A treasury of Indian tales

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I How THE Animal-Men Became Real

Men (Zuni) i

Preface

Every school child knows the legends of the Old World, but few of them know those of the New World. Yet the myths and legends of the American Indian are unsurpassed in realism and quaintness of imagery by anything in Norse or Greek mythology. What could be more realistic than the ^^shriek of pain" given by the cloud foes when the Sun pierces them with his arrows, or than the wild cry of the boys on their way to the Sun, ^Xeap! Leap! for the sky is on its way down?"

In other legends there is a daintiness of concept which is charmingly poetic. Through some of the greater myths run the sublime notes of profoundly religious natures seeking expression. And there is a whole chapter on the evolution of Mind, in the way primitive men added four corners to the round plain of earth to keep the dome of the sky from slipping down and crushing them.

In the vast mass of native mythology there is

PREFACE

much which is worthy of more attention from both children and adults than it has yet received. Some of the choicest and most representative specimens are retold here in simple language for the children. Two or three of these legends were derived directly from the Red Men; the rest from Ethnological Reports, and other authoritative sources. All reflect the early beliefs of this ^Vanishing race."

C. K. B.

VI

I

In the beginning, so the Zunis say, there was nothing anywhere except a Great Father. Just by willing it, this Father created mists out of his own person, and the mists shaped themselves into Earth and Sky. Then the Father took the shape of the Sun.

Down in this Earth there were great hollow spaces, four caves in a tier, one above another; and all the light each one had came through a round hole in the floor of the cave above.

As you would imagine, the lowest cave was very dark, and damp, and sultry. But it is in warm, moist places that eggs hatch into tadpoles, reptiles, and birds; and so, in this dark cavern, the seeds of men and animals were hatched. They grew and multiplied fast, and soon all sorts of unfinished creatures were crawling about over and under each other in the darkness. It was not long before the cave was more than full and it was terrible down there.

Yet some of the creatures were so dumb and sluggish that they didn't know it was terrible. They were content just to be alive and warm. But some were not satisfied, and were all the time blaming others for bumping into them, and were always ready for a fight.

But those who were the most like men kept looking up at the dim spot of light in the ceiling of the cave, and longing to get up through the opening to see what was above. Two of the best of them kept looking up more and more, and trying to stretch up to the light. And somehow, the Sun-Father away up in the sky learned of it and appointed them to guide the people up from the darkness. And the two were called the ^^Beloved Twain," the Twin Brothers of Light.

Now you would never guess how these Twin Brothers got the people out of this lowest cave, so I shall have to tell you. First, they told the people that somewhere up above there must be a brighter land, because what little light they

got down there came from it. That made the men-creatures want to get up through the roofhole more than ever.

Then, down on the floor of the cave, directly beneath the light-hole, the Brothers planted a grass seed which had fallen down to them through all the holes of the upper caves. As soon as the grass sprang up, the two kept walking around it, breathing on it, taking hold of it and stretching it up, till the first any one knew, it had grown clear up to the opening, and was a big, strong stalk of corn with joints wherever they had grasped it, and with leaves wherever their thumbs had touched it.

^^Now, here is your ladder," said the Beloved Twins. "x4l11 you who can do so, cling tight to the stalk with your fore feet and set your hind feet on the leaves on this side and on that, and so win your way out of this."

In that way many of them climbed into a higher cave, but the more lazy and beast-like fell back and were left behind.

The cave into which they had crawled was larger, and was only so dark as night in a stormy season. The creatures and the man-like ones could move about without hitting against each other.

''Here you must improve in body and in actions," said the Twin Brothers. ^^Do not look ever downward at the floor. Raise your eyes often to the opening through which the light comes." And the beings obeyed, growing less ugly of form and of conduct.

But again they increased in numbers till they were crowded and unhappy. The Brothers knew what ailed them, so again they caused the corn stalk to stretch upward; and again the beings climbed up on it. But, as had happened before, the more worthless ones fell back and were left behind.

^^This time, you are not to go all together," said the Twain. ^^You shall go in six different groups, and become the fathers of six different tribes of people."

Then, according as they looked and acted better or worse, the beings w^ere separated into six parties and led up to the cave above at different times.

