A Brief Guide to Native American Myths and Legends (11 page)

The creator is not always separate from his creation. The Lakota (Sioux) people are pantheists, believing that the sun, earth, sky, wind, fire and other elements of the natural, spiritual and human worlds are all aspects of one, single supreme being, Wakan Tanka, ‘The Great Spirit’ (or, in a more accurate translation of the Lakota, ‘the Great Mystery’).

It is notable that the concept of the creation of the world out of the imagination of God or out of nothingness is practically unknown in Native American mythology. In short, there is no Creator in North American mythology. The creator almost always moulds or rearranges what already exists into a new earth. Many contemporary folklorists define the maker deities in Amerindian myths as being ‘transformers’. Transformers do not create the world; they bring order from chaos.

The Sioux were fortunate in having a benevolent creator god. Their Blackfeet (Siksika) neighbours were made by Na’pi, the ‘Old Man’ – who was also an archetypal trickster, capable of malevolence, violence and black humour. The trickster is a common character throughout Native American mythology, but generally has a greater place in the folklore of hunter-gatherer peoples than of sedentary agricultural groups, largely because people who lived on wild things were more horribly aware of the vagaries of nature. The trickster, who is always male, is the representation of uncertainty. Sometimes the trickster’s acts are simply practical jokes, but he can be a cruel destroyer. Invariably his actions stem from an uncontrollable appetite, frequently sexual, often transgressive, such as when he shape-shifts to marry his own daughters. The trickster appears in various guises in Amerindian mythologies, sometimes as an animal, sometimes as a human. To paint with a broad brush, the trickster appears as Coyote almost everywhere but most often west of the
Mississippi, as Raven and Blue Jay in the Northwest, as Nanabush the Great Hare (and variants such as Manabozho and Winabojo) in the Northeast, as Rabbit in the Southeast and Southwest, as Spider and Hare amongst the Sioux, and Na’pi in the Great Basin. (See Michael P. Carroll, ‘The Trickster as Selfish-Buffoon and Culture Hero’,
Ethos
12, no. 2. Summer 1984.)

As a trickster Rabbit obtained a currency outside Native America. He is the ancestor of Brer Rabbit in the Uncle Remus tales. Brer Rabbit’s ancestral DNA is to be clearly observed in the tale of ‘Fox and Rabbit’ from the Jicarilla Apache:

Fox one day met a Rabbit who was sewing a sack. ‘What do you intend to do with that sack?’ asked he. ‘I am making this coat to protect myself from being killed by the hard hail which we are going to have today,’ replied Rabbit. ‘My friend, you know how to make them; give me this coat and make another for yourself.’ Rabbit agreed to this, and Fox put the sack over his head. Rabbit then hung him on a [tree] limb and pelted him with stones, while Fox, thinking it was hail striking him, endured the punishment as long as he could, but finally fell nearly dead from the tree, and looked out, to see no signs of hail, but discovered Rabbit had run away. Fox wished to avenge himself by killing Rabbit, and set off in pursuit of him. When overtaken Rabbit was chewing soft gum with which to make spectacles. Fox’s curiosity was stronger than his passion for revenge. ‘What are you making those for?’ said he. ‘It is going to be very hot, and I am making them to protect my eyes,’ answered Rabbit. ‘Let me have this pair, you know how to make them and can make yourself another pair.’ ‘Very well,’ said Rabbit, and he put the eye-shields on Fox, who could then see nothing, as the gum was soft and filled his eyes. Rabbit set fire to the brush all around Fox, who was badly singed in running through it. The gum melted in the fire, and yet remained as dark rings around his eyes. Fox again started on the trail of Rabbit, with the determination of eating him as soon as he saw him. He found Rabbit sitting beside the opening of a beehive. ‘I am going to eat you,’ said Fox; ‘you have tried to kill me.’ ‘You must not kill me,’ replied Rabbit. ‘I am teaching these children,’ and he closed the opening of the hive, so that Fox could not see inside. Fox desired very much to see what was in the hive making such a noise. ‘If you wish to see, stay here and
teach them while I rest. When it is dinner time strike them with a club,’ said Rabbit, who then ran away. Fox patiently awaited the dinner hour, and then struck the hive with such force that he broke into it. The bees poured out and stung him until he rolled in agony. ‘When I see you again, I will kill you before you can say a word!’ declared he, as he started after Rabbit again. Fox tracked the Rabbit to a small hole in the fence around a field of watermelons belonging to a Mexican. The Rabbit had entered to steal, and was angered by the gum figure of a man which the owner of the field had placed beside the path. ‘What do you desire from me?’ he cried, as he struck at the figure with his forefoot, which stuck fast in the soft gum. He struck at the gum with every foot, and even his head was soon stuck in the gum. Thus Fox found him. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘They put me here because I would not eat chicken for them,’ said Rabbit. ‘I will take your place,’ said Fox, ‘I know how to eat chicken.’ The Mexican found him in the morning and skinned him, and then let him go – still on the trail of the Rabbit who had so frequently outwitted him.

