Reachable Stars: Patterns in the Ethnoastronomy of Eastern North America

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Reachable Stars

Reachable Stars Patterns in the Ethnoastronomy of Eastern North America

George E. Lankford

THE UNIV ERSITY OF A L ABA MA PRESS Tuscaloosa

Copyright © 2007 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Typeface: Garamond ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lankford, George E., 1938– Reachable stars : patterns in the ethnoastronomy of eastern North America / George E. Lankford. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-1568-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8173-1568-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-5428-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8173-5428-X 1. Indian cosmology—East (U.S.) 2. Indian cosmology—Great Plains. 3. Indian mythology—East (U.S.) 4. Indian mythology—Great Plains. 5. Ethnoastronomy—East (U.S.) 6. Ethnoastronomy—Great Plains. I. Title. E98.C79L36 2007 305.8971′074—dc22 2006039790

Contents

List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1. Four Ethnoastronomies 20 2. The Star Husband 35 3. The Morning Stars 53 4. The Morning Star of the Winnebago 72 5. Stars in the North: Bears, Biers, and Boats 126 6. The Star Cluster 162 7. The Star Women 182 8. The Path through the Stars 201 9. The Starry Hand 226

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contents 10. The Serpent in the Stars 240 11. Some Ethnoastronomical Insights 257 Notes 277 Bibliography 279 Index 299

Illustrations

Figures 1.1. Location of the four tribal ethnoastronomies 22 2.1. Distribution of the Animal Tricksters oicotype of the Star Husband 44 2.2. Distribution of the Star Boy oicotype of the Star Husband 49 2.3. Distribution of the Animal Tricksters and Porcupine–Star Boy oicotypes 51 3.1. Sirius adjacent to the Milky Way 56 3.2. Distribution of the Star Boy type 59 3.3. Distribution of the Cosmogram type 69 3.4. Distribution of Morning Star traditions 71 4.1. Distribution of the Children of the Sun myth 101 4.2. Distribution of the False Bridegroom/Bead Spitter type with decapitation motif 111 4.3. Hypothesis of relationships of compound myths 113

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illustr ations 5.1. The constellations near Polaris 127 5.2. Distribution of the Celestial Hunt myth 134 5.3. Distribution of the Brothers and Sister/Obstacle Flight type 151 5.4. Engraving of the Natchez funeral procession 158 5.5. Distribution of the Bier type 159 5.6. Distribution of Ursa Major myth type groups 161 6.1. The Hyades and the Pleiades in Taurus 163 6.2. Distribution of the Dancing Children myth 175 6.3. Distribution of the Brothers and Sister myth, Pleiades group 179 6.4. Distribution of the clusters of Pleiades myths 181 7.1. Distribution of the Star Women myth 194 7.2. Distribution of the Swan Maidens type 199 8.1. A galaxy from outside 202 8.2. Earth’s galaxy from inside 203 8.3. Distribution of the Orpheus tradition 220 9.1. Three images of the “falling sky” in the west 228

illustr ations 9.2. Distribution of the rising and falling sky motif 229 9.3. Constellation of Orion (Greek) versus Hand (Dakota) 230 9.4. Distribution of the Hand type 239 10.1. Scorpio lying across the Milky Way in the southern sky 241 10.2. Distribution of belief in the two major forms of the Great Serpent 244 10.3. Distribution of the Whale Boat myth 247

Tables 1.1. Comparison of four ethnoastronomies 33 2.1. Star Husband myth, Type II: The Porcupine Redaction 45 2.2. Additional Star Boy texts 46 2.3. Thompson’s Arikara coding 46 2.4. Arikara Star Husband texts 46 3.1. The annual cycle of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky 57 4.1. Comparison of plots of ¤ve texts possibly related to Morning Star 81 4.2. Winnebago Contests with the Giants texts 83 4.3. Comparison of plots of two Winnebago Children of the Sun texts 98

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illustr ations 4.4. Comparison of plots of six Boys/Twins myth texts 108 5.1. Celestial Hunt texts 132 5.2. Brothers and Their Sister texts 135 5.3. Comparison of Brothers and Their Sister plots 150 6.1. The annual cycle of the Pleiades 164 6.2. Dancing Children texts 167 6.3. Brothers and Sister texts 177 6.4. Minor types of Pleiades myths 180 7.1. Comparison of Celestial Skiff plots 188 7.2. Swan Maidens texts in North America 197 9.1. The annual cycle of a segment of the Milky Way 227 10.1. The annual cycle of Scorpio 242 11.1. Occurrences of major motifs and subtypes 263 11.2. Clusters of motifs and subtypes 267

Acknowledgments

In a project this big, with this many topics, and taking years, there are manifold debts that ought to be acknowledged. Unfortunately, there are undoubtedly many comments, suggestions, and clues that I have absorbed while forgetting the source. To those anonymous friends and helpers, many thanks. Fortunately, I remember many people who have graciously shared their time and knowledge with me in the past few years. They are very strongly in my mind. Two people have read the entire book and given me their critiques, Carol Diaz-Granados and James A. Brown. More friends and colleagues have read single chapters and shared their perspectives: Sandy Barnett, David Dye, Ann Early, James Garber, Thomas Green, Robert Hall, Alice Kehoe, V. J. Knight, Jr., Kent Reilly, Vincas Steponaitis. My profoundest thanks to all these good friends. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Richard L. Dieterle, editor of the on-line Winnebago myth collection. Not only did he read and carefully critique Chapter 4, he shared many texts of which I was not aware and willingly engaged me in discussion about the interpretations I offered. I have enjoyed his ability to debate without demanding my agreement on several important points. Of course, neither he nor any of the other readers of my writing are responsible for what I have done with their ideas and data. Where I have erred, they can take comfort in the fact that they tried to tell me. I am also very grateful to the participants in the Texas State University annual workshop on Mississippian Iconography over the past decade, many of whom are already named. Their comments have been treasured, but their greatest gift was to remind me that there are people who think it is important to try to understand and unravel the many mysteries of the human saga, no matter how obscure the realm. This book exists because of their encouragement. I am very grateful to the staff of The University of Alabama Press for their encouragement and support in the production of this volume. Many thanks also go to Kathy Cummins, copy editor, whose meticulous reading is responsible for the consistency and coherence of this book.

Note

The images of the stars used in this book were produced from Carina Software’s Voyager II, v. 2.0, and SkyGazer, v. 3.25, available for the personal computer. I am grateful for their permission to use those images here. There are several excellent choices of software on the shelves, however, and all of them will do far more than is needed for this book on ethnoastronomy. It is one of the wonders of the computer revolution that for a modest cost the power once reserved for major planetariums is now available on the desktops of ordinary people. The maps used in this book to locate Native American tribes are from the standard presented by Harold Driver (1961). Its advantage is that it gives a place for all tribes, but the location of them at the time of contact means that the map is not an accurate representation of all locations at a single point in time. George E. Lankford Batesville, Arkansas

Reachable Stars

Introduction

“The lights in the sky are stars,” proclaimed the title of a wonderful science ¤ction novel I read when I was young.1 As the years went by and my perspective became more dominated by the study of folklore and anthropology, I realized this assertion was only one option. From a human viewpoint, the lights in the sky are whatever we humans say they are. Through the centuries we have produced a wide variety of explanations and images to make sense of the lights in the sky. This book is about those lights in the sky. The focus is on ancient Native Americans and the ways they identi¤ed and used the lights in the sky. It is not about their scienti¤c understandings, although their empiricism is worth studying. Some years ago, sparked by an abiding interest in how Native Americans interpret the skies, I attended a conference on the subdiscipline termed “archaeoastronomy.” Although I had read a number of books and articles by the scholars in the ¤eld, many of whom were present, I had not realized that our interests were not quite the same until I listened to the papers. Their primary interest seemed to focus on the ways in which ancient people were early scientists. The scholars noted their early observations of the celestial world and the applications of their insights to human life. Such issues as the ways in which the annual movement of the sun along the eastern horizon produced solar calendars and the different alignments of human architecture to replicate stellar patterns were popular topics for discussion and exploration. The fascination was with ancient humans as early scientists, a worthy area of investigation and one deserving the portmanteau word archaeoastronomy. But it is not my interest. What I want to know is how many astronomical “systems” exist in native

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introduction

North America. At that conference I asked several scholars the question “How many astronomies are there in North America?” This question is on a par with “How many types of creation myths exist in North America?” (There are eight; Rooth 1957.) My simple question brought conversation to a halt. The answer, it turned out, is that no one has ever tried to produce a comprehensive listing of Native American beliefs about the stars and separate them into coherent groups. Several scholars speculated that the task is probably too complex to produce anything more than ambiguity. This book is the test of that skeptical view. The problem probed is my simple question: How many astronomies are there in Native America of the Eastern Woodlands and Plains? The approach is by constellations. The lights in the sky are stars, but those lights also make pictures. The pictures are not self-explanatory, though. They are in the mind’s eye of the beholder and his or her society. Where one society sees a human with a belt and sword, another may see a hand. One group’s bear can be another group’s stretcher. Constellation identi¤cations have the additional virtue of longevity. They probably began as story, but a society may remember the identi¤cation of a given constellation—a name—long after the story is no longer told or has even been forgotten. How many modern Americans can tell the story of Orion? Surely far fewer than can identify the constellation of Orion. Approaching the identi¤cation of prehistoric groupings of tribes by constellation similarities also has the virtue of simplicity. Attempting to compare Native American societies on the basis of complete astronomical knowledge is a hopeless endeavor for several reasons. Few ethnographers collected the astronomical wisdom of their informants, usually for the simple reason that they did not deem that information as important as the other topics they asked about. Then, too, few informants were likely to volunteer that information freely, whether as stories or as beliefs, after they perceived that their views were considered incorrect in the Western worldview. Every so often a researcher is able to present an unexpected body of astronomical knowledge, even from an almost extinct tribal group, by reconstructing the knowledge on the basis of a few comments, memories, and linguistic relics, as in the recent case of an Ofo astronomical calendrical system (King and Ventura 1999). But such cases are rare—too few to offer much hope of comparative analysis, especially if they do not offer information about constellations.

Thinking about the Cosmos The issue of multiple astronomies is a complex problem. Two important areas of study are caught up in studying the ancient cultural understandings of the lights in the sky: the kind of thinking by which cognitive systems are constructed using the sky, regardless of whether they are consistent with modern scienti¤c

Introduction

3

astronomy, and the historical processes by which they were transmitted and diffused. Human beings are characterized by their insistence on carrying around a model of the universe in their minds. Just as we seem driven to connect any random set of dots with lines, ¤nding pattern whether or not there is any intended pattern there, we humans also take our observations of and encounters with the world, no matter how imperfectly seen or remembered, and build them into coherent cosmic edi¤ces. As far as we know, we are the only animals who do this. And what a trait it is! The wonder of the human brain is that it can conceive of a “cosmos” (order) at all, and for it to set out on a project to understand that cosmos at the ultimate level, in its totality, is spectacular. Moreover, we do it both as individuals and as societies. Most of us take our cultural cosmic model as given to us—that is the root meaning of enculturation—but we all add our own embellishments and minor rebellions to it. What extraordinary animals we are, to carry around the cosmos in our heads! The other side of the coin, of course, is that our ability is also a sign of remarkable arrogance. Human beings, minuscule and short-lived participants in the cosmos, fancy that we have grasped the cosmos by making a mental model of it. Then we compound the arrogance by proclaiming the model to be the truth and resisting all attempts to modify or replace it with improved versions. From cosmic idea to ideological warfare—it is all part of the same phenomenon, our ability to construct cosmic systems in our heads. It is that understanding of the human condition that leads me to consider that any study of humans exercising their cosmogonic skill is an attempt to understand the nature of Us. Whether the subject is a modern astronomer wrestling with how to interpret a telescopic observation or an ancient North American— an Other (very much not Us)—trying to ¤gure out his or her relationship with a particular light in the sky, it is the same study: humanity creating cosmos. There are differences between the ways in which such a study might be done, however. One way is history, whether current or past, and another is anthropology. A historical look at the work of the modern astronomer can be done by historians, interviewers, or philosophers. The key is that the person’s life and thought are available. Even if the astronomer is deceased, as with Sir Isaac Newton, the documentary evidence is likely to persist. In the case of a prehistoric Native American, however, nothing remains for study except sites, artifacts, and traditions collected by researchers in the historic period. To make it even more dif¤cult, there never were any documents, because the societies in question were not literate. The researchers in this case are likely to be anthropologists and folklorists. The subdiscipline is not history or archaeoastronomy, but ethnoastronomy. The pre¤x ethno- is frequently used by anthropologists to indicate the specialized area of study within a discipline (botany, history, astronomy) in which

4

introduction

the culture is that of an oral traditional society. Ethno- does not mean that the culture under examination is inferior or less complex than a literate one but merely that the methods of examination must necessarily be different. The difference is caused by the vast gulf created by the rise of the sciences. The successes of astronomy and physics as disciplines rooted in the scienti¤c method are overwhelming. They have demonstrated the usefulness of their hypotheses in thousands of technological marvels that have transformed our lives. The theories of scienti¤c astronomy and related sciences are so powerful that they constitute a (the?) major cognitive framework for human understanding of the cosmos in today’s world. Those theories, together with their supporting data, constitute a body of knowledge that is taught in public education around the world, and the number of people who actually understand it all is large— thousands, perhaps millions. Most of us, of course, just live our lives in the worldview created by the sciences, and we speak easily in language larded with phrases like “nova,” “black holes,” and “quantum leaps,” even though we do not really understand what they mean or how they were derived. So thoroughgoing has been this scienti¤c revolution that those who live close to the new cognitive centers tend to forget how recent a change in the minds of humans all this is. It is only a matter of a few centuries since Galileo groveled at the feet of the priests of an obsolete cosmology, just yesterday in the human saga. Moreover, it is still possible to run across Americans who dismiss modern astronomy and geological epochs by referring to Bible verses. Those people are rarely encountered, perhaps, but they are the survivors of centuries of resistance of the older cosmologies to the new theories. The contemporary disciplines of the scienti¤c method are still in direct battle with the supporters of older worldviews—witness the continuing skirmishes waged by large numbers of Christians against biological and social scienti¤c theories, the so-called culture wars of modern life in the United States. And that is the situation in the areas near the cognitive centers. As the locale changes to areas that receive only ripples from the far-off scienti¤c explosions, people are happily going about their lives in the comfort of ancient worldviews. They are able to do so because only modest demands for change or rethinking are laid on them due to their distance. The old ways of thought still work. For such people the night sky still contains more than stars. The tales of the heavens form a continuity with ages and ancestors out of mind. Polynesians can still paddle the sea paths of the ancient heroes. African elders can still sit with the young under the night sky and use the lights in the sky as illustrations of the ancient stories they tell—they are mnemonics for narratives. Native American ethnoastronomical research must begin with a basic understanding of the cultural apparatus of human societies. A few principles seem to be crucial. The ¤rst is that, as with any human society, the belief system is kept

Introduction

5

in the minds of the individuals in it, with variations from person to person. Second, the general belief system is carefully communicated to each successive generation through some form of education. Third, the cultural belief system is embedded in most material and behavioral manifestations of the society, from the social institutions to the art forms. In an oral traditional society, some additional principles apply. The fourth principle is rooted in orality: since no permanent written records are kept, the burden of carrying the belief system must remain in a human transmission system, which usually involves a cadre of adults who are in charge of understanding, remembering, and communicating the wisdom of the society. And ¤fth, with a need to keep all members of the society refreshed on their knowledge of the belief system, the expressive arts in the society may become suffused with the belief system in many different ways, and frivolous art may be seen as an unaffordable luxury. In an oral traditional society, as such organizations are termed, the expressive arts become freighted with meanings, since they must serve the function of enshrining all the elements of the cosmic understanding. The visual arts take on dimensions of iconographic symbolism that are not as necessary in literate societies, and the verbal arts become oriented around elaborate metaphors with layer upon layer of meaning, from practical applications to highly esoteric ideas. The student of the symbolic and cognitive world of oral traditional societies ¤nds that the single most important key to understanding the worldview is narrative. Whether in proverbs (belief statements), tales (¤ctional stories), legends (accounts of human experience), or myths (legends of the ultimate), the worldview of the society appears as narratives. They tell or imply plots, with actors, actions, consequences, and sequential development. They are stories. Philosophical discourse, the alternative to narrative as a verbal way of thinking about the meaning of life, may occur among a few gifted people in oral traditional societies, but that way of talking and thinking is largely coupled with literacy when writing becomes the society’s way of preserving thought. In oral traditional societies, philosophical thinking, if present at all, is restricted to the few, and it is not easily passed on to the next generation. Instead, what is of primary importance is the set of narratives that enshrine the basic principles by which the world is comprehended. These are termed myths, a word derived from the Greek mythos, meaning “story.” Myths must be learned by repetition and retelling, and the keys to interpretation of the stories must be passed on by the ancient master-apprentice methodology. It is very dif¤cult for people of modern technological society to grasp the complexity of myth, because most of the burden carried by ancient myth has been shifted to philosophical discourse kept in books. The degree to which this alteration in traditional society has taken place can be seen in the modern mis-

6

introduction

understanding of myth as falsehood. Myth has become mere ¤ction, and ¤ction has come to be seen as untruth—a reversal of the original understanding of myth. Contemporary American media routinely use the word to mean “incorrect understanding” or even “lie.” Sad to say, some of the academic disciplines use the word the same way, and the reason is not dif¤cult to ¤nd, given their primary focus on literate societies and their cognitive processes. One result of this cognitive shift has been the necessity of inventing a special academic discipline, folklore or folkloristics, to study oral tradition and its societal framework. From the viewpoint of the discipline of folklore—and that is the perspective guiding this study—the word myth is respectfully used to refer to narratives, stories, in which are embedded profound understandings of the cosmos and how it works, especially in relation to the human sphere. Myths are stories about the ultimates. The study of ethnoastronomy is inevitably the study of myths, for they are the bearers of cultural knowledge. Myth is the library of oral traditional society. The cultural truth contained therein is hard to grasp and dif¤cult to interpret, particularly in cases in which the living bearers of the culture no longer know the keys. Nonetheless, the myths are still present and available, because vast numbers of them have been collected and published, frozen in time. If myth is the library of Native American societies, it is fair to say that their myths are in the libraries of literate society. Whether the cultural truths enshrined therein are the same as the cultural truths of the modern student, both Native American and outsider, is beside the point. The myths are available, at least in text form, and may be examined for insights just as any other cultural records. The problem is how mythic study should proceed. As always in questions of methodology, it is important to determine the goal. What do we want to learn about Indian ethnoastronomy? First Goal. As already stated, the primary goal of the study is to determine whether there are groups of tribal peoples whose astronomical lore reveals that they have shared with each other a common conception of the constellations and thus constitute coherent cultural clusters. This is an attempt to do historical research by myth analysis. The issue is whether myths can be treated as artifacts and compared with each other so as to produce historical insights about what has happened in the undocumented past of those peoples. Can “astronomies” be identi¤ed, and can those insights add to our understanding of the prehistoric past? Second Goal. One step in the study of ethnoastronomy is to try to understand the selection of astronomical mysteries by particular tribes. Since the night sky is ¤lled with puzzles, any society will have to be selective in determining which ones are worthy of attention by human puzzle-solvers. Being selective means living within limitations. Few societies could even entertain the notion of understanding all the mysteries, because the limitations are obvious. Some are external,

Introduction

7

such as geography. Where a people lives on the planet determines which celestial phenomena are visible. For North Americans, there is an unknown part of the celestial sphere lying beyond the southern horizon. South Americans may wonder about the dark shapes that seem to cover parts of the Milky Way, but North Americans do not, because they have never seen them—they do not appear in their sky. There is no place on earth from which all the constellations can be seen, so there is an automatic limitation on a people’s astronomical observations. Another limitation is temporal. There are some phenomena in the sky that depend on observations over very long periods of time, periods exceeding the human lifetime. Oral traditional societies will ¤nd it almost impossible to be aware of such phenomena, since the transmission of observations for comparison through the centuries is not likely to be done in myth. The understanding of a comet as a recurring visitor whose cycle lasts centuries is likely to elude Native observers, because they cannot compare and date appearances of the comet. Whenever it makes its appearance on the celestial stage, it will come as a surprise to a generation unaware that the spectacular visitor was also seen by their own ancestors. A good example of the temporal limitation on oral traditional societies is precession, the 26,000-year wobble of the earth’s axis in relation to the celestial sphere. The observable clues to the existence of such a cycle are a shift in the stable axis point in the vicinity of Polaris and the slow change of the zodiac sign at the horizon in relation to the solar year. Even to become aware of those indicators, however, requires observations over more than a millennium, and that is a serious stretch for traditional societies. In recent decades the argument that an ancient society had succeeded in becoming aware of precession and of enshrining it in their worldview has been offered a few times. The seminal argument was focused on northern Europeans, and the authors’ complex work has been applied in more recent years to the peoples of the Andes (Santillana and Deschend 1969; Sullivan 1996). One scholar has argued that knowledge of precession was the secret at the heart of Mithraism, the most widespread mystery religion of the Roman Empire (Ulansey 1989). Because of the ambiguity of the evidence and the obscurity of the argument, these spectacular claims for ancient astronomical achievement are still debated and likely to remain so. It seems safer in the study of North American oral traditional societies to accept the limitation that celestial phenomena that occurred “time out of mind” are beyond the reach of the local watchers of the sky. Perhaps the most obvious limitation on what can be included in a society’s astronomical knowledge is human sight. Without telescopes, the celestial sphere is much smaller. Naked-eye observations produce a list of ¤ve planets, while telescopic vision says there are many bodies orbiting the sun—so many that the de¤nition of planet becomes arguable.

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introduction

These limitations are based in the restrictions of human existence, but it seems clear that no Indian society ever set out to understand even all the celestial mysteries that are observable. There are more limiting factors at work in their narrowing of ethnoastronomical interest. We should not forget the likelihood of many genius-level minds through the centuries that made no impact on the cultural inheritance. Lost to history are the records of anonymous thinkers who made insightful astronomical observations and created exciting hypotheses to explain them, only to have their work vanish at their deaths. What sorts of phenomena might have piqued their interest? Here is a brief list of mysterious phenomena that can be seen by the naked eye—the raw material available to tribal observers. 1. The celestial sphere moves across the night sky from east to west. Why? What is the mystery of east and west? The north and south have nothing comparable. Stars are born in the east and die in the west. Is there more than a metaphoric connection to biological birth and death? 2. The mystery of the north is that there is one star that does not seem to move. Moreover, there are stars close to it that can be seen even in a single night to revolve around it. Why? What is so special about that star? 3. When the sun rises, all the stars vanish, with a few exceptions. What happens to them? 4. The stars do not seem to move in relation to each other. They make distinct patterns that do not change from night to night. Why is that? 5. Several mysteries are connected with the moon. Its schedule of appearance in the night sky does not seem regular, and it does not move at the same pace as the stars. Even so, like them, it rises in the east and goes across the sky to the west. Further, the moon changes shape through time. It can also sometimes be seen in the daytime, when the stars have been obliterated by the sun’s light. 6. The sun and the moon each move across the face of the celestial sphere on their own unique schedules, and those schedules do not appear to be related to each other. The same is true for ¤ve stars, each of which operates on its own timetable. These scof®aw wanderers were called just that by the Greeks—planetoi. All seven of these mavericks, though, move from east to west, just like the stars themselves. Why are these seven on different schedules? Are the ¤ve small lights more than stars? 7. The sun rises and sets in a different location on the horizon every day. Why? 8. All seven of the wandering lights stay in a particular stretch of the celestial sphere, as if they are forbidden to go too far north or south. Is that a path they must move along?

Introduction

9

9. There are 12 distinctive clusters of stars on that path followed by the wanderers, and the location of each wanderer can be described by its proximity to one of the clusters on any night. Do those cluster patterns have special meanings? 10. The stars are not all the same color. Why is that? 11. In addition to the cluster patterns, there is one huge streak of light, composed of countless stars squeezed together. What is that streak? 12. There is also one star cluster that is too tightly bunched together to be called a pattern. It is like a little ball of stars, and it is unique. What is it? 13. Sometimes the sun and moon turn dark red or even black out. Fortunately, they always recover from whatever that condition is, and the world is no worse for the event. What causes that? 14. Stars sometimes fall from the sky. They can be seen making bright streaks through the air, and sometimes they can be seen or heard to fall nearby. What are they? 15. Infrequently, a star with a tail will appear in the sky and over days or weeks will be seen at night, ¤nally vanishing, never to be seen again by the observers. What are these all about? 16. Sometimes a new star appears in the sky. What does that mean? Any one of these observations and ensuing speculations might have been the occasion for the creation of new cultural understanding, but there are apparently more factors than just a burst of creative insight involved in making a permanent increase in lore. Probably the most important is the notion of function. The new information has to have some signi¤cance in the lives of the people in the group, and among Native Americans the signi¤cance seems to be lodged most strongly in aspects of life that become celebrated (and remembered) in ritual and myth. The consequence of these re®ections for the study of ethnoastronomy is twofold: since the societal functions of astronomical insights are likely to be few in number, there will probably be only a few astronomical phenomena widely known within each tribal group at any given time, and the most important and longlived of them will be preserved in ritual and myth. Mere recognition of constellations does not indicate more than familiarity with the night sky, a condition that is likely to be widespread among people who live intimately with the natural order. Constellations that appear to be explained by or linked to stories or commemorated in rituals are more likely to be the asterisms that found a functional role in that society. Myths about stars are thus a justi¤able focus for examination in seeking to understand which asterisms have been considered functionally important, and why. Third Goal. What is the origin of the myths about constellations? Which ones

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introduction

began in Mesopotamia, and which originated in Mesoamerica? Which societies have been in®uenced by those myths? These are examples of origin questions that are probably hopeless, as generations of folklorists have discovered in a fruitless quest to locate the beginnings of myths and tales. One factor, of course, is the possible antiquity of some of the stories. Can anyone conceive of tracing a myth plot back to a Cro-Magnon creator? Moreover, since narratives are creations of human narrators, there is a sense in which a myth can be considered a new creation every time it is told. One of the clearest attributes of narratives in the oral tradition is that they are not stable. They are told differently by the same narrator at different times, by different narrators at the same time, and by different narrators at different times. It is a truism among folklorists that there is no “original” text, since every narrative event produces an original. Yet there is some kind of continuity involved, otherwise it would be impossible to say “I have heard that before.” Listeners have never heard that narrative before, so the recognition must be at a structural level, perhaps the plot or part of the plot. When the audience “corrects” the narrator—just as in modern American society children tell their parents they have got their favorite bedtime story wrong—it is invariably the plot that is in question or a detail of it. This is an intriguing problem. If there is something that constitutes a plot recognizable through time and countless unique renditions, a plot that can be recognized even in wide variations of details and episodes, then there is some justi¤cation for referring to a “type.” This is in the face of the fact that every narration is a unique performance by narrators who never tell “it” the same way twice. Figuring out the meaning of “it” is one of the great tasks and areas of signi¤cant achievement of the academic ¤eld of folklore. The endeavor has produced indexes of numbered motifs and separate volumes listing the plot “types” constructed of those motifs. All of the apparatus buttresses and makes possible the sort of research into narrative types that depends on the location of the thousands of recorded texts of narrations. Beyond the gathering of the raw texts lies the hope of identifying the synthetic structure—the “it”—that is held in the minds of many narrators and listeners through time and space. When there does emerge a narrative type that seems to be a viable construct, the correlative question insinuates itself—where did “it” come from?

Thinking about Method Anyone who has read a volume or two of Indian myths is aware of the rich complexity of lore that is available in the collections. Most readers have thought, if only in passing, that there are treasures in those volumes, if only some key could be found to unlock them. Without such a key, the texts tend to sit gathering dust in the archives. One of my ¤rst publications in the ¤eld of folklore

Introduction

11

was an inadequate attempt to express my concern over the problem of neglected archival collections (Lankford 1982). By an accident of history, I was an apprentice in folklore at the very time the discipline had turned its attention to the other side of oral tradition, the less-studied realms of performance, cultural function, approaches to analysis such as structuralism, and the dynamics of transmission. The narrative event was the focus, and the text itself, which had for many decades been the heart of the discipline of folklore, became relatively ignored, and the scholarship produced by the study of texts met with indifference. The result of this shift in the discipline has been a vastly enriched understanding of the complexities of oral tradition and the processes involved in it. The negative impact is that the achievements and long-range projects of the earlier collectors and theoreticians in the discipline have received less attention in the past four decades as professional attention has been diverted to other ways of analyzing oral tradition. Those achievements, however, were substantial. The roots of the discipline were embedded in centuries of scholarly attempts to write the biographies of texts and songs, from the Bible to Beowulf, from the Iliad to Indian epics in Sanskrit. Literary scholars working on the ancestries of European stories found themselves in the 19th century laboring in the same vineyards as American anthropologists trying to trace the prehistoric story of the mass of myths they had collected. European scholars of folktales began to develop a method of procedure: collecting every known recorded text of a single story, determining types, subtypes, and motifs on the basis of empirical examination, working out the rules for changes of texts and plots through time, and hypothesizing the ancestral forms and routes of dissemination. This list of tasks sounds much like the procedures of historical linguists, occupied with their remarkable analysis of European languages and the hypothetical reconstruction of Indo-European and its genealogical chart. The similarity of the procedures and goals of the two academic areas was no random coincidence, of course, just as it is not surprising that the Grimm brothers were equally interested in folktales and Indo-European linguistics.2 It was in Finland that the study of oral narrative found its primary codi¤ers, theoreticians, and ¤nancial support. As one scholar summarized it, “The Finnish method of folkloristics originated in the 1870s when Julius Krohn combined 1) the methods of text criticism, 2) evolutionary theory and 3) the observation that it is worth studying differences and similarities in the oral tradition in relation to the geographical distribution of recordings” (Virtanen 1986:222). With the creation of the essential archives, the sponsorship of collecting projects, and university environments for analysis and theorizing, Finland became a respected center for the study of oral tradition, although colleagues in folklore (or “popular antiquities”) were scattered through European universities. By the early 20th

12

introduction

century, the “Finnish method” was a widely accepted procedure for approaching the task of analyzing the extant texts and reconstructing the history of a narrative. The approach, also known as the “historic-geographic method” or the “comparative method” by those who see the emphasis on Finland as counterproductive, produced a number of classic studies of individual folktales, many of them published in Helsinki in the Folklore Fellows Communications series. These truly international projects of the historic-geographic school aided and encouraged the work of the scholars across Europe who, inspired by the spirit of nationalism, were trying to identify and reconstruct the history of their own local folk traditions. In the United States, there were many scholars who were following the development of the research in Europe with great interest. Literary ¤gures were becoming involved in collecting and interpreting oral traditions of the New World. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, inspired by the reconstruction of the Finnish epic Kalevala, attempted to provide the United States with a national epic poem “recreated” from Indian myth (“Hiawatha”). Speculative interpretation of myths as stemming from natural phenomena, the so-called solar interpretation school, was a European intellectual trend that was picked up by Americans, the most famous of whom was Daniel Brinton, who wrote several books on solar interpretation of Native American myths (Dorson 1965). The historic-geographic method was intended to counter such “armchair” speculations, and Franz Boas and his followers worked to provide hard data on which more empirical studies could be based. The American Folklore Society was founded only a few years after the American Anthropological Society, and by many of the same scholars. In such an environment, it seems inevitable that the Finnish method would become established in the United States, and it did. It found its champion in Stith Thompson, a proli¤c scholar who founded the Folklore Institute at Indiana University and became the leading American spokesperson for the historic-geographic method. Among his many scholarly works, Thompson published the six-volume Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, a revised and expanded version of the Finnish scholar Antti Aarne’s Types of the Folktale, Tales of the North American Indians, and The Folktale, all of which will become familiar to the reader in the course of the present work (Aarne and Thompson 1964; Thompson 1929, 1932, 1946). Over the decades, Thompson’s students produced master’s and doctoral theses that were historic-geographic studies of particular myths (Campbell 1931; Dye Meyncke 1927; Fisher 1930; Hayworth 1926; Marjerrison 1935; Winger 1930; Wycoco 1951). The ¤rst American doctorate in folklore was awarded to one of his students, Warren Roberts, whose dissertation was a historic-geographic study of a classic European folktale (Roberts 1953). It is an indication of the youth of this academic movement that

Introduction

13

Roberts was one of my teachers at Indiana University, and I had the good fortune to meet the still-alert Stith Thompson shortly before his death. Today few people are conversant with the theory and method of the historicgeographic school, largely because it is no longer the common basis of academic folkloristics. At the same time that folklore was achieving recognition as a separate academic discipline, many scholars were becoming disappointed with the results of what were increasingly seen as faulty presuppositions and untrustworthy conclusions. One major set of issues was focused in the search for the “Urform” of tales. In many case studies the ancestral trail led back to the IndoEuropean prehistoric reconstruction and pointed to India as a source of a plot. That coincidence of linguistics and folklore proved to be an invitation to overreaching. It began to appear that the hypothesized Indo-European culture was the motherlode of most European tales and myths, a situation that seemed increasingly simplistic. When the strong nationalistic trend of the day was added in, the method itself came under increasing scrutiny. Issues of too simplistic a set of assumptions about the nature and dynamics of diffusion were raised, and the always dif¤cult problem of dating the age of narrative plots, even when there were a few datable documents, became a stumbling block. Despite the impressive achievements of reconstructing the history and diffusion of a number of European tale types, the ultimate origins of European materials began to seem beyond the reach of scholarship, and the problems of deriving hypothetical Urforms raised automatic skepticism. As anthropologists, particularly in Africa and North and South America, began to provide extensive myth collections, the application of the historicgeographic method faced a major test. How can the method work without historic documents? For Native America, most of the myth texts were collected in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the earliest recorded narratives were from the 17th century. It quickly became a question of whether there can be any serious content for “historic” in “historic-geographic” in such circumstances. Thompson himself decided to take the test, and his (and his students’) application of the method to the Star Husband myth (Thompson 1965) is examined closely in Chapter 2 of this book. The earliest dating he offered for this widespread myth is the earliest date for the collection of a Star Husband text, which renders the historical aspect of the study less than useful. It became obvious that there is a vast difference between Thompson’s dating and William Gibbon’s ability to cite Finno-Ugric versions or A. T. Hatto’s references to 14th-century Chinese texts as ancestors of Native American constellation myths (Gibbon 1964; Hatto 1961). The outlook for the future of the comparative method for Native American materials, at least in regard to the historic dimension, was clearly dim. In 1985 a symposium of leading folklorists was convened to assess the situation

14

introduction

in the discipline vis-à-vis the comparative method. One of the scholars, Robert Georges, argued that despite the apparent abandonment of the comparative method by contemporary folklorists, the old scholarship and the new still agree on a number of basic assumptions about the nature of the material. His listing of the seven assumptions serves as an excellent summary of the basic principles of the comparative method: (1) the folklore data-base consists of a collection of discrete or isolable phenomena (individual folklore items); (2) these phenomena (individual folklore items) con¤gure into sets (genres) and sub-sets (types) because of the similarities they exhibit; (3) each given set (genre) and sub-set (type) is distinctive and readily distinguishable from all other sets (genres) and subsets (types); (4) members of any given sub-set (versions or variants of any given type) exhibit the similarities they do because they are derived from each other and ultimately from a single item (Urform or archetype) that had a single origin (monogenesis) and that served as the prototype or model for all the derivatives (versions and variants); (5) sub-set members (versions and variants of types) are similar to each other because of the common single source from which they ultimately derive, but different from each other because they are derivatives and hence are subject to modi¤cation or transformation (variation); (6) the hypothetical original (Urform or archetype) that served as the prototype or model of which members of a sub-set (versions and variants of a type) are conceived to be derivatives can be reconstructed on the basis of a determination of the nature and number of discernible similarities and differences among subset members (versions and variants); and (7) the locations and dates of creation or documentation of sub-set members (versions and variants of types) provide the bases for enabling one to hypothesize where and when the original (Urform or archetype) that served as the prototype or model for the sub-set (type) was created and how the sub-set (type) is distributed (has diffused) through space and time. [Georges 1986:88–89] The problem today with the method is largely rooted in Georges’ ¤nal two points. Numbers 6 and 7 are methodological procedures that call for skepticism in the best of circumstances, but the opening sequence of ¤ve assumptions about the nature of narratives and their transmission seems to remain valid and widely accepted, as Georges argued. These principles seem very dry in this sort of presentation, but for anyone who has attempted to make sense of multiple iterations of a narrative plot, accounting for the differences and similarities, they shed welcome light on the details of the processes involved. Even though trends in research change through

Introduction

15

time, these concepts continue to be useful for scholars dealing with oral narrative forms. It is reassuring that the insights of the early folklorists are still of service. As Georges concluded, “Though much has changed in folklore studies over time, the underlying assumptions about what folklore is, and the concepts and constructs that guide inquiry in terms of that conceptualization, have remained remarkably stable” (Georges 1986:99). The newer approaches have added more concepts and procedures to the list, and they have revealed more dimensions of textual material and oral processes to be explored, but the materials gathered by the pioneers of the historic-geographic school are still in place, available for new kinds of questions. The archives still exist, waiting for scholars eager to try out their intellectual keys to open the treasure boxes of narrative history. This current archival project in ethnoastronomy was conceived out of that concern during my graduate school years. The key I had envisioned was modeled on the comparative research of archaeology. The location of a distinctive artifact is only of limited use in the analysis of a site, but the artifact becomes of much greater signi¤cance if it can be brought into a larger framework in which the similar forms from other sites can be organized and compared. The distribution pattern of the artifacts offers implications about prehistoric trade and cultural af¤liations. It can suggest a time when there was a connection between peoples that has not been visible in the historic period. The function of the artifacts can open questions of former social structures whose existence could not now be surmised except by the aid of such archaeological discoveries. This kind of inquiry asks about the origin of the artifact, but it is a limited question. It is not necessarily concerned about an ultimate source, the creation of the narrative/artifact original type itself—an Urform. It is usually content to ask the more modest questions: What is the recent history of this narrative? Where and by whom was this particular artifact made? How did it get here? This sort of inquiry goes only to the next level of generalization: What conclusions may we draw from its presence in this location? There are problems in lifting this research model wholesale from archaeology and transporting it to folk narrative, of course. For one thing, the material artifact is ¤xed, unchanging, in the ground, and it can be dated and located on a map. The myth type is never ¤xed, and its historical appearances are limited to the date of discovery (recording), which in most cases is only a century or so in time depth. For another thing, the artifact has a stratigraphic record, so its changes through time can be studied. The myth has only the brief history of its collected texts, a few centuries at best. It is hazardous to attempt to reconstruct the evolutionary development of a millennium or so of a myth type from two centuries of occurrences. To put the problem simply, it is as if the archaeologist were provided with a collection of artifacts created only in the past century, all

16

introduction

earlier examples having disintegrated in the soil, and assigned the task of reconstructing the history of the artifact type and the societies that used it through the past millennium. One major problem is that narratives tend to re®ect the details of the life of the society in which they are told. Since social structure and details of daily life change through time, the narratives can be expected to change accordingly. Greg Keyes provided an important warning against the assumption that myths are static. By comparing a 17th-century recording of an Apalachee myth with a 19thcentury version, he was able to demonstrate the concomitant changes in the myth as the society changed (Keyes 1994). His study remains a classic warning that we should expect alterations in narratives and remain cautious in drawing conclusions about ancient societies on the basis of texts collected centuries later. At the same time, a fact that is less often observed needs to be pointed out: despite the major social changes and the passage of time, the Apalachee were still telling a myth that could be recognized as belonging to the same plot type. If that had not been the case, there could have been no comparison. The challenge of historical use of myths is daunting, and it has undoubtedly restricted the number of researchers willing to invest time in such a project, since the outcomes seem so limited. Yet such a study might well produce useful insights into the recent history of the myth plot and its narrators. That possibility seemed to me to make at least an experimental trial in folklore-as-history worth attempting, using American Indian myth collections from the past 150 years. Thus in the early 1970s I embarked on a lifelong research project that was a historic-geographic anachronism attempting to derive information about unrecorded prehistoric events and societal relationships on the basis of myths collected from the descendants (Lankford 1975). My reasoning was that since the Southeastern tribes were known to have experienced several major cultural impacts in the past few centuries, their myths in recent times might still bear the imprints of those non-indigenous in®uences. My ¤rst endeavor was a Southeastern myth study. Using primarily John R. Swanton’s Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians (Swanton 1929), I selected several texts from the Creeks for comparative study. One was a myth of a man who turned into a snake, selected simply because Swanton had collected a large number of separate texts from various narrators. Another group of texts was those that dealt with maize; since maize is known archaeologically to be an intrusive phenomenon, it might be that each advent of maize into the Muskhogean world (there were probably multiple occurrences) was accompanied by a myth of maize. Such myths could be useful evidence of the prehistoric transmission processes. I had no idea of the complexities I would encounter in gathering the texts and charting the distributions. I was also too inexperienced in textual analysis to realize how complicated the chemistry of myth construction really is, and I was

Introduction

17

soon overwhelmed with variants of types, with compounds of myths into new super-types, with motifs that substituted, apparently randomly, for other motifs (“allomotifs”), and with just plain degradation of memory. Some of the material was published in limited form later (Lankford 1987), but the results were not conclusive. Nonetheless, there were some heartening outcomes. I learned that Southeastern myths bore marks of in®uence from across the Caribbean, from the Southwest, and from the Plains. I was unexpectedly impressed by the in®uences from Africa, presumably from the historic era of slavery. Most of these connections had been noted by earlier scholars, but all together they convinced me that the historic Creek myth corpus might best be described as a stew composed of separate ingredients that still bear the marks of their exotic origins. The study was for me, but not necessarily for readers, a persuasive argument that at least some limited historical conclusions could be drawn from the patterns revealed by historic-geographic study of myths. One of the major problems I encountered in reaching ¤rmer historical conclusions was the lack of veri¤cation from other sources. The archaeological history of maize in North America and the Southeast is still being written, and the connection of archaeological sites with ethnic descendants is still being debated. What would happen in this kind of project, I wondered, if the confusion of unique historical events were reduced in importance? If the experiences that lay behind the myths were natural rather than historical, would the mythic patterns be clearer and more easily interpretable? I had begun to think about that during my graduate school research, for I was impressed by the astronomical information I encountered. As I wrestled with the complexities of prehistoric events, it dawned on me that the distribution patterns of star myths might be a useful study. One variable would be turned into a constant, for everyone in North America gets the same sky and they always have. In theory, the myths a tribe developed or adapted would re®ect both what stars they considered important and the other peoples with whom they had been associated. It seemed a project worth doing. As a college teacher in subsequent years, though, I found there was never enough time to undertake a research task of this magnitude. Thirty years later, in retirement, I have the time. This book is the result. A major procedural task of the research is to identify particular clusters of tribes that used the same myths to “explain” constellations and planets. Implicit in Georges’ seven concepts outlined above is the notion that within a large distribution of people who tell a myth type there is likely to be a smaller number of them whose narratives display a strong similarity, a version restricted to them in the comparative layout. This grouping by similarity, termed an “oicotype” by C. W. von Sydow, who developed the concept, serves as an indicator of historical proximity or other means of shared transmission (von Sydow 1948).

18

introduction

Thus a popular, widespread tale type—The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, for example—might be expected to demonstrate smaller clusters of people who told the same variation in episode or motif. Several distinctive oicotypes of the same general myth type would be of use in identifying tribes who were participating in different cultural traditions. Enough similarity found by various myth type studies—repetition of the same peoples in oicotypal groupings—might lead to useful hypotheses about movements and relationships in the past, as well as provocative speculations about the social functions of the myths involved. As it turned out in the writing of this book, the cultural history provided by archaeology, rather than being supported by the folklore research, proved to be a useful aspect of the method itself. Several rules of thumb (hypothetical axioms, perhaps) of American anthropology became part of the setting of strategy in the research: the Cherokee-Iroquois prehistoric separation, the split of the Arikara from the Pawnee, the separation of the Crow from the Hidatsa, and the ancestral relationship of the Winnebago, Iowa, Oto, and Missouri. Anthropology offered these and other hints about prehistoric events that may have in®uenced the diffusion of myths. This volume is therefore a collection of separate studies. The ¤rst two studies, Chapters 1 and 2, seek to introduce the general topic of ethnoastronomy. Chapter 1 presents four summaries of the ethnoastronomy of particular tribes in order to provide the reader with a sense of what an ethnoastronomical corpus might look like in a social group. The outlining of four of them gives a hint of the diversity that can occur from tribe to tribe in their regard for the celestial world. One sad fact emerges from the comparison: there seems no question that much of the ethnoastronomical lore has been lost, both by lack of ethnographic collection and by cultural forces that destroyed the bearers of the traditions. Early in the creation of this book it became clear that strict adherence to an organization by constellation would produce more confusion than was necessary. The result is that the organizing principle is a combination of constellation and tale type. While this has not always been followed, the tale types themselves will be frequently observed to be the major method of presentation of the comparative data. Chapter 2, “The Star Husband,” is a good example of this organization, as it focuses on a much-studied tale type. By contrast, Chapters 3 and 4 proved to be more easily organized by the various tale types involved in separate approaches to the Morning Star. These two chapters began as a single chapter that grew too large, so it was separated into two for organizational clarity. Chapter 5 follows the same procedure to examine the different myths used to explain Ursa Major and related stars. Chapter 6 focuses on the Pleiades and, again, several types come into the discussion. Chapter 7, “The Star Women,” is once again a study of a single myth type. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 deal with various aspects of the Milky Way and its related constellations. They were originally developed as

Introduction

19

part of a study of prehistoric Native American iconography, and some of the material and data has been published elsewhere in other articles (Lankford 2007a, 2007b, 2007c; Reilly and Garber 2007). Those insights have been summarized in this presentation, but they have been developed along different paths to solve different problems. With those chapters the explorations come to an end, not because there are no more myths and stars to be thought about but because what has been accomplished in Chapters 2 through 10 is suf¤cient for this study. Chapter 11 is thus an attempt at synthesis: What insights have been gained from this set of historic-geographic studies? Can the geographic distribution and the identi¤cation of alternate types and oicotypes lead to some historic understandings? Can any boundaries between astronomical belief complexes be discerned? Throughout the chapters different ways of thinking about myths will be introduced and some different methodological avenues will be explored from time to time. I have not written this book for folklorists but for any reader with an enthusiasm for the night sky and human ways of thinking about it. For this reason I have avoided jargon as much as possible. Where it has been desirable for the reader to learn new concepts and terms, I have tried to make the process painless. As much as I would have liked to include the full English translations of the myth texts as given by the original narrators, the length of most has made that prohibitive. The reader will have to be content with summaries of plots in most cases, but enough bibliographic apparatus has been included to make it fairly simple for the interested reader to locate complete texts. Without a living narrator, reading the texts themselves is the only way to approach the narrator’s original intention in telling the story—to entertain and teach the hearer important truths, all in the wondrous and delightful garb of myth.

1

Four Ethnoastronomies

Ethnographers have the responsibility of recording all aspects of the culture of a particular people. That, of course, is an impossible task, for any human culture is far too complex ever to be captured or understood in toto, even by the people who live in it. Yet most of the available ethnographic information for the societies of the world has been gathered and recorded by individuals who were willing to undertake the impossible task. One of the problems that comes with individual recording, though, is that each ethnography re®ects the knowledge and interests of the ethnographer. This inevitable constraint on understanding the culture of peoples now gone or forever altered means that there are omissions in the presentation. A major omission in most ethnographies is the local understanding of celestial phenomena, or ethnoastronomy. The reason for this is simple—it is fair to say that few ethnographers were particularly interested in astronomy, and without a conscious concern and a certain amount of knowledge, they were unlikely to ask questions that would elicit astronomical information. The result is that most ethnoastronomical lore has been captured only incidentally in the recording of religious beliefs, rituals, and oral traditions. Students of culture in recent years have attempted to collect from informants and recover from the recorded material enough information to permit the reconstruction of the astronomical understanding of particular societies. A number of studies of this nature have been published in the past two decades. As with ethnographies in general, the best approach is to study each society one at a time, because an astronomical system is peculiar to the individual society. In doing this, there has been an emphasis on tribes of the Southwest and West, but a

Four Ethnoastronomies

21

number of studies have been made of the ethnoastronomies of people who are part of the focal area for this volume, the Eastern Woodlands and Plains. A few of them will be summarized in this chapter to provide a sense of how various constellations are understood and how they function in the society. This brief introduction will also illustrate the important fact that ethnoastronomies are individualized, differing even from those of close neighbors in various ways. The single best ethnoastronomical study for North America is a study of the beliefs of the most astronomically oriented people known, the Skidi Pawnee. Published in 1982, Chamberlain’s When Stars Came Down to Earth: Cosmology of the Skidi Pawnee Indians of North America is a massive study. Utilizing multiple ethnographic sources, including ritual and mythological records from more than a century of contact, Von Del Chamberlain brought together the lore and usages of the Skidi, then undertook to identify the asterisms referred to in the records. Even with his outstanding detective work, the Pawnee ethnoastronomy is not and can never be complete, because at times Chamberlain simply had to admit defeat or speculate about an identi¤cation. It is an impressive piece of work, and a summary of its conclusions ought to be this book’s ¤rst demonstration of ethnoastronomers at work. It isn’t, however—even a summary of Chamberlain’s book is daunting, and the reader should not be deprived of the excitement of examining the work directly. Instead, a survey of the astronomical lore of the Arikara will be offered. They are close kin of the Skidi Pawnee, but the histories of the two groups have been different for several centuries. In recent years Douglas R. Parks has accomplished a major collecting task, recording myths and tales from modern Arikaras, in some cases descendants of people who were interviewed a century ago (Parks 1991, 1996). Although the astronomical lore is studied piecemeal in later chapters of this book, Parks’s publications contain most of the relevant information, and their ethnoastronomy will be summarized here. That survey will be followed by even shorter summaries of a Crow ethnoastronomy, an older Cherokee study, and an ethnographic entry for the Creeks (respectively, McCleary 1997, Hagar 1906, and Swanton 1928a; see Figure 1.1 for locations of these tribes).