They had now come from the fourth or deepest cave, through the third one, and were in the second from the top. It was the largest and best of the three, and lay like a valley in starlight. The Tw^in Brothers who had been guiding them were thinking a great deal about how to help them grow man-like more rapidly.

do not know how we learned it," said they, ^^but somehow we do know that up above there is a land which is brighter than this one. We know that somewhere, high above, there is a Sun-Father whom we ought to worship. If we can get up into that brightest world, we shall be able to see him, and to live all the time in his wonderful light."

Thus the Beloved Twain, the Twin Brothers of Light, talked to the creatures and men-creatures, trying to prepare them for the future and teach them the ways of life. The men were still web-footed, goggle-eyed, and scaly of body, yet more and more they yearned to get out of the caves into the light.

When, at last, the Brothers led them out of the upper cave into the land of daylight, they took care to do it in the night-time so that their eyes would not be blinded by the sudden change. But as they came up, one after another, they saw the Morning Star and were dazzled by its brightness, and cried out in joy for they thought it was the Sun-Father of whom they had been told.

^^No, that is not the Father," said the Twain, ^^that is his little brother who always walks ahead of him."

When the Sun finally arose, the people fell down blinded, hiding their eyes on their bare arms. Yet they were delighted with the brightness and were as curious about it as little children. So they kept lifting their heads to peek at it, till at last they could endure its light.

^^Now all of you who are to be men must stand on your hind feet only," said the Brothers.

Then there was the funniest time you ever did hear of, for the men-creatures tried to stand erect and went stumbling and tumbling around. They had to hold on to each other and on to the bushes to keep from falling, just as little children have to hold on to chairs. Yet still they slipped and fell, sometimes several tumbling in a heap. Some of the better animals, too, tried to walk as the men-creatures were doing, and they made still worse work of it. Altogether, it was such a ludicrous sight that something stranger yet occurred. Some one laughed. It was a queer animal-kind of sound, ^^Ki yi yi," but it was the first laugh ever heard in the world.

Walking was a new thing to them and it amused them as a new game amuses children. It was hard work, and made their legs and backs ache terribly, but they were all eager to do it;

and whenever one of them succeeded in taking a step or two alone, he shouted, ^^Ho! Ho!'' so that the others would notice him.

It was not many days before some of them came to the Brothers and held up their hind feet which were becoming calloused and sore from walking on them so much.

^^Come with us," said the Beloved Twain; and they took the people to where large yucca plants were growing and showed them how to split the long blades into fiber and weave it into sandals to protect their feet. Then they showed the people how to plait kilts of bark to cover their nakedness.

Already some of the people could learn faster than the others and showed that they were to become the masters. For the wiser ones had brought up from the depths of the earth what they afterwards called the ^^of-doing-power." And this ^^doing power," this discovery that they could help themselves, was the best thing that had yet come to them.

All this time, the earth, like the people, was not ripe nor finished. It trembled; and every little while volcanoes poured out lava and ashes.

The mountains were still being lifted higher, and there were earthquakes which frightened the people.

Now at that time no one, not even the wise Brothers, ever dreamed that the earth was a round globe. They thought it was a flat plain except for the mountains; and they supposed that, of course, it had a prop under the middle to hold it up. They thought that if they could get to the middle, right above the prop, it would not tremble and move up and down any more. They believed that it was like a teeterboard, and that their weight all on one side caused it to tip. So, trying to find the middle, they moved on to a place where there were fewer earthquakes.

^This shall be our first Sitting Place," said the Beloved Twain. They tarried there, living on grass-seeds and berries, and sleeping under the bushes and among the rocks.

Yet after a time, there came a fearful earthquake. The mountains staggered and the plains boomed and cracked. The people were wild with terror. Great numbers of them went crazy and then died. Their blood gushed forth and was scorched into black lava which covered all the plain. Their bodies were twisted together and turned into queer stones which still stand everyv/here in that country, like those in the Garden of the Gods in Colorado.

The whole plain was buried in ashes and lava. Then, suddenly, there came a teriffic downpour of water which washed deep seams in the mountains and made the paths by which the people who were still alive escaped to the high places.

When the turmoil was over and the earth was dry again, the Beloved Twain led the people onward to their second Sitting Place.

^^Here we will stay, and now we will make huts of boughs to shelter us from the heat and and wind,'^ said the Twain. But scarcely were the shelters made when the earth rumbled again, and they moved on to their third Sitting Place.

