American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings Read online

  “My grandchild, those are dried buffalo meat and venison. These are magic bags which never grow empty. I am blind and cannot go on a hunt. Hence a kind Maker has given me these magic bags of choicest foods.”

  Then the old, bent man pulled at a rope which lay by his right hand. “This leads me to the brook where I drink! and this,” said he, turning to the one on his left, “and this takes me into the forest, where I feel about for dry sticks for my fire.”

  “Grandfather, I wish I lived in such sure luxury! I would lean back against a tent pole, and with crossed feet I would smoke sweet willow bark the rest of my days,” sighed Mans̈tin.

  “My grandchild, your eyes are your luxury! you would be unhappy without them!” the old man replied.

  “Grandfather, I would give you my two eyes for your place!” cried Mans̈tin.

  “How! you have said it. Arise. Take out your eyes and give them to me. Henceforth you are at home here in my stead.”

  At once Mans̈tin took out both his eyes and the old man put them on! Rejoicing, the old grandfather started away with his young eyes while the blind rabbit filled his dream pipe, leaning lazily against the tent pole. For a short time it was a most pleasant pastime to smoke willow bark and to eat from the magic bags.

  Mans̈tin grew thirsty, but there was no water in the small dwelling. Taking one of the rawhide ropes he started toward the brook to quench his thirst. He was young and unwilling to trudge slowly in the old man’s footpath. He was full of glee, for it had been many long moons since he had tasted such good food. Thus he skipped confidently along, jerking the old weather-eaten rawhide spasmodically till all of a sudden it gave way and Mans̈tin fell head-long into the water.

  “Ĕn! Ĕn!” he grunted, kicking frantically amid stream. All along the slippery bank he vainly tried to climb, till at last he chanced upon the old stake and the deeply worn footpath. Exhausted and inwardly disgusted with his mishaps, he crawled more cautiously on all fours to his wigwam door. Dripping with his recent plunge, he sat with chattering teeth within his unfired wigwam.

  The sun had set and the night air was chilly, but there was no fire-wood in the dwelling. “Hin!” murmured Mans̈tin and bravely tried the other rope. “I go for some fire-wood!” he said, following the rawhide rope which led into the forest. Soon he stumbled upon thickly strewn dry willow sticks. Eagerly with both hands he gathered the wood into his outspread blanket. Mans̈tin was naturally an energetic fellow.

  When he had a large heap, he tied two opposite ends of blanket together and lifted the bundle of wood upon his back, but alas! he had unconsciously dropped the end of the rope and now he was lost in the wood!

  “Hin! hin!” he groaned. Then pausing a moment, he set his fan-like ears to catch any sound of approaching footsteps. There was none. Not even a night bird twittered to help him out of his predicament.

  With a bold face, he made a start at random.

  He fell into some tangled wood where he was held fast. Mans̈tin let go his bundle and began to lament having given away his two eyes.

  “Friend, my friend, I have need of you! The old oak tree grandfather has gone off with my eyes and I am lost in the woods!” he cried with his lips close to the earth.

  Scarcely had he spoken when the sound of voices was audible on the outer edge of the forest. Nearer and louder grew the voices—one was the clear flute tones of a young brave and the other the tremulous squeaks of an old grandfather.

  It was Mans̈tin’s friend with the Earth Ear and the old grandfather. “Here Mans̈tin, take back your eyes,” said the old man, “I knew you would not be content in my stead, but I wanted you to learn your lesson. I have had pleasure seeing with your eyes and trying your bow and arrows, but since I am old and feeble I much prefer my own teepee and my magic bags!”

  Thus talking the three returned to the hut. The old grandfather crept into his wigwam, which is often mistaken for a mere oak tree by little Indian girls and boys.

  Mans̈tin, with his own bright eyes fitted into his head again, went on happily to hunt in the North country.

  The Warlike Seven

  Once seven people went out to make war,—the Ashes, the Fire, the Bladder, the Grasshopper, the Dragon Fly, the Fish, and the Turtle. As they were talking excitedly, waving their fists in violent gestures, a wind came and blew the Ashes away. “Ho!” cried the others, “he could not fight, this one!”

