American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends)

by Richard Erdoes

  With a population of over one hundred thirty thousand, the Navajo are the largest tribe in the United States. Their reservation extends over two hundred miles of New Mexico and Arizona, from the Gallup area all the way to the Grand Canyon, and contains such natural wonders as Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly, as well as large coal and oil deposits. The Navajo are a comparatively wealthy nation; they farm and raise large herds of sheep, as well as some cattle. The women still wear their traditional costume—velveteen blouses, colorful ankle-length skirts, and silver and turquoise necklaces. Their traditional home is the hogan, a low, dome-shaped structure of mud-covered logs with a smoke hole at the top.

  Nez Percé

  The Nez Percé (French for “pierced nose”) got this name from their custom of wearing a piece of dentalium shell through their septum. They belonged to the seminomadic Plateau culture, roaming over the dry, high country of Idaho, eastern Oregon, and eastern Washington. They were known for their trading acumen, their bravery and generosity, their skill in breeding the famous Appaloosa horses, and the fine basketry of their women. They were consistently friendly to the whites. A large tribe of the Shahaptian language family, they lived in large communal houses containing several families. Unjustly driven from their beloved Wallowa Valley, they fought fiercely and skillfully during the Nez Percé War of 1877 under their great leader ChiefJoseph, who won the admiration even of his enemies by his courage and humanity in conducting this war. Today some fifteen hundred members of the tribe live on the 88,000-acre Nez Percé Reservation with headquarters at Lapwai, Idaho.

  Omaha

  The Omaha are a Siouan tribe, now living on their own reservation in Nebraska. Culturally they are about midway between the corn-planting Mandans and the buffalo-hunting Sioux. Their name means “Those Going Against the Wind.” They lived in earth lodges similar to those of the Mandans. In the first half of the nineteenth century, their numbers were greatly reduced by smallpox, introduced by white traders and trappers.

  Osage

  The Osage, or Wazhazhe, are Plains Indians of the Siouan language group. Their original villages were situated in Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois. According to their legends, they originated in the sky and descended through four layers of sky until they alighted on seven rocks of different colors near a red oak tree. Later the people received four kinds of corn and four kinds of pumpkin seeds, which fell from the left hind legs of four buffalo.

  The tribe was divided into gentes, which monopolized certain tasks, such as making moccasins, pipes, war standards, or arrowheads. One gente furnished heralds (camp criers) to the tribe.

  The Osage were eventually removed to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, where they now live.

  Paiute

  The Paiute (“true Ute” or “Water Ute”) are a Shoshonean tribe of hunters and gatherers. As they lived in a land where food was hard to come by (the so-called Great Western Desert), most of their life was spent in a fight for survival. They hunted small game, such as jackrabbits, and gathered pinon nuts and other seeds, which they ground into meal to make bread. Wowoka, the famous shaman who introduced the Ghost Dance of 1889-1890, was a Paiute. Forever on the move in quest for food, the Paiute used to live in brush shelters called “wickiups.” Today, the Paiute live on the Pyramid Lake and Walker River Reservations in Nevada.

  Passamaquoddy

  The Passamaquoddy—a small tribe belonging to the Abnaki confederation and to the Algonquian language group—were able hunters, trappers, and fishermen, and accomplished at bead and quill work. They used wampum as their medium of exchange and were famous for their canoeing skills. They now live on two reservations in Maine, and are the easternmost tribe of the United States.

  Penobscot

  The name Penobscot means “Rockland” or “It Flows on the Rocks,” alluding to a waterfall near their village of Old Town, Maine, a few miles above Bangor. The Penobscot are a once-powerful New England tribe of Algonquian stock. They belong to the Abnaki confederation, which included such tribes as the Malecite and Passamaquoddy. They made canoes, fishnets, shell wampum, carved pipes, and intricate beading and quillwork. They had a reputation for peacefulness and hospitality.

  Some five hundred Penobscot now live on a reservation comprising 4,500 acres at Indian Island, Old Town, Maine.

