American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) (45 page)

Raven and Cormorant went to Bear Woman’s house. “Where is my husband?” Bear Woman asked. Cormorant made a gurgling sound. “What is he saying?” Bear Woman asked.

“He is saying that Bear is making fishhooks by the shore,” Raven answered. Raven had filled a halibut with red-hot, glowing coals. He handed it to Bear Woman: “Here, swallow this whole.” She did. The fire inside her belly killed Bear’s wife. Raven then skinned her. He and Cormorant went back to the shore where Raven skinned the male. Cormorant gobbled. Raven struck Cormorant across the buttocks, saying, “You are a nuisance. Stay away. Swim to the rocks over there.” Ever since, Cormorants have lived on the rocks sticking out from the sea. Raven stayed at that place until he had eaten up all the bear meat. Then he cried, “Gaah,” and flew off.

Raven came to a place where many people were busy fishing. “What do you use for bait?” he asked.

“Fat,” they told him.

“Let me taste it,” Raven begged.

They gave him a piece. It was delicious.

Later, whenever the people were fishing, Raven swam under the water and picked off the bait from their hooks. The people felt something tugging at their lines, but when they pulled them in there was nothing on the hooks. They caught no fish. There was one among them who was a clever fisherman. When he felt something tugging on his line he jerked it, quick as lightning. It took Raven by surprise. His nose was caught on the hook. It broke off. The clever man pulled in his line. Raven’s nose was stuck on the hook. “I have caught a wonderful thing,” said the fisherman. He brought the nose to the chief who said, “This is indeed a wonderful thing.”

Raven came ashore. He pulled his hat way over his face so that no one could see that his nose was missing. He went to one of those people’s houses and asked, “Has someone caught a wonderful thing?”

They told him, “Our chief has it.”

Raven went inside the chief’s house. He saw his nose hanging on the wall so that people could admire it. He quickly snatched it up, put it back into place, and flew out the smoke hole, crying, “Gaah.” The people never found out who he was.

Raven paddled along in his canoe. Mink came to the shore and shouted, “Take me along?”

“What can you do, friend?” asked Raven. “What can you contribute to our journey?”

“I can make a big stench,” said Mink.

“How?” asked Raven.

“By breaking wind,” was the answer.

“Show me,” said Raven.

Mink demonstrated his powers. The gust was so strong it made a hole in the canoe’s side.

“Better stay away,” said Raven. He plugged the hole and paddled on. He came to a place where an old woman lived. He asked, “Can I stay here overnight?”

The old woman said, “Yes.”

While the old woman slept, Raven pulled up her dress and stuck sea urchins all over her buttocks. When the old woman awoke in the morning she cried, “Oh, oh, my backside hurts. It stings. Something sharp is sticking there.” She begged Raven, “Pull it out, please, pull it out!”

“Will you do me a favor in return?” Raven asked.

“Whatever you want,” cried the old woman, “only pull the sharp things out of my buttocks!”

Raven pulled the sea urchins off. “What I want from you in return,” he told the old woman, “is to make the tides ebb and flow. There must be tides. I put you in charge of this.” Then he cried, “Gaah,” and flew off. The old woman started right away to make the tides rise and fall. She has done it ever since. Also, since that time, the older women get, the more black spots they get on their buttocks.

Raven paddled on. He met Petrel’s canoe. He called out, “Petrel, when were you born?”

Petrel answered, “Long, long ago, when the Great Whale arose from the ocean.”

“That is only minutes ago,” said Raven.

Then Petrel asked, “Raven, when were you born?”

“Before there was a world,” was the answer.

“That is only a few seconds ago,” said Petrel.

They argued. They quarreled. Raven tried to catch Petrel and kill him. Petrel put on his fog hat. Instantly he was wrapped in white mist so that Raven could not find him. “Brother,” Raven shouted, “I won’t hurt you. Let’s stop quarreling. Throw away your fog hat.” Petrel threw it away. Fog came out of it. It hovered above the sea. It swirled around mountains. So, now there was fog. Raven called, “Gaah,” and traveled on.

Raven came to a place where he saw something bright and flickering in the darkness. He told Chicken Hawk: “Go, get this bright thing for me.” Chicken Hawk picked up the thing. It was very hot and burned half of his beak off. That’s why chicken hawks have such short bills. The thing he brought was fire. “This might be very useful,” said Raven. He distributed fire to all the people in the world. They were grateful. So, now there was fire.

Raven traveled on. He saw a huge whale swimming in the ocean, his mouth wide open, sucking up fish. Raven flapped his wings and flew through Whale’s open mouth. He was inside the whale. He caught all the fish Whale was sucking in. He dragged them to the middle of Whale’s belly and made a big fire. He roasted the fish on it. The fire reached up to Whale’s fat, which lined his stomach. Whale cried with pain and died. Whale’s fat had turned to oil. So, now there was oil in the world. Raven now wanted to leave but found that, in his death struggle, Whale had clamped his mouth shut. Raven could not get out. Whale’s body was swept ashore. From inside Whale’s head Raven heard people talking. He shouted, “Let me out, let me out!”

The people on the shore said to each other, “Someone is crying inside this whale.” They made a hole at the top of Whale’s head. Since then these huge animals have blowholes. Raven got out through this hole on top of Whale’s head.

The people held a big feast eating whale meat. As soon as the feast was over, Raven told the people, “A great mud slide is coming which will bury your village. Whoever stays here will be killed.” Then all the people ran away, leaving all they owned behind. Raven took possession of these things and flew off with them, crying, “Gaah.”

Raven went on. He came to a place that was strewn with human vaginas. He gathered them up in a bag and continued on his way. He came to a village. The women there seemed to be very sad. “Why are you so sad?” Raven asked.

“Because we have no genitalia,” the women complained.