^^Surely this is the middle and the earth will teeter no more," they said.

Here they piled up stones for houses and remained for a long time. All the while they were becoming less timid, more erect and surefooted, more knowing. And always when they moved onward, just as when they climbed out of the first caves, the more beast-like and lazy fell back and were left behind. In that way there came to be different kinds of people living in different parts of the country. And each time, those who pressed onward became ever more and more manlike.

They were well pleased with their third Sitting Place, and when the rumblings came again and the Brothers blew the conchs, saying, ^We must move on," some refused to obey the order and perished miserably in the earthquake.

Those who went onward came to a river at which the Beloved Twain said : ''Now it is time for you truly to be men. No longer shall you wear tails and have webbed hands and feet."

But when the Brothers began to cut off the tails and slit the webs on the toes and fingers some cried out at the blood and the pain, and others were frightened and foolishly fled away, crazed and chattering loudly; fled to the far south country, where they lived in the tree tops and became ''Our Lost Others," the monkeys.

Those who had now become men and had moved onward, took seven seeds of large, plumed grasses and planted them for the seven points of the compass (east, west, north, south, zenith, nadir, and middle). But they did not know how to plant them for the three last points, and the "middle" was to them the most important of all.

"Look up at the sky and plant the seven so as to make a figure like the seven stars in the Great Dipper," said the Brothers.

So they planted the seeds in that way, and when the grasses grew pretty tall they chose seven of the prettiest maidens, and one of the youths danced with a maiden around the first plant, and with another maiden around the second plant, till he had danced around all, stretching the stalks and making joints and leaves as had been done in the lowest cave. And when the dancing and stretching was ended, — behold! there stood seven stalks of ripened corn. And the tribe that had planted them became ^'The People of the Seed"; for corn is the seed of all seeds to the Indians, and is their chief article of food.

And each of the seven stalks of corn raised a kind of its own which is sacred to its own point of the compass, red, white, yellow, blue, black, spotted, and mottled ; and the pretty mottled one belongs to the center or midmost which the people were trying to find. But on all the corn stalks there grew — and still grows — the plumes or tassels of the grasses around which the maidens danced.

Seven times the rumblings came, and seven times the Beloved Twain blew the conchs and bade them move on; and each time it was harder for them to obey, for they were now building houses and raising fields of corn. They were sad at leaving their homes. But at last, the faithful Brothers guided them to Zuni (pronounced Zun-yi) in New Mexico, and had them build a ^^Seven-parted pueblo" (an adobe village of seven sections), one for each point of the compass.

^^Surely, surely," said the Twain, ''wc are at the middle, over the prop which holds up the earth, and it will tremble and teeter no more."

The Beloved Brothers made tests to assure the people that they would be safe. So there the wanderers have lived in peace ever since.

Once, it is true, a terrible flood came, and the people had to fly for safety to the rumbling Thunder Mountain. Yet ever, '^at the middle time" (when the Sun reaches the middle between summxcr and winter), the priests of the pueblo put out the fires in the houses, watch all night by a sacred fire made by rubbing sticks together as the Brothers made the first fire, bring forth the things of the lightning, and ^'test the middle" as the Beloved Twain tested it before they went up the Milky Way to live with the Sun-Father.

I

II

If you had to stay in the woods all alone through a long dark night, and heard the wolves howling and the mountain lions growling, and you knew that at any moment they might pounce upon you, and you couldn't see them, you would wish and wish that it would come daylight. It is terrible to know that danger is approaching and not be able to see it, though you are staring into the darkness till your eyes almost pop out of your head. If the long, dreadful night ever came to an end, you would be so glad to see the Sun that you simply wouldn't know what to do. You would be thankful to it, and would love it.

That was the way the first people felt toward it. They were not nearly so much afraid of the wild beasts in the daytime when they could see them. And then, too, savage animals do not prowl about as much in the daylight as in the darkness. So that was one reason why the peopie worshiped the Sun. Another reason was that before they had learned to make a fire they were often cold in the night and were glad when the Sun came to warm them.

Then, as the seasons came and went, and they began to look into things more closely, they discovered that it was the rays which the Sun sent to earth which made plants and fruits grow and ripen.

'^In the winter," said the wise ones, 'Vhen the Sun goes off on a visit, these things die ; but in the spring when he comes home, they come to life again.