  Pueblo

  “Pueblo” (Spanish for “a village” or “a people”) is a general name for farming tribes living in settled villages of stone and adobe throughout New Mexico and Arizona. While the Pueblos shared many cultural traits and lifestyles, they belonged to different language groups such as Tewa or Keresan. For centuries they have subsisted on corn and squash, and are famous for their artistic work in basketry, pottery, weaving, and jewelry making. They came into contact with whites before any other tribes. The Coronado expedition arrived at its first Pueblo village at Zuni in 1540. The Great Pueblo Revolt, during which the Indians drove the Spaniards all the way back to the Rio Grande, occurred in 1680. (The Spaniards reconquered the Pueblos twelve years later.) These people are known to have inhabited some of the oldest villages in the United States; at least two of them—Old Oraibi, a Hopi village, and Sky City at Acoma—have a living history of habitation for a thousand years.

  Quileute

  The Quileute are a typical Pacific Northwest tribe making their living from the bounty of the ocean. They are salmon fishers, hunt seals, and are daring whalers. They live on the Quileute Reservation in Washington.

  Salish

  The Salish, sometimes known as Flatheads, were a powerful tribe of the Salishan language family. They lived mainly by hunting. They were called Flatheads not because they artificially deformed their heads, as some of their more northern neighbors did, but because they left their hair in a natural shape, flattened on top. They live on the Flathead Reservation, which they share with the Kutenai, near Flathead Lake, Montana.

  San Ildefonso

  San Ildefonso is a Tewa-speaking pueblo, eighteen miles northweat of Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the banks of the Rio Grande. San Ildefonso is culturally a typical northern pueblo of settled farmers who inhabited this village for seven hundred years. San Ildefonso is famous for its black-on-black pottery, the best-known artists having been Maria and her son, Popovi Da. San Ildefonso played a prominent part in a general uprising against Spanish colonial rule during the Great Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

  San Juan

  San Juan is a Tewa-speaking pueblo twenty-five miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 1598, the Spaniards, under Don Juan de Onate, founded their first capital on New Mexico near this village, originally called Oke. The capital was moved to Santa Fe in 1610. The harsh Spanish rule, which enslaved the native population, led to the Great Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Its leader was Pope, a San Juan Indian.

  Santee

  Santee (Isanyati, Isanta-mde, “Those Who Live at Knife Lake”) is the name of a group of eastern Sioux tribes, speaking Dakota, such as the Mdewakantons and the Wahpekutes. They lived in Minnesota, but after the so-called Great Sioux Uprising of 1862, they were driven out of Minnesota to Nebraska and South Dakota. Today there is a Santee Reservation at Flandreau, South Dakota.

  Shasta

  The Shasta were a group of small tribes in northern California near the Klamath River and in the Mount Shasta Valley. They were sedentary and lived in small villages of half-sunken plank houses. Their main food was fish, particularly salmon, which they netted, trapped, and speared. They preserved their fish for winter by drying and smoking it. Acorns, seeds, and roots augmented their diet; hunting played a comparatively small role, and their main weapon was the bow. The intrusion of gold miners and prospectors in 1855—1860 spelled the Shasta’s doom, and they have now virtually vanished.

  Shoshone

  The Shoshone, or Shoshoni, sometimes called the “Snake People,” are a Plains people who, like the Sioux and Cheyenne, lived in tipis, hunted the buffalo, and celebrated the Sun Dance. They maintained friendly relations with the whites. Sacajawea, the young woman who guid
ed and assisted Lewis and Clark, was a Shoshone. Today the Shoshone share the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming with their ancient enemies, the Arapaho.

  Sioux

  The term “Sioux” comes from an Ojibway word meaning “snakes” or “enemies.” The tribe is divided into three branches: the Lakota, the Dakota, and the Nakota. The language is the same for all three, except that the Lakota pronounce an “L” where Dakotas and Nakotas pronounce a “D” or an “N.” For all practical purposes, we are here concerned only with the Lakota, or Tetonwan, the seven western subtribes living now on reservations in South and North Dakota.