Arikara By the beginning of the 20th century the Arikara had reached the nadir of their population size. In 1905 they numbered only 37, a shocking reduction from an estimated 10,000 only two centuries before. Continuing warfare with the Sioux and smallpox epidemics from the whites had taken their toll. It is impossible to assess the degree of the cultural loss the Arikara sustained with their population loss, but it was still possible in 1903 for James R. Murie to provide George A. Dorsey with a volume of Arikara myth texts (Dorsey 1904b). When Parks col-

22

ch apter 1

Figure 1.1. Location of the four tribal ethnoastronomies.

lected texts from the rebounding Arikara population in the 1980s, he was able to record 176 texts from a group of narrators in North Dakota (Parks 1991). Those collections make it possible to attempt an assessment of the ethnoastronomical lore of the Arikara, even though their history is tangled and their population loss makes it likely that the information that still remains is only a shadow of what formerly existed. Such an attempt is important for several reasons. The Arikara are the northernmost group of speakers of the Caddoan language, and the collections of Caddoan myth texts are signi¤cant. Dorsey, under the auspices of the Field Columbian Museum, published, in addition to the Arikara collection, two volumes of Pawnee myths and one each for the Wichita and Caddo (Dorsey 1904a, 1904c, 1905b, 1906). Those volumes make it possible to identify aspects of the Arikara corpus that are consistent with those of their fellow Caddoan speakers. Dorsey noted that the Arikara separated from the Skidi Pawnee, whose dialect is very close to Arikara, in the 1830s, but Parks later put that in clearer context, noting that the separation marked the end of a fairly recent living arrangement rather than an original split: “The original group or groups who ultimately became the Arikaras were the vanguard of those Caddoans who migrated north to Nebraska and beyond and who were settled along

Four Ethnoastronomies

23

the Missouri River in South Dakota in the eighteenth century when Europeans ¤rst encountered them” (Parks 1996:22). Over against the Caddoan af¤liation stands the long-term proximity of the Arikaras to the Siouan-speaking Mandan and Hidatsa, especially through the 19th century. So close was the relationship—geographically and culturally—that the three tribes are collectively known as the Plains Village Indians. They were agricultural and hunting societies, venerating both maize and the buffalo, and they were so successful that they usually produced enough surplus to be important participants in the Plains trading network. The Arikaras’ af¤nity to the Mandan and Hidatsa in the Missouri River valley may be expected to have resulted in some sharing of cultural and mythic materials, and that sharing may well re®ect the common Mississippian era agricultural background. For both of these connections there would have been some marks of ethnoastronomical understanding, for the Mandans, Hidatsas, and Pawnees all retained hints of rich astronomical lore, although probably different in makeup. What the Arikaras believed about the celestial realm is therefore important, for it may shed some light on both the range of possibilities in the Upper Missouri region and the processes of adaptation of astronomical lore. Creation The creation myths are the ¤rst place to look for an understanding of the way a people thought of the sky. Parks did not collect any of those texts for the Arikara in the late 20th century, but it is not clear whether his informants no longer knew the stories or whether they declined to share their knowledge with him. The creation narratives were well collected at the end of the 19th century, however, and so the origin stories, at least at that date, are available (Dorsey 1904b: 11–35). The Arikaras reveal their Caddoan background by af¤rming an Emergence and Migration myth as their understanding of their origin. People who trace their ancestry to a world or worlds beneath the present earth are unlikely to place a primary importance on a celestial realm that was invisible to their preemergence ancestors. Despite that geographical reality, the Arikaras af¤rm Nesaru, the chief divinity, as being celestial. Further, the major divinities in the origin story are Mother Corn, who is sent from the celestial realm by Nesaru, and Red Star, Yellow Star, and the Big Black Meteoric Star. In that same myth text, the sacred pipe was sent for smoking to the “gods” of the semicardinal directions, an af¤rmation of the quadripartite structure of the cosmos and the accompanying Powers of the four world quarters (Dorsey 1904b:18–20). All of this is very similar to the Pawnee understanding, and the Big Black Meteoric Star is an incontrovertible link. An Emergence and Migration myth usually presupposes the existence of the

24

ch apter 1

earth from which the people emerge. In this case, it also assumes the existence of the celestial realm and its divinities. It gives the plot a strong celestial twist by having the whole story governed from the sky, from whence comes even the agricultural ¤gure of Mother Corn, who serves as the leader of the emergence and the culture hero. As if to underline the schizophrenic nature of the Arikara origin myth, the opening text collected by Murie contains the Earth-Diver episode, which usually posits a cosmos composed of sky and water, since the EarthDiver focuses on the creation of the earth-island that ®oats upon the water. Aware of the philosophical incongruity, Dorsey commented that this is “a story of origin not known to any of the other bands of Caddoan stock, and it is possible that this account is due to foreign in®uence” (Dorsey 1904b:6). It should be noted, however, that the Arikaras were not unique in having this problem, for the coexistence of myths of the Earth-Diver and Emergence can be observed in the myths of a number of peoples of the Eastern Woodlands; some of them solved the problem by introducing the Flood after the Emergence. Whatever the earth was at the Emergence was buried beneath the ®oodwaters, thus necessitating a new creation of land—hence the Earth-Diver. Nonetheless, the problem does point to a dual mythic background, a situation that calls for explanation wherever it appears. Star Husband That dual background for the Arikaras was made plain by the only other overtly stellar material that was published by Dorsey. The myth of the woman who married a star, generally known as the Star Husband, was presented at length (two texts) in the Murie collection (Dorsey 1904b:45–60). The basic plot tells of a journey of a woman who wished she could marry a star; she ascended to the sky and got her wish, but after the birth of a son she discovered a hole in the ground through which she could see the earth. Eager to return to her earthly home, she tied together a long string and descended through the hole, but the string was too short. While she hung there, her husband dropped a pebble that killed her but left her son alive. He was found by an Old Woman who reared him, and he became a hero who killed various dangerous creatures. This widespread myth will be studied at length in its own chapter, but it is instructive at this point to examine the range of presentation in the Arikara texts by themselves. In addition to the two 1903 texts, two more examples were recorded by Parks (1991:575–89, 649–56). Below are brief summaries of the four texts and a few notes on them. 1. The star is identi¤ed as “a bright, red star in the heavens toward the east.” The woman followed a porcupine up a tree to get to the sky world. The middle-aged star-man married her, and their son had “the picture of a star

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upon his forehead.” An old woman helped her create a rope of buffalo sinews. The aggressive young boy, when his adoptive grandmother made for him a bow and arrows, killed her blackbird helpers, her serpent husband, and her pet bear, but she resuscitated them. After an adventure with four “wonderful men” in the southwest in which they imprisoned the boy in a tree with a buffalo fetus, he killed them by means of his ®ute. Then he killed dangerous snakes, except for one that became humanity’s enemy. Having made the world safe for humans, the boy died (told by YellowBear; Dorsey 1904b:45–55). 2. The star is identi¤ed as a “little bright star.” The woman awakened in the sky. After the hole was found, Old Spider Woman helped her create a rope of sinew and cobweb. There is little change in the Grandson story: after the adventures with the birds, bear, and serpent husband, the boy had an amicable encounter with the four men. He killed the snakes. A reason for the boy’s fear of the fetus is offered: “it was the time of the year when all young animals are as yet unborn, and the cluster of stars to which the boy’s father belonged is never seen at this time to come up with the rest. The boy knew that his father could not be present to help him, and so he did not dare to do anything to help himself ” (told by White-Bear; Dorsey 1904b:56–60). 3. The star is identi¤ed as one that “shines brightly.” The woman followed the porcupine up a tree. The boy was born with “the image of a star on his forehead.” Old Spider Woman helped her make a sinew rope. After the descent, the boy had the same adventures with the blackbirds, mountain lions, bears, and serpent grandfather. The boy was treed by the Two Men, but he killed them by use of his ®ute, as in the ¤rst text. After his adventure with the snakes, the boy went to the south (told by Ella P. Waters; Parks 1991:575–89). 4. The woman liked the brightest star, “the one that changes colors.” She awoke in the sky world married to the star-man. Spider Woman made her a cord. The boy killed the birds and the water monster husband. With the help of his star father, the boy conquered the snakes (told by Dan Howling Wolf; Parks 1991:649–56). There are several conclusions to be drawn from comparison of these four texts. First, the myth is still being told in the contemporary world, and it is essentially the same as what was current almost a century earlier. Of course, there is the possibility that the preservation of the myth in written form has been in®uential in the maintenance of the oral tradition, for it is likely that Parks’s informants had access to Dorsey’s volume. Second, there is signi¤cant variation among the texts of different informants,

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even though they were contemporaries and neighbors. For example, the method of transport of the woman to the sky differs—the ¤rst text is an example of what is referred to as the “Porcupine Redaction,” while in the second text the woman simply awakens in the sky world. Curiously, the third and fourth examples show the same variation, despite the time lag. Third, Spider Woman is the celestial helper in texts 2, 3, and 4, so there is basic agreement, even though text 1 shows that the identi¤cation of a character can be withheld from an otherwise detailed account. Fourth, the identity of the Star Husband is not given in any of the texts, and the descriptions of the star vary from red to changing colors. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the informants did not know the identity of the star and, perhaps, that it did not matter. When the Star Husband myth is connected to the Grandson myth (the compound form is not universal), though, it does matter, because the star is the father of a major mythic hero and in the fourth text is even described as helping his son in his exploits. The importance of the stellar father was underscored in texts 1 and 3, because the boy was described as bearing a star on his forehead. If Grandson was an important ¤gure in the belief system, and especially if there was ritual involved, then his connection to divinities was probably signi¤cant. That consideration leads to the conclusion that by the end of the 19th century either the religious dimension of the Arikara myth had atrophied or the myth was never of great religious signi¤cance to them. The latter possibility cannot be dismissed, because the distribution of the Star Husband/ Grandson myth suggests that the Arikara learned it from the Mandan and Hidatsa—it is not found among the Pawnee, but it is an important religious myth for the two Siouan tribes. The two myths discussed—the creation myth and the Star Husband—are the only stellar offerings of the Murie-Dorsey collection. Parks, however, collected more astronomical lore in the late 20th century. Below is a summary of what he found. Long Teeth and His Brother This well-known myth of the twin adventurers, generically referred to as Lodge Boy and Thrown Away (LBTA for short), was collected three times by Parks, but not by Murie. Even so, it was in 1903 current among the Arikaras, because it had been recorded by Hoffman a decade earlier (Hoffman 1892). Among the Parks narratives, the one by Alfred Morsette gives a clear outline of the basic Long Teeth plot (Parks 1991:137–47). An old woman with ¤re moccasins caused a prairie ¤re that burned up a village and its inhabitants. A hunter returned home to ¤nd his wife dead, but he recovered her unborn child, throwing the afterbirth into the water. Five years later he and his son discovered another boy, the son from the afterbirth, living nearby. After several attempts, the boy was captured

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and tamed by having his long teeth ¤led down and being made to vomit up the food of his wild diet. The boys engaged in various adventures against the instructions of their father. They killed the ¤re-moccasin woman and her granddaughters, a bad buffalo, and a family of “large red birds” (usually thunderbirds), all to the consternation of their father. Long Teeth was then abducted by an arm reaching through a hole in the sky. He was placed on a scaffold for slow roasting, but his brother, Drinks Brains Soup, went to the sky in the form of an arrow and rescued him. The stellar connection comes in at this point: “The two reached the hole in the sky. They came ®ying down to earth. The long arm with the hand was coming after them. And when the hand reached close to them, Drinks Brains cut it. He cut the hand off. Now that is the reason there is an image of a hand outlined by stars in the sky” (Parks 1991:147). The second text, by Esther Perkins, is essentially the same, but it omits the mother’s death at the beginning (giving no explanation of Long Teeth’s origin) and the long arm episode at the end. The result is that the story is still identi¤able as LBTA, but it has no celestial connection, since neither a journey to the sky nor the hand constellation is mentioned (Parks 1991:793–800). The ¤nal Parks text, from Lillian Brave, demonstrates again the freedom of narrators to alter the structure of myths. In this case, she has taken the compound myth of the Star Husband and Grandson, already discussed, and made it a triple compound by adding in the Long Teeth myth (Parks 1991:474–84). Brave’s ingenious reconstruction has Long Arm as the star-husband who took the woman to the sky by means of the arm. She and her friend (who was not taken to the sky) both had babies, and both women were killed. The old woman reared the local boy (rather than Grandson), then caught the wild Long Teeth, who was domesticated by being forced to vomit up all the shells and other things he had eaten. Drinks Brains resuscitated his mother, and the two unrelated boys had the same basic adventures as in the other narratives. Long Arm—the father!—took his son to the sky and began to roast him. Drinks Brains, after going to the sky as an arrow, rescued Long Teeth with the amputation of many arms, but there is no reference to a stellar constellation. Despite the variation among these three narratives, Parks af¤rms that the story is “one of the most popular Arikara myths” (Parks 1991:137). The Long Arm episode links it to the Mandan and Hidatsa, both of whom tell the LBTA myth with the episode. This link to the Siouan Missouri River tribes will be discussed further in Chapter 9, which examines the LBTA myth and the Hand constellation. The Girl Who Became a Bear Parks collected four narratives of The Girl Who Became a Bear myth, which has a double etiological function. It has the localized geographical task of explaining

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the origin of Devil’s Tower, a spectacular volcanic formation in Wyoming, and the astronomical job of explaining the unique star cluster, the Pleiades. The basic plot is a widespread one, and Alfred Morsette’s text is a good illustration. A young woman was transformed into a bear and killed her family and other people in the village, saving her young sister to be her slave. When their brothers returned from hunting and found the disaster, they set out to kill their bearsister. When they learned her secret vulnerability, they killed her, but she was resuscitated and chased them. They cast objects behind them that created hindrances for the bear (the Obstacle Flight motif ), but they were ¤nally forced to climb onto a low rock, which miraculously grew into the sky (Devil’s Tower). They were saved from the bear, but they were unable to get down. They became stars and stayed together as the cluster stars (Pleiades; Parks 1991:146–52). The second text, from Ella P. Waters, is essentially the same and notes, “They are the stars that are bunched together” (Parks 1991:592–95). The third text follows suit, except the men are the girls’ uncles. The narrator, Matthew White Bear, concludes, “Then they became stars. They are the ones. The little star is the girl; the others are the six men. They are the ones who are seven in number. These are the ones that are clustered” (Parks 1991:733–36). The ¤nal text has some differences. Eleanor Chase replaces the bear transformation with a real bear, the brothers/uncles become seven girls, and the Obstacle Flight is missing. The result is a pared-down version in which seven girls ®ed from a bear to a stone that rose into the sky, where they became “seven stars in the sky” (Parks 1991:775–77). The Pleiades thus were accounted for by a standard myth that was linked, even in the simpli¤ed version, to the Devil’s Tower. The wider distribution will be examined in Chapter 6, which discusses the Pleiades. The Young Woman Who Swallowed a Stone In this myth, another from Alfred Morsette, the sister of four men swallowed a stone from the creek. She became pregnant and gave birth to a boy. His uncles disappeared, killed by an old woman, but the boy found her, killed her by burning her heart, and took his uncles’ skins back home, where he resuscitated them in a sweat lodge. Years later, the boy became a stone, but his uncles and mother went “up into the sky to become stars.” The constellation is not speci¤ed (Parks 1991:166–70). Red Dog and the Four Stars A myth about a man who had the power to call the buffalo also refers to an unidenti¤ed constellation. Four men frequently visited a village, bringing meat. One of them married a young woman, but when she slept with another man, Red Dog, the four men left and did not return. With them went the village’s fortunes in hunting. After a period of famine, Red Dog succeeded in offering

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some fat that called the buffalo. The village’s prosperity returned, and Red Dog married the woman. The narrator concludes, “These men were stars! There were four of these stars. They stand over there in the southern heavens” (Parks 1991:247–50). The result of this survey of the Arikara myth corpus is a slender astronomy. The Pawnee Powers of the world quarters, at least Red Star, Yellow Star, and Big Black Meteoric Star, are mentioned. Although the identity of the Star Husband is not given, the description of the bright red star and the star that changes colors suggests that a speci¤c star was intended. The Twins are not seen as stars themselves, but their myth identi¤es a Hand constellation. The Pleiades are accounted for in the myth of the bear-woman, while a four-star constellation in the south is mentioned in the story of Red Dog. Another constellation, composed of ¤ve stars but not otherwise identi¤ed, is embedded in the myth of Stone Boy. All told, that provides world-quarter stars, a red star, the Pleiades, a Hand constellation, and two unidenti¤ed constellations.

Crow The Crow tribe of the northern Plains is an excellent illustration of the power of historical change in Native American life. They have clear memories of their sharing a common culture with the Hidatsa just a few centuries ago. Their ancestors were agriculturalists, growing crops in the valleys of the Missouri River and its tributaries for centuries. In the 17th or 18th century, however, they moved away from their kin, adopting horses and a buffalo-hunting culture appropriate for the Plains. As Siouan speakers, they had ties to other Plains people, such as the Dakota, but they accommodated themselves to their Algonkian-speaking neighbors and their customs. The Crow are thus a model of the transformation process of a farming group that has become a successful hunting culture. Like other Plains migrant tribes, they retain traces of their agricultural background in their folklore and rituals, but even those basic elements from the past have been changed in the years of adaptation. Robert Lowie found the Crow model so important that he devoted an entire research paper to their transformation process, in which the religious beliefs themselves underwent adaptation (Lowie 1942). In 1993 Timothy McCleary, a teacher at Little Big Horn College, initiated the Crow Astronomy Project. It was designed to collect from knowledgeable Crow elders their understanding of the astronomical beliefs of the Crow tribe, in order to present to new generations the wisdom of their ancestors. The result was an excellent survey of Crow ethnoastronomy called The Stars We Know (McCleary 1997). He discovered that the 20 Crow elders who were interviewed did not share

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precisely the same body of lore, so he ended up presenting the constellations in a rank order of familiarity to the 20 informants. The following is a summary of that knowledge. The universally known constellation is Ursa Major. It is known primarily as the Seven Brothers, a reference to the myth that explains its origin. The focus of the story is usually on the sister of the boys, who has her own separate story. After several adventures, usually involving a chase in which the boys and their sister tried to escape capture by throwing behind them magical obstacles, the siblings decided to become stars and ¤nd safety and permanence in the sky. There they can be seen every night, revolving around Polaris, “the star that does not move around.” Together, Polaris and the Seven Brothers function as a clock in the northern sky, since the revolution cycle is 24 hours. The Crow also use an alternate version of the myth, one that features Seven Bulls, to talk about the same constellation when the focus is on the sweat lodge. The Crow understanding of Ursa Major thus provides a good example of how different myths or version of myths can be attached to the same constellation without cognitive con®ict. The Bright Star was the son of the Star Husband and the woman who fell through a hole in the sky. The Crow Grandson myth follows that story with the lengthy adventures of the young hero. He ended his exciting earthly life by becoming the Morning Star, which is Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. It, too, has a calendrical function, for its annual disappearance from the night sky tells the Crow that spring is near. Although the planet Venus (and perhaps others) can also be called Morning Star, Crazy Star (because of the color changes displayed), and Day Star when it appears on its own schedule, there are no stories about it. The asterism is simply recognized. Part of Orion is understood to be the Hand Star, marking the beginning and end of winter. Its charter myth is the famous story of the Twins, whose many adventures include a con®ict with an evil ¤gure, Red Woman. In trying to kill her, the boys cut her in pieces. They cut off her hand and hung it in the sky as a perpetual memory of the event. Its cultural or symbolic meaning is variously interpreted by narrators within the tribe and in other Plains tribes (Goodman 1992). Where They Take Women is what the Crow call the Milky Way. The reference is to a racy Coyote myth that involves a sexual adventure that left a trail of stars in the sky. The Gathering of Stars is the name applied to the Pleiades, but there do not appear to be any current stories or functions for it in Crow life. The list of Crow constellations of importance to the Crow at the end of the 20th century is not lengthy, but it probably does not include all those of former

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signi¤cance to their ancestors. The modern list includes Polaris and Ursa Major, Sirius, Venus, the Hand, the Milky Way, and the Pleiades. This is a short list, but it re®ects an excellent collection from modern Crow informants.

Cherokee The Cherokees are members of the Iroquoian language family, so their historic location in the Southeast indicates a complex prehistoric af¤liation with Iroquoian peoples far to the north. While their culture and mythology re®ect their long-time proximity to Muskhogean-speaking peoples in the Southeast, elements of their Iroquoian af¤liation are still traceable in their lore. When the Removal took most of the nation to Oklahoma during the opening decades of the 19th century, some Cherokees managed to remain in the Appalachian region, becoming known as the Eastern Band. Both the main portion in Oklahoma and the Eastern Band were interviewed by several ethnographers and collectors, and by 1906 it was possible for Stanley Hagar to publish a study of their astronomical traditions, based largely on James Mooney’s material but supplemented by his own research. The information he was able to gather is outlined below. Since the Cherokees have traditionally believed that their ancestors became stars in the sky at their death, it is likely that they have long been conscious of the stars and their behaviors. Nonetheless, Hagar found that “the modern Cherokee assign names to but few of the stars and constellations” (Hagar 1906:355). Contrary to the Creek tradition in the Southeast, they saw the Sun as a female, with the Moon as her male brother. That may re®ect the power of the incest episode that they share with a widely scattered group of tribes. The black marks that the woman used to identify her mysterious lover end up as the distinctive marks on the moon (Mooney 1900:256–57). The Great Star played an important calendrical role in the Cherokee year. Hagar said that Venus was most likely the Great Star but that the Cherokees made no distinction between Morning Star and Evening Star. The planetary identity of the Great Star seems questionable, though, since Venus’s 584-day cycle seems hard to correlate with the annual solar calendar. Hagar mentioned a myth fragment that seems to indicate a ¤xed stellar position for the Great Star: the Great Rabbit, a horned ¤gure, told the Cherokees to watch for the rising of Great Star; when it rose, seven days later the Pleiades would rise. The Great Star was the “messenger to announce the coming of the sun; the Seven Stars to warn them of the approach of the Deluge” (Hagar 1906:361). While this may be interpreted as a once-only event—the beginning of the Great Star and the Pleiades—it sounds more like the description of an annual observation to be made by the leaders of the Cherokees. If the description is examined in the light of the celestial movement, the Great Star might be identi¤ed as Capella, rising

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at dawn in the north-northeast about a week before Pleiades appears in the eastnorth east. Even so, Capella, though a ¤rst-magnitude star, does not seem bright enough to merit the name Great Star, and so Venus as the once-only precursor of the Pleiades may be the correct interpretation. In either case, the two asterisms, Morning Star and the Pleiades, seem to have been linked in Cherokee ceremonial life, for Hagar noted that “[i]n ancient times there was a dance each month in honor of the morning star and the Pleiades” (Hagar 1906:359). The Pleiades has its own myth, a standard Eastern Woodlands myth in which a group of boys dance into the sky (Mooney 1900:258). The heliacal rising of the Pleiades in May was used as the marker for planting crops. The lore about the asterism is appropriate: “The Seven Stars possess greater magic power than any other stars, and, if not propitiated by the feather-dance, they might cause cold weather and injure the crops” (Hagar 1906:359). The nearby Hyades was identi¤ed by Hagar as referring to an Arm, and the three stars of the Belt of Orion were Little Men, who are powerful ¤gures in Cherokee belief. Other than these identi¤cations, which he gave without source, Hagar could say no more about them. He did identify two other important stars, Sirius and Antares, found on opposite sides of the sky, where the Milky Way meets the horizon. He identi¤ed them as dogs who greet the souls at the beginning and end of the Path of Souls, the Milky Way. Probably connected with the Path of Souls, although Hagar could not identify the constellation, is a wooden box in which the body of the daughter of Sun was placed after her death from the bite of a serpent (Mooney 1900:252–54). Somewhere in the sky, location not speci¤ed, is the great serpent Uktena, which was placed in the sky after it became too dangerous to human beings (Mooney 1900:253, 257). In the northern sky, the Cherokees identi¤ed Ursa Major as a bear (the four stars of the “cup”) followed by three hunters with a pot (the handle). The nearby Corona Borealis is the den of the bear. These identi¤cations were all that Hagar was able to gather from his interviews and his research in all the ethnographic documents written through the centuries. It is not an impressive list, but it does cover the most well-known asterisms: Great Star, Pleiades, Hyades, Belt of Orion, Milky Way, Sirius, Antares, Ursa Major, Corona Borealis, and two unspeci¤ed constellations representing a serpent and a box. The major function of Cherokee astronomy appears to have been calendrical, with planting time designated by the Pleiades.

Creek It does not take long to summarize the Muskogee astronomy. John Swanton, the major ethnographer of the Creeks and other Muskhogean-speaking peoples of

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the Southeast, made a summary of the beliefs in his volume on Creek ethnography: “The constellation of the Great Dipper was called Pithlo hagi, ‘the image of a canoe.’ The North Star was known as Kolasniegu, ‘the stationary star,’ the Morning Star as Hayatitca, ‘bringer of daylight,’ and Pleiades as Tukabof ka. A few other constellations and stars were also named . . . The galaxy was called poya ¤k-tcalk innini, ‘the spirits’ road’ ” (Swanton 1928a:478–79). It is dif¤cult to believe that this brief dictionary list represents the full ethnoastronomy of the Muskogee people, but it is all that has been recorded. This Creek list may serve less as a survey of an ethnoastronomy than as a demonstration of how much lore has been lost. These four ethnoastronomical surveys are illustrations of the commonalities and the differences between the approaches of various tribes. By way of summary, Table 1.1 is a presentation of the asterisms that these groups found important (or that were recorded). It should be noted that there may be more overlap than appears in the table, because some of the unidenti¤ed asterisms may be shared. These tribal listings are similar in that they tend to focus on some of the same constellations and

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asterisms, but they are different in that the groups interpret them with a variety of myths and they use them for different functions in the society. It is the interplay between the commonalities and the differences that is the underpinning for this study. Not all peoples believe the same things about a given asterism, but some do. Although a few people had unique interpretations of constellations, most shared their approach with some other peoples. The groupings of people who shared beliefs make patterns that must re®ect some sort of historical interaction. Discerning and interpreting those patterns is the goal of this exploration in the ethnoastronomy of the Eastern Woodlands and the Plains.

2

The Star Husband

“A woman married a star.” Already we know this is an important myth, because the statement indicates a linkage of worlds, the human and the celestial, or the Middle World and the Above World. What happens when two separate worlds are linked? What are the costs? What are the rewards? How is the linkage accomplished? Should other humans attempt to do the same thing? As it turns out, this story is not ¤xed on a single constellation or star, so it is not as fruitful for the purposes of this study as some others. It is very useful, however, in allowing us to look at the methodology of the historic-geographic approach to myth study. The Star Husband myth was the focus of one of the model examples of that approach, a study undertaken by Stith Thompson and a number of his students at Indiana University in the mid-20th century. Thompson’s paper was published in 1953, then republished in an anthology of folklore studies in 1965. Since the latter is more readily available than the original journal, the 1965 pagination will be cited as the article is examined. A brief survey of the argument of the paper will provide an excellent example of historic-geographic procedure, and at the same time it will allow a few observations about the shortcomings of the original approach. The ¤rst task in a historic-geographic study is to gather all known examples of the text. This is not easy. Even people with easy access to a major collection of materials—such as the library at Indiana University, the repository of Stith Thompson’s own library—will ¤nd this a daunting task. It is a time-consuming effort, even in the day of indexes and computerization, to attempt to locate all available texts of a narrative in oral tradition. This dif¤culty has limited the num-

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ber of historic-geographic studies completed and published, because it is a signi¤cant dedication of a person’s research time to undertake such a project. Thompson and his students identi¤ed 86 texts of the Star Husband. Fortunately, they did not have to start from scratch, because earlier scholars had already taken note of the widespread existence of the Star Husband. In 1914 T. T. Waterman, a student of the “father of American anthropology,” Franz Boas at Columbia University, had done a number of nonexhaustive comparative studies of versions of Native American myths, and one of them was the Star Husband. What Waterman was examining was the explanatory, or etiological, tags embedded in the myths. In his research he was able to demonstrate that in case after case the same myth was used to “explain” quite different things and that this was true to such an extent that it was rarely possible to claim that any one of the etiological tags was the “real” one. This is not to say that no purely etiological myths exist but to suggest that when they are encountered, it is fairly obvious that they were created for that purpose. The rule of thumb is that the myth could not exist—does not make sense—without the etiological tag. Most of the true etiological myths are simple episodes whose clear purpose is the etiology. In contrast, myths with complex plots, those of the type studied by Waterman, rarely could pass that test, and the various etiologies were successfully attached to the same preexisting plot outline. Taken in isolation, most were plausible. One of the implications of what Waterman concluded was that interpretations of the “meaning” of a myth should never be based on a single text. His conclusion became recognized as a permanent contribution to the study of myth and is still cited in the present day as a warning about placing trust in etiological conclusions, particularly from isolated texts (Waterman 1914). In the course of his study, Waterman had listed some of the more widespread myths of North America, and the Star Husband was among them. His list of texts was augmented a few years later by Gladys Reichard, another Columbia student of Boas. In her master’s thesis she set out to do a literary analysis of North American Indian myths (Reichard 1921). She gathered even more examples of texts of the Star Husband, as well as other major myths, for comparative analysis. With the work of Waterman and Reichard as a foundation, Thompson and his students had a good beginning for their collection. Moreover, Thompson himself had already produced a major work on Native American myths. In 1929 he published his Tales of the North American Indians, which was far more than just a collection of texts. He intended for his selection to be representative of the major myth types, and his footnotes were designed to serve as a motif index for North American Indian narratives. As a catalog of motifs and a locator for published texts, his volume has never been surpassed. When one of Thompson’s students, Edith Gore Campbell, produced her 1931

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master’s thesis, “ ‘The Star Husband Tale’: A Comparative Study by the HistoricGeographic Method,” the collection was increased (Dundes 1986:133). With that work available to the project, more texts of the Star Husband myth were added to the total, which ¤nally numbered 86, a substantial corpus on which to base a comparative study. This brief history of the ¤rst task of the historic-geographic method—the gathering of texts—makes it sound as if the de¤nition of the Star Husband were a predetermined fact. That was not the case, and the problem of de¤ning a “type” is still a major weakness in the whole process. In the nomenclature worked out by scholars in the discipline of folklore and related ¤elds, particularly in the study of European folktales, two basic concepts—motifs and types—have become standard. A “motif ” is understood to be the smallest element of plot that is distinctive enough to be recognizable by most readers and speci¤c enough to be of use in analysis. Thus “boy cuts bread with knife” might be a detail in the plot, but it is not distinctive, so who cares? It is not useful. Much more helpful is a motif like “insects from burnt monster’s body,” which is given the motif number A2001 in Thompson’s Native American index (Thompson 1929:354). As anyone who endeavors to use the system learns, discerning the motifs is as much an art as a science, but it works, particularly as a retrieval mechanism and as a shorthand for recording plots. One of the major imprecise aspects of motif categorization is that the intuitive unit of classi¤cation in many Native American myths is larger than a single motif but is still usually only part of a complete narrative plot. Early students of myths wrestled with this realization in the early decades of the Journal of American Folklore, but the insight never reached a formal methodological status. Even so, this intermediate unit—“episode” will do as a label—is so useful in comparing myth plots that it will be employed frequently in this current study. Its nature will become apparent as complex plots are discussed. In theory, all tale plots are composed of strings of motifs, and they are differentiated into “types” by distinctive sequences of motifs making up the strings. Herein lies the dif¤culty. The “chemistry” of tale-telling does not readily ¤t the neatness of “type.” How much deviation from the prescribed motif string is permitted when a given text is identi¤ed as belonging to a type? The art of narrators includes two maneuvers that are destructive of the scheme. First, they love to substitute one motif for another in a telling, and the only constraints on their creativity, apparently, are the audience reaction and the functional equivalence of the substituted motif (“allomotif ”). If, for example, the task of a motif is to get the hero from the earth to the sky, there are many motifs that can accomplish it, from transformation into a feather or arrow to climbing a tree. All of these are allomotifs in relation to each other, because a narrator can use any one of them

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to tell the story. Above all, a replacement motif has to move the plot along pretty much in the same way as the original motif did—the connection to the next motif has to work well. In most situations, the narrator, as a creative artist, is free to experiment with such a change in the “type.” Then, if the audience does not like what the narrator did to their familiar old plot, for whatever reason, the negative reaction will tend to keep the tradition conservative by forcing the narrator to return to the earlier way of telling the story. The second creative maneuver by skilled narrators is to add types together so that a compound myth results. This is very likely to happen when the same character is the focus of both types—why not blend the stories into a single longer narrative? The new plot may ¤nd acceptance if one type ®ows smoothly into the next. The alternative of this maneuver is to shorten the plot type by omitting one or more motifs or episodes. This can easily be observed when the more familiar version of a plot is actually a compound and a narrator produces a text that omits one of the embedded stories. This may indicate either that the compound form is actually the later development or that the full story is so well known that the narrator can play games with the audience, knowing that the unspoken part of the plot is still present in their minds. Either way, the text as recorded is deviant from the “type.” So how is it to be classi¤ed? These somewhat arid points in an abstract discussion of narrative theory take on life as soon as actual texts from Native American narrators are examined, for they demonstrate the importance of all of these insights. In fact, the reader who embarks on comparing texts with each other will quickly rediscover these concerns. Thompson’s Star Husband collection is a case in point. There are 86 texts in it, but what are they texts of ? If the basic description of the Star Husband type is minimal—young women wish to marry stars, and they do so—then Thompson’s collection comprises 86 examples of it (Motif C15: “Wish for star husband realized”). After gathering the texts, however, Thompson’s team examined them and devised a basic type, as follows. In its simplest form (Type A), according to Thompson, the story is this: “Two girls are sleeping in the open at night and see two stars. They make wishes that they may be married to these stars. In the morning they ¤nd themselves in the upper world, each married to a star—one of them to a young man and the other to an old man. The women are usually warned against digging but eventually disobey and make a hole in the sky through which they see their old home below. They are seized with longing to return and secure help in making a long rope. On this they eventually succeed in reaching home” (Thompson 1965:419). This plot is signi¤cantly beyond the minimalist version. There are two women who are transported to the sky, and there are two star-men, speci¤ed as old and young. There is a second chapter, so to speak, in which the women dig through the sky ®oor, thus creating a hole in the sky, through which they return to the earth via a

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rope. This plot has seven or so motifs (depending on how they are counted) and can no longer be considered the “simplest form.” A signi¤cant problem emerges when this Type A is compared with the 86 texts. There are 21 texts in which there is no sky hole, and in 14 there is no descent at all (Thompson 1965:443–45). Immediately the question arises of whether the sky hole is a necessary part of the Star Husband myth. If so, then a signi¤cant portion of the corpus cannot be considered examples of the Star Husband. The problem is greater than that, though, because we have to ask how those 21 ever got into the corpus to begin with. The only reasonable answer is that despite Thompson’s claim for Type A as the “simplest form,” the sky hole was not part of the standards for inclusion of a text in the corpus. So what was? Probably something like the minimal statement: young women wish to marry stars, and they do so. That means the selection process was one focused on essentially a single motif—women wish to marry stars. All 86 texts incorporate this plot element, so the group was the result of a search based on this motif. It is a subtle methodological trick that has been played, but it is signi¤cant. What is presented as a historic-geographic study of a type is in reality a study of narratives incorporating a single motif. This becomes clearer if the focus is shifted from the women wishing for a star-husband to something like “woman falls through hole in sky” (Motif A21.1: “The woman who fell from the sky”). A search through the myths will produce most of Thompson’s corpus—minus the ones that have no descent or sky hole. It will also add to the corpus all of the Iroquois creation myth texts, which feature the discovery of a sky hole and the fall of a woman through it. Since most of the Iroquois texts omit the opening episode of women wishing to marry a star, they would not and did not appear in the Star Husband corpus, even though the creation myth is about the wife of the chief of the sky world and her fall through the hole in the sky. Most readers would intuitively judge that the Iroquois plot must surely be related to the general Star Husband group, but the method of selecting the corpus by a single motif militated against the larger grouping, so the Iroquois texts are absent in Thompson’s Star Husband collection. This same sort of problem is exempli¤ed by corpus-selection problems in two otherwise excellent comparative studies of Native American myths. Bert Gerow’s 1950 study of the Blood-Clot Boy narrative is ®awed by the selection of the relevant texts by means of the Blood-Clot birth motif (Motif T541.1), in which a child is magically born from a clot of blood (Gerow 1950). As it happens, there are texts that replace the opening birth episode with allomotifs that do not change the structure. Those texts were not included in Gerow’s analysis, but they should probably be included in the corpus for study. Mary Sumner’s thesis on Lodge Boy and Thrown Away (LBTA) has a similar problem in that the LBTA motif/episode is actually an allomotif indicating one widespread version of the

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Twins myth complex (Sumner 1952). For the LBTA motif itself to be the designator is to restrict the corpus. One ¤nal volume should be mentioned in connection with the problem of the classi¤cation and retrieval of types. Another of Thompson’s students, Remedios Wycoco, undertook the task of compiling a “type index” of Native American myths (Wycoco 1951). She utilized several preexisting indices, including Thompson’s Tales of the North American Indians, and she added her own research to the listings. The result was her Indiana University doctoral dissertation, which was never published, unfortunately. Ultimately, because of the motif/type confusion in identifying narratives, her listings cannot be taken as ¤nal or correct. Even so, her index adds to the useful tools available for comparative study of North American myths. In sum, it is fair to say that the problem of creating a trustworthy way of putting myth texts into their proper slots, so as to facilitate comparative study, has not yet been solved. The salient motifs are attractive for researchers, but so far they readily seduce the student into thinking of the myth type as an extension of the single motif, a presupposition that can only skew the study and the results. On the other hand, much of the power that presuppositions have over research lies in their being unconscious. Once they are recognized for what they are, it may be possible to think beyond them so as to counter the skewing. Let us return to the study at hand. Once the corpus of 86 had been selected, albeit by means of a single motif, each text had to be coded by signi¤cant motifs, with particular attention to allomotifs, for they indicate the places at which variants have their birth. In the case of the Star Husband, the project team determined that there were 14 points at which the plot could vary by decision of the narrators. These principal traits are as follows: A. Number of women. B. Introductory section. C. Circumstances of introductory action. D. Method of ascent. E. Identity of husband. F. Distinctive qualities of husband. G. Birth of son. H. Tabu broken in upper world. I. Discovery of skyhole. J. Assistance in descent. K. Means of descent. L. Results of descent. M. Explanatory elements. N. Sequel. [Thompson 1965:420]

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This list is an arti¤cial structure created from an examination of all of the texts in the corpus. No single text is likely to have every trait included in a distinctive way, but the list will accommodate the entire corpus. Many of the traits are ful¤lled by allomotifs, and they are numbered. For example, the designator E (identity of husband) can be followed, on the basis of empirical examination of the texts, by 0 (not indicated), 1 (Moon), 1a (Moon and Sun), 2 (Sun), 3 (Star), 4 (Thunder), 5 (Porcupine), 6 (Man), or 7 (Whirlwind). Once the master trait list is completed, then the texts can individually be examined and coded. The result is a description of each of the texts in the form of a shorthand string of motifs. An example will help provide clarity about this process. The full text of the Oto version (number 69) is as follows: In the evening, in summer, upon a hot night two young girls, chief ’s daughters, lay on the ground outside their tents gazing at the sky. As the stars came out one of them said:— “I wish I were away up there. Do you see where that dim star is? There is where I wish I might be.” And she ¤xed her eyes upon the twinkling star that seemed to be vanishing behind the clouds. The other girl said: “It is too dim. I wish I were up by that bright one, that large brilliant star,” and she pointed to where a steady light glowed red. Soon they were asleep and the brilliant lights in the blue above kept watch. In the night when they awoke each young girl found herself where she had wished to be. The one in the dim star was in the home of a brave young chief, and she became his bride and was happy. The beautiful star had appeared dim to her while she was yet upon the earth because it was so far, far away that she could not see its glorious light. The girl in the bright star found herself in a servant’s home, and was obliged to do all manner of work and to become the servant’s wife. This star had been nearer the earth, and so it had seemed to be the larger and brighter star. When this girl found that her friend had gone to a beautiful star and become the wife of a chief, with plenty of servants to wait upon her, and that she was never permitted to do any work, she cried and cried because the change in her own condition seemed more cruel, and she was even obliged to live with a servant. The girls were still friends and often met in the clouds and went out to gather wild turnips, but the chief ’s wife could never dig, her friend was always obliged to serve her. Whenever they started out an old man would say to them:— “When you dig a turnip, you must strike with the hoe once, then pull up the turnip. Never, by any means, strike twice.” After going to gather

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ch apter 2 turnips many times and receiving always this same instruction the chief ’s wife grew curious, and one day she said to her friend: “Why is it, they tell us to strike but once? To-day when you dig that turnip I wish you to strike twice. Let us see why they allow us to strike but once.” The servant struck once with the hoe and took up the turnip, then, as commanded, she struck with her hoe again in the same place. Behold a hole! She leaned forward and looked down. She saw her home. She cried to her friend. “Look! I can see through the clouds. See! there is our home.” The chief ’s wife looked also, and she saw the village and her home. The girls sat looking through the hole, and they longed to go home, and they sat weeping. An old man chanced to pass by, and he saw them and stopped and asked:— “What is the matter? What are you crying about?” And they answered, “Because we can see our home. We are so far away, we wish to be there, but we can never get there.” The old man passed on. He went to the chief and told him that the girls sat weeping because they could see their home, and they wanted to go back to the earth. The chief then called all his people together, and he sent them away to ¤nd all the lariats that they could. In the village, on the earth, every one had mourned for the chief ’s daughters, who had so strangely disappeared, and could not be found. It was a long time since they were lost; but the people still thought of them. To-day in the village a great many people had come to see the boys and young men play. They used a ring and a long stick, round at one end. One person would throw the ring in the air and at the same time another would try to send his arrow through it; the men would run swiftly and throw their sticks when they were near the ring, for the one who got most arrows through while the ring was still in the air was the winner. All the people were excited over the game and urging on the young men, when one of them happened to look up toward the sky. “Why, look up,” he called out, “something is coming down. Look! They are very large. Look at them!” All who heard stopped and looked up, and others seeing them look, turned to see what it was. Many ran to the spot where these things were falling. Then the people found they were the lost girls. The good chief in the dim star had ordered all the lariats knotted together and then he had wound them around the bodies of the two girls and dropped them gently through the hole in the sky to the earth, keeping tight the end of the rope until the girls reached the ground.

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Joyfully the Indians ran before the girls to carry the news of their return to their sorrowful parents. One of the girls looked sad and pitiful, the other looked happy as though she had been in some beautiful place. [Kercheval 1893:199–201] This text can be written in abstract form and coded. Thus: Two sisters (A2) sleeping out (C1) wish for stars as husbands (B1). They ¤nd themselves in the upper world (D2) married to the stars (E3), a chief (dim star) and his servant (bright star) (F7). They are warned against digging (H1), but disobey and open a skyhole (I1). With the help of an old man ( J3) they make a skin rope (K3a on which they successfully descend (L1). [Thompson 1965:432] The plot can ¤nally be shortened to A2 C1 B1 D2 E3 F7 H1 I1 J3 K3a L1. Clearly the coding process makes it much easier to compare plots. Once the coding of the corpus is complete, the comparison proceeds. If all goes well—and in the Star Husband study it does—the ¤rst result will be the recognition of “oicotypes,” clusters of similar versions that can be considered identi¤able subtypes. The word oicotype was derived from the Greek oikos (household) and typos (type), meaning a localized subtype (see Honko 1980; von Sydow 1948). Several oicotypes emerge from the comparison of the Star Husband versions. Two in particular are worth noting in this review of the study. One (Type III) is called the Animal Tricksters Under the Tree version. It is characterized particularly by the ending. Instead of a simple return home via the rope through the sky hole, the two women become stranded in a tree and are forced to promise to marry an animal (usually a wolverine) if he will get them down. This “remarkably uniform” version is found across the north of the continent: Micmac, Passamaquoddy, Ojibwa, Assiniboine, Cree, Ts’ets’aut, Tahltan, Carrier, and Kaska (see Figure 2.1). The other (Type II) is called the Porcupine Redaction, and it is signi¤cant enough for this study that it should be examined more closely. It is an opportunity to see how the coded comparison works. The results of Thompson’s team’s work are shown in Table 2.1. This is an impressive layout. Twenty of the 86 texts are found to be in this oicotype. The list was created on the basis of B2 and B2a, the woman’s pursuit of the porcupine up the tree into the sky. This group of texts shows a remarkable similarity on most of the other traits, but the most noteworthy is N1, the Star Boy sequel. Only one of the eight Arapaho texts omits it, and one of the Gros Ventre texts has a substitute. Otherwise, the congruence between the porcupine episode and the Star Boy sequel is remarkable—enough so to cement the identity of this group as a true oicotype, a distinctive version

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Figure 2.1. Distribution of the Animal Tricksters oicotype of the Star Husband.

of the Star Husband myth. These 20 texts tell a version of the story that is peculiar to the eight tribes in which they were found. There are some other texts that need to be taken into account, however. As can be seen by the B2 column in Table 2.1, the 20 texts in the Porcupine Redaction were selected by that particular trait. If the Star Husband corpus is examined for the Star Boy trait (N1) without reference to the porcupine, though, there are seven more texts, shown in Table 2.2, to be considered. Should these texts be added to the Porcupine Redaction, even though they lack that detail? To phrase the question that way sounds a bit ridiculous, but if we adopt the rule of thumb that any single trait may be omitted in a given narrative performance, since the audience can be expected to supply it from memory, then the omission of the porcupine detail may not be indicative of exclusion from the oicotype. The Arikara 2 text is a good illustration of the point. The two Arikara texts in Thompson’s corpus, coded, are shown for comparison in Table 2.3. The coding enables us to see that the only signi¤cant difference is the B2 (porcupine) designator, since the characterizing of the Star Husband as middle aged (F3) seems minor. Both of those texts were collected by George Dorsey in 1903 from different Arikara narrators, Yellow Bear and Yellow Bird. This comparison alone makes

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it seem likely that the Arikara 2 text simply omits the detail of the porcupine and that the omission should not be given much weight. That conclusion is buttressed by the addition of two more recent Arikara texts, which Douglas Parks collected in the 1970s, one from Ella Waters, daughter of Yellow Bear, and one from Dan Howling Wolf (Parks 1991:575–90, #85, and 649–56, #111). Parks noted that Mrs. Waters’s text was “almost identical to a published version of [Yellow Bear] recorded some eighty years ago” (Parks 1991:575). The coded short form for Arikara 3 looks like this: Two women (A3) are sleeping out on an arbor (C1a). One of them wishes for a star as a husband (B1). Next day she follows a porcupine (B2) up a tree (D1) to the upper world. He is the star (E3), a middle-aged man (F3). She bears a son (G1). She is warned against digging in valleys (H1c) but she disobeys and discovers a sky hole (I1). An old Spider Woman ( J1a) helps her make a “cord” (K3b), but it is too short, so she and the boy do not reach the ground. The husband sends down a rock that kills the woman but spares the son (L3). Sequel: Star Boy (N1). Some shifts should be noted in this account. Mrs. Waters speci¤ed that the old woman helper was a spider, and Arikara 4 agrees. Closer examination of Arikara 2 shows that Thompson erred in his coding, for Yellow Bird also said she was a spider. Since Mrs. Waters was passing on her father’s tradition, her speci¤cation of the Spider Woman probably corrects the omission in Arikara 1. If Yellow Bear, too, knew her as the Spider Woman, then the four Arikara texts are unanimous in that identi¤cation. The full Arikara corpus, corrected, is shown in Table 2.4. When the fact that the narrator of Arikara 4 also omitted the porcupine detail is folded into the comparison, it seems fair to conclude that the inclusion of the porcupine was not as important as the analysis of the oicotype makes it appear and that a certain latitude was permitted the narrators. That is to say, it seems that the Arikara tradition was fairly stable, and Mrs. Waters’s narrative was probably assisted by her ownership of a copy of Dorsey’s volume with her father’s narrative in it. The four texts, by four different narrators over some eight decades, express the same tradition among the Arikaras. It may be that the porcupine element itself was an unstable detail in their tradition. The three Pawnee Star Husband/Star Boy texts are suggestive in this regard. The three texts appear to be good examples of the Porcupine–Star Boy Redaction (to expand the name), except for their unanimous omission of the porcupine. Since the Arikaras’ historical roots go back to a split-off from the Pawnee, the lack of the porcupine in the Pawnee tradition may be responsible for the tentativeness of the Arikara narrators, in®uenced as they were by their porcupineincluding Plains Village neighbors, the Hidatsa. The result of these speculations

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is that it seems reasonable to shift Thompson’s focus from the porcupine to the Star Boy sequel as the key indicator of inclusion in the oicotype. Comparison of other texts within tribal traditions can easily be continued— say, for example, in the Arapaho collection of eight texts—but the point seems clear enough for present purposes. The tribal tradition gets expressed by different narrators at different times in different ways, but it is still the tribal tradition. It may have been that there was a more “canonical” version, the one told by the owner of the relevant sacred bundle, who could have been pointed out by the other narrators, had they been asked. Even without that knowledge, however, it seems safe to say that despite the variation of details, the tribal tradition was indicated by the narrators. The outcome of this reasoning is a conclusion that there was among some Plains tribes a special oicotype of the Star Husband myth that emphasized the Star Boy sequel, usually with the porcupine detail. The known participants in this oicotype were the Hidatsa, Crow, Arikara, Pawnee, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Dakota, Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, and Cree (see Figure 2.2). The Star Husband project produced one other oicotype that should be examined, because it is the major conclusion of the Thompson team and also illustrates some of the ®aws in the historic-geographic method in its classic form. Thompson referred to the oicotype as “Type I: The Archetype.” The notion was that the comparison of all the traits of all the known texts of the myth type would produce a set of statistically preferred motifs. If such a string of motifs/ episodes could be identi¤ed, then a preferred “type” would emerge, the result of a popular vote, so to speak. If the arti¤cially derived archetype has any validity, there should be some texts that ¤t the archetypal model fairly closely. The Star Husband team did produce such an archetype and identi¤ed some actual texts that ¤t it. They began by setting aside all sequels and the Porcupine Redaction. Here is the archetype: Two girls (65%) sleeping out (85%) make wishes for stars as husbands (90%). They are taken to the sky in their sleep (82%) and ¤nd themselves married to stars (87%), a young man and an old, corresponding to the brilliance or size of the stars (55%). The women disregard the warning not to dig (90%) and accidentally open up a hole in the sky (76%). Unaided (52%) they descend on a rope (88%) and arrive home safely (76%). The formula can be stated as: A2, B1, C1, D2, E3, F4, G0, H1, I1, J0, K3, L1. [Thompson 1965:449] The team found that “completely typical” texts are Songish, Chehalis 2, Puyallup 2, Shoshone 2, Kutenai, Oto, and Ojibwa 5 (see Thompson’s concluding map in his study; Thompson 1965:474).

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Figure 2.2. Distribution of the Star Boy oicotype of the Star Husband.

Alan Dundes pointed out that one of the assumptions made in this process is that the longer version is closer to the original, with traits/motifs dropping off in the diffusion process. On the contrary, he argued, there is no reason not to think that some of the “fragmentary” texts are closer to the original and that the diffusion process is marked by increasing complexity and detail (Thompson 1965:449–50n). Another problem is the assumption that each text should get a vote, which seems less reasonable than that each tribal tradition should get a single vote, in the light of the above discussion of the stability of tribal myths. Thus the Arapaho should be counted only once, rather than eight times. To do that, however, would involve dealing with each tribal tradition to try to arrive at the stable form—a dif¤cult task. But attempting it would have the virtue of recognizing the importance of each tribe’s adaptation of the diffused version for its own use. The most serious problem with this statistically produced archetype is the issue of what it means. The 19th-century legacy in folklore studies was the goal of reconstructing an “original” version of a tale that would represent the Urform, if not at its origin, then in its earliest period. Mixed in with this goal was the hope of identifying the place and date of origin. That kind of objective drew

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increasing skepticism as the decades went by, and as the methodology was critiqued it became questionable as to why its practice should produce trustworthy results. Thompson was cautious in his conclusions about the Star Husband myth, but the consequence is that the “archetype” is left hanging, with no clear notion of what it represents. He made a stab at locating the place of origin for the “simple form” (a “simple story of the marriage of two girls to the stars, followed by a successful escape”), stating, “The Central Plains would seem the most reasonable place of origin.” Thompson articulated the assumption behind this claim: “Where this simple form originated cannot now be determined with any exactness, but it must have been from near the center of the area of present distribution” (Thompson 1965:455). It is dif¤cult today to see any reason for this presupposition. His tentative conclusion about the age of the myth is equally weak. Despite his opening disavowal—“It is, of course, quite impossible to tell just when this tale began to be told”—he lists the dates of the collection of the texts, writing, “It would seem from these facts that this tale in its basic form must go back at least to the 18th century. But that is as close as we can come to an estimate of its age” (Thompson 1965:456–57). This sort of comment is at the level of the absurd when the likelihood of centuries—even millennia—of diffusion and development of the complicated myths of North America is considered. Dundes pointed out the importance of the similarities of the Star Husband myth complex to the Star Wife traditions of South America (Thompson 1965:457–58n). Claude LéviStrauss, in his major work on the myths of the New World, the Mythologiques, made several leaps from South America to North America in following his mythic trail, and one of the paths he followed was the Star Husband–Star Wife connection (Lévi-Strauss 1978:199–323). Such possible connections point to ancient diffusion, and the time depth required for “dating” the Star Husband seems discouragingly great. It seems far more reasonable—and more useful—to abandon quests for the place and date of origin of myths, along with the Urforms, in favor of examining the more recent creation of oicotypes. Even if their origins cannot be precisely located in space and time, oicotypes serve to indicate earlier linkages of tribes in belief and narrative art, and thus they can presumably point to some past time of contact and relationship. While a long way from historical precision, such patterns can nonetheless offer a sort of historical insight by suggesting now-lost relationships between people (see Figure 2.3). It is this sort of historic-geographic study that will be pursued in some of the succeeding chapters in this volume. It is hoped that the patterns of astronomical belief will reveal those groups of tribes who experienced the skies in similar ways, even if the nature of the connection cannot be speci¤ed. From that perspective, the contribution of the Star Husband project to the

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Figure 2.3. Distribution of the Animal Tricksters (in italics) and Porcupine–Star Boy (in roman) oicotypes.

ethnoastronomical picture should be examined. Which star was the Star Husband? Where was the sky hole? Unfortunately, the answers are few. The etiological traits are coded under M (“explanatory elements”) in Thompson’s essay, and out of the 86 texts, only 15 reference speci¤c heavenly bodies. Five of the texts are from the North Paci¤c area, outside of our range of concern. Eight of the remaining texts mention the moon, and two refer to stars. The moon references are of interest primarily because they suggest another oicotype within the Porcupine–Star Boy oicotype, one not mentioned by Thompson. A small group of texts begin the Star Husband myth by telling of a dispute between Sun and Moon, which is followed by Moon’s turning himself into a porcupine and luring the woman into the sky (B2a, M1a). The texts (augmented list) are Gros Ventre 2 and 3, Hidatsa 1 and 2, Crow 1 and 4, and Arapaho 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. In the Crow texts, peculiarly, the woman lured up to the sky marries the porcupineSun. This shift is probably related to a general change in the Sun-Moon roles in Crow thought as over against their parent Hidatsa (see Lowie 1942). In all of the others, with the enigmatic exception of Arapaho 7, which also features Sun Boy, the porcupine is the Moon. The signi¤cance of this Moon Boy version is unknown, but it is worth noting that this special small oicotype existed. The other

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texts deal with stars, but the Blackfoot 1 text just identi¤es stars as the children of the Sun and the Moon, while in the Crow 1 and 3 texts, the Star Boy “becomes” Morning Star at the end. (Morning Star is the topic of Chapter 3.) In regard to the connection of the Star Husband myth with speci¤c stars, the answer seems to be negative. The small group referred to above identi¤es the porcupine as the Moon, but otherwise the husband is left unidenti¤ed astronomically. While it may have been the case that narrators pointed to the sky as they talked and showed the audience the Star Husband, none of that was communicated to the collectors, so any speci¤c references for this myth are missing. Thus the lengthy examination of this widespread myth has not furthered the search for star or constellation identi¤cations, even though it has been useful in introducing the concepts and methodology of the historic-geographic approach to myth interpretation. One other concept has been introduced in this narrative, an important Native American belief that will be encountered again in the chapters ahead. The sky hole dug by the woman re®ects a basic understanding of the nature of the sky vault. The sky is a solid phenomenon, and there may be more than one level of solid sky ®oor, depending on the beliefs of a given tribe. With that presupposition, the only way of moving from one level to another, as the woman did in the Star Husband, must be by way of “portals,” or sky holes. The woman in this story created her own portal, but there are others already in the sky, available for use by various characters of myth. Some of them will be encountered in later chapters. As for this woman’s portal, its location was not identi¤ed by any narrator, at least not in the text. With that admission of defeat in gathering astronomical information from this myth study, the Star Husband and his wife are left behind, but their son the Star Boy deserves a closer look.

3

The Morning Stars

Because of the 19th-century notoriety of the Pawnee ritual that involved a human sacri¤ce to the Morning Star, that asterism is still famous, at least by name. The continuing familiarity and the generic name “Morning Star” have left a general impression that belief in the heroic ¤gure of Morning Star was widespread among Native Americans. In this chapter, however, we will see that such was not the case. What the available evidence shows is that while most tribes had a general recognition of a bright star in the dawn sky, only four fairly small groups of tribes had anything like a focus on the asterism signi¤cant enough to involve a ritual and myth. Those four clusters, moreover, did not even agree on the same myths or even the same astronomical identi¤cations. It is fair to say that the label “Morning Star” has been a major factor in creating a popular misunderstanding that there was a single widespread belief complex. One aspect of the confusion lies in the ambiguity of familiar names like Morning Star and Evening Star. Like Big Star, Bright Star, and Great Star, they do not necessarily indicate a particular star, nor can it be assumed they all refer to the same star. Nor can it even be safely presupposed that “morning” and “evening” refer to the same celestial phenomena. Do the terms refer to the star that is so bright that it is seen in the daylight? Or do they refer to the heliacal rising or setting of stars—the eastern or western location of a star at the time of dawn or dusk? If the latter is intended by an informant, then the ¤eld of eligible stars is huge. By the nature of the cosmic structure, virtually all stars at some time in the annual round will be morning stars and evening stars. If the former is meant, however, then the list of candidates is greatly reduced, for only Sirius

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and a few other high-magnitude stars can be seen in daylight, along with three planets, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. When a character named Morning Star is encountered in the myths, therefore, the usual tendency to interpret that ¤gure as Venus or Mars needs to be held in check until further evidence can be elicited.

