Myths and Legends of Our Own Land Part 34

The men complied, and heating the stones to redness in the fire they placed him against them, but failed to see that by his magic breath he kept a current of air flowing between him and the hot surface. Rising unhurt, he demanded that they also should submit to the torture, and, like true Indians, they did so. When their flesh had been burned half through and they were dead, he sounded his warwhoop and went on.

On the day following he met two women picking berries, and told them to blow the leaves and thorns into his eyes. They did so, as they supposed, but with his magic breath he kept the stuff away from his face.

"You are a ghost!" the women exclaimed.

"No ghost," said he. "Just a common person. Leaves and thorns can do no harm. See, now." And he puffed thorns into their faces and made them blind. "Aha! You are caught with your own chaff I am on my way to kill the Sun. This is good practice." And he slew them, sounded his war-whoop, and went on.

The morning after this affair some women appeared on Hurricane Cliff and the wind brought their words to his ears. They were planning to kill him by rolling rocks upon him as he pa.s.sed. As he drew near he pretended to eat something with such enjoyment that they asked him what it was. He called out, "It is sweet. Come to the edge and I will throw it up to you." With that he tossed something so nearly within their reach that in bending forward to catch it they crowded too near the brink, lost their balance, fell over, and were killed. "You are victims of your own greed.

One should never be so anxious as to kill one's self." This was his only comment, and, sounding the warwhoop, he went on.

A day later he came upon two women making water jugs of willow baskets lined with pitch, and he heard one whisper to the other, "Here comes that bad Ta-Vwots. How shall we destroy him?"

"What were you saying?" asked the hare G.o.d.

"We just said, 'Here comes our grandson.'" (A common form of endearment.)

"Is that all? Then let me get into one of these water jugs while you braid the neck."

He jumped in and lay quite still as they wove the neck, and they laughed to think that it was braided so small that he could never escape, when--puff! the jug was shattered and there was Ta-Vwots. They did not know anything about his magic breath. They wondered how he got out.

"Easily enough," replied the hare G.o.d. "These things may hold water, but they can't hold men and women. Try it, and see if they can." With their consent, Ta-Vwots began weaving the osiers about them, and in a little while he had them caged. "Now, come out," he said. But, try as they might, not a withe could they break. "Ha, ha! You are wise women, aren't you? Bottled in your own jugs! I am on my way to kill the Sun. In time I shall learn how." Then, sounding his war-whoop, he struck them dead with his magic ball and went on.

He met the Bear next day, and found him digging a hole to hide in, for he had heard of the hare G.o.d and was afraid. "Don't be frightened, friend Bear," said the rogue. "I'm not the sort of fellow to hide from. How could a little chap like me hurt so many people?" And he helped the Bear to dig his den, but when it was finished he hid behind a rock, and as the Bear thrust his head near him he launched his magic ball at his face and made an end of him. "I was afraid of this warrior," said Ta-Vwots, "but he is dead, now, in his den." And sounding his war-whoop he went on.

It was on the day following that he met the Tarantula, a clever rascal, who had a club that would deal a fatal blow to others, but would not hurt himself. He began to groan as Ta-Vwots drew near, and cried that he had a pain caused by an evil spirit in his head. Wouldn't Ta-Vwots thump it out? Indeed, he would. He grasped the club and gave him the soundest kind of a thwacking, but when the Tarantula shouted "Harder," he guessed that it was an enchanted weapon, and changing it for his magic ball he finished the Tarantula at a blow. "That is a stroke of your own seeking,"

he remarked. "I am on my way to kill the Sun. Now I know that I can do it." And sounding his war-whoop he went on.

Next day he came to the edge of the world and looked off into s.p.a.ce, where thousands of careless people had fallen, and there he pa.s.sed the night under a tree. At dawn he stood on the brink of the earth and the instant that the Sun appeared he flung the magic ball full in his face.

The surface of the Sun was broken into a thousand pieces that spattered over the earth and kindled a mighty conflagration. Ta-Vwots crept under the tree that had sheltered him, but that was of no avail against the increasing heat. He tried to run away, but the fire burned off his toes, then his feet, then his legs, then his body, so that he ran on his hands, and when his hands were burned off he walked on the stumps of his arms.

At last his head alone remained, and that rolled over hill and valley until it struck a rock, when the eyes burst and the tears that gushed forth spread over the land, putting out the flames. The Sun was conquered, and at his trial before the other G.o.ds was reprimanded for his mischievous pranks and condemned thereafter to travel across the sky every day by the same trail.

THE COMANCHE RIDER

The ways of disposing of the Indian dead are many. In some places ground sepulture is common; in others, the corpses are placed in trees. South Americans mummified their dead, and cremation was not unknown. Enemies gave no thought to those that they had slain, after plucking off their scalps as trophies, though they sometimes added the indignity of mutilation in killing.

