American Indian Myths and Legends

American Indian Myths and Legends

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Description

More than 160 tales from eighty tribal groups present a rich and lively panorama of the Native American mythic heritage. From across the continent comes tales of creation and love; heroes and war; animals, tricksters, and the end of the world. “This fine, valuable new gathering of … tales is truly alive, mysterious, and wonderful—overflowing, that is, with wonder, mystery and life” (National Book Award Winner Peter Matthiessen). In addition to mining the best folkloric sources of the nineteenth century, the editors have also included a broad selection of contemporary Native American voices. 

Additional information

Weight 0.65 kg
Dimensions 3.59 × 15.42 × 23.04 cm
PubliCanadation City/Country

USA
Format
language1
Pages

544
Publisher

Year Published

1985-8-12
Imprint

ISBN 10

0394740181
About The Author

RICHARD ERDOES (1912–2008) was an artist, photographer, Native American rights activist, and author or editor of more than twenty books, including Lakota Woman and Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions.ALFONSO ORTIZ (1939–1997) was a Native American scholar, anthropologist, activist and author. His works include The Tewa World: Space, Time, Being and Becoming in a Pueblo Society and The Pueblo.

“We have nothing more universal than our folk myths, and in this book Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz have brought together what is probably the most comprehensive and diverse collection of American Indian Legends ever compiled. It is a worthy and welcomed addition to the literature of our native peoples” —Dee Brown  “This fine, valuable new gathering of Turtle Island tales is truly alive, mysterious, and wonderful—overflowing, that is, with wonder, mystery and life.” —Peter Matthiessen "Lively and varied accounts of the creation of the world, cosmic battles, love and lust, trickster intrigues, animal interference, and things that whistle in the night fill this thematic anthology with passion, wisdom, and biting humor … This rich collection will serve scholars and satisfy general readers."—Library Journal
Table Of Content

