J'Pol
03-16-2004, 12:11 AM
OLD INDIAN LEGENDS
OLD INDIAN LEGENDS
RETOLD BY
ZITKALA-SA
ITKALA-SA.
CONTENTS
IKTOMI AND THE DUCKS
IKTOMI'S BLANKET
IKTOMI AND THE MUSKRAT
IKTOMI AND THE COYOTE
IKTOMI AND THE FAWN
THE BADGER AND THE BEAR
THE TREE-BOUND
SHOOTING OF THE RED EAGLE
IKTOMI AND THE TURTLE
DANCE IN A BUFFALO SKULL
THE TOAD AND THE BOY
IYA, THE CAMP-EATER
MANSTIN, THE RABBIT
THE WARLIKE SEVEN
IKTOMI AND THE DUCKS
1
OLD INDIAN LEGENDS
IKTOMI AND THE DUCKS
IKTOMI is a spider fairy. He wears brown deerskin leggins
with long soft fringes on either side, and tiny beaded moccasins on
his feet. His long black hair is parted in the middle and wrapped
with red, red bands. Each round braid hangs over a small brown ear
and falls forward over his shoulders.
He even paints his funny face with red and yellow, and draws
big black rings around his eyes. He wears a deerskin jacket, with
bright colored beads sewed tightly on it. Iktomi dresses like a
real Dakota brave. In truth, his paint and deerskins are the best
part of him--if ever dress is part of man or fairy.
Iktomi is a wily fellow. His hands are always kept in
mischief. He prefers to spread a snare rather than to earn the
smallest thing with honest hunting. Why! he laughs outright with
wide open mouth when some simple folk are caught in a trap, sure
and fast.
He never dreams another lives so bright as he. Often his own
conceit leads him hard against the common sense of simpler people.
Poor Iktomi cannot help being a little imp. And so long as he
is a naughty fairy, he cannot find a single friend. No one helps
him when he is in trouble. No one really loves him. Those who
come to admire his handsome beaded jacket and long fringed leggins
soon go away sick and tired of his vain, vain words and heartless
laughter.
Thus Iktomi lives alone in a cone-shaped wigwam upon the
plain. One day he sat hungry within his teepee. Suddenly he
rushed out, dragging after him his blanket. Quickly spreading it
on the ground, he tore up dry tall grass with both his hands and
tossed it fast into the blanket.
Tying all the four corners together in a knot, he threw the
light bundle of grass over his shoulder.
Snatching up a slender willow stick with his free left hand,
he started off with a hop and a leap. From side to side bounced
the bundle on his back, as he ran light-footed over the uneven
ground. Soon he came to the edge of the great level land. On the
hilltop he paused for breath. With wicked smacks of his dry
parched lips, as if tasting some tender meat, he looked straight
into space toward the marshy river bottom. With a thin palm
shading his eyes from the western sun, he peered far away into the
lowlands, munching his own cheeks all the while. "Ah-ha!" grunted
he, satisfied with what he saw.
A group of wild ducks were dancing and feasting in the
marshes. With wings outspread, tip to tip, they moved up and down
in a large circle. Within the ring, around a small drum, sat the
chosen singers, nodding their heads and blinking their eyes.
They sang in unison a merry dance-song, and beat a lively
tattoo on the drum.
Following a winding footpath near by, came a bent figure of a
Dakota brave. He bore on his back a very large bundle. With a
willow cane he propped himself up as he staggered along beneath his
burden.
"Ho! who is there?" called out a curious old duck, still
bobbing up and down in the circular dance.
Hereupon the drummers stretched their necks till they
strangled their song for a look at the stranger passing by.
"Ho, Iktomi! Old fellow, pray tell us what you carry in your
blanket. Do not hurry off! Stop! halt!" urged one of the singers.
"Stop! stay! Show us what is in your blanket!" cried out
other voices.
"My friends, I must not spoil your dance. Oh, you would not
care to see if you only knew what is in my blanket. Sing on! dance
on! I must not show you what I carry on my back," answered Iktomi,
nudging his own sides with his elbows. This reply broke up the
ring entirely. Now all the ducks crowded about Iktomi.
"We must see what you carry! We must know what is in your
blanket!" they shouted in both his ears. Some even brushed their
wings against the mysterious bundle. Nudging himself again, wily
Iktomi said, "My friends, 't is only a pack of songs I carry in my
blanket."
"Oh, then let us hear your songs!" cried the curious ducks.
At length Iktomi consented to sing his songs. With delight
all the ducks flapped their wings and cried together, "Hoye! hoye!"
Iktomi, with great care, laid down his bundle on the ground.
"I will build first a round straw house, for I never sing my
songs in the open air," said he.
Quickly he bent green willow sticks, planting both ends of
each pole into the earth. These he covered thick with reeds and
grasses. Soon the straw hut was ready. One by one the fat ducks
waddled in through a small opening, which was the only entrance
way. Beside the door Iktomi stood smiling, as the ducks, eyeing
his bundle of songs, strutted into the hut.
In a strange low voice Iktomi began his queer old tunes. All
the ducks sat round-eyed in a circle about the mysterious singer.
It was dim in that straw hut, for Iktomi had not forgot to cover up
the small entrance way. All of a sudden his song burst into full
voice. As the startled ducks sat uneasily on the ground, Iktomi
changed his tune into a minor strain. These were the words he
sang:
"Istokmus wacipo, tuwayatunwanpi kinhan ista nisasapi kta,"
which is, "With eyes closed you must dance. He who dares to open
his eyes, forever red eyes shall have."
Up rose the circle of seated ducks and holding their wings
close against their sides began to dance to the rhythm of Iktomi's
song and drum.
With eyes closed they did dance! Iktomi ceased to beat his
drum. He began to sing louder and faster. He seemed to be moving
about in the center of the ring. No duck dared blink a wink. Each
one shut his eyes very tight and danced even harder. Up and down!
Shifting to the right of them they hopped round and round in that
blind dance. It was a difficult dance for the curious folk.
At length one of the dancers could close his eyes no longer!
It was a Skiska who peeped the least tiny blink at Iktomi within
the center of the circle. "Oh! oh!" squawked he in awful terror!
"Run! fly! Iktomi is twisting your heads and breaking your necks!
Run out and fly! fly!" he cried. Hereupon the ducks opened their
eyes. There beside Iktomi's bundle of songs lay half of their
crowd--flat on their backs.
Out they flew through the opening Skiska had made as he rushed
forth with his alarm.
But as they soared high into the blue sky they cried to one
another: "Oh! your eyes are red-red!" "And yours are red-red!"
For the warning words of the magic minor strain had proven true.
"Ah-ha!" laughed Iktomi, untying the four corners of his blanket,
"I shall sit no more hungry within my dwelling." Homeward he
trudged along with nice fat ducks in his blanket. He left the
little straw hut for the rains and winds to pull down.
Having reached his own teepee on the high level lands, Iktomi
kindled a large fire out of doors. He planted sharp-pointed sticks
around the leaping flames. On each stake he fastened a duck to
roast. A few he buried under the ashes to bake. Disappearing
within his teepee, he came out again with some huge seashells.
These were his dishes. Placing one under each roasting duck, he
muttered, "The sweet fat oozing out will taste well with the
hard-cooked breasts."
Heaping more willows upon the fire, Iktomi sat down on the
ground with crossed shins. A long chin between his knees pointed
toward the red flames, while his eyes were on the browning ducks.
Just above his ankles he clasped and unclasped his long bony
fingers. Now and then he sniffed impatiently the savory odor.
The brisk wind which stirred the fire also played with a
squeaky old tree beside Iktomi's wigwam.
From side to side the tree was swaying and crying in an old
man's voice, "Help! I'll break! I'll fall!" Iktomi shrugged his
great shoulders, but did not once take his eyes from the ducks.
The dripping of amber oil into pearly dishes, drop by drop, pleased
his hungry eyes. Still the old tree man called for help. "He!
What sound is it that makes my ear ache!" exclaimed Iktomi, holding
a hand on his ear.
He rose and looked around. The squeaking came from the tree.
Then he began climbing the tree to find the disagreeable sound. He
placed his foot right on a cracked limb without seeing it. Just
then a whiff of wind came rushing by and pressed together the
broken edges. There in a strong wooden hand Iktomi's foot was
caught.
"Oh! my foot is crushed!" he howled like a coward. In vain he
pulled and puffed to free himself.
While sitting a prisoner on the tree he spied, through his
tears, a pack of gray wolves roaming over the level lands. Waving
his hands toward them, he called in his loudest voice, "He! Gray
wolves! Don't you come here! I'm caught fast in the tree so that
my duck feast is getting cold. Don't you come to eat up my meal."
The leader of the pack upon hearing Iktomi's words turned to
his comrades and said:
"Ah! hear the foolish fellow! He says he has a duck feast to
be eaten! Let us hurry there for our share!" Away bounded the
wolves toward Iktomi's lodge.
From the tree Iktomi watched the hungry wolves eat up his
nicely browned fat ducks. His foot pained him more and more. He
heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long teeth
and eat out the oily marrow. Now severe pains shot up from his
foot through his whole body. "Hin-hin-hin!" sobbed Iktomi. Real
tears washed brown streaks across his red-painted cheeks. Smacking
their lips, the wolves began to leave the place, when Iktomi cried
out like a pouting child, "At least you have left my baking under
the ashes!"
"Ho! Po!" shouted the mischievous wolves; "he says more ducks
are to be found under the ashes! Come! Let us have our fill this
once!"
Running back to the dead fire, they pawed out the ducks with
such rude haste that a cloud of ashes rose like gray smoke over
them.
"Hin-hin-hin!" moaned Iktomi, when the wolves had scampered
off. All too late, the sturdy breeze returned, and, passing by,
pulled apart the broken edges of the tree. Iktomi was released.
But alas! he had no duck feast.
IKTOMI'S BLANKET
IKTOMI'S BLANKET
ALONE within his teepee sat Iktomi. The sun was but a
handsbreadth from the western edge of land.
"Those, bad, bad gray wolves! They ate up all my nice fat
ducks!" muttered he, rocking his body to and fro.
He was cuddling the evil memory he bore those hungry wolves.
At last he ceased to sway his body backward and forward, but sat
still and stiff as a stone image.
"Oh! I'll go to Inyan, the great-grandfather, and pray for
food!" he exclaimed.
At once he hurried forth from his teepee and, with his blanket
over one shoulder, drew nigh to a huge rock on a hillside.
With half-crouching, half-running strides, he fell upon Inyan
with outspread hands.
"Grandfather! pity me. I am hungry. I am starving. Give me
food. Great-grandfather, give me meat to eat!" he cried. All the
while he stroked and caressed the face of the great stone god.
The all-powerful Great Spirit, who makes the trees and grass,
can hear the voice of those who pray in many varied ways. The
hearing of Inyan, the large hard stone, was the one most sought
after. He was the great-grandfather, for he had sat upon the
hillside many, many seasons. He had seen the prairie put on a
snow-white blanket and then change it for a bright green robe more
than a thousand times.
Still unaffected by the myriad moons he rested on the
everlasting hill, listening to the prayers of Indian warriors.
Before the finding of the magic arrow he had sat there.
Now, as Iktomi prayed and wept before the great-grandfather,
the sky in the west was red like a glowing face. The sunset poured
a soft mellow light upon the huge gray stone and the solitary
figure beside it. It was the smile of the Great Spirit upon the
grandfather and the wayward child.
The prayer was heard. Iktomi knew it. "Now, grandfather,
accept my offering; 'tis all I have," said Iktomi as he spread
his half-worn blanket upon Inyan's cold shoulders. Then Iktomi,
happy with the smile of the sunset sky, followed a footpath leading
toward a thicketed ravine. He had not gone many paces into the
shrubbery when before him lay a freshly wounded deer!
"This is the answer from the red western sky!" cried Iktomi
with hands uplifted.
Slipping a long thin blade from out his belt, he cut large
chunks of choice meat. Sharpening some willow sticks, he planted
them around a wood-pile he had ready to kindle. On these stakes he
meant to roast the venison.
