A Brief Guide to Native American Myths and Legends (7 page)

In many other Indian mythologies we find the wind brooding over the primeval ocean in the form of a bird. In some creation-myths amphibious animals dive into the waters and bring up sufficient mud with them to form a beginning of the new earth. In a number of these tales no actual act of creation is recorded, but a reconstruction of matter only. The Algonquins relate that their great god Michabo, when hunting one day with wolves for dogs, was surprised to see the animals enter a great lake and disappear. He followed them into the waters with the object of rescuing them, but as he did so the lake suddenly overflowed and submerged the entire earth. Michabo despatched a raven with directions to find a piece of earth which might serve as a nucleus for a new world, but the bird returned from its quest unsuccessful. Then the god sent an otter on a like errand, but it too failed to bring back the needful terrestrial germ. At last a musk-rat was sent on the same mission, and it returned with sufficient earth to enable Michabo to recreate the solid land. The trees had become denuded of their branches, so the god discharged arrows at them, which provided them with new boughs. After this Michabo married the musk-rat, and from their union sprang the human race.

The Muskhogean Indians believe that in the beginning the primeval waste of waters alone was visible. Over the dreary
expanse two pigeons or doves flew hither and thither, and in course of time observed a single blade of grass spring above the surface. The solid earth followed gradually, and the terrestrial sphere took its present shape. A great hill, Nunne Chaha, rose in the midst, and in the centre of this was the house of the deity Esaugetuh Emissee, the ‘Master of Breath’. He took the clay which surrounded his abode, and from it moulded the first men, and as the waters still covered the earth he was compelled to build a great wall upon which to dry the folk he had made. Gradually the soft mud became transformed into bone and flesh, and Esaugetuh was successful in directing the waters into their proper channels, reserving the dry land for the men he had created.

This myth closely resembles the story in the Book of Genesis. The pigeons appear analogous to the brooding creative Spirit, and the manufacture of the men out of mud is also striking. So far is the resemblance carried that we are almost forced to conclude that this is one of the instances in which Gospel conceptions have been engrafted on a native legend.

The Mandan tribes of the Sioux possess a type of creation-myth which is common to several American peoples. They suppose that their nation lived in a subterranean village near a vast lake. Hard by the roots of a great grapevine penetrated from the earth above, and, clambering up these, several of them got a sight of the upper world, which they found to be rich and well stocked with both animal and vegetable food. Those of them who had seen the new-found world above returned to their home bringing such glowing accounts of its wealth and pleasantness that the others resolved to forsake their dreary underground dwelling for the delights of the sunny sphere above. The entire population set out, and started to climb up the roots of the vine, but no more than half the tribe had ascended when the plant broke owing to the weight of a corpulent woman. The Mandans imagine that after death
they will return to the underground world in which they originally dwelt, the worthy reaching the village by way of the lake, the bad having to abandon the passage by reason of the weight of their sins.

The Minnetarees believed that their original ancestor emerged from the waters of a lake bearing in his hand an ear of corn, and the Mandans possessed a myth very similar to that of the Muskhogees concerning the origin of the world.

The serpent and the bird appear sometimes separately, sometimes in strange combination, in North American mythology. The bird is always incomprehensible to the savage. Its power of flight, its appearance in the heavens where dwell the gods, and its musical song combine to render it in his sight a being of mystery, possessing capabilities far above his own. From it he conceives the idea of the winged spirit or god, and he frequently regards it as a messenger from the bright regions of the sun or the sky deity. The flight and song of birds have always been carefully observed by primitive people as omens of grave import. These superstitions prevailed among the Red Race no less than among our own early ancestors. Many tribes imagined that birds were the visible spirits of the deceased. Thus the Powhatans of Virginia believed that the feathered race received the souls of their chiefs at death, and they were careful to do them no harm, accordingly. The Algonquins believed that birds caused the phenomenon of wind, that they created water-spouts, and that the clouds were the spreading and agitation of their wings. The Navaho thought that a great white swan sat at each of the four points of the compass and conjured up the blasts which came therefrom, while the Dakotas believed that in the west is the home of the Wakinyjan, ‘the Flyers’, the breezes that send the storms. The thunder, too, is regarded by some Indian peoples as the flapping of the pinions of a great bird, whose tracks are seen in the lightning, ‘like the sparks which the buffalo scatters
when he scours over a stony plain’. Many of the tribes of the north-west coast hold the same belief, and imagine the lightning to be the flash of the thunder-bird’s eye.

