A Brief Guide to Native American Myths and Legends (26 page)

‘Ho! Onondaga,’ cried the younger man, ‘what profits it thus to strive for a buck? Is there no meat in the lodges of your people that they must fight for it like the mountain lion?’

‘Peace, young man!’ retorted the grave Onondaga. ‘I had
not fought for the buck had not your evil tongue roused me. But I am older than you, and, I trust, wiser. Let us seek the lodge of the Peace Queen hard by, and she will award the buck to him who has the best right to it.’

‘It is well,’ said the Oneida, and side by side they sought the lodge of the Peace Queen.

Now the Five Nations in their wisdom had set apart a Seneca maiden dwelling alone in the forest as arbiter of quarrels between braves. This maiden the men of all tribes regarded as sacred and as apart from other women. Like the ancient Vestals, she could not become the bride of any man.

As the Peace Queen heard the wrathful clamour of the braves outside her lodge she stepped forth, little pleased that they should thus profane the vicinity of her dwelling.

‘Peace!’ she cried. ‘If you have a grievance enter and state it. It is not fitting that braves should quarrel where the Peace Queen dwells.’

At her words the men stood abashed. They entered the lodge and told the story of their meeting and the circumstances of their quarrel.

When they had finished the Peace Queen smiled scornfully. ‘So two such braves as you can quarrel about a buck?’ she said. ‘Go, Onondaga, as the elder, and take one half of the spoil, and bear it back to your wife and children.’

But the Onondaga stood his ground.

‘O Queen,’ he said, ‘my wife is in the Land of Spirits, snatched from me by the Plague Demon. But my lodge does not lack food. I would wive again, and thine eyes have looked into my heart as the sun pierces the darkness of the forest. Will you come to my lodge and cook my venison?’

But the Peace Queen shook her head.

‘You know that the Five Nations have placed Genetaska apart to be Peace Queen,’ she replied firmly, ‘and that her vows may not be broken. Go in peace.’

The Onondaga was silent.

Then spoke the Oneida. ‘O Peace Queen,’ he said, gazing steadfastly at Genetaska, whose eyes dropped before his glance, ‘I know that you are set apart by the Five Nations. But it is in my mind to ask you to go with me to my lodge, for I love you. What says Genetaska?’

The Peace Queen blushed and answered: ‘To you also I say, go in peace,’ but her voice was a whisper which ended in a stifled sob.

The two warriors departed, good friends now that they possessed a common sorrow. But the Peace Maiden had forever lost her peace. For she could not forget the young Oneida brave, so tall, so strong, and so gentle.

Summer darkened into autumn, and autumn whitened into winter. Warriors innumerable came to the Peace Lodge for the settlement of disputes. Outwardly Genetaska was calm and untroubled, but though she gave solace to others her own breast could find none.

One day she sat by the lodge fire, which had burned down to a heap of cinders. She was thinking, dreaming of the young Oneida. Her thoughts went out to him as birds fly southward to seek the sun. Suddenly a crackling of twigs under a firm step roused her from her reverie. Quickly she glanced upward. Before her stood the youth of her dreams, pale and worn.

‘Peace Queen,’ he said sadly, ‘you have brought darkness to the soul of the Oneida. No longer may he follow the hunt. The deer may sport in quiet for him. No longer may he bend the bow or throw the tomahawk in contest, or listen to the tale during the long nights round the camp-fire. You have his heart in your keeping. Say, will you not give him yours?’

Softly the Peace Queen murmured: ‘I will.’

Hand in hand like two joyous children they sought his canoe, which bore them swiftly westward. No longer was Genetaska Peace Queen, for her vows were broken by the power of love.

The two were happy. But not so the men of the Five
Nations. They were wroth because the Peace Queen had broken her vows, and knew how foolish they had been to trust to the word of a young and beautiful woman. So with one voice they abolished the office of Peace Queen, and war and tumult returned once more to their own.

* * *

Contrary to Spence, there never was, in all likelihood, a person called ‘Hiawatha’; it is not a personal name but a priestly title of the Onondaga tribe.

The social, political and religious life of sedentary agricultural Iroquois (maize of seventeen varieties being their main crop) in what is now New York state was more advanced than that of the hunting tribes. Indeed, the civilization of the Iroquois was the most advanced in North America with the exceptions of those in Southeast and Southwest. In politics they practised, as well as confederacy, a form of democracy, whereby clan mothers – much of Iroquois life was under maternal influence – selected fifty male
rotiyanehr
to represent the clans on the governing Grand Council. Great matters were referred back to the people in referenda, in which everyone had a vote.