While he was rubbing briskly two long sticks to start a fire,
the sun in the west fell out of the sky below the edge of land.
Twilight was over all. Iktomi felt the cold night air upon his
bare neck and shoulders. "Ough!" he shivered as he wiped his knife
on the grass. Tucking it in a beaded case hanging from his belt,
Iktomi stood erect, looking about. He shivered again. "Ough! Ah!
I am cold. I wish I had my blanket!" whispered he, hovering over
the pile of dry sticks and the sharp stakes round about it.
Suddenly he paused and dropped his hands at his sides.
"The old great-grandfather does not feel the cold as I do. He
does not need my old blanket as I do. I wish I had not given it to
him. Oh! I think I'll run up there and take it back!" said he,
pointing his long chin toward the large gray stone.
Iktomi, in the warm sunshine, had no need of his blanket, and
it had been very easy to part with a thing which he could not miss.
But the chilly night wind quite froze his ardent thank-offering.
Thus running up the hillside, his teeth chattering all the
way, he drew near to Inyan, the sacred symbol. Seizing one corner
of the half-worn blanket, Iktomi pulled it off with a jerk.
"Give my blanket back, old grandfather! You do not need it.
I do!" This was very wrong, yet Iktomi did it, for his wit was not
wisdom. Drawing the blanket tight over his shoulders, he descended
the hill with hurrying feet.
He was soon upon the edge of the ravine. A young moon, like
a bright bent bow, climbed up from the southwest horizon a little
way into the sky.
In this pale light Iktomi stood motionless as a ghost amid the
thicket. His woodpile was not yet kindled. His pointed stakes
were still bare as he had left them. But where was the deer--the
venison he had felt warm in his hands a moment ago? It was gone.
Only the dry rib bones lay on the ground like giant fingers from an
open grave. Iktomi was troubled. At length, stooping over the
white dried bones, he took hold of one and shook it. The bones,
loose in their sockets, rattled together at his touch. Iktomi let
go his hold. He sprang back amazed. And though he wore a blanket
his teeth chattered more than ever. Then his blunted sense will
surprise you, little reader; for instead of being grieved that he
had taken back his blanket, he cried aloud, "Hin-hin-hin! If only
I had eaten the venison before going for my blanket!"
Those tears no longer moved the hand of the Generous Giver.
They were selfish tears. The Great Spirit does not heed them ever.
IKTOMI AND THE MUSKRAT
IKTOMI AND THE MUSKRAT
BESIDE a white lake, beneath a large grown willow tree, sat
Iktomi on the bare ground. The heap of smouldering ashes told of
a recent open fire. With ankles crossed together around a pot of
soup, Iktomi bent over some delicious boiled fish.
Fast he dipped his black horn spoon into the soup, for he was
ravenous. Iktomi had no regular meal times. Often when he was
hungry he went without food.
Well hid between the lake and the wild rice, he looked nowhere
save into the pot of fish. Not knowing when the next meal would
be, he meant to eat enough now to last some time.
"How, how, my friend!" said a voice out of the wild rice.
Iktomi started. He almost choked with his soup. He peered through
the long reeds from where he sat with his long horn spoon in
mid-air.
"How, my friend!" said the voice again, this time close at his
side. Iktomi turned and there stood a dripping muskrat who had
just come out of the lake.
"Oh, it is my friend who startled me. I wondered if among the
wild rice some spirit voice was talking. How, how, my friend!"
said Iktomi. The muskrat stood smiling. On his lips hung a ready
"Yes, my friend," when Iktomi would ask, "My friend, will you sit
down beside me and share my food?"
That was the custom of the plains people. Yet Iktomi sat
silent. He hummed an old dance-song and beat gently on the edge of
the pot with his buffalo-horn spoon. The muskrat began to feel
awkward before such lack of hospitality and wished himself under
water.
After many heart throbs Iktomi stopped drumming with his horn
ladle, and looking upward into the muskrat's face, he said:
"My friend, let us run a race to see who shall win this pot of
fish. If I win, I shall not need to share it with you. If you
win, you shall have half of it." Springing to his feet, Iktomi
began at once to tighten the belt about his waist.
"My friend Ikto, I cannot run a race with you! I am not a
swift runner, and you are nimble as a deer. We shall not run any
race together," answered the hungry muskrat.
For a moment Iktomi stood with a hand on his long protruding
chin. His eyes were fixed upon something in the air. The muskrat
looked out of the corners of his eyes without moving his head. He
watched the wily Iktomi concocting a plot.
"Yes, yes," said Iktomi, suddenly turning his gaze upon the
unwelcome visitor;
"I shall carry a large stone on my back. That will slacken my
usual speed; and the race will be a fair one."
Saying this he laid a firm hand upon the muskrat's shoulder
and started off along the edge of the lake. When they reached the
opposite side Iktomi pried about in search of a heavy stone.
He found one half-buried in the shallow water. Pulling it out
upon dry land, he wrapped it in his blanket.
"Now, my friend, you shall run on the left side of the lake,
I on the other. The race is for the boiled fish in yonder kettle!"
said Iktomi.
The muskrat helped to lift the heavy stone upon Iktomi's back.
Then they parted. Each took a narrow path through the tall reeds
fringing the shore. Iktomi found his load a heavy one.
Perspiration hung like beads on his brow. His chest heaved hard
and fast.
He looked across the lake to see how far the muskrat had gone,
but nowhere did he see any sign of him. "Well, he is running low
under the wild rice!" said he. Yet as he scanned the tall grasses
on the lake shore, he saw not one stir as if to make way for the
runner. "Ah, has he gone so fast ahead that the disturbed grasses
in his trail have quieted again?" exclaimed Iktomi. With that
thought he quickly dropped the heavy stone. "No more of this!"
said he, patting his chest with both hands.
Off with a springing bound, he ran swiftly toward the goal.
Tufts of reeds and grass fell flat under his feet. Hardly had they
raised their heads when Iktomi was many paces gone.
Soon he reached the heap of cold ashes. Iktomi halted stiff
as if he had struck an invisible cliff. His black eyes showed a
ring of white about them as he stared at the empty ground. There
was no pot of boiled fish! There was no water-man in sight! "Oh,
if only I had shared my food like a real Dakota, I would not have
lost it all! Why did I not know the muskrat would run through the
water? He swims faster than I could ever run! That is what he has
done. He has laughed at me for carrying a weight on my back while
he shot hither like an arrow!"
Crying thus to himself, Iktomi stepped to the water's brink.
He stooped forward with a hand on each bent knee and peeped far
into the deep water.
"There!" he exclaimed, "I see you, my friend, sitting with
your ankles wound around my little pot of fish! My friend, I am
hungry. Give me a bone!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the water-man, the muskrat. The sound
did not rise up out of the lake, for it came down from overhead.
With his hands still on his knees, Iktomi turned his face upward
into the great willow tree. Opening wide his mouth he begged, "My
friend, my friend, give me a bone to gnaw!"
"Ha! ha!" laughed the muskrat, and leaning over the limb he
sat upon, he let fall a small sharp bone which dropped right into
Iktomi's throat. Iktomi almost choked to death before he could get
it out. In the tree the muskrat sat laughing loud. "Next time,
say to a visiting friend, 'Be seated beside me, my friend. Let me
share with you my food.'"
IKTOMI AND THE COYOTE
IKTOMI AND THE COYOTE
AFAR off upon a large level land, a summer sun was shining
bright. Here and there over the rolling green were tall bunches of
coarse gray weeds. Iktomi in his fringed buckskins walked alone
across the prairie with a black bare head glossy in the sunlight.
He walked through the grass without following any well-worn
footpath.
From one large bunch of coarse weeds to another he wound his
way about the great plain. He lifted his foot lightly and placed
it gently forward like a wildcat prowling noiselessly through the
thick grass. He stopped a few steps away from a very large bunch
of wild sage. From shoulder to shoulder he tilted his head. Still
farther he bent from side to side, first low over one hip and then
over the other. Far forward he stooped, stretching his long thin
neck like a duck, to see what lay under a fur coat beyond the bunch
of coarse grass.
A sleek gray-faced prairie wolf! his pointed black nose tucked
in between his four feet drawn snugly together; his handsome bushy
tail wound over his nose and feet; a coyote fast asleep in the
shadow of a bunch of grass!--this is what Iktomi spied. Carefully
he raised one foot and cautiously reached out with his toes.
Gently, gently he lifted the foot behind and placed it before the
other. Thus he came nearer and nearer to the round fur ball lying
motionless under the sage grass.
Now Iktomi stood beside it, looking at the closed eyelids that
did not quiver the least bit. Pressing his lips into straight
lines and nodding his head slowly, he bent over the wolf. He held
his ear close to the coyote's nose, but not a breath of air stirred
from it.
"Dead!" said he at last. "Dead, but not long since he ran
over these plains! See! there in his paw is caught a fresh
feather. He is nice fat meat!" Taking hold of the paw with the
bird feather fast on it, he exclaimed, "Why, he is still warm!
I'll carry him to my dwelling and have a roast for my evening meal.
Ah-ha!" he laughed, as he seized the coyote by its two fore paws
and its two hind feet and swung him over head across his shoulders.
The wolf was large and the teepee was far across the prairie.
Iktomi trudged along with his burden, smacking his hungry lips
together. He blinked his eyes hard to keep out the salty
perspiration streaming down his face.
All the while the coyote on his back lay gazing into the sky
with wide open eyes. His long white teeth fairly gleamed as he
smiled and smiled.
"To ride on one's own feet is tiresome, but to be carried like
a warrior from a brave fight is great fun!" said the coyote in his
heart. He had never been borne on any one's back before and the
new experience delighted him. He lay there lazily on Iktomi's
shoulders, now and then blinking blue winks. Did you never see a
birdie blink a blue wink? This is how it first became a saying
among the plains people. When a bird stands aloof watching your
strange ways, a thin bluish white tissue slips quickly over his
eyes and as quickly off again; so quick that you think it was only
a mysterious blue wink. Sometimes when children grow drowsy they
blink blue winks, while others who are too proud to look with
friendly eyes upon people blink in this cold bird-manner.
The coyote was affected by both sleepiness and pride. His
winks were almost as blue as the sky. In the midst of his new
pleasure the swaying motion ceased. Iktomi had reached his
dwelling place. The coyote felt drowsy no longer, for in the next
instant he was slipping out of Iktomi's hands. He was falling,
falling through space, and then he struck the ground with such a
bump he did not wish to breathe for a while. He wondered what
Iktomi would do, thus he lay still where he fell. Humming a
dance-song, one from his bundle of mystery songs, Iktomi hopped and
darted about at an imaginary dance and feast. He gathered dry
willow sticks and broke them in two against his knee. He built a
large fire out of doors. The flames leaped up high in red and
yellow streaks. Now Iktomi returned to the coyote who had been
looking on through his eyelashes.
Taking him again by his paws and hind feet, he swung him to
and fro. Then as the wolf swung toward the red flames, Iktomi let
him go. Once again the coyote fell through space. Hot air smote
his nostrils. He saw red dancing fire, and now he struck a bed of
cracking embers. With a quick turn he leaped out of the flames.
From his heels were scattered a shower of red coals upon Iktomi's
bare arms and shoulders. Dumbfounded, Iktomi thought he saw a
spirit walk out of his fire. His jaws fell apart. He thrust a
palm to his face, hard over his mouth! He could scarce keep from
shrieking.
Rolling over and over on the grass and rubbing the sides of
his head against the ground, the coyote soon put out the fire on
his fur. Iktomi's eyes were almost ready to jump out of his head
as he stood cooling a burn on his brown arm with his breath.
Sitting on his haunches, on the opposite side of the fire from
where Iktomi stood, the coyote began to laugh at him.
"Another day, my friend, do not take too much for granted.
Make sure the enemy is stone dead before you make a fire!"
Then off he ran so swiftly that his long bushy tail hung out
in a straight line with his back.