Star Boy As was seen in the previous chapter, a special oicotype of the Star Husband myth is characterized by a Star Boy sequel. Of 27 listed in Thompson’s (1965) study, only 10 are actually Star Boys. All the others feature Sun, Moon, or Thunder. Thompson’s 10 (plus two additions to the original list) are Blackfoot 2, Arikara 1 and 2, Crow 1, 2, 3 (Crow 1 miscoded), and 4 (McCleary 1997:37), Cheyenne, Dakota 1, Pawnee 1 and 2, and Arapaho 8. Among these, in only three is the Morning Star identity of the Star Boy revealed: Crow 1, 3, and 4 (but in Blackfoot 2 the Star Boy is the son of Morning Star). As will be seen, however, the Hidatsa “Moon Boy” is probably mislabeled, and the Mandan myth, though it was not included in the Thompson study, also belongs in this group. What Thompson labeled “Star Boy” is a well-known character, more frequently referred to as Grandson or Orphan. His story is told from the Southeast to the northern Plains. For now, however, to maintain focus on the celestial problem of Morning Star, let him remain “Star Boy.” The ¤rst Crow Star Husband text gives a standard sequence of Star Boy episodes, so a summary of that myth will give an idea of how his story goes. The Sun married a Crow woman, and they had a son. When she and their son descended on a rope through the sky hole, her husband dropped a stone and killed her. The orphaned boy played in the area where they fell, and the Old Woman who lived there noticed that her garden was tampered with. She devised a gender test and learned that the culprit was a boy, since the bow and arrows were taken. She caught him and made him her “grandson.” He killed many of her blackbirds and otters, which she brought to life again. (This text omits the frequent episode in which the boy kills Old Woman’s husband, a serpent.) He then killed a woman with a pot that sucked things into it. Old Woman warned him to stay away from the Two Men, who were dangerous hunters, but he disobeyed and ended up stranded in a tree by the placement of a buffalo fetus in the fork of the tree below him. The Two Men released him after his promise to give them his grandmother’s sexual favors. The boy again ignored Old Woman’s warning and went to a tipi full of rattlesnakes, where he lulled them to sleep, then killed all of them except one, who escaped to occupy the boy’s skull. Once

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the skull had ¤lled with water, the boy’s father, Sun, shone on it and heated the water until the snake left. The boy was resurrected and made the snake promise to “be good.” “The boy became the Morningstar. He does not come in the summertime, but in the winter he comes in the morning.” [summarized from Lowie 1918:52–57] The text of Crow 3 ends with a similar identi¤cation: “He became the morningstar and in the spring when animals are about to have little ones he does not come out, he does not come out until all the animals have had their young ones. When one looks for him in the early spring, one can’t see him” (Lowie 1918:74). These two characterizations seem contradictory but are not. In Crow 1 Morning Star is seen in the winter but not the summer, while in Crow 3 Morning Star is not seen in late spring. The one element the two texts clearly have in common here is that Star Boy/Morning Star appears on a regular seasonal schedule. That argues that the reference is to a star rather than to a planet, since the cycles of Venus and Mars are not related to the solar year. Timothy McCleary supports this conclusion, for he asserts that Morning Star among the Crow is likely to be Sirius: “The star most often utilized as an indicator of the seasons is the Bright Star, or Sirius. Old Woman’s Grandson told the Crow that he was afraid of newborn buffalo calves, so he would not appear when buffalo were calving, an event of the spring. Thus the disappearance of Sirius from the night sky indicates to Crows that spring is near, and that buffalo will soon be having their young. This would signal the shift from winter seclusion to a gathering of sub-bands in terrain suitable for root collection” (McCleary 1997:21). The argument that the fetus/newborn buffalo detail is a calendrical note is an important key to understanding the Star Boy’s fear of it. In yet another text of the Crow Old Woman’s Grandson myth, McCleary’s informant ended the story with “[s]o, when his work was done, he went to the heavens and became the Morning Star, Ihkaléaxe. But when it’s calving time, he never comes back because he’s still afraid of calves” (McCleary 1997:40). That interpretation of the calendrical nature of the Sirius cycle provides a handy explanation of the otherwise enigmatic episode of the Grandson story in which the powerful boy is stranded in a tree by a buffalo fetus. He is removed from the action because it is the calving season, when Star Boy is not visible. The buffalo fetus thus functions as a mythic symbol of Grandson’s absence in the sky during the summer months. With a magnitude of −1.44, Sirius is the brightest star in the sky (see Figure 3.1). Only the planets Venus (−3.7) and Jupiter (−2.4) surpass it. The identi¤cation of Grandson as Sirius ¤ts the astronomical facts perfectly. Sirius is impossible to miss in the night sky because of its brightness. McCleary summarizes the cycle of Sirius concisely: “it appears as a night star all winter until late spring

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Figure 3.1. Sirius adjacent to the Milky Way.

and early summer when it is no longer visible. In late July it shows itself brie®y again, just before the sun rises, and then it appears for longer and longer periods until it is visible all night once again” (McCleary 1997:31; see Table 3.1). It should be noted that McCleary offers a secondary tradition for Morning Star. The term can apply, he says, to Mars when it is in the morning sky, and there is a myth that describes it as a red woman. He makes it clear that this is a much less important tradition for the Crows than that of Grandson/Morning Star/Sirius (McCleary 1997:45–47). The fact that there can be two such different mythic explanations of Morning Star serves as a warning that the label may function more as a descriptor than as a personal name. The ancestral kin of the Crows, the Hidatsa, tell a very similar story about Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies and Grandson, but it opens with a dialogue between the Sun and the Moon, with Moon as the Husband. The text includes the episode of the Grandson’s fear of the buffalo fetus. It ends this way: “Then Grandson returned to the sky for all time. He is one of the large stars [Venus] and never is seen in the sky during the summer while the buffaloes are calving for he is afraid of a foetus or a newborn calf ” (Bowers 1963:338). The interpolated identi¤cation of Grandson as Venus was probably by Bowers, and it is not clear whether it re®ects a known Hidatsa astronomical tradition or was just his speculation. In light of the clarity of the calendrical information offered and the similarity to the Crow explanation, it seems likely that the Hidatsa, too, were think-

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ing of Sirius as the Grandson reference. Nonetheless, Maximilian noted the same identi¤cation: “The morning star, Venus, they consider the child of the moon, and account it likewise a special medicine. They af¤rm that it was originally a Manitari [Hidatsa], and is the grandson of the old woman who never dies” (Maximilian 1904:373–74). Bowers may have been using Maximilian as his authority, but there is no way to verify the early visitor’s accuracy in reporting Venus as the meaning of “morning star.” Martha Beckwith repeated the same tradition. She wrote that “[t]he Gros Ventres (Hidatsa) used to come and visit [the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies] and eat the corn she prepared. Sun’s son stayed with her and when he wanted to leave this earth he became Morning Star.” She referred to Maximilian’s notes to the effect that “among the Hidatsa the old woman who never dies lives in the moon and wears a white band from front to back of her head” and that “Morning Star, Venus, is her grandson and child of the moon” (Beckwith 1978:52). Again, it is Maximilian who is the source of the equation. Because of the identi¤cation of the Star Husband as the moon in the Hidatsa texts, Thompson identi¤ed Grandson as “Moon Boy,” but it seems likely that he was Morning Star (Beckwith 1938:117; Thompson 1965:428, #49). The Mandan text of the same myth also includes the episode of the buffalo fetus, ending with the ®at statement that “Grandson went back to the sky and became one of the large stars” (Bowers 1950:205). Maximilian’s reports on the Mandan beliefs are confusing. In a list of the Mandan divinities, the “fourth being is Rohanka-Taulhanka, who lives in the planet Venus, and it is he who protects mankind on the earth; for without his care the race would have been long since extinct . . . [Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies] has six children, three sons and three daughters, who all live in certain stars. The eldest son is the day (the ¤rst day of the creation), the second is the sun, in which the lord of life has his abode. The third son is the night. The eldest daughter is the star that rises in the east, the morning star; and they call her, ‘the woman who wears a plume.’ The second daughter, called ‘the striped gourd,’ is a high star which revolves around the polar star; and, lastly, the third daughter is the evening star which is near to the setting sun” (Maximilian 1904:302–3). This unique statement makes the morning star and the evening star sisters, the daughters of Old-WomanWho-Never-Dies. This is not at variance with Maximilian’s earlier assertion as to the male Venus ¤gure, for the sisters are not claimed to be Venus. If Maximilian is to be taken seriously, then Venus was not understood by the Mandans to be

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the morning star. This ambiguous situation, however, still includes the Grandson myth with the buffalo fetus episode. The same reasoning about it applies here, and it thus appears that the Mandan/Hidatsa/Crow tradition of Grandson is a myth primarily focused on Sirius. The Arikara, as the Caddoan-speaking neighbors of the Mandan and Hidatsa, might be expected to tell a similar story of the Old Woman and her Grandson, and they do. In none of the four Arikara texts is the boy identi¤ed as Morning Star, but Arikara 1, 2, and 3 all have the buffalo fetus episode. Arikara 1 ends with the son of a “bright red star” dying “after he had cleared the country of all the wild animals” (Dorsey 1904b:45–55). Arikara 2 has no conclusion, but it does comment that “[t]he reason the boy was afraid of the foetus was that it was the time of the year when all young animals are as yet unborn, and the cluster of stars to which the boy’s father belonged is never seen at this time to come up with the rest. The boy knew that his father could not be present to help him, and so he did not dare to do anything to help himself ” (Dorsey 1904b:56– 60; emphasis added). The stellar logic of the buffalo fetus is here retained, but its signi¤cance—Sirius—is shifted to the Star Husband, leaving the boy unidenti¤ed. Among the more recent versions of the Arikara myth, the one by Ella Waters (Arikara 3) retains the fetus episode without explanation, and there is no conclusion or identi¤cation. Arikara 4 omits the fetus episode altogether and ends with the assertion that what happened to Grandson is unknown (Parks 1991:575–90, 648–56). Thus all three of the Plains Village tribes seem to have participated in this cluster of versions of the Star Boy myth in which the calendrical marker of the buffalo fetus points to a star that is not present in the sky in the late spring and summer. If the Crow identi¤cation of Sirius can be projected to the entire cluster, then a tight sub-oicotype is thereby identi¤ed. The Sirius cluster appears to consist of at least the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Crow, and some of the other tribes telling the Star Boy sequel may have held the same belief (see Figure 3.2). One example is the Blackfoot “Poïa” (Scarface) myth about Morning Star. In structure it is a variant of the Star Husband with the Star Boy sequel, but its characters are identi¤ed in an unusual way: A woman wished to marry Morning Star, and she became pregnant by him. He took her to his home in the sky, where he lived with his father and mother, the Sun and Moon. When she broke the taboo on digging the turnip and saw her old home below, she became homesick. She and their son, Poïa, were sent below, where she eventually died. The Star Boy, rejected by a maiden because of the scar on his face, journeyed to the sky to visit his father. Morning Star accepted him, and Sun healed his scar. “He also appointed Poïa as his messenger to the Blackfeet, promising, if they

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Figure 3.2. Distribution of the Star Boy type.

would give a festival (Sun-dance) in his honour, once every year, he would restore their sick to health. He taught Poïa the secrets of the Sun-dance, and instructed him in the prayers and songs to be used.” The Sun gave him two raven feathers and a robe, and Morning Star gave him a magic ®ute and a song to charm the maiden. When Poïa returned to the sky he became a star and sometimes traveled with his father. [summarized from McClintock 1910:491–99] Here the Star Husband is identi¤ed as the Morning Star, the son of the Sun and Moon. His son is sometimes called “Mistake Morning Star” because he can be confused with his father. This characteristic of being confused with Morning Star is not an uncommon feature of Plains ethnoastronomy, as seen in the Pawnee “Fool Coyote” star, a name explained by Dorsey this way: “The explanation given for the name of this star is that it is the star which usually precedes the Morning-Star, in winter-time, and it is supposed that Coyote begins to howl at it, thinking that it is the Morning-Star” (Dorsey 1904c:332). This star has been identi¤ed as Sirius by all the Pawnee interpreters, although Chamberlain (1982:127–29, 242) found this questionable. This Pawnee way of dealing with

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Sirius versus Morning Star is noteworthy because it suggests a general Plains knowledge of the Morning Star identi¤cation of Sirius, as well as the Pawnee— and perhaps the Blackfoot—rejection of it. The Blackfoot narrator’s information suggests that this Morning Star was a planet, and his son was either another planet or Sirius, since they only sometimes appeared together: “For many years these stars have travelled apart. I have also seen them together in the evening sky . . . Morning Star was given to us as a sign to herald the coming of the Sun. When he appears above the horizon, we know a new day is about to dawn” (McClintock 1910:499). Robert Hall examined a different Blackfoot text of Scarface, in which the orphan Scarface met Morning Star, identi¤ed as the son of the Sun, and they went together to visit the Sun (Wissler and Duvall 1908:61–66). When Morning Star agreed that he wanted Scarface as a companion, the three built a sweat lodge and entered it. On emerging, “the two boys looked so much alike that Morning Star’s mother could not tell them apart.” Hall took issue with Clark Wissler (Wissler and Duvall 1908:14), who “seemed to think that this story was ‘highly original’ and had no parallel in other folklore.” Hall suggested that Aztec and Huichol myths of the birth of the sun by the transformation of the dis¤gured son of the moon in a ¤re form a Mesoamerican background for the Blackfoot story (Hall 1997:124–25). Whether this Mesoamerican connection can be supported by further evidence or not, the fact that the Blackfoot people identi¤ed the Morning Star with the Star Husband or Scarface’s friend indicates that these texts should be considered variants of the Star Boy oicotype, one that includes both Venus and Sirius. The fact that there were two ways of identifying Morning Star also suggests that for the Blackfoot tribe there was no strong ritual tradition centered on Morning Star.

The Cosmogram Group By way of contrast, it is signi¤cant that the Pawnee, despite the Arikara tradition, did not tell the Star Husband myth the same way. They have the Star Husband, along with the Star Boy ¤gure, but the Morning Star identi¤cation is missing. The Star Boy is only a generic star (Dorsey 1904c:60, 1906:56). It thus seems that the Arikara did not derive their Star Boy tradition from their Pawnee kin but from their Siouan-speaking neighbors. The reason for the Pawnee lack of interest in the Plains Village Star Boy is simple to discern—the Pawnee had a much more important role for Morning Star to play in their religion and mythology. The narratives and commentaries on the Pawnee religious system are lengthy, but at least a summary of their organization of the celestial powers must be given, if their view of Morning Star is to be understood. The focus of the Morning Star sacri¤ce was in the Skidi band of Pawnee, a name that is sometimes spelled

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“Skiri.” James Murie has provided a summary of their celestial beliefs in his study of Pawnee ritual: The several divisions of the Pawnee differed greatly in their philosophical systems. That of the federated Skiri was the most complex and must be sketched in outline before we can begin our study of rituals. Tirawahat was the one who ¤rst made the heavens and then placed minor gods there. He himself was so holy that the gods were created as gobetweens. The ¤rst one he placed in the heavens was Morning Star. (We can by no means be sure of the identity of Morning Star, for our informants seem to confuse Mars, Jupiter, and Venus. Mars is said to have red lights and to be the real one; but Jupiter is often selected as the one. The bed of ®int is the one great source of ¤re whence the sun gets his light.) This being was to stand on a hot bed of ®int. He was to be dressed like a warrior and painted all over with red dust. His head was to be decked with soft down and he was to carry a war club. He was not a chief but a warrior. He was to follow up all other stars and was to have greater powers than any other god in the heavens. Through him people were to be created and he would demand of the people an offering of a human being. He was to preside over one council of the gods and was to replenish ¤re for his brother, Sun. He was also to be the great power on the east side of the Milky Way. This is Mars [“big star”], or the god of war. The second god Tirawahat placed in the heavens was Evening Star, known to the white people as Venus. The Skiri term is cu-piritta-ka (literally, “female white star”), but the name Evening Star is used because her place is in the west and not because she is conceived of as Evening Star. Tirawahat gave her great powers. She was opposed to the creation of people, and as a safeguard against this she had vaginal teeth. She was a beautiful woman. By speaking and waving her hands she could perform wonders. Through this star and Morning Star all things were created. She is the mother of the Skiri. Through her it is possible for people to increase and crops to mature. As third in power, Tirawahat placed the Big Black Meteoric Star . . . We have not succeeded in identifying this star, but his position is said to be northwest from Morning Star. The fourth star placed in the southeastern heavens was the Red Star and controlled the coming of day and also the animals. This one we cannot identify. The ¤fth were the four powers placed in the west—Thunder, Lightning, Wind, and Cloud—who sat there as old men, always ready to obey Evening Star . . .

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ch apter 3 The sixth power placed in the heavens was the circle of stars (Corona Borealis) representing chiefs in the heavens to watch over the people. Placed seventh in the heavens were two beings in the north. They represent beings who are ready to give when people are in need and are known as men with great breaths or winds. First is Wind Ready To Give (or Send Forth) and second is Hiccough. By their breaths they send snowstorms upon the land and drive buffalo to the people. The identity of these stars has been lost. Tirawahat placed Wolf Star eighth in the heavens because he himself was a god for the wolf family and through the wolves would help the people . . . North Star was the ninth placed in the heavens. He is the chief of the heavens and must not move around, but must stand still and watch the people. His father is South Star that rises now and then to see if his son is still in place. This is also the god of death, who is not venerated or prayed to. Then Tirawahat placed Black Star in the heavens, who was also to control animals and through whom the people would learn the secrets of animal power. This being is daubed with blue mud and covered with soft downy feathers. Finally, he placed Sun and Moon. These are the heavenly gods of the Skiri. Sun and Moon are of minor importance, but Sun is father of the people, Moon the mother. Sun is a younger brother of Morning Star and receives its heat and light through him. Moon is the mother and watches over the women and their corn¤elds. [Murie 1981:38–39]

As is obvious from Murie’s outline, the Pawnee placement of the star powers makes no astronomical sense, because the sky is continually in motion. The image given in this list is that of a static cosmos, and that fact provides the key to understanding. The locations are ritual in nature. The “homes” of the Powers are where they belong in ceremonial layout, and both lodges and villages are organized to re®ect the cosmogram. What is not re®ected in this description of the cosmos is astronomical reality. That situation is probably the major reason that Murie, himself a Pawnee, had to admit at the beginning of the 20th century that some of the star identi¤cations could not be made. The astronomical lore was priestly knowledge beyond the level of ritual, which probably would not have been general information. Several generalizations can be drawn from Murie’s summary, though. First, the Skidi band had a strongly celestial religious orientation, which is why they

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are recognized as the most astronomically focused tribe north of Mesoamerica. Why they were distinctive in this way, even among the Pawnee bands, is not known. Second, since the “high god” Tirawahat is somewhat removed from the world of humans, the Powers are ranked below him, and some of their myths are told as stories of different generations of divinities. Third, surprisingly, in view of the nearly universal importance of the Sun in Native American thought, in the Skidi system Sun and Moon are subordinated to their siblings, Morning Star and Evening Star. Fourth, Morning Star and Evening Star are characterized mythically chie®y by their role as progenitors of divinities, which entailed Morning Star’s sexual conquest of an unwilling Evening Star. Fifth, Morning Star and Evening Star are planets, not stars. While known in their primary identi¤cation of Mars and Venus, they can also be seen in other planets, especially for ritual purposes. The frustrating ambiguities surrounding the Pawnee understanding of the sky, both in lost star identi¤cations and in inconsistent information, led Von Del Chamberlain to produce a major study of the astronomy of the Pawnees. Because of the importance of Morning Star he focused on the problems surrounding that ¤gure. The signi¤cance of the star was clear, Chamberlain said: “The ¤rst object placed by Tirawahat in the heavens was the Great Star, or Morning Star; he was said to be the chief warrior of all the stars, indeed the god of war, who assisted the warriors of the people and made them successful in battle. It was believed that Skidi warriors obtained their powers from the Morning Star. He was considered the most powerful of all the stars; he ruled over all the minor stars and had the special role of driving the sky people (stars) westward, being sure that none lagged behind” (Chamberlain 1982:55). In order to identify this asterism, Chamberlain turned to the historical records of the famous Pawnee ritual of the human sacri¤ce to the Morning Star. Assuming that Evening Star was “Venus, and only Venus” and that the Pawnee mythological emphasis on the chase and conquest of Evening Star by Morning Star, which produced people, referred to an astronomical event, he examined the astronomical circumstances near the dates of the known sacri¤cial rituals (Chamberlain 1982:55–90). The most likely match would be a conjunction, in which planetary cycles brought two planets close together for a few days. After an ingenious analysis, Chamberlain came to several conclusions: (1) that the Evening Star = Venus equation worked well, (2) that Mars was “the real” Morning Star but it could have substitutions of other planets at times, and (3) that conjunctions of the two planets were crucial to the mythic understanding. He wrote, “Watching the sky the way the Skidi might have seen it convinced me that the planets Venus and Mars are the key to understanding the Skidi creation concept, and that Mars was the true Skidi Morning Star, although Venus was

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often called the Morning Star when it was brilliant in the morning sky. The conjunctions of Venus and Mars do seem to be the key to the Skidi concept of celestial parentage” (Chamberlain 1982:84). Chamberlain lays out a persuasive case for the acceptance of the Morning Star–Evening Star mythology as relating to planets. Further, there is no reason to see any connection of the Pawnee myths to the Star Boy/Sirius tradition of the Plains other than the fact that the Pawnee told the story, but without identifying the Star Boy as the Morning Star. It seems clear that the Pawnee Morning Star belongs to a quite different tradition, even though there appear to be no close parallels to other Plains tribal myths. If the Pawnee prominence of the conjugal relations of Morning Star and Evening Star, as well as the emphasis on the role of Morning Star as patron of warriors, is characteristic of the Caddoan-speaking peoples—part of their family heritage, so to speak—traces of the same mythic themes might be discernible in the myths of the Arikara, Wichita, and Caddo. The Arikara, however, have already been shown to be participants in the Star Boy oicotype, probably re®ecting their relationship to the Plains Village tribes. Whether that historical episode extinguished earlier lore seems impossible to tell, but their ambiguity on the details of the Star Boy myth might re®ect the change. The other two tribes, however, did provide some provocative mythic references. Dorsey prefaced his Wichita myth collection with the observation that their religious system “may be characterized as a star cult.” He listed the divinities in order of their importance: after the creator, “Man-never-known-on-Earth,” and the Sun comes “the Morning Star, whose duty is to drive the stars along and keep them in place, especially to usher in the daylight.” After those three come the “South-Star,” the protector of warriors and of chiefs, the “North Star,” guardian of medicine men, the “Great Bear,” the “Ghost-Bear,” “Flint-stone-lying-downabove,” and the Moon, guardian of women. In the lower realm are “Womanhaving-Powers-in-the-water,” “Mother-Earth,” “Wind,” and the animals, special guardians of the medicine men (Dorsey 1904a:18–20). In a description of a ritual offering, Dorsey gave a clue as to the cosmological organization: “Then, taking a pinch of food, he raised it aloft and asked Man-never-known-on-Earth to accept the offering. This he now placed at the foot of the ¤re crane. He then offered food to the east to the Morning Star; to the south to the South-Star, the protector of warriors; to the west, the meteors; to the north to the Pole-Star and the Seven; and then to Mother-Earth” (Dorsey 1904a:23). This account makes it clear that the Wichita cosmological model places the creator-god at the apex, the Center, and organizes the cardinal directions by Power assignments: Morning Star (east), South Star (south), meteors (west), and Polaris and the Seven Stars (north). Sun presumably shares the center with the creator, and Polaris and the Seven share the north. The Morning Star is in the

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east, the place of honor among the cardinal directions. Curiously, the Pawnee Evening Star is missing, her place in the west being taken by meteors. She is also missing from the myths, with the result that the mating of Morning Star and Evening Star is also absent from the narratives. Her place as wife of Morning Star is ¤lled by Moon, but there are no children as a result. This constitutes a major difference between the Pawnee and Wichita religious systems. Other differences include the Wichitas’ making a female divinity the chief of the Beneath World, the South Star the patron of warriors, and the North Star the patron of medicine men. A major similarity to the Pawnee system is the importance of Morning Star, who with his wife, Moon, is the culture hero for humans. The astronomical identity of Morning Star is not speci¤ed. Dorsey reported, “He told them that when he should go to his place he would show himself early in the morning, before daylight, and if, at that time, people should take their children to the nearest ®owing water and put them in the water and bathe them (but they must drink before bathing them) he might help them to grow up and enjoy life. He told them that that place was the one at which they would get powers that he would give them. He then told them that he would sometimes be seen in the early morning as a star, and sometimes as a human being, and that his name was to be known as the First-Star-seen-after-Darkness-passes-by (Hoseyasidaa)” (Dorsey 1904a:29). In another narrator’s account the original name for Morning Star was YoungStar. He told the people that “he was going to leave his bow, arrows, and other things and his powers, to be used by all the warriors . . . that generation after generation they would see him mornings as the Morning Star, just as he used to be while human. Young-Star then left some of his powers upon earth for the people. He was a small boy and when on the war-path he would put on a white feather. This is the way Young-Star left the village. Early the next morning he was seen, and he has ever since been known as First-Star-seen-after-Darkness-passesby (Hoseyasidaa), that is, Morning-Star” (Dorsey 1904a:36). This ambiguity leaves his identity as possibly a planet (Mars, Jupiter, or Venus, since there is no Evening Star in the myths) or as Sirius. It is also possible that the Morning Star is simply the ¤rst bright star seen at dawn, but the Wichita tradition of pointing out speci¤c stars seems too strong to allow that vague a metaphor. Given the similarity of the role of Morning Star to that in the Pawnee system, it seems likely that a planet was understood as the Wichita Morning Star, but further speci¤cation, as Chamberlain accomplished with the Pawnee myths, seems impossible. Dorsey also collected the narratives of the Caddo people, the last of the Caddoan speakers who might have retained an understanding of Morning Star similar to that of the Skidi Pawnee divinity. There are several references to such a

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¤gure. In the creation myth, however, the major players are Great-Father-Above, Coyote, a male Moon, and Medicine-Screech-Owl, the culture hero (Dorsey 1905b:7–13). There is a later reference to Morning Star that hints at a more complex myth not collected. In an account of the origin of death, it is af¤rmed that The people are taken to the sky when they die and become the stars that we see at night. Morning Star, who freed the earth from bad animals, had three brothers, and he was the oldest one and the leader of all the tribe. In the beginning he had been the errand man, and during war expeditions he had to get up early in the morning, hours before dawn, to go around the camps and wake the people, so that the enemy would not ¤nd them. That is the reason he gets up so early now. In the evening one of his brothers would go back a long distance to see if the enemy were coming on their trail, and so the man was named Evening Star. The other two brothers were named North Star and South Star, and these four brothers always had something to do. North Star always had to camp in the North and watch for the enemy lest they should approach from that direction; South Star had to camp in the South and watch lest the enemy should approach from that direction. Their father’s name was Great Star, and he was the chief of the people. [Dorsey 1905b:15] This narrative has the stamp of the Wichita cosmological organization, with four brothers as the stars of the cardinal directions. Their father, Great Star, is left unidenti¤ed, but he probably takes his place at the Center in this quadripartite scheme, so Polaris is a good candidate. The way the brothers are spoken about in this narrative makes their names and directions fairly metaphorical, leaving it unclear whether stars or planets are intended here. One possible hint comes from a detail of another myth. In the widespread story of the marooned egg-gatherer (Motif K1616), a boy rides on the back of a horned water monster who is killed by a celestial power (Thompson 1929:326n175). This is usually done by a Thunder power with lightning, but in the Caddo version the slayer was Evening Star, who took the boy with him to the sky, where “he may be seen as Orphan-Star who stands near Evening-Star” (Dorsey 1905b:27). If this is more than the most poetic of metaphors, this detail points to a stellar identity for Evening Star, since the planetary cycles are unique and make it impossible for another star or planet to be permanently linked to a planet. On the other hand, this reference to Evening Star and Orphan Star may be simply a Caddo version of the Venus and Sirius tradition, the Caddo way of incorporating Grandson. If that were the case, then Dorsey’s comment should be amended to read “Orphan-Star who sometimes stands near Evening-Star.”

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The Morning Star of the Caddo people is thus left with an ambiguous identity. One fact is clear in the myths, however: the religious pattern is similar to that of the Wichita and Pawnee, whatever the speci¤c astronomical identity of the “stars.” It is not dif¤cult to see a relationship among the three Caddoanspeaking tribes in the way in which they use the notion of Morning Star—it is connected with the east, is male, and is a protecting warrior. This conclusion that there was a Caddoan tradition of Morning Star as a divinity in the cosmological pantheon implies a considerable time depth for the shared concept. Although the Skidi have taken the ¤gure into an elaboration peculiar to them, with a special emphasis on the conjugal relationship of Morning Star and Evening Star, and the Arikara have lost it under the in®uence of their Siouan neighbors, the notion of a Caddoan tradition appears valid. It thus is reasonable to classify these three tribes in a Morning Star cluster separate from that of the Plains Village group, on the basis of their structure of the Morning Star religious role. One key for this understanding is the assignment of the stars to positions in the cardinal directions, and thus “Cosmogram type” seems to be an apt descriptive label for this Caddoan group’s approach to Morning Star. The Dakota may have been another participant in the Cosmogram type, even though the description is vague. W. D. Wallis summarized the information: The morning star appears in April. An old medicine-man said, before dying, that after death he would appear in the heavens early in the morning; that he had come thence and would return in order to prove to the people that he would live there forever. While he was ill he told them to look to the east early on the fourth morning after his death, and there they would see him as he rose, for he would appear in a manner visible to them. He would have with him a large light that would produce all the colors (of dawn). On the day designated, they saw the star appearing in the east. Now everyone believes that story because the star came as the man promised. We call it ‘Largest Star’ (witca’pita’ka). Four stars are called by this name and are said to be brothers, each having prophesied before death his reappearance in the heavens. One of these is evening star; there is one to the south, and the fourth is seen in the south-east preceding the dawn . . . Another version is to the effect that the morning star has more power than either the Sun or the Moon, having once been a medicine-man on earth and hence knowing more about human affairs. It is called wakanopa. It travels from east to west. [Wallis 1923:44–45]. On the basis of this description, Morning Star may be either a star or planet. The assertion that Morning Star appears in April suggests a star (Sirius?), but the

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notion that the Morning Star is one of four suggests participation in the Cosmogram type. Without further information, it is dif¤cult to say more about this understanding. The Dhegiha Siouan speakers may also have used Morning Star this same way. Francis La Flesche noted that the Osage believed in eight paired divinities that included sun and moon, “Male Star (Morning Star), grandfather, and Female Star (Evening Star), grandmother,” Ursa Major and Pleiades, and two Orion clusters (La Flesche 1928:73–74). An earlier list said there were “four brothers (stars), their sister (the moon), and the sun.” The informant spoke of the “warrior whom the hawk typi¤es” as “a child of the god of day and the goddess of night” (La Flesche 1921:63). The lore of the In-gthon’-ga (Puma) gens identi¤ed the “god of day” as the sun; the “god of night” as “the Male Star, the morning star”; and the Female Star, presumably the goddess of night, as the evening star, indicating that a human could be “a person who has made of the god of night his body” (La Flesche 1921:109). Such a process, whatever it entails, would make one “free from all causes of death . . . [make it] dif¤cult to be overcome by death.” Along with the sun and moon, the morning star and evening star are life symbols (La Flesche 1921:119–20). Further, those four “stars,” which are symbolized by the pileated woodpecker, “have the power of granting to the warriors trophies and stars” (La Flesche 1921:Plate 13b). La Flesche also recorded two songs that belong to the Osage Tho’-xe gens, noting “both songs refer to the morning star.” The content does not appear to be useful (“Lo, the star! Yonder he stands with throbbing brilliancy”; La Flesche 1930:658–59). James O. Dorsey made the unelaborated observation that the “Kansa made offerings to the Morning Star” (Dorsey 1894:379). On the basis of this information, it is dif¤cult to characterize a Dhegiha understanding of the morning star. If the Osage can be taken as characteristic, then the morning star was paired with the evening star, and they were one of a set of four celestial pairs. The organization sounds like a cosmological ritual arrangement, and the pairing of morning and evening star hints at the Pawnee sexual relationship of the two (but the reference to the hawk as child of the sun and evening star seems at variance with the Pawnee understanding). Perhaps all that can be concluded from this meager evidence is that the Dhegiha probably were participants in the Cosmogram type, with perhaps local adaptation of the identi¤cations. Even if the Dhegiha were part of the Cosmogram type, however, it does seem that the type was more strongly focused in the Caddoan tribes. Where did that tradition of the importance of Morning Star originate? Was it an indigenous creation of the Caddoan-speaking people? Was there a direct external source for the Caddoan tradition, or was it an adaptation of an outside in®uence? These questions, unfortunately, are far beyond the bounds of this study. It is enough to

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Figure 3.3. Distribution of the Cosmogram type.

conclude that the Caddoan Cosmogram type appears to be distinctive and con¤ned to a group of the Plains peoples (see Figure 3.3).

Other Morning Stars A few other references to Morning Star appear in various locations in the Eastern Woodlands, but they appear to be so random that it is not possible to de¤ne any particular types. The Iroquois offer an illustration of the dif¤culty, for contradictory myths about Morning Star have been collected from them. In a Seneca text, the star is female: “Morning Star, Genden’wit’ha, is one of the great beings of the sky and her appearance is watched as an omen. It appears that once Morning Star was an important celestial personage, but the Iroquois have drifted away from giving her special honors. She appears in several roles, sometimes as a siren who lures hunters into a luckless marriage, mysteriously leaving them to wander the world over in search of her. She appears to have charmed an elk into loving her, and also [was] a rescuer of starving villages in time of famine” (Parker 1923:12–13). Harriet Converse collected a story that may be related to the Parker

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text, but Morning Star is male in this one. A hunter chased an elk into the sky, where he was trapped: “Dawn, pitying the sky stranger, rescued him as he was falling, and carrying him to her lodge in the east sky, created him her sentinel to guard its door.” The hunter, given to wandering, fell in love with a woman and visited her hidden in the bodies of birds, ¤nally staying too long on earth looking at her. When the maiden awoke, Dawn, who was standing by the door of her lodge, reproved So-son-do-wah for remaining so long on the earth, and transformed the maiden into a star. As punishment to So-son-do-wah for deserting his watch of her door, she invoked the aid of her warrior attendants who seized him and bound his arms. On his forehead they placed the new star, and in her hand a ®aming torch, and should he attempt to release himself, the torch will consume him. And thus he remains So-sondo-wah, the human hunter, who yet yearns for the star which has never known him . . . The Iroquois relate that the Sun lights his council ¤re by the torch of the Star Woman before he appears above the horizon. This Star Woman of the Iroquois, who precedes the sun in the east sky, is the morning star of the paleface. [Converse 1908:60–63] Both of these texts present stories about the origin of Morning Star, but there is neither indication of ritual importance nor information about whether it is a star or a planet. In another Seneca text Morning Star is still unidenti¤ed, but there is a hint of ritual tradition: A man’s wife became a cannibal, and he ®ed for his life. He climbed a tree for safety, but the rising waters threatened to drown him. “While looking around for some avenue of escape he saw the Morning Star shining brightly in the east. Remembering that the Morning Star had promised him in a dream in the days of his youth to help him in the time of trouble or peril, he prayed that the Morning Star would hasten the coming of the day, for he believed that with the advent of daylight the waters would subside and he would be saved.” The Morning Star heard him and recalled the promise. He called for the Sun to come out, and the water subsided. The cannibal wife became similarly trapped, but when she called upon the Morning Star, she had no claim on him, so “the inhabitants of the lake ate up the little old woman” (Curtin and Hewitt 1918:464–69). The Iroquois material is too sparse to permit further conclusions or categorization. Even so, they have some myths about the Morning Star, whereas the other Woodlands people have retained little more than names for the Morning Star, whatever it was they identi¤ed as such. For example, for the Fox there is only the note that “Wapanananagwa [the morning star] is another of the big stars [the father of the legendary hero Wapasaiya]” ( Jones 1939:21). As for

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Figure 3.4. Distribution of Morning Star traditions (Star Boy in italics; Cosmogram in roman).

the Cherokees, “according to Squier (Serpent Symbol, p. 69), probably on the authority of the Payne manuscript, ‘The Cherokees paid a kind of veneration to the morning star’ ” (Mooney 1900:442). The Choctaw information is even scantier: there are names for planets like Venus and Jupiter (“large star”) and for Mars (“red star”), but no “morning star” (Byington 1909:121–22). It seems impossible to determine whether the absence of myths stems from a lack of a signi¤cant religious tradition involving Morning Star or from the loss of old traditions. In either case, little more can be said about the role of Morning Star in these groups. That leaves the distribution map of Morning Star traditions with two major myth types so far—the Star Boy and the Cosmogram (see Figure 3.4). There are hints of other Morning Star traditions, however, and they should be explored. They will be the subject of the next chapter.

4

The Morning Star of the Winnebago

The Winnebago are Siouan speakers from Wisconsin. Their dialect is closely related to that of the Chiwere speakers—the Iowa, Oto, and Missouri tribes—and they are thus linked with them at least through the past few centuries. The possibility that the northern Siouan speakers are descended from the people of prehistoric Cahokia in the central Mississippi Valley is one of the reasons contemporary anthropologists are particularly interested in their narratives and beliefs. In recent years, especially, there has been a revival of scholarly interest in the Morning Star ¤gure of the Winnebago. Paul Radin, the major ethnographer of the Winnebago in the early 20th century, originally raised the issue as he examined the unusual narrative texts he had collected, but more recent interpreters have also taken up the complex problem of the Winnebago traditions, and the subject has become confused. It is an important problem, though, because the Winnebago may be the focus of a separate tradition of Morning Star belief, one that could be descended from a prehistoric religious complex. To satisfy our search for Morning Star traditions, it is necessary to reexamine the evidence, even though it is a fairly lengthy task. The examination should begin with Radin’s work over the ¤rst half of the 20th century, for he was the primary ethnographer. For the Winnebago, there are many divinities and heroes mentioned in the myth collections, including Morning Star, and it is dif¤cult to ¤nd a single organizational structure incorporating them all. In one of his most important publications of Winnebago myths, Radin (1948) presented the texts of four “cycles” of epic length. Categorized by the hero of the story, they are the Trickster, Hare, Red Horn, and Twins cycles. The ethnoastronomical evidence in these and other Winnebago narratives is fairly sparse. Nowhere in these lengthy texts is there

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mention of stars by name; it is as if these are heroic Middle World stories with little connection to the celestial realm. The Trickster cycle, however, ends with this: “Then he [Trickster] left and went ¤rst into the ocean and then up to heaven. Under the world where Earthmaker lives, there is another world just like it and of this world, he, Trickster, is in charge. Turtle is in charge of the third world and Hare is in charge of the world in which we live” (Radin 1945:252, 1948:92). This structure is a bit confused; it is clari¤ed in a note in Smith’s later volume of Winnebago myths: “The Winnebagos believed that there are four worlds in their cosmology, one beneath the other . . . Maona is in charge of the heavens and he put Trickster in charge of the skies. Hare is in charge of the world. Turtle is in charge of the underworld” (Smith 1997:46n). These heroes are therefore associated with the levels of the cosmos, and they are also able to travel to them. An ability to perform sky travel is indicated: for example, when Red Horn set out on a war party with a thunderbird, he was able to ®y in the clouds with him (Radin 1948:120–21). Red Horn’s sons were also able to take the path to the celestial realm, a journey similar in detail to the “journey to the sky” of other myths (see Chapter 9) (Radin 1948:133–36). The Twins, in their adventures, “travelled all over the world and killed all the evil spirits they encountered. Then they went under the earth, under the rivers, under the ocean and then above the earth, visiting the Night-spirits, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Thunderbirds—all of them. They visited the four worlds, too. Indeed they did not miss any place” (Radin 1948:147). Nonetheless, in their heroic stories, all of these ¤gures are depicted simply as travelers, not as residents of the sky or star-born. One curious ¤gure, the son of one of the four waterspirits who keep the earth stable, was so adept at visiting all locations in the cosmos that he was even called “Traveller” (Radin 1926: 37–45). Despite these sky voyagers, the mythic narratives published by Radin in a series of articles and books over decades manifest little speci¤c celestial information, particularly about constellations or planets. In the Winnebago origin myths, however, there is a clearer connection to the celestial world. Earthmaker’s tears formed the seas, and he then formed the three additional worlds beneath him. In order to stabilize the third world (the earth-island Middle World where humans were to live), Earthmaker created four “Island-Anchorers” in the cardinal directions, but when they failed, he made four waterspirits, but they too failed. Four serpents ¤nally stabilized the Earth, and female rocks completed the job. After successive attempts at creation by the use of Trickster, Bladder, and Turtle, Earthmaker made Hare, who succeeded in establishing the present order. The primal divinities were thus Earthmaker, Grandmother Earth, waterspirits/serpents, Trickster, Bladder, Turtle, and Hare. Then were created the Thunderbirds (Radin

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1945:252–308, also 1923:164–70). As life in the Middle World proceeded, other ¤gures appeared: Sun, Moon, Morning Star, and Disease-giver. Richard Dieterle has pointed out that this sequencing of the creation of the divinities seems confused: “The soteriological spirits were created to combat the evil spirits, so all the evil spirits were created before them . . . However, the trickster tradition makes him older than all things on earth, as everything called him Kunu, ‘First Born Male’ . . . This makes it appear that man was created before these spirits; however, most accounts of the creation of man point out that he was created last and was the least of Earthmaker’s creations” (Richard L. Dieterle, personal communication 2006). Faced with so many different religious ¤gures, Radin apparently was at a loss as to how to rank or order them. He observed in 1923 that “[t]he principal deities of the Winnebago are: Earthmaker, Sun, Moon, Earth, Morning Star, Diseasegiver, Thunderbird, Waterspirit, etc.” (Radin 1923:237). The “etc.” seems close to a shrug of frustration. He decided that the best interpretation is that the rituals and myths contain references to Powers who had been replaced by later divinities and that there had been some shifting of roles through the years. Since evolution of religious thought through time was the key, he looked for chronological strata. Thus he concluded about Morning Star: This is one of the spirits belonging to the older strata of Winnebago beliefs, who apparently was not displaced by the newer deities. He is both a great deity and a guardian spirit. That he developed out of the inde¤nite “folklore-spirits” [an early attempt by Radin to chart an evolution of the Winnebago divinities] is abundantly attested by the role he plays in the myths. Morning Star is preeminently associated with war . . . He is always known as Wirago’cge xetera, the great star. He, like the Sun, seems to have enjoyed a greater popularity before the rise of the complex rituals. He is purely and simply a war deity. [Radin 1923:238–39, 392] This is sparse information. There is a Winnebago Star Husband myth with no Star Boy sequel, and the Hare cycle ¤lls the Star Boy/Grandson slot, so participation in the Star Boy group for Morning Star seems unlikely. Could the Winnebago Morning Star ¤t into the Cosmogram group? Early on, Radin argued that Morning Star and Evening Star were two deities in the most ancient stratum of Winnebago religious belief, as already noted. In 1954 he referred to “an older Siouan belief in seven primary deities—Earth, Sun, Moon, Thunderbird, Waterspirit, Evening Star and Morning Star” (Radin 1954:13). Nonetheless, it is probably signi¤cant that the Morning Star does not appear in the lengthy account of the Medicine Rite, which is replete with quadripartite (fourdirectional) references (Radin 1945). Further, the lack of mention of other stars

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makes a quadripartite understanding of the Morning Star and Evening Star unlikely, but the existence of Morning Star and Evening Star as stars of the east and west means that participation in the Cosmogram type group cannot be eliminated at this point. On the other hand, there are hints that the Winnebago Morning Star may represent a separate tradition. Paul Radin (1948) identi¤ed Morning Star with a heroic ¤gure known as Red Horn, and that has had a great deal of in®uence on subsequent interpretations. In recent publications this connection has led to an argument by several scholars of a signi¤cant mythic role for the Winnebago Morning Star. If they are correct, then there may be yet another type of Morning Star tradition (Brown 2004:105, 114; Diaz-Granados and Duncan 2000:231–32; Duncan and Diaz-Granados 2000; Hall 1989:241–42, 257, 1997:148–49; Reilly 2004:132–35).That possibility indicates that the Winnebago myths should be examined more carefully. At this point in the examination, however, the Winnebago information does not permit even the determination of whether Morning Star was a star or a planet—what is clear is that he was called “Great Star” and was, along with Thunderbirds and bear-spirits, a patron of warriors. There may be more to the Winnebago astronomical story, however.

Morning Star as a Mythic Figure In the period from 1909 to 1912, Sam Blowsnake, Paul Radin’s Winnebago colleague, collected several extraordinary myth texts from unnamed informants. He took them down in dictation and passed them on to Radin, who noted (regarding another Blowsnake text) that he did not inquire as to the sources (Radin 1954:21). That was an unfortunate circumstance, because over the next four decades, Radin analyzed, interpreted, and published a number of those texts without being able to assess the sources of their unusual qualities and interrelationships. Several of the texts purport to deal with astronomical ¤gures. To follow Radin’s interpretations, it will be necessary to examine and compare the plots of a number of texts. The simplest version of what might be a Morning Star text (labeled Morning Star 1—MS1—for coding) begins as a familiar plot—a Star Boy/Grandson myth, collected by W. C. McKern. Here is a summary. Old Woman lived with her grandson Young-Man. He learned to hunt and killed deer, turkey, and ¤sh. He made a bow and arrows and learned how to use them. He learned how to play lacrosse. Old Woman dressed him and sent him off to ¤nd a wife and a friend, Naked-One. When their friendship grew, Young-Man gave Naked-One his clothes, taking new ones for himself. “They looked almost exactly like each other. The bows and

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ch apter 4 arrows were different; the arrows of Naked-One had no feathers, and his bow had one serrated edge.” Naked-One also had a snakeskin headband, and each wore an eagle feather. At the home of an old woman and her grandson, the young men ate from an inexhaustible pot, then met three daughters of the local chief. They dressed the grandson like themselves, then the trio married the three daughters. When the seven cannibal giants came, Mud-Turtle, Trickster, Curly-Haired One, and the three boys defended the town. They played lacrosse and four of the giants were defeated and assigned their modern niches in the cosmic order as two hawks, a ¤sher, and a fox. The last giant, Pretty-Woman-with-Red-Hair, was defeated when she was embarrassed by the human-head earbobs worn by Young-Man. The next day they played again, and again the giants were defeated and all were killed except two. Pretty-Woman-with-Red-Hair lost her cannibalism when she vomited up a piece of ice, and Young-Man took her as his second wife. She later gave birth to a son they named Red-Horn. Young-Man then went to his “spirit home,” having “accomplished that for which I am intended.” [summary of W. C. McKern text (1920s), in Smith 1997:64–82]

This text can be coded as follows: MS1 Young Man befriends lone man + trio + marriage to sisters + contest with giants + giants defeated + child of YM & red-haired giant = Red Horn There is no apparent connection with Morning Star in this narrative. It is a Grandson/Orphan story, which turns into a twins, then a trio format. To it is attached a heroic ballgame, the struggle of a group of humans against the giants in which the humans win. Young Man, the Orphan ¤gure, is identi¤ed by his wearing human-head earrings. (This distinguishing characteristic will henceforth be used as the label for the ¤gure—HHE for short.) It is notable in McKern’s narrative, however, that Red Horn is the name given to Young Man’s son. The story ends with Young Man’s departure (death?) and no hint of any future role for his baby Red Horn. There is no reference to stars. In a recent publication of Winnebago myths, one text collected by Louis L. Meeker late in the 19th century (MS2) is speci¤cally about the origin of Morning Star, and it contains a lethal contest. Maona, the Creator, made a man, but one leg broke off, and he was cast aside. The creator made another man named Kunu, First-Boy, then seven

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more. The eight brothers were called by their birth-order labels: Kunu, Haynu, Haga, and Nagi, Little Kunu, Little Haynu, Little Haga, and Little Nagi. All together they were the ancestors of the eight clans. Chasing a raccoon, Kunu fell off a cliff and hung there to a tree; he was retrieved by the boys at the direction of the youngest, Little Nagi. Then they went one by one into the gorge where the raccoon had gone, and they did not return. Except for Kunu, Little Nagi was the last to go. He camped at the foot of the tree where his brothers had been before him. When he saw the Onelegged Man [OLM] coming at him from the sky, he shot four arrows at him, wounding him with the last. OLM took him away and beat Little Nagi with briars to repay him for hurting him, but he kept him alive to torture him. Little Nagi called to Kunu to save him, and Kunu came to him “over the sky. He found poor [Little Nagi] bound and being used to stop the entrance to [OLM’s] tent, to keep out the cold.” OLM proposed that he and Kunu play a game of shinny, a dangerous game with sticks. They began and OLM, instead of hitting the block of wood with his stick, hit Kunu, whose decapitated head ®ew into the sky into the presence of Maona. OLM asked permission to kill his adversary, but Maona did not answer. Kunu’s head landed back on his neck, and he lived. Then Kunu sent OLM’s head to the sky, with the same result. The sequence happened two more times, but the fourth time Kunu ¤nally received permission to kill the One-legged man. When he sent OLM’s head to the sky, he moved the body and the head fell dead. Little Nagi “became the morning star, but his brothers became the clouds.” Little Nagi never married, but his brothers did. [summary of Louis L. Meeker, “The Morning Star,” in Smith 1997:105–10] This text can be coded this way: MS2 Boy captured + dual contest + captor decapitated + boy = MS This is a curiously off hand sort of identi¤cation. The heroic Kunu receives no reward, while the rescued victim is made Morning Star for no discernible reason, certainly not as a result of his deeds. Nor is there any indication of a future task for him in that persona. The story, however, is distinctive—a lethal ball game between the ¤rst two men created by Earthmaker, one of them lacking a leg. Their power is indicated by their ability to be decapitated and resuscitated, and their contest is ended only by Earthmaker’s permission for the One-legged Man to die at the hands of Kunu. This fairly simple plot stands alone in the myth corpus, but there are links to other myths. It should be noted that the nature of

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the con®ict in MS2 is more of a duel between two ¤gures, as opposed to the contest with the giants of MS1. Another narrative similar to the contest with the giants was told by the Iowa, close linguistic kin of the Winnebago. In an unusual structuring, the heroic trio was mentioned in the Twins myth. This information was included as the last episode: At the end of their adventures, the Twins visited a village with “three leading chiefs,” Black Hawk, Snapping Turtle, and Man-in-the-earring. One of the chiefs announced a race “from one corner of the world to the other,” with his daughter as the prize; all the creatures participated in the race. The fastest runner was to bring in a pipe. Turtle created a copy with which he tried to claim the victory, but “the Man-in-the-earring brought in the real pipe and won. He received the woman, and became the ruler of the people.” After the race, the Twins “went into” the Sun and Moon, and their father became the ¤xed star. Nothing further is said about the heroic trio. [summary of Skinner 1925:440–41, #1] MS3 Trio of chiefs in village + contest: race for chief ’s daughter + Turtle tries to cheat + HHE wins race and daughter It is helpful to compare this brief insertion into the Twins myth to a longer version also found in Skinner’s Iowa collection. Here is a summary of the Iowa text of the contest with the giants. Human-head-earrings was the youngest of 10 human brothers. He and two friends, Turtle and Black Hawk, defeated giants in a race and bears in lacrosse, but they lost a wrestling match with giants. The giants won, and Human-head-earrings and his two friends were slain. Human-head-earrings had a son who was exactly like him in appearance except that instead of having tiny human heads in his ears, one grew out of the middle of his chest. Black Hawk also left a son. At age 11, the two boys went to recover the heads of the slain heroes. When they located the heads, the son of Human-head-earrings magically made the giants die spitting blood. The two boys took the heads home and resuscitated them, after which nothing more is said of the boys. Turtle went into the water, leaving his children behind to continue the line of turtles on earth. Black Hawk left, leaving his children war bundles and a gift of power. “Humanhead-earrings was only a man like the rest of us, but he said that when he died his little heads should live always. So now when we die the little per-

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son invisible to us that dwells in us (the soul) goes to the other world.” [summary of Skinner 1925:456–58] This plot can be coded like this: MS4 Group contest + trio beheaded + boys born + boy kills giants + boys resurrect trio + trio disperses to homes + HHE = man Alanson Skinner did not identify the narrators of either text, but both may have been given to him by his primary informant, Robert Small (Skinner 1925:425). If that is true, then the double reference to the three heroes illustrates the attempt by a narrator to bring his information into a coherent larger story. One troubling problem in the result is the doubling of the contest—one with the giants and one as a cosmic race with no reference to giants. If there were two separate narrators for these myths, they at least agreed on the lower ranking of the three heroes in relation to the Twins or their sons. The Twins were clearly more important than the heroic trio, and the contest appears to be a gratuitous episode attached to the Twins myth; only the Twins and their father have celestial connections. In the contest with the giants narrative, the informant does not mention Morning Star or stars; in fact, the narrator seems to go out of his way to make it clear that HHE was “only a man like the rest of us” and died. It should also be noted that no giant-wife appears in that account. If the Iowa tradition had a place for her at all, she appeared only in the Twins narrative as the daughter of the chief who sponsored the race. In neither narrative was HHE or his son ever called “Red Horn.” That linkage was made in the equivalent Winnebago text. Radin had already published, in 1931, a text of the Red Horn myth, but without prefatory comment, under the title “The Thunderbird Warclub: A Winnebago Tale.” In 1948 he published the same text as one of four “hero cycles.” It appears to be an expanded version of the Iowa text. Red Horn, born “He-who-is-hit-with-deer-lungs,” but later known as “Hewho-wears-human-heads-as-earrings” (because he did) and “Red Horn” (because of his red hair), was the youngest of 10 boys who showed unusual powers early on. He won a foot race, proved to be successful on war raids, and even showed he had the power to heal war wounds. When challenged to various competitions with giants, with death as the wager, he and his friends Storms-as-he-walks (a Thunderbird), Wolf, Otter, and Turtle won a series of them. Finally, however, Red Horn, Storms-as-he-walks, and

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ch apter 4 Turtle lost a wrestling match and were killed, along with all the other men of the village. The second story in the composite structure talks about the birth of Red Horn’s two sons by his two wives and their quest to recover the heads of their father and his friends. They successfully killed the giants and recovered the bones and heads in order to bring about the resuscitation of all the deceased. After a few of their own adventures, the Boys and Red Horn’s friends all went their own ways. [summary of Radin 1931, 1948:29–36]

Coded, the plot looks like this: MS5 Group contest + trio beheaded + sons born + giants killed + resuscitation + Boys’ adventures The parallel of details in the Winnebago (MS5) and Iowa (MS4) narratives makes it clear that they are closely related: the three friends, competitions with giants, fatal wrestling match, scalps/heads, rescue and resuscitation by sons, human-head-earrings on father’s ears and son’s chest. They agree in ignoring any stellar identi¤cations, and the Winnebago Red Horn appears to be as human as his Iowa equivalent. It should be noted, however, that both texts seem to be compounds, even though the second part of the Iowa text, the Boys’ adventures, is severely truncated. Even so, the similarities suggest that the structural linkage was done at a time when the Winnebago and Chiwere speakers were living in close proximity. Having been treated to summaries of ¤ve somehow-related myth texts, my reader is probably somewhat bewildered. It may help if we pause for a moment to compare the plot structures of the texts. As the stories have been presented, a coded form has also been noted. When the text elements are lined up, the similarities and differences become more obvious (see Table 4.1). The identi¤cations are confusing. Only the victimized Little Nagi of MS2 is identi¤ed as Morning Star; the other texts are silent. Human-Head Earrings is the hero of MS3, MS4, and MS5, and in all three he is one of a trio of friends. The name Red Horn is not presented in a consistent manner. He is the son of the hero in MS1 and is the hero in MS5, but the name does not appear in the other texts, not even in either Iowa parallel (MS3, MS4). The text that refers to Morning Star does not mention either HHE or Red Horn. Only the narrator of MS5 presents the argument that HHE is Red Horn. Clearly, any hypothesis

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about Morning Star as Red Horn must depend on arguments other than these narrators’ identi¤cations. These ¤ve texts—McKern’s Grandson, Meeker’s Kunu, the Iowa Twins text, the Iowa contest with the giants text, and Radin’s contest with the giants narrative— reveal a wide range of ways to tell the story. MS1 and MS2 are not compound myths; the contest simply ends in victory. MS3 is an easily separable episode attached to the myth of the Twins, but it also ends in victory. They differ from each other in that two focus on a group contest while the other tells of single combat. In all three cases, the hero or heroes are victorious. By contrast, the last two add on the second portion, the Boys, thus bringing about a good resolution to a story that ended in defeat in the opening episode. The common element in all ¤ve texts is that there was a ballgame/contest between human(s) and an enemy. The outcome of the game has two forms, though: in three the heroes win and in two they lose, necessitating another episode to bring the story to a good resolution. Since the claim for Morning Star’s mythic portrayal is focused in the episode of the contest, let us examine it more carefully.

