Extra Reading Week 9: Pacific Northwest Stories!

One thing I've noticed and love about the myths and legends from the Native Americans - they all feature animals as either main characters or an integral part of the story. I know the Natives held animals in high regard and in the myths from the Pacific Northwest Natives, the animals are caught dancing without their 'skins'. Without them, they look just like people!

How Silver-Fox Created the WorldAs with most creation myths, this one begins with a large body of water. Coyote and Silver-Fox share the world above the sky, but Silver-Fox becomes curious and cuts a hole in it while Coyote is gone to peer down at the world. He goes down to the water and creates and island. Coyote eventually joins him and asks questions. Silver-Fox does not reply immediately to a lot of his questions. He is very mysterious that way.

Silver Fox keeps making the world bigger, pushing dirt out into all four directions. Where is he getting this dirt? I have no idea.

He makes Coyote run around the world to find how big it is growing. Then the two argue about how many moons should be in one winter. Coyote says 10, Silver-fox says two. It is then decided that there will be four moons in a whole year - 1 moon for spring, 1 moon for autumn, and two moons for winter. Notice how there’s no mention of Summer in here?


How Beaver Stole Fire

Before there were people, there were animals and trees that walked and talked like people. Only pine trees had fire and that means all the animals nearly froze to death in the winter. So one day, the animals got fed up with the greediness of the pine trees and plan to steal fire from them.

Beaver volunteers to do the job. As the pine trees are warming themselves at a large fire, a coal rolls down to the riverbank and beaver snatches it away, hiding it in his breast. Personally, I think this would burn, but maybe that’s just me.
A grand chase ensues between Beaver and the pine trees. The pine trees chase after him for a long way and eventually grow tired and stop in random places. This is why there are so many pine trees in certain parts along the river bank.
Once beaver is far ahead of everyone he gives fire to the trees and animals so that they can stay warm.

This is a myth of the Nez Perce. I wonder why it was beaver they chose to tell the story about? I would think fire and a water animal wouldn't mix, but maybe that’s just me.


The First Totem Pole

Wakiash was the chief of his tribe, but unlike the other chieftans, he never had a dance for his people. This made him ashamed, so he went to find solitude and fasted for four days.

On the fourth day he woke up and discovered he was on Raven’s back and Frog was on his chest. Frog was telling him that Raven was taking him to the house of animals to learn how to dance. I’ve heard Raven is a pretty important animal in Native American mythology, so I’m not surprised he’s featured here.

Anyway, the chieftan comes to the house of animals and hears them dancing inside. The animals have all shed their skins and are now in the form of people. Interesting! So I wonder if the Pacific Northwest natives have myths about Selkies too!

The animals can sense the stranger and send Mouse outside to investigate. She comes across the chieftan and he explains that he wants to learn the dances to bring to his people. Mouse tells him to come in just as the animals start dancing. So as they begin to dance again, Wakiash jumps into the room and the animals are shamed because they’ve been caught by a human in their people form. They ask what he wants and he answers truthfully.

So the animals teach Wakiash their dances and their songs. He packs up their house and the animals in it and takes them with him back to his tribe He returns to his people after being away for four years and throws down the bundle, revealing the house and the animals on a totem pole.  Then he throws for his people the biggest dance ever seen and makes all the chieftans in the land ashamed. Afterwards he carves another totem pole and puts it outside his house and calls it Kalakuyuwish: The pole that holds up the sky. 

Totem Poles in Vancouver

From Totem-Pole.net

Week 9 Reading B: More Cherokee Myths!

These are a continuation of the notes for the second part of Cherokee Myths

The Owl Gets Married

In this story, a girl is advised by the widow she lives with to only marry a man who is a good hunter. So when a potential suitor comes courting and claims he’s a good hunter, the girl is arranged to be married with him. He comes to live with her.

Everytime he goes out claiming to hunt, he comes back with only small things - fish, scraps of meat, a single crawdad. The old woman gets suspicious and tells the girl to follow him secretly the next time he goes out.

She does so and discovers that he transforms into an owl to collect the mere morsels for their table. The next time he comes home she tells him that he knows what he is and sends him out of her house. He spends the rest of his days pining with grief and love-longing.

See, I don’t understand why the owl didn’t just remain in the form of a man and hunt that way. Maybe he didn’t know how? But regardless, getting anything bigger than a small fish would be easier in a larger body.

The Uktena and the Ulûñsû'tï

This myth is about a great horned snake called the Uktena. The Cherokee created it to kill the Sun when she sent a sickness out upon them, but it failed. Angry and jealous of the people for choosing Rattlesnake as their champion instead, the Uktena was sent to a place where other dangerous things are kept. 

The Uktena as depicted by Kyoht on DeviantArt

The Ulûñsû'tï is a bright transparent crystal in the forehead of the Uktena. Whomsoever has it will have luck in all aspects of life, but especially in prophecy. It works very similarly to a crystal ball. But keeping the Ulûñsû'tï has a price - the owner must bathe it in fresh blood and keep an eye on it, lest it becomes wise and escapes from its hiding place.