IKTOMI AND THE FAWN
IKTOMI AND THE FAWN
IN one of his wanderings through the wooded lands, Iktomi saw
a rare bird sitting high in a tree-top. Its long fan-like tail
feathers had caught all the beautiful colors of the rainbow.
Handsome in the glistening summer sun sat the bird of rainbow
plumage. Iktomi hurried hither with his eyes fast on the bird.
He stood beneath the tree looking long and wistfully at the
peacock's bright feathers. At length he heaved a sigh and began:
"Oh, I wish I had such pretty feathers! How I wish I were not I!
If only I were a handsome feathered creature how happy I would be!
I'd be so glad to sit upon a very high tree and bask in the summer
sun like you!" said he suddenly, pointing his bony finger up toward
the peacock, who was eyeing the stranger below, turning his head
from side to side.
"I beg of you make me into a bird with green and purple
feathers like yours!" implored Iktomi, tired now of playing the
brave in beaded buckskins. The peacock then spoke to Iktomi: "I
have a magic power. My touch will change you in a moment into the
most beautiful peacock if you can keep one condition."
"Yes! yes!" shouted Iktomi, jumping up and down, patting his
lips with his palm, which caused his voice to vibrate in a peculiar
fashion. "Yes! yes! I could keep ten conditions if only you would
change me into a bird with long, bright tail feathers. Oh, I am so
ugly! I am so tired of being myself! Change me! Do!"
Hereupon the peacock spread out both his wings, and scarce
moving them, he sailed slowly down upon the ground. Right beside
Iktomi he alighted. Very low in Iktomi's ear the peacock
whispered, "Are you willing to keep one condition, though hard it
be?"
"Yes! yes! I've told you ten of them if need be!" exclaimed
Iktomi, with some impatience.
"Then I pronounce you a handsome feathered bird. No longer
are you Iktomi the mischief-maker." Saying this the peacock
touched Iktomi with the tips of his wings.
Iktomi vanished at the touch. There stood beneath the tree
two handsome peacocks. While one of the pair strutted about with
a head turned aside as if dazzled by his own bright-tinted tail
feathers, the other bird soared slowly upward. He sat quiet and
unconscious of his gay plumage. He seemed content to perch there
on a large limb in the warm sunshine.
After a little while the vain peacock, dizzy with his bright
colors, spread out his wings and lit on the same branch with the
elder bird.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "how hard to fly! Brightly tinted
feathers are handsome, but I wish they were light enough to fly!"
Just there the elder bird interrupted him. "That is the one
condition. Never try to fly like other birds. Upon the day you
try to fly you shall be changed into your former self."
"Oh, what a shame that bright feathers cannot fly into the
sky!" cried the peacock. Already he grew restless. He longed to
soar through space. He yearned to fly above the trees high upward
to the sun.
"Oh, there I see a flock of birds flying thither! Oh! oh!"
said he, flapping his wings, "I must try my wings! I am tired of
bright tail feathers. I want to try my wings."
"No, no!" clucked the elder bird. The flock of chattering
birds flew by with whirring wings. "Oop! oop!" called some to
their mates.
Possessed by an irrepressible impulse the Iktomi peacock
called out, "He! I want to come! Wait for me!" and with that he
gave a lunge into the air. The flock of flying feathers wheeled
about and lowered over the tree whence came the peacock's cry.
Only one rare bird sat on the tree, and beneath, on the ground,
stood a brave in brown buckskins.
"I am my old self again!" groaned Iktomi in a sad voice.
"Make me over, pretty bird. Try me this once again!" he pleaded in
vain.
"Old Iktomi wants to fly! Ah! We cannot wait for him!" sang
the birds as they flew away.
Muttering unhappy vows to himself, Iktomi had not gone far
when he chanced upon a bunch of long slender arrows. One by one
they rose in the air and shot a straight line over the prairie.
Others shot up into the blue sky and were soon lost to sight. Only
one was left. He was making ready for his flight when Iktomi
rushed upon him and wailed, "I want to be an arrow! Make me into
an arrow! I want to pierce the blue Blue overhead. I want to
strike yonder summer sun in its center. Make me into an arrow!"
"Can you keep a condition? One condition, though hard it be?"
the arrow turned to ask.
"Yes! Yes!" shouted Iktomi, delighted.
Hereupon the slender arrow tapped him gently with his sharp
flint beak. There was no Iktomi, but two arrows stood ready
to fly. "Now, young arrow, this is the one condition. Your flight
must always be in a straight line. Never turn a curve nor jump
about like a young fawn," said the arrow magician. He spoke slowly
and sternly.
At once he set about to teach the new arrow how to shoot in a
long straight line.
"This is the way to pierce the Blue overhead," said he; and
off he spun high into the sky.
While he was gone a herd of deer came trotting by. Behind
them played the young fawns together. They frolicked about like
kittens. They bounced on all fours like balls. Then they pitched
forward, kicking their heels in the air. The Iktomi arrow watched
them so happy on the ground. Looking quickly up into the sky, he
said in his heart, "The magician is out of sight. I'll just romp
and frolic with these fawns until he returns. Fawns! Friends, do
not fear me. I want to jump and leap with you. I long to be happy
as you are," said he. The young fawns stopped with stiff legs and
stared at the speaking arrow with large brown wondering eyes.
"See! I can jump as well as you!" went on Iktomi. He gave one
tiny leap like a fawn. All of a sudden the fawns snorted with
extended nostrils at what they beheld. There among them stood
Iktomi in brown buckskins, and the strange talking arrow was gone.
"Oh! I am myself. My old self!" cried Iktomi, pinching
himself and plucking imaginary pieces out of his jacket.
"Hin-hin-hin! I wanted to fly!"
The real arrow now returned to the earth. He alighted very
near Iktomi. From the high sky he had seen the fawns playing on
the green. He had seen Iktomi make his one leap, and the charm was
broken. Iktomi became his former self.
"Arrow, my friend, change me once more!" begged Iktomi.
"No, no more," replied the arrow. Then away he shot through
the air in the direction his comrades had flown.
By this time the fawns gathered close around Iktomi. They
poked their noses at him trying to know who he was.
Iktomi's tears were like a spring shower. A new desire dried
them quickly away. Stepping boldly to the largest fawn, he looked
closely at the little brown spots all over the furry face.
"Oh, fawn! What beautiful brown spots on your face! Fawn,
dear little fawn, can you tell me how those brown spots were made
on your face?"
"Yes," said the fawn. "When I was very, very small, my mother
marked them on my face with a red hot fire. She dug a large hole
in the ground and made a soft bed of grass and twigs in it. Then
she placed me gently there. She covered me over with dry sweet
grass and piled dry cedars on top. From a neighbor's fire she
brought hither a red, red ember. This she tucked carefully in at
my head. This is how the brown spots were made on my face."
"Now, fawn, my friend, will you do the same for me? Won't you
mark my face with brown, brown spots just like yours?" asked
Iktomi, always eager to be like other people.
"Yes. I can dig the ground and fill it with dry grass and
sticks. If you will jump into the pit, I'll cover you with sweet
smelling grass and cedar wood," answered the fawn.
"Say," interrupted Ikto, "will you be sure to cover me with a
great deal of dry grass and twigs? You will make sure that the
spots will be as brown as those you wear."
"Oh, yes. I'll pile up grass and willows once oftener than my
mother did."
"Now let us dig the hole, pull the grass, and gather sticks,"
cried Iktomi in glee.
Thus with his own hands he aids in making his grave. After
the hole was dug and cushioned with grass, Iktomi, muttering
something about brown spots, leaped down into it. Lengthwise, flat
on his back, he lay. While the fawn covered him over with cedars,
a far-away voice came up through them, "Brown, brown spots to wear
forever!" A red ember was tucked under the dry grass. Off
scampered the fawns after their mothers; and when a great distance
away they looked backward. They saw a blue smoke rising, writhing
upward till it vanished in the blue ether.
"Is that Iktomi's spirit?" asked one fawn of another.
"No! I think he would jump out before he could burn into
smoke and cinders," answered his comrade.
THE BADGER AND THE BEAR
THE BADGER AND THE BEAR
ON the edge of a forest there lived a large family of badgers.
In the ground their dwelling was made. Its walls and roof were
covered with rocks and straw.
Old father badger was a great hunter. He knew well how to
track the deer and buffalo. Every day he came home carrying on his
back some wild game. This kept mother badger very busy, and the
baby badgers very chubby. While the well-fed children played
about, digging little make-believe dwellings, their mother hung
thin sliced meats upon long willow racks. As fast as the meats
were dried and seasoned by sun and wind, she packed them carefully
away in a large thick bag.
This bag was like a huge stiff envelope, but far more
beautiful to see, for it was painted all over with many bright
colors. These firmly tied bags of dried meat were laid upon the
rocks in the walls of the dwelling. In this way they were both
useful and decorative.
One day father badger did not go off for a hunt. He stayed at
home, making new arrows. His children sat about him on the ground
floor. Their small black eyes danced with delight as they watched
the gay colors painted upon the arrows.
All of a sudden there was heard a heavy footfall near the
entrance way. The oval-shaped door-frame was pushed aside. In
stepped a large black foot with great big claws. Then the other
clumsy foot came next. All the while the baby badgers stared hard
at the unexpected comer. After the second foot, in peeped the head
of a big black bear! His black nose was dry and parched. Silently
he entered the dwelling and sat down on the ground by the doorway.
His black eyes never left the painted bags on the rocky walls. He
guessed what was in them. He was a very hungry bear. Seeing the
racks of red meat hanging in the yard, he had come to visit the
badger family.
Though he was a stranger and his strong paws and jaws
frightened the small badgers, the father said, "How, how, friend!
Your lips and nose look feverish and hungry. Will you eat with
us?"
"Yes, my friend," said the bear. "I am starved. I saw your
racks of red fresh meat, and knowing your heart is kind, I came
hither. Give me meat to eat, my friend."
Hereupon the mother badger took long strides across the room,
and as she had to pass in front of the strange visitor, she said:
"Ah han! Allow me to pass!" which was an apology.
"How, how!" replied the bear, drawing himself closer to the
wall and crossing his shins together.
Mother badger chose the most tender red meat, and soon over a
bed of coals she broiled the venison.
That day the bear had all he could eat. At nightfall he rose,
and smacking his lips together,--that is the noisy way of saying
"the food was very good!"--he left the badger dwelling. The baby
badgers, peeping through the door-flap after the shaggy bear, saw
him disappear into the woods near by.
Day after day the crackling of twigs in the forest told of
heavy footsteps. Out would come the same black bear. He never
lifted the door-flap, but thrusting it aside entered slowly in.
Always in the same place by the entrance way he sat down with
crossed shins.
His daily visits were so regular that mother badger placed a
fur rug in his place. She did not wish a guest in her dwelling to
sit upon the bare hard ground.
At last one time when the bear returned, his nose was bright
and black. His coat was glossy. He had grown fat upon the
badger's hospitality.
As he entered the dwelling a pair of wicked gleams shot out of
his shaggy head. Surprised by the strange behavior of the guest
who remained standing upon the rug, leaning his round back against
the wall, father badger queried: "How, my friend! What?"
The bear took one stride forward and shook his paw in the
badger's face. He said: "I am strong, very strong!"
"Yes, yes, so you are," replied the badger. From the farther
end of the room mother badger muttered over her bead work: "Yes,
you grew strong from our well-filled bowls."
The bear smiled, showing a row of large sharp teeth.
"I have no dwelling. I have no bags of dried meat. I have no
arrows. All these I have found here on this spot," said he,
stamping his heavy foot. "I want them! See! I am strong!"
repeated he, lifting both his terrible paws.
Quietly the father badger spoke: "I fed you. I called you
friend, though you came here a stranger and a beggar. For the
sake of my little ones leave us in peace."
Mother badger, in her excited way, had pierced hard through
the buckskin and stuck her fingers repeatedly with her sharp awl
until she had laid aside her work. Now, while her husband was
talking to the bear, she motioned with her hands to the children.
On tiptoe they hastened to her side.
For reply came a low growl. It grew louder and more fierce.