This inclusivity was an important means by which the Iroquois maintained unity. So was the Iroquois’ highly organized religion. Simply stated: A wandering band of 100 of nomads on the Plains could keep unity by blood and leadership, and had little need for complex religion. A people of 25,000, divided into five nations, required a considerable religion, full of mass ritual and ceremony to bind it together.

The complex theology of the Iroquois centred on a formless supreme power, ‘The Great Spirit’ or ‘Ha-wen-ne-yu’ who oversaw a world in constant flux and struggle between the dualities of light and dark, of good and evil. The creation myth of the Iroquois combines elements of the Earth Diver story with the image of a creator who descends from the heavens. Creation begins when a sky goddess named Atahensic plummets through a hole in the floor of heaven:

In the faraway days of this floating island there grew one stately tree that branched beyond the range of vision. Perpetually laden with fruit and blossoms, the air was fragrant with its perfume, and the people gathered to its shade where councils were held.

One day the Great Ruler said to his people: ‘We will make a new place where another people may grow. Under our council tree is a great cloud sea which calls for our help. It is lonesome. It knows no rest and calls for light. We will talk to it. The roots of our council tree point to it and will show the way.’

Having commanded that the tree be uprooted, the Great Ruler peered into the depth where the roots had guided, and summoning Ata-en-sic, who was with child, bade her look down. Ata-en-sic saw nothing, but the Great Ruler knew that the sea voice was calling, and bidding her carry its life, wrapped around her a great ray of light and sent her down to the cloud sea.

Dazzled by the descending light enveloping Ata-en-sic, there was great consternation among the animals and birds inhabiting the cloud sea, and they counselled in alarm.

‘If it falls it may destroy us,’ they cried.

‘Where can it rest?, asked the Duck.

‘Only the oeh-da [earth] can hold it,’ said the Beaver, ‘the oeh-da which lies at the bottom of our waters, and I will bring it.’ The Beaver went down but never returned. Then the Duck ventured, but soon its dead body floated to the surface.

Many of the divers had tried and failed when the Muskrat, knowing the way, volunteered to obtain it and soon returned bearing a small portion in his paw. ‘But it is heavy,’ said he, ‘and will grow fast. Who will bear it?’

The Turtle was willing, and the oeh-da was placed on his hard shell.

Having received a resting place for the light, the water birds, guided by its glow, flew upward, and receiving the woman on their widespread wings, bore her down to the Turtle’s back.

And Ha-nu-nah, the Turtle, became the Earth Bearer. When he stirs, the seas rise in great waves, and when restless and violent, earthquakes yawn and devour.

The oeh-da grew rapidly and had become an island when Ata-en-sic, hearing voices under her heart, one soft and soothing, the other loud and contentious, knew that her mission to people the island was nearing.

To her solitude two lives were coming, one peaceful and patient, the other restless and vicious. The latter, discovering light under her mother’s arm, thrust himself through, to contentions and strife, the right born entered life for freedom and peace.

These were the Do-ya-da-no, the twin brothers, Spirits of Good and Evil. Foreknowing their powers, each claimed dominion and a struggle between them began, Hah-gwh-di-yu claiming the right to beautify the island, while Hah-gweh-da-et-gah determined to destroy. Each went his way, and where peace had reigned discord and strife prevailed.

(From ‘Myths and Legends of the New York State Iroquois’, Harriet Maxwell Converse, New York State Museum, Bulletin 125, ed. Arthur C. Parker, 1908)

This was not evil exactly as the Christian tradition understood it, being more weighted to ill fortune than malevolence. Under the Great Spirit existed a gallery of lesser gods, the Invisible Agents or ‘Ho-no-che-no-keh’, who controlled natural events and human affairs, and to whom prayers and offerings were directed. In the Iroquois view ordinary humans could not communicate directly with the Great Spirit, but could do so indirectly by burning tobacco, which carried their prayers to spirits of the second rank. (Prior to European contact, the most common species of tobacco used was Nicotiana rustica; supplies were scarce and the plant was considered sacred.) Some of the most important spirits were Thunderer and ‘The Three Sisters’, the spirits of Maize, Beans, and Squash. Human sacrifice was rare, except for the torture and burning of captives in ceremonial fires; portions of slaughtered animals and the first of the crop were the more usual offerings. In dances the masked participants mimed and imitated the events they desired. Malign spirits could be driven out by the False Face Society or the Husk Society, with their hideous, impersonating masks. Used in the curing ceremonies of the False Face Societies, the masks were made of maple, white pine, poplar and basswood. False Face Masks were first carved in a living tree, then cut free and decorated. Evil could be warded off by the accumulation of orenda, the good, in-dwelling life force. It was believed that orenda survived after death, when not
even otkon, the spirit of misfortune and decay, could harm it. However, the survival also depended on the judgement of the Great Spirit as to whether the recently deceased had led a virtuous life.