Sachem's Head, near Guilford, Connecticut, is so named because Uncas cut a Pequot's head off and placed it in the crotch of an oak that grew there. It remained withering for years. It was to save the body of Polan from such a fate, after the fight on Sebago Lake in 1756, that his brothers placed it under the root of a st.u.r.dy young beech that they had pried out of the ground. He was laid in the hollow in his war-dress, with silver cross on his breast and bow and arrows in his hand; then, the weight on the trunk being released, the sapling sprang back to its place and afterward rose to a commanding height, fitly marking the Indian's tomb. Chief Blackbird, of the Omahas, was buried, in accordance with his wish, on the summit of a bluff near the upper Missouri, on the back of his favorite horse, fully equipped for travel, with the scalps that he had taken hung to the bridle.

When a Comanche dies he is buried on the western side of the camp, that his soul may follow the setting sun into the spirit world the speedier.

His bow, arrows, and valuables are interred with him, and his best pony is killed at the grave that he may appear among his fellows in the happy hunting grounds mounted and equipped. An old Comanche who died near Fort Sill was without relatives and poor, so his tribe thought that any kind of a horse would do for him to range upon the fields of paradise. They killed a spavined old plug and left him. Two weeks from that time the late unlamented galloped into a camp of the Wichitas on the back of a lop-eared, bob-tailed, sheep-necked, ring-boned horse, with ribs like a grate, and said he wanted his dinner. Having secured a piece of meat, formally presented to him on the end of a lodge-pole, he offered himself to the view of his own people, alarming them by his glaring eyes and sunken cheeks, and told them that he had come back to haunt them for a stingy, inconsiderate lot, because the gate-keeper of heaven had refused to admit him on so ill-conditioned a mount. The camp broke up in dismay.

Wichitas and Comanches journeyed, en ma.s.se, to Fort Sill for protection, and since then they have sacrificed the best horses in their possession when an unfriended one journeyed to the spirit world.

Myths and Legends

HORNED TOAD AND GIANTS

The Moquis have a legend that, long ago, when the princ.i.p.al mesa that they occupy was higher than it is now, and when they owned all the country from the mountains to the great river, giants came out of the west and troubled them, going so far as to dine on Moquis. It was hard to get away, for the monsters could see all over the country from the tops of the mesas. The king of the tribe offered the handsomest woman in his country and a thousand horses to any man who would deliver his people from these giants. This king was eaten like the rest, and the citizens declined to elect another, because they were beginning to lose faith in kings. Still, there was one young brave whose single thought was how to defeat the giants and save his people.

As he was walking down the mesa he saw a lizard, of the kind commonly known as a horned toad, lying under a rock in pain. He rolled the stone away and was pa.s.sing on, when a voice, that seemed to come out of the earth, but that really came from the toad, asked him if he wished to destroy the giants. He desired nothing so much. "Then take my horned crest for a helmet."

Lolomi--that was the name of him--did as he was bid, and found that in a moment the crest had swelled and covered his head so thickly that no club could break through it.

"Now take my breastplate," continued the toad. And though it would not have covered the Indian's thumb-nail, when he put it on it so increased in bulk that it corseleted his body and no arrow could pierce it.

"Now take the scales from my eyes," commanded the toad, and when he had done so Lolomi felt as light as a feather.

"Go up and wait. When you see a giant, go toward him, looking in his eyes, and he will walk backward. Walk around him until he has his back to a precipice, then advance. He will back away until he reaches the edge of the mesa, when he will fall off and be killed."

Lolomi obeyed these instructions, for presently a giant loomed in the distance and came striding across the plains half a mile at a step. As he drew near he flung a spear, but it glanced from the Indian's armor like hail from a rock. Then an arrow followed, and was turned. At this the giant lost courage, for he fancied that Lolomi was a spirit. Fearing a blow if he turned, he kept his face toward Lolomi, who manoeuvred so skilfully that when he had the giant's back to the edge of a cliff he sprang at him, and the giant, with a yell of alarm, fell and broke his bones on the rocks below. So Lolomi killed many giants, because they all walked back before him, and after they had fallen the people heaped rocks on their bodies. To this day the place is known as "the giants' fall."

Then the tribe made Lolomi king and gave him the most beautiful damsel for a wife. As he was the best king they ever had, they treasured his memory after he was dead, and used his name as a term of greeting, so that "Lolomi" is a word of welcome, and will be until the giants come again.