Contest with the Giants In Paul Radin’s collection of Winnebago myths there are several texts that contain an episode that may be loosely termed “Contests with the Giants,” for the action consists of a series of games, tests of both prowess and chance, between one or more heroes and one or more cannibal giants. There is a range of variation, and the episodes do not appear consistently in a single plot type. Table 4.2 is a chart of the Winnebago texts containing Contests with the Giants, drawn from the online corpus (Dieterle 2005). In order to become aware of the range of variation in the plots within which the Contests episodes appear, it is necessary to examine an extremely brief summary of the plot sequences, all derived from The Encyclopedia of Hotcâk (Winnebago) Mythology (Dieterle 2005). It should be borne in mind that many of these narratives are far more lengthy and complex than is indicated in this summary. Plot G (Giants) Red Horn Cycle, Episode 4 (MS5): Giants challenged an Indian village to play lacrosse for lives. Despite her ability, the giant woman with red hair was undone by laughing at Red Horn’s human-head earrings. The team of Turtle, Red Horn, Wolf, Otter, and Storms-as-he-walks (Thunderbird) won the game. They arranged the giants into four circles, and Storms-as-he-walks killed them all with lightning. Other giants came. They played shooting arrows, dice, staying under-

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water, and wrestling. The giants lost all except the last game, after which Turtle and his friends were killed (Radin 1948:123–29). Red Horn’s Sons: Red Horn, Turtle, Wolf, Storms-as-he-walks, and other warriors were invited to a feast. In the course of it they were asked to eat with an old woman’s grandson and give him their blessings. Red Horn married a woman there. The spirit-heroes, plus the grandson, set out on a war party against waterspirits. They brought back war honors. Otter also led a successful war party. Giants arrived to challenge them to games. Turtle played dice with a bear and won. The thunderbird killed the wagered giants with lightning. The heroes won also in shooting arrows, in long diving, and in a ball game. The giants were killed, but the woman giant was taken by Red Horn as his wife. Both his wives bore him sons. Later a war party came to ¤ght, and the heroes were all captured and beheaded. Of Red Horn’s boys, one was like his father, and the other “had the man faces on his shoulders.” They went to the enemies’ home and seized the four heads, then escaped the ®ood-waves sent after them. The boys resuscitated the heads, and the enemies ®ed through a hole in the ground. The heroes followed them below to a village where they slaughtered all the bad waterspirits. Turtle and Thunder gave their weapons to the boys. “Then Redhorn also went back to his home up above. ‘Without Horns’ (Herok’a), they call certain beings. He was their chief; his sons were the chiefs of beings called ‘Childish People,’ they say” (Radin, Winnebago Notebooks [hereinafter W N], Winnebago IV, Freeman #3860, #7a, pp. 1–16).1 Iowa Human-head Earrings (MS4): Ten brothers lived in a town that accepted a challenge from a party of giants. The youngest brother, who wore human-head earbobs, won the race and killed the giants, assisted by his friends Turtle and Black Hawk. The trio went to another place where they played some bears in lacrosse on the ice. In the game the human-head earbobs made a she-bear lose her focus, and the bears lost the game and their lives. Years later another party of giants came to play, and the trio lost the game and were beheaded. The son of Human-head Earrings, who had a tiny head in the middle of his chest, and the son of Black Hawk journeyed to the giants’ village, where they killed the giants by magic. They resuscitated the three heads, who all departed after leaving their sons their gifts (Skinner 1925:456–58).2 Iowa (MS3): In a village with “three leading chiefs,” Black Hawk, Snapping Turtle, and Man-in-the-earring, a chief announced a race “from one corner of the world to the other,” with his daughter as the prize; the fastest runner was to bring in a pipe. Turtle created a copy with which he tried to claim the victory, but “the Man-in-the-earring brought in the real pipe and won. He received the woman, and became the ruler of the people” (Skinner 1925:440–41, #1). Morning Star and His Friend: Wrapped in Blankets came to awareness and met a man (Turtle) who invited him to visit. After being blessed by four Herok’a, he

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went to his friend’s home, where he found him with his wife and baby. The two of them went to another town and he married an old woman’s daughter, with whom he had a son. Some cannibal giants came and challenged them to a ball game. The four goals were made by Wolf, Black Hawk, Otter, and Man Faces as Earbobs; in the last goal the point was won by Earbobs’ making a giant woman smile and lose focus. The giants wagered were killed. Turtle and Otter were the winners in “Diving Endurance.” Wrapped in Blankets won the wrestling contest, and he and Turtle won the foot race. All of the giants except two were killed. Wrapped in Blankets is the Great Star (note that this ¤gure may not be the same as HHE) ( John Harrison, translated by Oliver LaMere, in WN, Winnebago III, Freeman #3892, #11a, Story 8, pp. 92–117). Young Man and Naked One: An old woman taught her grandson, Young Man, how to hunt and play lacrosse. She dressed him in ¤nery and sent him off to ¤nd a wife. He met a naked man who had run away from his nine brothers, and after sharing knowledge about food, Naked Man dressed the same as Young Man, after which they were almost identical. They went to a village where they met another young man, whom they dressed the same as themselves. The trio married three women of the town and demonstrated their ability at hunting. Giants came to challenge the town to gamble their lives. Turtle, Curly Hair, Trickster, and the trio played against the giants and their sons-in-law. After Young Man revealed his “Human Heads for Earrings,” causing the giants to lose focus, the village won and killed the wagered giants. The giants lost again the next day, and the day after that, Turtle and his friends chased down the giants and killed them all except two. Young Man returned home with his wife, child, and the giant woman. After cleansing her of the ice that caused her cannibalism, he married her and they later had a son named Red Horn. Young Man then ascended to the sky (McKern 1929). Hotcâgara Contest with the Giants: The giants came to a Winnebago village to challenge them to lacrosse. At Turtle’s urging, the Indians accepted. The giants were led by a woman with red-yellow hair. After the Winnebago won four games, all the giants were killed, except for the woman, who became part of the tribe (Little Decorah, in Foster 1876–77:1:3, col. 1, #3). Spear Shaft and Lacrosse: Turtle befriended a village weakened by attacks by enemies. He led a successful war party and became the chief ’s son-in-law, then was made chief of the village. He prepared a feast and sent out messengers with invitations. After the feast, the giants sent a messenger with a gourd rattle to challenge them to a game of dice. Turtle won and killed the wagered giants. The next day Turtle played “chips” against them and again won the lives of some giants. The next game was arrow shooting, and again Turtle and a friend won. So went the contests of fast eating, foot racing, wading across the lake, and carrying big loads. Finally, Turtle and his friends won a ball game. All of the

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giants but two were killed. Then all the friends went home, except for the arrow, spear shaft, and lacrosse stick, who stayed with the Indians (WN, Notebook 36, pp. 1–81). The Roaster: An orphan revealed to the village chief that his son was a bear who was eating women. When he killed the bear-man, the boy was adopted by the chief and named the next chief. The boy took a group of men to challenge a group of cannibal Giants to gamble their lives. Four men (“White Clouds” and “Winners”) were the players in lacrosse, dice, a foot race, lacrosse, and jumping. They won them all and killed and burned the giants. The young chief, who was really a comet-meteor, married a woman giant. Later the couple and their son ascended to the sky (“The Roaster,” WN, Notebook 2). Young Man Gambles Often: A young man, the last of 20 children of a chief, was an inveterate gambler, but he was made the peace chief of a town. After an opening sequence about his ritual activities as chief in relation to war parties, the story focuses on his leadership in a sequence of contests with a band of cannibal giants. The structure is a sequence of contests between selected individuals, with the stakes, at the insistence of the cannibal giants, raised from ordinary wagers of goods to lives of the competitors. The young chief managed to get the giants to agree to four-to-one odds. Then the sequence of seven contests (kicking, shooting arrows, kicking, racing, kicking, ball, and wrestling) began. The ¤nal outcome was the destruction of the giants, except for two representatives (WN, Winnebago IV, Freeman #3861 [3891], #8s, pp. 1–23; the original text is found as “Young Man Gambles Often [Hotcitciwaki’uk’ega],” in WN, Winnebago V, #22, pp. 1–173). White Wolf: Two brothers, one a wolf, lived well until a broken food taboo led to the loss of success in hunting. They were challenged by the giants, and wolf had his brother kill him and keep a bracelet made of his skin. The giants lost contests until the brother left off his bracelet, when he was killed. The wolf brother emerged from the bracelet and resuscitated his brother, and they ¤nished the giants. Then the victims of the giants were resuscitated (WN, Notebook 10, pp. 1–64). Reincarnated Grizzly: In a family of eight brothers, the youngest was an inveterate gambler who was made chief. When the giants challenged them, he accepted, and the others joined in. The chief became a bear, killed the remaining giants, and married a giant woman (WN, Winnebago IV, Freeman #3860, #7, Story 7k, pp. 1015–20). Plot S (Sun) Sun and Big Eater: An old man and woman had a son who devoured enormous amounts of food. When a food taboo was broken, the old man lost his success as a hunter and they began to starve. The old man ®ed to the lodge of 10 brothers, survivors of former contests with giants. When the giants again challenged

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them, the old man engaged in four races with them. He won them all, and the giants were beheaded. The narrator identi¤es the old man and woman as Sun and Moon, their son as a horse, and the 10 brothers as two stars, four Nightspirits, one thunderbird, and three wolves (WN, Winnebago IV, Freeman #3860, #7l, pp. 1–9 (= 78–86, = 978–96). Big Eater: This is very similar to the previous (Frank Ewing, in WN, Winnebago III, Freeman #3892, #11b, Story XI, pp. 61–63; WN, Winnebago III, Freeman #3899 [1254], #19, Story 19c [2], pp. 9–14). Grandfather’s Two Families: Ten sons tried to feed their ravenous father. When the giants challenged them, the old man won the races and beheaded them. The narrator identi¤es the players as Sun, Moon, Red Star, Morning Star, and eight animals (WN, Notebook 8, pp. 1–93). Miscellaneous Green Man: A man (Black Rocks) killed a man who looked just like him and replaced him in his family, freeing the wives who were held by coercion. Then his wife and his sister were seized by a gambler. Black Rocks took his robe and a pipe, thus looking like the gambler, and recovered the women. He then went to the gambling lodge, where he found Turtle, Trickster, Red Horn, and Hare playing against One-Legged One and four others. He joined them, and they won in ¤ve contests. The gambler (One-Legged One) had earlier won many of the plants of the world, and they were released. Black Rocks located the external heart of the gambler, which enabled him to kill him (he turned into crickets). Black Rocks also straightened up the bent-over backs of all the freed prisoners, people who had lost to the gambler (WN, Notebook 55; WN, Winnebago IV, Freeman #3858, #5, pp. 4–16). Spirit of Gambling: Earthmaker’s ¤rst creation had defects, so he was tossed away to the north. He became a traveling gambler and won all the humans’ possessions. At his suggestion they then wagered “maize, beans, and vegetables; they staked the fruit of the trees; and ¤nally they bet every kind of animal that was good for food. All these they lost.” They also lost all the women. The good spirits sent Hare, Turtle, Thunder, Hecutcka (Red Horn), and Trickster to rectify the situation. In the contests ( Jack Pines, stare, peg) the gambler was beaten by trickery and lost all of the things he had won (LaMère and Shinn 1927:75–86). Shaggy Man: In a chief ’s family there were nine boys and a girl. Eight of the boys resented the youngest and tried to kill him. The boy was taken by waterspirits. Another episode tells of a bear-spirit who married the girl; their son resuscitated the brother. The contests were with “long-legged Bears,” all of whom were killed (WN, Notebook 9, pp. 1–89). Old Man and the Giants: In a contest with the giants, most of the people of a village were killed, except for an old man and two of his sons. Additional episodes include the Stolen Boy, his marriage and testing by his father-in-law

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(similar to Twins episodes), the domestication of the brother, and the resuscitation of the town (Charlie Houghton, in WN, Winnebago III, Freeman 3894, #9, Story 31, pp. 163–82). Origins of the Milky Way: One of the divinities attempted to destroy humans by means of contests with the giants. In the diving competition the Milky Way was created by accident as the competitors dived too deep (WN, Winnebago I, Freeman #3862, #3, pp. 105, 107b). Human Head: The opening episode of this compound myth is the widespread story of four women ®eeing a Rolling Skull. In the next episode a Young Man married the daughter of a couple with 10 sons. In another episode a man awakened, was befriended by four Herok’a, and became a friend of Young Man. In the contest with the giants, the men won. Young Man was identi¤ed as the spirit chief of lice, and his friend as Strong Man (Morning Star) (WN, Notebook 51). These texts demonstrate variation in the total plot structure as well as within structural groupings. The two overall plot types suggested above (G and S) are only a way of identifying texts with structural similarity. Not only are there two identi¤able basic plot types but also there are others (“Miscellaneous”) that defy inclusion in a group. Even within a group—G, for instance—the narratives have different episodes, details, and even personae. The plots can change drastically, as when the usual human victory over the giants is postponed and the heroes are slain by the giants (Red Horn Cycle). The villains who challenge the humans to a contest are usually giants, but they may also be bears (Shaggy Man). The choice of games changes from one narrative to another, seemingly at random (see Table 4.2). Two correlations seem apparent in the table. First, the Contest with the Giants seems to occur most often with a ball game—but with variation as to which one and usually with other games included—while a race is the game of choice in most of the other forms of the contest. Second, in most of the Contest with the Giants plots, a woman opponent becomes the wife of a hero (with variants). These correlations suggest that there are at least two plots included in this collection: a primordial Contest with the Giants, involving a ball game and a female opponent, in which the Giants are eliminated, and a race in which the enemy is defeated. The common element is the Contest itself. The variation in the narratives should not be ignored, however, because it suggests that the episode has been known in the tribal group for long enough for it to have proliferated in multiform and become linked to various other episodes and plot types. In regard to names, at this point there seems little reason to credit the identi¤cation of Human-Head Earrings/Red Horn with Morning Star, and there is clear ambiguity about the label “Morning Star” itself. Moreover, the “Red Horn” label appears to be in limited use. It seems restricted to a few references in the entire Winnebago corpus, while “Human-Head Earrings” is much more frequently used, as well as shared with the Iowa. Richard Dieterle (personal com-

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munication 2006) considers the name Red Horn a local one peculiar to the Winnebago. It may also be a recent one. Louis Meeker, the ethnographer who collected the text of MS2 and the source of a different reference to Morning Star, made an intriguing comment in 1901: “Recently some of the exploits of a Blackfoot or Piegan, named Red Horn, were added to the list, the initiated at once recognizing him as one of the Immortal Four. No doubt they confer the same honor on other recent worthies” (Meeker 1901:161). Although there is only a minor story about a “Red Hair” in a Blackfoot myth collection to con¤rm Meeker’s claim about the source, it may be that he was pointing to something that was obvious to his informants, the intrusive nature of the Red Horn name in their time, just a few years before Radin arrived to begin his ethnographic work among the Winnebago. If the Red Horn name is set aside as a late addition to the Winnebago lore, applied by a few narrators as an alternate name for Human-Head Earrings, the focus shifts more strongly to HHE as the possible Morning Star ¤gure. The HHE (= Red Horn) text presented earlier as MS5 and its Iowa parallel (MS4) are the key narratives that are used as the Morning Star claim, and they share another distinctive feature in the HHE corpus—they are the only ones that extend the Contest narrative by including the death of the heroes and adding on an episode telling of the birth of two Boys who go to the rescue of their slain father(s) and resurrect him and his companions. Its limited appearance in the collection of narratives in which the Contest is complete without the addition suggests that it is a separate episode or another myth altogether. What, then, was the source of that myth? Did it exist as a separate myth before being attached to the Red Horn story? The Winnebago materials do, in fact, have another story in which is found the episode of Boys going to the rescue and resuscitation of their older kin—in this case usually their uncle. This fact opens another avenue of investigation that will be a little complicated. For the time being, we must suspend examination of the Human-Head Earrings myth tradition while we look at another important collection of Winnebago narratives about a man/spirit known as “Blue Horn.” The myth is found in several iterations in the Winnebago corpus, as was the Contest story. The major ones are “Blue Horn’s Nephews” (WN, Notebook 58, pp. 1–104, plus 104– 107 restored from Notebook 59), “The Twins Retrieve Red Star’s Head” (WN, Winnebago V, #2, pp. 1–123 [syllabic text], pp. 1–38 [English translation]; published in Radin 1954:24–41), and “The Children of the Sun,” but there are other related texts, including the Meeker variant already introduced as MS2, in which the rescued brother was identi¤ed as Morning Star. The basic story is this: Blue Horn and his sister lived together until he was confronted by a man who looked exactly like him. They had a contest that began as a smoking

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This plot is structurally close to MS4 and MS5 plots, with the contest as a duel instead of a group competition, a similarity that lends support to the possibility that its Boys episode may have been the source for the Red Horn Boys episode. The Blue Horn myth reached its most elaborate performance in the lengthy compound form known as “The Children of the Sun.” Because of its importance and Radin’s discussion of it, the Children of the Sun narrative will be the Blue Horn version subjected to closer scrutiny.

The Children of the Sun Radin had a Winnebago text of the Children of the Sun myth, collected by Sam Blowsnake from an unknown Winnebago informant (possibly the same as the narrator of MS5) in 1912. Through the years, in various publications Radin quoted from and referred to that text as an important source and an in®uence on the Red Horn tradition, particularly the Boys segment. Details of the use of the Children of the Sun made by Radin through the years will be reserved for later discussion. At this point, it is important to become familiar with this important Winnebago text. In 1954 Radin published the full text of the 1912 “Epic of the Two Boys” myth. Since its published length is 41 pages, it is too long to reprint here, but if we are to follow Radin’s discussion, familiarity with at least a summary of the plot structure is necessary. Radin offered the narrative in three parts: “The Children of the Sun,” “The Twins,” and “The Twins” (Lodge Boy and Thrown Away [LBTA] variety). Each of the parts was broken into numbered episodes composed of numbered paragraphs. Here is an outline, based upon his organization. Part One (Children of the Sun) 1.1 A brother and sister lived in an oval lodge. 2.2 Brother was identi¤ed by a ®ock of black swallows and arrows and moccasins that were snakes. 2.3 Impostor with identical marks visited sister in brother’s absence. 2.4 Brother returned, but sister was distant. 2.5 Next day, stranger returned. 2.6 Stranger made advances. Spurned, he left. 2.7 Brother returned.

The Morning Star of the Winnebago 2.8

3.9 3.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18

4.19 4.20 4.21 4.22 4.23 5.24

5.25

5.26 5.27 5.28

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Brother explained to sister: “An evil being is wandering about the earth gathering for himself all the women most beloved by their relatives. He marries them, but only to make them slaves and to abuse them . . . I really do not know whether I will overcome him or not although I am one of the great spirits that Earthmaker created.” Brother sent sister to request aid from an oak in the south, the “¤rst tree Earthmaker created.” She did so and received two pieces of wood from it, which she placed on the ¤re. Brother left and imposter entered. Brother returned. They talked, each insisting the other ¤ll his pipe. Conversation about pipes continued. They looked exactly alike. Both had arms inlaid with ®int knives from the wrist to the elbow. They argued about which was more powerful, each claiming to be one of the great spirits created by Earthmaker. Continuation. Brother ¤lled his pipe and smoked, bouncing the other into the ¤re. The stranger recovered and smoked his pipe at the brother, bouncing him into the ¤re. “Then the other jumped upon him, severed his head and rushed out at great speed.” The brother’s body chased him. The sister followed her brother and brought him back to the lodge. Sister cried for days. Sister fed her brother’s headless body. After four years, there was little food left. Finally there was nothing left to eat but “Indian potatoes.” Hare summoned all the spirits to a council in his lodge. Among them were “Trickster and Turtle, Bladder and Hare, Sun and Redhorn and Grandmother Earth.” Hare explained: “one of the eight great spirits the creator formed has been defeated and injured . . . An evil spirit has done this, Herecgunina . . . if we could succeed in bringing together some of the powers we possess, take these to the creator, and ask him to take pity upon us, then, if he consents, we might be able to restore our companion to health and life again.” All the spirits contributed some of their power, placing it on a white deerskin. Hare said this will make the recipient equal to Earthmaker. “Six of the eight great spirits, Hare, Trickster, Turtle, Bladder, RedHorn and Sun” went to the Creator.

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5.33 5.34 5.35 5.36 5.37 5.38 5.39 5.39a 5.40 6.41 6.42 6.43 6.44 6.45 6.46 6.47 6.48 6.49 6.50 6.51 7.52 7.53 7.54

7.55 7.56

He welcomed them. Trickster gave him the deerskin. Earthmaker said it was a good plan. Earthmaker contributed some of his power, making the total more than “that of this evil one. Indeed, indeed, one of the greatest spirits I created, one whose power could be well compared with mine, he has been injured.” Herecgunina lived in a lodge to the left of Earthmaker’s. They gave Hare the deerskin bundle, asking him to implement the plan. Hare accepted. Earthmaker explained to Trickster why he was not chosen as the implementer. He said the same to Turtle. They left. They returned to the council. Hare gave the bundle of powers to Sun. So it was done. Sun impregnated the sister with the donated powers. The potatoes got better. She had eaten so little that she was thin. That is why she had been pitied. The headless brother ate better. She noticed she was pregnant. She made her brother aware. A gold and a silver cradle mysteriously appeared in the lodge. She gave birth to twins. The brother loved them. They grew rapidly and became mischievous. He made them bows and arrows. The boys asked why their uncle had no head. Frustrated at getting no answer, they decided to ask others. Their mother told them not to leave. They did. They entered a man’s lodge and asked for the story. He explained: “Your uncle is one of the greatest spirits on earth. Indeed, he is the only truly virtuous spirit on earth . . . The evil being who has done this is a very great spirit . . . in addition to his own power, he now has the power that comes from possessing your uncle’s head. He is trying to kill your uncle at this very moment.” He urged them to attack the evil being at a sandbar in the ocean where he stopped to drink. The younger twin became angry and wanted to attack immediately.

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7.57 The twins decided to disguise themselves as the heat of the day. 7.58 The man told them to take their uncle’s mirror and paint-pot, so the uncle’s head would recognize them. 7.59 He also gave them four iron rods and sent them away. 8.60 Back home, they told their upset mother they were going. They told her to look for signs in the noon sky and heat the iron bars. 8.61 She went to the oak tree in the south and received two pieces of wood; she placed the iron rods in their ¤re. 8.62 At the sandbar, their father the Sun warned them to control their anger. 8.63 The evil spirit arrived and drank. 8.64 “The uncle’s head was tied to the evil spirit’s back and so he, the evil one, really had a face in back of him as well as in front.” The head saw his nephews and became quiet. 8.65 The older boy knocked off the spirit’s head. Taking the two heads, he ®ed, leaving his brother to transform himself into arrows with which he broke off parts of the spirit’s body, weakening it. 8.66 Back at home, the older boy replaced his uncle’s head, then gave him the spirit’s head. 8.67 When the other boy arrived with the spirit’s body, their mother killed it with the iron rods. 8.68 The uncle thanked the boys. 8.69 The younger boy killed a raccoon. 8.70 “These two boys were holy and it was, of course, impossible to have as much power as they possessed.” 8.71 They cooked and ate. 8.72 They burned up the remains of the spirit. 8.73 That’s why there are prairie ¤res. 9.74 The boys provided food, and they all got healthy. 9.75 The uncle said he had to leave. He came to earth to help the human beings, but now he had to go. “Thus he spoke and ascended upwards to the sky. The one who spoke thus was the red star. He is one of the eight great spirits fashioned by the creator with his own hands. He is the youngest of these spirits. He is there now, the red star which can be seen at night. The woman is the moon, and the sun and moon are married.” 9.76 The boys decided to wander in search of other evil spirits. “They were the twins of whom so much has been told, for the children of the sun are identical with the twins, with Ghost and Flesh” (summary of Radin 1954:24–41).

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ch apter 4 Part Two (Twins) 1.1 “Whenever they wished the Boys could be born again anywhere and as human beings. And so there they were born on earth.” 1.2 They killed some snakes in a cliff. 1.3 The older twin’s mink blanket was missing. They went on a search for it. 2.4–8 They visited their grandfather who refused to share his tobacco with them. 3.9–16 They killed a man who tried to boil and eat them. They did that to him. 4.17–19 An old man shared his tobacco with them, and they gave him a great deal of theirs. 5.20–25 They visited another waterspirit lodge, that of the heart of the earth, in the middle. 6.26–31 That was Traveller, son of one of the earth-anchors. 7.32–36 The boys looked for the blanket in the three worlds above the earth, without success. Earthmaker told them it was on earth. He warned them not to take the left fork in the road, “for Herecgunina is in charge of that road. He is the father of the evil spirits.” 8.37–49 They took the left road and visited Herecgunina. They broke his plates in scuf®ing. Herecgunina gave them a sweatbath and tried to kill them, but they burned down his lodge. 9.50–51 They visited Earthmaker again. 10.52–65 They visited the Thunderbirds, where they killed some of them and recovered the blanket. They wore the children of the chief on their heads, but they gave them back. Part Three (Twins: LBTA variety) 1.66–84 The boys visited a couple, spirits who taught humans how to live. They entered her womb and were born again. She died during the birth, and he placed the dead child in a stump. Boys played together. Domestication by elk-bladders. Boys warned not to go to a lake in the south. 4.85–86 Killed leeches. 5.87–88 Killed snakes. 6.89–90 Killed sucking toad. 7.91–92 Killed bear. 8.93 Father ®ed. 9.94–95 Boys sent father to village in east. He went there and found his wife. 10.96–102 Boys visited parents, brought food to village.

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The Twins “were the last great spirits to be created . . . Their father was the ¤re . . . This earth (on which we live) is the last earth (created), but the Twins were created even later, after the beginning of the earth . . . They killed all the evil spirits that were continually molesting and frightening the people” (summary of Radin 1954:24–74).

Radin chose to organize this text in three sections, which emphasizes the basic structure—three separate myths linked together, not very adroitly. The narrator’s goal was to present the Twins of the Children of the Sun myth (Part One) as the same as the Twins of Parts Two and Three by having them reborn: “Whenever they wished the Boys could be born again anywhere and as human beings. And so there they were born on earth” (Part Two, 1.1). While this technique raises questions about the details of the Winnebago belief in reincarnation, the understanding of the Twins as avatars in this narrative probably should be interpreted no more profoundly than as a way of linking the myths—three separate Twins traditions—into a compound narrative. If we code this lengthy compound myth the same way as the others, the Children of the Sun string looks like this: CS1 Dual contest + brother decapitated + council + impregnation by Sun + Twins born + spirit killed + uncle restored + Twins born + adventures + Twins born + adventures It should be noted that the full text does not identify the decapitated uncle as Morning Star. The narrator identi¤ed him only as one of the eight deities created by Earthmaker, a “red star”—“the red star which can be seen at night” (Part One, 9.75). The narrator did not make any further identi¤cation, so the reference was probably understood. Moreover, Radin never offered a de¤nitive list of the “eight great deities,” so Morning Star is not an automatic identi¤cation of the missing one. Radin and Blowsnake had also collected a separate text of the Children of the Sun myth: an “independent” narration, Radin called it. Since it is important for comparison to the Blowsnake “prose epic,” an abbreviated version of the plot is presented here. A brother and sister lived in a lodge. Dif¤cult times made him send her to beg aid from tree-spirits. After being refused many times, she was aided by a short oak tree that gave her a piece of his wood; “her older brother

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ch apter 4 burnt one part of the wood and with another part reinforced the rails around the ¤replace and made them larger.” A man appeared: “I have come to challenge you and play a game with you . . . inhaling our smoke.” The men were alike in having both arms, front and back, inlaid with ®int knives. As the visitor smoked, the brother bounced but was not harmed. When the brother smoked, the man bounced and fell into the ¤re. “Immediately the brother rushed at him and cut off his head with his ®intknife arm . . . An iron was made red-hot and forced down the throat. Only then did the body and the head die. Thereupon both body and head were burnt up.” The next day the sister was aided by a red oak tree. An identical man appeared and the men had a smoking contest, with the same results. The next day the sister was pitied by a basswood tree. The visitor went ¤rst, and the brother fell into the ¤re. “Immediately the stranger cut off his head, gave a war-whoop and ran out, and the war-whoop was heard continuously.” The sister took care of the headless body of her brother. “It was the sister’s custom in the spring to lie out in the sun and so it came about that she became pregnant. She realized it immediately. When the time came she was con¤ned and gave birth to two boys.” Their arms were also inlaid with ®int knives. They grew rapidly and played daily with their decapitated uncle. The twins visited their father the sun, where they sat down in a council of all the sky spirits. “Just then someone was heard coming along shouting. ‘There he comes,’ the spirits cried. Soon a man came along and walked right through the side of the lodge. He did not seem to respect these people in the least although they were all spirits. He had a man’s head dangling from his belt. The spirits sat there and felt quite humbled. Then the father said to his sons, ‘This is the one who has caused your uncle to be headless. It is your uncle’s head that he is carrying at his belt. It is dif¤cult to do anything to him. You have just seen what he does. He is always that way; he has no respect for the spirits. What gives him this great power is your uncle’s head which he is carrying. Your uncle had been dif¤cult to injure, yet he succeeded in injuring him. All the spirits on the earth and all the spirits in the heavens were not the equal of your uncle and yet this one succeeded in harming him. This creature is really not so powerful; it is just your uncle’s head that gives him all this power.’ ” The Sun advised them to hide at a small lake in the west where the killer stopped to drink water. The boys transformed themselves into small ridges on leaves on a tree beside the lake. When the man drank from the lake, the twins warned their uncle’s head not to speak. “The younger one then struck off the head of the spirit who was drinking and ran away with

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it . . . The older brother had, in the meantime, grabbed his uncle’s head.” They raced home and replaced their uncle’s head on his body. They gave the spirit’s head to him. “Finally the uncle arose holding the head, and gave expression to his feelings by dancing and singing to himself. When he was through he gave the victory whoop. All the spirits that had blessed him heard him and they certainly were pleased. All those above, all those on the earth, all those under the waters, heard him and were pleased; for he had been highly esteemed by them and they had been greatly grieved at his misfortune. Then he killed his enemy’s head. He made an iron red-hot, pushed it up his throat and killed it.” The boys then returned to their father, the Sun, telling their mother that she would join them when she ended “this life.” “Then they spoke to their uncle and said, ‘You are now your own master and you may go home whenever you please.’ Then they left and went to their home, to the sun.” [summary of Radin 1954:75–80] The code for this narrative is easily recognized: CS2 Dual contest + brother decapitated + impregnation by Sun + Twins born + spirit killed + uncle restored The similarity of the plot is obvious when the two codes are compared (Table 4.3). The uncle was not identi¤ed as Morning Star in this narrative, or even as a star of any kind. He was, however, an extraordinarily powerful spirit: “all the spirits in the heavens were not the equal of your uncle.” Generally, though, the similarities of the Blowsnake compound version and the independent account are clear: the abusive husband, the smoking contest between the two men, the beheading, the impregnation of the sister by the sun, the birth of the twins, the attack by the twins at the watering place, the use of hot iron rods to kill the enemy. The differences, as Radin noted, are largely in the expansion of the story. Such elements as the trees and the burning of their wood were adapted to the cosmic structure in the Blowsnake text, in that the trees became the anchors of the earth in the cardinal directions and the ®ame of their burning wood rose straight into the heavens (Radin 1954:8–9). What turned CS1 into an “epic” was the unique addition of two more Twins narratives (last two rows in Table 4.3). The identi¤cation of the uncle as a “red star” was added, and it apparently served as the source for the repetition of the label in “Blue Horn’s Nephews,” where the uncle was also identi¤ed as Blue Horn. It is missing in the shorter version of the Children of the Sun (CS2). This leaves the search for the Winnebago Morning Star with little new information. This examination of the Children of the Sun complex has produced the

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additional insight that there was at least one narrator who believed that the uncle was the “red star,” for that identi¤cation shows up twice, in the Blowsnake “Two Boys” text and in the “Blue Horn” text, and the similarity of the reference suggests that either the two narratives were offered by a single informant or that CS1 was the source for the awkward interpolation in “Blue Horn’s Nephews.” It is also clear that Radin initially interpreted the “red star” as referring to the Morning Star, even though that information is not contained in either text. Perhaps an examination of the connection between the Children of the Sun and Red Horn will provide more insight into the possibilities, or at least into Radin’s reasoning. A key problem is the source of the Winnebago Children of the Sun myth. The Chiwere Siouan examples of the Children of the Sun—Iowa and Winnebago—are not the only North American ones. The myth is also known among other tribal groups, and it is fair to say that for some of them it is a very important myth indeed. Radin was aware of the need to explore this issue, and he did so in his study of the Twins myths (Radin 1950:394–400). For the purposes of this chapter it seems important to examine this problem again, if only brie®y.

A Southwestern Excursus The geographical boundaries of this examination of ethnoastronomy were originally set to exclude the Southwest, on the assumption that the differences in mythology are suf¤ciently strong to indicate an impermeable barrier between the Eastern Woodlands and the Pueblo area. In this case, however, the issue of the Winnebago Morning Star and the Sun Twins raises a possible connection in mythology. The Southwestern peoples could have in®uenced the astronomical and

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mythic understanding of their neighbors to the east and north, so a brief examination of the Southwestern materials is called for (see Lankford 2006). We begin with the Pueblo traditions. In 1935 Ruth Benedict published her classic study of Pueblo myths, Zuni Mythology. In laying out the texts she had recorded, she found it necessary to discuss and compare her plots with the texts collected earlier by other scholars, including Frank Cushing, Ruth Bunzel, and E. C. Parsons, among others. Her conclusions are thought-provoking and important. Here is a brief summary of what she found. 1. The conception and birth of the Children of the Sun are often told as a complete story, separate from the account of their adventures, which can also be told as one or more independent narratives. 2. The conception details appear to be consistent in regard to the Sun, in that sunlight falling upon the young woman is suf¤cient for the task. 3. The narrative of the consequences of the conception has taken three different plot paths: the woman gives birth in secret and abandons the Twins, or she bears the children in the village and is forced to give them up. The third path is divergent: when she is threatened with death, she ®ees to the sky, and after she is brought down by an arrow, the Twins are born from her dead body. In all cases the plot alternatives are united again when the children are reared by animals. 4. In some texts the Twins set out to ¤nd their father and journey to the Sun’s house and are tested, but in some the Sun simply comes to them. In both cases, their father gives them appropriate regalia as his sons, including kilts and sashes and other decorative items, presumably ceremonial garb well known to the Pueblo peoples. 5. The adventures are heroic episodes of the slaying of the monsters to establish the present order, and many are accompanied by etiological notes pointing out the origins of current reality. The episodes, however, do not form a consistent canonical series. In fact, no two narrators told quite the same story. Benedict’s own informants told different episodes. 6. One episode, the killing of a cannibal old woman by the Twins after she has killed them and they are resuscitated from her nose, Benedict concluded, “belongs speci¤cally to Zuni” (Benedict 1935:1:286). 7. Another set of episodes in which the Twins steal the instruments for making thunder, lightning, and rain, cause a ®ood that kills their grandmother, and abandon the instruments for the owners to recover is “strictly a pueblo tale” (Benedict 1935:1:286). 8. Other episodes or motifs, such as the vagina dentata (toothed vagina) story with the creation of pubic hair by Coyote and the pursuit of the Twins by a Rolling Skull or a ghost, seem to be insertions of other tales in the story

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by Benedict’s narrators. The same is true of the episode of the Twins’ saving their lives by exchanging headbands with the daughters of their murderous host, an episode Benedict identi¤ed as European in origin. 9. When those episodes are removed from the corpus of adventures, the remainder is a small group: the slaying of the giant elk by approaching him from underground, the slaying of the owls who killed with their eyes, the slaying of the cliff ogre by pushing him off the cliff, and the killing of the giant eagles in their mountain nest. 10. The outcome of the story seems somewhat ambiguous, probably because the Twins, the Ahaiyute, are living divinities who remain patrons of war. They are not identi¤ed in any text as stellar ¤gures (but see below). Although it may not be legitimate to create a hypothetical Pueblo plot of the Twins, Benedict’s considerations result in this basic plot outline: A pueblo maiden conceives the Twins as a consequence of the Sun’s shining on her body. In shame she gives birth to the boys, and whether through her death or humiliation, the Twins are abandoned to the care of animals (Badgers), who rear them. The Sun reveals to them their paternity and bestows on them appropriate clothing. They set off on their adventures, in which, with the help of Gopher, Spider Woman, Bat Woman, and others, they cleanse the world of monsters: the Giant Elk, the Eye Monsters, the Cliff Ogre, and the Cannibal Eagles. They are eventually sent by their father to a removed location where they remain available to help people. [summary of Benedict 1935:1:51–62, 80–84] The distribution of these motifs is instructive (see Figure 4.1). The overall type number assigned to the Children of the Sun plot is #1104 (Wycoco 1951). The motif of impregnation by sunlight (T521) is found primarily in the Southwest—among the Navaho, Apache, Mohave-Apache, and Pueblo, with known examples from the Paiute, Ute, Arapaho, and Ojibwa (Thompson 1929: 277). The killing of the Giant Elk is widespread in the West, appearing in Mackenzie (Kaska, Beaver), Plateau (Kutenai, Pend d’Oreille), and Plains (Paiute) groups and throughout the Southwestern groups (Thompson 1929:315). The Cliff Ogre (G321) is a very popular episode in the West, being found in the Southwest, Mackenzie, Plateau, North Paci¤c, California, and Plains (Shoshone, Arapaho, Blackfoot, Crow) areas, with an outlier among the Micmac (Thompson 1929: 323). The Roc (giant bird) episode (B31.1) is closely related to the Thunderbird complex of North America, but in its Southwestern form of giant bird and a Bat’s assistance in returning to the ground, it is known also from the Macken-

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Figure 4.1. Distribution of the Children of the Sun myth.

zie, Plateau, and Plains (Shoshone, Ute, Paiute, Arapaho, Ponca, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, Crow, Hidatsa, and Arikara) (Thompson 1929:318). What seems most signi¤cant about these distribution patterns is their western location. With the exception of a few enigmatic outliers, these episodes indicate a western tradition of the heroic ¤gures who were responsible for the slaying of the primordial monsters who were the enemies of humans. In their wider distribution the Twins are more generic heroes, but the motif of impregnation by sunlight, a primary indicator of the Children of the Sun tradition, is virtually restricted to the Southwestern peoples. Since the Navaho and Apache are indicated as bearers of the Children of the Sun tradition along with the Pueblo groups, it is useful to look at their way of telling the story of the Monster Slayer(s). Here is a précis of the Navaho version of the War Gods myth, a text collected by Washington Matthews in the 1880s. In the dawn times, it became clear that the great monsters were intent on destroying all the humans. In order to counter the threat, FirstMan and First-Woman set in motion a plan to produce a Monster Slayer.

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Changing Woman was impregnated by the rays of the Sun, and White Shell Woman became pregnant from water. They gave birth to the “twins,” Monster Slayer and Born for Water. After their magical growth, the boys inquired about their father and were told that they were the children of the Sun. They set out to visit him, but they found that the path led through a series of tests: clashing rocks, cutting reeds, sharp cacti, and boiling sands. With the aid of Spider Woman, they made it through and successfully passed the guards to the house of the Sun: two bears, two snakes, two winds, and two lightnings. Having arrived at their father’s house, they claimed his paternity, and he set about to test them to see whether they were indeed his sons. They survived being plunged onto sharp spikes with the aid of a feather, being burned alive in a sweat lodge by hiding in a hole in the ground, and being killed by tobacco smoke by use of the blue secretions of a caterpillar. Their father acknowledged them and gave them weapons. He returned them to the earth world by helping them pass the edge of the sky, which is supported by 16 wands, on a rainbow bridge and descend through a sky hole. Back in the world ruled by the monsters, Monster Slayer killed them one after another: the scaled giant (another son of the Sun), the horned, four-footed monster, and the monster eagle, from whose nest the hero was brought back to earth by the Bat Woman. Monster Slayer then killed the lesser monsters: cliff ogre, people who killed with their eyes, tracking bear, and a “traveling stone.” [summary of Matthews 1994:104–34] The Navaho version collected by Berard Haile (1938:83–139) is approximately the same, but the ¤nal group of monster killings is not identical, an indication that there was room for narrator innovation in that area. In this version, the Twins having rid the world of the monsters, “the two left for ‘water ®ows together.’ Here this Monster Way comes to a close in this manner” (Haile 1938:139). The myth of the Twins as told by the various Apache groups is remarkably similar to that of the Navaho. There was some disagreement about whether the Sun was father of both boys or Moon was the father of the second (Moon is linked with water in Apache thought; Opler 1942:3n). The sequence of adventures, however, is very close, albeit in a different order. In a Jicarilla text, after the Sun Boy received the garments (“dress of turquois, with turquois bracelets and wristguard and a necklace of turquois beads for his neck”; Mooney 1898:201) from his father, he killed a giant frog, the giant elk, and the giant eagles. “His father told him of still other dangerous things which must be exterminated before the people could go about their affairs in safety. It is a long story—the whole lifetime story of Naye-nayesxa’ni—and space forbids the recital of all the adventurous details” (Mooney 1898:208). When the monsters were ¤nally destroyed,

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the Twins “went into the western ocean, where they are living now in a house of turquoise under the green water” (Mooney 1898:209). The other accounts are virtually identical (see Opler 1938:47–109; Russell 1898). The closeness of the Apache and Navaho is a general cultural fact. Russell observed that the “Jicarilla myths and legends seem to have been most affected by the contact with the Navahoes; their languages are mutually intelligible, and frequent visits are interchanged” (Russell 1898:253). Their relationship as members of the Athapaskan language family helps make the shared cultural material understandable. That does not explain the extraordinary similarity of the Navaho and Apache Monster Slayer myth to the Pueblo versions. Benedict, of course, noted the similarity, and she came to a surprising conclusion. In regard to the standard adventures of the Giant Elk, the Giant Eagle, the Cliff Ogre, and the vagina dentata, she noted that “these incidents are all stories of western North America, and their prominence in the pueblos seems most likely due to pueblo contact with the Navaho and Apache. This makes more interesting the fact that ¤fty years ago this cycle was not told of the Ahaiyute” (Benedict 1935:1:285). She did not speculate about the ultimate origin of the Children of the Sun myth itself, or the direction of the diffusion. One conclusion of this excursion into the Southwest is that the Children of the Sun myth is a relatively ¤xed story in which the details may change a bit but whose structure—the planned destruction of the monsters by the Twins in order to bring the earth to its present state—seems ¤rm, at least in recent historic times. The generalized Southwestern Children of the Sun myth can be coded as follows: CS3 Monsters kill + impregnation by Sun + Twins born + adventures Judging by distribution, the myth seems to be solidly Southwestern, with signs of limited diffusion out from the Pueblo/Navaho/Apache cluster. It is beyond the scope of this inquiry to argue for a prehistoric connection between the Southwestern peoples and the Chiwere Siouans, but that does not seem an impossibility, given the similarity of their Children of the Sun myths. One apparent problem for the hypothesis is that the Winnebago story motivates the deliberate impregnation of the mother and the birth of the Twins by the opening episode of the killing of her brother, which results in a plan by the deities, especially Hare and Earthmaker, whereas the motivation in the Southwest is muted. It is there, nonetheless. It was made explicit in the Navaho versions, in which the primordial “monsters” have exceeded their limits in the killing of humans, and the birth of the Twins is set in motion as a plan by First Man and Changing Woman. Although the personnel and details are different, struc-

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turally the two versions of the Children of the Sun are the same, for the purpose of the Twins is the same—they are intended to cleanse an out-of-balance world and restore it to its rightful order, a task that was apparently beyond the power of the primary divinities. Despite the details of the adventures, the rest of the story is the same, in that the Twins are Monster Slayers. It is thus not unreasonable to see the Winnebago narrative as a legitimate variant of the Southwestern version, different in detail and motif but identical in structure. Whether the similarity of the Southwestern and Siouan myths is the result of prehistoric diffusion is a question that cannot be pursued here. For the goal of searching for types of Morning Star narratives, it is enough to conclude that such a transmission is not implausible. It would help solve the problem that concerned Radin, that is, why there are multiple Twins traditions in the myth texts he collected from the Winnebago. He hinted, but never af¤rmed, that the two separate traditions—LBTA from the east and Children of the Sun from the southwest— in®uenced the Winnebago and produced the doubled Twins problem. He stated, “However, the interesting question of whether we are dealing here with two distinct folktale-myths that have become secondarily connected or whether we are dealing with one and the same narrative which has been secondarily broken up into two distinct parts cannot be discussed here” (Radin 1950:372). One ¤nal conclusion is important for present consideration and is the reason for this journey into Southwestern myth: the Southwestern Children of the Sun myth does not appear to have any inherent connection with the stars or planets. As already noted, the Twins do not go to the sky at the conclusion of their adventures, and there do not appear to be heroic myths about the stars in the collections. Star ¤gures do appear in the religious data, however, but they do not seem to be important in the myths. One survey of Pueblo gods, for example, had a few passing references to Morning Star. Tyler wrote, “While the [Hopi] Sho’tokunungwa is often referred to as a star-god, I have found no elaboration of that concept” (Tyler 1964:102). He also noted that at Zuni, “the several planets who may in turn become the Morning Star are often worshiped, or acknowledged; but these have their power in that they are the harbinger of the Sun” (Tyler 1964:136). Finally, Tyler wrote, “In the [Hopi] kiva two priests dance in front of the altar; one of these is the Star Priest who wears a large four-pointed star on his head, probably to indicate the Morning Star, the Sun’s harbinger” (Tyler 1964:155). In a Zuni winter solstice ceremony of New Fire the “songs and dancing of Shits’ukia and Kwe’lele continue until the rising of the Morning Star (warrior to Sun Father) which is carefully watched for by men who keep ascending the kiva ladder. When the star has appeared Kwe’lele and the director of the order of Kok’ko thlan’na (great god) of the Great Fire fraternity take their seats near the ¤re altar” (Stevenson 1905:130). The sole Zuni myth purporting to explain the origin of the Morning Star is a unique story:

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There was once a woman living here in Zuñi long ago, who had a child born which she thought was a real child, but which was really a canteen water-jar. When it grew up, it walked like a turtle. He saw the other boys go out hunting, and he wanted to go along too, but he couldn’t kill anything. And the Eagle (k’yak’yalI) saw him one day, and said to himself, “Poor thing! he can’t kill anything, I will kill for him.” So he killed some rabbits for him, and the little fellow brought them home. And every time he went out, his friend Eagle hunted for him, and he always came home with meat. When the snow melted away, he went down to the river every day, and watched the other children play in the water, jumping up and down, and he wanted to play with them. At ¤rst he thought he wouldn’t do it, but then decided that he might as well. So he jumped off a high place one day, and hit on a hard spot and broke himself all to pieces. His mother came along and picked up the pieces, and brought them home and put them behind the ¤replace. Pretty soon the little broken water-jar said, “Mother!” And she answered, “Yes, my child, are you all right now?” And he said, “Yes, I am all right, but you must take the handles and the mouth of me and go out at daybreak and throw them to the east.” And she did as the little water-jar had told her, and took the handles and the mouth out early in the morning, and threw them to the east, and they became the morning star. [Handy 1918:464] At Tewa, however, there is at least a hint of a connection between the Twins and the Morning Star. Parsons noted that among the Towae of the Tewa (the Ahaiyute of Zuñi), “[t]hese two, or the one they vaguely merge into, are identi¤ed with Morning Star” (Parsons 1926:4–5). This view was rati¤ed for the Pueblo people generally: “Among supernatural beings Sun, as the embodiment of male qualities, is a warrior and patron of warriors, though his two sons, the Twin War gods, especially the older and leader of the two, were even more speci¤cally the patrons of warriors . . . Both personages are symbolized by the Morning Star . . . In Hano . . . the sun-watcher for the winter solstice was keeper of the sacred images of the War gods, whose symbols were the Morning and Evening stars” (Ellis 1975:72–73). Among the Jicarilla, on the other hand, Morning Star is simply listed as one of the hactcin, “supernaturals, personi¤cations of the power of objects and natural forces.” Here is a Jicarilla list of the hactcin who are called to attend a ceremony: Sun, Moon, Big Dipper, North Star, Two-Fighting-Stars (Castor and Pollux), Pleiades, Three-Vertebrae-Stars (Belt of Orion), and Morning Star (“there are two Morning Star Hactcin and two Evening Star Hactcin, one of each for summer and for winter”; Opler 1938:160). Only a hint of a story is given by Opler: “When Morning Star Hactcin ¤rst came on earth he fought against sickness. Another Morning Star Hactcin (for there are two) stayed up there. He had a long white ray. That meant he was angry with the sickness.” In

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that same account, Sun Hactcin refers to his son Killer-of-Enemies (Monster Slayer), who is clearly not one of the hactcin (Opler 1938:147, 160). It appears that this Apache understanding includes four different astronomical phenomena for the Morning Star and that the Twins are not part of that concept. For the Navaho, Matthews claimed there was one basic myth of the origin of the stars. They were created by First Man, First Woman, and Coyote, he reported. They gathered fragments of “sparkling mica” as raw material. First Man proceeded to lay out a plan of the heavens, on the ground. He put a little fragment in the north, where he wished to have the star that would never move, and he placed near it seven great pieces, which are the seven stars we behold in the north now. He put a bright one in the south, another in the east, and a third in the west, and then went on to plan various constellations, when along came Coyote, who, seeing that three pieces were red, exclaimed, “These shall be my stars, and I will place them where I think best;” so he put them in situations corresponding to places that three great red stars now occupy among the celestial lights. Before First Man got through with his work, Coyote became impatient, and, saying, “Oh! they will do as they are,” he hastily gathered the fragments of mica, threw them upwards, and blew a strong breath after them. Instantly they stuck to the sky. Those to which locations had been assigned adhered in their proper places; but the others were scattered at random and in formless clusters over the ¤rmament. [Matthews 1994:223–24] The result of this long excursus is a new clarity about Morning Star. Although the Southwestern group seems to have known Morning Star as a ritual actor and an astronomical feature, there do not appear to have been major myths about him, especially in the heroic vein. From the few observations made in the ethnographic literature about the directional assignment of the Morning Star, it appears that the Southwestern Morning Star can be tentatively grouped, if it can be grouped at all, to the Cosmogram type already identi¤ed for the Caddoan people, and it is not implausible to suspect an ancient connection between the cultural areas. Even so, such a theme as the mating of Morning Star and Evening Star, so important among the Pawnee, is absent, so any cosmogram assignment is purely one of quadripartite placement. Two conclusions seem important here: First, while there may be some popular linking of Morning Star to the Twins myth, as seen in the Pueblo observations, that linkage seems more incidental than central in the mythological system. Where the War Twins are associated with the Morning Star, it appears to be a ritual label, for their mythic story has nothing to do with the celestial phenomenon. The Twins and other heroes do not appear to have had stellar values in the myths themselves. Second, the iden-

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ti¤cation of the Southwestern Twins with the Morning Star, no matter how tangential, does not mesh well with the Winnebago material, because the argument there is whether their uncle is Morning Star, and the Twins are not candidates for the designation. Thus while the Children of the Sun myth was clearly an important one in the Southwest, and while it may have been a diffused element into the Plains and Woodlands, any ethnoastronomical meaning it had there— that the Twins are Morning Star—did not carry over to the Plains tribes. This examination leaves the issue of the source of the Winnebago Children of the Sun myth inconclusive, although the Southwest does appear as a likely candidate, at least for the basic Twins plot. There is still an unresolved problem, though, as can be seen when the Southwestern Children of the Sun plot (CS3) is added to the comparative chart (Table 4.4). (Since the ¤rst two Morning Star texts did not incorporate the Twins myth and the Iowa Twins myth [MS3] is not a Children of the Sun text, they have been omitted in this table.) The identifying episode in the common sequence of the Winnebago and Southwestern texts is the impregnation by the Sun; the remainder consists of the birth of the Twins and their slaying of enemies. As Radin argued, the inspiration for that episode likely came from the Southwestern Children of the Sun myth, whatever the mechanism. The Southwestern myths, however, do not contain the beheading of the hero as the reason for the birth of the Twins: note that the ¤rst three rows for CS3 are blank in Table 4.4. Two of the Winnebago myths emphasize the decapitation of the hero, but the speci¤c trait of the decapitation of the uncle by an “evil spirit” is not present in the Southwestern tradition. At most, the motivation for the birth of the Twins is supplied only by the general fact of the destruction caused by the monsters. If the Southwest provided only the general plot of the Children of the Sun version of the Twins myth, then there was yet another amalgamation accomplished among the Winnebago. The episode of the decapitation of the uncle must have a different source. We must therefore turn attention to the task of discovering the origin of that peculiar episode. What is the source of the beheading of the hero?