  The six went on running to make war more quickly. They descended a deep valley, the Fire going foremost until they came to a river. The Fire said “Hsss—tchu!” and was gone. “Ho!” hooted the others, “he could not fight, this one!”

  Therefore the five went on the more quickly to make war. They came to a great wood. While they were going through it, the Bladder was heard to sneer and to say, “Hĕ! you should rise above these, brothers.” With these words he went upward among the tree-tops; and the thorn apple pricked him. He fell through the branches and was nothing! “You see this!” said the four, “this one could not fight.”

  Still the remaining warriors would not turn back. The four went boldly on to make war. The Grasshopper with his cousin, the Dragon Fly, went foremost. They reached a marshy place, and the mire was very deep. As they waded through the mud, the Grasshopper’s legs stuck, and he pulled them off! He crawled upon a log and wept, “You see me, brothers, I cannot go!”

  The Dragon Fly went on, weeping for his cousin. He would not be comforted, for he loved his cousin dearly. The more he grieved, the louder he cried, till his body shook with great violence. He blew his red swollen nose with a loud noise so that his head came off his slender neck, and he was fallen upon the grass.

  “You see how it is,” said the Fish, lashing his tail impatiently, “these people were not warriors!” “Come!” he said, “let us go on to make war.”

  Thus the Fish and the Turtle came to a large camp ground.

  “Ho!” exclaimed the people of this round village of teepees, “Who are these little ones? What do they seek?”

  Neither of the warriors carried weapons with them, and their unimposing stature misled the curious people.

  The Fish was spokesman. With a peculiar omission of syllables, he said: “Shu . . . hi pi!”

  “Wän! what? what?” clamored eager voices of men and women.

  Again the Fish said: “Shu . . . hi pi!” Everywhere stood young and old with a palm to an ear. Still no one guessed what the Fish had mumbled!

  From the bewildered crowd witty old Iktomi came forward. “Hĕ, listen!” he shouted, rubbing his mischievous palms together, for where there was any trouble brewing, he was always in the midst of it.

  “This little strange man says, ‘Zuya unhipi! We come to make war!’ ”

  “Ūun!” resented the people, suddenly stricken glum. “Let us kill the silly pair! They can do nothing! They do not know the meaning of the phrase. Let us build a fire and boil them both!”

  “If you put us on to boil,” said the Fish, “there will be trouble.”

  “Ho ho!” laughed the village folk. “We shall see.”

  And so they made a fire.

  “I have never been so angered!” said the Fish. The Turtle in a whispered reply said: “We shall die!”

  When a pair of strong hands lifted the Fish over the sputtering water, he put his mouth downward. “Whssh!” he said. He blew the water all over the people, so that many were burned and could not see. Screaming with pain, they ran away.

  “Oh, what shall we do with these dreadful ones?” they said.

  Others exclaimed: “Let us carry them to the lake of muddy water and drown them!”

  Instantly they ran with them. They threw the Fish and the Turtle into the lake. Toward the center of the large lake the Turtle dived. There he peeped up out of the water and, waving a hand at the crowd, sang out, “This is where I live!”

  The Fish swam hither and thither with such frolicsome darts that his back fin made the water fly. “Ĕ han!” whooped the Fish, “this is where I live!�
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  “Oh, what have we done!” said the frightened people, “this will be our undoing.”

  Then a wise chief said: “Iya, the Eater, shall come and swallow the lake!”

  So one went running. He brought Iya, the Eater; and Iya drank all day at the lake till his belly was like the earth. Then the Fish and the Turtle dived into the mud; and Iya said: “They are not in me.” Hearing this the people cried greatly.

  Iktomi wading in the lake had been swallowed like a gnat in the water. Within the great Iya he was looking skyward. So deep was the water in the Eater’s stomach that the surface of the swallowed lake almost touched the sky.

  “I will go that way,” said Iktomi, looking at the concave within arm’s reach.

  He struck his knife upward in the Eater’s stomach, and the water falling out drowned those people of the village.