Introduction  xi    • PART ONE •   RABBIT BOY KICKED THAT BLOOD CLOT AROUND:    Tales of Human Creation  1 Rabbit Boy (White River Sioux) 5 Blood Clot (Southern Ute) 8 Corn Mother (Penobscot) 11 Creation of the Animal People (Okanogan) 14 Stone Boy (Brule Sioux) 15 The Powerful Boy (Seneca) 20 Glooscap and the Baby (Algonquian) 25 The Old Woman of the Spring (Cheyenne) 26 Arrow Boy (Cheyenne) 29 The Great Medicine Dance (Cheyenne) 33 The Origin of Curing Ceremonies (White Mountain Apaches) 37 Creation of First Man and First Woman (Navajo) 39 How Men and Women Got Together (Blood-Piegan) 41 The Well-Baked Man (Pima) 46 The White Buffalo Woman (Brule Sioux) 47 The Orphan Boy and the Elk Dog (Blackfoot) 53 Salt Woman Is Refused Food (Cochiti) 61 The Sacred Weed (Blackfoot) 62 How Grandfather Peyote Came to the Indian People (Brule Sioux) 65 The Vision Quest (Brule Sioux) 69    • PART TWO •   THE PLACE OF EMERGENCE:   Tales of World Creation  73 The Good Twin and the Evil Twin (Yuma) 77 The Jicarilla Genesis (Jicarilla Apache) 83 When Grizzlies Walked Upright (Modoc) 85 Old Man Coyote Makes the World (Crow) 88 How the Sioux Came to Be (Brule Sioux) 93 Pushing Up the Sky (Snohomish) 95 Emerging into the Upper World (Acoma) 97 Earth Making (Chebokee) 105 The Earth Dragon (Northern California Coast) 107 People Brought in a Basket (Modoc) 109 Great Medicine Makes a Beautiful Country (Cheyenne) 111 The White Dawn of the Hopi (Hopi) 115 Creation of the Yakima World (Yakima) 117 Children of the Sun (Osage) 119 The Voice, the Flood, and the Turtle (Caddo) 120 A Tale of Elder Brother (Pima) 122    • PART THREE •   THE EYE OF THE GREAT SPIRIT:   Tales of the Sun, Moon, and Stars  125 Sun Creation (Brule Sioux) 129 Walks-all-Over-the-Sky (Tsimshian) 136 Three-Legged Rabbit Fights the Sun (Western Rockies) 139 Coyote Steals the Sun and Moon (Zuni) 140 Keeping Warmth in a Bag (Slavey) 143 The Hopi Boy and the Sun (Hopi) 145 A Gust of Wind (Ojibway) 150 Daughter of the Sun (Cherokee) 152 Grandmother Spider Steals the Sun (Cherokee) 154 The Story of the Creation (Diegueños) 156 The Foolish Girls (Ojibway) 158 Moon Rapes His Sister Sun (Inuit) 161 Sun Teaches Veeho a Lesson (Cheyenne) 162 Little Brother Snares the Sun (Winnebago) 164 The Scabby One Lights the Sky (Toltec) 166 Playing a Trick on the Moon (Snoqualmie) 168 The Theft of Light (Tsimshian) 169 Coyote Places the Stars (Wasco) 171 Deer Hunter and White Corn Maiden (Tewa) 173    • PART FOUR •   ORDEALS OF THE HERO:   Monsters and Monster Slayers  177 Glooscap Fights the Water Monster (Passamaquoddy, Micmac, and Maliskeet) 181 Little-Man-with-Hair-All-Over (Metis) 185 How Mosquitoes Came to Be (Tlingit) 192 Hiawatha the Unifier (Iroquois) 193 The Life and Death of Sweet Medicine (Northern Cheyenne) 199 The Quillwork Girl and her Seven Star Brothers (Cheyenne) 205 Rolling Head (Wintu) 209 Son of Light Kills the Monster (Hopi) 211 The Coming of Thunder (Miwok) 216 Wakinyan Tanka, the Great Thunderbird (Brule Sioux) 218 Coyote Kills the Giant (Flathead) 223 A Legend of Devil’s Tower (Sioux) 225 The Flying Head (Iroquois) 227 The First Ship (Chinook) 229 Chase of the Severed Head (Cheyenne) 230 Uncegila’s Seventh Spot (Brule Sioux) 237    • PART FIVE •   COUNTING COUP:   War and the Warrior Code  243 Little Mouse Counting Coup (Brule Sioux) 247 Two Bullets and Two Arrows (Brule Sioux) 248 A Cheyenne Blanket (Pawnee) 251 The Warrior Maiden (Oneida) 252 The Siege of Courthouse Rock (White River Sioux) 254 Chief Roman Nose Loses his Medicine (White River Sioux) 256 Brave Woman Counts Coup (White River Sioux) 258 Spotted Eagle and Black Crow (White River Sioux) 260 Where the Girl Saved her Brother (Cheyenne) 264 Tatanka Iyotake’s Dancing Horse (Brule Sioux) 267    • PART SIX •   THE SOUND OF FLUTES:   Tales of Love and Lust  271 The Legend of the Flute (Brule Sioux) 275 Teaching the Mudheads How to Copulate (Zuni) 279 The Fight