American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings Read online

  Zitkala-Ša retells a popular story cycle in the three-part story of “The Badger and the Bear,” “The Tree-Bound,” and “Shooting of the Red Eagle.” Literary critic Jeanne Smith notes how Zitkala-Ša makes significant changes to the traditional tales in order to address key political and social issues in the lives of American Indians in 1901—specifically, land infringements, challenges to tribal sovereignty, and the effects of missionary boarding schools on Yankton or Sioux culture more generally. In her original Preface, included here, Zitkala-Ša recommended her book both for the “blue-eyed little patriot” as well as the “black-haired aborigine.” In other words, she saw her purpose as both preserving these ancient Indian legends for future generations of Native Americans and educating white readers into an indigenous literary tradition.

  Preface

  These legends are relics of our country’s once virgin soil. These and many others are the tales the little black-haired aborigine loved so much to hear beside the night fire.

  For him the personified elements and other spirits played in a vast world right around the center fire of the wigwam.

  Iktomi, the snare weaver, Iya, the Eater, and Old Double-Face are not wholly fanciful creatures.

  There were other worlds of legendary folk for the young aborigine, such as “The Star-Men of the Sky,” “The Thunder Birds Blinking Zigzag Lightning,” and “The Mysterious Spirits of Trees and Flowers.”

  Under an open sky, nestling close to the earth, the old Dakota story-tellers have told me these legends. In both Dakotas, North and South, I have often listened to the same story told over again by a new story-teller.

  While I recognized such a legend without the least difficulty, I found the renderings varying much in little incidents. Generally one helped the other in restoring some lost link in the original character of the tale. And now I have tried to transplant the native spirit of these tales—root and all—into the English language, since America in the last few centuries has acquired a second tongue.

  The old legends of America belong quite as much to the blue-eyed little patriot as to the black-haired aborigine. And when they are grown tall like the wise grown-ups may they not lack interest in a further study of Indian folklore, a study which so strongly suggests our near kinship with the rest of humanity and points a steady finger toward the great brotherhood of mankind, and by which one is so forcibly impressed with the possible earnestness of life as seen through the teepee door! If it be true that much lies “in the eye of the beholder,” then in the American aborigine as in any other race, sincerity of belief, though it were based upon mere optical illusion, demands a little respect.

  After all he seems at heart much like other peoples.

  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, ’tis 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:

  “Is̈tokmus wacipo, tuwayatunwanpi kinhan is̈ta nis̈as̈api 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. “Hĕ! 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, “Hĕ! 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

  Alone within his teepee sat Iktomi. The sun was but a hand’s-breadth 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 wood-pile 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

  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.