  Now when the great water fell into its own bed, the Fish and the Turtle came to the shore. They went home painted victors and loud-voiced singers.

  II

  AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES

  Most of the stories in American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Ša’s most acclaimed literary work, were originally published between 1900 and 1902. Zitkala-Ša collected these published and a few unpublished stories together in one volume in 1921, including two new pieces, “A Dream of Her Grandfather” and “The Widespread Enigma Concerning Blue-Star Woman.” Zitkala-Ša concluded this edition with “America’s Indian Problem,” parts of which were culled from an article she wrote for Edict Magazine, with her own added commentary.

  American Indian Stories can be read as separate pieces, but gains in its power and intensity by being read as a continuous (if nonlinear) narrative. The book starts with an autobiographical narrative that moves from the child to the student to the teacher, and then opens up to a series of stories centered around a female hero. In “A Warrior’s Daughter,” Tusee rescues her captured lover by sneaking into an enemy camp disguised as a “bent old woman,” while “Blue-Star Woman” reads as both a cautionary warning against the strategies of land grafters and a utopian vision of feminist solidarity. In the middle of this cycle is Zitkala-Ša’s profound exploration of spirituality, originally published as “Why I Am a Pagan” (and reprinted in American Indian Stories as “The Great Spirit”). She ended the collection by moving to her own political present tense. “America’s Indian Problem” pulls the collection into focus, both continuing the cycle (we know now it’s child-student-teacher- activist), but also suggesting we reread all of American Indian Stories as a literary manifesto.

  Impressions of an Indian Childhood

  I

  MY MOTHER

  A wigwam of weather-stained canvas stood at the base of some irregularly ascending hills. A footpath wound its way gently down the sloping land till it reached the broad river bottom; creeping through the long swamp grasses that bent over it on either side, it came out on the edge of the Missouri.

  Here, morning, noon, and evening, my mother came to draw water from the muddy stream for our household use. Always, when my mother started for the river, I stopped my play to run along with her. She was only of medium height. Often she was sad and silent, at which times her full arched lips were compressed into hard and bitter lines, and shadows fell under her black eyes. Then I clung to her hand and begged to know what made the tears fall.

  “Hush; my little daughter must never talk about my tears”; and smiling through them, she patted my head and said, “Now let me see how fast you can run today.” Whereupon I tore away at my highest possible speed, with my long black hair blowing in the breeze.

  I was a wild little girl of seven. Loosely clad in a slip of brown buckskin, and light-footed with a pair of soft moccasins on my feet, I was as free as the wind that blew my hair, and no less spirited than a bounding deer. These were my mother’s pride,—my wild freedom and overflowing spirits. She taught me no fear save that of intruding myself upon others.

  Having gone many paces ahead I stopped, panting for breath, and laughing with glee as my mother watched my every movement. I was not wholly conscious of myself, but was more keenly alive to the fire within. It was as if I were the activity, and my hands and feet were only experiments for my spirit to work upon.

  Returning from the river, I tugged beside my mother, with my hand upon the bucket I believed I was carrying. One time, on such a return, I remember a bit of conversation we had. My grown-up cousin, Warca-Ziwin (Sunflower), who was then seventeen, always went to the river alone for water for her mother. Their wigwam was not far from ours; and I saw her daily going to and from the river. I admired my cousin greatly. So I said: “Mother, when I am tall as my cousin Warca-Ziwin, you shall not have to come for water. I will do it for you.”

  With a strange tremor in her voice which I could not understand, she answered, “If the paleface does not take away from us the river we drink.”

  “Mother, who is this bad paleface?” I asked.

  “My little daughter, he is a sham,—a sickly sham! The bronzed Dakota is the only real man.”

  I looked up into my mother’s face while she spoke; and seeing her bite her lips, I knew she was unhappy. This aroused revenge in my small soul. Stamping my foot on the earth, I cried aloud, “I hate the paleface that makes my mother cry!”

  Setting the pail of water on the ground, my mother stooped, and stretching her left hand out on the level with my eyes, she placed her other arm about me; she pointed to the hill where my uncle and my only sister lay buried.