"Wa-ough!" he roared, and by force hurled the badgers out. First
the father badger; then the mother. The little badgers he tossed
by pairs. He threw them hard upon the ground. Standing in the
entrance way and showing his ugly teeth, he snarled, "Be gone!"
The father and mother badger, having gained their feet, picked
up their kicking little babes, and, wailing aloud, drew the air
into their flattened lungs till they could stand alone upon their
feet. No sooner had the baby badgers caught their breath than they
howled and shrieked with pain and fright. Ah! what a dismal cry
was theirs as the whole badger family went forth wailing from out
their own dwelling! A little distance away from their stolen house
the father badger built a small round hut. He made it of bent
willows and covered it with dry grass and twigs.
This was shelter for the night; but alas! it was empty of food
and arrows. All day father badger prowled through the forest, but
without his arrows he could not get food for his children. Upon
his return, the cry of the little ones for meat, the sad quiet of
the mother with bowed head, hurt him like a poisoned arrow wound.
"I'll beg meat for you!" said he in an unsteady voice.
Covering his head and entire body in a long loose robe he halted
beside the big black bear. The bear was slicing red meat to hang
upon the rack. He did not pause for a look at the comer. As the
badger stood there unrecognized, he saw that the bear had brought
with him his whole family. Little cubs played under the
high-hanging new meats. They laughed and pointed with their wee
noses upward at the thin sliced meats upon the poles.
"Have you no heart, Black Bear? My children are starving.
Give me a small piece of meat for them," begged the badger.
"Wa-ough!" growled the angry bear, and pounced upon the
badger. "Be gone!" said he, and with his big hind foot he sent
father badger sprawling on the ground.
All the little ruffian bears hooted and shouted "ha-ha!" to
see the beggar fall upon his face. There was one, however, who did
not even smile. He was the youngest cub. His fur coat was not as
black and glossy as those his elders wore. The hair was dry and
dingy. It looked much more like kinky wool. He was the ugly cub.
Poor little baby bear! he had always been laughed at by his older
brothers. He could not help being himself. He could not change
the differences between himself and his brothers. Thus again,
though the rest laughed aloud at the badger's fall, he did not see
the joke. His face was long and earnest. In his heart he was sad
to see the badgers crying and starving. In his breast spread a
burning desire to share his food with them.
"I shall not ask my father for meat to give away. He would
say 'No!' Then my brothers would laugh at me," said the ugly baby
bear to himself.
In an instant, as if his good intention had passed from him,
he was singing happily and skipping around his father at work.
Singing in his small high voice and dragging his feet in long
strides after him, as if a prankish spirit oozed out from his
heels, he strayed off through the tall grass. He was ambling
toward the small round hut. When directly in front of the entrance
way, he made a quick side kick with his left hind leg. Lo! there
fell into the badger's hut a piece of fresh meat. It was tough
meat, full of sinews, yet it was the only piece he could take
without his father's notice.
Thus having given meat to the hungry badgers, the ugly baby
bear ran quickly away to his father again.
On the following day the father badger came back once more.
He stood watching the big bear cutting thin slices of meat.
" Give--" he began, when the bear turning upon him with a
growl, thrust him cruelly aside. The badger fell on his hands. He
fell where the grass was wet with the blood of the newly carved
buffalo. His keen starving eyes caught sight of a little red clot
lying bright upon the green. Looking fearfully toward the bear and
seeing his head was turned away, he snatched up the small thick
blood. Underneath his girdled blanket he hid it in his hand.
On his return to his family, he said within himself : "I'll
pray the Great Spirit to bless it." Thus he built a small round
lodge. Sprinkling water upon the heated heap of sacred stones
within, he made ready to purge his body. "The buffalo blood, too,
must be purified before I ask a blessing upon it," thought the
badger. He carried it into the sacred vapor lodge. After placing
it near the sacred stones, he sat down beside it. After a long
silence, he muttered: "Great Spirit, bless this little buffalo
blood." Then he arose, and with a quiet dignity stepped out of the
lodge. Close behind him some one followed. The badger turned to
look over his shoulder and to his great joy he beheld a Dakota
brave in handsome buckskins. In his hand he carried a magic arrow.
Across his back dangled a long fringed quiver. In answer to the
badger's prayer, the avenger had sprung from out the red globules.
"My son!" exclaimed the badger with extended right hand.
"How, father," replied the brave; "I am your avenger!"
Immediately the badger told the sad story of his hungry little
ones and the stingy bear.
Listening closely the young man stood looking steadily upon
the ground.
At length the father badger moved away.
"Where?" queried the avenger.
"My son, we have no food. I am going again to beg for meat,"
answered the badger.
"Then I go with you," replied the young brave. This made the
old badger happy. He was proud of his son. He was delighted to be
called "father" by the first human creature.
The bear saw the badger coming in the distance. He narrowed
his eyes at the tall stranger walking beside him. He spied the
arrow. At once he guessed it was the avenger of whom he had heard
long, long ago. As they approached, the bear stood erect with a
hand on his thigh. He smiled upon them.
"How, badger, my friend! Here is my knife. Cut your favorite
pieces from the deer," said he, holding out a long thin blade.
"How!" said the badger eagerly. He wondered what had inspired
the big bear to such a generous deed. The young avenger waited
till the badger took the long knife in his hand.
Gazing full into the black bear's face, he said: "I come to do
justice. You have returned only a knife to my poor father. Now
return to him his dwelling." His voice was deep and powerful. In
his black eyes burned a steady fire.
The long strong teeth of the bear rattled against each other,
and his shaggy body shook with fear. "Ahow!" cried he, as if he
had been shot. Running into the dwelling he gasped, breathless and
trembling, "Come out, all of you! This is the badger's dwelling.
We must flee to the forest for fear of the avenger who carries the
magic arrow."
Out they hurried, all the bears, and disappeared into the
woods.
Singing and laughing, the badgers returned to their own
dwelling.
Then the avenger left them.
"I go," said he in parting, "over the earth."
THE TREE-BOUND
THE TREE-BOUND
IT was a clear summer day. The blue, blue sky dropped low
over the edge of the green level land. A large yellow sun hung
directly overhead.
The singing of birds filled the summer space between earth and
sky with sweet music. Again and again sang a yellow-breasted
birdie--"Koda Ni Dakota!" He insisted upon it. "Koda Ni Dakota!"
which was "Friend, you're a Dakota! Friend, you're a Dakota!"
Perchance the birdie meant the avenger with the magic arrow, for
there across the plain he strode. He was handsome in his paint and
feathers, proud with his great buckskin quiver on his back and a
long bow in his hand. Afar to an eastern camp of cone-shaped
teepees he was going. There over the Indian village hovered a
large red eagle threatening the safety of the people. Every
morning rose this terrible red bird out of a high chalk bluff and
spreading out his gigantic wings soared slowly over the round camp
ground. Then it was that the people, terror-stricken, ran
screaming into their lodges. Covering their heads with their
blankets, they sat trembling with fear. No one dared to venture
out till the red eagle had disappeared beyond the west, where meet
the blue and green.
In vain tried the chieftain of the tribe to find among his
warriors a powerful marksman who could send a death arrow to the
man-hungry bird. At last to urge his men to their utmost skill he
bade his crier proclaim a new reward.
Of the chieftain's two beautiful daughters he would have his
choice who brought the dreaded red eagle with an arrow in its
breast.
Upon hearing these words, the men of the village, both young
and old, both heroes and cowards, trimmed new arrows for the
contest. At gray dawn there stood indistinct under the shadow of
the bluff many human figures; silent as ghosts and wrapped in robes
girdled tight about their waists, they waited with chosen bow and
arrow.
Some cunning old warriors stayed not with the group. They
crouched low upon the open ground. But all eyes alike were fixed
upon the top of the high bluff. Breathless they watched for the
soaring of the red eagle.
From within the dwellings many eyes peeped through the small
holes in the front lapels of the teepee. With shaking knees and
hard-set teeth, the women peered out upon the Dakota men prowling
about with bows and arrows.
At length when the morning sun also peeped over the eastern
horizon at the armed Dakotas, the red eagle walked out upon the
edge of the cliff. Pluming his gorgeous feathers, he ruffled his
neck and flapped his strong wings together. Then he dived into the
air. Slowly he winged his way over the round camp ground; over the
men with their strong bows and arrows! In an instant the long bows
were bent. Strong straight arrows with red feathered tips sped
upward to the blue sky. Ah! slowly moved those indifferent wings,
untouched by the poison-beaked arrows. Off to the west beyond the
reach of arrow, beyond the reach of eye, the red eagle flew away.
A sudden clamor of high-pitched voices broke the deadly
stillness of the dawn. The women talked excitedly about the
invulnerable red of the eagle's feathers, while the would-be heroes
sulked within their wigwams. "He-he-he!" groaned the chieftain.
On the evening of the same day sat a group of hunters around
a bright burning fire. They were talking of a strange young man
whom they spied while out upon a hunt for deer beyond the bluffs.
They saw the stranger taking aim. Following the point of his arrow
with their eyes, they beheld a herd of buffalo. The arrow sprang
from the bow! It darted into the skull of the foremost buffalo.
But unlike other arrows it pierced through the head of the creature
and spinning in the air lit into the next buffalo head. One by one
the buffalo fell upon the sweet grass they were grazing. With
straight quivering limbs they lay on their sides. The young man
stood calmly by, counting on his fingers the buffalo as they
dropped dead to the ground. When the last one fell, he ran thither
and picking up his magic arrow wiped it carefully on the soft
grass. He slipped it into his long fringed quiver.
"He is going to make a feast for some hungry tribe of men or
beasts!" cried the hunters among themselves as they hastened away.
They were afraid of the stranger with the sacred arrow. When
the hunter's tale of the stranger's arrow reached the ears of the
chieftain, his face brightened with a smile. He sent forth fleet
horsemen, to learn of him his birth, his name, and his deeds.
"If he is the avenger with the magic arrow, sprung up from the
earth out of a clot of buffalo blood, bid him come hither. Let him
kill the red eagle with his magic arrow. Let him win for himself
one of my beautiful daughters," he had said to his messengers, for
the old story of the badger's man-son was known all over the level
lands.
After four days and nights the braves returned. "He is
coming," they said. "We have seen him. He is straight and tall;
handsome in face, with large black eyes. He paints his round
cheeks with bright red, and wears the penciled lines of red over
his temples like our men of honored rank. He carries on his back
a long fringed quiver in which he keeps his magic arrow. His bow
is long and strong. He is coming now to kill the big red eagle."
All around the camp ground from mouth to ear passed those words of
the returned messengers.
Now it chanced that immortal Iktomi, fully recovered from the
brown burnt spots, overheard the people talking. At once he was
filled with a new desire. "If only I had the magic arrow, I would
kill the red eagle and win the chieftain's daughter for a wife,"
said he in his heart.
Back to his lonely wigwam he hastened. Beneath the tree in
front of his teepee he sat upon the ground with chin between his
drawn-up knees. His keen eyes scanned the wide plain. He was
watching for the avenger.
"'He is coming!' said the people," muttered old Iktomi. All
of a sudden he raised an open palm to his brow and peered afar into
the west. The summer sun hung bright in the middle of a cloudless
sky. There across the green prairie was a man walking bareheaded
toward the east.
"Ha! ha! 'tis he! the man with the magic arrow!" laughed
Iktomi. And when the bird with the yellow breast sang loud
again--"Koda Ni Dakota! Friend, you're a Dakota!" Iktomi put his
hand over his mouth as he threw his head far backward, laughing at
both the bird and man.
"He is your friend, but his arrow will kill one of your kind!
He is a Dakota, but soon he'll grow into the bark on this tree!
Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed again.
The young avenger walked with swaying strides nearer and
nearer toward the lonely wigwam and tree. Iktomi heard the swish!
swish! of the stranger's feet through the tall grass. He was
passing now beyond the tree, when Iktomi, springing to his feet,
called out: "How, how, my friend! I see you are dressed in
handsome deerskins and have red paint on your cheeks. You are
going to some feast or dance, may I ask?" Seeing the young man
only smiled I
OLD INDIAN LEGENDS
RETOLD BY
ZITKALA-SA
ITKALA-SA.
