Welcome, I welcome all my relations, my brothers and sisters who have joined me to inform the uninformed and to teach, learn and experience all the wonders of this earth. The Great Spirit has endowed all of us with a great illuminence that fills the sky. Rejoice!
The legends recorded here come from the heart and soul of the native people of North America. Some have been told for thousands of years, and they are still being told and retold, reshaped and refitted to meet their audience's changing needs, even created anew out of a contemporary man's or woman's vision. They arise out of the earth--the plants, herbs, and animals which are integral parts of the human realm. They are imbedded in the ancient languages and flow according to the rhythms of the natural world--a different pace indeed from that of a technological, man-made environment. Most industrialized people, eyes ever on the clock, fragmented by the pressing problems of a split-second, microchip society, have little time or inclination, it seems, to speculate on the communal nature of the universe. Mutually shared and supportive legends about the beginning and end of the world (and what happens in between) seem hopelessly beyond their vision.
The native American, following the pace of "Indian Time", still lives connected to the nurturing womb of mythology. Mysterious but real power dwells in nature--in mountains, rivers, rocks, even pebbles. White people may consider them inanimate objects, but to the Native Americans, they are enmeshed in the web of the universe, pulsating with life and potent with medicine. As Ernst Cassirer has written, "The mythical world is at a much more fluid and fluctuating stage than our theoretical world...The world of myth is a dramatical world--a world of actions, of forces, of conflicting powers. In every phenomenon of nature it sees the collision of these powers. Mythical perception is always impregnated with these emotional qualities."
The world of the Pueblo Indians is bounded mythically and geographically by four sacred mountains, where holy men still to on pilgrimages to pray for rain and to gather medicines. The associations between geography and mythic events are strong, the mountains of the Northwest, for example, were believed by the native inhabitants to have once been people who fought, schemed, loved, and were eventually given the form they now have by the all-powerful One, mostly as punishment for making trouble. The firmament is filled with stars and planets who were once n earth, human lovers fated to chase each other across the evening sky into eternity. Such roles are not fixed, either; the sun, moon, and morning star seem free to take human form and roam the earth, seeking love and other adventures.
The links between the historic past and present through myth are strong. Archeologists' evidence shows that the Iroquois of the Northeast have possessed a viable material culture continuously for several thousand years, a chain reflected in an extant body of folklore which has survived despite the attempts of many generations of white society to eradicate (or negatively stereotype) Native American history and culture. The effects of white culture on many other regions, with the notable exceptions of the Southwest and Plains, and to a degree the Northwest, have been devastating, with whole bodies of Native American Literature erased, or warped beyond recognition in their contemporary representations.
Where legends endure, they do so fiercely. Tunka, the stone god, is the Sioux's oldest god, and men still carry oddly shaped pebbles, bits of flint, or lumps of fossil agate in their medicine bundles. They still pray to special sacred rocks and tell legends about them. Rivers, lakes, waterfalls, and mountains are the abodes of spirits and often appear as living characters in stories. Even today a Sioux or Cheyenne might say, "I felt the sacred pipe move in my hands. It was alive. Power flowed from it." Or, "When I touched the sacred sun dance pole, i felt that it was flesh, warm flesh." The ancient tokens and symbols still exist and are carefully preserved. Modern equipment is no match. When the Sioux medicine man Lame Deer first traveled on a modern jet, he immediately related his Boeing 707 to the Wakinyan, the Thunderbirds, whose awesome power ignites the lightning. The airplane suffered greatly by comparison.
To those used to the patterns of European fairy tales and folktales, Native legends often seem chaotic, inconsistent, or incomplete. Plots seem to travel at their own speed, defying convention and at times doing away completely with recognizable beginnings and endings. Coyote is a powerful creator one moment, a sniveling coward the next. Infants display alarming talents or powers; births and deaths alternate as fast as night and day. To try to aplly conventional (Western) logic is not only impossible but unnecessary; spinning out a single image or episode may be salient feature of-- indeed, the whole reason for--telling a tale, and stories are often told in chains, one word, character, or idea bringing to mind a related one, prompting another storyteller to offer a contribution. The howling wind, the bubbling brook, the shrieking magpie all suggest, in their vital immediacy, stories, out of which legends are created. Stories are told for adults and children alike, as elements in solemn ceremonies and as spontaneous creations. Rather than being self-contained units, they are often incomplete episodes in a progression that goes back deep into a tribe's traditions.
Grant our children life
and happiness.
Send forth the good
south winds.
Send forth your breath over
the waters that our world
may be beautiful and
our people may thrive.
Far off, over there, Sun Father
awakens, and climbs up his
resting place.
May all complete life's long
road, may all grow old.
May our little ones know the
sweet smell of the sacred
breath of life.
May all our children have
maize that they may
complete their journey.
Sit down, remain here,
we give our best gift,
our best thoughts.
We inhale the sweet smell of
the sacred breath through
our prayer plumes.
-Anonymous
The Nightsong of the Wolf
carries with it, upon the wind,
The promise that the White Buffalo Calf Woman
will once again descend.
She'll bring about the changes
that were long ago foretold;
And with this newborn Miracle,
we'll return to the ways of old.
--Touch The Sky
Grant our children life
and happiness.