The Decapitation Episode There is a good candidate for that source. Decapitation is a fairly unusual motif in Native American myth, yet there is another popular story about a competition between ¤gures, and some texts include the beheading of the hero. It is known in folklore studies by two names, “The False Bridegroom” and “Bead Spitter.” The reason for the names will be made clear by the story, but both names are used because the Bead Spitter is a single motif that is not present in all of the

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False Bridegroom texts. Although any of the Bead Spitter texts would serve to introduce the plot, many of them are used as the opening episode of various compound myths, so an Iowa text that stands alone will be printed here. All was quiet for a while. There was a chief who had two daughters who were anxious to marry, but who wanted a man who was able to spit up cowry shells (kuthru). There was a chief ’s son in the neighborhood who had that power, and could cough them up at will. He had a waiter who followed him around just to pick up the shells, and he was allowed to keep some for his pains. In this way the servant amassed enough to make himself a necklace. One day the servant was in a canoe when he saw the two girls on the opposite bank; they wanted to be ferried over so he went and took them on board. They told him they wanted to marry Washu’ske I’sho, the Shell Spitter. The youth replied, “Why that’s me!” He broke his necklace and put some of the shells in his mouth. Whenever he coughed he would spit out some of the shells and the girls would pick them up. This servant was really an orphan who lived at the village edge with his grandmother. He took the two girls to his lonely wigwam and there he put his head in the lap of one and his feet in the lap of the other and stayed with them. Pretty soon Ishji’nki, the town herald, came along and said, “Young man, you’re wanted at Washu’ske I’sho’s; he is going to spit up shells.” “Oh,” said the youth to his wives, “that old fellow always jokes with me. You two stay here and I will go over and throw out some shells for them and come back immediately.” So he went over and waited on the chief ’s son. The girls became suspicious and decided to go over and see how their husband performed his magic deeds. They hid and saw that he was only a waiter crawling on his knees to pick up shells. “Anh, we have been deceived,” said they. “He’s only a servant.” So after the performance the girls did not go back to the little man, but they followed Shell Spitter home and told his father, the chief, that they had come to marry him. However, they were too late, for already there were two girls there who had come for that purpose. The father of the ¤rst two girls ordered Ishji’nki to take them away, and they wept. Meanwhile the servant came home and when he found that his wives were gone he was angry. He went to the chief and told him that he wanted them back, but the chief said, “No, they are to marry the Shell Spitter.” This orphan boy had great but hitherto unknown power. After he had appealed to the chief three times he went a fourth time and killed the chief and the Shell Spitter also. He cut off their heads and rose up into the air

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ch apter 4 with a head in each hand. Another chief ran and got Ishji’nki to exercise his power to bring back the fugitive, who was already away up in the air. Ishji’nki looked up and sang: “Uxwanyele, uxwanyele, uxwanyele, uxwanyele.” (Fall, fall, fall, fall.) The servant came tumbling down for some distance. “Oh Ishji’nki is surely bringing him,” cried all the people. Ishji’nki kept right on singing, with his hands raised and his mouth open, while everybody gaped upward. All at once the orphan servant evacuated right in Ishji’nki’s face and rose up out of sight. He went into the moon, and the black shadow sometimes visible in the moon is this boy standing there with a head in each hand. [Skinner 1925:493–94, #33]

This enigmatic text provides most of the necessary ingredients for the opening episode of the Winnebago epic—an imitator of the hero (competition), a victory by the hero, the beheading of the hero. With very slight changes, this myth can easily ¤t into the range of Winnebago tellings of the episode of the killing of the brother/uncle. Only the trait of the spitting of shells is missing. The distribution of the Bead Spitter myth supports the proposition that it is the ancestor of the beheading of the uncle. The False Bridegroom myth (K1915; Wycoco #1307) was widely known (see Figure 4.2). Versions of it have been collected from tribes in these areas: Plateau, Mackenzie, Plains (Gros Ventre, Blackfoot, Swampy Cree, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Arapaho, Assiniboine, Dakota, Crow, Hidatsa, Iowa, Omaha, Pawnee), Woodland Central (Winnebago, Menomini, Fox, Cree, Ojibwa), Iroquois (Seneca, Huron-Wyandot), Southwest (Apache, Navaho, Zuni), and Southeast (Caddo, Creek, Alabama, Koasati) (Lankford 1987:190–97; Thompson 1929:104, #49, nn189–91; Wycoco 1951: #1307). In addition to the Iowa text, there are texts from the Winnebago, the Dakota, and the Oto, suggesting that the Bead Spitter myth was known throughout the northern Siouan group, and the similarity of details suggests that they should be considered an oicotype of the Bead Spitter. In the Winnebago text the “false bridegroom” was presented as an auk, an Arctic bird that was possibly a replacement for the Iowa Trickster or the Dakota loon because of changes in religious beliefs by the narrators. Although Dieterle found lunar symbolism in the selection of the auk, the closeness of details such as the decapitation of the Shell Spitter, the two wives, and the ®ight to the moon suggests that the shift in identity was a Winnebago peculiarity (WN, “The Auk,” Notebook 46, pp. 1–22, in Dieterle 2005).3 The available Oto text is a romanticized version, so badly skewed that it is only by comparison with the other texts that it is identi¤able: a “harsh, unkind chief ” tried to gain support from the people when he “threw coral and turquoise and bright metal beads upon the ground for his people to gather for

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Figure 4.2. Distribution of the False Bridegroom/Bead Spitter type with decapitation motif in italics.

their own.” When he stole the wife of one of the warriors, the man tried to get her back, but he was forced to run for his life from the chief and his “sharpened hunting knife.” He ®ed to the moon, where he can still be seen (Anderson 1940:46–50). Despite the radical alterations, this version of Bead Spitter demonstrates that the plot was still known to the Oto at the beginning of the 20th century. In only a few of these texts does the impostor kill the Bead Spitter, and in fewer still is the killing done by beheading. In the Menomini, Alabama, and Koasati texts the killing is done by thrusting a deer horn through the head, but beheading is found only in the Winnebago, Iowa, and Dakota texts, with a clue that the Quapaw knew the same detail. It seems a reasonable hypothesis that the Winnebago narrators’ knowledge of Shell Spitter was used in creating the opening episode of the Children of the Sun myth. It should be noted that in none of the Bead Spitter narratives is there any celestial reference, other than among tribes that saw the killer in the moon’s pattern. There seems no reason to suspect a Morning Star connection. While it seems a whimsical motif today, shell-spitting was a well-known ritual

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practice. It almost certainly refers to one of the central activities of the medicine society of the Winnebago and its equivalent in other tribes (for the Omaha, see Fletcher and La Flesche 1911:509–65; for the Winnebago, Radin 1923:302–30; there are many choices for the Central Algonkian equivalent, the Midéwiwin). A brief description of this activity in the Medicine Rite is found in Radin’s Winnebago account: All now place their otter skins on the ground in front of them, and east speaks again. At the conclusion of his speech, all kneel in front of the otter skins and cough, at which the sacred shell drops from their mouths upon the otter skins. They thereupon pick it up, and holding the shell in one hand and the otter skins in the other, make a circuit of the lodge four times, increasing their speed each time, and singing. All this time the shell is held in full view of the spectators, on the outstretched palm of the right hand. As they near the east end of the lodge, at the end of the fourth circuit, standing in front of the ancestor host’s band, they supposedly swallow the shell, and fall down, instantaneously, head foremost, as if dead. Finally they come to, and coughing up the shell they put it into their otter-skin bags, and then making the circuit of the tent, shoot four members of the ancestor host’s band, four of the east, four of the north, two of the west, and two of the south band. Each person as he is shot falls prostrate upon the ground, but recovering after a few moments, joins those making the circuit of the tent. [Radin 1923:319] The meaning of the shell-spitting is that it represents magical power, and the person who is “shot” is the recipient of a gift of power. This ethnographic note both reveals the background of the Bead Spitter’s strange ability and the widespread extent of the Medicine Rite. Although it cannot be completely demonstrated, the Bead Spitter motif may be a relic marker remaining in the oral tradition of tribes that had a medicine lodge and knew the practice of shell-spitting. What is not clear from the myth is why there is such animosity between the Bead Spitter and the false bridegroom that it results in death and dishonor. If the competition is more than a ¤ctional theme, then it points to another level of meaning that does not now seem interpretable. Dieterle has pointed out a possible vector for interpretation: the A. S. Gatschet (1889) version of the text is entitled “Ciange, which means ‘Berdache’ [who] is blessed by the moon” (included in WN, “The Auk,” Notebook 46, pp. 1–22, in Dieterle 2005). In any case, the myth of the false bridegroom who, unmasked by his superior, resorts to murder by decapitation is a likely candidate for the source of the Winnebago killing of the uncle. The contest of the Bead Spitter and his impostor

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Figure 4.3. Hypothesis of relationships of compound myths.

substitutes for the general violence of the Southwestern monsters, becoming the “dual contest” episode that motivates the conception and birth of the Twins. The construction model thus looks like that shown in Figure 4.3. With the addition of the Bead Spitter to the collection, this study of folk narrative chemistry is complete. A widespread myth of an imposture that led in Siouan texts to the beheading of the hero (Bead Spitter) was coupled with the Southwestern Children of the Sun myth. When that construct was augmented by two other Twins versions, the result was Radin’s “Epic of the Two Boys.” The independent Red Horn/Blue Horn story was used, in one case, as a replacement for the Bead Spitter episode, resulting in the Blowsnake text of the contest with giants, decapitation of the heroes, and the Sun Twins. As so frequently happens in myth collections, fragments and episodes from which the more complex versions were constructed were also recorded separately, thus providing for the student of myth the detritus of a workshop of oral tradition. Radin’s “Artist-Philosopher” Paul Radin is justly famous for his analyses of the outstanding Winnebago texts he collected. He was aware of how unusual his materials were, for seldom did an early ethnographer have the luxury of discussing “epics” and “cycles,” terms that are more at home in literary analysis than oral tradition. While it may be argued that Radin was part of the process of reorganizing usually episodic stories, such as Trickster narratives, into long “cycles,” there are other narratives that seem too coherent as well-crafted compound tales to be other than the work of a gifted narrator. This impression is strengthened by the comparison of lengthy composite texts such as the “Epic of the Two Boys” and “Red Horn” with the

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ch apter 4 briefer versions collected from other narrators at the same time. Radin and Sam Blowsnake seem to have been dealing with a few extraordinary narrators, artists who were demonstrating their innovative prowess in what was offered to Radin. Radin, of course, recognized that he had an unusual opportunity to probe the creative process in oral tradition. It was a time, after all, that followed on a period of scholarly discovery of “national” oral literature, such as Homer, English ballads, Beowulf, and the Kalevala. Longfellow had even modeled an “Indian” poem on the Kalevala, attempting to provide a comparable Native American epic, and many scholars discussed techniques of composition in works from Homer to those of Scottish ballad singers. It must have seemed to Radin that he had stumbled into the workshop of a living native genius of oral tradition. He wrote several lengthy studies of the work of the “artist-philosopher” in native life, whose work is the transformation of traditional folklore into individual showpieces of literary art. The “Epic of the Two Boys” is one of his primary exemplars. He introduced his major study of it as a contribution to the study of “the development of folk epics in general,” rather than just an addition to the corpus of Winnebago ethnography (Radin 1954:7). It is curious that Radin claims he never asked Blowsnake, who had done the actual collecting, for the identity of the master narrator, but that may have been nothing more than Radin’s way of dealing with the fact that any revelation of the source of the tabooed material could have extreme consequences for the narrator (Radin 1954:21).4 An example of the work of the artist-philosopher can be seen in the episode of the council of deities (Part One, 5.24–40), in which they contribute part of their own power to make the Twins superior to the killer of their uncle. As the comparative chart shows, it is unique in the Winnebago corpus (Table 4.3); what the chart does not show is that it is extremely rare in North America. Radin was aware of the peculiarity of this episode, which he attributed to the creativity of his narrator. Despite the fact that there is not “the slightest trace of such an episode in the original folktale,” however, Radin still accepted it as a traditional episode: “I suspect that it once was an integral part of The Children of the Sun and simply does not occur in the version I obtained” (Radin 1954:8). He gave no reason for this suspicion. The council of the deities is a provocative episode, and it is unfortunate that the narrator was not interrogated about his sources. Radin called it “a scene composed in an almost Homeric spirit” (Radin 1950:404). It is more than that. It is startlingly reminiscent of the Assembly of the Babylonian gods preparing to enable Marduk to ¤ght the mother goddess, the dragon Tiamat, a distinctive episode of the Enuma elish. Because none of the gods

The Morning Star of the Winnebago could equal the power of Tiamat, they pooled their powers, then bestowed them on Marduk, who thus became the head deity (Heidel 1942:29–37). Such a remarkable parallel calls for explanation. Since any diffusion of ancient Near Eastern myth to the Winnebago seems most unlikely, closer parallels should be sought—and one has been located. In Navaho myth there is a powerful Gambler who needs to be defeated. Their method of doing this is reminiscent of the Winnebago council: a god invited a young Navaho to attend a council of some of the gods to be held in 12 days, which he did. “All night the gods danced and sang, and performed their mystic rites, for the purpose of giving to the son of Qastceqogan powers as a gambler equal to those of Noqoilpi” (Matthews 1889:91). This remarkable episode is so close to the Winnebago that diffusion may be suspected, even though the episode does not occur in regard to the Southwestern Twins. As Dieterle (personal communication 2005) commented on this issue, “Radin frequently mentions the idea of a reservoir of sacred power that a spirit transfers in part to someone whom he blesses.” The Winnebago and Navaho council event as a way of increasing the power of a ¤gure is clearly rooted in the general Native American concept of the ability of divinities to give power to humans. It is the functional equivalent of the more traditional episode in which the father of the Twins (the Sun in the Southwest) bestows on them special garb and weapons without which, presumably, they cannot defeat the monsters. The council episode may indicate nothing so much as the low estate of the Sun among the deities of the Winnebago, for the whole pantheon is placed in the role of the Father. Functionally, the Navaho and Winnebago council episodes accomplish for the “Gambler” and “Children of the Sun” the same thing as the assembly episode did in the Mesopotamian myth—they solve the problem of how so weak a human creature can overcome an almost omnipotent divinity. Both of these episodes can be seen to follow the native logic of the situation, but there remains also the possibility that the Winnebago narrator somehow learned this episode from Old World mythology. There now seems no way to know the truth of this matter. What we are left with is a set of extraordinary texts from a gifted narrator. We also have parallel texts from other narrators that demonstrate how extensive was the transformation of the oral tradition in the hands of the “artist-philosopher.” Even if the Navaho parallel is accepted as a source of the diffusion of the council episode, along with the general Southwestern Twins tradition, the blending of the two into a genuine Winnebago myth is a stunning example of the creativity of “artist-philosophers” in narrative art.

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Naming the Hero Where does this leave the quest? The trail of the Winnebago Morning Star began with the claim that the Red Horn myth is the story of Morning Star. That identi¤cation was found to stem not from the myth itself but from the equation of Red Horn with the ¤gure of the uncle in the Children of the Sun myth in the “Epic of the Two Boys.” That equation was based largely on the similar structural feature of the two—that the hero was bested in a contest and beheaded. The equation of Uncle = Red Horn was then completed by the identi¤cation of the uncle as a “red star,” one of the eight primal deities. The equation became triple: Uncle = Morning Star = Red Horn. With all of the textual material laid out—all that there is ever likely to be—it is possible to see that the triple equation as an identi¤cation of the hero is based on very scant evidence indeed. A claim that the uncle was a “red star” and a multiple repetition that he was one of the eight deities will hardly support an identi¤cation of the uncle alone. Red Horn’s connection with the uncle is based solely upon his portrayal as being saved by the Boys, but there is no stellar label for him in the texts. The case is strengthened a bit by the Meeker variant of the dual contest, in which the hero’s youngest brother is named Morning Star, but Radin apparently did not know of that text. Moreover, even in the Meeker text (MS2) the hero had no stellar label. As the narratives have shown, the myths themselves do not provide a clear identi¤cation of Morning Star, nor are they consistent in plot structure. Faced with this complexity, but impressed with the prowess of his unknown narrators, Radin worked on this set of problems for decades. It is instructive to survey the sequence of his interpretations. Although his readers had no access to the full text of the Children of the Sun myth until it was published in 1954, they knew of its existence, for it ¤gured in Radin’s arguments in several of his earlier publications. For clarity, this text will be referred to by the name Radin used in 1954, “The Epic of the Two Boys.” In 1945 Radin summarized the heart of the plot of Part I of the “Epic”: The hero, one of the eight great Winnebago deities, Morning Star, has been decapitated by his enemy, a waterspirit. The body of the hero still remains alive and is being taken care of by his sister. The waterspirit, by keeping the head of Morning Star, has added the latter’s power to his own. So formidable is this combination of powers that none of the deities, individually or in combination, are a match for him now . . . [A hero to conquer the waterspirit and regain the head must be born.] But how can it be arranged that the hero, so born, has the requisite powers to achieve victory? The

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answer must be by such a hero being endowed for the task with enough power by all the deities, including Earthmaker. This is accordingly done and these powers which will make its possessor greater than all the deities in existence and the equal of Earthmaker are delivered to the Sun with instructions that he impregnate the sister of Morning Star. The children born of Sun and the sister of Morning Star, who is herself a deity, are the Twins. They vanquish the waterspirit and restore the head of their uncle to his body. [Radin 1945:57; emphasis added] This text sounds de¤nitive, with a familial structure: Morning Star dead at the hands of a waterspirit and his sister impregnated by the Sun at the order of Earthmaker, resulting in the Twin Sons of the Sun. This neat plot, however, is Radin’s 1945 interpretation, not the narrator’s. Three years after he offered this summary of the Children of the Sun of the “Epic,” Radin presented the text of the four “hero cycles” (Radin 1948). Although the epic’s Children of the Sun myth was not included, Radin did present a different version of the Twins myth. In introducing that text, he had occasion to mention the Children of the Sun plot again, since he was pointing to the peculiarity of the Winnebago doubling of the Twins stories—the Sun Twins and the more standard “Lodge Boy and Thrown Away,” which is the fourth of his hero cycles (Radin 1948:137–52). It is not clear at what point Radin decided that Red Horn was the same person as the decapitated uncle, but the equation (decapitated uncle = Red Horn) was apparently established for him by the structure of the 1948 Red Horn text (MS5), in which the Red Horn competition replaces the uncle’s contest as the introduction to the Twins. He again mentioned the plot of the Children of the Sun, with a quotation from the text, but he refrained from naming the decapitated uncle (Radin 1948:50). He was more willing to identify Red Horn, albeit tentatively: “Red Horn is almost certainly the earthly incarnation of either the evening- or the morning-star, one of the oldest Siouan deities whose fame and importance, like that of the sun, had been somewhat eclipsed, in religion and ritual, by the thunderbirds and Hare . . . What we have here, then, is the saga of one of the oldest ¤gures in Winnebago religion, probably the morning Star, whose deeds are ¤ttingly pictured as being performed in an historically older period of Winnebago history, a period about which, however, the author of the epic still possessed speci¤c memories” (Radin 1948:41–42, 45; emphasis added). Two years later Radin published his seminal study of the Twins texts, the “basic myth” of North America, wrestling with the problem of why there are three different versions of the Twins narratives. In it he provided a longer summary of the Children of the Sun myth (Radin 1950:376–78). In describing the

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literary tasks of the Winnebago narrator in producing the “Epic,” he said that he had reinterpreted the ¤gure of the decapitated uncle: “The ¤rst task [the narrator] undertook, apparently, was to reinterpret the ¤gure of the uncle. He becomes the Morning-star, one of the eight great deities of the Winnebago pantheon. When he is decapitated, the victor obtains powers greater than all other deities altogether, with the sole exception of Earthmaker” (Radin 1950:404; emphasis added). With the other link—Red Horn and the uncle—secured by the blended version of the Blowsnake “Red Horn” narrative, that completed the equation: Uncle = Morning Star = Red Horn. The steps in the epic’s creation process, as Radin saw it, were (1) the Winnebago adaptation of the Children of the Sun myth, (2) the identi¤cation of the uncle as Morning Star, (3) the creation of the second part of the Red Horn myth by adding on the Children of the Sun elements, and (4) the identi¤cation of the decapitated Red Horn with the children’s uncle and therefore his identi¤cation as Morning Star. Radin’s writings, however, indicate increasing uneasiness with this conclusion and the triple equation. A major problem, although Radin never referred to it, was that in the 1954 Blowsnake “Children of the Sun,” one of the seven surviving “great deities” who contributed power for the project of retrieving the head was Red Horn, internal evidence that he could not have been the decapitated uncle (Part One, 5.24, 5.28). Therefore, if the uncle was the “red star,” and the red star was the Morning Star, then Red Horn could not have been the Morning Star. It may have been this realization, after the “Children of the Sun” was published, that led Radin in 1954 to change his identi¤cation of Red Horn: “[Signi¤cant in The Two Boys] is the absence, apart from one unimportant passage, of any reference to Red Horn, who probably is identical with the Evening Star” (Radin 1954:13; emphasis added). The shift from “probably the morning Star” of 1948 to “probably identical with the Evening Star” of 1954 breaks the triple equation. It also alters the understanding of the Red Horn epic, because if Red Horn cannot be the uncle, then the crucial compound narrative linkage breaks apart. The absence of the celestial identi¤cation of the uncle in the independent Children of the Sun narrative apparently concerned Radin, for he noted that “Morning Star likewise belongs to the old pantheon. There are no myths about him and he is not mentioned even incidentally in them [an observation that indicates Radin was not aware of the Meeker text], nor is the uncle in the independent version of The Children of the Sun identi¤ed with him. Here, too, therefore, we may have a secondary reinterpretation [in the Blowsnake text]” (Radin 1954:14). Radin made yet another shift, however. He completed his study of the “Epic of the Two Boys” in 1956. In that publication Morning Star has vanished completely, and the uncle is identi¤ed as Evening Star: “In the epic version of our tale . . . the brother is equated with the Evening Star and the mother with the

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Moon. This equation seems to me to be a secondary one however although it may be quite old” (Radin 1956:108). “Suf¤ce it to say,” Radin went on, “that originally Earthmaker had nothing to do with this myth and that the brother, Evening Star, was one of the old primary deities of the Winnebago, possibly antedating Earthmaker” (Radin 1956:119). Radin offered no reason for this reinterpretation. The Red Horn myth, however, as of 1956, was a story about Evening Star, and Morning Star had vanished from the myth complex altogether. By way of summary, here is the sequence of Radin’s interpretations of these myths: 1945 1948 1950 1954 1956

Uncle = Morning Star Red Horn = probably Morning Star (or Evening Star) Uncle = Morning Star Red Horn = probably Evening Star Uncle = Evening Star

It was never clear whether Radin abandoned the notion that the uncle of the “Epic” and Red Horn were the same ¤gure, but the presence of Red Horn at the discussion of the uncle’s death in the council meeting in the “Epic” narrative (Part One, 5.24) seems incontrovertible internal evidence that they were not, and Radin must surely have been aware of that fact at some point. And thus we return to the basic question: are these two myths, Children of the Sun and Red Horn, about Morning Star? Radin himself seems to have abandoned that interpretation. Other interpreters have turned their attention to Winnebago mythology since Radin. Perhaps the most signi¤cant is Richard L. Dieterle, editor of an outstanding web site on Winnebago traditions. He has made available online not only already published texts of myths, many of them retold by himself with linguistic notes, but also the texts collected earlier by Paul Radin and others that were preserved but never published. The online collection is quite large, and it is augmented by brief encyclopedia-style essays by Dieterle attempting to summarize and interpret the Winnebago lore enshrined in the texts (Dieterle 2005). The myth texts complete the impression that runs through Paul Radin’s writings that the myths as told by different informants are inconsistent and confusing. In addition to chronological problems, since oral tradition changes and adapts through time, there are clearly some issues of ownership and vested interest, from individual fealty to a particular cosmic power to group adaptation of general myths for their own chartering purposes. Beyond these understandable elements of confusion in the corpus, there also appear to be confusing disagreements about the identity of characters and their achievements. In some cases the same plot is peopled by different characters, and identi¤cations are often contra-

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dictory. Some of the inconsistencies lead to the suspicion that the collector’s nightmare has come true—that some informants, for whatever reason, have decided to confuse the texts. As already observed, one of Radin’s approaches to the task of eliminating the contradictions was to hypothesize different structures of the lore in several time periods. Thus he saw the superior role of Earthmaker as the result of the ascendancy of the Medicine Rite, and with that alteration came the rise of Herecgunina as Earthmaker’s opponent, perhaps a re®ection of the Christian opposition of the divinities God and Satan. Such an interpretation has the advantage of explaining how the unnamed opponent who beheads the hero in one telling is named Herecgunina in another. One result of this interpretive strategy is the evolution of Radin’s own thinking about the identities of the characters, as has been seen. His strategy is, however, hypothetical. Dieterle provides an alternate way of looking at the problems of the myth texts. His strategy is to operate on the assumption that all of the informants were telling the stories as they knew them and that the characterizations of named ¤gures are all correct in some way. The interpretive task in this approach is primarily to ¤nd the connecting links that made it possible for the myth-tellers to offer different names and details for plot personae. Dieterle’s essays on the different characters are thus helpful summaries of the lore embedded in the text corpus. His examination of Evening Star and Morning Star is an excellent illustration. Focusing on the myth of the beheading of the uncle (“Twins Retrieve Red Star’s Head,” Radin’s 1954 “Epic”), he identi¤es the uncle as Evening Star, who is also known as “Red Star,” a reference, he believes, to the red sunset rather than to the actual color of an asterism. The uncle’s sister is the Moon, and he is the brother of Morning Star. Evening Star is the youngest of the eight great spirits, those personally made by Earthmaker. He was also known as Blue Horn, and he was the brother of ¤ve men who became wolves and one who became chief of horses; they were apparently also the founders of Winnebago clans. Evening Star was also a waterspirit and was symbolic of blue sky, an apparent contradiction, since they are two opposing cosmic realms. Evening Star also had a connection with a raccoon. He was identi¤ed visually by having ®int or ®int knives inlaid on his arms. These not-quite-coherent characterizations of Evening Star hint at inconsistency in the informants’ narratives, but the interpretation becomes problematic when Evening Star’s killer, who looks like Evening Star even to the ®int-inlaid arms, is identi¤ed as Morning Star. Dieterle characterizes the latter on the basis of several myths about Morning Star (or “Great Star”). He is the doppelgänger or twin of Evening Star. Morning Star was extremely strong, as shown by his pulling up an oak tree, and the fastest of all runners, both traits appropri-

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ate for a patron of warriors. This surprising identi¤cation of him as the killer of his brother is explained by Dieterle in an ingenious interpretation in which he speaks of the astronomical code in which the two doppelgängers act out their cosmic parts as the Morning and Evening Stars. Bluehorn, the brother (as we learn from other parallel stories), is the Red Star, the name that the Hotcâgara give to the Evening Star. His identical looking opponent is the counterpart of the Evening Star, the Great Star as the Hotcâgara call the Morning Star. However, Bluehorn is a complex deity also identi¤ed with the blue sky . . . The ¤re is the sun. To purely naked eye astronomy, the Morning Star leads the sun, but disappears ahead of it as the sun sets. The Evening Star then appears as if it were trailing behind the sun. The supposition is that the light of the sun wipes out the appearance of the trailing Evening Star until it begins to recede with the sunset. When the Morning Star falls into the ¤re, the sun and its light are in their ascendancy and there is no question of the ¤re going out. However, Morning Star regains his footing and manages to come up again on the horizon the next day. Being in the ¤re does not stop it from moving: it still has the power of its feet. Evening Star, however, falls into a ¤re that is going out. This is the setting sun. The blue sky in like manner follows after the setting sun, its blueness fading at last in the west. The blue sky, and Evening Star, lose their head, the sun, which the Morning Star runs off with below the horizon (on the naive assumption that it always leads the sun). [Dieterle 2005, commentary on “Twins Retrieve Red Star’s Head”] When the Morning Star of this tradition is identi¤ed with the Red Horn tradition, things become extremely confusing. Focusing on the story of “Morning Star and His Friend,” Dieterle asserts the linkage: Morning Star, unaware, meets four men, “some of the Herok’a.” They give him four arrows, which are “particularly associated with the Chief of the Herok’a, known both as ‘Redhorn,’ and in this story as ‘Man Heads as Earbobs.’ He is intimately bound up with directionality, which is partly symbolized by the arrow. That Morning Star should temporarily hold the arrows of the Herok’a shows that he too is a directional entity, since the star is always found in the east where the sun rises. For a period, from time to time, the Morning Star is not seen in the sky, a fact symbolically expressed by the giving away his arrows (of directionality)” (Dieterle 2005, commentary on “Morning Star and His Friend,” told by John Harrison [The Giant or The Morning Star], translated by Oliver LaMere, in WN, Winnebago III, Freeman #3892, #11a, Story 8, pp. 92–117). True to his hermeneutic principle of honoring the narrators, Dieterle is careful

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to assert the various alternate identi¤cations. Thus in his essay on Red Horn, he points out that Red Horn, as the chief of the Herok’a, has multiple mythic appearances—as his own son and otherwise—and is a spirit of directionality: “This evidence points to Redhorn being the spirit of the cardinal directions, and in particular the east-west axis, the path of the sun” (“Redhorn,” in Dieterle 2005). In the Herok’a tradition, though, the personae seem far removed from the celestial realm: “In the Herok’a stories, Redhorn marries a woman who is from among the race of the Forked Men, beings who have two bodies joined at the waist, and who are red on one side of their bodies. The Herok’a intermarry with them. When Redhorn is killed in the Herok’a stories, it is by the eldest of these Forked Men. He takes Redhorn’s living head and roasts it perpetually in his ¤replace, while his body roams headless in the wilderness. There he is known as ‘the Red Man.’ When Redhorn is restored, he punishes his brother-in-law by turning him into an owl” (“The Chief of the Heroka,” WN, Notebook 33, pp. 1–66, and “The Red Man,” WN, Notebook 6, pp. 1–72, in Dieterle 2005). Dieterle attempts several times to reconcile the identi¤cations, but the reader is left perplexed. Thus: “The chief of the Black Rock Spirits is Bluehorn, who is the uncle of the Twins who loses his head, which is carried off by a spirit just like him and who is identi¤ed with the Red Star, which is the Evening Star. The Great Star, or Morning Star, is associated with the Herok’a, and may be one and the same as Redhorn. When Redhorn loses his head, it is likely carried off by the Evening Star. When Bluehorn loses his head, it is carried off by Morning Star” (Dieterle 2005, commentary on “Îtcohorúcika [‘Wears Faces on His Ears’] and His Brothers,” WN, Notebook 14, pp. 1–67). The more recent interpreters have offered no new evidence to support either Radin’s or Dieterle’s approach to the Winnebago myth corpus. Without better evidence than has been adduced thus far, it seems dif¤cult to subscribe to the various characterizations of Morning Star as all being correct representations of the Winnebago understanding of the celestial ¤gures. Further, on the evidence, it is hard to credit any linkage of the Red Horn myth with astronomy at all. Dieterle, however, has offered an ingenious astronomical explanation of HumanHead Earrings/Red Horn. In a careful examination of the myth of Îtcohorúcika he argues that HHE is a star in the belt of Orion, ®anked by the earrings and surrounded by the brothers who supported him (Dieterle 2005, commentary on “Îtcohorúcika [‘Wears Faces on His Ears’] and His Brothers,” WN, Notebook 14, pp. 1–67). Whether or not his Orion hypothesis is correct, it is clear that Dieterle has dif¤culty in supporting the identi¤cation of HHE with Morning Star. He does, however, continue to support the hypothesis that the killer of Blue Horn (Evening Star) is his twin/doppelgänger Morning Star (Dieterle 2005, commentary on “The Chief of the Heroka,” WN, Notebook 33, pp. 1–66).

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The patient reader may by now have concluded that this interpretive controversy is hopeless, but there is yet another clue that might help simplify the issues. Both Radin and Dieterle struggle very hard trying to reconcile the Red Horn narratives with the others that may be connected with Morning Star or at least with asterisms. If the Red Horn myth were removed from the discussion, however, the problem would be less dif¤cult. As has been seen, the internal evidence itself at least hints at an intrusive role for the Red Horn narrative in the Winnebago myth complex. There is documentary support for that view. In 1901 Louis L. Meeker, 19th-century ethnographer of the Winnebago and collector of MS2, published an article on the nature of northern Siouan myth, particularly as understood in the light of myths emanating from the Winnebago medicine lodge. On the basis of information from lodge members kept anonymous “lest the enmity of the tribe be incurred,” Meeker made this summary of Winnebago myths: According to this information, all the tales current among all northern tribes relate to the misadventures or heroic actions of “four who never die.” These are, ¤rst, The Monster; second, The Sharper Who Makes a Fool of Himself [Bladder or Unktomi]; third, The Turtle; fourth, The Rabbit. Recently some of the exploits of a Blackfoot or Piegan, named Red Horn, were added to the list, the initiated at once recognizing him as one of the Immortal Four. No doubt they confer the same honor on other recent worthies . . . By one account Bladder and the Monster were twins and the sons of the Turtle. Bladder hunted his brother all over the world to slay him, because his body was of stone and caused his mother’s death . . . But the version of the medicine lodge says the Monster was the ¤rst created, was made of stone, and had one leg or foot broken off, either by being dropped or by cracking off as he lay before the ¤re to dry, so another was made to be the progenitor of the human race, which thereby incurred his enmity. The chief account of him concerns his hand-to-hand con®ict with Bladder . . . In the great duel, the Monster struck off the head of Bladder, and it ®ew up and up into the Divine Presence, where it asked, “Shall I kill him” (with reference to his opponent). Receiving no response, it fell upon the neck where it belonged, and was reunited. Bladder then, in his turn, struck off the head of the Monster, and exactly the same thing occurred as to the head of Bladder. These blows were repeated in turn, for the con®ict grew out of an Indian ball game. Since Bladder suffered ¤rst, he was ¤rst to ask permission to kill his adversary for the fourth time, at which he received

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permission, and while the head of the Monster was in the air, he pushed aside the body. Not falling upon its wonted place, the head of the Monster rebounded and continues to rebound to this day in the form of the sun! Except the conclusion, this story may be told to any man, woman, or child; but only old men or wise men are initiated into the secret that the sun is the head of the monster, worshiped in the Sun Dance, instituted by Bladder. There were brothers made for Bladder, so there were eight all told. Six of these had been captured, slain, ®ayed, eaten, and their skins in®ated with air. The principle of life was in these skins, and after the duel they were transformed into clouds by the power of Bladder. The youngest had been captured, but was not slain. He became the Morning Star. Sometimes the seven appear as the Seven Stars. All this is known to the young men, the women, and the children. [Meeker 1901: 161–62] Dieterle (personal communication 2006) has pointed out that Meeker has some incorrect Winnebago information in his characterization of the Four, probably as a result of Meeker’s own attempt to reconcile the various northern Siouan traditions. Such an observation underscores Meeker’s situation—he seems to have been in the rare position of an ethnographer recording the early stages of the process of adaptation of new mythic material into an already varied existing religious corpus. Seven years later, in 1908, when Paul Radin arrived to study the Winnebago, he apparently did not learn the material in the same way, as has been seen, for Red Horn was at least partially integrated into the corpus. Radin never gave any indication that he was told the crucial information Meeker revealed—that Red Horn was a recent addition to the Winnebago pantheon, diffused possibly from the Blackfoot tribe. It is a useless speculation to wonder what Radin’s reconstruction of the myth complex might have been if he had followed Meeker’s suggestion and set aside the Red Horn narrative as “recent,” but it might have made his evolutionary model—and surely his threefold equation—much simpler. Dieterle, however, suggests that distinguishing among the aspects of the major Winnebago mythic ¤gures is suf¤ciently dif¤cult that the creation of evolutionary models will remain complex. Red Horn’s identity as Herok’a, he points out, “might be quite old, as is his identity with a star in Orion; but his identity as a soteriological ¤gure, as I remarked many years ago, looks new” (Dieterle, personal communication 2006). The Children of the Sun myth, possibly diffused from the Southwest, did not carry with it to the Winnebago and Iowa the identi¤cation of the uncle of the Twins (or the Twins themselves) as Morning Star. There remains the possibility that Radin’s and Dieterle’s identi¤cation of Evening Star as the focus of the be-

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heading myth is correct, even though there is little textual support for it. However, there is at least one Winnebago text that points to Morning Star as one deity beheaded by another. If this local myth was a true Morning Star narrative, then it might point to a special Morning Star type known to the northern Siouan speakers. This is not a strong conclusion—the evidence is too weak—but the possibility exists, and so it should be provisionally listed as a Morning Star type. For the present study, it is probably wiser to take the conservative route and stand with the Iowa, who clearly said that Red Horn “was a man just like the rest of us” and died. That leaves the Winnebago as a tribe of believers in a complex Evening Star and a Morning Star, patron of warriors, possibly with a related myth focused on a battle between the deities. It appears that the safest conclusion for this study of Morning Star traditions is to accept the Winnebago divinities as possibly stellar ¤gures but to allow them to remain without a celestial name, insofar as ethnoastronomy is concerned. This examination of the discussion of interpreting Winnebago myth, from Radin to the present day, has revealed the degree of complexity of myths through time and has highlighted the dynamic evolutionary process characteristic of oral traditional religion.

5

Stars in the North Bears, Biers, and Boats

Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, with the latter’s Polaris, are readily identi¤able by most people living north of the equator (see Figure 5.1). Although modest in magnitude and ordinary in color, Polaris is unique. It is the Fixed Star, the one that does not move. It also appears to be the one around which all the others move in great circles through the night sky. Those two important facts can only be determined by observation through time, but humans everywhere in the northern hemisphere have the same experience of the night sky that makes those observations of the celestial movements inevitable. That unique star in Ursa Minor must inevitably ¤nd a place in the religious thought of peoples, since it must be accounted for in concepts of the cosmic center and the nature of the celestial vault. The other stars of Ursa Minor are dim and thus less important than their spectacular alpha—Polaris. The neighboring constellation of Ursa Major, however, is a very visible great quadrilateral, not quite square, that revolves around it. Known to modern Americans as the Big Dipper, it can stand on its own as a constellation, even though two of its stars are frequently used as the “pointer” stars to ¤nd Polaris (a ¤ve-times extension of the distance between the pointers will hit Polaris). The quadrilateral stands out, calling for explanation. The three stars trailing behind it easily appear to be part of the constellation. On clear nights, keen eyes will spot the small star (Alcor) close to the middle star of the three. Ursa Major is close enough to Ursa Minor to be seen as part of the larger complex, but its rotation around Polaris marks it off as not of the same level of importance, sharing its dependence on the Pole Star with the other stars of the northern hemisphere.

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Figure 5.1. The constellations near Polaris.

Precisely because of its visible rotation around Polaris, Ursa Major developed a special function for humans, at least in some societies. It is a useful tool for telling time and thus had a function in society that was not necessarily linked to religion. A brief note by Stanley Hagar was in reference to the Micmacs, but it is likely that the method was much more widely practiced: “This group of stars served to mark the divisions of the night and of the seasons for the Micmacs much as the position of the Pleiades marked them for tribes further south” (Hagar 1900:96). The same concept was developed by the Blackfeet: “The pointing of the ‘Last Brother’ [eta in Ursa Major] furnished the Blackfeet with their nightsky clock. This method of telling time in the night is well known to shepherds and cattle herders, whose night occupation keeps them continually in the open. Observation soon teaches them that the ‘Last Brother’ or end star of the handle of the Great Dipper, describes a great circle around the North Star once in twenty-four hours and therefore, that its pointing or relative position with the horizon would mark the time, as on a great dial-face” (McClintock 1910:521). With this possibly universal use of the celestial polar area as a timepiece, the universality ends. Other explanatory aspects of Ursa Major/Minor seem linked

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to whatever mythic interpretation is given to these constellations. There is no single myth that has been employed by humans to characterize these stars. Several scholars have examined the traditions that explain Ursa Major. The primary study was done by William Gibbon (1964), who has made the task of surveying the corpus much easier. As Gibbon found, there are several different narratives that have been applied to Ursa Major, many—but not all—of which include reference to Polaris or Ursa Minor. Those narratives have been recorded through historic times by collectors of myth texts, and the patterns of distribution are helpful in providing hints at prehistoric cultural relationships. These different myth types need to be examined separately, along with the textual evidence, before any consideration of their aggregate signi¤cance can be undertaken.

The Celestial Hunt For people who live in the more northern areas of the earth, anywhere north of 44° latitude, the two constellations are so high in the night sky that they never drop below the horizon. People living in that zone might well develop a common way of identifying the star groups, especially if there were communication in the circumpolar region through the millennia. That appears to have happened, for a standard myth plot is found across the region in Asia, Europe, and North America. The basic myth is simple, involving “a chase in which the pursued runs up into the sky, followed by eternally unsuccessful pursuers. This myth seems quite natural as a description of Ursa Major—the four feet of a ®eeing quadruped . . . and three pursuers” (Hagar 1900; see also Hagar 1906). It is an elementary plot, one designed to help people identify the constellation in the sky as a group of hunters after their Great Prey, which is sometimes identi¤ed as an elk or a deer but most frequently as a bear. Accompanying the stellar pattern—rotation around a center high in the sky— is a common environmental pattern. The weather and temperature produce a similar ecology, which in turn leads to similar human adaptations. The peoples of the northern latitudes, around the world and across language barriers, are hunters and ¤shers, and the Great Prey—most often the Bear—tends to become a divinity. The myth thus lifts a standard image of cultural ecology—hunters after their prey—into the eternal sky. These peoples’ widespread identi¤cation of Ursa Major as a bear, along with the encoding of the insight into a narrative, is hardly surprising, given the importance of the great creature with some humanlike characteristics (such as standing up on rear legs) and terrifying power (Speck and Moses 1945). Despite the fact that the modern identi¤cation of the constellation in English is the “Big Dipper,” the West still refers to the constellation by the Latin name Ursa Major (“Great Bear”). Old as that Latin label is, the bear

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identi¤cation in the Old World goes back to Greece and earlier. That there is archaeological evidence of ursine religious rituals—caches of bear skulls in Neanderthal caves—hints at a great antiquity for the traditions about bears, which may include the myth complex known even to this century. Hagar was fascinated by the circumpolar distribution of the bear and the hunters: “singular as it is that these stars should have been associated with the same animal in the Old World and the New before the time of the ¤rst-known inter-communication, there seems little doubt of the fact that this interpretation was common to both continents” (Hagar 1906:358). Moreover, in North America, the same basic myth was told by people farther from the Arctic Circle, the Iroquois and the Algonkian tribes. H. B. Alexander observed, “It is odd to ¤nd the Iroquois telling the story of the celestial bear, precisely as it is told by the Eskimo of northern Greenland: how a group of hunters, with their faithful dog, led onward by the excitement of the chase, pursued the great beast high into the heavens, and there became ¤xed as the polar constellation (Ursa Major)” (Alexander 1964:26). An earlier historian had already noted the fact that the somewhat separate cultural groups of Algonkian speakers, the Northeastern and the Central, nonetheless told of the celestial bear: “It is a curious coincidence, that among the Algonquins of the Atlantic and of the Mississippi, alike among the Narragansetts and the Illinois, the North Star was called the Bear” (George Bancroft, quoted in Allen 1963:423). Here is a literal translation of a text recorded from the Fox by William Jones. It is said that once on a time long ago in the winter, at the beginning of the season of snow after the ¤rst fall of snow, three men went on a hunt for game early on a morning. Upon a hillside into a place where the bush was thick a bear they trailed. One of the men went in following the trail of the bear. And then he started it up running. “Towards the place whence comes the cold is he speeding away!” he said to his companions. He that headed off on the side which lay towards the source of the cold, “In the direction of the place of the noonday sky is he running!” he said. And then again he that stood guard on the side of the way towards the noonday sky, “Towards the place of the going-down of the sun is he running!” he said. Back and forth amongst themselves they kept (the bear) ®eeing. They say that after a while he that was coming up behind chanced to look down at the ground. Behold, green was the surface of the earth lying face up! Now of a truth up (into the sky) were they conveyed by the bear! When round about the bush they were chasing it then truly was the time that up (into the sky) they went. And then he that came up behind cried out to

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him that was next ahead: “O River-that-joins-Another, let us go back! We are being carried up (into the sky)!” Thus said he to River-that-joinsAnother. But by him was he not heeded. Now River-that-joins-Another was he who ran in between (the two), and little (puppy) Hold-Tight he had for a pet. In the autumn they overtook the bear; then they slew it. After they had slain it, then boughs of the oak they cut, likewise boughs of the sumach; then laying the bear on top (of the leaves) they ®ayed and cut up the bear; after they had ®ayed and cut it up, then they began slinging and scattering the meat in every direction. Towards the place of the coming of the morning they ®ung the head; in the winter-time when the morning is about to appear some stars usually rise; it is said that (they came from) the head of the bear. And also his backbone, towards the place of the morning they ®ung it too. They too are commonly seen in the winter-time; they are stars that lie huddled close together it is said that (they came from) the backbone. And they say that these four stars in the lead were the bear, and the three stars at the rear were they who were chasing after the bear. In between two of them is a tiny little star, it hangs near by another; they say that it was the puppy, the pet Hold-Tight of River-that-joins-Another. Every autumn the oaks and sumachs redden in the leaf because it is then that the hunters lay the bear on top of the leaves and ®ay and cut it up; then red with blood become the leaves. Such is the reason why every autumn red become the leaves of the oaks and sumachs. That is the end of the story. [ Jones 1907:71–75; see Jones 1939:21–22] There are minor differences in the way the myth is told, of course: the number of hunters varies, sometimes a sister is involved, and sometimes the small star is a pot for cooking the bear. The bear myth sometimes even expanded legendlike to include adjoining stars. Among the Micmac at an early date, “the three guardians of the North Star [probably three stars in Ursa Minor] are a canoe in which three savages have embarked to surprise this Bear” (Hagar 1900:99, quoting Le Clerq 1691:152–53). Despite the variations, the basic myth is still there and is recognizable. There may be subtle patterns in the distribution of the minor variations, but they will not be pursued here. The distinctiveness of the group of peoples who observe the celestial bear is enough for this study, because it indicates a fairly clear myth type: the stellar identi¤cation of Ursa Major is made by an extensive group across the northern stretches, with a few extensions toward the south. There is a boundary—this is a myth of the circumpolar region. That fact has long been noted, of course. Stith Thompson assigned the myth motif

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number A771: “Origin of the Great Bear (Ursa Major).” He listed examples from the Danish, Greek, Jewish, Lappish, Livonian, Egyptian, Siberian, Hindu, Chinese, Korean, North American Indian (Eskimo, Iroquois, Assiniboine, Blackfoot, Mandan, Sioux), and Aztec cultures (Thompson 1932:1:157). Thompson’s brief references point to an important fact about the Great Bear myth, because they point to the circumpolar distribution of the story, in both hemispheres. Some of the texts referred to by Thompson are from other myth types, since his motif is simply an origin of the constellation, not a speci¤c myth plot. In her index of tale types for North American Indians, however, Wycoco created one speci¤cally for the celestial bear myth: “Type 55. A hunter and his dogs pursue a bear; hunter and hunted rise to the sky to become the constellation Ursa Major” (Wycoco 1951:43). Based primarily on the work of William Gibbon, Table 5.1 is a chart of the celestial bear references thus far located; there may be more. The corpus is divided into three subgroups to indicate possibly useful oicotypes. In one, the hunted is an elk, a deer, or a smaller animal. In the second, the hunted is the Bear followed by the hunters, while the third consists of the Bear only (with a focus on the quadrilateral only). The question of possible signi¤cance of the subgroupings will not be taken any further here, however. It is adequate for our purposes to conclude that there is a widespread circumpolar myth of the celestial hunt. In addition to the northern forest location already noted, two more facts should be pointed out about this distribution. The ¤rst is the participation of the Cherokees of the Southeast in the celestial bear type but the absence of the Muskhogean peoples. Since the Cherokees are Iroquoian-speaking peoples, albeit with a separation time gap of millennia, they might be expected to have known the celestial bear at some time in the past. Their preservation of it into the present is of great interest, however, in that they have been surrounded for centuries by peoples who have not told of the celestial bear (according to the ethnographic collections, at least). This is surely an impressive case of cultural retention despite environment. Hagar summarized the Cherokee myth: “The four [stars] in the basin form a bear (yanu), which is pursued by three (or, as some say, seven) hunters (anikanati), represented by the three stars of the handle. The middle hunter carries a pot (tu’sdi) in which they are going to cook the bear when killed. Bruin issues from his den (ustagaluni, Corona Borealis?) in spring. The hunters pursue him across the sky in summer, and kill him in August. The honey-dew which falls then comes from his fat, which they are trying out over a ¤re” (Hagar 1906:357; see also Hagar 1900:98). The second observation is of great importance: the peoples of the Plains—Siouans and Algonkians—are virtually missing in this distribution chart. The reason for their absence is that they have different

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Table 5.1. Continued

explanations for Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, and that provides much food for thought as the distribution patterns are examined (see Figure 5.2).

The Brothers and Their Sister Not all myths explaining Ursa Major follow the pattern of hunters and their prey. In the Celestial Hunt type, humans hunt a culturally appropriate game animal, but south of the circumpolar region in North America, in a large Plains cluster,

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Figure 5.2. Distribution of the Celestial Hunt myth.

the nature of the hunt is reversed. It is what structuralists might term an inversion, for rather than the humans of the Celestial Hunt tracking the prey, in this myth complex the humans are the prey, and in many cases the predator is a bear. There are multiple texts recorded from 11 tribal groups. They are all placed in a single category, following Gibbon, but there are signi¤cant variations within the corpus, as will be seen.1 Table 5.2 shows the basic list. As will be seen, there are some ambiguities mixed into this collection of texts. In order to look at the range of variation of the plots comprising the myth group, each text needs to be examined, then reduced to a structural formula. Then the complete group may be assessed for any generalizations that seem reasonable. A good sense of the structure of this myth can be gained by reading a complete Blackfoot text. Once there was a young woman with many suitors; but she refused to marry. She had seven brothers and one little sister. Their mother had been dead many years and they had no relatives, but lived alone with their father. Every day the six brothers went out hunting with their father. It seems that the young woman had a bear for her lover, and, as she did not want

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any one to know this, she would meet him when she went out after wood. She always went after wood as soon as her father and brothers went out to hunt, leaving her little sister alone in the lodge. As soon as she was out of sight in the brush, she would run to the place where the bear lived. As the little sister grew older, she began to be curious as to why her older sister spent so much time getting wood. So one day she followed her. She saw the young woman meet the bear and saw that they were lovers. When she found this out, she ran home as quickly as she could, and when her father returned she told him what she had seen. When he heard the story he said, “So, my elder daughter has a bear for a husband. Now I know why she does not want to marry.” Then he went about the camp, telling all his people that they had a bear for a brother-in-law, and that he wished all the men to go out with him to kill this bear. So they went, found the bear, and killed him. When the young woman found out what had been done, and that her little sister had told on her, she was very angry. She scolded her little sister vigorously, then ordered her to go out to the dead bear, and bring some ®esh from his paws. The little sister began to cry, and said she was afraid to go out of the lodge, because a dog with young pups had tried to bite her. “Oh, do not be afraid!” said the young woman. “I will paint your face like that of a bear, with black marks across the eyes and at the corners of the mouth; then no one will touch you.” So she went for the meat. Now the older sister was a powerful medicine-woman. She could tan hides in a new way. She could take up a hide, strike it four times with her skinscraper and it would be tanned. The little sister had a younger brother that she carried on her back. As their mother was dead, she took care of him. One day the little sister said to the older sister, “Now you be a bear and we will go out into the brush to play.” The older sister agreed to this, but said, “Little sister, you must not touch me over my kidneys.” So the big sister acted as a bear, and they played in the brush. While they were playing, the little sister forgot what she had been told, and touched her older sister in the wrong place. At once she turned into a real bear, ran into the camp, and killed many of the people. After she had killed a large number, she turned back into her former self. Now, when the little sister saw the older run away as a real bear, she became frightened, took up her little brother, and ran into their lodge. Here they waited, badly frightened, but were very glad to see their older sister return after a time as her true self. Now the older brothers were out hunting, as usual. As the little sister was going down for water with her little brother on her back, she met her six brothers returning. The brothers noted how quiet and deserted the camp seemed to be. So they said to their little sister, “Where are all our

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people?” Then the little sister explained how she and her sister were playing, when the elder turned into a bear, ran through the camp, and killed many people. She told her brothers that they were in great danger, as their sister would surely kill them when they came home. So the six brothers decided to go into the brush. One of them had killed a jack-rabbit. He said to the little sister, “You take this rabbit home with you. When it is dark, we will scatter prickly-pears all around the lodge, except in one place. When you come out, you must look for that place, and pass through.” When the little sister came back to the lodge, the elder sister said, “Where have you been all this time?” “Oh, my little brother mussed himself and I had to clean him,” replied the little sister. “Where did you get that rabbit?” she asked. “I killed it with a sharp stick,” said the little sister. “That is a lie. Let me see you do it,” said the older sister. Then the little sister took up a stick lying near her, threw it at the rabbit, and it stuck in the wound in his body. “Well, all right,” said the elder sister. Then the little sister dressed the rabbit and cooked it. She offered some of it to her older sister, but it was refused: so the little sister and her brother ate all of it. When the elder sister saw that the rabbit had all been eaten, she became very angry, and said, “Now I have a mind to kill you.” So the little sister arose quickly, took her little brother on her back, and said, “I am going out to look for wood.” As she went out, she followed the narrow trail through the prickly-pears and met her six brothers in the brush. Then they decided to leave the country, and started off as fast as they could go. The older sister, being a powerful medicine-woman, knew at once what they were doing. She became very angry and turned herself into a bear to pursue them. Soon she was about to overtake them, when one of the boys tried his power. He took a little water in the hollow of his hand and sprinkled it around. At once it became a great lake between them and the bear. Then the children hurried on while the bear went around. After a while the bear caught up with them again, when another brother threw a porcupine-tail [a hairbrush] on the ground. This became a great thicket; but the bear forced its way through, and again overtook the children. This time they all climbed a high tree. The bear came to the foot of the tree, and, looking up at them, said, “Now I shall kill you all.” So she took a stick from the ground, threw it into the tree and knocked down four of the brothers. While she was doing this, a little bird ®ew around the tree, calling out to the children, “Shoot her in the head! Shoot her in the head!” Then one of the boys shot an arrow into the head of the bear, and at once she fell dead. Then they came down from the tree. Now the four brothers were dead. The little brother took an arrow, shot it straight up into the air, and when it fell one of the dead brothers came to life. This he repeated until all were alive again. Then they held a council,

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ch apter 5 and said to each other, “Where shall we go? Our people have all been killed, and we are a long way from home. We have no relatives living in the world.” Finally they decided that they preferred to live in the sky. Then the little brother said, “Shut your eyes.” As they did so, they all went up. Now you can see them every night. The little brother is the North Star (?). The six brothers and the little sister are seen in the Great Dipper. The little sister and the eldest brother are in a line with the North Star, the little sister being nearest it because she used to carry her little brother on her back. The other brothers are arranged in order of their age, beginning with the eldest. This is how the seven stars came to be. [Wissler and Duvall 1908:68–70]

This story begins with the story of a young woman who has taken a bear as her husband/lover. When her human family discovers the truth, they kill the bear-husband, whereupon the woman turns into a bear and kills many in the village. This episode is a well-known one, and it is generally referred to as the “Bear Husband” or “Bear Paramour” (Type 501). Wycoco’s description of Type 501 reads: “The Bear-woman; the bear who married a woman; the bear mother. A woman is discovered cohabiting with a bear. When the bear is killed, she turns into a bear and attacks her family. They ®ee and delay her pursuit by throwing magic objects behind them. They ¤nd her invulnerable except in one spot. They eventually discover this spot and kill her” (this is essentially the same myth as Type 51, but without the Ursa Major episode; Wycoco 1951:91–93; Thompson 1929:345n244). The young woman’s seven brothers and little sister realize she will also kill them and determine to escape. They are no match for their bear sister, but the youngest boy has power, which he uses to construct barriers for the bear as they ®ee. This episode is known as the “Magic Flight” or the “Obstacle Flight” (Motifs D672, R231; Thompson 1929:333–34n205, 342n232). In the ¤nal episode, “Ascent to the Sky,” the bear is killed after killing some of her brothers, but the powerful boy resuscitates them by using a magic arrow. Then the siblings, after discussion, decide to go to the sky to live, becoming the Ursa Major constellation, frequently referred to in this oicotypal group as the “Seven Stars.” The structure of this Blackfoot myth text, in shorthand version, is this: Blackfoot a Bear Paramour + Obstacle Flight + Discussion + Ascent to Sky The second Blackfoot text, published by McClintock in 1910, is remarkably similar. Despite a few differences in details, the structure is the same.