for a Wife (Aleut) 281 Teeth in the Wrong Places (Ponca-Otoe) 283 The Stolen Wife (Tewa) 285 Tolowim Woman and Butterfly Man (Maidu) 290 Apache Chief Punishes his Wife (Tiwa) 291 The Husband’s Promise (Tewa) 295 The Man Who Married the Moon (Isleta Pueblo) 298 Why Mole Lives Underground (Cherokee) 305 A Legend of Multnomah Falls (Multnomah) 306 The Industrious Daughter Who Would not Marry (Cochiti) 308 The Woman Who Married a Merman (Coos) 312 Coyote’s Strawberry (Crow) 314 The Faithful Wife and the Woman Warrior (Tiwa) 315 Coyote and the Mallard Ducks (Nez Percé) 318 The Greedy Father (Kabok) 320 Kulshan and his Two Wives (Lumni) 321 Men and Women Try Living Apart (Sia) 324 A Contest for Wives (Cochiti) 326 The Serpent of the Sea (Zuni) 327    • PART SEVEN •   COYOTE LAUGHS AND CRIES:   Trickster Tales  333 Coyote, Iktome, and the Rock (White River Sioux) 337 What’s This? My Balls for your Dinner (White River Sioux) 339 Coyote and Wasichu (Brule Sioux 342 How Beaver Stole Fire from the Pines (Nez Percé) 343 The Raven (Athapascan) 344 The Bluebird and the Coyote (Pima) 346 Adventures of Great Rabbit (Algonquian) 347 Turkey Makes the Corn and Coyote Plants It (White Mountain Apache) 352 Coyote Takes Water from the Frog People (Kalapuya) 355 How the People Got Arrowheads (Shasta) 356 Iktome and the Ignorant Girl (Brule Sioux) 358 Coyote Fights a Lump of Pitch (White Mountain Apache) 359 Always-Living-at-the-Coast (Kwakiutl) 362 Glooscap Grants Three Wishes (Algonquian) 365 Coyote’s Rabbit Chase (Tewa) 368 Coyote Gets Rich off the White Man (White Mountain Apache) 369 Iktome Sleeps with his Wife by Mistake (Brule Sioux) 372 How to Scare a Bear (Tewa) 375 Coyote Steals Sun’s Tobacco (White Mountain Apache) 377 Doing a Trick with Eyeballs (Northern Cheyenne) 379 Iktome Has a Bad Dream (Brule Sioux) 381 How Coyote Got his Cunning (Karok) 382 Coyote and the Two Frog Women (Alsea) 384 Coyote Dances with a Star (Cheyenne) 385    • PART EIGHT •   FOUR LEGS, TWO LEGS, AND NO LEGS:   Stories of Animals and Other People  387 The Great Race (Cheyenne) 390 Origin of the Gnawing Beaver (Haida) 392 How the Crow Came to Be Black (Brule Sioux) 395 The Girl Who Married Rattlesnake (Pomo) 397 Why the Owl Has Big Eyes (Iroquois) 398 The Owl Husband (Passamaquoddy) 399 The Dogs Hold an Election (Brule Sioux) 403 The Snake Brothers (Brule Sioux) 404 Butterflies (Papago) 407 The Revenge of Blue Corn Ear Maiden (Hopi) 409 The Meeting of the Wild Animals (Tsimshian) 413 A Fish Story (Tewa) 415 The Neglectful Mother (Cochiti) 417 The Bear and his Indian Wife (Haida) 419 Wakiash and the First Totem Pole (Kwakiutl) 423    • PART NINE •   SOMETHING WHISTLING IN THE NIGHT:   Ghosts and the Spirit World  427 Two Ghostly Lovers (Brule Sioux) 432 The Man Who Was Afraid of Nothing (Brule Sioux) 435 The Land of the Dead (Serrano) 438 The Double-Faced Ghost (Cheyenne) 439 A Journey to the Skeleton House (Hopi) 442 The Skeleton Who Fell Down Piece by Piece (Isleta Pueblo) 446 The Spirit Wife (Zuni) 447 The Transformed Grandmother (Pima-Papago) 451 Big Eater’s Wife (Pequod) 453 The Origin of the Hopi Snake Dance (Tewa) 455 Blue Jay Visits Ghost Town (Chinook) 457 The Ghost Wife (Brule Sioux) 462    • PART TEN •   ONLY THE ROCKS AND MOUNTAINS LAST FOREVER:   Visions of the End  465 Woman Chooses Death (Blackfoot) 469 Coyote and the Origin of Death (Caddo) 470 The Flood (Haida) 472 The Seer Who Would not See (Pima) 473 The Elk Spirit of Lost Lake (Wasco) 475 The Death of Head Chief and Young Mule (Northern Cheyenne) 477 The Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee (Brule Sioux) 481 The Gnawing (Cheyenne) 484 The End of the World (White River Sioux) 485 Montezuma and the Great Flood (Papago) 487 The Buffalo Go (Kiowa) 490 The Coming of Wasichu (Brule Sioux) 491 Remaking the World (Brule Sioux) 496    Appendix  500    Bibliography  522    Index of Tales  526         
Excerpt From Book