The Uktena reminds me of what I’ve read of British Isles mythology. The horned God Cernunnos is often depicted as yielding two horned snakes. Do these and the Uktena have any correlation to one another, I wonder?

Âgän-uni'tsï's Search for the Uktena

A great medicine man, Âgän-uni'tsï, is captured by a warring tribe and is about to be executed, but he claims he can get the crystal from the Uktena. The tribe leader warns him of the danger, but the medicine man assures him he knows. With his life, he begins the search for the Uktena.

He goes to many places where the Uktena is rumored to live - lonely places in the mountains and deep pools of water. He encounters all sorts of monsters, like giant snakes, frogs, fish, and lizards. At last when he travels very far south he finds the Uktena in a mountain hollow asleep.

Âgän-uni'tsï devises a plan and digs a trench and sets a bunch of pine cones on fire at the base of the mountain. Then he shoots the Uktena in the heart with an arrow and races down the mountain, jumps over the fire and trench, and takes cover. The Uktena races after him but, being wounded, is stopped by the fire and uselessly spits poison at the medicine man, which sizzles in the flames. Once the Uktena dies, Âgän-uni'tsï waits seven days while the birds pick at the giant snake until all that is left are bones and the Ulûñsû'tï. He gathers his prize and becomes the most revered medicine man in the land.

I’m curious how big this Uktena actually was. Are we talking Anaconda big, or even bigger like as wide around as a sequoia tree trunk? Anway, the Cherokee have many myths about the Uktena and I still wonder if it and the horned snakes held by Cernunnos have any relation to each other.

A depiction of Cernunnos holding a horned serpent

Part of the collection of god and goddess statues from Magical Omaha

Bibliography
Book: Cherokee Myths
Author: James Mooney
Year: 1900
Read the stories here!

Week 9 Reading A: Cherokee Myths

I used the crystal ball to decide which myths to read this time (I hadn’t used it up until now) - and it chose Cherokee myths! I found this pretty amusing and special because I supposedly have a smidgen of Cherokee somewhere down my ancestral line.

The Journey to the Sunrise

A bunch of bored young men decide to go on a journey to discover where the Sun lives and what the Sun is like. They meet many different tribes along the way with customs different than theirs. A tribe of acorn eaters and a tribe that lived in the pines. They witness a woman being lowered into the grave with her dead husband. I wonder which tribe this was? I honestly have no clue and they don’t give names to any of the tribes.

They finally come to where the sky touches the ground and discover that the sky is actually made of rock and a hidden door is where the Sun comes in and out of.

One of the members tries to go in through the door but the rock comes down and crush him. The rest of his friends are like, “Nuh-uh,” and decide to go back home. It’s a pretty long journey because by the time they get back they’re old men.

I’m really curious what’s on the other side of that door. Space? A parallel universe? Another planet? Who knows?


The Moon and the Thunders

This is a compilation of origin stories of the moon, the sun, and thunder.

In this story, Sun and Moon are siblings. Sun is a woman and her brother is Moon. I always find it interesting how different cultures determine the genders of celestial bodies. Some equate feminine energy with the moon, mysterious and alluring, while others view it as the sun, radiant and nurturing.

Sun is courted by a stranger during the dark phases of the moon. She cannot see his face because it is so dark, so she cleverly puts ashes on his face to identify him. The next time the moon comes out she can see the ash on his face and he hides from her from shame.

Another origin story says that the moon is from a ball that was accidentally thrown up into the sky and stuck to the stone that the sky is made of.

This story also describes the different kinds of thunder. Thunder and his sons who live up in the sky, whose robes are made of rainbow, are benevolent and kind. However there are other thunders in waterfalls, in cliffs and mountains, and other secret places of nature. These thunders are mischievous and tricksters.

I think it’s interesting how there a multiple kinds of thunders. Now that I actually think about it, it does sound like thunder where a waterfall comes down, or in the echoes of a mountain.


How They Brought Back the Tobacco

It’s hard to imagine tobacco as having medicinal qualities and not being regarded as an addictive substance with how it's been advertised in our generation. Personally, I’m fine with tobacco as long as it’s not stuffed in a paper with a bunch of other things I don’t know about. The Cherokee appear to have held tobacco at high value for its medicinal and spiritual purposes.

In this story, the Geese (mean, mean animals) stole the only tobacco plant in the world and hoarded it for themselves. One old woman became very sick and frail without the tobacco medicine, so the animals auditioned to go get back the plant. The Geese killed every animal because they’re heartless creatures.

Geese are jerks

Image: Canadian Expat

Hummingbird offered and was at first laughed at because of his size. Once he demonstrated his incredible speed, however, there was no question about him going. He brought back some leaves and seeds just as the old woman fainted. Smoke was blown into her face and she was revived.

Bibliography

Book: Cherokee Myths

Author: James Mooney

Year: 1900

Read the stories here!