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Blackfoot b Bear Paramour + Obstacle Flight + Ascent to Sky (feather/arrow) Some names and a “Medicine Feather” are added. The bear-sister is not killed, nor does she kill her brothers, thus obviating their resuscitation. The translation to the sky occurs as expected, using an arrow. These details suggest the range of variation acceptable among the Blackfoot tribe, because the structure remains the same and the story as told is easily recognizable as the same (McClintock 1910:488–89). Along with the proper names for two of the children, an additional note about the social function of the constellation makes it clear that the Ursa Major myth is a stable one for this tribe. As already noted, the “Last Brother,” the last star of the “handle,” is a marker rotating around Polaris, used for telling time (McClintock 1910:521). This Blackfoot use of the constellation is rati¤ed by an incidental comment made by Grinnell: “For a long time he sat there waiting. The moon rose and travelled high in the sky. The Seven Persons slowly swung around, and pointed downward. It was the middle of the night” (Grinnell 1892:66). A different way of telling the story reveals the range of Blackfoot narratives. This text replaces the Bear with a serpent, but the episode is essentially the same, except that the relationship is adultery rather than a marriage, and the motif of the “Rolling Skull” is added (Wycoco 1951: #572, “The snake paramour; the rolling-head (adultery-and-punishment type)”; see Thompson 1929:163–64, 343– 44n238). Here is a summary of the opening portion. A woman used to go after ¤rewood and would return late carrying it on her back. Her husband discovered that she met a large rattlesnake lover. The next morning the man killed the snake. He then confronted his wife. When she af¤rmed her love for the snake, her husband took his knife and cut off her head. The dead woman’s brothers returned and spoke to her only through the tent wall. One day when she was scraping hides outside the tipi, the youngest of the seven brothers told another that he would peep through a hole and see how their sister looked. “He peeped through the hole and saw her head ®opping about the hide as it worked on it. ‘Oh, come and see for yourselves how horrible our sister looks,’ he said to his brothers. So they looked and were all frightened.” The youngest brother overheard her head planning to kill them. They ®ed from the village, taking with them their sister’s paint, hide scraper, porcupine quills, and awl, all of which became obstacles for the “rolling head” in the pursuit. At last she overtook them. The boys discussed what to do: “One of the boys said, ‘Let us turn ourselves into water.’ But the others did not agree

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to this. They all said, ‘If we turn into water, people will drink us up.’ Then the second brother said, ‘It would be better to turn ourselves into trees,’ but the others did not think so, for they said the people would chop them down. The third said, ‘Let us turn into grass,’ but the others did not like that, for they said people would burn them up. The fourth said, ‘It would be better to turn into rocks,’ but the others said, ‘No, the people will gather us and heat us to use in their sweat houses; the women will also break us to make scrapers out of us.’ The ¤fth said, ‘Let us turn into animals of some sort. We can then live, eat, walk, and see.’ The others objected, ‘No, the Indians will kill and eat us.’ The sixth said, ‘Let us turn into birds of some sort. Then we can ®y about.’ The others said, ‘No, the Indians will kill us just the same.’ The seventh said, ‘I have the best idea. Let us leave the earth completely. We will go up into the sky and remain there for the rest of our lives; there we can show ourselves at night. The people will then see us. Those that now see us and those that see us a thousand years from now may die, but we shall be seen forever. The people will look up at night and say, “Look in the sky and see the seven,” and we shall be talked about forever.’ When he said this, the brothers all liked it.” By means of a feather, they all ascended to the sky and became the Seven Stars. [summary of Knox 1923] This summary includes a lengthy quotation of the Discussion to demonstrate the distinctiveness of the episode when the narrator gives the full story. The shorthand outline of the text is this: Blackfoot d Snake Paramour + Rolling Skull + Obstacle Flight + Discussion + Ascent to Sky (feather) Thus there are two slightly different ways of telling the Ursa Major myth for the Blackfoot narrators. They are the same in overall structure, but the snake and bear are allomotifs, and the Rolling Skull motif is added. The Blackfoot collection is even more complicated, however. As if to warn against too simple an understanding of the mythic distribution patterns, two other texts of the Blackfoot story shift the identi¤cation of the constellation from Ursa Major to the Pleiades (Grinnell 1892:66; Wilson 1893:200). This substitution is an easy one, because the Pleiades can also be characterized as a seven-star constellation. As will be seen, this tendency for the two constellations to substitute for each other in the myths adds to the confusion of the lore in more tribal groups than just the Blackfoot. When the three major Blackfoot texts (a, b, d) are compared, the

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result demonstrates the closeness in structure, but it also reveals the range of use of allomotifs and details permitted within the narrative tradition of the tribe. A Cheyenne text provides yet another way of telling the story. A girl with no siblings decided to go and live with seven brothers who hunted buffalo. When the buffalo learned of the girl, they demanded that she live with them. They attacked the brothers and the girl, who ®ed to the sky by means of a tree that grew by magic: “[ J]ust as the tree began to fall, Quillwork Girl and her brothers leaped from the branches into the sky and became stars. You can still see the seven brothers and Quillwork Girl. They are the stars called the Big Dipper. Quillwork Girl is the brightest of them all. She is busy ¤lling the sky with her beautiful, shimmering designs” (Miller 1997:256–57; adapted from Stands In Timber and Liberty 1967:16–19 and Erdoes and Ortiz 1984:205–9). This narrative begins with an “adoption” of the woman by seven brothers, who then have to confront the Buffalo who wants to become her husband. They ®ee to a tree that grows into the sky by the magic of the youngest brother, a replacement or variant of the Obstacle Flight. The Ascent to the Sky results in their becoming Ursa Major. Cheyenne a Buffalo Suitor + (no Obstacle Flight) + Ascent to Sky (tree) The other Cheyenne texts make it clear that this Plains adaptation, with a buffalo as the ogre who chases the siblings, was standard for them. The Assiniboine, however, told the Serpent Paramour version, blended with the Rolling Head. The structure is familiar, even though the details are different. The lover is a Serpent, and the adulterous woman becomes the Rolling Head that pursues her children. The Obstacle Flight leads to the Crane Bridge motif, in which a helpful crane allows the young people to cross over water on its neck but drops the Rolling Head into the water. The brothers and girl ascend to the sky by playing ball (Lowie 1909:177–78). Assiniboine Snake Paramour + Rolling Head + Obstacle Flight + Crane Bridge + Ascent to Sky (ball) The Winnebago told a variant of the Suitor motif. The Snake Paramour seems to have been added to the story in a peculiar way. The similar structure is only faintly visible in this unique text. Because it is such a good illustration of what can happen to what was presumably a common plot in the hands of different narrators or narrative traditions, the full text is given here.

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Once long ago, when the Winnebagos lived among the lakes, seven young women were chosen by the Creator himself to look after the sacred plants and herbs of the tribe. Seven young warriors were also chosen to be the protectors of these maidens throughout their lives. The Creator Ma-ona wanted these women pure and not to be touched by man. One day the medicine woman of the tribe sent these young women on an herb-¤nding mission into the woods. They were to bring back medicinal plants needed by her for the treatment of the sick. The young warriors followed at a distance, but always keeping in eye contact with the women. Unknown to the warriors, they in turn were followed by an evil shaman of the hated Snake Tribe. He wanted the Winnebago virgins to be offered up as human sacri¤ces to his evil god. When the seven maidens reached their favorite spot, they began picking the sacred plants needed by the medicine woman. Their activity was interrupted, however, when they were approached by a very handsome man. Unknown to them, this was the evil shaman (he could change his looks at will). All seven maidens fell in love with the handsome man at ¤rst sight, but they knew it was forbidden. So they all ran back to the village as quickly as their legs would carry them. They reported to the medicine woman what had happened. The medicine woman became furious at the young warriors for not doing their duty. The leader of the young men said that at no time had they let the seven young women out of their sight. He said his group of warriors must have been bewitched. The medicine woman did not believe the leader, because she knew how young men were. So the next day, she again sent the maidens out and gave strict orders to the warriors not to let the women out of their sight. As happened the day before, the evil shaman followed the maidens and their protectors at a distance. When the women reached their destination, again they started to pick the plants. The evil shaman then threw a veil of evil mist in front of the men’s eyes so that they saw what he wanted them to see, which was a view of the women picking plants. As before, he again appeared to the women. This time he was even more handsome than before. Now the maidens knew what he was. They all took off running, but could not ¤nd the trail back to their village. The evil shaman threw mist in front of them to confuse the young women. They then changed direction and ran toward the east, as the shaman wanted them to. Now there was no escape, for the lake was in front of them and the shaman was behind them. After running for hours, the maidens began to tire and the evil one

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began to make up the distance between them. In the early hours of the evening, the women made it to the lake, just as the evil one caught up with them. Now he showed his true self to them, which was a demon god of the Snake people. The women now knew there was no escape, so they cried in one voice to the Creator, “Ma-ona! Help us, the demon is going to kill us and make food of our ®esh!” With a loud thundering of the heavens, Ma-ona answered their call. With a zap of lightning, the evil one was burned to a cinder, and the seven maidens were lifted up into the heavens and placed in the northwest. They became the Big Dipper. The evil shaman was placed as the North Star, so now the seven maidens could circle him and taunt him for eternity. The medicine woman of the Winnebagos threw the seven young warriors also into the heavens. They became the Little Dipper. That was their payment for failing to protect Ma-ona’s daughters. To this day, in the early hours of darkness, you can see the seven maidens taunting the North Star, and their protectors in the Little Dipper forever keeping a watchful eye out for them. [Smith 1997:28–30] The Winnebago narrators provided their own unique variant of the general structure, continuing the pattern observed in the previous chapter. In this narrative the women are chased by a “demon god of the Snake people.” There is no magical method of escape, as in the Obstacle Flight motif, and the women are trapped. Upon their appeal for help, the Creator raises them to the sky, where they become Ursa Major, their tormentor becomes Polaris, and their useless protectors, the stars of Ursa Minor. Winnebago “Snake” Suitor + Ascent to Sky The Arapaho provided four texts adding to the range of mythic possibilities. The ¤rst two open with the motif of the miraculous birth of a woman from a swelling in a man’s leg caused by an injury. This motif, called “Splinter-foot birth” (Wycoco 1951: #81 [“Splinter-foot Girl”]; Thompson 1929:341nn228, 229), is followed by the usual Buffalo Suitor episode,2 and after a ®ight episode the girl and her brothers ascend to the sky, where they become the Pleiades instead of Ursa Major. The ¤rst text is a variant in that it is a compound that doubles the Buffalo Suitor and ®ight episodes. Here are those two narratives. Young men live alone. One of them hurts his foot, which swells. A child is born from it. She grows up. Bone-bull demands her in marriage. The young men refuse, but the bull is so powerful that at last they consent.

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They send him the girl with various objects which become the parts of his body. The young men try to recover their daughter through various animals, all of which fail, until the mole and the badger burrow under the girl, who returns with them, leaving her robe in her place. She ®ees with the young men and they take refuge in a tree. The buffalo pursue them. All go by the tree except a tired calf, which ¤nds the people. The buffalo butt the tree, trying to wear it through. They nearly succeed but are disabled. Then the bull charges against the tree and the ¤fth time sticks fast in it. The young men kill him. A rock demands the girl in marriage and frightens the young men into giving her to him. She is again rescued by the mole and the badger. The girl ®ees with the men, retarding the pursuit of the rock by making a canyon behind them. At last she kicks a ball up and with it raises the men and herself to the sky. They become stars. [abstract of Dorsey and Kroeber 1903:153–59] Arapaho a Splinter-foot Birth + Buffalo Husband + Flight + Rock Husband + Obstacle Flight + Ascent to Sky (ball) It is not certain whether this text was intended to explain Ursa Major or the Pleiades. In a simpler narrative it is made clear: “A girl is born from the wounded leg of one of several men. A bull carries her off. The mole rescues her by burrowing. The bull pursues the people, and when they climb a tree the buffalo try to knock it down. At the last charge the bull is killed. The girl by means of a ball causes herself and the men to rise to the sky, where they become the Pleiades” (Dorsey and Kroeber 1903:160–61). Arapaho b Splinter-foot Birth + Buffalo Husband + Flight + Ascent to Sky (ball) The other two Arapaho texts are quite different, in that they embody the Bear Woman episode. The constellation is not speci¤ed in either. In one, three characters become “three stars,” but in the other the unspeci¤ed constellation is probably Ursa Major (Dorsey and Kroeber 1903:152–53, 238–39). Arapaho c Bear Woman + Ascent to Sky (ball) (3 stars) Arapaho d Bear + Flight + Ascent to Sky (ball)

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The Arapaho narratives thus provide a bridge between the two subtypes. Two are Splinter-foot variants of the “animal suitor” tradition, connecting them to the Blackfoot/Cheyenne/Assiniboine oicotype, but they have been shifted to the Pleiades. The other two, which seem to refer to Ursa Major, connect the Arapaho to the next group. A somewhat similar situation exists in the Wichita collection. Of the three texts, one ¤ts the structural pattern already discerned, but two are variants. The more standard text adds an episode at the beginning, in which a woman sleeps with her brother but when discovered by means of a white clay marker becomes Bear Woman (Dorsey 1904a:69–74). The result can be plotted this way: Wichita b Incest + Bear Woman + Obstacle Flight + Ascent to Sky (feather) In one Wichita variant compound myth the boys ®ee from a “cannibal husband.” After an obstacle ®ight, they end up in the sky. The collector identi¤ed the “Seven Stars” as Ursa Minor, but that seems to be an error, given the number speci¤cation and the separate identi¤cation of Polaris and an adjacent star (Dorsey 1904a:63–69). Wichita a Cannibal Husband + Obstacle Flight [+ Crane Bridge + Two-Faces] + Ascent to Sky The third Wichita text is one of those Plains variants in which the narrative changes genres. The familiar mythic plot is switched into the Coyote cycle, with corresponding changes. Even so, the plot structure indicates that the Ursa Major myth was the basis for the variation. Coyote becomes woman, lives with brothers and sister. Coyote has child and takes her away. Next morning oldest brother asks sister for pot of water. They stand in group and pour water on ¤re, and as smoke goes up they go up too. When on high they see Coyote woman and boy and go after them. They overtake them and get child. “The child was taken away from the Coyote woman, and the brothers, their sister, and the child now went up into the sky and became the Stars known as the ‘Seven’ (Kiowhits), the Dipper. The sister also became a Star, but she did not stay with her brothers. The oldest brother had the child with him. Sometimes when we see the Seven Stars we notice the ¤rst one having a small star beside it; sometimes it is with the next one, and so on, just as it used to be when the child was ¤rst born.” Coyote jumps, but ¤nds she is coyote

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again. He returns home, but sees only hair and bones, the remains of his family. He goes off to prairie and cries as coyotes cry. [Dorsey 1904a: 74–80] Wichita c Coyote Woman + Chase + Ascent to Sky One of the two texts from the Plains Village Hidatsa demonstrates the alterations needed to adapt the myth to a special function. The husband has changed from a bear to a dog. Since the myth serves as the charter for the Dog Society among the Hidatsa, it seems likely that the shift in identity was related to the creation of the society, rather than simply indicating a cultural preference for dogs over bears. Nor, of course, are the dogs cast in a bad light, since they are the ancestors of the Dog Society members. [A] beautiful young woman refused to marry or to have sexual intercourse with any man, and her people said that it was her prerogative. One hot night she could not sleep until early morning, after the lodge had cooled off. When she awoke, she saw a man put his white robe around him and leave her bed. This happened 3 nights in a row. On the fourth visit she threw red paint which hit him between the shoulders. When she looked for the paint mark among her tribesmen she found instead a white dog sleeping in her own lodge with the red paint on his shoulders. He ran out of the lodge and 2 months later she discovered that she was pregnant . . . [She produced a series of dogs, one of whom was Brisket; they moved to a place called Dog Dens.] Brisket agreed to return home with his mother, transformed into the small wood owl named Little Owl. Today the Hidatsa say the seven stars of the dipper are Little Owl’s seven brothers. . . . Later a man in the village announced that he was a dog and that his fathers were the dogs who had lived in Dog Den Butte. He told how his fathers had gone to the sky to make up the dipper. The people would see him looking toward the sky at night and talking to his fathers living above. [Bowers 1963:195–96] With the obvious changes due to functional adaptation, the only point of contact with the Bear Husband myth appears to be the connection of a woman with a nonhuman paramour/husband. There may be an episode missing from the collected text, for the identi¤cation of the brothers with the stars of Ursa Major is merely asserted, not narrated. Since the Crow, who split from the Hidatsa some centuries ago, have a myth text closer to the Blackfoot version, it seems likely

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that the needs of the Dog Society have led to alteration of the Bear Husband version and the suppression of the earlier original. Hidatsa b Dog Paramour +

+ Ascent to Sky

This was not the only way the constellation was explained among the Hidatsa, however. In presenting the Crow texts he collected, Robert Lowie observed that “[t]he tale has been recorded among the Hidatsa,” but he did not provide further documentation at that time (Lowie 1918:205). Twenty years later, he published a text, apparently the one that was the basis for his earlier observation. Despite its length and some different details, it contains the familiar Bear Woman structure (Lowie 1939:224–27). Hidatsa c Bear Woman + Bear killed by brothers + Ascent to Sky Consider the similarity of the texts Lowie collected from the Crow, close relations of the Hidatsa. Here is a brief summary of a lengthy narration: Two sisters and six brothers live together. One girl is transformed into a bear, threatens sister. Bear chases siblings. Obstacle ®ight. Bear caught, dies. Siblings discuss what to become. Girl said: “ ‘Elder brothers, let us be where the pipe points to.’ She meant the Dipper. ‘Let us be the Dipper,’ she said. ‘Well, you have spoken well, let us do it.’ Then they smoked. They smoked and placed it (the pipe?) upwards. ‘Girl, go ¤rst.’ ‘You, you are men, do you go ¤rst, that’s what I say, go!’ Then the war-captain went up ¤rst. They came and reached the top. They asked the girl again. ‘Where shall we stay?’ ‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘What shall we do?’ ‘At night we shall walk, in the daytime we’ll go into the ground. We’ll always come again on the other side of the earth. As the sun and the moon and the morningstar do, so shall we do,’ said the little girl. ‘What she has thought out is good, that is what we will do. When the Indians thus offer you smoke, we’ll adopt some as our children.’ When they asked her what to do, she told them. Thus they did. What we call the Dipper is identical with these.” [summary of Lowie 1918:205–11] This text clearly follows the plot structure already seen in the other narratives: Crow a Bear Woman + Obstacle Flight + Discussion + Ascent to Sky

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The discussion about what to do is an added element that can be seen in a minor way in the Hidatsa c text, and it may be nothing more than the narrator’s way of explaining the outcome. It may, however, re®ect the in®uence of a different myth, one that usually explains the origin of the Pleiades. Note this version, also told by the Crow, which is close to the Pleiades Discussion plot and shows no sign of the Obstacle Flight myth: The Seven Stars were once living on this earth. They got angry about something. They had a younger sister, who owned a little dog. “What shall we turn into so as to live forever?” One of them said, “Let us be the earth.” They refused. “The earth caves in,” they said. Then one of them said, “Let us be trees.” “Trees are chopped down,” they said and would not do it. “We’ll be stones,” said one of them. “Stones are broken off,” they said. That, too, they would not do. “Let us be mountains.” “The rocks cave in.” They would not do it. One of them said, “Let us be stars.” “They also fall down,” they said. They did not do it. One of them said, “You are crazy, we’ll be the Dipper.” They became stars. They did not fall down, they remained above. This is what we have heard. [Lowie 1918:211] Crow b Discussion + Ascent to Sky This is the Pleiades myth plot, with the simple shift in identi¤cation of the constellation as Ursa Major instead. (The “angry about something” codes a characteristic episode, as will be seen in the next chapter.) It is curious that a Pleiades myth does not appear otherwise to have been known among the Crow, which may indicate that these plots, when collected, were already part of a dying ethnoastronomy. That possibility is strengthened by the fact that there is yet another myth told among the Crow to explain Ursa Major: Woman followed man, intending marriage. Bride tests; he sought to kill her. Obstacle ®ight. Boy with six brothers killed man. Boys live with adopted sister. Red-Woman follows them (arrow ®ight), kills brothers one by one. Youngest kills Red-Woman and resuscitates brothers. Brothers debate what to become. “ ‘We’ll be something they point pipes at,’ said another. They told the young woman to go home as she was human and they could not take her up . . . The seven brothers went up to the sky and became stars, but the boy remained separate, near the Seven Stars. This is how Old-Woman’s-grandchild’s grandmother [Red-Woman] was killed.” Sequel: killing of baby, part of former husband. [summary of Lowie 1918: 119–28, quotation, p. 126]

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This plot appears very complicated because it is a compound myth, a narrative composed of three separate stories. In the full text it is obvious that there is an abrupt shift from one to another, with little attempt to provide plausible transitions. The ¤rst story is a Bride Test myth, with the husband as the villain who seeks to kill the woman. The Obstacle Flight episode appears in connection with this myth. The second story is the celestial one, with the boys, their adopted sister, and a hostile woman identi¤ed as Red Woman, Grandson’s grandmother. There is a chase in which Red Woman is a variant of the Bear Woman motif, with faint echoes of the Obstacle Flight. Following the Crow Discussion element, the boys become the Seven Stars. The third myth is a myth about a rapacious baby who is ¤nally killed. The pattern is as follows: Crow c [myth] + [Bear Woman (var.) + Obstacle Flight (var.) + Discussion + Ascent to Sky] + [myth] This narrative has it all—a bear-woman, two obstacle ®ights, a discussion, and a link into other important myths (Grandson). It serves to point out the role of the creativity of the narrator, since this plot outline is unique, although it catches up the basic episodes of the tradition. A Kiowa rendition shows a localized adaptation to the need to explain a particular geological anomaly, the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, but the plot is easily recognizable. Here the stretching tree becomes the volcanic cone. Eight children were there [at Devil’s Tower] at play, seven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His ¤ngers became claws, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terri¤ed; they ran, and the bear after them. They came to the stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them climb upon it, and as they did so it began to rise into the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond its reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The seven sisters were borne into the sky, and they became the stars of the Big Dipper. [Momaday 1969:8] Kiowa b Bear-boy + Flight + Ascent to Sky (tree) When all these myth plots are compared, the connection is clear (see Table 5.3). All these texts seem bound together by a chase of a group of people. The

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Figure 5.3. Distribution of the Brothers and Sister/Obstacle Flight type.

pursuer is a ¤gure of differing characterization (bear, snake, buffalo), but the basic issue is the sexual/marital relationship between a human and a nonhuman— the “animal husband” theme—that leads to a desire to kill the siblings. The rejection of the union results in a great chase, frequently marked by the desperate use of magical objects that become barriers, a well-known motif called Obstacle Flight. The chase ends with the ascent of the humans to the sky, where they become Ursa Major. They go to the sky in order to escape from what is chasing them, rather than for them to chase the prey, as in the ¤rst type cluster. There are several allomotifs that provide the mechanism for the ascent—arrow, feather, ball, and tree—but the result is the same. If the slight variations in the narration are ignored, the plot structure of these myths is readily identi¤able as belonging to the same mythic type. This cluster of tribes includes the Blackfoot, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Wichita, Hidatsa, Crow, Kiowa, and even the Winnebago (see Figure 5.3). The consistency of structure suggests that the variation in additional episodes across the cluster may re®ect no historical background of any great signi¤cance. It may be more reasonable to treat the entire group as a single type with many

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individual differences caused by localization and the creativity of individual narrators. That was the outcome of Gibbon’s consideration of the narratives he lumped together in a category he called “The Girl and Her Brothers” (Gibbon 1964). The existence of other occurrences of the various episodes—Obstacle Flight, Bear Woman, Snake Paramour, Rolling Skull—raises the important question of whether there are additional texts of those episodes that belong in the Ursa Major type group despite the fact that the stars are not mentioned by the narrator. To add those tribes to the group, however, would be to act on an argument from silence, and there is no warrant for doing so. It seems safer to accept the notion that the myth of an animal marriage that results in the attempt to murder humans is an independent story that was adapted by the identi¤ed cluster of tribes as an etiology of Ursa Major. There may indeed have been more tribes who participated in this explanatory use of the myth, but there now seems no way to know. It is possible that some of those tribes were earlier participants in this Ursa Major myth type but adopted an alternate myth to explain the constellation, continuing to tell the Brothers and Sister myth without the stellar references. That could have been the case with the Omaha, who told the Brothers and Sister myth without the escape to the stars, probably because they had another explanation for Ursa Major (Dorsey 1890:292). Their belief is the topic of the next myth type examination.

A Bier in the Sky A bear ®eeing from hunters and a bear chasing siblings are not the only ways Ursa Major has been interpreted. One other small group of tribes, also in the Plains, saw the constellation’s great quadrangle as a litter or stretcher. As it rotates counterclockwise around Polaris, it is followed by a line of stars who are the companions of the man on the litter. This information was preserved by some solely as belief statements, but they hint at a myth lying behind the beliefs. Here is the evidence. McClintock mentioned that J. O. Dorsey had collected beliefs from the Sioux, although it is not clear whether he intended to refer to all bands or just a few. He reported, “According to a Sioux legend, the four stars of the bowl of the dipper are called the ‘bier.’ It is borne by four men, behind whom comes the train of mourners. The second star in the handle has a very small one (the Little Sister) beside it. The Sioux say, ‘it is she, who goes with her young one weeping’ (Rev. J. O. Dorsey)” (McClintock 1910:523). A slightly more narrative version was collected from the Dakota by Wallis a few decades later: “A man went out to hunt. He died suddenly, and his body was found. Four men picked

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him up. These four are now the four corners of the Dipper (Ursa Major). Of the other three in the group, the ¤rst is his wife, the next two are his children. The constellation is called ‘carrying-the-dead-man’ (witca’kiaha’pi)” (Wallis 1923:44). The same identi¤cation was noted in connection with other Siouan speakers. The Omaha and Osage knew Ursa Major as “Wa’-ba-ha,” the stretcher. For the Omaha, the constellation mirrored their mortuary practice: “The body is borne upon a stretcher made by binding two cross-sticks on two poles ten or twelve feet long; tent poles are sometimes used for this purpose. The bed of the stretcher is woven of willow wands, on which a robe is spread, the hairy side uppermost, and pillows are used to keep the sitting corpse in position, the feet being covered with robes or blankets. The stretcher is sometimes carried by four men, near relatives” (La Flesche 1889:9). “This constellation is frequently referred to in ceremonial rituals by the Osage,” noted La Flesche (1932:183, 274; Fletcher and La Flesche 1911:110). The Osage paired eight constellations for ritual purposes, and one of the pairs was “Wabaha, Litter (Ursa Major), grandfather, and Tapa’, Deer-head (Pleiades), grandmother” (La Flesche 1928:73). Dorsey translated the name of Ursa Major as “the Funeral Bier” (Dorsey 1894:379). The narrative form of this identi¤cation was apparently not collected, even though the image was clear. The Pawnee, however, did tell about Ursa Major in story form. An apocalyptic version was told by “Young-Bull, at present the leading medicine-man among the Pitahauirat and the owner of the Buffalo ceremony.” The Morning-star spoke to the people and said that in the ¤rst great councils when it was decided where each god should stand in the heavens, two of the people became sick. One was an old person and one a young person. They were placed upon stretchers, were carried by certain stars, and these two stretchers are tied on to the North Star. These two stretchers go around the North Star all the time [Ursa Major and Ursa Minor]. The North Star continued to tell the people that whenever the South Star came up from the south it would come up higher; that when the time approached for the world to end the South Star would come higher, until at last it would capture the people who were carrying the two people upon the stretchers; as soon as the South Star captured these two people upon the stretchers they were to die. [Dorsey 1906:135–36, #35] Fletcher noted the same information but added an important detail—that the two stretchers in the sky were a charter for Pawnee funeral procedures: “Ursa Major represents four men carrying a sick or dead man, and Ursa Minor, ‘four

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persons carrying a sick baby.’ In reference to these groups of stars I was told: ‘The people took their way of living from the stars, so they must carry their sick or their dead as shown, the mourners following’ ” (Fletcher 1903:14–15). Utilizing unpublished information from several sources, including Dorsey’s original manuscripts and associated notes on ¤le in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Chamberlain was able to present speci¤c identi¤cations of the Bier constellations: Both Murie and Dorsey identi¤ed the stretchers as being in Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Moulton identi¤ed speci¤c stars in the larger stretcher: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Ursae Majoris represented the four stretcher bearers; Epsilon, Zeta, and Eta were the Medicine Man and his wife and the Errand Man; and Alcor was a dog belonging to the Medicine Man’s wife. Dorsey . . . referred to “Sick-man-upon-Stretcher” as rarukaitukidiputs (raruka’i:tu’), and said that the stars Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Ursae Majoris represented the ends of poles forming the stretcher on which a sick person was supposed to be carried. He noted that these stars circled around the North Star, or chief who watches over them: “Hence it is that if a man has been wounded he must be carried upon a stretcher followed by a medicine man and woman, while the chief remains with them and watches over them. Ursa Minor is known as the ‘Small-Stretcher-bearing-a-sick-Child.’ ” [Chamberlain 1982:109–11] Considering the late prehistoric derivation of the Arikara from the Pawnee, it is not surprising that the former retain some knowledge of the celestial litters. Parks collected this information from an Arikara informant in recent years: “For Mrs. Brave the timing was similar, but she insisted that the end of the winter period was actually marked in the February sky by the appearance of a constellation whose Arikara name is NAsaahaanu’ siniinaáhNA ‘invalid being carried.’ No one can identify it any longer. (Note: This constellation is perhaps the same as the one known to the Skiri Pawnee as raaruka’iitu’ ‘Stretcher,’ also referred to as raarukitkucu’ ‘Big Stretcher’ to distinguish it from a smaller constellation named raarukitkiripahki ‘Little Stretcher.’ The former has been identi¤ed as Ursa Major, the latter as Ursa Minor (Murie 1981:41; Parks 1991)” (Parks 1996:106–7). With that somewhat confused account of the stretcher constellation, the information about the Bier myth type is exhausted. The type covers a relatively small and coherent area, consisting of a group of Siouan speakers—Dakota, Omaha, Osage—and Caddoan speakers—Pawnee and Arikara. However, there is a myth text that hints at a derivation of the Bier tradition, a version of the Bear and the Hunters story that is unique in that type group in

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including a litter. This Seneca version occurs only once in the corpus and is therefore not rati¤ed by other Iroquois texts. That fact, when coupled with the lateness of the collection of the Seneca version, suggests that little weight should be placed on the evidence, but the text is included here for completeness. In the days of the ¤rst people, before the creation of our kind of manbeings, there were seven brothers. All were hunters, but one was not as skillful as the others, and he was called the Lazy One. The brothers on a certain occasion had failed to ¤nd any game though they had hunted many moons. They became very hungry and their minds were charged with magic because of their long fast. When their hunger seemed unendurable they resolved to go out and make one last effort to ¤nd game. One brother was reluctant to go and clung to his bed, but the others wrestled with him, and forced him to go with them, but he assumed to be so weak that they had to make a burden litter upon which they carried him. Four brothers carried this burden, one went before with a torch and one behind with a kettle, hoping for food. When they had gone a long way in this manner the leading brother said: “By aid of my torch I see the tracks of a large bear. I believe that we shall soon overtake him.” When he had said this the lazy brother in the litter said, “I am very weak and you must bathe me with your salivary ®uid.” They paused to do this though the brothers did not like to delay their hunt. After a time the bear tracks appeared to be fresh before them and all ¤ve brothers made ready for the hunt. The rear brother commenced to gather ¤rewood for the feast. Thus they traveled for three days more until the bear appeared just ahead. “We must now abandon you, brother,” said the litter-bearers, “for we are weak and all of us shall have to assist in killing him before he overpowers us. Now, we shall leave you here alone and we hope you may recover.” When the lazy brother found himself abandoned he leaped up and ran ahead. Being full of power from the bath he had received and from his rest, he quickly engaged the bear and killed it with an axe. When his brothers came up he had skinned the bear and had cut off some meat. Soon the brother who bore the torch made a ¤re and the brother with the kettle had placed the meat therein. When all were satis¤ed they looked about them and discovered that they were far up in the air and that the earth was a good ways below them. They looked down and saw that the blood and oil from the bear had stained the leaves of the trees and made them red, orange and yellow. This is how the autumn leaves became colored.

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After a time they went on their journey and soon found that the bear had revived, though they had killed and eaten him. So they again pursued him, being hungry, and when they killed him it was autumn again. This bear chase keeps up all the time,—year after year, and has been so since the ¤rst people came. If you will look into the sky where the bearchase cluster is seen to the north, you will ¤nd the man with the torch at the end of the group (big dipper or great bear constellation), and will see the man with the pot in the middle of the handle. It seems also that there is a cave in which the bear hides and out of which he comes at the time the brothers are very hungry. Then he is pursued until killed by the brother who has saved his strength. This keeps on forever. So we call those stars Nia’gwai’ hades’he’ (Bear they pursuing are). [Parker 1923:81–82] Whether there is any connection between this unique example of the Celestial Hunt type from the Woodlands and the Bier type from the Plains seems impossible to determine. However this Seneca version should be interpreted, there are two other bits of information from the east that are possibly related to the Bier type. One is an ethnographic observation of the Natchez in the 18th century, and the other is an archaeological note. The Natchez of the lower Mississippi Valley were a matrilineal people whose polity was headed by a lineage thought to be descended from the Sun. When a Sun chief or a Sun woman—most senior of the matriline—died, the spirit of the deceased was accompanied by the spirits of close family and others who volunteered to die to continue their service to the departed Sun. The ceremonies were lengthy, but they were not secret, and several Frenchmen observed them and wrote them down. One of the peculiar aspects of the ritual was the carrying of the Sun corpse to the mortuary temple on a litter. On the way the litter made circular motions, with the bearers stepping on the bodies of infants sacri¤ced by their parents for the occasion. Here are two descriptions of this part of the ritual as seen on two occasions, the death of a Sun woman and the death of Serpent Piqué, brother of the Sun chief, both of which occurred in the 1720s. At last they began the procession. The fathers and mothers, who carried the dead children, appeared ¤rst, marching two and two, and came immediately before the bier on which was the body of the woman chief, which four men carried on their shoulders. All the others came after in the same order as the ¤rst. At every ten paces the fathers and mothers let their children fall upon the ground; those who carried the bier walked upon them,

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then turned quite around them, so that when the procession arrived at the temple these little bodies were all in pieces . . . The Tattooed-serpent, having come out of his cabin in his state bed, as I have pictured it, was placed on a litter with two poles, which four men carried. Another pole was placed underneath toward the middle and crosswise, which two other men held, in order to sustain the body. These six men who carried it were guardians of the temple. The grand master of ceremonies walked ¤rst, after him the oldest of the war chiefs, who bore the pole from which hung the cane links [which represented the number of men killed by the deceased]. He held this pole in one hand and in the other a war calumet, a mark of the dignity of the deceased. Then came the body, after which marched the procession of those who were going to die at his burial. Together they circled the house from which they had come out three times. At the third turn they took the road to the temple, and then the relatives of the victims placed themselves in the order which I have described for the rehearsal, but they walked very slowly, because they were going straight to the temple, while the body circled about as it advanced in a manner of which I am not able to give a better idea than by the mark indicated on the cut [see Figure 5.4]. At each circuit made by the body the man of whom I have spoken threw his child in front of it in order that the body should pass over. He took it up again by one foot to do the same at the other circuits. [Le Page du Pratz (1758), quoted in Swanton 1911:142, 148–49] Le Page du Pratz gave no indication that he had sought the symbolic meaning of this behavior, nor did he offer any speculations. In the light of the comments about the Bier narrative, it is tempting to see in the circular motions of the Natchez litter an imitation of the celestial movement of Ursa Major around Polaris. No astronomical lore was collected from the Natchez during the French times, before the French war of extermination in 1729, and Swanton recorded none from their descendants at the beginning of the 20th century, so there is no support from the mythic material. Even so, the ¤t between the Siouan-Caddoan Bier type, particularly with the Pawnee belief that their mortuary rituals were modeled for them in the stars, and the observed ritual of the Natchez makes the hypothesis seem plausible. That plausibility is buttressed from a surprising source. The prehistoric mound site at Spiro, Oklahoma, in the Arkansas River valley, has been studied intensively in the six decades since its looting. In an undisturbed part of the site, one area, called the “Great Mortuary,” provided evidence of multiple burials, accompanied by astounding grave goods, with the remains of litters still visible in the

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Figure 5.4. Engraving of the Natchez funeral procession (from Swanton 1946:Plate 63).

soil (Brown 1996:85–103). The most impressive of all the grave goods recovered from the site was a collection of engraved conch shells, most of which were covered with enigmatic designs now commonly referred to as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. In the major publication of the shell designs the authors speculated that two images might represent the burial litters themselves, which suggests a symbolic level of meaning for them (Phillips and Brown 1984:Plates 293 and 295). It is not dif¤cult to hypothesize a connection between the 14th-century Spiro litters, the 18th-century Natchez litters, and the 19th-century astronomical myths,

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Figure 5.5. Distribution of the Bier type.

all from a fairly contiguous area and probably with some cultural continuity (see Figure 5.5).

A Boat in the Sky One very localized type appeared in the Southeast. Some Muskhogean speakers apparently saw Ursa Major as a boat. There is no myth to clarify the reasoning or the place of the constellation in the mythological corpus, but the language itself retained the marks of the old ethnoastronomical belief. The Creeks apparently told John Swanton that “[t]he constellation of the Great Dipper was called Pithlo hagi, ‘the image of a canoe’ ” (Swanton 1928a: 478). They gave him no myth to account for the term, but the canoe label was rati¤ed by later linguistic evidence. Ray Williamson (1992) argued that an Alabama myth about a descent from the sky in a basket was the “canoe” of the label, and he created an intriguing ethnoastronomical hypothesis (see Chapter 7). In modern times the Alabamas seem to have retained only a “big dipper” name (hochiithli okistakaf ka, Istakaf kachoba, Istisilkachoba) and “little dipper” name

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(Istisilkasi ) (Sylestine et al. 1993:450). This, of course, may indicate nothing more than adoption of the label from the Euro-Americans in historic times, and they probably shared the Creek canoe image in earlier times. It may or may not be relevant that the Choctaws to the west did not recall a canoe label for Ursa Major. Their closest dictionary reference is to “¤chik issuba, n., the stars called the pointers, or dipper, or butcher case, that point toward the North Star; lit., the horse star” (Byington 1909:122). The canoe image stands alone. If there was a myth attached to the Creek boat label, there now seems no way to reconstruct it, unless Williamson’s hypothesis is correct.

Conclusion This examination of the ways in which Native Americans saw Ursa Major has become unexpectedly complicated. That may indicate a great antiquity for the naming of this constellation, a situation that would accord with the number of different ways in which the motifs and episodes have been jumbled in both the largest types, the Celestial Hunt and the Obstacle Flight corpus. That is just supposition, of course, for there is no reason to believe that manifold variation in texts is the result of mythic longevity. The Celestial Hunt type would appear to be the myth cluster with the best claim to antiquity or canonical status. This is because of the geographical location of the people telling the myth (northern latitudes where Polaris and Ursa Major are high in the sky) and because of the circumpolar distribution, making the Celestial Hunt type truly global, albeit with a northern polar center. The Obstacle Flight/Brothers and Sister type seems to belong ¤rmly to the Plains. There does not seem to be a way to determine whether this myth group replaced an earlier form of the Celestial Hunt or whether it was a separate geographic development equally as old as the circumpolar Hunt. Either can be made to seem plausible, and there is no method of dating that could be brought into play on the problem. The distinctiveness of the two types, however, at least suggests that there were two quite different ethnoastronomical traditions in these two areas. The Bier type is a localized Plains phenomenon, with a Seneca motif possibly related to it. The two nonmythic data, if accepted as part of the Bier evidence, are helpful in suggesting a date. With an archaeological manifestation at the Spiro Mississippian era site and an early historic symbolic usage in elite mortuary ritual connected to a group of people whose ancestors were likely participants in the chiefdoms of Mississippian times, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the Ursa Major = litter type ®ourished around the 14th century. Its origin could have been much earlier, but to see its highest usage from the late prehistoric time into the historic period is to suggest that this type may be later than the other two.

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Figure 5.6. Distribution of Ursa Major myth type groups (Celestial Hunt in light sans serif font; Brothers and Sister in roman serif font; Bier in italics).

In that case, it also may be a case of extinction and replacement of an earlier ethnoastronomical type (Obstacle Flight) by one forged in a speci¤c era’s special ritual usage (Bier). Of the Muskhogean Boat tradition there is little to say, for it appears only in the one case, and there is no myth attached. It may be that this linguistic tag is the single bit of evidence of an earlier ethnoastronomy connected to more exotic sources, but there now seems no way to know that. And that negative conclusion leaves us with the distribution map as shown in Figure 5.6.

6

The Star Cluster

Of all the asterisms in the sky, the most universally recognizable is the Pleiades. What makes it unique is the close proximity of the 7 to 10 stars that it comprises. As opposed to most of the constellations, which are spread out across the sky in large unique patterns, the Pleiades is visibly a cluster, readily identi¤able by even the most untrained eye. There is no other asterism that remotely resembles it. The cluster itself makes no particularly memorable pattern, so the fact of the cluster is the focus of attention, as seen in a curious emphasis placed on it by the Ojibwa. The Ojibwa have a unique way of dealing with the Pleiades, one that has not been replicated by other tribes, according to the recorded materials. For them the Pleiades was the major portal into the sky world. It was the result of the digging done by the woman who had married a star (see Chapter 2). When Ojibwa shamans wished to visit with their celestial power guides, they built a cylindrical tent in which they would sit for the visit; its shaking and the voices emanating from it made it clear to witnesses that the communication was taking place. The open top of the tent was pointed at the Pleiades, the portal (Conway 1992). Pleiades stands close to the Hyades, a V-shaped group containing one of the brightest stars, Aldebaran. Both the Hyades and the Pleiades, with some other stars, are part of the constellation Taurus (see Figure 6.1). The path of the Pleiades approximates the ecliptic, so it is visible over most of the inhabited world. In the northern hemisphere, the Pleiades rises near the east-northeast point on the horizon and sets at the west-northwest point. The cluster passes just south of the zenith, so it is visible throughout its nightly appearances. Von Del Chamberlain’s more precise calculations for the Pleiades’ re-

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Figure 6.1. The Hyades and the Pleiades in Taurus.

appearance to the Pawnee in the northern Plains are as follows: “At 41° north latitude the Pleiades ¤rst become visible about 10° above the eastern horizon one hour before sunrise in mid-June. Then they rise earlier and earlier until they fade in the sunset in the western sky in late April” (Chamberlain 1982:135). Lynn Ceci, writing about the northern Woodlands, described the cycle this way: “At ¤rst viewing, about an hour after sunset, the Pleiades ¤rst appear each fall on the eastern horizon. On each succeeding day at this time they may be seen at a slightly higher position above the horizon until midwinter when they rise directly overhead, the point known as the zenith; then they gradually appear to [descend] toward the western horizon each night until they disappear by spring, not to be seen at ¤rst viewing until fall (though present in the morning hours and by August before midnight)” (Ceci 1978:303). Table 6.1 is a generalized chart of the cycle of the Pleiades. The major reason for the popularity of the Pleiades in belief and myth is probably the important set of functional roles played by the Pleiades in the life of the tribes. This uniquely recognizable asterism is widely used as a calendrical marker for community food production and associated rituals, but the variable in the system is the environment. Weather and the seasons for hunting, ¤shing, planting, and harvesting differ from place to place, and the use of Pleiades as a marker depends on the linkages that can be made with the stars. Here are some good examples of the calendrical roles of the Pleiades. In the South Paci¤c, “[t]he Pleiades were venerated by the Maori, and the heliacal rising of that constellation was greeted by women with song and dance. The occasion was marked by a festival . . . The Pleiades were also venerated at

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Manihiki and the Cook Group. Offerings of young shoots of the sweet potato were made to the Pleiades by the Maori” (Best 1922:32). Further, “[t]he Pleiades hold the highest rank among the stars, inasmuch as they usher in the new year and are also visible at its close” (G. H. Davies, quoted in Best 1922:34). In the Carolines the heliacal rising of the Pleiades signals the start of the rainy season and the breadfruit harvest on Truk (Goodenough 1953:10). In Peru the Incas recognized two points in the cycle. The winter Pleiades is the “lord of ripening,” associated with rain and abundance, while the summer Pleiades is “lord of diseases,” associated with death and suffering (Lévi-Strauss 1973:269). The Mesoamerican farmers marked their agricultural round by the Pleiades, much as do the Lacandon today, “who, when the Pleiades reach the treetops by dawn, know to burn their milpa and plant maize” (Coe 1975:20, in Ceci 1978:304). Claude Lévi-Strauss gathered a great deal of information about how the Amazonian and Guianian natives used the Pleiades. In Amazonia, the Pleiades disappear in May and reappear in June, thus heralding ®oods, the molting of birds, and the renewal of vegetation (Lévi-Strauss 1969:218). The Caduveo observed important feast days in mid-June, in connection with the return of the Pleiades and the ripening of the palm nuts (Lévi-Strauss 1969:216). In a Taulipang myth the hero (Pleiades) says that when he reaches the sky, there will be storms and rain, followed by many ¤sh (Lévi-Strauss 1973:244). The Sherente year begins in June with the appearance of the Pleiades, when the sun is leaving Taurus (LéviStrauss 1973:217). The Bororo, like the Sherente, associate the Pleiades with the dry season (Lévi-Strauss 1973:245). In French Guiana natives greet their return on the horizon, because it coincides with the beginning of the dry season. Their disappearance, which occurs about the middle of May, is accompanied by a fresh outbreak of rain that makes navigation impossible (Lévi-Strauss 1973:218, 244). The reappearance of the Pleiades on the eastern horizon soon after sunset in December constitutes the passing of a year (Lévi-Strauss 1973:218). Among the Caribs, one researcher found that “[o]f all the bright constellations and stars visible from these latitudes, that comparatively faint cluster we call the Pleiades is by far the best known, today as in the past, to the inhabitants of the Antilles. In Dominica it is now called la Poussiniere, but was formerly familiar to the Island Carib men as tromgbuleme, ‘master of ¤ne hot weather,’ and to their

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women folk as strik, ‘borer’ a name now applied in Creole to a species of landcrab plentiful in the rains. By it they counted the passing of the years, and its name also signi¤ed ‘year’ ” (Taylor 1946:216). In North America the pattern is much the same. Great Rabbit taught the Cherokees to determine the seasons by the rising of Pleiades. Planting season was marked by the heliacal rising in May, and the culmination of the Pleiades was when the leaves began to fall (Hagar 1906:358–59). In the northeast, one of the earliest astronomical ethnographic observations mentioned the Pleiades. In 1524 Verrazzano noted about the natives at Narragansett Bay that “in seeding, they observe the in®uence of the moon, the rising of the Pleiades, and many methods from their ancient lore” (Wroth 1970:129, quoted in Ceci 1978:305).1 The Iroquois dispersed into hunting camps for their fall deer hunt “until they saw the Pleiades reach their zenith at dusk at the time of the winter solstice. Then the families returned to their villages and celebrated the New Year” (Miller 1997:45). Their myth of the Pleiades “schedules the famous Iroquois Ceremonial of Midwinter, since the Pleiades dance over the council house at their zenith [the ¤rst week of February] . . . the zenith of the Pleiades serves as a natural and quite accurate marker for midwinter” (Ceci 1978:308–9). Ceci, in a study of how the northeastern Algonkian and the Iroquois used the Pleiades, found that “spring and fall dates for the disappearance and reappearance of the Pleiades gain special signi¤cance in the Northeast because they coincide with the limits for the frost-free season [approximately 160 days] . . . Thus for northeastern cultivators who, with so few days margin of error must decide when to sow and harvest their maize, the Pleiades would have been an invaluable sign from the heavens” (Ceci 1978:305–6). This brief survey of the widespread usage of the Pleiades as a calendrical marker demonstrates the inherent importance of the asterism. It is likely that each tribe, having discerned the usefulness of observing the Pleiades, also developed its own method of doing the observation. One such method has been reconstructed. In an excellent analysis of the Pawnee use of the Pleiades as a calendrical marker, Chamberlain clari¤ed the priests’ use of the smoke hole of a Pawnee earthlodge. It is an important reconstruction, because it explains the details of how the observation was done. The Pleiades offer an interesting illustration of the use of the smokehole as a calendric window. At 41° north latitude, the “Seven Stars” rise at azimuth 57.4°, or 32.6° north of east. From our model lodge, they would ¤rst become visible (centered in the smokehole) to an observer seated at the wall along a radius of the [circular lodge]. This compact little group of stars would ¤t nicely in the 3.5° opening. They would be due east a short time later at an altitude of 38.3° . . . [visible to] an observer sitting just a

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little more than 16 ft. from the center of the lodge. He would, of course, be due west of the ¤replace, in the most important symbolic region of the lodge. Since the angle . . . is only about 4°, the Pleiades would not remain for long in the opening as viewed from this location; they would be gone within a few minutes. The Seven Stars would occupy this position in the sky for about one hour before sunrise in late July, or for one hour after sunset about the time of the winter solstice. Thus they could be seen from this location sometime during the night from late July until about the end of December. [Chamberlain 1982:175–76] These examples of the use of the Pleiades point out the curious fact that this asterism has served many different societies as a calendrical marker, possibly because of its uniqueness. This brief survey also indicates the range of variability in details of usage, but the common pattern lying behind the cultural use of the asterism is an emphasis on marking the annual cycle and the seasonal round, however they are experienced locally. Since the experiential importance of seasonality is focused in the food supply, the mythology of the Pleiades should re®ect that connection.