The eagle appears to have been regarded with extreme veneration by the Red Man of the north. ‘Its feathers composed the war-flag of the Creeks, and its image carved in wood or its stuffed skin surmounted their council lodges. None but an approved warrior dared wear it among the Cherokees, and the Dakotas allowed such an honour only to him who had first touched the corpse of the common foe.’
⁵
The Natchez and other tribes esteemed it almost as a deity. The Zuñi of New Mexico employed four of its feathers to represent the four winds when invoking the rain-god. Indeed, it was venerated by practically every tribe in North America. The owl, too, was employed as a symbol of wisdom, and sometimes, as by the Algonquins, was represented as the attendant of the Lord of the Dead. The Creek medicine-men carried a stuffed owl-skin as the badge of their fraternity and a symbol of their wisdom, and the Cherokees placed one above the ‘medicine’ stone in their council lodge. The dove also appears to have been looked upon as sacred by the Hurons and Mandans.

Some Indian tribes adopted the serpent as a symbol of time. They reckoned by ‘suns’, and as the outline of the sun, a circle, corresponds to nothing in nature so much as a serpent with its tail in its mouth, devouring itself, so to speak, this may have been the origin of the symbol. Some writers think that the serpent symbolized the Indian idea of eternity, but it is unlikely that such a recondite conception would appeal to a primitive folk.

Among the Indians the serpent also typified the lightning. The rapidity and sinuosity of its motions, its quick spring and sharp recoil, prove the aptness of the illustration. The brilliancy of the serpent’s basilisk glance and the general intelligence of its habits would speedily give it a reputation for wisdom, and therefore as the possessor of
orenda
, or magic power. These two conceptions would shortly become fused. The serpent as the type of the lightning, the symbol of the spear of the war-god, would lead to the idea that that deity also had power over the crops or summer vegetation, for it is at the time of year when lightning is most prevalent that these come to fruition. Again, the serpent would through this association with the war-god attain a significance in the eye of warriors, who would regard it as powerful war-physic. Thus, the horn of the great Prince of Serpents, which was supposed to dwell in the Great Lakes, was thought to be the most potent war-charm obtainable, and priests or medicine-men professed to have in their possession fragments of this mighty talisman.

The Algonquins believed that the lightning was an immense serpent vomited by the Manito, or creator, and said that he leaves serpentine twists and folds on the trees that he strikes. The Pawnees called the thunder ‘the hissing of the great snake’.

In snake-charming as a proof of magical proficiency, as typifying the lightning, which, as the serpent-spear of the war-god, brings victory in battle, and in its agricultural connection, lies most of the secret of the potency of the serpent symbol. As the emblem of the fertilizing summer showers the lightning serpent was the god of fruitfulness; but as the forerunner of floods and disastrous rains it was feared and dreaded.

Probably more ponderous nonsense has been written about the worship of reptiles (‘ophiolatry’, as the mythologists of half a century ago termed it) than upon any other allied
subject. But, this notwithstanding, there is no question that the serpent still holds a high place in the superstitious regard of many peoples, Asiatic and American. As we have already seen, it frequently represents the orb of day, and this is especially the case among the Zuñi and other tribes of the southern portions of North America, where sun-worshipis more usual than in the less genial regions. With the Red Man also it commonly typified water. The sinuous motion of the reptile sufficiently accounts for its adoption as the symbol for this element. And it would be no difficult feat of imagination for the savage to regard the serpent as a water-god, bearing in mind as he would the resemblance between its movement and the winding course of a river. Kennebec, the name of a stream in Maine, means ‘snake’, and Antietam, a creek in Maryland, has the same significance in the Iroquois dialect. Both Algonquins and Iroquois believed in the mighty serpent of the Great Lakes. The wrath of this deity was greatly to be feared, and it was thought that, unless duly placated, he vented his irascible temper upon the foolhardy adventurers who dared to approach his domain by raising a tempest or breaking the ice beneath their feet and dragging them down to his dismal fastnesses beneath.

