred miles. Fierce, skin-clad, nomadic raiders, they terrorized the sedentary corn-planting tribes of the Southwest. The Pueblos called them apachu, meaning “enemy-strangers.” This led to the mixed Tewa and Spanish “Apaches de Nabahu,” which ultimately became “Navajo.”

  The Navajos adopted many cultural practices from their Pueblo neighbors, such as masked dances (yebichai), basketry, and pottery. They became fine silversmiths, learning the craft from the Spaniards, just as they learned weaving from the Pueblos. During the mid-nineteenth century they began making jewelry and weaving rugs; their simple chiefs’ blankets have evolved into the well-known Navajo rugs of today.