CONTENTS
IKTOMI AND THE DUCKS
IKTOMI'S BLANKET
IKTOMI AND THE MUSKRAT
IKTOMI AND THE COYOTE
IKTOMI AND THE FAWN
THE BADGER AND THE BEAR
THE TREE-BOUND
SHOOTING OF THE RED EAGLE
IKTOMI AND THE TURTLE
DANCE IN A BUFFALO SKULL
THE TOAD AND THE BOY
IYA, THE CAMP-EATER
MANSTIN, THE RABBIT
THE WARLIKE SEVEN
IKTOMI AND THE DUCKS
1
OLD INDIAN LEGENDS
IKTOMI AND THE DUCKS
IKTOMI is a spider fairy. He wears brown deerskin leggins
with long soft fringes on either side, and tiny beaded moccasins on
his feet. His long black hair is parted in the middle and wrapped
with red, red bands. Each round braid hangs over a small brown ear
and falls forward over his shoulders.
He even paints his funny face with red and yellow, and draws
big black rings around his eyes. He wears a deerskin jacket, with
bright colored beads sewed tightly on it. Iktomi dresses like a
real Dakota brave. In truth, his paint and deerskins are the best
part of him--if ever dress is part of man or fairy.
Iktomi is a wily fellow. His hands are always kept in
mischief. He prefers to spread a snare rather than to earn the
smallest thing with honest hunting. Why! he laughs outright with
wide open mouth when some simple folk are caught in a trap, sure
and fast.
He never dreams another lives so bright as he. Often his own
conceit leads him hard against the common sense of simpler people.
Poor Iktomi cannot help being a little imp. And so long as he
is a naughty fairy, he cannot find a single friend. No one helps
him when he is in trouble. No one really loves him. Those who
come to admire his handsome beaded jacket and long fringed leggins
soon go away sick and tired of his vain, vain words and heartless
laughter.
Thus Iktomi lives alone in a cone-shaped wigwam upon the
plain. One day he sat hungry within his teepee. Suddenly he
rushed out, dragging after him his blanket. Quickly spreading it
on the ground, he tore up dry tall grass with both his hands and
tossed it fast into the blanket.
Tying all the four corners together in a knot, he threw the
light bundle of grass over his shoulder.
Snatching up a slender willow stick with his free left hand,
he started off with a hop and a leap. From side to side bounced
the bundle on his back, as he ran light-footed over the uneven
ground. Soon he came to the edge of the great level land. On the
hilltop he paused for breath. With wicked smacks of his dry
parched lips, as if tasting some tender meat, he looked straight
into space toward the marshy river bottom. With a thin palm
shading his eyes from the western sun, he peered far away into the
lowlands, munching his own cheeks all the while. "Ah-ha!" grunted
he, satisfied with what he saw.
A group of wild ducks were dancing and feasting in the
marshes. With wings outspread, tip to tip, they moved up and down
in a large circle. Within the ring, around a small drum, sat the
chosen singers, nodding their heads and blinking their eyes.
They sang in unison a merry dance-song, and beat a lively
tattoo on the drum.
Following a winding footpath near by, came a bent figure of a
Dakota brave. He bore on his back a very large bundle. With a
willow cane he propped himself up as he staggered along beneath his
burden.
"Ho! who is there?" called out a curious old duck, still
bobbing up and down in the circular dance.
Hereupon the drummers stretched their necks till they
strangled their song for a look at the stranger passing by.
"Ho, Iktomi! Old fellow, pray tell us what you carry in your
blanket. Do not hurry off! Stop! halt!" urged one of the singers.
"Stop! stay! Show us what is in your blanket!" cried out
other voices.
"My friends, I must not spoil your dance. Oh, you would not
care to see if you only knew what is in my blanket. Sing on! dance
on! I must not show you what I carry on my back," answered Iktomi,
nudging his own sides with his elbows. This reply broke up the
ring entirely. Now all the ducks crowded about Iktomi.
"We must see what you carry! We must know what is in your
blanket!" they shouted in both his ears. Some even brushed their
wings against the mysterious bundle. Nudging himself again, wily
Iktomi said, "My friends, 't is only a pack of songs I carry in my
blanket."
"Oh, then let us hear your songs!" cried the curious ducks.
At length Iktomi consented to sing his songs. With delight
all the ducks flapped their wings and cried together, "Hoye! hoye!"
Iktomi, with great care, laid down his bundle on the ground.
"I will build first a round straw house, for I never sing my
songs in the open air," said he.
Quickly he bent green willow sticks, planting both ends of
each pole into the earth. These he covered thick with reeds and
grasses. Soon the straw hut was ready. One by one the fat ducks
waddled in through a small opening, which was the only entrance
way. Beside the door Iktomi stood smiling, as the ducks, eyeing
his bundle of songs, strutted into the hut.
In a strange low voice Iktomi began his queer old tunes. All
the ducks sat round-eyed in a circle about the mysterious singer.
It was dim in that straw hut, for Iktomi had not forgot to cover up
the small entrance way. All of a sudden his song burst into full
voice. As the startled ducks sat uneasily on the ground, Iktomi
changed his tune into a minor strain. These were the words he
sang:
"Istokmus wacipo, tuwayatunwanpi kinhan ista nisasapi kta,"
which is, "With eyes closed you must dance. He who dares to open
his eyes, forever red eyes shall have."
Up rose the circle of seated ducks and holding their wings
close against their sides began to dance to the rhythm of Iktomi's
song and drum.
With eyes closed they did dance! Iktomi ceased to beat his
drum. He began to sing louder and faster. He seemed to be moving
about in the center of the ring. No duck dared blink a wink. Each
one shut his eyes very tight and danced even harder. Up and down!
Shifting to the right of them they hopped round and round in that
blind dance. It was a difficult dance for the curious folk.
At length one of the dancers could close his eyes no longer!
It was a Skiska who peeped the least tiny blink at Iktomi within
the center of the circle. "Oh! oh!" squawked he in awful terror!
"Run! fly! Iktomi is twisting your heads and breaking your necks!
Run out and fly! fly!" he cried. Hereupon the ducks opened their
eyes. There beside Iktomi's bundle of songs lay half of their
crowd--flat on their backs.
Out they flew through the opening Skiska had made as he rushed
forth with his alarm.
But as they soared high into the blue sky they cried to one
another: "Oh! your eyes are red-red!" "And yours are red-red!"
For the warning words of the magic minor strain had proven true.
"Ah-ha!" laughed Iktomi, untying the four corners of his blanket,
"I shall sit no more hungry within my dwelling." Homeward he
trudged along with nice fat ducks in his blanket. He left the
little straw hut for the rains and winds to pull down.
Having reached his own teepee on the high level lands, Iktomi
kindled a large fire out of doors. He planted sharp-pointed sticks
around the leaping flames. On each stake he fastened a duck to
roast. A few he buried under the ashes to bake. Disappearing
within his teepee, he came out again with some huge seashells.
These were his dishes. Placing one under each roasting duck, he
muttered, "The sweet fat oozing out will taste well with the
hard-cooked breasts."
Heaping more willows upon the fire, Iktomi sat down on the
ground with crossed shins. A long chin between his knees pointed
toward the red flames, while his eyes were on the browning ducks.
Just above his ankles he clasped and unclasped his long bony
fingers. Now and then he sniffed impatiently the savory odor.
The brisk wind which stirred the fire also played with a
squeaky old tree beside Iktomi's wigwam.
From side to side the tree was swaying and crying in an old
man's voice, "Help! I'll break! I'll fall!" Iktomi shrugged his
great shoulders, but did not once take his eyes from the ducks.
The dripping of amber oil into pearly dishes, drop by drop, pleased
his hungry eyes. Still the old tree man called for help. "He!
What sound is it that makes my ear ache!" exclaimed Iktomi, holding
a hand on his ear.
He rose and looked around. The squeaking came from the tree.
Then he began climbing the tree to find the disagreeable sound. He
placed his foot right on a cracked limb without seeing it. Just
then a whiff of wind came rushing by and pressed together the
broken edges. There in a strong wooden hand Iktomi's foot was
caught.
"Oh! my foot is crushed!" he howled like a coward. In vain he
pulled and puffed to free himself.
While sitting a prisoner on the tree he spied, through his
tears, a pack of gray wolves roaming over the level lands. Waving
his hands toward them, he called in his loudest voice, "He! Gray
wolves! Don't you come here! I'm caught fast in the tree so that
my duck feast is getting cold. Don't you come to eat up my meal."
The leader of the pack upon hearing Iktomi's words turned to
his comrades and said:
"Ah! hear the foolish fellow! He says he has a duck feast to
be eaten! Let us hurry there for our share!" Away bounded the
wolves toward Iktomi's lodge.
From the tree Iktomi watched the hungry wolves eat up his
nicely browned fat ducks. His foot pained him more and more. He
heard them crack the small round bones with their strong long teeth
and eat out the oily marrow. Now severe pains shot up from his
foot through his whole body. "Hin-hin-hin!" sobbed Iktomi. Real
tears washed brown streaks across his red-painted cheeks. Smacking
their lips, the wolves began to leave the place, when Iktomi cried
out like a pouting child, "At least you have left my baking under
the ashes!"
"Ho! Po!" shouted the mischievous wolves; "he says more ducks
are to be found under the ashes! Come! Let us have our fill this
once!"
Running back to the dead fire, they pawed out the ducks with
such rude haste that a cloud of ashes rose like gray smoke over
them.
"Hin-hin-hin!" moaned Iktomi, when the wolves had scampered
off. All too late, the sturdy breeze returned, and, passing by,
pulled apart the broken edges of the tree. Iktomi was released.
But alas! he had no duck feast.
IKTOMI'S BLANKET
IKTOMI'S BLANKET
ALONE within his teepee sat Iktomi. The sun was but a
handsbreadth from the western edge of land.
"Those, bad, bad gray wolves! They ate up all my nice fat
ducks!" muttered he, rocking his body to and fro.
He was cuddling the evil memory he bore those hungry wolves.
At last he ceased to sway his body backward and forward, but sat
still and stiff as a stone image.
"Oh! I'll go to Inyan, the great-grandfather, and pray for
food!" he exclaimed.
At once he hurried forth from his teepee and, with his blanket
over one shoulder, drew nigh to a huge rock on a hillside.
With half-crouching, half-running strides, he fell upon Inyan
with outspread hands.
"Grandfather! pity me. I am hungry. I am starving. Give me
food. Great-grandfather, give me meat to eat!" he cried. All the
while he stroked and caressed the face of the great stone god.
The all-powerful Great Spirit, who makes the trees and grass,
can hear the voice of those who pray in many varied ways. The
hearing of Inyan, the large hard stone, was the one most sought
after. He was the great-grandfather, for he had sat upon the
hillside many, many seasons. He had seen the prairie put on a
snow-white blanket and then change it for a bright green robe more
than a thousand times.
Still unaffected by the myriad moons he rested on the
everlasting hill, listening to the prayers of Indian warriors.
Before the finding of the magic arrow he had sat there.
Now, as Iktomi prayed and wept before the great-grandfather,
the sky in the west was red like a glowing face. The sunset poured
a soft mellow light upon the huge gray stone and the solitary
figure beside it. It was the smile of the Great Spirit upon the
grandfather and the wayward child.
The prayer was heard. Iktomi knew it. "Now, grandfather,
accept my offering; 'tis all I have," said Iktomi as he spread
his half-worn blanket upon Inyan's cold shoulders. Then Iktomi,
happy with the smile of the sunset sky, followed a footpath leading
toward a thicketed ravine. He had not gone many paces into the
shrubbery when before him lay a freshly wounded deer!
"This is the answer from the red western sky!" cried Iktomi
with hands uplifted.
Slipping a long thin blade from out his belt, he cut large
chunks of choice meat. Sharpening some willow sticks, he planted
them around a wood-pile he had ready to kindle. On these stakes he
meant to roast the venison.