  “There is what the paleface has done! Since then your father too has been buried in a hill nearer the rising sun. We were once very happy. But the paleface has stolen our lands and driven us hither. Having defrauded us of our land, the paleface forced us away.

  “Well, it happened on the day we moved camp that your sister and uncle were both very sick. Many others were ailing, but there seemed to be no help. We traveled many days and nights; not in the grand, happy way that we moved camp when I was a little girl, but we were driven, my child, driven like a herd of buffalo. With every step, your sister, who was not as large as you are now, shrieked with the painful jar until she was hoarse with crying. She grew more and more feverish. Her little hands and cheeks were burning hot. Her little lips were parched and dry, but she would not drink the water I gave her. Then I discovered that her throat was swollen and red. My poor child, how I cried with her because the Great Spirit had forgotten us!

  “At last, when we reached this western country, on the first weary night your sister died. And soon your uncle died also, leaving a widow and an orphan daughter, your cousin Warca-Ziwin. Both your sister and uncle might have been happy with us today, had it not been for the heartless paleface.”

  My mother was silent the rest of the way to our wigwam. Though I saw no tears in her eyes, I knew that was because I was with her. She seldom wept before me.

  II

  THE LEGENDS

  During the summer days my mother built her fire in the shadow of our wigwam.

  In the early morning our simple breakfast was spread upon the grass west of our tepee. At the farthest point of the shade my mother sat beside her fire, toasting a savory piece of dried meat. Near her, I sat upon my feet, eating my dried meat with unleavened bread, and drinking strong black coffee.

  The morning meal was our quiet hour, when we two were entirely alone. At noon, several who chanced to be passing by stopped to rest, and to share our luncheon with us, for they were sure of our hospitality.

  My uncle, whose death my mother ever lamented, was one of our nation’s bravest warriors. His name was on the lips of old men when talking of the proud feats of valor; and it was mentioned by younger men, too, in connection with deeds of gallantry. Old women praised him for his kindness toward them; young women held him up as an ideal to their sweet-hearts. Every one loved him, and my mother worshiped his memory. Thus it happened that even strangers were sure of welcome in our lodge, if they but asked a favor in my uncle’s name.

 
; Though I heard many strange experiences related by these wayfarers, I loved best the evening meal, for that was the time old legends were told. I was always glad when the sun hung low in the west, for then my mother sent me to invite the neighboring old men and women to eat supper with us. Running all the way to the wigwams, I halted shyly at the entrances. Sometimes I stood long moments without saying a word. It was not any fear that made me so dumb when out upon such a happy errand; nor was it that I wished to withhold the invitation, for it was all I could do to observe this very proper silence. But it was a sensing of the atmosphere, to assure myself that I should not hinder other plans. My mother used to say to me, as I was almost bounding away for the old people: “Wait a moment before you invite any one. If other plans are being discussed, do not interfere, but go elsewhere.”

  The old folks knew the meaning of my pauses; and often they coaxed my confidence by asking, “What do you seek, little granddaughter?”

  “My mother says you are to come to our tepee this evening,” I instantly exploded, and breathed the freer afterwards.

  “Yes, yes, gladly, gladly I shall come!” each replied. Rising at once and carrying their blankets across one shoulder, they flocked leisurely from their various wigwams toward our dwelling.

  My mission done, I ran back, skipping and jumping with delight. All out of breath, I told my mother almost the exact words of the answers to my invitation. Frequently she asked, “What were they doing when you entered their tepee?” This taught me to remember all I saw at a single glance. Often I told my mother my impressions without being questioned.

  While in the neighboring wigwams sometimes an old Indian woman asked me, “What is your mother doing?” Unless my mother had cautioned me not to tell, I generally answered her questions without reserve.

  At the arrival of our guests I sat close to my mother, and did not leave her side without first asking her consent. I ate my supper in quiet, listening patiently to the talk of the old people, wishing all the time that they would begin the stories I loved best. At last, when I could not wait any longer, I whispered in my mother’s ear, “Ask them to tell an Iktomi story, mother.”