  Originally, the Sioux lived in the Great Lakes region, but when their Ojibway enemies obtained guns from French traders, they pushed the Sioux westward, across the Missouri River. Once the Sioux acquired horses they became the proverbial Red Knights of the Prairie, the finest light cavalry in the world. The center of the Sioux’s existence was the buffalo, which they hunted on horseback. Buffalo gave them everything they needed for life: meat; skins for robes and tipis; bones for knife handles and needles; horns to be carved into spoons and other implements; and sinew twist for string, thread, and bow strings.

  Early in the white westward expansion, the Sioux were friendly toward the settlers, but were eventually forced to fight for their hunting grounds against the onslaught of gold seekers, buffalo skinners, and a “river” of settlers. They proved themselves to be formidable fighters. At the battle of Little Big Horn, the united Lakota tribes and their Cheyenne allies wiped out Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. The slaughter of the buffalo by white hunters and the relentless pressure by the army finally forced the proud tribes into reservations. Some of the most famous names in Indian history were Lakota, Sitting Bull and Red Cloud among them.

  Taos

  Taos is the northernmost pueblo in New Mexico, fifty-eight miles north of Santa Fe. The people of Taos, together with those of the nearby pueblo of Picuris, speak Tigua, a language that is part of the larger Tanoan linguistic family. Taos is divided into two large, ancient communal house complexes—Hlauuma, or “North Town,” and Hlankwima, or “South Town.” Discovered by the Spaniards in 1540, Taos played a prominent part in the Great Pueblo Revolt of 1680. It was at Taos that Pope, its leader, organized the uprising. In 1847, egged on by Mexicans, the people of Taos rose again—this time against their new masters, the Americans. During this uprising the American governor Charles Bent was killed. The revolt was mercilessly crushed and the leaders hanged. Today the picturesque pueblo is a much-photographed tourist attraction.

  Tewa

  Tewa is the language spoken by several pueblos in New Mexico—San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Clara, Nambe, and Resuque, and by Hano in Arizona. The people of Hano, fleeing from the Spaniards after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, sought shelter among the Hopi villages.

  Tlingit

  The Tlingit, the northernmost of the great Northwest Coast tribes, lived in numerous villages from Prince William Sound down to the Alaska Panhandle. Like the Haida, Tsimshian, and Kwakiutl, they occupied large, rectangular, decorated and painted wooden houses; fished in big dugout canoes; held potlatches upon the death and burial of important persons; and made war to capture slaves as well as the booty necessary for giveaways during the potlatch. The sea provided nearly their entire diet. The Tlingit were also great sculptors and carvers of totem poles, masks, ceremonial rattles, bowls, and painted boxes. Their women wove the famous Chilkat blankets and also fine, multicolored baskets. Their dress was highly decorative, often covered with the images of eagles and other animals, the outlines formed of round pieces of pearl shells or buttons acquired from whites. Women wore ornaments in their lower lips, so-called labrets.

  The Tlingit were harshly treated and exploited by Russian fur traders. Today some 250 Tlingit live at Craig on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska.

  Tsimshian

  The Tsimshian, or “People of the Skeena River,” are a typical Pacific Northwest Coast tribe, culturally related to the Haida and Kwakiutl and, like them, artistic carvers and weavers of Chilkat blankets. Their main food was salmon, halibut, cod, and shellfish, and they also hunted whales. Their original home was on the Skeena River in British Columbia. In 1884 a Church of England clergyman persuaded them to move to Alaska. About a thousand Tsimshian now occupy the Annette Island reserve of 86,500 acres in southeastern Alaska and take an active political and economic role in the state.

  Ute

  The Ute, who belong to the Uto-Aztecan language family, are a Shoshonean tribe of western Colorado and eastern Utah. They shared many cultural traits with the more northern Plains tribes; they performed the Sun Dance and lived in tipis. They acquired horses in 1740 and ranged from southern Wyoming down to Taos. The Ute were generally friendly to the whites; their best-known chief, Ouray, made a treaty of peace and friendship with the government. He was a welcome guest, as well as host, among white silver miners.