While he was rubbing briskly two long sticks to start a fire,
the sun in the west fell out of the sky below the edge of land.
Twilight was over all. Iktomi felt the cold night air upon his
bare neck and shoulders. "Ough!" he shivered as he wiped his knife
on the grass. Tucking it in a beaded case hanging from his belt,
Iktomi stood erect, looking about. He shivered again. "Ough! Ah!
I am cold. I wish I had my blanket!" whispered he, hovering over
the pile of dry sticks and the sharp stakes round about it.
Suddenly he paused and dropped his hands at his sides.
"The old great-grandfather does not feel the cold as I do. He
does not need my old blanket as I do. I wish I had not given it to
him. Oh! I think I'll run up there and take it back!" said he,
pointing his long chin toward the large gray stone.
Iktomi, in the warm sunshine, had no need of his blanket, and
it had been very easy to part with a thing which he could not miss.
But the chilly night wind quite froze his ardent thank-offering.
Thus running up the hillside, his teeth chattering all the
way, he drew near to Inyan, the sacred symbol. Seizing one corner
of the half-worn blanket, Iktomi pulled it off with a jerk.
"Give my blanket back, old grandfather! You do not need it.
I do!" This was very wrong, yet Iktomi did it, for his wit was not
wisdom. Drawing the blanket tight over his shoulders, he descended
the hill with hurrying feet.
He was soon upon the edge of the ravine. A young moon, like
a bright bent bow, climbed up from the southwest horizon a little
way into the sky.
In this pale light Iktomi stood motionless as a ghost amid the
thicket. His woodpile was not yet kindled. His pointed stakes
were still bare as he had left them. But where was the deer--the
venison he had felt warm in his hands a moment ago? It was gone.
Only the dry rib bones lay on the ground like giant fingers from an
open grave. Iktomi was troubled. At length, stooping over the
white dried bones, he took hold of one and shook it. The bones,
loose in their sockets, rattled together at his touch. Iktomi let
go his hold. He sprang back amazed. And though he wore a blanket
his teeth chattered more than ever. Then his blunted sense will
surprise you, little reader; for instead of being grieved that he
had taken back his blanket, he cried aloud, "Hin-hin-hin! If only
I had eaten the venison before going for my blanket!"
Those tears no longer moved the hand of the Generous Giver.
They were selfish tears. The Great Spirit does not heed them ever.
IKTOMI AND THE MUSKRAT
IKTOMI AND THE MUSKRAT
BESIDE a white lake, beneath a large grown willow tree, sat
Iktomi on the bare ground. The heap of smouldering ashes told of
a recent open fire. With ankles crossed together around a pot of
soup, Iktomi bent over some delicious boiled fish.
Fast he dipped his black horn spoon into the soup, for he was
ravenous. Iktomi had no regular meal times. Often when he was
hungry he went without food.
Well hid between the lake and the wild rice, he looked nowhere
save into the pot of fish. Not knowing when the next meal would
be, he meant to eat enough now to last some time.
"How, how, my friend!" said a voice out of the wild rice.
Iktomi started. He almost choked with his soup. He peered through
the long reeds from where he sat with his long horn spoon in
mid-air.
"How, my friend!" said the voice again, this time close at his
side. Iktomi turned and there stood a dripping muskrat who had
just come out of the lake.
"Oh, it is my friend who startled me. I wondered if among the
wild rice some spirit voice was talking. How, how, my friend!"
said Iktomi. The muskrat stood smiling. On his lips hung a ready
"Yes, my friend," when Iktomi would ask, "My friend, will you sit
down beside me and share my food?"
That was the custom of the plains people. Yet Iktomi sat
silent. He hummed an old dance-song and beat gently on the edge of
the pot with his buffalo-horn spoon. The muskrat began to feel
awkward before such lack of hospitality and wished himself under
water.
After many heart throbs Iktomi stopped drumming with his horn
ladle, and looking upward into the muskrat's face, he said:
"My friend, let us run a race to see who shall win this pot of
fish. If I win, I shall not need to share it with you. If you
win, you shall have half of it." Springing to his feet, Iktomi
began at once to tighten the belt about his waist.
"My friend Ikto, I cannot run a race with you! I am not a
swift runner, and you are nimble as a deer. We shall not run any
race together," answered the hungry muskrat.
For a moment Iktomi stood with a hand on his long protruding
chin. His eyes were fixed upon something in the air. The muskrat
looked out of the corners of his eyes without moving his head. He
watched the wily Iktomi concocting a plot.
"Yes, yes," said Iktomi, suddenly turning his gaze upon the
unwelcome visitor;
"I shall carry a large stone on my back. That will slacken my
usual speed; and the race will be a fair one."
Saying this he laid a firm hand upon the muskrat's shoulder
and started off along the edge of the lake. When they reached the
opposite side Iktomi pried about in search of a heavy stone.
He found one half-buried in the shallow water. Pulling it out
upon dry land, he wrapped it in his blanket.
"Now, my friend, you shall run on the left side of the lake,
I on the other. The race is for the boiled fish in yonder kettle!"
said Iktomi.
The muskrat helped to lift the heavy stone upon Iktomi's back.
Then they parted. Each took a narrow path through the tall reeds
fringing the shore. Iktomi found his load a heavy one.
Perspiration hung like beads on his brow. His chest heaved hard
and fast.
He looked across the lake to see how far the muskrat had gone,
but nowhere did he see any sign of him. "Well, he is running low
under the wild rice!" said he. Yet as he scanned the tall grasses
on the lake shore, he saw not one stir as if to make way for the
runner. "Ah, has he gone so fast ahead that the disturbed grasses
in his trail have quieted again?" exclaimed Iktomi. With that
thought he quickly dropped the heavy stone. "No more of this!"
said he, patting his chest with both hands.
Off with a springing bound, he ran swiftly toward the goal.
Tufts of reeds and grass fell flat under his feet. Hardly had they
raised their heads when Iktomi was many paces gone.
Soon he reached the heap of cold ashes. Iktomi halted stiff
as if he had struck an invisible cliff. His black eyes showed a
ring of white about them as he stared at the empty ground. There
was no pot of boiled fish! There was no water-man in sight! "Oh,
if only I had shared my food like a real Dakota, I would not have
lost it all! Why did I not know the muskrat would run through the
water? He swims faster than I could ever run! That is what he has
done. He has laughed at me for carrying a weight on my back while
he shot hither like an arrow!"
Crying thus to himself, Iktomi stepped to the water's brink.
He stooped forward with a hand on each bent knee and peeped far
into the deep water.
"There!" he exclaimed, "I see you, my friend, sitting with
your ankles wound around my little pot of fish! My friend, I am
hungry. Give me a bone!"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the water-man, the muskrat. The sound
did not rise up out of the lake, for it came down from overhead.
With his hands still on his knees, Iktomi turned his face upward
into the great willow tree. Opening wide his mouth he begged, "My
friend, my friend, give me a bone to gnaw!"
"Ha! ha!" laughed the muskrat, and leaning over the limb he
sat upon, he let fall a small sharp bone which dropped right into
Iktomi's throat. Iktomi almost choked to death before he could get
it out. In the tree the muskrat sat laughing loud. "Next time,
say to a visiting friend, 'Be seated beside me, my friend. Let me
share with you my food.'"
IKTOMI AND THE COYOTE
IKTOMI AND THE COYOTE
AFAR off upon a large level land, a summer sun was shining
bright. Here and there over the rolling green were tall bunches of
coarse gray weeds. Iktomi in his fringed buckskins walked alone
across the prairie with a black bare head glossy in the sunlight.
He walked through the grass without following any well-worn
footpath.
From one large bunch of coarse weeds to another he wound his
way about the great plain. He lifted his foot lightly and placed
it gently forward like a wildcat prowling noiselessly through the
thick grass. He stopped a few steps away from a very large bunch
of wild sage. From shoulder to shoulder he tilted his head. Still
farther he bent from side to side, first low over one hip and then
over the other. Far forward he stooped, stretching his long thin
neck like a duck, to see what lay under a fur coat beyond the bunch
of coarse grass.
A sleek gray-faced prairie wolf! his pointed black nose tucked
in between his four feet drawn snugly together; his handsome bushy
tail wound over his nose and feet; a coyote fast asleep in the
shadow of a bunch of grass!--this is what Iktomi spied. Carefully
he raised one foot and cautiously reached out with his toes.
Gently, gently he lifted the foot behind and placed it before the
other. Thus he came nearer and nearer to the round fur ball lying
motionless under the sage grass.
Now Iktomi stood beside it, looking at the closed eyelids that
did not quiver the least bit. Pressing his lips into straight
lines and nodding his head slowly, he bent over the wolf. He held
his ear close to the coyote's nose, but not a breath of air stirred
from it.
"Dead!" said he at last. "Dead, but not long since he ran
over these plains! See! there in his paw is caught a fresh
feather. He is nice fat meat!" Taking hold of the paw with the
bird feather fast on it, he exclaimed, "Why, he is still warm!
I'll carry him to my dwelling and have a roast for my evening meal.
Ah-ha!" he laughed, as he seized the coyote by its two fore paws
and its two hind feet and swung him over head across his shoulders.
The wolf was large and the teepee was far across the prairie.
Iktomi trudged along with his burden, smacking his hungry lips
together. He blinked his eyes hard to keep out the salty
perspiration streaming down his face.
All the while the coyote on his back lay gazing into the sky
with wide open eyes. His long white teeth fairly gleamed as he
smiled and smiled.
"To ride on one's own feet is tiresome, but to be carried like
a warrior from a brave fight is great fun!" said the coyote in his
heart. He had never been borne on any one's back before and the
new experience delighted him. He lay there lazily on Iktomi's
shoulders, now and then blinking blue winks. Did you never see a
birdie blink a blue wink? This is how it first became a saying
among the plains people. When a bird stands aloof watching your
strange ways, a thin bluish white tissue slips quickly over his
eyes and as quickly off again; so quick that you think it was only
a mysterious blue wink. Sometimes when children grow drowsy they
blink blue winks, while others who are too proud to look with
friendly eyes upon people blink in this cold bird-manner.
The coyote was affected by both sleepiness and pride. His
winks were almost as blue as the sky. In the midst of his new
pleasure the swaying motion ceased. Iktomi had reached his
dwelling place. The coyote felt drowsy no longer, for in the next
instant he was slipping out of Iktomi's hands. He was falling,
falling through space, and then he struck the ground with such a
bump he did not wish to breathe for a while. He wondered what
Iktomi would do, thus he lay still where he fell. Humming a
dance-song, one from his bundle of mystery songs, Iktomi hopped and
darted about at an imaginary dance and feast. He gathered dry
willow sticks and broke them in two against his knee. He built a
large fire out of doors. The flames leaped up high in red and
yellow streaks. Now Iktomi returned to the coyote who had been
looking on through his eyelashes.
Taking him again by his paws and hind feet, he swung him to
and fro. Then as the wolf swung toward the red flames, Iktomi let
him go. Once again the coyote fell through space. Hot air smote
his nostrils. He saw red dancing fire, and now he struck a bed of
cracking embers. With a quick turn he leaped out of the flames.
From his heels were scattered a shower of red coals upon Iktomi's
bare arms and shoulders. Dumbfounded, Iktomi thought he saw a
spirit walk out of his fire. His jaws fell apart. He thrust a
palm to his face, hard over his mouth! He could scarce keep from
shrieking.
Rolling over and over on the grass and rubbing the sides of
his head against the ground, the coyote soon put out the fire on
his fur. Iktomi's eyes were almost ready to jump out of his head
as he stood cooling a burn on his brown arm with his breath.
Sitting on his haunches, on the opposite side of the fire from
where Iktomi stood, the coyote began to laugh at him.
"Another day, my friend, do not take too much for granted.
Make sure the enemy is stone dead before you make a fire!"
Then off he ran so swiftly that his long bushy tail hung out
in a straight line with his back.