(‘Myths of the Jicarilla Apache,’ Frank Russell,
The Journal of American Folklore
, Vol. XI, No. XLIII, 1898)

Frequently the trickster is a transformer. Coyote, Old Man, and Raven are all transformers as well as tricksters.

Native American myths contain another common agent, the culture hero, someone or more usually something responsible for creating a distinctive benefit or aspect of the tribe’s life. Native American mythology contains hundreds of culture heroes, a diverse array that reflects Amerindian respect for and connection with nature. The Seminole culture hero Breath Maker (Hisagita) creates both the Milky Way and the pumpkin. For the Haida Raven is the culture hero who steals light from the Old Man and makes the sun, moon and stars. As is the case with this Haida myth, the culture hero is sometimes combined in Native American mythology with the transformer, and also the trickster. The Raven in the mythology of the Pacific Coast tribes is such a tripartite being. Raven, it might be added, is therefore a prime example of how aboriginal American religion defies rigid boundaries and easy categorization. A god may
act as a creator, transformer, trickster or cultural hero, while a cultural hero may be an animal or natural element, while a Rabbit (say) may be a deity creator with a mind for destruction. Or for helping humanity.

Duality, or the coupling of opposites, as in the Iroquian ‘The Battle of the Twin-gods’, occurs in numerous Amerindian myths and legends. Duality does not necessarily entail destruction; on the contrary, it can result, by the process of dialectics, in a positive synthesis. In Navajo myth, Monster Slayer is associated with light, while his twin brother is Child of Water with rain clouds. While journeying to see Sun, the warrior twins see smoke rising from a hole in the earth. Climbing down, they find themselves in the cave of Spider-Woman. She gives them magic feathers for their protection. After many adventures, the twins reach the house of Sun, who tests them by attempting to spear them, boil them, and poison them. With the aid of their magic feathers (and their own togetherness) they survive the ordeals, and the Sun recognizes them as his sons. The proud solar father gives them weapons to protect the Navajos.

An important myth, such as that of the Navajo warrior twins and their search for their Sun-Father, is not to be told lightly. It will form the basis of a sacred ritual, including ceremonies in which the participants act out the story. An important myth told at the wrong time can bring calamity upon the teller, such as attack by a swarm of snakes.

¹
J. R. Swanton, in
Handbook of the North American Indians
.

²
Cushing’s
Zuñi Fetiches
(1883).

³
Myths of the New World
.

⁴
Cushing,
13th Report
, Bureau of American Ethnology.

⁵
Brinton,
Myths of the New World
.

⁶
Brinton,
Myths of the New World
, pp. 131–133.

⁷
Schoolcraft,
op. cit.

⁸
See the author’s
Myths of Mexico and Peru
.

⁹
Boas,
Chinook Texts
.

¹⁰
See
Myths of Mexico and Peru
.

The Algonquin Indians have perhaps a more extensive mythology than the majority of Indian peoples, and as they have been known to civilization for several centuries their myths have the advantage of having been thoroughly examined.

One of the most interesting figures in their pantheon is Glooskap, which means ‘The Liar’; but so far from an affront being intended to the deity by this appellation, it was bestowed as a compliment to his craftiness, cunning being regarded as one of the virtues by all savage peoples.