Dancing Children There are several myths associated with the origin of the Pleiades (Motif A773: “Origin of the Pleiades,” Thompson 1929:291–92n71). Wycoco listed four myths as explanations of the asterism, but only two apply to the Woodlands and Plains: “Scolded children not fed; rise to sky” and “Dancing Children” (Wycoco 1951: #53, #54). The distinction between the two is very subtle, and there is some advantage to surveying the myth texts as a single corpus, for there are also some other Pleiades texts that Wycoco did not categorize. Table 6.2 is a nonexhaustive list of the locations of texts. The basic myth in the Eastern Woodlands is deceptively simple. Here is a full text from Edward Cornplanter of the Seneca. Seven brothers had been trained as young warriors. Each day they practised in front of their mother’s lodge, but this did not please the mother. With the boys was an uncle whose custom it was to sit outside the lodge door and drum upon a water drum, that the boys might learn to dance correctly. In time the boys became perfect in their dancing, and then announced that they were about to depart on an expedition to test their skill. The seven assembled about the war post and began their dance. They then went into their mother’s lodge and asked her to supply them with dried meat

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and parched corn for their journey but she sent them away, scof¤ng at their presumptions. Again they danced and again returned for food. “I will not give you so much as a small cake of corn bread,” said the mother hoping to restrain them. But they went back to their dance. A third time they returned but again were repulsed. The fourth dance started and the oldest youth changed his tune to the song of Djihaya. With great enthusiasm he sang compelling his brothers to dance a dance of magic. Hearing the weird music the mother rushed out of the lodge and saw her sons dancing in the air over the trees. This greatly startled her and she cried, “Return, my sons! What manner of departure is this?” But the song continued and the boys danced higher and higher. Again the mother cried, “Oh, my eldest son, will you not return?” But the eldest son would not listen, though his heart was touched. Then the mother screamed, “Oh my eldest son, will you not hear your mother’s voice? Only look down to me!” Then was the oldest son’s heart touched very deeply, but he did not respond, for fear of making his brothers weak. “Oh my brothers,” he called. “Heed no sound from the earth but continue dancing. If you look down you shall fall and never more be able to dance.” The mother now gave a heart-broken cry and called, “Oh my ¤rst born son, give your mother one look,—one last look or I die!” This weakened the heart of the oldest son and he looked down toward the ¤gure of his mother with outstretched arms, weeping for him. As he looked he lost his power to master the air, and began to fall. With great rapidity he fell until he struck the earth and penetrated it, leaving only a scar where the soil came together again. The mother rushed to the spot and swept aside the rubbish, but no trace of her son could she ¤nd. Finally looking up she saw her other boys dancing far up in the sky. They had become the “dancing stars.” In deep sorrow the mother with covered head sat beside the spot where her ¤rst born had fallen. For a whole year she wept as she watched. Winter came and her dancing boys appeared over the council house and each night were observed overhead, but no sign of her eldest could be seen. Came springtime and the time of budding plants. From the spot where the eldest had disappeared a tiny green shoot appeared. This the mother watched with great solicitude. It grew into a tall tree and became the ¤rst pine. This tree was guarded by the melancholy old woman and she would allow no man to touch it; she knew that it was her son and would sometime speak to her. The winds blew and the tree swayed, it began to speak, and the mother

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heard. Only she could interpret the sounds that came from the waving branches, only she could see the face of the young warrior with his plumes. A careless hunter slashed at the tree and blood ®owed, but the mother bound up the wound and drove other intruders away. In time the tree bore small short feathers (cones), and more trees grew. These the hunters slashed in order to get pitch for canoes and ropes. Every winter the pine tree talked to its dancing brothers in the sky and the mother knew that her eldest son should be her comfort while she rested on this earth. [Edward Cornplanter, in Parker 1923:83–85] In this text several themes can be discerned. First, there are seven boys, then six as one is lost, a re®ection of the visual problem of seeing all the stars in the cluster. It should be noted that counting seven stars is a source of confusion in identifying constellations, since Ursa Major is frequently referred to as the Seven Stars. Second, there is a theme of the training of the boys, sometimes in hunting and sometimes in ritual, if those are different ¤elds of study. Then there is a food theme: the boys are refused adequate food to eat, and that motivates them to leave. Frequently appearing is a “Discussion episode,” in which the children examine the strategies of how to achieve immortality. The result is the motif of dancing their way into the sky to become the Pleiades. These themes are not present in all versions of the story, but the interest of tribal groups in emphasizing one theme over another is apparent. The theme of the ritual education of the boys seems strongest among the Delaware. Thanks to the work of John Bierhorst in bringing them together in one volume, there are so many references to the Delaware text that a look at that series also provides a sense of the range of variation both within a single tribe and within the general myth corpus. Delaware a Seven boys were tested by a shaman for will and ability to receive power of lukthaweelnu. The task was to spear a boiled corn cake with a sharpened stick; it was accomplished by all seven by the fourth day. Then followed twelve days of instruction. The boys’ power exceeded their teacher’s; they danced, rose into the air, and became stars. This story tells of the origin of Delaware Men’s Dance (Speck and Moses 1945; told by Nekatcit in 1939; a 1935 telling by him [Delaware b] said there were 10 boys). The food theme is transformed into the ritual theme in a text (Delaware c) in which the seven boys were “af®icted by vomiting” and deprived of food until they became so much “like a deity” that they ascended to the sky (Weslager 1978:110, in Bierhorst 1995:35, #26). What is implicit in the story is the important

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fact, known to every Delaware, that this accounts for the origin of the Big House. The story is frequently told so as to make that explicit. Delaware d and e Little boys were lined up and told to pray to the Creator, because these boys were “clean.” As they prayed, they rose into the air. People threw old clothing at them; some fell back to earth. Those that ascended became the seven stars, the Pleiades (Dean, “Reminiscences,” 15, in Bierhorst 1995:69, 71, #171, #185). The new detail of making some of the dancers fall from the sky by throwing “old clothing” at them is made clear by other texts. Delaware f Also, the people summoned children to make prayers, since children are “pure.” As the children began rising to the sky, the people tried to bring them back to earth by pelting them with soiled menstrual clothes. Seven girls, unhit, rose to become the Pleiades, which are now seen in autumn (Pearson, Notebook, 37–48, in Bierhorst 1995:66, #157). The boys have become girls in this narrative, but the clothing’s power is identi¤ed as the power of menstrual blood, a female force that is generally thought to nullify male magical power. This clari¤cation is rati¤ed by Delaware g: Delaware g During a recess in the Big House ceremony, seven boys began to rise; people threw unclean clothing at them and knocked two of them back down. The others became “those stars” (Newcomb 1956:75, in Bierhorst 1995:64, #145). Curiously, this text presupposes the Big House ceremony, making the boys’ dancing part of the ritual. That seems to re®ect the actual ritual placement, for Speck noted that “[o]n Day 5 of the 10-day Bear Ceremony in the winter, the men dance the Linkan, which commemorates the dance of the brothers who danced into the sky to become the Pleiades” (Speck 1931). Some of the Delaware texts also introduce the theme of the pine or cedar trees. In one the Discussion motif, in which the boys discuss what they will transform themselves into, leads to this: Delaware h Seven boys turned into red stones. But a thoughtless man de¤led the stones, which turned into seven pines. At last, when too many people came

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and lay in their shade, they rose to become the Pleiades (Harrington, in Bierhorst 1995:47, #80, 98–99). This same approach was also collected by Speck in Delaware i and j. Delaware i and j Seven men disappeared; found as seven stones. Reappeared as seven trees: pines and some cedars. Again they changed, this time into seven stars, the Pleiades (Speck 1931:48, 171–73, in Bierhorst 1995:53, #102, #103). Delaware k is the same, with the change of the trees to cedars (Tantaquidgeon, in Bierhorst 1995:62, #134). These 11 references to the Pleiades myth by Delaware narrators alone demonstrate a wide range of variation. The “holiness” theme, which is inherent in the story simply because of the ability of the boys to dance into the sky, is emphasized even more by the use of the “unclean clothing” to break the power of some of the boys. On the other hand, the “food” theme seen in the Seneca version is virtually missing in the Delaware tradition. Some of the Delaware narrators, however, used the Discussion theme, which served to introduce the connection with evergreen trees. In the Dancing Children myth the “holiness” theme is found also among the Shawnee (Schutz 1975:101), Iroquois, Assiniboine, Crow, Blackfoot, and Natchez. The latter demonstrates that the complexity of the themes was not restricted to the Delaware: Natchez Seven persons fasted for four days, then seven days, then seven months, then a year. At the end of that time “they had become wild” and remained in the woods. They discussed what to become. They rejected trees and rocks because white men could destroy them. They decided to go up to the sky and become stars (Swanton 1929:242). The emphasis on the ritual character of the boys’ dancing contrasts strongly with the “food” theme, in which the boys are refused food and in anger dance into the sky. This Wyandot text illustrates the difference. Wyandot “Seven young boys were playing and dancing together in the shade of a tree. After a while they became hungry. One of them went to the house and asked for some bread, but the old woman would not give him any. They went on with their games, and then a little later another child went

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to the house and asked for some bread. Again the old woman refused. One of the children made a drum, and they began to dance around the tree. No sooner had they started the dance than they began to be lifted upward. They went on dancing, and still higher into the air they ascended. Looking around, the old woman saw them dancing high above the tree. She now came running with food, but it was too late. They refused to listen. Now she was willing to give them food, but they would not even notice her and continued their dancing while moving upward. Filled with despair, the old woman started to weep. The seven stars are the same boys dancing together. They were not given anything to eat: that is why they became the Hutinatsija, ‘the cluster,’ which we now see in the sky” (Barbeau 1960:6–7; see also Barbeau 1915:56, #6, and 58, #7). This emphasis on the anger of the boys at being denied food is also found among the Onondaga, Cherokee, Koasati, and Caddo. The Cherokee tradition ignores the “holiness” of the boys altogether, suggesting instead that their play is slothful. Cherokee Seven boys played chunkey all the time. Their mothers gave them “chunkstone soup” as punishment. In anger the boys began dancing around townhouse, rising in the air. One was pulled down by his mother, but he plunged into the ground, later growing up as a pine, which is related to the stars (¤re-stuff within) (Mooney 1900:258–59, #10). The reference to the conceptual connection between the evergreens and the stars—both contain a ¤ery substance—is helpful, because it explains why the sequence of choices in the Discussion theme makes sense. Further, it hints at the inclusion of the stones, since chert, when struck, reveals that it also contains ¤re. It may also explain why the stones of Delaware h were speci¤ed as red. The Koasati narrator made explicit the Cherokee hint about the game playing: “The Cluster-stars liked to travel about and dance. They were lazy people who wanted to dance and travel about all of the time. When the planting season arrived they planted and cultivated only pole beans. They ate them, but when it began to get hot they disappeared. They are the Cluster-stars” (Swanton 1929:166). Although the other Muskhogean speakers of the Southeast have names for the Pleiades, no myths have been recorded, a fact that may indicate nothing more than the loss of the material (Byington 1909:521; Sylestine et al. 1993:123). It seems likely that the myths would have been part of the Dancing Children type, but it is unwise to argue in the face of silence.

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An Onondaga text includes an old man’s mysterious warning for the boys not to dance, followed by the parents’ denying them food as a way to stop them. When they continue to dance, they rise into the sky and become the Pleiades (Beauchamp 1900:281). This narrator’s old man is unique, but he might be derived from the instructor of other texts. That ¤gure is the father in this example: Iroquois a Hunter was teaching his 11 sons to hunt. At night they heard singing, and the boys felt compelled to dance. They danced into the sky, and nothing could stop them, until the Moon, frightened at the confusion they were causing, assigned them a ¤xed place as the Pleiades. They are in charge of the New Year’s feast and dance over the council house during that 10 days (Converse noted that another version says the 11 were refused food and so chose to leave earth; Converse 1908:53–54). The emphasis on the slothfulness of the dancing boys was part of the Caddo tradition, where the absence of the Pleiades was connected with the working season. Caddo Seven brothers were scolded by mother for playing all day. They danced into the sky and became the Seven Stars. “These seven boys who were taken to the sky were very indolent, and when the work time came they would always slip off and play. That is the reason that during the winter months the Seven Stars can be seen; but at the beginning of the spring months, at the work time, the Seven Stars are gone” (Dorsey 1905b:64). The dancing children are found in the northern Plains as well. In an Assiniboine text the dancing is missing, but the hunger and the Discussion theme are present. Assiniboine Seven boys, one of them red-headed, were left orphans and hungry. They discussed what to become to solve their problems. They rejected earth, rocks, trees, water, night, and day, because none of them are permanent. Since the sky is permanent, they became stars. The youngest hauled them to the sky on his web, then gave it to the spider (Lowie 1909:177). As seen in Chapter 5, the Crow have the same Discussion theme, but they use it to explain Ursa Major instead of the Pleiades.

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Crow Seven boys became angry. They discussed what to become. They rejected the earth, trees, stones, mountains, since none are permanent. They decided to be stars. They became the Dipper (Lowie 1918:211 [cf. also 205]). The Blackfoot tradition is clearly derived from the Dancing Children, although again the dancing is missing. The denial of food is replaced by the denial of buffalo calf skins. Here is one of the text summaries: Blackfoot Six brothers pester parents for buffalo calf skins. Boys, furious, decide to go to sky. Visited house of Sun and Moon, complained of their treatment, and asked to have water taken away from the people. Moon agreed, then Sun promised to help. They evaporated all the water, and dogs saved the Indians by digging springs in riverbeds. Dogs howled to Moon. Sun and Moon relented and sent rain. Boys became Pleiades (Wissler and Duvall 1908:71–72). The substitution of the calf hides was explained as a calendrical reference by McClintock. He pointed out that the Pleiades are not seen in the spring, when buffalo calves are yellow, but in the fall (McClintock 1910:490). Thus the Pleiades myth, by linking the buffalo life cycle to the stars, served the calendrical needs even of people who were not agricultural (Kehoe 1992). This recalls the similar mythic clue of summer dating for the absence of Sirius (see Chapter 3). A nonagricultural use of the Pleiades is visible in myth plots such as a South American one: the Mataco say that Indians used to climb to sky by means of a tree, where they found honey and ¤sh. They refused to give food to old woman, so she burned the tree. The Indians marooned in the sky became the Pleiades (Campana, in Lévi-Strauss 1969:241).2 The food theme is present here, although the dancing children are not. However, the Dancing Children food theme also seems to be in South America. Leví-Strauss noted this myth: Macusi “A man had seven sons, who continually wept and asked for food. The mother scolded them saying, ‘Children, I am always giving you food and you are never satis¤ed. What gluttons you are!’ For the sake of peace and quiet, she took a tapir’s jaw from the grid and threw it to them [the Hyades?]. The hungry children protested that it was not enough and, having shared out the meat between the youngest, they all decided to turn

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Figure 6.2. Distribution of the Dancing Children myth.

into stars. Holding each others’ hands and singing and dancing, they started to climb skyward. When she saw what they were doing, the mother exclaimed, ‘Where are you going? Here is food for you!’ The children explained that they bore no resentment but that they had made up their minds. And they gradually vanished from sight” (Barbosa Rodrigues, in Lévi-Strauss 1969:241–42). The Caduveo have a similar myth, along with an alternate: “The Caduveo have two different myths about the origin of nibetad, the Pleiades. They were said to be either children who had been changed into stars as a punishment for having played too noisily after nightfall, or a male star which had come down from the sky to marry a mortal” (Lévi-Strauss 1969:216n). This large distribution area, from the northern Woodlands to South America, suggests both antiquity and a rationale for the regionalization of the basic myths into oicotypes (see Figure 6.2). More will be said about this geographic spread in the conclusion, but there are other mythic explanations for Pleiades that should be mentioned.

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Brothers and Sister/Rolling Skull/Obstacle Flight Another myth of the origin of the Pleiades has already been encountered, for it was also used by some Plains tribes to explain Ursa Major. The basic myth involved is the Girl and Her Brothers, with the Rolling Head and the Obstacle Flight (see Table 6.3). Here is an abstract of a Pawnee text: While on a buffalo hunt people camp near stream of water. Girl off gathering wood loses her way, is captured and taken to earth-lodge by Skull, who tells her that it is her duty to keep it clean; that her food is to be its scales; otherwise, she would die. Girl is missed, searched for, and given up. Skull makes several short journeys; gaining con¤dence in girl, he makes longer journey, and girl goes to high hill and cries. She is addressed by mysterious man, to whom she tells her trouble, and he promises to help her and gives her arrow, bladder, and cactus. She ¤lls bladder, and water starts running toward north. Skull discovers her absence and pursues her. She sings, and mountain-lion appears and says that he has no power against that of Skull. Girl drops cactus, which magically multiplies and checks Skull’s pursuit. She sings, and Bear answers her, but he is powerless. She drops bladder; wide river forms. Skull ®oats down river on log. Girl sings to Buffalo, but he also is powerless. As Skull is about to overtake her she drops arrow and thorn trees appear. Skull blows its breath and ¤re burns pathway. Girl now ¤nds lodge of brothers and sings. Three young boys come out, each with quiver and war club. They invite girl into lodge. As Skull approaches, youngest breaks it into pieces. Girl breaks Skull into smaller pieces, puts them upon ¤re, and burns them. Girl, with boy’s aid, prepares ¤eld and plants corn, beans and squash which she brought with her, and warns boys not to visit ¤eld until she gives them permission. In fall they gather corn and cure it and cache it. In winter older brothers return. At ¤rst they decide to send girl away, but as she has brought corn they allow her to live with them, asking youngest what relationship she shall bear, which he decides will be that of sister. Girl discovers that brothers disappear each night, returning in morning. They are stars. Finally they decide to take her with them and she becomes seventh of the Pleiades. [told by White Sun, Kitkehahki, in Dorsey 1906:119–22, 488–89, #30] This is not the only text of this type known to the Pawnees, however. A Rolling Head narrative from the Skidi Pawnee has no stated celestial connection (Dorsey 1904c:115–24, #32). A Rolling Head myth from the Chaui band concludes with a transformation of the brothers to hawks rather than stars. The last

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part of the abstract shows celestial relations, but not with the Pleiades. At the conclusion of the Rolling Head, Obstacle Flight episode, Long-Tongue [the head] now overtakes her and calls to owner of lodge to release her, but is struck on head by club and his skull split in two; but pieces immediately come together again. Next, man strikes him with ®int axe. One piece of skull ®ies to west into sky and becomes moon; other piece ®ies up into east and becomes sun. Thus human images are found upon sun and moon. Woman lives with man and her younger brother. Later, other brothers return and they decide that girl should remain with them as their sister. They open bundle and she asks for ear of corn in it, which they ¤nally give her, as she claims to be daughter of Evening-Star. She plants corn, which increases. In autumn she gives birth to child, whose father is North-Star, which visited her as redbird. Instructed by old man, woman now goes to her husband in north. The six brothers go to east and begin traveling toward west. In time they are to be joined by woman and her child and North-Star, at which time world will come to an end. These seven brothers were great warriors and were Hawks. [told by Little Chief, Chaui, in Dorsey 1906:475, #5] Despite the lack of direct reference to the Pleiades in this text, Dorsey said in the prefatory note that “[t]he daughter of Evening Star, who is instrumental in the accomplishment of the task just noted [the creation of sun and moon from the parts of the skull], later has connection with the red bird, which represents the winter storm, and she and her family become the Pleiades, which ultimately

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is to be increased to ten stars by the addition of herself, sister, and brother” (Dorsey 1906:31n; see also Chamberlain 1982:134–36). The Pawnees’ Arikara kinsmen follow their lead in using the Brothers and Sister myth, but the introduction is the Bear Woman motif. In this form, the plot makes the bear-woman the ogre. She kills most of her family and villagers. Her remaining siblings try to kill her but fail. They ®ee in the Obstacle Flight episode, ending at a stone that rises up to the sky. The stone is clawed by the bear-woman, leaving behind the distinctive Devil’s Tower, while the siblings become the Pleiades (Parks 1996:146–52). The Wyoming speci¤cation links the Arikara myth to the Kiowa explanation of Ursa Major (Chapter 5), another indication of disagreement on the identity of the constellation referred to. A more standard version of the Bear Woman myth was used by the Jicarilla Apache as their explanation for the Pleiades (Opler 1938:113–16). The Arapaho use the Brothers and Sister version that begins with the Splinterfoot Girl motif. Arapaho a, b, c One of seven brothers sticks thorn in foot. It produces girl child, who grows up. They marry her to Bone Bull, then take her back, killing him in process. They marry her to a stone, then take her back; chased by him, they make him fall into canyon. Then all eight of them rise to sky and become Pleiades, known to the Arapaho as the buffalo bulls (Dorsey and Kroeber 1903:161, 153–59, 160–61). The Cheyenne also used the Brothers and Sister myth to explain the Pleiades (Kroeber 1900:182–83). In addition to that text, however, they also preserved the unusual dog-husband myth that was noted among the Hidatsa (see Chapter 5). Cheyenne “A chief had a ¤ne-looking daughter, who had a great many admirers. At night she was visited by a young man, but did not know who he was. She worried about this, and determined to discover him. She put red paint near her bed. At night he crawled on her bed, wearing a white robe. She put her hand into the paint and then on his back. The next day she told her father to call all the young men to a dance in front of his tent. They all came, and the whole village turned out to see them. She watched all that came, looking for the mark she had made. As she turned, she saw one of her father’s dogs, with the mark on his back. This disheartened her, so that she went straight into her tent. This broke up the dance. The next day she went into the woods near the camp, with the dog on a string, and hit him. He ¤nally broke loose. She was very unhappy. Several months later she bore seven pups . . .

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Figure 6.3. Distribution of the Brothers and Sister myth, Pleiades group.

[The dog father took the pups away, and she could not ¤nd them.] She looked up, and there she saw seven pups (Manootóxtcioo); they were stars (the Pleiades)” (Kroeber 1900:181–82). These examples of the use of various versions of the Brothers and Sister myth in the Plains form a curious pattern, because the Brothers and Sister cluster— essentially the same tribes—was used to explain Ursa Major, as was seen in Chapter 5. It is dif¤cult to interpret this ambiguity. It is possible that the collectors of the texts misunderstood or were misled in the identi¤cation of the constellation referred to, but that seems unlikely, since they had also collected the Ursa Major versions. It could be that these informants (since they are in the minority) were not themselves sure of the stellar referent and misidenti¤ed it. It does seem fair to conclude that for these tribes at the time of the myth collection, Ursa Major and the Pleiades were not very important for ritual or calendrical functions, else there would have been enough popular understanding to have preserved a single explanation (see Figure 6.3). The same might be said for the minority appearance of the Pleiades as the head of a deer (see Table 6.4). This is found only among the Omaha and Osage, and it seems impossible to do more than merely point it out. Fletcher and

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La Flesche were able to say little about it: “Tapa, ‘head of the deer,’ is the name given to the Pleiades [by the Omaha], and also the name of a clan. Rites in their charge are lost, but probably related to night sky; they used the wildcat and fawn skins, because of their spotted appearance” (Fletcher and La Flesche 1911:177; for Osage, see Bailey 1995:40). West and southwest of the Plains, other myths explain the Pleiades, such as a Coyote tale among the Plateau tribes (Wycoco’s Type #52: Paiute, Ute, Shoshone, Okanagon, Coeur d’Alene). Those myths appear to have no connection to the Woodlands and the Plains, so there is a ¤rm boundary for myth types. The ambiguity of the Brothers and Sister myth, together with the uniqueness of the Omaha/Osage and Ojibwa understandings of the Pleiades, leaves the major myth of the Dancing Children as a signi¤cant pattern, but dif¤cult to interpret (see Figure 6.4). The startling distribution of the Dancing Children—from the northern Plains to the Amazon basin—suggests both a signi¤cant time depth for this myth and a widespread distribution of this particular version at an early date, leaving other motifs, such as the “holiness” theme, as possible later developments. Lévi-Strauss indicated his agreement with the conclusion: We note the co-existence, in the Guiana hinterland, of two traditions also present in the northern regions of North America: on the one hand, the tradition relating to an astronomical triad composed of two minor terms symmetrically framing a major term; and on the other hand, the one ascribing the origin of the Pleiades to seven characters who ascend into the sky and are, more often than not, greedy or hungry children. Elsewhere in Guiana, this second tradition (also found further south . . . ) is replaced by another, which uses the concept of the triad, borrowed from the ¤rst tradition, in order to give a joint explanation of the origin of the Pleiades, the Hyades and Orion. I do not wish to maintain that one for-

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Figure 6.4. Distribution of the clusters of Pleiades myths (Dancing Children in roman; Brothers and Sister in italics).

mula is more archaic than the other. As was already noted in The Raw and the Cooked . . . the Warao-Carib pattern also exists among the Eskimo. We are therefore dealing with two independent transformations which presumably emerged from the same basic material, one in the Arctic and the other at the Equator. [Lévi-Strauss 1978:50] For the purposes of this study, Lévi-Strauss’ grand theory is not necessary. It is enough to recognize that the distribution of the Dancing Children myth is from the northern part of South America throughout the Eastern Woodlands. This constitutes an extremely large area for a single myth, but if independent invention is ruled out, then it indicates a diffusion pattern that involves both continents of the New World. What prehistoric set of dynamics explains this pattern can only be a matter of speculation, but it is important for the goal of understanding Native American ethnoastronomy that we recognize that at least one asterism has had a mythic interpretation common to far-®ung peoples not usually linked in cultural analyses.

7

The Star Women

“The Star Woman” is the title assigned to a myth text collected originally from Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee prophet and brother of Tecumseh. After study of the original C. C. Trowbridge version, James Clifton rewrote and published “The Star Woman” and four other Shawnee texts. Here is an abridged version of the plot, with direct quotations from the Clifton rendition. White Hawk was a solitary Shawnee, an excellent hunter, who took a journey toward the west. He came upon a prairie with a cleared space. “As the White Hawk walked over the clearing he soon realized that someone had prepared this prairie for playing lacrosse.” The space was covered with “very small footmarks!” He hid to watch and see what would happen. A whirring noise above signaled the arrival of a speck, which became identi¤able as it came toward the earth. “When it came near the tops of the trees, the White Hawk saw that it was a kind of a large shooshooni—a wicker basket and that it contained a dozen people who were seated astride the great basket’s rim, swinging their feet to the rhythm of a song. “These people were the Halaakowi?kweki—the Star Women, sometimes called the Twelve Sisters. It was their custom to come every day to play lacrosse on this prairie.” White Hawk fell in love with the youngest of the sisters, but they ®ed back into the sky when he ran toward them. The next day he disguised himself as an opossum, but they again became alarmed and ®ed. The next day he changed himself into a mouse, and this time he succeeded in seizing the young woman. “So terri¤ed were the others that they abandoned their younger sister, leaped into the basket, and

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disappeared into the sky, the youngest Halaakowi?kwe left struggling in the grasp of White Hawk.” They lived together and produced a son. When the boy was four years old, she told him that she was planning to take him to the sky to meet her family. “The boy said nothing for or against this plan, and thus his mother busied herself gathering the Black Ash splints needed to make the special shooshooni for their journey to the stars.” She got White Hawk to bring in a great deal of raccoon meat, which she dried and stored for her journey. “Putting these supplies in the basket, she got in with her son, telling him they would ®y ¤rst to the lacrosse ¤eld where his father had ¤rst caught her. There they would ¤nd the trail to her sister’s home.” When she and the boy ®ew over the head of White Hawk at the lacrosse ¤eld, he begged her to return, but she ignored him. Singing the “special song” of the Twelve Sisters, she ascended into the sky. After some time in her father’s village in the sky, the boy grew homesick for his father, and the woman’s father urged her to go back to earth and invite White Hawk to come live with them in the sky, bringing with them samples of all the good animals from the island of the Shawnee. White Hawk accepted the invitation, and when he had prepared samples of all the meat and fur, they made a return journey to the sky. They unloaded the samples, which the chief-father magically expanded into a great pile, which he then distributed among the sky people. Upon clothing themselves in the furs and feathers, “each suddenly turned into the animal or bird whose ®esh, fur, or feathers they had taken from the piles.” “And Star Woman, her son, and his father? They three all took on the shape of Waapimskwalnyaki—White Hawks.” [summary of Clifton 1984:1–8] Although the Twelve Women are identi¤ed as star women, no constellation is mentioned in the text. Clifton’s telling of this myth closely follows the earliest recorded text, the one collected from Tenskwatawa. It was ¤rst collected before 1825 and it saw an interesting publishing sequence. Here is the way C. E. Schorer identi¤ed the 19th-century players in the transmission story: Directly or indirectly serving under [Gen. Lewis Cass, governor of Michigan Territory] were three men who each produced a separate version of the tale: Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Henry Whiting, and C. C. Trowbridge. Trowbridge and Schoolcraft joined with Cass in the 1820 expedition he conducted to Lake Superior—Schoolcraft as geologist, Trowbridge as assistant topographer. Then Trowbridge served as Cass’s private secretary and as assistant secretary in the department of local Indian affairs until 1825. At

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that time Trowbridge dropped his former pursuits to become cashier and eventually president of a Detroit bank and leader in other civic and commercial affairs. Schoolcraft was appointed agent for Indian affairs by Cass and located his headquarters at Sault Ste. Marie and Mackinac Island until 1841. Whiting, a captain and “general disbursing of¤cer” in the Fifth Infantry regiment, was stationed in Detroit. [Schorer 1962:18] The text, along with 10 others, was taken down by Trowbridge before 1825 from Tenskwatawa. For decades Trowbridge left in a drawer the manuscript of the 11 texts, but he had apparently shared them with the other men. In 1831 Whiting, who said he had read the Trowbridge texts, produced a verse narrative of the story (Whiting 1831). Eight years later Schoolcraft published his Algic Researches, which included a text of the Star Woman myth (Schoolcraft 1839). Whiting’s 1831 verse version may have been the direct antecedent of Schoolcraft’s 1839 text, as suggested by the dedication of Algic Researches to Whiting, but it also seems likely that Schoolcraft would already have read Trowbridge’s earlier manuscript, eager as he was to learn about such things. In 1874 Trowbridge ¤nally sent his manuscripts to Lyman Draper, who ¤led them in his massive archive in Wisconsin. In the 1950s C. E. Schorer of Detroit gathered the texts from the Draper Collection and began to publish them in folklore journals, Midwest Folklore and the Southern Folklore Quarterly (Schorer 1962:18). “The Star Woman” was published in 1962, the last of the series. The Shawnee text does not stand in isolation, for two similar texts are known from tribes with geographical proximity to the Shawnees in early historical times. One is from the Yuchi, who lived in Alabama in the 18th century and in Tennessee before that. Here is the Yuchi text: A person lived here who used to go hunting only; once he came to the “clean ground,” and while he was standing there and looking at it something was sounding above him, and he looked up. He could see something black coming there, and while he was standing there and looking at it, it came right toward the clean ground; then he lay down behind a log and hid himself. And then the thing alighted and people were inside; they happened to be on the ball ground part of the clean ground. Then they played ball, and very pretty women were with them. Two of them were falling down towards him, and then they ran back again, and the man thought, “If I catch those they would pile on me and kill me.” But while he was lying there one of them fell down towards him, and right then he tackled her and tied her. The others were afraid and all got back in the vessel; when they hit it, it sounded, and they went up with it again. The woman cried aloud and said, “Turn me loose, you would not know the proper food for

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me.” But he would not let her go, and then he went back with her, and while she was there she starved and got tired. And then she said, “Only the heads and entrails of raccoons I can eat.” Then the man went hunting, and the woman got tame, and they had two children, but after a while the woman wanted to get back to the sky again. And then she thought she would make a vessel like the one she had come down with and would get in there. And while the man went hunting she was making the vessel, and about the time when the man would come back again she would put it away. One evening, when he was about to come home she ¤nished it. And then she said to her children, “If you want to see me you must make something like this; when you get in there you will go upward and see me; but your father also is here.” And then the woman got in the vessel; she hit it and it sounded, and while she was going up the man came back right there. He ran behind and reached up for her but just then she went upward. Then he lived together with his children only, but he did not care for them much. And then they wanted to see their mother, and they said, “Let us make something of the kind she was sitting in, and then let us get in there and we will get there and see her, she has said.” Then they made it, and after they had ¤nished it they got in; when they hit it, it sounded and went upward with them, and they got up there. Their mother was sitting there eating a raccoon’s head, and they said, “Ah, our mother, give us a raccoon’s head and let us eat.” But she said, “I had not children, I thought.” Then one of her children said, “He may bite, and she may die,” and then the raccoon’s head bit the woman’s lips. “My children, take it from me,” she said, but they answered, “We had no mother, we thought,” it is told. [Wagner 1931:230–33] Early in the 20th century John R. Swanton collected another text of the Star Woman myth. From a Texas Alabama narrator he recorded the story of “The Celestial Skiff,” a repetition of the same tale type with some differences in details. Here is his text, recorded roughly a century after the Shawnee text from Tenskwatawa and just a few years before the Yuchi text. Some people descended from above in a canoe singing and laughing. When they reached the earth they got out and played ball on a little prairie. As soon as they were through they got into the canoe again, singing and laughing continually, ascended toward the sky, and disappeared. After an interval they descended to the same place, singing and laughing, got out, and played ball again. When they were through they went back, got into the canoe, ascended toward the sky, and disappeared. After this had gone on for some time a man came near a little while

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before they descended, stood on a tree concealed behind some bushes and saw them come down, singing and laughing, to the ground and get out. While they were playing the ball was thrown so as to fall close to the man and one woman came running toward it. When she got near he seized her and the other people got into the canoe, ascended toward the sky, singing continually, and disappeared. The woman, however, he married. One time, after they had had several children, the children said, “Father, we want some fresh meat. Go and hunt deer for us.” He started off, but he had not gotten far when he stopped and returned home. The mother said to her children, “Say, ‘Father, go farther off and kill and bring back deer. We need venison very much.’ ” And the children said, “Father, go farther off and kill and bring back some deer. We need venison very much.” When he did so, the children and their mother got into the canoe and started up, singing, but he came running back, pulled the canoe down, and laid it on the ground again. After that the woman made a small canoe and laid it on the ground. When their father went hunting she got into one canoe and put the children into the small canoe and they started upward, singing. As they were going up the man came running back, but pulled only his children down, while their mother, singing continually, disappeared above. But the children which the father had kept back wanted to follow their mother. They and their father got into the canoe, started off, singing continually, and vanished. Presently they came to where an old woman lived. The man said to her, “We have come because the children want to see their mother,” and the old woman answered, “Their mother is dancing over yonder all the time, having small round squashes for breasts.” Then the old woman gave them food. She cooked some small squashes and gave pieces to each. When she set these before them, they thought, “It is too little for us.” But when they took one away another appeared in its place. When they took that one away it was as before. They ate for a long time but the food was still left. Then the old woman broke a corncob in pieces and gave a piece to each of them. They went on and came to another person’s house. This person said to them, “She stays here dancing.” While they were there she went dancing around. They threw a piece of corncob at her but did not hit her. She passed through them running. The next time they threw at her when she came, she said, “I smell something,” and passed through on the run. But the last one they threw hit her and she said, “My children have come,” and she came running up to them. Then all got into the canoe and came back to this world. One time after this when their father was away all got into the canoe,

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started up toward the sky, and disappeared. The children’s father came back and after he had remained there for a while he got into the other canoe, sang, and started upward toward the sky. He went on for a while, singing, but looked down to the ground. Then he fell back and was killed. [Swanton 1929:138–39] This is a curious text in several respects. It stands alone in Swanton’s collections of myths—no other Celestial Skiff text was given to him by any of his Southeastern narrators over several decades. It even stands alone in the Alabama collections. Swanton gives no indication that he recorded multiple examples of the myth from the Alabamas, and he had at least three informants, Celissy Henry, George Henry, and Charles M. Thompson (Martin 1977:xii). Swanton would surely have noted that he was told the myth more than once, considering the care with which he included multiple texts of a single myth and created an extensive index of cross-occurrences (Swanton 1929:267–75). One of his major concerns was that of many folklorists of that time: to establish the cultural stability of given myth plots so that their analysis could safely be read as conclusions about that society’s culture in general, rather than about the creativity of a single oral artist.1 In the case of this text, Swanton’s concern seems borne out— from comparative study it seems dif¤cult to claim more than that this myth is the production of Swanton’s informant, possibly the result of hearing it from a non-Alabama. Yet there are the earlier Shawnee version and the almost contemporary Yuchi text, which are the only other known examples from the Southeast (both the Shawnees and the Yuchis had historic villages and other connections in the Muskhogean sphere). Although it is risky to compare a myth across cultural boundaries, the fact that the three texts stand alone in the Southeast almost compels at least a cursory examination of their similarities and differences, if only to pursue the problem of possible connection by diffusion. Table 7.1 is a brief chart of the sequence of events in the two texts. The similarities make it clear that all three texts express a common story about celestial visitors, one of whom is seized by a man and made to be his wife. She and her offspring visit the sky. Here the texts diverge into different endings. The theme of the myth appears to be the con®ict between earth people and sky people: Can they marry? Can they live together successfully? What about the children? From a structuralist view the Shawnee version answers the question nicely by providing a reasonable synthesis. The earth-sky marriage produces an important group of predatory birds, creatures that have connections with both earth and sky and are frequently seen hovering and ®ying at the interface between the two realms. Yet they are neither celestial nor earthly, occupying a middle realm between the two. Further, the gift of animal varieties from earth

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establishes a new phenomenon in the celestial realm (whose inhabitants apparently prefer carnivorous earthly lifeways). The Shawnee myth borrows an incident from the Central Algonkian hero cycle about Manabozho. The deceptions by transformation of the hunter into an opossum and a mouse sound remarkably like Manabozho’s similar trick to get close to the underwater manitous to take his revenge for their killing of his brother. This Algonkian motif borrowed from the major cosmogonic myth, together with the focus on the creation of the white hawks, makes a strong argument that this myth functioned in Shawnee society at some time in its history as a clan or lineage origin myth. In this story White Hawks are given mythic status in the larger Algonkian myth framework of creation. This text is similar in structure to various clan origin myths of the Woodlands and Plains. As a creation myth, it also can be read as a re®ection of some important Shawnee (and Central Algonkian) assumptions about the cosmos: the sky is a separate realm, the stars are people, and they live much as earth people do, with animals, hunting, and eating. In addition, there are birds (such as hawks) that are mediators between the realms. And there is a provocative societal assumption: those who know the right songs (such as clan members?) can rise to and descend from the sky at will. What is not given in this myth, unfortunately, is the identity of the 12 sisters. They are Star Women, but which stars? It is not even clear whether the reference is to individual stars or to a constellation of 12 stars. It also may be that the “Star Women” designation was intended only as meaning “celestial” rather than referring to particular stars in the sky. That possibility is reinforced by the fact that the ballgame is a daytime game for earth people, and it seems likely that the narrator envisioned the descent of the celestials for ballplay as being in daylight, thus obscuring even more any speci¤c star identi¤cation. The Yuchi text a century later is different in that the children do not leave with the mother. She, however, tells them how to build the “black thing” for themselves, which they do, joining her in the sky world. The peculiar ending features both a hostile raccoon head that bites the woman and hostility between mother and children. There is no resolution. The main structure of the myth is close enough to the Shawnee and Alabama texts, though, that it seems to be part of a common group. The story as the Alabama narrator told it also features a major change in the conclusion of the story. The husband is successful in retaining the children, allowing his wife to ascend to the sky alone. He and the children then take their separate journey in the other canoe, “singing continually.” In the sky they visit the house of an old woman, where they ¤nd their wife/mother, with “small round squashes for breasts,” dancing continuously. They attract her attention by throwing pieces of corncob at her, then “all got into the canoe and came back to this world.”

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Just as the Shawnee myth embodied an episode from an important myth, so the Alabama text here incorporates a motif from the conclusion of the “Orpheus” myth. The Alabama texts of the Orpheus myth were included by Swanton as the second and third texts of “The Men Who Went to the Sky” (Swanton 1929:141–43). Thanks to comparative studies since Swanton’s day the two stories—“The Men Who Went to the Sky” and the Orpheus myth—are recognized as two different stories, although narrators in various collections have sometimes blended portions of the two (see Chapter 8). Swanton apparently found the similarities so great that he classi¤ed all three Alabama narratives as the same type texts. It seems probable that one or both of the Alabama Orpheus texts were told by the same narrator who told Swanton “The Celestial Skiff,” because the corncob detail is virtually identical. The inclusion of the episode in “The Celestial Skiff ” however, is a signi¤cant change, for it alters the meaning of the story as found in the Shawnee version, by pushing the Alabama myth into the realm of the dead. If the meaning of the Alabama conclusion is followed strictly, then the Alabama story is about the death of the woman and the family’s following her into the sky to the land of the dead. When the pieces of corncob are thrown at her in the Orpheus myth, they have the effect of awakening her from some sort of trance, enabling her to join with her husband for the journey back to the realm of the living. Due to a broken taboo in the Orpheus myth, she usually fails to return to the living, as is the case in both of the Alabama texts. In the Alabama Celestial Skiff myth the corncob pieces serve only to alert the dancing woman to the presence of her family, and the return is made safely, without the broken taboo. It is not dif¤cult to conclude that the distinctive Orpheus motifs do not belong in this myth and that this conclusion seems to have replaced another. It is not possible to say what that original conclusion might have been, but the narrator even included an alternate ending that may hint at the original. In the ¤nal conclusion another trip to the sky is undertaken, but the husband has to follow his family alone and falls to his death. If the Orpheus segment is removed from the myth, the story seems more coherent and closer to the Shawnee text. If the death of the husband seems too grim, the Shawnee version’s happy resolution of the plot would work nicely as an antecedent. In any case, the Alabama text, with its destruction of the sense of the story by the substitution of the Orpheus elements, seems an untrustworthy version. It has the earmarks of a unique myth produced by a single narrator, possibly Swanton’s own informant. That surmise receives a little support from the fact that another Alabama collection was made beginning in 1931. The collector, Howard N. Martin, lived in Livingston, Texas, adjacent to the Alabama-Coushatta reservation, and he collected narratives from 19 informants, including those who had worked with Swanton. When he published his collection in 1977, there was no version of the Celestial Skiff in the corpus (Martin 1977).

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The existence of this Star Woman myth is also known from other geographical neighbors of the Shawnee, but these examples from the Iroquois and HuronWyandot are not quite the same as the Southeastern narratives. Here is a summary of a Seneca text. Back when “the whole world was new,” a man and his nephew lived near a river. The young man went to the riverbank to “dream until his dreamhelpers appeared.” One night he saw “seven shining young women dancing in the water against the shore,” and they were so beautiful that he determined to marry the youngest. When he rushed at them, they “leaped into a great corn basket and were drawn rapidly up into the sky.” When they returned the next night to dance, the youth succeeded in seizing her. He requested marriage, and she agreed, but insisted that he would have to visit the sky home of the chief, who was the father of her and her sisters. The chief “took him apart, joint by joint and removed all his organs. After cleansing them he replaced them” and the youth “was regenerated.” The couple were married and returned to the earth to live, but they found that many years had passed. “The couple now tried to live contentedly but could not understand the ways of the people, and so, in time the two returned to the sky. The wife rejoined her sisters but she had lost her brightness.” He spent his time hunting. “My grandmother told me that they are up there yet. [summary of Parker 1923:86–87] Here the marriage was consensual, and the earth-man was transformed so he could live with the celestial people. There were no children, and the couple ended up remaining in the sky. A. C. Parker, the collector, noted that this story referred to the Pleiades, but it is not clear on what authority he made the identi¤cation. It may not have been his informant, because in the note he referred the reader to Barbeau’s Huron and Wyandot collection. In that volume was printed another text of the myth, as told by Kitty Greyeyes and collected by Barbeau from her nephew B. N. O. Walker in 1911 in Oklahoma. This text was focused on the Pleiades as the sisters who came to earth in a basket to dance. The loss of one in marriage to a man explained why “nowadays, we can see among the Pleiades only six of the maiden sisters. Sometimes the shadow of the seventh one may just be perceived” (Barbeau 1915:56–58). This appears to be a minority interpretation of the Star Woman, for Barbeau also collected at least three texts of the standard Dancing Children myth of the origin of the Pleiades from informants in both Canada and Oklahoma (Barbeau 1915:58–59). An Algonkian text of the Star Women was recounted by Schoolcraft, who told of their arrival by basket to dance as they tossed a ball. When the warrior Algon caught one of the women, the others ®ed. This is probably a repetition of the Shawnee

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text Schoolcraft had published earlier (Schoolcraft 1856:116ff, mentioned in Hagar 1906:359–60). One more text of the Star Woman should be mentioned, because it comes from a surprising source. A Kuna myth from Central America was published some years ago. A brief summary of the plot suggests why it may belong to this group: A couple with four sons drugged them to keep them from marrying out. The boys ®ed the village and established their own house at the river headwaters. They soon found that their housework was being done while they were away, so they kept lookout to learn who was responsible. It turned out to be four women who descended from the sky in a golden platter, did the work, and returned. When they attempted to capture them, three ®ed, leaving one behind in the arms of the youngest boy. They married and produced a daughter, who sickened and died. The star woman taught the ancestors of the Kuna the proper way to mourn. [summary of Howe and Hirschfeld 1981:294–97] Although there is now a golden platter instead of a corn basket, the dynamics of the plot seem to be the same. The conclusion is different, in that the death of their child brings a somber note to the story. The signi¤cance of this text, though, is the location. The story seems to be a member of the Star Woman type, and that indicates a very wide distribution of the myth, from Central America to the Iroquois (Figure 7.1). The Kuna text does not stand alone, as one study noted: “A star woman tale popular in South America tells of an ugly and despised man who longs to marry a bright star, becoming handsome and successful when his wish is granted. His supernatural wife takes him to the sky world where he dies of the cold . . . con¤rm[ing] Holbeks’s point that the tragic conclusion to many legends is the result of a human crossing the forbidden boundary into the supernatural realm” (Leavy 1994:315). The Kuna “golden platter” in which the four women descend from the sky calls attention to the variation in that motif. The Iroquois and Shawnee texts have baskets, whereas for the Alabama a canoe ¤lls the role. In the Yuchi “something black” text, the ®ying device is even replicated, in that the woman builds a “small canoe” in addition to the regular one. The two-canoe approach makes it plausible that the children could be held on earth by the father even though the mother escaped to the sky in the other vessel. Southeastern lore does not provide other references to the magic ®ying canoe, but it is a motif that occurs in northern parts of the continent. This is the “stone canoe” motif, and it occurs several times in different Iroquois myths (Curtin and Hewitt 1918:223–27, 391–99, 406– 9). One text presents two lethal women who travel around in a sky-canoe seek-

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Figure 7.1. Distribution of the Star Women myth.

ing their human prey: “Presently the two women arrived in their canoe, which, grazing the top of the lodge, came to the ground. The elder brother got into the canoe, and away they went to the west” (Curtin and Hewitt 1918:225). In another example the canoe is speci¤ed as made of stone: “S’hagoiyagent’ha brought a small canoe made of ®int, telling the man to sit in it. When Hadjowiski had done so the old man shoved the canoe out of the doorway, and at once it rose into the air, through which it passed with great rapidity” (Curtin and Hewitt 1918:407). It seems unlikely that the Seneca were the source of the ®ying canoe for the Alabama text, but the presence of the motif in Iroquois myths does indicate that the notion could have been in larger circulation at an earlier time.

A Larger Category These texts are a small representation of what must surely have been a widely known myth. If the gaps were to be ¤lled in, the distribution would indicate something of a Caribbean–Eastern Woodlands zone for this myth type. That is a large area, and it hints of signi¤cant time depth and unknown transmission chains. The historic-geographic problem becomes much greater, however, when

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we take into account the likelihood that the Star Woman is not a myth type but an oicotype of an even larger (and probably older) myth type. Schorer classi¤ed the Shawnee Star Woman as a mirror version of the wellknown “Star Husband,” which had been studied by Gladys Reichard (1921), then by a graduate class in folklore at Indiana University. The professor was Stith Thompson, and one of the students was to publish the results of their historicgeographic examination. After the student’s untimely death, however, Thompson published the study (Thompson 1965), providing a casebook model of the historic-geographic method that he espoused (see Chapter 2). Schorer pointed to both Reichard’s and Thompson’s articles as identifying the larger context—the tale type—of “The Star Woman”: “it has the particular merit of belonging to a story type which has been masterfully traced by two outstanding scholars, Gladys Reichard and Stith Thompson” (Schorer 1962:17). He provided some fairly confusing observations about the relationship: [T]his version appears to be a kind of reversal and complication of a basic, simple story in which two girls marry stars and successfully escape back to earth. Here, a man marries a star-wife who escapes, and then comes back to escort him to the sky, from which all depart transformed into animals and birds . . . Trowbridge’s version, originating at the periphery rather than in the homeland of the Basic Tale, shares some features of the subtype of the porcupine, and shows many regional and even more speci¤c modi¤cations. [Schorer 1962:19, 20] Schorer noted that when the Star Woman text was added to the Star Husband collection, it would be the earliest one and thus would take the Star Husband complex back into the 18th century or earlier in dating. These observations rest upon the assumption that “Star Woman” really is just a different version of the “Star Husband,” but there are reasons to doubt the identi¤cation. For one thing, the plot of “Star Woman” is not just a simple mirroring of the “Star Husband,” for the basic dynamic is rape, not voluntary marriage. There is a different type to which the text belongs, and it makes a difference in how the myth is analyzed. In 1965 folklorist Alan Dundes edited a collection of scholarly articles on folklore. One of the articles included was Thompson’s 1953 study of the Star Husband. In his footnotes to the original article Dundes directly challenged Schorer’s inclusion of the Star Woman myth in the Star Husband corpus: “There has been an attempt to locate an earlier version of the [Star Husband] tale. In 1962, C. E. Schorer published from a manuscript collection a version of what he claimed was a Star Husband tale. The tale had been collected sometime before 1825 and was therefore several years older than any version cited by Thompson. Unfortunately, the tale is clearly not a ver-

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sion of the Star Husband but is rather a variant of the North American Indian form of Swan Maiden (Motif D361.1)” (Dundes 1965:457).

The Swan Maidens Dundes was pointing out a categorization that is less than obvious. It is listed as Motif D361.1: “The Swan Maidens”—“A man sees on a lake some geese who have taken off their feathers and become women. He steals the feathers of one; the rest ®y away as geese. She remains and marries him. One day she ¤nds her feathers and she and her children ®y away as geese” (Thompson 1929:356n284; see Table 7.2). Stith Thompson included the Alabama myth text in his Swan Maidens listing without comment, and Wycoco did the same in her categorizing of the myth as Type #581 (Wycoco 1951). The major difference between “The Swan Maidens” and “The Star Woman” is the presence of feathers, or the identi¤cation of the women as birds (swans or geese, primarily). The structure itself is the same: a man sees women dancing/playing and holds one by force; she marries him and has children, but she returns to her own people when an opportunity to ®y appears. There might be an alternate way of explaining the similarity of plot between the two myths, but the simplest explanation is that “The Star Woman” is an oicotype or variant of “The Swan Maidens.” The conceptual relationship between birds and stars was made clear in a major comparative study of “The Swan Maidens” by A. T. Hatto in 1961. He argued for a close connection between the migration of birds and the “®ying” of shamans into the celestial world. He put his thesis succinctly: “the Swan Maiden story is to be assessed in connexion with the mating and then migration of swans, geese, and cranes, that is, of the great aquatic or aquatic-feeding birds of passage, and with shamanistic and totemistic conceptions, thus limiting the area in which the type of Swan Maiden story was really at home to sub-arctic Eurasia and America” (Hatto 1961:327). Although the Native American Star Woman texts are indiscriminately included in the Swan Maidens listing, Hatto was careful to exclude for his study any texts that did not have the feathers/birds dimension (Thompson 1929:356n284; Wycoco 1951: #581). He gathered all the European tale-type examples, in which the Swan Maidens is usually attached as one component of a compound tale (Types 313, 400, 465A: Aarne and Thompson 1964), but he amassed an extraordinary collection of texts from northern Asia recorded over a time span of more than a millennium. Although Hatto identi¤ed several oicotypes within his collection (which are not relevant here), one of the most impressive facts to emerge from his study was the stability of the basic Swan Maidens tale. Here, for example, is his earliest text, recorded in China around the fourth century a.d.: “A man once saw seven girls in the ¤elds. He did not know they were really birds. He approached, meaning

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to take their feather-robes and hide them; but they rushed to their robes, put them on, and ®ew away, all except one who was too late. He married her, and they had three girls. Learning through her children that her robe was beneath some rice-stalks, she took it and ®ew away in it. She later returned with featherrobes for her daughters to ®y away in” (Hatto 1961:331). Hatto traced the myth across the northern stretches of Eurasia and across to the northern part of North America, where he found it popular among Eskimo groups and others just south of the Arctic. After comparing the bird descriptions with the environmental data and the religious patterns of northern shamanism, he concluded that the story was deeply rooted in those regions and cultural traditions. He wrote, “The nature of the Swan Maiden story and its distribution in Eurasia and North America suggest that it is an archaic story. It is the sort of story that might be many thousands of years old” (Hatto 1961:344). Given the understanding that this deceptively simple text has to do with the relation of

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ordinary people and spirits/shamans who are at home in the Above World, the notion that this is one of the most ancient human myths is not dif¤cult to accept. So, too, over against the early comparativist scholars’ desire to see more southern agrarian societies as the hearths of such lore, Hatto’s argument that this myth, at least, stems from the Paleolithic world of circumpolar shamanistic societies also seems reasonable. In this perspective, the Southeastern Star Woman myth appears to be a more southern oicotype (or even version) of the Swan Maidens, an adaptation in which bird shamanism has been replaced by stars or celestial spirits who visit earth (see Figure 7.2). Although this scenario cannot be other than speculative, it ¤ts the facts and seems plausible as a “life history” of this myth. Such an adaptation suggests that the people who told the Star Woman story might well have had a particular constellation in mind, which brings us back to the original goal of this chapter—to identify any ethnoastronomy embedded in the Star Woman myth. It has already been pointed out that the Seneca narrators’ attempt to identify the Star Women as the Pleiades is questionable at best and should be rejected. The Shawnee star women were not identi¤ed in the text, but a recent student of the Shawnee offered an interpretation. He did not give his authority for the statement, but it seems likely it would have been the observation of one of his Shawnee informants rather than his personal opinion. He said that “the ‘Star Maidens’ are the Northern Crown, or the Corona Borealis, [and that] one of the twelve dancing maidens was the wife of White Hawk, or Arcturus” (Schutz 1975:101). Unfortunately, there is no further evidence to support this identi¤cation. The Alabama “people” from the sky were not identi¤ed as stars, not even the vague “Star Women” designation of the Shawnee. Ray Williamson nonetheless offered an ingenious astronomical interpretation of the Alabama text. His argument was based upon two major assumptions: that the myth is an “allegory” and that the crucial allegorical ¤gure, the canoe, is a constellation. From that beginning he proposed hypothetical tests for the identity of the constellation: that it must “appear to swing down to the Earth and then rise again to the sky,” that it must appear to rest on the earth for the length of a ball game, and that it must do so in the summer ball game season (Williamson 1992:57–58). Those constraints allowed him to narrow down the choice to Cassiopeia or Ursa Major, and he chose the latter because from 30° north latitude (Livingston, Texas), Ursa Major performs correctly during the summer, whereas Cassiopeia exhibits such characteristics during the summer and fall (Williamson 1992:58). Having selected the constellation of the myth, Williamson then sought a function for the narrative. Focusing on the agricultural motifs of squash breasts, the old woman, and the corncobs—all part of the intrusive Orpheus episode—he concluded the

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Figure 7.2. Distribution of the Swan Maidens type (Star Women in italics).

movement of Ursa Major was connected to the Busk, the Southeastern annual festival timed to the ripening of the early corn, writing, “It appears the Alabama used the constellation westerners call the Big Dipper to schedule the Busk” (Williamson 1992:65). His identi¤cation of Ursa Major as the canoe seems to be supported by an additional discovery. Williamson located evidence that Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are called “canoes” in the Alabama language. Karen Lupardus found an unpublished note by Swanton referring to “an Alabama constellation called hotci’li pi’[thl]a, the Boat Stars, which he identi¤ed as the bowl of the Big Dipper” (Williamson 1992:60). By 1993, unfortunately, when a complete dictionary of the Alabama language was published, that term was not used. The Alabama names listed under hochiithli (“star”) are hochiithlchoba (“great star” = Morning Star), hochiithli aatiilli imittalbi (“cof¤n-shaped constellation”), hochiithlikatalpo (Pleiades), hochiithli toothlooka (“falling star”), and hochiithli okistakaf ka (“water dipper star” = Ursa Major) (Sylestine et al. 1993:123). Ursa Major is also known as Istakaf kachoba (“Big Water Dipper”) and Istisilkachoba (“Big Dipper”). Ursa Minor is named Istisilkasi (“Little Dipper”) (Sylestine et al. 1993:206). There is no listing for hochiithli pi’thla in the dictionary, although it is easily translated as

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“boat star,” but, as noted, there is currently a term for the Big Dipper. The earlier term “Canoe Star(s)” may have been a term for a different constellation, one that has subsequently been lost. According to Swanton’s note, apparently, the identi¤cation with Ursa Major is his own. It is possible that his identi¤cation was based on the myth he had collected, for otherwise he would likely have indicated his Alabama source for the identi¤cation of the constellation. These linguistic considerations weaken the case for an Alabama connection between the canoes and Ursa Major/Minor. Swanton may have been in®uenced by yet another linguistic note: the eastern Muskogee (Creek) term for Ursa Major is Pithlo hagi (“the image of a canoe”) (Swanton 1928a:478, mentioned in Williamson 1992:58). Williamson’s creative interpretation of the Alabama myth text is very much in accord with the goal of this book, but it seems dif¤cult to accept the speci¤c conclusions he drew. Although his interpretation cannot be disproved, it rests upon very slender evidence, and there are important dissuasive arguments. The Alabama text stands alone, both within the Alabama collections and the general Muskhogean myths. The comparison of the Star Woman oicotypal texts reveals the differences, and the unique Alabama Orpheus ending appears to be an addition to the story. With the removal of that episode as a unique intrusion, the agricultural elements also vanish, and the Busk connection with them. Moreover, if the Alabama text does refer to Ursa Major, it adds another otherwise unknown type to the three ways in which the Woodlands/Plains people enshrined that constellation in myth (see Chapter 5). Finally, it is dif¤cult to see why this particular way of marking the festival calendar was needed; Pleiades seems to be the major astronomical calendrical indicator in the Southeast (see Chapter 6), and it is hard to imagine a need for Ursa Major as a seasonal or ritual marker. For these reasons Williamson’s astronomical interpretation of the Alabama myth, attractive as it is, needs to be rejected. This is not to say that his conclusion, that “The Star Woman” is about Ursa Major, is incorrect; it is merely to say that the evidence for the hypothesis is not compelling. Is there an alternate interpretation that would be more acceptable? Unfortunately, no. The myth does appear to be astronomical in nature, particularly the Shawnee version, with its Star Women who descend, possibly from the Corona Borealis, to use the earth as a ball game ¤eld. There are no strong clues, however, to any more speci¤c identi¤cation of the 12 sisters, and without them, to say more is just speculation. The conclusion is thus a simple one: the identities of the Star Women were formerly known—although not necessarily with unanimous agreement—but the names are lost. A question of greater signi¤cance, perhaps, is what forces caused the Star Woman variant/oicotype to develop from “The Swan Maidens” ancestral myth.