CORN MOTHER [Penobscot]  What the buffalo represented to the nomadic tribe of the Plains, corn was to the planting people of the East and the Southwest—the all-nourishing sacred food, the subject of innumerable legends and the central theme of many rituals. Derived from a wild grass called teosintl, corn was planted in Mexico’s Tehuacan Valley as early as 8,000 years ago. The oldest corn found north of the border was discovered in New Mexico’s Bat Cave. It is about 5,500 years old. The Hopi’s say: “Moing’iima makes corn. Everything grows on his body. He is short, about the height of a boy. He has a female partner. Every summer he becomes heavy, his body is full of vegetables: watermelon, corn, squash. They grow in his body. When the Hopi plant, they invariably ask him to make the crop flourish; then their things come up, whether vegetables or fruit. When he shaves his body, the seeds come out, and afterward his body is thin. He used to live on this earth and go with the Hopi. When things grow ripe, he becomes thin and is unhappy. He stays in the West.” Corn had equal significance for tribes in the East, as we see in this tale from a New England tribe.  *** When Kloskurbeh, the All-maker, lived on earth, there were no people yet. But one day when the sun was high, a youth appeared and called him “Uncle, brother of my mother.” This young man was born from the foam of the waves, foam quickened by the wind and warmed by the sun. It was the motion of the wind, the moistness of water, and the sun’s warmth which gave him life—warmth above all, because warmth is life. And the young man lived with Kloskurbeh and became his chief helper. Now, after these two powerful being had created all manner of things, there came to them, as the sun was shining at high noon, a beautiful girl. She was born of the wonderful earth plant, and of the dew, and of warmth. Because a drop of dew full on a leaf and was warmed by the sun, and the warming sun is life, this girl came into being—from the green living plant, from moisture, and from warmth. “I am love, said the maiden. “I am a strength giver, I am the nourisher, I am the provider of men and animals. They all love me.” Then Kloskurbeh thanked the Great Mystery Above for having sent them the maiden. The youth, the Great Nephew, married her, and the girl conceived and thus became the First Mother. And Kloskurbeh, the Great Uncle, who teaches humans all they need to know, taught their children how to live. Then he went away to dwell in the north, from which he will return sometime when he is needed. Now the people increased and became numerous. They lived by hunting, and the more people there were, the less game they found. They were hunting it out, and as the animals decreased, starvation came upon the people. And the First Mother pitied them. The little children came to First Mother and said: “We are hungry. Feed us.” But she had nothing to give them, and she wept. She told them: “Be patient. I will make some food. Then your little bellies will be full.” But she kept weeping. Her husband asked: “How can I make you smile? How can I make you happy?” “There is only one thing that will stop my tears.” “What is it?” asked her husband. “It is this: you must kill me.” “I could never do that.” “You must, or I will go on weeping and grieving forever.” Then the husband traveled far, to the end of the earth, to the north he went, to ask the Great Instructor, his uncle Kloskurbeh, what he should do. “You must do what she wants. You must kill her,” said Kloskurbeh. Then the young man went back to his home, and it was his turn to weep. But First Mother said: “Tomorrow at high noon you must do it. After you have killed me, let two of our sons take hold of my hair and drag my body over that empty patch of earth. Let them drag my back and forth, back and forth, over every part of that patch, until all of my flesh has been torn from my body. Afterward, take my bones, gather them up, and bury them in the middle of this clearing. Then leave that place.” She smiled and said, “Wait seven moons and then come back, and you will find my flesh there, flesh given out of love, and it will nourish and strengthen you forever and ever.” So it was done. The husband slew the wife and her sons, praying, dragged her body to and fro as she had commanded, until her flesh covered all the earth. Then they took up her cones and buried them in the middle of it. Weeping loudly, they went away. When the husband and his children and his children’s children came back to that place after seven moons had passed, they found the earth covered will tall, green, tasseled plants. The plants’ fruit—corn—was First Mother’s flesh, given so that the people might live and flourish/ And the partook of First Mother’s flesh and found it sweet beyond words. Following her instructions, they did not eat all, but put many kernels back into the earth. In this way her flesh and spirit renewed themselves every seven months, generation after generation. And at the spot where they had burned First Mother’s ones, there grew another plant, broad-leafed and fragrant. It was First Mother’s breath, and they heard her spirit talking: “Burn this up and smoke it. It is sacred. It will clear your minds, help your prayers, and gladden your hearts.” And First Mother’s husband called the first plant Skarmunal, corn, and the second plant utarmur-wayeh, tobacco. “Remember,” he told the people,” and take good care of First Mother’s flesh, because it is her goodness become substance. Take good care of her breath, because it is her love turned into smoke. Remember her and think of her whenever you eat, whenever you smoke this sacred plant, because she has given her life so that you might live. Yet she is not dead, she lives: in undying love she renews herself again and again.” —Retold from three nineteenth-century sources, including Joseph Nicolar.
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