IKTOMI AND THE FAWN
IKTOMI AND THE FAWN
IN one of his wanderings through the wooded lands, Iktomi saw
a rare bird sitting high in a tree-top. Its long fan-like tail
feathers had caught all the beautiful colors of the rainbow.
Handsome in the glistening summer sun sat the bird of rainbow
plumage. Iktomi hurried hither with his eyes fast on the bird.
He stood beneath the tree looking long and wistfully at the
peacock's bright feathers. At length he heaved a sigh and began:
"Oh, I wish I had such pretty feathers! How I wish I were not I!
If only I were a handsome feathered creature how happy I would be!
I'd be so glad to sit upon a very high tree and bask in the summer
sun like you!" said he suddenly, pointing his bony finger up toward
the peacock, who was eyeing the stranger below, turning his head
from side to side.
"I beg of you make me into a bird with green and purple
feathers like yours!" implored Iktomi, tired now of playing the
brave in beaded buckskins. The peacock then spoke to Iktomi: "I
have a magic power. My touch will change you in a moment into the
most beautiful peacock if you can keep one condition."
"Yes! yes!" shouted Iktomi, jumping up and down, patting his
lips with his palm, which caused his voice to vibrate in a peculiar
fashion. "Yes! yes! I could keep ten conditions if only you would
change me into a bird with long, bright tail feathers. Oh, I am so
ugly! I am so tired of being myself! Change me! Do!"
Hereupon the peacock spread out both his wings, and scarce
moving them, he sailed slowly down upon the ground. Right beside
Iktomi he alighted. Very low in Iktomi's ear the peacock
whispered, "Are you willing to keep one condition, though hard it
be?"
"Yes! yes! I've told you ten of them if need be!" exclaimed
Iktomi, with some impatience.
"Then I pronounce you a handsome feathered bird. No longer
are you Iktomi the mischief-maker." Saying this the peacock
touched Iktomi with the tips of his wings.
Iktomi vanished at the touch. There stood beneath the tree
two handsome peacocks. While one of the pair strutted about with
a head turned aside as if dazzled by his own bright-tinted tail
feathers, the other bird soared slowly upward. He sat quiet and
unconscious of his gay plumage. He seemed content to perch there
on a large limb in the warm sunshine.
After a little while the vain peacock, dizzy with his bright
colors, spread out his wings and lit on the same branch with the
elder bird.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "how hard to fly! Brightly tinted
feathers are handsome, but I wish they were light enough to fly!"
Just there the elder bird interrupted him. "That is the one
condition. Never try to fly like other birds. Upon the day you
try to fly you shall be changed into your former self."
"Oh, what a shame that bright feathers cannot fly into the
sky!" cried the peacock. Already he grew restless. He longed to
soar through space. He yearned to fly above the trees high upward
to the sun.
"Oh, there I see a flock of birds flying thither! Oh! oh!"
said he, flapping his wings, "I must try my wings! I am tired of
bright tail feathers. I want to try my wings."
"No, no!" clucked the elder bird. The flock of chattering
birds flew by with whirring wings. "Oop! oop!" called some to
their mates.
Possessed by an irrepressible impulse the Iktomi peacock
called out, "He! I want to come! Wait for me!" and with that he
gave a lunge into the air. The flock of flying feathers wheeled
about and lowered over the tree whence came the peacock's cry.
Only one rare bird sat on the tree, and beneath, on the ground,
stood a brave in brown buckskins.
"I am my old self again!" groaned Iktomi in a sad voice.
"Make me over, pretty bird. Try me this once again!" he pleaded in
vain.
"Old Iktomi wants to fly! Ah! We cannot wait for him!" sang
the birds as they flew away.
Muttering unhappy vows to himself, Iktomi had not gone far
when he chanced upon a bunch of long slender arrows. One by one
they rose in the air and shot a straight line over the prairie.
Others shot up into the blue sky and were soon lost to sight. Only
one was left. He was making ready for his flight when Iktomi
rushed upon him and wailed, "I want to be an arrow! Make me into
an arrow! I want to pierce the blue Blue overhead. I want to
strike yonder summer sun in its center. Make me into an arrow!"
"Can you keep a condition? One condition, though hard it be?"
the arrow turned to ask.
"Yes! Yes!" shouted Iktomi, delighted.
Hereupon the slender arrow tapped him gently with his sharp
flint beak. There was no Iktomi, but two arrows stood ready
to fly. "Now, young arrow, this is the one condition. Your flight
must always be in a straight line. Never turn a curve nor jump
about like a young fawn," said the arrow magician. He spoke slowly
and sternly.
At once he set about to teach the new arrow how to shoot in a
long straight line.
"This is the way to pierce the Blue overhead," said he; and
off he spun high into the sky.
While he was gone a herd of deer came trotting by. Behind
them played the young fawns together. They frolicked about like
kittens. They bounced on all fours like balls. Then they pitched
forward, kicking their heels in the air. The Iktomi arrow watched
them so happy on the ground. Looking quickly up into the sky, he
said in his heart, "The magician is out of sight. I'll just romp
and frolic with these fawns until he returns. Fawns! Friends, do
not fear me. I want to jump and leap with you. I long to be happy
as you are," said he. The young fawns stopped with stiff legs and
stared at the speaking arrow with large brown wondering eyes.
"See! I can jump as well as you!" went on Iktomi. He gave one
tiny leap like a fawn. All of a sudden the fawns snorted with
extended nostrils at what they beheld. There among them stood
Iktomi in brown buckskins, and the strange talking arrow was gone.
"Oh! I am myself. My old self!" cried Iktomi, pinching
himself and plucking imaginary pieces out of his jacket.
"Hin-hin-hin! I wanted to fly!"
The real arrow now returned to the earth. He alighted very
near Iktomi. From the high sky he had seen the fawns playing on
the green. He had seen Iktomi make his one leap, and the charm was
broken. Iktomi became his former self.
"Arrow, my friend, change me once more!" begged Iktomi.
"No, no more," replied the arrow. Then away he shot through
the air in the direction his comrades had flown.
By this time the fawns gathered close around Iktomi. They
poked their noses at him trying to know who he was.
Iktomi's tears were like a spring shower. A new desire dried
them quickly away. Stepping boldly to the largest fawn, he looked
closely at the little brown spots all over the furry face.
"Oh, fawn! What beautiful brown spots on your face! Fawn,
dear little fawn, can you tell me how those brown spots were made
on your face?"
"Yes," said the fawn. "When I was very, very small, my mother
marked them on my face with a red hot fire. She dug a large hole
in the ground and made a soft bed of grass and twigs in it. Then
she placed me gently there. She covered me over with dry sweet
grass and piled dry cedars on top. From a neighbor's fire she
brought hither a red, red ember. This she tucked carefully in at
my head. This is how the brown spots were made on my face."
"Now, fawn, my friend, will you do the same for me? Won't you
mark my face with brown, brown spots just like yours?" asked
Iktomi, always eager to be like other people.
"Yes. I can dig the ground and fill it with dry grass and
sticks. If you will jump into the pit, I'll cover you with sweet
smelling grass and cedar wood," answered the fawn.
"Say," interrupted Ikto, "will you be sure to cover me with a
great deal of dry grass and twigs? You will make sure that the
spots will be as brown as those you wear."
"Oh, yes. I'll pile up grass and willows once oftener than my
mother did."
"Now let us dig the hole, pull the grass, and gather sticks,"
cried Iktomi in glee.
Thus with his own hands he aids in making his grave. After
the hole was dug and cushioned with grass, Iktomi, muttering
something about brown spots, leaped down into it. Lengthwise, flat
on his back, he lay. While the fawn covered him over with cedars,
a far-away voice came up through them, "Brown, brown spots to wear
forever!" A red ember was tucked under the dry grass. Off
scampered the fawns after their mothers; and when a great distance
away they looked backward. They saw a blue smoke rising, writhing
upward till it vanished in the blue ether.
"Is that Iktomi's spirit?" asked one fawn of another.
"No! I think he would jump out before he could burn into
smoke and cinders," answered his comrade.
THE BADGER AND THE BEAR
THE BADGER AND THE BEAR
ON the edge of a forest there lived a large family of badgers.
In the ground their dwelling was made. Its walls and roof were
covered with rocks and straw.
Old father badger was a great hunter. He knew well how to
track the deer and buffalo. Every day he came home carrying on his
back some wild game. This kept mother badger very busy, and the
baby badgers very chubby. While the well-fed children played
about, digging little make-believe dwellings, their mother hung
thin sliced meats upon long willow racks. As fast as the meats
were dried and seasoned by sun and wind, she packed them carefully
away in a large thick bag.
This bag was like a huge stiff envelope, but far more
beautiful to see, for it was painted all over with many bright
colors. These firmly tied bags of dried meat were laid upon the
rocks in the walls of the dwelling. In this way they were both
useful and decorative.
One day father badger did not go off for a hunt. He stayed at
home, making new arrows. His children sat about him on the ground
floor. Their small black eyes danced with delight as they watched
the gay colors painted upon the arrows.
All of a sudden there was heard a heavy footfall near the
entrance way. The oval-shaped door-frame was pushed aside. In
stepped a large black foot with great big claws. Then the other
clumsy foot came next. All the while the baby badgers stared hard
at the unexpected comer. After the second foot, in peeped the head
of a big black bear! His black nose was dry and parched. Silently
he entered the dwelling and sat down on the ground by the doorway.
His black eyes never left the painted bags on the rocky walls. He
guessed what was in them. He was a very hungry bear. Seeing the
racks of red meat hanging in the yard, he had come to visit the
badger family.
Though he was a stranger and his strong paws and jaws
frightened the small badgers, the father said, "How, how, friend!
Your lips and nose look feverish and hungry. Will you eat with
us?"
"Yes, my friend," said the bear. "I am starved. I saw your
racks of red fresh meat, and knowing your heart is kind, I came
hither. Give me meat to eat, my friend."
Hereupon the mother badger took long strides across the room,
and as she had to pass in front of the strange visitor, she said:
"Ah han! Allow me to pass!" which was an apology.
"How, how!" replied the bear, drawing himself closer to the
wall and crossing his shins together.
Mother badger chose the most tender red meat, and soon over a
bed of coals she broiled the venison.
That day the bear had all he could eat. At nightfall he rose,
and smacking his lips together,--that is the noisy way of saying
"the food was very good!"--he left the badger dwelling. The baby
badgers, peeping through the door-flap after the shaggy bear, saw
him disappear into the woods near by.
Day after day the crackling of twigs in the forest told of
heavy footsteps. Out would come the same black bear. He never
lifted the door-flap, but thrusting it aside entered slowly in.
Always in the same place by the entrance way he sat down with
crossed shins.
His daily visits were so regular that mother badger placed a
fur rug in his place. She did not wish a guest in her dwelling to
sit upon the bare hard ground.
At last one time when the bear returned, his nose was bright
and black. His coat was glossy. He had grown fat upon the
badger's hospitality.
As he entered the dwelling a pair of wicked gleams shot out of
his shaggy head. Surprised by the strange behavior of the guest
who remained standing upon the rug, leaning his round back against
the wall, father badger queried: "How, my friend! What?"
The bear took one stride forward and shook his paw in the
badger's face. He said: "I am strong, very strong!"
"Yes, yes, so you are," replied the badger. From the farther
end of the room mother badger muttered over her bead work: "Yes,
you grew strong from our well-filled bowls."
The bear smiled, showing a row of large sharp teeth.
"I have no dwelling. I have no bags of dried meat. I have no
arrows. All these I have found here on this spot," said he,
stamping his heavy foot. "I want them! See! I am strong!"
repeated he, lifting both his terrible paws.
Quietly the father badger spoke: "I fed you. I called you
friend, though you came here a stranger and a beggar. For the
sake of my little ones leave us in peace."
Mother badger, in her excited way, had pierced hard through
the buckskin and stuck her fingers repeatedly with her sharp awl
until she had laid aside her work. Now, while her husband was
talking to the bear, she motioned with her hands to the children.
On tiptoe they hastened to her side.
For reply came a low growl. It grew louder and more fierce.