^^There must be something alive in the Sun,'' they said. ^'How could he do it if he is not alive? No one who is not alive can do things."

^^And he comes down here where we live to do this work," said one.

^'It is his spirit that comes down. No one helps us as he does. He is our good Manitou."

Thus the people talked, trying to explain what they could not explain; and in time they worked out many queer stories of what this Sun Spirit did on earth.

Toward evening, when they saw the shadows creep up the mountain side till all the light that was left was on the mountain peak they said:

^^The Manitou's enemy pursued him and he climbed the mountain, and there he lay down and died."

When they saw the round reflection of the Sun in the lake, they said, ^^The Sun-Manitou has fallen into the water and drowned."

Those living on the shore of the ocean said, ^^He sailed away in a beautiful canoe covered with shining abalone shells."

But they learned that whatever befell this Sun- Manitou, whether it was the clouds that hid him or the lake that drowned him, he always came back the next morning or on some future morning. So they said, ^When he told us he must leave us, he promised to come back at some future day."

When they saw the morning sunlight leap from mountain-range to mountain-range without shining in the valley, they said the Sun- Spirit wore magic, ^^ten-league boots" which helped him to do it.

Every tribe of Indians had its own name and its own story of what this Sun-Spirit did when he came to their land and became an earthly hero. In the east they called him Kul-oos-kap ; at the Great Lakes his name was Man-a-bo-zho; in the northwest it was Na-pi, the Old Man; the

Tewas called him the Sun-Boy; in California they called him O-lel-bis; the Sauks called him Wi-sa-ka-ha; the Pawnees called him Tir-a-wa, and so on. I will tell you some of the stories of what this Sun-Hero did when he came down to earth.

KUL-OOS-KAP

Kulooskap was born long, very long ago, before there were any men on earth. He was so tall that he could step across a valley from one range of mountains to another at a single stride, for he wore the "ten-league boots." Once when he was running a race with his rival, the Darkness, he jumped from the mainland to the island of Grand Manan, nine miles away.

When he wished to cross Herbert River all he did was to wish for a bridge to be there, and there it was. Once he wished to cross a Big Water and he sang a magic song which the whales understand and the largest of the whales came to the shore, and Kulooskap stepped upon its back and it carried him across.

When he first came to this land, he came to Nova Scotia. No people were there then, so he selected fine, tall ash trees and shot his arrows into them, and wherever an arrow stuck an Indian came out of the bark.

Then he made all the animals, and made them very large at first and so strong that they were the masters. But he wanted man to be the master over them, so he had to make them smaller.

For a long time he lived with the people he had made, teaching them how to make bows and arrows and fish-nets, how to hunt, how to build huts and canoes, and what plants and animals they could eat without being poisoned.

But he did not want men to think always about themselves and the things nearest them, so one night he had them look up into the sky, and told them the names of the stars; and he showed them the Milky Way, the pathway to the Upper World.

Kulooskap had not yet made water animals; but one day a strange thing happened. Some Indians were talking together and one said:

^^I would like to lie in the cool mud."

^^I would like to dive and take headers,'' said another.

^'I would like to be washed up and down by the waves, yet live part of the time on land," said a third.

^'And I would like to swim about in the water forever," said the fourth.

Now at that very moment Kulooskap was saying, ^^Whatever an}^ of my people are vvdshing at this moment they shall have." So the first that had wished became a leech; the second, a frog; the third, a crab; and the fourth, a fish. The river carried them to the sea and they were washed to many lands, and thus there were animals to live in the water.

When Kulooskap had done all he could for mankind he made them a farewell feast on the shores of Lake Minas. All the animals and all the people came to it. When the feast w^as ended, he got into his canoe and they looked after him till they could see him no more. After they ceased to see him, they could still hear his voice, singing.

When the sound wholly died away a deep silence fell upon them all, and a great marvel came to pass; for all living creatures who, till now, had spoken the same language, were no longer able to understand each other, and they fled afar, each his own way. Until the day when Kulooskap shall return, all creatures mourn. Even the Loons, who had been his messengers, go restlessly up and down the earth making their strange, long cry, ^^Kwe-e-emoo-o-o, Kv/e-e-e-e-moo-oo," wailing because they cannot find their master.