  The Ute now raise cattle for a living. Some seven hundred Ute live on a reservation of 300,000 acres at Ignacio, Colorado. The northern Weminuche Ute consist of eighteen hundred people on 560,000 acres on the Ute Mountain Reservation in Colorado. Still another twelve hundred Ute live on the million-acre Uintah and Ouray Reservation at Fort Duchesne, Utah.

  Winnebago

  The Winnebago (from Winipig—“People Near the Dirty Water”), a Midwestern woodlands tribe, belong to the Siouan family. Among their deities and supernaturals, to whom they made offerings, are Earth Maker, Disease Giver, Sun, Moon, Morning Star, Night Spirit, Thunderbird, Turtle, and the Great Rabbit. The tribe is divided into two so-called phratries, the upper or air people, and the lower or earth people.

  During the War of Independence and the War of 1812, the Winnebago sided with the British. Between 1829 and 1866, whites forced the Winnebago to give up their land and go to new homes no less than seven times. Some Winnebago joined Black Hawk in his war of 1832. They were removed to the Blue Earth River in Minnesota but were driven from there by white settlers, who were afraid of Indians after the great Sioux uprising. Today some eight hundred Winnebago live on their own reservation in Thurston County, Nebraska.

  Wichita

  The Wichita formed a federation of nine tribes, closely related to the Pawnee. An agricultural people, they were first encountered in 1541 by Coronado and his Spaniards, vainly searching for the fabled golden city of Gran Quivira. Instead of the golden city, Coronado encountered the Wichita and their large grass lodges, looking like haystacks, in what is now Kansas. Together with the Wichita, the Spaniards also came across the first buffalo ever seen by white men.

  Yakima

  The Yakima occupy the high mountain country of eastern Washington and live on one of the biggest reservations in the Northwest. It is a large and thriving community with a very viable and intact culture.

  Yokuts

  The Yokuts were a California tribe of the Mariposa language family, living mainly in the San Joaquin Valley. They lived in communal houses and had earthen sweat lodges. There are only a few of this once numerous tribe left today.

  Yurok

  The Yurok are a tribe of northwestern California, living along the Klamath River. With their redwood canoes they also ventured out on the ocean. They had their own reservation on the Klamath River. When it was abolished by the government, the tribe became self-sufficient.

  Zuni

  The Zuni were the first Pueblo encountered by the Spanish. Fray Marcos de Niza saw the Zuni village from afar. The light adobe walls glistened like gold in the evening sun, and he reported back to the Spanish viceroy in Mexico City that he had found the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, whose streets were paved with gold. As a result Don Francisco de Coronado, with a large party of heavily armed adventurers, appeared in 1540 at Hawikuh and on July 7 of that year stormed and plundered the pueblo. At the time of their reconquest by the Spaniards in 1692, twelve years after the Pueblo Revolt, the Zuni fled to one of their strongholds on top of a high, inaccessible mesa. Eventually they built one si
ngle village on the site of their ancient pueblo of Halona, and have dwelled there ever since.

  Today about five thousand Zuni live on their 40,000-acre reservation some thirty miles south of Gallup, New Mexico.

  SOURCES

  Introduction

  Quotes from Ekkehart Malotki and Michael Lomatuway‘ma, Stories of Maasaw, a Hopi God, American Tribal Religions 10 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press), 1987.

  Part One: Coyote Creates the World—and a Few Other Things

  The Beginning of the World (Yokuts) From Frederic Ward Putnam, AmericanArcheology and Ethnology 4 (Berkeley: University of California Press), 1906—1907.

  Sun and Moon in a Box (Zuni) Retold from various nineteenth-century sources.

  Coyote Steals the Sun (Miwok) Retold from various late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century sources.

  The Origin of the Moon and the Sun (Kalispel) From Ella Clark, Indian Legends of the Northern Rockies (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), 1966.