"Wa-ough!" he roared, and by force hurled the badgers out. First
the father badger; then the mother. The little badgers he tossed
by pairs. He threw them hard upon the ground. Standing in the
entrance way and showing his ugly teeth, he snarled, "Be gone!"
The father and mother badger, having gained their feet, picked
up their kicking little babes, and, wailing aloud, drew the air
into their flattened lungs till they could stand alone upon their
feet. No sooner had the baby badgers caught their breath than they
howled and shrieked with pain and fright. Ah! what a dismal cry
was theirs as the whole badger family went forth wailing from out
their own dwelling! A little distance away from their stolen house
the father badger built a small round hut. He made it of bent
willows and covered it with dry grass and twigs.
This was shelter for the night; but alas! it was empty of food
and arrows. All day father badger prowled through the forest, but
without his arrows he could not get food for his children. Upon
his return, the cry of the little ones for meat, the sad quiet of
the mother with bowed head, hurt him like a poisoned arrow wound.
"I'll beg meat for you!" said he in an unsteady voice.
Covering his head and entire body in a long loose robe he halted
beside the big black bear. The bear was slicing red meat to hang
upon the rack. He did not pause for a look at the comer. As the
badger stood there unrecognized, he saw that the bear had brought
with him his whole family. Little cubs played under the
high-hanging new meats. They laughed and pointed with their wee
noses upward at the thin sliced meats upon the poles.
"Have you no heart, Black Bear? My children are starving.
Give me a small piece of meat for them," begged the badger.
"Wa-ough!" growled the angry bear, and pounced upon the
badger. "Be gone!" said he, and with his big hind foot he sent
father badger sprawling on the ground.
All the little ruffian bears hooted and shouted "ha-ha!" to
see the beggar fall upon his face. There was one, however, who did
not even smile. He was the youngest cub. His fur coat was not as
black and glossy as those his elders wore. The hair was dry and
dingy. It looked much more like kinky wool. He was the ugly cub.
Poor little baby bear! he had always been laughed at by his older
brothers. He could not help being himself. He could not change
the differences between himself and his brothers. Thus again,
though the rest laughed aloud at the badger's fall, he did not see
the joke. His face was long and earnest. In his heart he was sad
to see the badgers crying and starving. In his breast spread a
burning desire to share his food with them.
"I shall not ask my father for meat to give away. He would
say 'No!' Then my brothers would laugh at me," said the ugly baby
bear to himself.
In an instant, as if his good intention had passed from him,
he was singing happily and skipping around his father at work.
Singing in his small high voice and dragging his feet in long
strides after him, as if a prankish spirit oozed out from his
heels, he strayed off through the tall grass. He was ambling
toward the small round hut. When directly in front of the entrance
way, he made a quick side kick with his left hind leg. Lo! there
fell into the badger's hut a piece of fresh meat. It was tough
meat, full of sinews, yet it was the only piece he could take
without his father's notice.
Thus having given meat to the hungry badgers, the ugly baby
bear ran quickly away to his father again.
On the following day the father badger came back once more.
He stood watching the big bear cutting thin slices of meat.
" Give--" he began, when the bear turning upon him with a
growl, thrust him cruelly aside. The badger fell on his hands. He
fell where the grass was wet with the blood of the newly carved
buffalo. His keen starving eyes caught sight of a little red clot
lying bright upon the green. Looking fearfully toward the bear and
seeing his head was turned away, he snatched up the small thick
blood. Underneath his girdled blanket he hid it in his hand.
On his return to his family, he said within himself : "I'll
pray the Great Spirit to bless it." Thus he built a small round
lodge. Sprinkling water upon the heated heap of sacred stones
within, he made ready to purge his body. "The buffalo blood, too,
must be purified before I ask a blessing upon it," thought the
badger. He carried it into the sacred vapor lodge. After placing
it near the sacred stones, he sat down beside it. After a long
silence, he muttered: "Great Spirit, bless this little buffalo
blood." Then he arose, and with a quiet dignity stepped out of the
lodge. Close behind him some one followed. The badger turned to
look over his shoulder and to his great joy he beheld a Dakota
brave in handsome buckskins. In his hand he carried a magic arrow.
Across his back dangled a long fringed quiver. In answer to the
badger's prayer, the avenger had sprung from out the red globules.
"My son!" exclaimed the badger with extended right hand.
"How, father," replied the brave; "I am your avenger!"
Immediately the badger told the sad story of his hungry little
ones and the stingy bear.
Listening closely the young man stood looking steadily upon
the ground.
At length the father badger moved away.
"Where?" queried the avenger.
"My son, we have no food. I am going again to beg for meat,"
answered the badger.
"Then I go with you," replied the young brave. This made the
old badger happy. He was proud of his son. He was delighted to be
called "father" by the first human creature.
The bear saw the badger coming in the distance. He narrowed
his eyes at the tall stranger walking beside him. He spied the
arrow. At once he guessed it was the avenger of whom he had heard
long, long ago. As they approached, the bear stood erect with a
hand on his thigh. He smiled upon them.
"How, badger, my friend! Here is my knife. Cut your favorite
pieces from the deer," said he, holding out a long thin blade.
"How!" said the badger eagerly. He wondered what had inspired
the big bear to such a generous deed. The young avenger waited
till the badger took the long knife in his hand.
Gazing full into the black bear's face, he said: "I come to do
justice. You have returned only a knife to my poor father. Now
return to him his dwelling." His voice was deep and powerful. In
his black eyes burned a steady fire.
The long strong teeth of the bear rattled against each other,
and his shaggy body shook with fear. "Ahow!" cried he, as if he
had been shot. Running into the dwelling he gasped, breathless and
trembling, "Come out, all of you! This is the badger's dwelling.
We must flee to the forest for fear of the avenger who carries the
magic arrow."
Out they hurried, all the bears, and disappeared into the
woods.
Singing and laughing, the badgers returned to their own
dwelling.
Then the avenger left them.
"I go," said he in parting, "over the earth."
THE TREE-BOUND
THE TREE-BOUND
IT was a clear summer day. The blue, blue sky dropped low
over the edge of the green level land. A large yellow sun hung
directly overhead.
The singing of birds filled the summer space between earth and
sky with sweet music. Again and again sang a yellow-breasted
birdie--"Koda Ni Dakota!" He insisted upon it. "Koda Ni Dakota!"
which was "Friend, you're a Dakota! Friend, you're a Dakota!"
Perchance the birdie meant the avenger with the magic arrow, for
there across the plain he strode. He was handsome in his paint and
feathers, proud with his great buckskin quiver on his back and a
long bow in his hand. Afar to an eastern camp of cone-shaped
teepees he was going. There over the Indian village hovered a
large red eagle threatening the safety of the people. Every
morning rose this terrible red bird out of a high chalk bluff and
spreading out his gigantic wings soared slowly over the round camp
ground. Then it was that the people, terror-stricken, ran
screaming into their lodges. Covering their heads with their
blankets, they sat trembling with fear. No one dared to venture
out till the red eagle had disappeared beyond the west, where meet
the blue and green.
In vain tried the chieftain of the tribe to find among his
warriors a powerful marksman who could send a death arrow to the
man-hungry bird. At last to urge his men to their utmost skill he
bade his crier proclaim a new reward.
Of the chieftain's two beautiful daughters he would have his
choice who brought the dreaded red eagle with an arrow in its
breast.
Upon hearing these words, the men of the village, both young
and old, both heroes and cowards, trimmed new arrows for the
contest. At gray dawn there stood indistinct under the shadow of
the bluff many human figures; silent as ghosts and wrapped in robes
girdled tight about their waists, they waited with chosen bow and
arrow.
Some cunning old warriors stayed not with the group. They
crouched low upon the open ground. But all eyes alike were fixed
upon the top of the high bluff. Breathless they watched for the
soaring of the red eagle.
From within the dwellings many eyes peeped through the small
holes in the front lapels of the teepee. With shaking knees and
hard-set teeth, the women peered out upon the Dakota men prowling
about with bows and arrows.
At length when the morning sun also peeped over the eastern
horizon at the armed Dakotas, the red eagle walked out upon the
edge of the cliff. Pluming his gorgeous feathers, he ruffled his
neck and flapped his strong wings together. Then he dived into the
air. Slowly he winged his way over the round camp ground; over the
men with their strong bows and arrows! In an instant the long bows
were bent. Strong straight arrows with red feathered tips sped
upward to the blue sky. Ah! slowly moved those indifferent wings,
untouched by the poison-beaked arrows. Off to the west beyond the
reach of arrow, beyond the reach of eye, the red eagle flew away.
A sudden clamor of high-pitched voices broke the deadly
stillness of the dawn. The women talked excitedly about the
invulnerable red of the eagle's feathers, while the would-be heroes
sulked within their wigwams. "He-he-he!" groaned the chieftain.
On the evening of the same day sat a group of hunters around
a bright burning fire. They were talking of a strange young man
whom they spied while out upon a hunt for deer beyond the bluffs.
They saw the stranger taking aim. Following the point of his arrow
with their eyes, they beheld a herd of buffalo. The arrow sprang
from the bow! It darted into the skull of the foremost buffalo.
But unlike other arrows it pierced through the head of the creature
and spinning in the air lit into the next buffalo head. One by one
the buffalo fell upon the sweet grass they were grazing. With
straight quivering limbs they lay on their sides. The young man
stood calmly by, counting on his fingers the buffalo as they
dropped dead to the ground. When the last one fell, he ran thither
and picking up his magic arrow wiped it carefully on the soft
grass. He slipped it into his long fringed quiver.
"He is going to make a feast for some hungry tribe of men or
beasts!" cried the hunters among themselves as they hastened away.
They were afraid of the stranger with the sacred arrow. When
the hunter's tale of the stranger's arrow reached the ears of the
chieftain, his face brightened with a smile. He sent forth fleet
horsemen, to learn of him his birth, his name, and his deeds.
"If he is the avenger with the magic arrow, sprung up from the
earth out of a clot of buffalo blood, bid him come hither. Let him
kill the red eagle with his magic arrow. Let him win for himself
one of my beautiful daughters," he had said to his messengers, for
the old story of the badger's man-son was known all over the level
lands.
After four days and nights the braves returned. "He is
coming," they said. "We have seen him. He is straight and tall;
handsome in face, with large black eyes. He paints his round
cheeks with bright red, and wears the penciled lines of red over
his temples like our men of honored rank. He carries on his back
a long fringed quiver in which he keeps his magic arrow. His bow
is long and strong. He is coming now to kill the big red eagle."
All around the camp ground from mouth to ear passed those words of
the returned messengers.
Now it chanced that immortal Iktomi, fully recovered from the
brown burnt spots, overheard the people talking. At once he was
filled with a new desire. "If only I had the magic arrow, I would
kill the red eagle and win the chieftain's daughter for a wife,"
said he in his heart.
Back to his lonely wigwam he hastened. Beneath the tree in
front of his teepee he sat upon the ground with chin between his
drawn-up knees. His keen eyes scanned the wide plain. He was
watching for the avenger.
"'He is coming!' said the people," muttered old Iktomi. All
of a sudden he raised an open palm to his brow and peered afar into
the west. The summer sun hung bright in the middle of a cloudless
sky. There across the green prairie was a man walking bareheaded
toward the east.
"Ha! ha! 'tis he! the man with the magic arrow!" laughed
Iktomi. And when the bird with the yellow breast sang loud
again--"Koda Ni Dakota! Friend, you're a Dakota!" Iktomi put his
hand over his mouth as he threw his head far backward, laughing at
both the bird and man.
"He is your friend, but his arrow will kill one of your kind!
He is a Dakota, but soon he'll grow into the bark on this tree!
Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed again.
The young avenger walked with swaying strides nearer and
nearer toward the lonely wigwam and tree. Iktomi heard the swish!
swish! of the stranger's feet through the tall grass. He was
passing now beyond the tree, when Iktomi, springing to his feet,
called out: "How, how, my friend! I see you are dressed in
handsome deerskins and have red paint on your cheeks. You are
going to some feast or dance, may I ask?" Seeing the young man
only smiled I