MAN-A-BO-ZHO

Manabozho came to earth to help mankind free the world of monsters and make it a comfortable place for people to live in. He came from the Sun-Father, but he took the form of a man and lived among the Indians as one of them. In fact, he appeared on earth as a mere child, living with his grandmother, who was the daughter of the Moon. His mother was dead, but his father, the West Wind, was still living, and the lad was related to all the points of the compass.

Fie could stride across the valley at a single step. His voice could sound lii^e a thunderclap or at other times be as soft as the zephyr which sends gentle billows through the grass at the dawning of day. He had a magic canoe which carried him swiftly wtierever he wished to go. He killed the giants, and lifted great trees out of the rivers so the Indian canoes could pass. But like a wise teacher, he had men help him in all he did for them so that they might learn to help themselves.

As a child, he could not do these things. He seemed quite timid and ignorant. He was living with his grandmother at the edge of a wide prairie, and it was there that he first saw birds and other animals, and he often trembled at what he saw and heard. The first sound that terrified him was the hoot of an owl, and he ran in alarm to the lodge.

^'Noko! Noko!"' he cried, ^'I have heard a terrible Monedo."

She laughed at his fears, and asked: ''What kind of a noise did it make?"

''It talked like this: 'Ko-ko-ko-ko.'

"Oh, you foolish young thing!" said the grandmother; "that was only a bird, and we call it Ko-ko from the way it talks. Go back to the edge of the prairie. Watch there day after day, and you will see many of the mysterious things done by the Sun-Father, the Big Manitou in the sky."

And there, in his watchings, he saw the sweeping tempests, the thunder and lightning, the coming of light and the fleeing of darkness; and he said to his grandmother: "Daylight and

^ Grandmother.

Darkness are forever chasing each other across the earthj but neither one ever can kill the other so that he stays dead. They come to life again."

Every new sight he beheld in the heavens, every new animal he saw, or sound he heard, was a lesson which he learned.

^^It is strange that I am so simple, and my grandmother so wise," he said to himself. And when he asked his grandmother why it was, she replied:

^^You are down here to help the Indians, and you cannot do that unless you live and do as they do. Every Indian youth goes away by himself and fasts until he has a dream which gives him wisdom and shows him what he is to be and do. It is time that you should make your fast."

After he had gone alone into the forest, and had fasted for seven days and nights, he sang his war song, and all his timidity left him. He now had a giant's strength and power. He could change from one form to another and be an animal, a Manitou, a plant, or a tree. When he destroyed the great serpents, he turned himself into a stump and stood beside the water until they came out to bask in the sun.

He often talked with fowls, fishes, and other animals, calling them ^^my brother," for he said he was related to all things. He was wise and courageous, and the Red Men admired him while he was on earth, and they love him now that they see him no more.

^ 4^ ^ ¥^ ^ ^

NA-PI, THE OLD MAN

Napi, the Sun-Hero of the Blackfeet Indians, did not come to them in the shape of a child, as Manabozho did. He was an old man when they first saw him. And he came in an odd way. At that time there was nothing but water anywhere, and the Old Man came floating on a raft, and he had all the animals sitting on the raft with him.

There was no place on which they could get ofif, and Napi wanted land. So he scattered dust on the water and it made land.

Then he traveled about on the land, marking the rivers, putting falls into them, making the prairie and the mountains; and on the wide prairie now called Montana, he put the Sweet Grass Hills. He made the grass, the trees, the bushes, and the berries; and he had them grow where the soil was best suited for them. He tried each kind of animal to see where it could live best. He took the big-horn to the mountains and said to it:

^^You were clumsy on the prairie; this is where you shall live."

To the antelope he said, ^^You ran too fast and fell over the crags when I had you in the mountains. Here on the prairie is the place for you."

When he had arranged all these things, he modeled some clay into human shape and said to it, ^'You shall be people."

He spread his robe over the figures and went away, coming back each morning to look at them. On the fourth morning he said to them, ^^Stand up and walk," and they did so, and went down to the river with him.

^^You are the new men," he told them. '^I am Napi, the Old Man."

These first people did not have hands like a person's ; they had hands like a bear, with long claws. They were naked, and did not know how to get a living; so he showed them what berries, roots, and barks were good to eat. He made five tribes of people and marked off places for them to live.

One day, as Old Man was walking about, he came upon some people who had been killed and partly eaten by buffalo.