“I can help you,” said Raven, and distributed the vaginas among them. He showed the women where to put them. The women were very grateful and gave Raven a Chilkat blanket. Raven cried, “Gaah,” and journeyed on.

Finally Raven made a pole to hold up the world. It was the last thing he made. He saw a man coming out of a house. The man took a little club from a hiding place and said, “Little Club, do you see the fat seal over there, sunning himself on that rock? Knock him dead!” The little club knocked the seal over the head, killing him. The man dragged the seal back to his house and put the little club back in his hiding place. Then he went off on some errand. As soon as the man was gone, Raven came out from behind some trees. He ate up the seal and then made off with the little club. The next day he said, “Little Club, go over to that walrus sunning itself on the shore, and knock him dead!”

Little Club refused, saying, “I don’t know you. You are not my master.”

Again and again Raven told Little Club to knock Walrus dead, and again and again Little Club refused. Then Raven got very angry and smashed Little Club to pieces. Raven said, “I am powerful, I made the world, but I could not force this small thing to obey me. It is time for me to take a respite from work.” Then he cried, “Gaah,” and sat down for a long rest.

The Algonquian (or Algonkin), are possibly the largest group of linguistically related tribes in North America, scattered over the whole continent from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. They include the Algonkin of Ottawa proper, the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ojibway, Sac and Fox, Pottawatomi, Illinois, Miami, Kickapoo, and Shawnee. However, if an Indian legend is said to be of Algonkin origin, it generally means that it comes from an East Coast tribe, such as the Pequod, Mohegan, Delaware, Abnaki, or Micmac.

The name Apache comes from the Zuni word
apachu,
meaning “enemy.” Their own name for themselves is N‘de or Dineh, the People. In the early 1500s, a group of Athapascan-speaking people drifted down from their original home in western Canada into what is now Arizona, New Mexico, and the four-corners area. They were split into smaller tribes and bands, including the Lipan, the Jicarilla (from the Spanish for “little basket,” referring to their pitch-lined drinking cups), Chiricahua, Tonto, Mescalero, and White Mountain Apaches.

The Apache were a nomadic people and lived in conical brush shelters (wickiups) to which they often attached a ramada—four upright poles roofed over with branches. They hunted and gathered wild plants; much later they also began to plant corn and squash. They usually dressed in deerskin and wore their hair long and loose, held by a headband. Men also wore long, flapping breechcloths. Their soft, thigh-high moccasins were important in a land of chaparral, thorns, and cacti, since they were primarily runners of incredible stamina rather than riders (though they acquired horses early and were excellent horsemen). Their main weapon was the bow, and it was used long after they had guns.

Apache women wove particularly striking baskets, some made so tightly that a needle could not be inserted between their coils. They carried their babies on cradleboards. Women played an important role in family affairs; they could own property and become medicine women.

The Lipan Apache at first kept peace with the whites, whom they encountered in the sixteenth century. Fierce nomadic raiders, the Lipans roamed west Texas and much of New Mexico east of the Rio Grande, and eventually became the scourge of miners and settlers, particularly in Mexico. Their great chiefs included Cochise and Mangus Colorado, as well as Goyathlay, the One Who Yawns, better known as Geronimo. Apache attacks on whites were not unprovoked, for these tribes had often been victims of treachery, broken agreements, and massacres by white Americans and Mexicans. They were not finally subdued until the 1880s.

The Jicarillas, now numbering fifteen hundred to two thousand, live on a 750,000-acre reservation high in the mountains of northern New Mexico. The White Mountain Apaches (also called Sierra Blancas or Coyoteros) live in Arizona and New Mexico, including about six thousand on the 1.6-million-acre Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona. In 1905, there were only twenty-five Lipan survivors left, and they were eventually placed on the Mescalero Apache Reservation.

The Arapaho, belonging to the Algonquian language family, were one of the hard-riding, buffalo-hunting Plains tribes. Like the Sioux and Cheyenne, the Arapaho celebrated the Sun Dance and had a number of warrior societies. Though speaking different languages, the Arapaho and Cheyenne were allies during the nineteenth century and intermarriage between the two tribes was common. The Arapaho are noted for their fine beadwork. Today some five thousand Arapaho share Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation with the Shoshone tribe.

The Arikara, also known as Ree, are a tribe belonging to the northern Caddoan linguistic family. They are closely related to the Pawnee. Their name means “Horn,” from their custom of wearing two upright bones on each side of their hair crest. When first encountered by whites, they occupied a number of villages on bluffs above the Missouri River, dwelling in partially subterranean lodges. They were expert farmers, calling corn their “Mother” and worshipping it as “the Giver of Life.” In 1837, they were decimated by smallpox, which was introduced by white traders. They now live at the Fort Berthod Reservation in North Dakota, which they share with members of the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes.

The Assiniboine (also spelled Assiniboin) were a warlike, buffalo-hunting Plains tribe. Though belonging to the Siouan language group, and though the Assiniboine and the Dakota languages are almost identical, the Assiniboine and the Sioux were bitter enemies throughout most of the nineteenth century. Culturally, the Assiniboine are a typical Plains tribe. Today’s Assiniboine live on two reservations in Montana—the Fort Belknap Reservation, which they share with the Gros Ventre tribe, and the Fort Peck Reservation, which is also the home for a number of Sioux.

Athapascan
refers to a language group, and it represents the most far-flung of the original North American tongues. Athapascan dialects or related languages are spoken by people in the interior of what is now Alaska, on the western coast of Canada, among some tribes in northern California, and by the Navajo and Apache of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.

Now practically extinct, the Biloxi were a small tribe living in the southern part of Mississippi. Belonging to the Siouan language group, some descendants of this tribe are said to live near Lecompte, Louisiana.