Glooskap and his brother Malsum, the Wolf, were twins, and from this we may infer that they were the opposites of a dualistic system, Glooskap standing for what seems ‘good’ to the savage, and Malsum for all that was ‘bad’.
¹
Their mother
died at their birth, and out of her body Glooskap formed the sun and moon, animals, fishes, and the human race, while the malicious Malsum made mountains, valleys, serpents, and every manner of thing which he considered would inconvenience the race of men.

Each of the brothers possessed a secret as to what would kill him, as do many other beings in myth and fairy story, notably Llew Llaw Gyffes in Welsh romance.

Malsum asked Glooskap in what manner he could be killed, and Glooskap, to try his sincerity, replied that the only way in which his life could be taken was by the touch of an owl’s feather – or, as some variants of the myth say, by that of a flowering rush. Malsum in his turn confided to Glooskap that he could only perish by a blow from a fern-root. The malicious Wolf, taking his bow, brought down an owl, and while Glooskap slept struck him with a feather plucked from its wing. Glooskap immediately expired, but to Malsum’s chagrin came to life again. This tale is surprisingly reminiscent of the Scandinavian myth of Balder, who would only die if struck by a sprig of mistletoe by his brother Hodur. Like Balder, Glooskap is a sun-god, as is well proved by the circumstance that when he dies he does not fail to revive.

But Malsum resolved to learn his brother’s secret and to destroy him at the first opportunity. Glooskap had told him subsequently to his first attempt that only a pine-root could kill him, and with this Malsum struck him while he slept as before, but Glooskap, rising up and laughing, drove Malsum into the forest, and seated himself by a stream, where he murmured, as if musing to himself: ‘Only a flowering rush can kill me.’ Now he said this because he knew that Quah-beet, the Great Beaver, was hidden among the rushes on the bank of the stream and would hear every word he uttered. The Beaver went at once to Malsum and told him what he regarded as his brother’s vital secret. The wicked Malsum was so glad that he promised to give the Beaver whatever he might ask for. But when the beast asked for wings like a pigeon Malsum
burst into mocking laughter and cried: ‘Ho, you with the tail like a file, what need have you of wings?’ At this the Beaver was wroth, and, going to Glooskap, made a clean breast of what he had done. Glooskap, now thoroughly infuriated, dug up a fern-root, and, rushing into the recesses of the forest, sought out his treacherous brother and with a blow of the fatal plant struck him dead.

But although Malsum was slain he subsequently appears in Algonquian myth as Lox, or Loki, the chief of the wolves, a mischievous and restless spirit. In his account of the Algonquian mythology Charles Godfrey Leland appears to think that the entire system has been sophisticated by Norse mythology filtering through the Eskimo. Although the probabilities are against such a theory, there are many points in common between the two systems, as we shall see later, and among them few are more striking than the fact that the Scandinavian and Algonquian evil influences possess one and the same name.

When Glooskap had completed the world he made man and the smaller supernatural beings, such as fairies and dwarfs. He formed man from the trunk of an ash-tree, and the elves from its bark. Like Odin, he trained two birds to bring him the news of the world, but their absences were so prolonged that he selected a black and a white wolf as his attendants. He waged a strenuous and exterminating warfare on the evil monsters which then infested the world, and on the sorcerers and witches who were harmful to man. He levelled the hills and restrained the forces of nature in his mighty struggles, in which he towered to giant stature, his head and shoulders rising high above the clouds. Yet in his dealings with men he was gentle and quietly humorous, not to say ingenuous.

On one occasion he sought out a giant sorcerer named Win-pe, one of the most powerful of the evil influences then dwelling upon the earth. Win-pe shot upward till his head was
above the tallest pine of the forest, but Glooskap, with a god-like laugh, grew till his head reached the stars, and tapped the wizard gently with the butt of his bow, so that he fell dead at his feet.

But although he exterminated many monsters and placed a check upon the advance of the forces of evil, Glooskap did not find that the race of men grew any better or wiser. In fact, the more he accomplished on their behalf the worse they became, until at last they reached such a pitch of evil conduct that the god resolved to quit the world altogether. But, with a feeling of consideration still for the beings he had created, he announced that within the next seven years he would grant to all and sundry any request they might make. A great many people were desirous of profiting by this offer, but it was with the utmost difficulty that they could discover where Glooskap was. Those who did find him and who chose injudiciously were severely punished, while those whose desires were reasonable were substantially rewarded.