The rattlesnake was the serpent almost exclusively honoured by the Red Race. It is slow to attack, but venomous in the extreme, and possesses the power of the basilisk to attract within reach of its spring small birds and squirrels. ‘It has the same strange susceptibility to the influence of rhythmic sounds as the vipers, in which lies the secret of snake-charming. Most of the Indian magicians were familiar with this singularity. They employed it with telling effect to put beyond question their intercourse with the unseen powers, and to vindicate the potency of their own guardian spirits who thus enabled them to handle with impunity the most venomous of reptiles. The well-known antipathy of these serpents to certain plants, for instance the hazel, which, bound
around the ankles, is an alleged protection against their attacks, and perhaps some antidote to their poison used by the magicians, led to their frequent introduction in religious ceremonies. Such exhibitions must have made a profound impression on the spectators and redounded in a corresponding degree to the glory of the performer. ‘Who is a
manito
?’ asks the mystic Meda Chant of the Algonkins. ‘He,’ is the reply, ‘he who walketh with a serpent, walking on the ground; he is a
manito
.’ The intimate alliance of this symbol with the mysteries of religion, the darkest riddles of the Unknown, is reflected in their language, and also in that of their neighbours, the Dakotas, in both of which the same words
manito
,
wakan
, which express the supernatural in its broadest sense, are also used as terms for this species of animals! The pious founder of the Moravian Brotherhood, the Count of Zinzendorf, owed his life on one occasion to this deeply rooted superstition. He was visiting a missionary station among the Shawnees, in the Wyoming valley. Recent quarrels with the whites had unusually irritated this unruly folk, and they resolved to make him their first victim. After he had retired to his secluded hut, several of the braves crept up on him, and, cautiously lifting the corner of the lodge, peered in. The venerable man was seated before a little fire, a volume of the Scriptures on his knees, lost in the perusal of the sacred words. While they gazed, a huge rattlesnake, unnoticed by him, trailed across his feet, and rolled itself into a coil in the comfortable warmth of the fire. Immediately the would-be murderers forsook their purpose and noiselessly retired, convinced that this was indeed a man of God.’
⁶

Smoking is, of course, originally an American custom, and with the Indians of North America possesses a sacred origin. Says an authority upon the barbarian use of tobacco:
⁷

‘Of the sacred origin of tobacco the Indian has no doubt, although scarcely two tribes exactly agree in the details of the way in which the invaluable boon was conferred on man. In substance, however, the legend is the same with all. Ages ago, at the time when spirits considered the world yet good enough for their occasional residence, a very great and powerful spirit lay down by the side of his fire to sleep in the forest. While so lying, his arch-enemy came that way, and thought it would be a good chance for mischief; so, gently approaching the sleeper, he rolled him over toward the fire, till his head rested among the glowing embers, and his hair was set ablaze. The roaring of the fire in his ears roused the good spirit, and, leaping to his feet, he rushed in a fright through the forest, and as he did so the wind caught his singed hair as it flew off, and, carrying it away, sowed it broadcast over the earth, into which it sank and took root, and grew up tobacco.

‘If anything exceeds the savage’s belief in tobacco, it is that which attaches to his pipe. In life it is his dearest companion, and in death is inseparable; for whatever else may be forgotten at his funeral obsequies, his pipe is laid in the grave with him to solace him on his journey to the “happy hunting-ground”. “The first pipe” is among the most sacred of their traditions; as well it may be, when it is sincerely believed that no other than the Great Spirit himself was the original smoker.