THE SPIDER TOWER

In Dead Man's Canon--a deep gorge that is lateral to the once populated valley of the Rio de Ch.e.l.ly, Arizona--stands a stark spire of weathered sandstone, its top rising eight hundred feet above its base in a sheer uplift. Centuries ago an inhabitant of one of the cave villages was surprised by hostiles while hunting in this region, and was chased by them into this canon. As he ran he looked vainly from side to side in the hope of securing a hiding-place, but succor came from a source that was least expected, for on approaching this enormous obelisk, with strength well-nigh exhausted, he saw a silken cord hanging from a notch at its top. Hastily knotting the end about his waist, that it might not fall within reach of his pursuers, he climbed up, setting his feet into roughnesses of the stone, and advancing, hand over hand, until he had reached the summit, where he stayed, drinking dew and feeding on eagles'

eggs, until his enemies went away, for they could not reach him with their arrows, defended as he was by points of rock. The foemen having gone, he safely descended by the cord and reached his home. This help had come from a friendly spider who saw his plight from her perch at the top of the spire, and, weaving a web of extra thickness, she made one end fast to a jag of rock while the other fell within his grasp--for she, like all other of the brute tribe, liked the gentle cave-dwellers better than the remorseless hunters. Hence the name of the Spider Tower.

THE LOST TRAIL

The canon of Oak Creek is choked by a ma.s.s of rock, shaped like a keystone, and wedged into the jaws of the defile. An elderly Ute tells this story of it. Acantow, one of the chiefs of his tribe, usually placed his lodge beside the spring that bubbled from a thicket of wild roses in the place where Rosita, Colorado, stands to-day. He left his wife--Manetabee (Rosebud)--in the lodge while he went across the mountains to attend a council, and was gone four sleeps. On his return he found neither wife nor lodge, but footprints and hoofprints in the ground showed to his keen eye that it was the Arapahoes who had been there.

Getting on their trail he rode over it furiously, and at night had reached Oak Canon, along which he travelled until he saw the gleam of a small fire ahead. A squall was coming up, and the noise of it might have enabled him to gallop fairly into the group that he saw huddled about the glow; but it is not in the nature of an Indian to do that, and, tying his horse, he crawled forward.

There were fifteen of the Arapahoes, and they were gambling to decide the owners.h.i.+p of Manetabee, who sat bound beneath a willow near them. So engrossed were the savages in the contest that the snake-like approach of Acantow was unnoticed until he had cut the thongs that bound Manetabee's wrists and ankles--she did not cry out, for she had expected rescue--and both had imperceptibly slid away from them. Then, with a yell, one of the gamblers pointed to the receding forms, and straightway the fifteen made an onset.

Swinging his wife lightly to his shoulders Acantow set off at a run and he had almost reached his horse when his foot caught in a root and he fell headlong. The pursuers were almost upon him when the storm burst in fury. A flood of fire rushed from the clouds and struck the earth with an appalling roar. Trees were snapped, rocks were splintered, and a whirlwind pa.s.sed. Acantow was nearly insensible for a time--then he felt the touch of the Rosebud's hand on his cheek, and together they arose and looked about them. A huge block of riven granite lay in the canon, dripping blood. Their enemies were not to be seen.

"The trail is gone," said Acantow. "Manitou has broken it, that the Arapahoes may never cross it more. He would not allow them to take you.

Let us thank the Manitou." So they went back to where the spring burst amid the rose-bushes.

A BATTLE IN THE AIR

In the country about Tishomingo, Indian Territory, troubles are foretold by a battle of unseen men in the air. Whenever the sound of conflict is heard it is an indication that many dead will lie in the fields, for it heralds battle, starvation, or pestilence. The powerful nation that lived here once was completely annihilated by an opposing tribe, and in the valley in the western part of the Territory there are mounds where hundreds of men lie buried. Spirits occupy the valley, and to the eyes of the red men they are still seen, at times, continuing the fight.

In May, 1892, the last demonstration was made in the hearing of John Willis, a United States marshal, who was hunting horse-thieves. He was belated one night and entered the vale of mounds, for he had no scruples against sleeping there. He had not, in fact, ever heard that the region was haunted. The snorting of his horse in the middle of the night awoke him and he sprang to his feet, thinking that savages, outlaws, or, at least, coyotes had disturbed the animal. Although there was a good moon, he could see nothing moving on the plain. Yet the sounds that filled the air were like the noise of an army, only a trifle subdued, as if they were borne on the pa.s.sing of a wind. The rush of hoofs and of feet, the striking of blows, the fall of bodies could be heard, and for nearly an hour these fell rumors went across the earth. At last the horse became so frantic that Willis saddled him and rode away, and as he reached the edge of the valley the sounds were heard going into the distance. Not until he reached a settlement did he learn of the spell that rested on the place.