As with other farming tribes, the Iroquois had a different and fuller calendar of religious festivals to the nomadic hunters. The Iroquois held six regular festivals per year, based on the stages of crop growth; the first festival, which involved ritual cleansing (including vomiting), coincided with the rising of the sap in the local maple trees; there followed the festivals for planting corn, collecting the first strawberries, the appearance of the first corn ears, the harvest and the White Dog festival of the new year, in which a white dog was sent to the skies with a message of thanks to the Supreme Power above.

At the great festivals, the Keeper of the Wampum would recite tribal stories, using the beads of wampum (white or purple seashell) as mnemonics. Such priests were part time, male or female, there being no room in democratic Iroquois society for an all-powerful priesthood.

With a concept of a Supreme Being, a theology which understood the duality of good and evil, and a belief in the afterlife, Iroquois religion had enough obvious similarities to Christianity to gladden the heart of that faith’s missionaries. Equally, the Seneca sachem (chief) Handsome Lake was able to seamlessly insert Quaker beliefs into his popular revamping of Iroquois religion in around 1800. Handsome Lake’s amalgamation of Iroquois religion and Quakerism was published as the Code of Handsome Lake. It still has many adherents today.

The Sioux or Dakota Indians dwell north of the Arkansas River on the right bank of the Mississippi, stretching over to Lake Michigan and up the valley of the Missouri. One of their principal tribes is the Iowa.

Many tales are told by the Iowa Indians regarding Ictinike, the son of the sun-god, who had offended his father, and was consequently expelled from the celestial regions. He possesses a very bad reputation among the Indians for deceit and trickery. They say that he taught them all the evil things they know, and they seem to regard him as a Father of Lies. The Omahas state that he gave them their war-customs, and for one reason or another they appear to look upon him as a species of war-god. A series of myths recount his adventures with several inhabitants of the wild. The first of these is as follows.

One day Ictinike encountered the Rabbit, and hailed him in
a friendly manner, calling him ‘grandchild’, and requesting him to do him a service. The Rabbit expressed his willingness to assist the god to the best of his ability, and inquired what he wished him to do.

‘Oh, grandchild,’ said the crafty one, pointing upward to where a bird circled in the blue vault above them, ‘take your bow and arrow and bring down yonder bird.’

The Rabbit fitted an arrow to his bow, and the shaft transfixed the bird, which fell like a stone and lodged in the branches of a great tree.

‘Now, grandchild,’ said Ictinike, ‘go into the tree and fetch me the game.’

This, however, the Rabbit at first refused to do, but at length he took off his clothes and climbed into the tree, where he stuck fast among the tortuous branches.

Ictinike, seeing that he could not make his way down, donned the unfortunate Rabbit’s garments, and, highly amused at the animal’s predicament, betook himself to the nearest village. There he encountered a chief who had two beautiful daughters, the elder of whom he married. The younger daughter, regarding this as an affront to her personal attractions, wandered off into the forest in a fit of the sulks. As she paced angrily up and down she heard someone calling to her from above, and, looking upward, she beheld the unfortunate Rabbit, whose fur was adhering to the natural gum which exuded from the bark of the tree. The girl cut down the tree and lit a fire near it, which melted the gum and freed the Rabbit. The Rabbit and the chief’s daughter compared notes, and discovered that the being who had tricked the one and affronted the other was the same. Together they proceeded to the chief’s lodge, where the girl was laughed at because of the strange companion she had brought back with her. Suddenly an eagle appeared in the air above them. Ictinike shot at and missed it, but the Rabbit loosed an arrow with great force and brought it to earth. Each morning a feather of the bird became another eagle, and each morning
Ictinike shot at and missed this newly created bird, which the Rabbit invariably succeeded in killing. This went on until Ictinike had quite worn out the Rabbit’s clothing and was wearing a very old piece of tent skin; but the Rabbit returned to him the garments he had been forced to don when Ictinike had stolen his. Then the Rabbit commanded the Indians to beat the drums, and each time they were beaten Ictinike jumped so high that every bone in his body was shaken. At length, after a more than usually loud series of beats, he leapt to such a height that when he came down it was found that the fall had broken his neck. The Rabbit was avenged.