8

The Path through the Stars

The largest constellation in the night sky is the Milky Way. It is barely recognized as a constellation in the Greek tradition, but it is considered a major player in the drama of the sky by peoples in the New World (Freidel et al. 1993; Sullivan 1996; Urton 1981). The “Milky Way” is identi¤ed in the Old World’s astronomy, of course, but it is not thought of in the same way as the constellations that make pictures in the sky. That is probably because the others are made up of sets of bright stars, whereas the Milky Way is composed of thousands of dim stars that blend together in the eye to form the “milk.” Moreover, it is huge, spanning the visible celestial hemisphere on most nights. The dimness of most of the stars contributes to its being ignored today, because in the modern electri¤ed world the great constellation has become invisible in places affected by the urban lights. The Milky Way is different from the other constellations in the scienti¤c understanding, also. While other galaxies can be seen, they appear as fuzzy stars. The Milky Way is closest to earth, however, because it is the local galaxy, the one within which the solar system resides. In the scienti¤c worldview, this galaxy can be seen by humans only by looking from earth’s position close to the edge. The view toward the center of our own galaxy, which is similar to the one shown in Figure 8.1, shows it as a streak of intense starlight across the night sky. Even though the galaxy is ¤xed in relation to the customary constellations, because of a combination of complicated movements by the earth in relation to the galaxy, the Milky Way appears to whirl in the night sky. For people who are not accustomed to thinking of the Milky Way as an actor in the celestial drama, it takes some acclimatization to become comfortable with its counterintuitive motion.

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Figure 8.1. A galaxy from outside (photograph from NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team [STScI/AURA]: “Spiral Galaxy NGC 3949: A Galaxy Similar to the Milky Way [STScI-2004-25]”).

Figure 8.2 shows three images of the Milky Way’s movement over the course of a single night. The viewing location and time are arbitrary. St. Louis has been selected because it is a central spot in the Eastern Woodlands and Plains and because it is near Cahokia, the largest prehistoric center of Native America. The date is a.d. 1500, although Cahokia’s glory was already only a memory by that time. To look at these three “snapshots” of the Milky Way during the night of October 1–2, imagine yourself lying on your back on the ground with your head pointing to the north. Note that from this position east is on the left and west is on the right. The sky’s movement is thus from left to right. When the light of the sun fades in the west and the stars become visible in the night sky, the Milky Way is revealed as a northeast-southwest band with a distinctive fork directly above. Six hours later the band stretches from east to west, with the fork to the right. As dawn’s light begins to obscure the stars, the Milky Way is a northnorthwest to south-southeast band, with the fork over the northern horizon. As the celestial vault shifts through the solar year, the Milky Way goes with it. By April 2 the dusk and dawn positions of the Milky Way are roughly reversed from the October ones. The cycle of the Milky Way is regular, even though it is

Figure 8.2. Earth’s galaxy from inside (image produced by Voyager II software for October 1–2, a.d. 1500, as seen from St. Louis at [a] 5:50 p.m. [dusk], [b] 11:30 p.m., and [c] 5:50 a.m. [dawn]).

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impossible to describe in words and dif¤cult to grasp from viewing static images. To appreciate the Milky Way’s unique movement, the viewer needs to view the sky throughout a calendar year. The best method of all, however, is to watch the annual cycle on a computerized planetarium display, with the time greatly increased so that the great swings of the galactic disk are in rapid motion. From an eyeball visual perspective, unaided by telescopes or computers, the galaxy is simply a white path across the dark sky, and peoples of eastern North America called it that. In the worldview of many of the Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands, the image of earth’s galaxy in the night sky is identi¤ed as the “Path of Souls,” the road of the dead. Such an image makes more sense when it is recalled that most prescienti¤c worldviews considered the sky to have some sort of solid structure, possibly in layers, a notion frequently referred to as the “sky vault.” If the sky world is solid or layered, then there can be people and Powers who live on it—even build towns on it. The notion of it as landscape (skyscape?) provides a reasonable basis for thinking about a road across it. For many Native Americans, the Milky Way was that road as seen from beneath, from the Middle World. The Path of Souls concept, however, is much more important than a mere astronomical image or label, for any such designation immediately opens the door to the crucial human category of mortuary beliefs. No society is cavalier about the fate of souls after death, and any cultural identi¤cation of the Milky Way as the path they walk should be taken as a serious statement. It may be that such a belief is the basis of a complex guidebook similar to the Egyptian “Book of the Dead.” Native Americans, like the Egyptians, needed to talk about their mortuary beliefs in order to prepare everyone for the inevitable journey, and the Path of Souls would have to be an important part of such a body of lore. From a purely intellectual perspective, a society needs to provide for its members an explanation of the soul(s), the location and status of souls before and after life on the Middle World, and the proper procedures for making the transitions. Such questions are more than intellectual, of course, for human relationships and psychological attitudes toward the cosmos itself are caught up in the questions about the fate of souls. The issues are sensitive and universal, and every society known has beliefs and myths about them. The Path of Souls is found throughout the early ethnographic literature. For the task of identifying the people who agreed upon an ethnoastronomical image of the Milky Way, it might be enough to ¤nd in the ethnographies the references to such a belief. They are frequently present in those volumes, albeit in singlesentence statements of belief or brief records of speeches at mortuary rituals. It does not take a long examination of the literature, however, before the researcher discovers that the statements frequently bear the marks of more than a ®at statement of belief, for there are hints of a story behind what is said. At this point in

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this study of ethnoastronomy it will come as no surprise to learn that the mortuary beliefs, like so many others already examined, are embedded in myths by which they are preserved and transmitted. Informants thus often responded to ethnographers’ questions with myth summaries rather than credos. In surveying the understanding of the Path of Souls, therefore, it will be useful to look ¤rst at the basic beliefs, even though some of the evidence is really hidden myth. Once that survey is complete, then the major myths behind the beliefs, especially the so-called Orpheus narrative, will be examined. In particular it will be important to summarize the work that has already been done on understanding the distribution patterns of the Orpheus myth. On the basis of that work, it will then be possible to arrive at some conclusions about the development of the Path of Souls tradition in North America.

Evidence: Beliefs In eastern North America the Path of Souls belief was recorded from the Ojibwa, Fox, Sauk, Menomini, Miami, Delaware, Shawnee, Powhatan, Cheyenne, Huron, Iroquois, Oglala, Osage, Omaha, Quapaw, Saponi, Caddo, Pawnee, Chickasaw, and Creek, and the designation extends at least as far south as the Andes (Sullivan 1996:58–75), as far north as Siberia (Eliade 1974:188, 248–51, 295, 466), and as far west as California (Krupp 1995). It seems certain that this aggregation of peoples, which cuts across geographic and linguistic boundaries, is only a partial listing of Native Americans who considered the Milky Way to be the Path of Souls. The seeming universality of this identi¤cation is not news, of course, for it has been a standard bit of ethnographic information for centuries. Enough details of the journey of the dead have been collected to make three conclusions possible: ¤rst, there was a single basic understanding of the journey of the dead that was widespread in North America, but, second, it has been localized by tribal groups for so long, with often independent development, that the details of the narrative have been adapted into distinctive variants. Third, there are reasons to believe that in more recent times revitalization movements have refreshed the concept of the journey and extended its spread. In order to understand these assertions, it will be useful to make a brief survey of the overall belief complex and its development. The Algonkian-speaking tribes of the central part of the continent form a useful beginning point, because their belief information is fairly abundant. An important factor in considering their beliefs is that they were dominated for centuries by various forms of a secret lodge, the Midé Society (or “medicine lodge”), which was custodian of the mortuary information. The society of religious specialists claimed its origin and power from the Beneath World powers, who were also the causes of death, according to the Manabozho myth in which the water-

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spirits seized Wolf, Manabozho’s brother, and drowned him, thus introducing death to the world. This episode became an important part of the charter of the Midé Society, which elaborated the details. Barnouw collected a short version of the Ojibwa mythic form. Wenebojo, the story relates, buried his brother for four days, but forgot to come back for him, and he died. Wenebojo then made a decision: “I will make a road for the people to travel along when this thing [death] happens to them . . . I am leaving you our dish, and this is what the people will do when this thing happens to them.” . . . He went toward the sunset. As he went along, he made four signs of places. He put four manidog [spirit powers] along the way . . . [Otter on right hand side, owl on left, hills (snakes) on both sides, a river with a snake/log]. When it’s referred to, it’s spoken of as a log, but the Indians know it’s a snake. The water is swift there. The log bobs up and down all the time. [Then the road forks into a short path, which is bad and forever, and one that continues on] behind the sky, behind the sunset. [Barnouw 1977:17–19] This mythic description provides the way in which the path was originally created, but it becomes more elaborate when it is described as a set of guidelines for the dead soul from within the Medicine Lodge. The information is from Ontario’s Manitou Indians: They said that when one closes his eyes in death, his shadow leaves this sphere and body for another sphere and body, feeling its way through a tortuous dark unknown tunnel, emerging into a ghostly land through which it must race so madly, to elude ghostly terrors, that the wind whistles in its ears. It races on until it meets an old woman, “Our Grandmother,” who directs souls further. Then it comes up against four old men, “Our Grandfathers,” one after another, the last of whom warns the soul about crossing a water, half red and half blue, that will be met. The soul ¤nds a pole or log, also particolored, standing on the near shore of the water and gives it a pipeful of tobacco, whereupon the log drops across to the other shore as a bridge . . . When the soul has crossed to the far shore, the log rears upright as before. The soul should not turn back to watch this, but sometimes does. A road from the far bank, leading to the soul village, is blocked by a log that rolls aside when offered tobacco. After this, the soul comes to a “Grandfather,” offers him tobacco, and so receives a bow and arrows colored part red and part blue. The shadow shoots the arrows toward the ghosts’ village and races after them over a gradual incline until it sees the

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village. There all appear happy. The female ghost, Shell Woman, who greets women souls, is covered with tiny midé shells that tinkle delightfully as she moves. The male ghost, greeting men souls, is similarly shellbedecked. These of¤cial greeters direct the entering soul to its kinfolk. [Landes 1968:196–97] The sequence of events consists of (1) a dark tunnel and (2) a race across land to (3) Our Grandmother, who directs the soul to (4) four “Grandfathers” who warn about (5) a log bridge over a river; the soul deals with (6) a log that blocks the path, then (7) shoots arrows toward the realm of the dead and follows them in, where it meets (8) Shell Woman or Man. When the Midé Society assumed its mortuary role, the members became the Ghost Society. The result was that detailed knowledge of death rites was not general information, and it was kept intact over a long period by institutional preservation. There seems to be a general belief that the soul is provided with a guide (Smith 1995:58), and the Medicine Lodge was probably the source of that guidance. In one narrative the psychopomp (spirit guide) is identi¤ed as Otter: “At Minnesota burials and Ghost rites in the 1930’s, the midé dignitary invoked Otter, one of four ‘Grandfathers.’ Otter was said to approach the footloose or footless shadow with an offer to conduct him, on his own back, to ‘the land where midéwiwin sounds forever, without end’ . . . But during this travel, Otter and his burden are interrupted by four evil Supernaturals who each seek to divert Otter to some byway . . . At each point of temptation, following ritual advice of the midé shaman—and so of Otter—the shadow would drop tobacco or another offering and avoid the danger easily” (Landes 1968:194). The important role of a secret society in this process suggests that there are reasons for the general lack of knowledge about the details of the route and the spiritual methods of making the journey successful. A reconstruction is possible, though, on the basis of details scattered through the ethnographic record. Among the Central Algonkian there are three types of references to the journey of the free-soul (as opposed to the life-force, which is usually understood to be bound to the body) at death. One speaks of walking the Path of Souls, which is widely understood to refer to the Milky Way, and a second indicates that souls must go to the realm of the dead in the south. The most widespread reference is a third—that the souls walk to the west, where they will meet the ¤rst person to die, Wolf, the brother of Nanabush. For many people this has been a dif¤cult set of accounts to reconcile, since they appear to be mutually exclusive. One Native thinker wrestled with the inconsistencies he had heard and came to a surprising conclusion: “Hole said quietly, ‘That is it [the realm of the dead], the brightest star in the southwest. My “manito” brother told me, and he should know. These Indians have no idea about it. Doubtless they’re not supposed to know. They

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claim Nehnehbush’s world is on Earth. But that cannot be, or the midé manitos would have said where he was hiding’ ” (Landes 1968:195). Hole claimed knowledge gained from his brother, but he clearly had also thought through what he knew from various religious experts among the Ojibwa and had con¤rmed his knowledge that the realm of the dead was to be found in the sky, not in the Middle World. The “brightest star in the southwest” is probably identi¤able as Antares, as will be seen in a later chapter. Smith, wrestling with the same confusing references to the realm of the dead, summarized her conclusion this way: The underworld in this scheme consisted of several layers including a level in which earthly rhythms were reversed: “In this world it is day when it is night on earth and vice versa, for the sun travels above the earth during the day and under it during the nights” . . . This mirror world was often understood as the ¤nal destination for the dead, who, having followed the path of souls to the West, the South, or along the Milky Way, ended up in this reversed but eminently peaceful and abundant land. Also below was the realm of the Underwater and Underground creatures, sometimes said to lie between the earth and the land of the dead. [Smith 1995:46] William Jones’s Ojibwa notes from Bois Fort, Minnesota, taken shortly after 1900, seem close to the 1930s Ontario version: “The soul is said to come to a river with a swift current. The path leads to a bridge which at ¤rst looks like a tree fallen across. The roots lie on the side where the soul is, and the tops are on the other shore. The bridge moves up and down. The soul ¤nds on approaching it that it is a huge serpent, the head of which is on the soul’s side of the river, and the tail on the other. The soul of a person who was a member of the midéwiwin will ¤nd no trouble in crossing because it knows what to say to it; and what is said is a formula taught in the midéwiwin” ( Jones, quoted in Landes 1968: 198–99). These clues permit the conclusion that the Central Algonkian peoples saw the process of dying as including a journey (four days or after four days?) of the soul from the body to the west, where the soul waits until the proper time for departure from the Middle World to the Milky Way, then goes along that path (among manitous) to a river that must be crossed to pass into the realm of the dead. The neighboring Miami believed in a Path of Souls that included at least the log bridge and the dog, which is enough to suggest the full story (Kinietz 1938:52– 53). The Shawnee understanding of the fate of the dead follows the standard Algonkian model. It includes the four-day wait, the rising and falling sky (discussed in the next chapter), the Milky Way path, the fork in the path, the log bridge across the river, and four dogs that attack souls on the bridge (Schutz 1975:95–97).

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Thus the Path of Souls seems to be a general understanding among the various groups of the Central Algonkian. An interesting check on this material from this geographically contiguous culture group is the ethnographic information from the Delaware. That people, known as the Lenape, were originally from the Atlantic Coast, although they migrated into the upper Midwest during the historic period. Their importance is suggested by the fact that other Algonkian peoples considered them the oldest tribe of them all. The ethnographic data from the Lenape generally support the model and suggest that the traditional image of the Path of Souls is ancient, rather than just a recent development among the Central Algonkian peoples. Here is one of the comments: “The bridge along the Milky Way allegedly was guarded by dogs who had died. The dogs allowed passage only to the souls of the good; those who had ever abused a dog were prohibited from crossing” (Kraft 1986:192; see Bierhorst 1995:65). Bierhorst (1995:65) noted in this connection that the motif of the dog that guards the route to the realm of the dead is a widespread motif throughout Mexico and Central and South America, as well as being found among the Miami, Ojibwa, Potawatomi, and Shawnee. As has been seen, the dog(s) may be considered a standard feature of the Central Algonkian, and this distribution suggests it is an ancient motif in this hemisphere. The participation of the Lenape in the mythology of the Path of Souls, including their identi¤cation of it as the Milky Way, further suggests that this cosmology of death was an old one among the Algonkian speakers of the Eastern Woodlands. That conclusion is supported by data from the Virginia Algonkian vision of the celestial journey, which also follows that of the Central Algonkian (Swanton 1946:749). On the northeastern side of the Central Algonkian cluster, the Iroquois Six Nations and the Huron appear to ¤t into the same Path of Souls pattern. Since their cosmogonic myths have different beginnings, the Iroquoian group might be expected to have a different view of the fate of the dead, but it seems remarkably close to the Algonkian understanding. The free-soul only remains in the cemetery with the body until the Feast of the Dead, when all the waiting souls are released to begin their journey: “They believe that the appointed place for souls, to which after death they are to retire, is in the direction of the setting sun” ( Jouvency, 1610, in Thwaites 1896–1901:1:287, 289). The western direction is indicated, but, as frequently seems to happen, that bit of information is countered by LeJeune’s observations in 1634 and 1636: They call the Milky Way Tchipaï meskenau, the path of souls, because they think that the souls raise themselves through this way in going to that great village. [Thwaites 1896–1901:6:181] Another told me that on the same road, before arriving at the Village, one comes to a Cabin where lives one named Oscotarach, or “Pierce-head,”

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who draws the brains out of the heads of the dead, and keeps them. You must pass a river, and the only bridge you have is the trunk of a tree laid across, and very slightly supported. The passage is guarded by a dog, which jumps at many souls, and makes them fall; they are at the same time carried away by the violence of the torrent, and sti®ed in the waters. [Thwaites 1896–1901:10:147] These early passages make it clear that the Huron believed in the Milky Way as the Path of Souls, along with a journey to the west, and their vision of the path was characterized by the standard Algonkian motifs of the Brain Taker, the river, the log bridge, and the dog. Thus it seems clear that the Huron, who are otherwise different from their neighbors, both Algonkian and Iroquoian, in their emphasis on the Feast of the Dead, participated in the standard Path of Souls model (Tooker 1964:134n). The Iroquois nations proper apparently believed much the same (Beauchamp 1922:158–59). Elizabeth Tooker con¤rms that this image of the Path is celestial, both for the Huron and the Iroquois, pointing out that the Iroquois believe both that the journey to the village of the dead is to the west and that “the souls travel along the Milky Way to the land of the dead” (Tooker 1964:140). The Cherokee, as might be expected of the Southeastern representative of the Iroquoian peoples, were participants in the Path of Souls mythology. Hagar identi¤ed two “dog stars,” Sirius and Antares, as guards of the two “opposite points of the sky, where the Milky Way touches the horizon.” The souls cross a torrent on a narrow pole, and some fall off. The souls go east, then west, following the Milky Way trail to a fork at which a dog must be fed. If they are successful at passing that dog, then they follow the trail to a second dog, which must also be fed. If a soul does not have enough food to feed both of the dogs, then it is trapped between them, a clear warning to the living to make sure they provide ample burial offerings of food for the journey (Hagar 1906:354ff ). With some variations, the Siouan-speaking peoples use the same Path of Souls model: “It is held by the Sioux that the released soul travels southward along the ‘Spirit Path’ (the Milky Way) until it comes to a place where the way divides. Here an old woman, called Maya owichapaha, sits; ‘She who pushes them over the bank,’ who judges the souls; the worthy ones she allows to travel on the path which goes to the right, but the unworthy she ‘pushes over the bank,’ to the left. Those who go to the right attain union with Wakan-Tanka, but the ones who go to the left must remain in a conditional state until they become suf¤ciently puri¤ed” (Brown 1953:29n). Powers found the same vision, noting that among the Oglala the phrase “go south” is a metaphor for dying (Powers 1975:52–53, 93). The general Omaha and Osage agreement was indicated by their ethnographers:

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The Milky Way was regarded as a path made by the spirits of men as they passed to the realm of the dead . . . It was said that at the forks of the path of the dead (the Milky Way) there sat an old man wrapped in a buffalo robe, and when the spirits of the dead passed along he turned the steps of the good and peaceable people toward the short path which led directly to the abode of their relatives, but allowed the contumacious to take the long path, over which they wearily traveled. It is probable that the difference in the treatment believed to be accorded the good and the bad indicates white in®uence as does also the story that there is a log across a chasm over which the dead must pass; the good experience no dif¤culty, but the bad in crossing ¤nd the log so unstable that they sometimes fall off and are lost. The simple and ancient belief seems to have been that the Milky Way is the path of the dead. [Fletcher and La Flesche 1911:588, 590] Their closely related neighbors, the Quapaw, have left only the record of their belief that “[t]he Milky Way is called the Road of the Ghosts” (Dorsey 1895:130). The Plains Village tribes, Mandan and Hidatsa, used a variant of the path, as did the Winnebago. As with the Algonkian speakers, the prehistoric separation of Atlantic Coast Siouans did not substantially affect their belief in the Path of Souls, as indicated by William Byrd’s account of the journey told to him by a Saponi priest (Swanton 1946:750). Among the Caddoan-speaking tribes, the Pawnee are recognized as the most explicitly astronomically oriented, and their version of the Path of Souls is of interest. With the Pawnee, there are two understandings of the Milky Way, a popular one accepted alongside the Path of Souls mortuary belief: “The Milky Way is called by the Pawnees ‘The Pathway of Departed Spirits,’ because after death the spirit passes on this pathway to the Southern Star, the abiding place of the dead. A star that stands in the north ¤rst receives the spirit and sends it onward to the Southern Star. This is the sacred belief, known to the priests, but the common people say that the Milky Way is the dust of the Buffalo (the SpiritBuffalo). The Southern Star is not always seen. At a certain time in the summer, just at dusk, it rises like ¤re for a moment, and then disappears. When the star rises thus, it means that a great man will die” (Chamberlain 1982:21n). Priestly lore thus af¤rmed that the Milky Way was the path of souls, that the entrance is a star in the north, and that the soul goes to a speci¤c star in the south, which is seen in the summer. Moreover, embedded in the myth of the con®ict between the Evening and Morning Stars is the information that Evening Star’s major supporters were the four direction powers (Bear, Panther, Wildcat, and Wolf ) and that “there was also a great serpent group of stars” (Murie 1914 and 1981, quoted in Chamberlain 1982:58).

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The Pawnee version adds in Morning Star as a power who makes determinations of the direction each soul should take, a role similar to that of the Old Man or Old Woman in other versions of the Path of Souls. All those who died of illness went to the south, and others were directed there by Morning Star. Thus the Milky Way was a major path for a signi¤cant group of Pawnee souls, and there was a portal toward the northern end that provided access to the souls and a South Star that was found at the southern end of the Path “where the spirits of the dead dwell” (Fletcher 1903:13). In the Southeast the unusual mixture of peoples, their many languages (even though Muskhogean was the primary family, there were many linguistic isolates and isolated representatives of other families), and the early date at which they began reacting to European in®uences have left the cultural traditions dif¤cult to interpret. Among the Muskhogean-speaking peoples there seems to be the same sort of dual understanding of the Milky Way as was seen among the Pawnee—a popular metaphor and the mortuary lore, although the evidence of the latter is sparse. The Creek name for the Milky Way was poya ¤k-tcalk innini, “the spirits’ road” (Swanton 1928a:479). Swanton’s summaries of the Creek view of the journey are brief: All accounts agree that after the soul had been induced to leave the neighborhood of his living relatives he traveled westward, passed under the sky and proceeded upward upon it to the land of The One Above or the Breath Holder. The name “spirits’ road” given to the milky way shows that this was regarded as the trail upon which souls ascended. [Swanton 1928b:256] After death, souls were thought to travel west and the good ones climbed to the sky world to live with the supreme being, but the malevolent spirits remained in the western quarter, the quarter from which witchcraft emanated. If a man had been killed by enemies, however, his spirit haunted the eaves of the house until his death had been avenged. [Swanton 1946:776] There is little change from the early account to the later; there are only the additions that some spirits did not make the transition to the sky and remained in the west as malevolent ghosts, and that unavenged spirits haunted the family members until they did their duty. The Milky Way as the Path of Souls seems clear, but there is little of the detail of the general model. The Southeastern popular metaphor emphasizes the dusty trail in the sky, but with a dog as the actor rather than the Pawnee buffalo. The Natchez and the Cherokee both tell a myth of the origin of the Milky Way in which a dog spilled maize ®our across the sky, creating the path (Mooney 1900:259; Swanton

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1928a:479). Although the texts were not collected, the linguistic clues (Milky Way = “white dog’s road”) suggest that the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Yuchi also knew the myth (Byington 1909; Munro and Willmond 1995; Speck 1909). This story, which seems to be almost at the level of a tale for children, does enshrine a dog—perhaps originating from the adversarial dog—in connection with the Path, but whether the connection to the Path mortuary complex is real or illusory is impossible to judge. It may be that the Cherokee provided the transition from the dogs guarding the Path to the dogs who created the trail in the sky. It is also possible that the Southeastern peoples, in the acculturation process, have lost much of the ancient Path of Souls knowledge, leaving the linguistic data as the primary extant witness. The Alabama speci¤ed an eagle that was encountered on the Path: “a knife is said to have been put into the hand of an Alabama Indian with which to ¤ght an eagle supposed to beset the spirit trail” (Swanton 1946:724). The same custom and belief was recorded for the Seminole (Mary Johns, personal communication 1997; Judith Knight, personal communication 1996; MacCauley 1887:522). Although this survey of the ethnographic data from the Eastern Woodlands and Plains is extensive, it is far from exhaustive. It has been recounted primarily to indicate the scope of the belief complex, an almost universal distribution with enough variation to indicate ample time depth for local adaptation. The combined information abstracted from Ojibwa, Menomini, Miami, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Shawnee, and other Algonkian sources can most ef¤ciently be presented as a series of belief statements that may clarify the general model. 1. Each human has two souls: a life-soul, an energy source that is embedded in bones and other parts of the body and tends to stay with the corpse, and a free-soul, which has the ability to leave the body and travel throughout the world. 2. Since anyone—but especially the religious specialists—may have the free-soul leave the body for a journey and return at a later date, it is very dif¤cult to ascertain when death has occurred. The solution to the problem is to mandate a period of waiting to see whether the free-soul will return and reanimate the body. 3. The death journey is understood to begin at the grave, with the free-soul moving west toward the habitation of Wolf, the ¤rst dead person. 4. In the west, the free-soul must wait for the proper moment, then leap to the other side of the sky vault. Failure to do this correctly will result in a fall into the water of the Beneath World. 5. On the other side of the vault the free-soul will ¤nd itself on the Path of Souls, a route that it must travel to reach the ¤nal home of the dead.

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Some people, Sauk and Fox in particular, think of the Milky Way as a “White River,” and they may have conceived of the journey as a canoe trip, but there is no evidence regarding this. 6. At some point on the route (groups differ as to where in the sequence), the free-soul must cross a river or abyss. There is a log there (really a serpent) that can be induced to drop across the gap and form a bridge over which the free-soul can cross. 7. Some people say that the dif¤culty in crossing the log bridge is that the free-soul may be attacked by one or more dogs, making the passage perilous. 8. The Path splits, with one route an easy one and one very dif¤cult. The rationale for who should take the dif¤cult route varies from a testing for warriors to a penitential experience for the morally de¤cient. 9. Most groups understand that there is a ¤gure at the junction of the split, and the free-soul is judged or made ready for the remainder of the route by that ¤gure. Some also interpret this activity as additional testing, as combat of some type. 10. The Path continues on to the south, where the village of the dead awaits. It should be noted that the entrance to the Path was attained by the freesoul in the west, but the ultimate destination is in the south or southwest. No informant ever explained this change in direction. When the Midé Society took on its alternate posture as the Ghost Society to conduct mortuary rites, they demonstrated the belief by physically relocating from their east-west lodge to a special one running north-south, which was used only for this purpose. It is surely no accident that this ritual behavior mirrors the movement of the Milky Way. The portion of the Milky Way that contains the entry portal swings toward the north in the sky, so that the next leg of the journey on the Path is no longer oriented east and west, but north and south: “According to the aboriginal view, at any rate, djibaiaking was not conceived to be above the earth, or below it, but in a distant region to the south” (Hallowell 1967:155; see Landes 1968:189–90). The peculiar movement of the Milky Way is a neat explanation of the directional shift, clarifying the otherwise confusing references to the realm of the dead in the south and the ritual north-south shift of the Ghost lodge among the Central Algonkian peoples. 11. At the southern foot of the Path the free-soul encounters the guardian/ owner of the realm of the dead souls, sometimes identi¤ed as a serpent. 12. The free-soul enters the village and begins life there with other dead souls of family and friends. 13. Reincarnation is a possibility for the free-soul, but there is a wide range of understandings of who is eligible for rebirth. Some societies simply denied

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the existence of reincarnation. Some see reincarnation as possible for some on the basis of social rank or individual achievement, such as warriors or religious specialists. One of the major attractions of the Midé Society apparently was that it promised the religious practitioners who were its members that the society knew how to ensure their rebirth. Ruth Landes spoke of the soul’s “dangerous path to its ¤nal haven, one beset by evils insurmountable without midé aid ” (Landes 1968:189f; italics added). 14. It may be useful for the society to replace the deceased person by “adopting” another person to ¤ll the role. Hoffman observed that “there is another body among the Ojibwa termed the Ghost society . . . [that initiates a substitute into the Midewiwin, then celebrates] a feast of the dead, designed to release his ‘shadow’ and to permit it to depart to the land of mysteries, or the place of the setting sun” (Hoffman 1896:67–68; see Hall 1997:32–47 for the importance of adoption). 15. In order for the free-soul to make the journey as stress free as possible, the survivors need to provide the food, drink, and tools necessary for the lengthy travel on the Path. The appropriate grave goods will accompany the free-soul on the journey. All together, these belief statements form a composite account of a mortuary journey that is astounding in its scope, truly a saga of the soul. With this kind of complexity of the death process, it is small wonder that it constitutes a great part of Native American religious belief.

Evidence: Myths An examination of the myths that contain much of the lore that has been outlined above should provide whatever information is available for breaking the tribes into oicotypal groups. There are two basic myths, but they have been blended together through time in many tribal traditions, as will be seen. Orpheus: One of the most famous of the Greek myths is the story of Orpheus, the musician who refused to accept his wife’s death and traveled to the realm of the dead to retrieve her. He initially did so, but on the journey back to the land of the living, the breaking of a taboo resulted in her permanent return to Hades (Motif F81.1; see Thompson 1929:337). In North America, there is a remarkably similar myth, which is usually called by the name of its Old World counterpart. The New World Orpheus story is characterized by the desire of the traveler(s) to recover the soul of a loved one. The myth usually ends in failure, for the hero yields to temptation and permits the captured soul to escape from the container in which it is being brought back to earth. The myth thus explains the permanence of death, at least for those who do not believe in reincarnation. In the

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process of going to the realm of the dead, of course, the travelers have an opportunity to describe the process, so the myth thus can function within the society as a guidebook to the journey. In order to give an idea of the sort of information about the journey of the soul that may be expressed in an Orpheus myth text, a brief version recorded by a Jesuit from a Huron informant in 1636 is given here: An Indian, having lost his favorite sister, decided to look for her. He traveled 12 days, without eating or drinking, toward the setting sun where he had heard the village of souls was located. At the end of this time, his sister appeared to him at night, gave him a dish of meal cooked in water, and then, when he wished to put his hand on her and stop her, disappeared. He traveled for 3 months and each day she showed herself and gave him a little food. At the end of this time, he came to a very swift river that did not appear fordable. There were some fallen trees thrown across it, but this bridge was so shaky he did not trust it. On the other side was a piece of cleared land that indicated to him that there were some people nearby. Looking more closely, he saw a little house at the edge of the woods. He shouted several times and a man appeared, only to shut himself up again in his house. Seeing the man, he resolved to cross the river and did. He went to the house and, ¤nding the door closed, beat on the door. The person inside told him to wait and, if he wanted to enter, to ¤rst pass in his arm. The keeper was astonished to see a living body. Opening the door, he asked what his purpose was, for this country was only for souls. He answered, “I know that well and that is why I came here to seek the soul of my sister.” “Oh indeed,” replied the other, “well and good. Come, take courage, you will be presently in the village of souls, where you will ¤nd what you desire. All the souls are now gathered in a cabin, where they are dancing to heal Aataentsic, who is sick. Don’t be afraid to enter. Here is a pumpkin, you can put into it the soul of your sister.” He took the pumpkin and bid good-bye to his host. But, before he left, he asked his host his name. He replied, “Be satis¤ed that I am he who keeps the brains of the dead.” When he arrived at the village of the souls, he entered the house of Aataentsic and found that they were dancing to cure her. He could not see the soul of his sister, however, for the souls were so startled to see the living man they vanished. In the evening, as he was sitting by the ¤re, they returned. At ¤rst, they appeared at a distance, but slowly they approached and began to dance. He recognized his sister in the group and tried to seize her, but she ®ed from him. He withdrew. Finally, he chose his time so well that she could not escape his grasp. He struggled with her all night and in the contest she grew so small that he put her into the pumpkin without

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any dif¤culty. He immediately returned to the house of his host, who gave him his sister’s brains in another pumpkin and told him what he should do in order to resuscitate her. “When you reach home,” he said, “go to the cemetery, take the body of your sister, bear it to your house, and make a feast. When all your guests are assembled, carry it on your shoulders, and take a walk through the house holding the two pumpkins in your hands. You will no sooner have resumed your place than your sister will come to life again, provided you give orders that all keep their eyes lowered, and that no one shall look at what you are doing, else everything will go wrong.” The man returned to his village. He took the body of his sister, made a feast, and carried out the instructions that had been given him. He felt motion in the half-decayed corpse, but when he was two or three steps from his place, a curious person raised his eyes. At that moment, the soul escaped. “He could only take the corpse back to her tomb.” [Fr. Brébeuf, in Thwaites 1985–1901:10:149–53, as quoted in Tooker 1964:143–44] It is interesting to note that Fr. Brébeuf did not mention the Milky Way. His account of the journey gives no indication that he understood where the Path of Souls lay. The Journey to the Sky: The other widespread myth that tells of the passage to the realm of the dead is very close to the Orpheus texts. In fact, both Anna Gayton and Ake Hultkrantz spoke of their dif¤culties in separating the two myths, particularly when both forms were recorded from the same ethnic group. The story is about a group of men who journeyed to the Above World, where they received gifts and knowledge before returning to the Middle World (Motifs F0 and F15; Thompson 1929:330ff ). In many cases the only difference between the two myth types is the motivation in the Orpheus myth of seeking to recover the dead person, with the motif of the broken taboo. In other words, the Journey to the Sky and Orpheus are in many cases virtually the same myth, the distinction depending solely upon the soul-recovery episode. References to the Journey to the Sky texts are usually to be found in studies of the Orpheus myth. For the purposes of this study, it will be helpful to separate them and concentrate on the more widespread of the two, the Orpheus myth. The scholars who have provided a useful sequence of analyses of these myths are Anna H. Gayton, Ake Hultkrantz, and Lee Brumbaugh. A brief survey of their work will clarify what is known of the distribution and history of these myths about the Path of Souls. Gayton wrote her doctoral dissertation on several tribes in southern California, and she followed that with a study of the distribution of the Orpheus myth (Gayton 1935). She had probably been attracted to the Orpheus distribution problem during her dissertation research, as shown by her observation that

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“analysis of eighteen versions from south central California shows a remarkable uniformity in their framework and marked similarity of detail” (Gayton 1935:269). She surveyed the literature and found a peculiar distribution. She noted that “the story is not popular in the western Plains. It is practically unknown to the Shoshonean and Yuman tribes, and it is reported only from the Navaho and Zuñi in the Southwest” (Gayton 1935:265). Yet it was well known in the east and on the west coast, from the Northwest to southern California (see Gayton’s map for her distribution; Gayton 1935:266). She noted that the myth occurred in the Plains “only in tribes adjacent to areas where it occurs most frequently: thus, among Wichita, Tawakoni, and Pawnee, of the southern and eastern Plains, the Winnebago, an Eastern Woodland tribe yet having a Plains-like version of the tale, and among the Blackfoot and Sarsi in the extreme northwest of the area” (Gayton 1935:277). She noted that a group on the Northwest Coast had adapted the myth by making the actors animals, while the northern California tribes seem to have an attenuated form of the myth, as opposed to the peoples of the Northwest Coast and southern California (Gayton 1935:278, 280). A comparative examination of the motifs led her to conclude that the southern Plains and Southeast, with their motif of throwing something at the ghost to attract her attention (“missile” on her map), formed a special group (what we today would call an oicotype) (Gayton 1935:273, 284). She was troubled by an unusual participant in that oicotype, the Paviotso, but she advanced a hypothesis that “the feature [of the thrown object] was introduced to the Paviotso by Wichita or other 1890 Ghost Dance delegates from the Southeast” (Gayton 1935:284). This conjecture of fairly recent (1890s) transmission of the Orpheus myth in some areas is an addition to her few comments on the time depth for the Orpheus distribution. She was aware that some of the early records, such as Le Clerq’s Micmac and Brébeuf ’s Huron texts, constituted “excellent evidence for its aboriginality” (Gayton 1935:283). At the same time, when she considered the Shawnee tradition, she was led to comment that there were “scenes of punishment of the wicked in the afterworld which probably have their source in some of the religious cults which dominated the Shawnee, Seneca, and other eastern tribes during the last century” (Gayton 1935:274, 283). Gayton’s pioneering comparative study of the Orpheus myth pointed out several observations to be tested by future investigators: (1) the extraordinary similarity of the plot across the continent, (2) local adaptation of the plot, limited mostly to details rather than the plot itself, (3) the large gap in the western Plains, (4) the existence of several oicotypes, and (5) evidence of a prehistoric myth with diffusion punctuated and possibly motivated by revitalization movements, both Shawnee and Ghost Dance. Ake Hultkrantz entered the study area in 1953 with his important survey, Con-

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ceptions of the Soul among North American Indians. He built on Gayton’s work in a follow-up work, The North American Indian Orpheus Tradition (1956). Because of the large number of narratives related to the realm of the dead, he found it necessary to de¤ne the Orpheus tradition more strictly than had Gayton: “[it is] the narrative of a man who, driven by love for his deceased wife, seeks her out in the realm of the dead and tries in vain to restore her to life” (Hultkrantz 1956:20). On the basis of this de¤nition, he eliminated some of Gayton’s texts, but he added in some new ones. He noted that “[s]uch motifs as the westward direction of the journey, the meeting of certain types of obstacles on the way, and special attributes of the dead and their world do, certainly, frequently recur, but these have probably been woven into the narrative because they constitute parts of the general popular belief concerning the realm of the dead and the journey thither . . . The Orpheus story has in my opinion adopted and fused with itself the popular local conceptions which already existed, and which in large parts of North America have not been all too divergent from one another” (Hultkrantz 1956:20–21). The list of myth texts that emerged from his selection process was larger than Gayton’s, but it did not signi¤cantly alter her conclusions, especially in regard to the notable absence of the Orpheus tradition in the Plains (see Figure 8.3). As he carefully examined the motifs comprising the many texts of the Orpheus myth, Hultkrantz found little to advance the understanding of oicotypal clusters. He concluded that the Orpheus texts bore the stamp of the local burial customs and were clearly adapted to local eschatological ideas, but he did not consider any of those adaptations characteristic enough to merit designation as oicotypes (Hultkrantz 1956:35–42). He identi¤ed a “sea-coast version” from the Northwest Coast as a distinctive form of the Orpheus plot, but he admitted it could even be considered unrelated to the Orpheus traditions, as Gayton had concluded (Hultkrantz 1956:43–49, 212–13). Apart from that, he found that the Woodlands tradition could be considered a separate oicotypal group in comparison to the forms to the west of the area. Pointing to such motifs as the dog guardian, the Symplegades motif (the dif¤culty of crossing to the realm of the dead on the journey), the missile thrown at the dancing spirit of the dead, and the receptacle for the spirit, Hultkrantz indicated “an uniform type” (Hultkrantz 1956:54–55). Even so, he found enough distinctions in motif details between the northern and southern Woodlands texts to raise doubts as to a single oicotypal cluster. He saw in the southern texts, characterized by such motifs as a corncob as the missile, the in®uence of agrarian ideology, for example (Hultkrantz 1956:129). His consideration of the receptacle motif provides an insight into his perspective: [The receptacle for the spirit appears as] a box (Ojibwa, Cherokee), a tube (Menomini), a hollow pipe (Shawnee), a bag (Micmac), a nut (Malecite),

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Figure 8.3. Distribution of the Orpheus tradition, according to Hultkrantz (1956:7).

a pumpkin (Huron), a calabash (Seneca, Yuchi, Alabama), or a jar (Alabama, Koasati). From the above list it is apparent that the receptacle motif in the Orpheus tradition has been much more widely distributed in the east than in the western parts of the continent. It would, however, be overhasty to imagine that in the respect in question all these eastern versions of the Orpheus tradition belong to one and the same basic type. This is not the case. One can clearly distinguish two different patterns in connection with the receptacle motif, the one represented in the Southeast, the other represented among the Central Algonquin and in the Northeast . . . The receptacle-motif has been discussed in such detail here because it illustrates, better than any other motif in the Orpheus tradition, the historical and regional differentiation. [Hultkrantz 1956:156–57, 215–16] Although his separating the Orpheus tradition into distinct oicotypes is ambiguous, Hultkrantz’s conclusions about the origin of the Orpheus myth are not. Noting that the distribution is northern, with no example known from South America (Hultkrantz 1956:203), he asserted that Orpheus is rooted in hunting culture and the circumpolar practices of shamanism. The receptacle, he found,

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had its origin in a widely known shamanic tool: “The receptacle motif in the Orpheus tradition corresponds to the use of the so-called soul-catcher or soultube in shamanism, an instrument in which the shaman keeps the soul after its capture” (Hultkrantz 1956:250). The mythic tradition as a whole is derived from the ancient religious understanding of the shaman’s retrieval of the soul in healing diseases caused by soul loss, he argued, and that tradition moved in recent times into the complex of the historic Ghost Dance. His conclusion is fairly succinct: We have earlier observed that in certain cases [the Orpheus myth] functions as a kind of “institutional myth” for the ghost dance. It appears probable that precisely the shamanistic background has constituted the necessary prerequisite for this. We may thus conclude that the Orpheus tradition was probably the document though which the shamanistic notions of importance for the ghost dance were preserved and handed down . . . We have, ¤nally, the numerous testimonies, both from the Plains and elsewhere, to the effect that the Orpheus tradition has functioned as origin tale for a religious ceremony or rite, a “dance” . . . It appeared that some of them are identical with the so-called ghost dance, which at the end of the last century swept over California, Great Basin, the Plateau and the Plains as a reaction against the supremacy of the whites and the decay of indigenous cultures. Behind the ghost-dance movement one can, however, discern an older stratum, a dance connected with shamanistic experiences and rites and intended to restore the seriously ill to life . . . The Orpheus narrative, which goes back to shamanistic experiences, has come to be accepted as the narrative of this shaman’s experiences, and has as such become the origin tale of the rite. In later times, when the rite for the curing of the sick has merged into a rite for the return of the dead, the Orpheus tradition has in some quarters automatically become the “institution myth” of the ghost dance. [Hultkrantz 1956:263, 306–7; see also 145– 46, 229–61, 311–12] In 1995 Lee Brumbaugh reviewed the evidence presented by Gayton and Hultkrantz and concluded that neither had suf¤ciently stressed the recency and rapidity of the diffusion of the Orpheus tradition as part of the Ghost Dance. He suggested that Hultkrantz’s “older stratum” was the Ghost Dance itself, although his argument is somewhat ambiguous. Unlike Hultkrantz and Gayton, I believe that the “Ghost Dance,” or Native American orphic ceremonialism, arose ¤rst among the eastern Algonkians and then spread westward with the frontier. This is historically

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demonstrable along much of the route: the Prophet Tradition of the Delaware (beginning by 1763) and other northeastern Algonkians inspired and fused with the New Religion of the Seneca (Handsome Lake’s movement), to give rise to the intertribal “Ghost Dance” led by the Shawnee Prophet, Tenskwatawa. The Ghost Dance of 1812 (actually 1804–13) was the religious component of Tecumseh’s effort to unite the Eastern and Western tribes in a last-ditch effort to halt European-American encroachment. [Brumbaugh 1995:186] His viewpoint was tempered a few pages later by this quali¤cation: “Technically, the 1812 revitalization movement might be best termed a proto-Ghost Dance . . . The use of the term ‘Ghost Dance’ for east Coast revitalization is a metaphorical extension. Again, in the technical sense, the Eastern revitalization movements were Ghost Dance precursors, not true Ghost Dances. As a general term for the intertribal, trans-continental revitalization movement, Native American Prophecy Movement is probably better than Ghost Dance Movement” (Brumbaugh 1995:197). Brumbaugh argued that Hultkrantz, by interpreting the Orpheus tradition as arising from shamanism, had placed too much emphasis on its antiquity. He maintained that “the legend was not universal even within Native North America, and does not re®ect either a spontaneous reaction to grief or an ancient, universal, shamanic religion. Rather, the indigenous orphic traditions, in both their curing-society and Ghost Dance stages, were new paradisiacal religions created in response to the rapidly rising death rates caused by the invasion of the Europeans and their diseases” (Brumbaugh 1995:195). In order to separate the two “stages” mythically, Brumbaugh suggested that the Orpheus tradition became the charter text only for the later Ghost Dance: “The recorded memorate (vision type) of the Ghost-Dance prophets was of the Forked-Road-to-the-Landof-the-Dead, after 1805 usually including a spirit guide. However, it was the ‘Orpheus’ narrative that validated the new form of shamanic prophesy in which knowledge of the future was obtained by visiting the creator in the Land of the Dead” (Brumbaugh 1995:190). His argument seems to depend on a distinction between two forms of the Orpheus tradition, but it is dif¤cult to clarify the differences. Brumbaugh agreed with Hultkrantz that “the ‘Orpheus’ narrative has ties to soul-retrieval shamanism,” but he nonetheless insisted that the “similar but distinct form of soulcontact and Creator-contact shamanic prophecy typical of the Ghost Dance Religion . . . largely originated in and was spread by the Algonkian prophecy movements” (Brumbaugh 1995:190). Further clari¤cation of Brumbaugh’s nuanced argument seems dif¤cult, but it is not necessary that it be parsed for the present study. It seems unarguable that

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some form of the Orpheus tradition has been present in the Eastern Woodlands at least from early historic times, as shown by Fr. Brébeuf ’s narrative, and Brumbaugh seems to agree that at least the “Forked Road” imagery was present early in the Eastern revitalization movements. In another context I have attempted to push the details of the journey back several centuries before European contact. I reviewed the materials concerning the Path of Souls with an eye to using the motifs to interpret the iconographic images on prehistoric pottery and shell. Using a focus on the symbols found at the prehistoric site of Moundville in Alabama, I identi¤ed a set of Southeastern Ceremonial Complex images as illustrations of the Path of Souls beliefs (Lankford 2004, 2007b). If this argument is correct, then the general complex was ideologically important as early as the 14th century. That then underscores the agreement of Gayton, Hultkrantz, and Brumbaugh that the Orpheus myth as used in historic times was not a new creation but an example of “adaptive re-use” of an old tradition, despite the many variations that might be teased out of the evidence. Combined with my older dating, Brumbaugh’s thesis of the historic role of the myth as the “core text” of the revitalization movement serves to provide both an impressive history of the myth and an explanation for the appearance of unusual similarity in the preserved form of the Orpheus myth—it had been refreshed in historic times, possibly suppressing differences or even oicotypes. As Brumbaugh noted, “My proposed pattern of rapid diffusion of the ‘Orpheus’ narrative in association with prophecy movements (especially Tenskwatawa’s) may explain its ‘puzzling’ (to Gayton) uniformity of plot throughout much of North America” (Brumbaugh 1995:190).

Some Conclusions An unusual characteristic of the survey of Path of Souls beliefs is that the major differences in the understanding of the Path and death process seem to follow linguistic families. This is particularly noticeable in the Cherokee-Iroquois connection and the af¤liation of the eastern Algonkian and Siouan speakers to their linguistic kin far to the west. In the study of myth this is rarely observed, because linguistic boundaries usually seem far less important than geographic or historical proximity in the creation of similar versions. The possibility that the various language family groups possessed their own versions of the belief complex hints at a greater antiquity for the Path of Souls understanding than many of the other mythic narratives told in recent times. While it seems futile to attempt to indicate a time depth, it is surely signi¤cant that Krupp has surveyed the quite similar understanding of the Milky Way as the Path of Souls among Siberian groups and various tribes in California (Krupp 1995). That distribution, when added to the eastern occurrences dis-

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cussed in this chapter, suggests an impressive time depth. Furthermore, archaeological examination of various Eastern Woodlands sites has revealed a long-term focus on death, a cultural concern that can be traced back at least as far as the Archaic. If the Path of Souls belief complex is part of the ideology that belongs with the physical remains of the ancient mortuary patterns, then the native peoples of North America have been familiar with a culturally important part of the skyscape—the Path of Souls—for millennia. With the likelihood of a standardization of the Orpheus myth occurring as part of the historic revitalization movements, the story of the Orpheus/Path of Souls tradition seems to be a saga in its own right. In terms of interpreting the sky, there are clues in this body of lore to more than just the Milky Way itself. By way of summary, here are some further points to be considered: 1. There must have been a clear understanding of how the soul makes the transition from the Middle World to the Above World. Getting on the Path requires a portal, and it must have been identi¤ed in the skyscape. This will be the topic of the next chapter. 2. The references to the serpent in the south, where the village of the dead is, must also indicate a known location. That clari¤cation will require a special focus in Chapter 10. 3. The adventures on the path must also indicate particular stars or constellations to which the narrators would point as they elaborated the tribal understanding of the soul’s journey. Unfortunately, the diversity of adventures in the existing lore argues that no “canonical” version can be identi¤ed, so the adventure category must have been the part that was most susceptible to local adaptation. For example, in a Miami version of the Path, the soul encounters an old man at the fork in the road, an immense dog, a river, another old man who gives advice, another old man with a bowl and plum stones (a gambling game that must be declined by the traveler), two men who play a game called chunkey (whose invitation to play must also be declined), and four men who invite the soul to dance (also to be declined) (Kinietz 1938:52–53). This unique account of the journey offers many possibilities for identifying stars on the path, but without guidance by a Miami narrator, it seems to be a hopeless venture. 4. One adventure may be located with more con¤dence, however. The mythic references to a fork in the Path re®ect the fact that the Milky Way does split, and there is one branch that leads to an open gap before the main path can be rejoined. The other branch simply continues on without hiatus. There is even a bright star—Deneb—that is placed right at the fork in the path and thus could serve as a marker for the decision

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point or a ¤gure who would do the deciding. It may be Deneb that is interpreted as the frightening image already introduced, the Brain Taker. In considering the possibility of memory loss for the dead souls, Hultkrantz discussed “a guard on the road to the realm of the dead [who] deprives the recently deceased person who passes by of his brain by taking it out or smashing it.” He noted that this idea occurs among the Penobscot, Huron, Iroquois, Ojibwa, Menomini, Sauk, Fox, and the Siouan-speaking Winnebago (Hultkrantz 1953:215). Deneb is perfectly located on the Path to ¤ll the role as the ¤gure at the fork. Deneb is also the alpha star of Cygnus, however, and it would be possible to use the stars of the full constellation as the adversary. That seems to be likely in the case of the Alabama/Seminole interpretation of the adversary as an eagle, since the cross-shaped constellation seen by the Greeks as a swan works equally well as an eagle (Lankford 2004).

9

The Starry Hand

How can a departing soul gain access to the Path? Two assumptions about the sky seem to be prevalent: that the sky vault is solid, forming the basis of another world similar to the Middle World of humans, and that the sky, where it meets the earth disk in the west, rises and falls. The ¤rst assumption means that the soul must encounter a portal in the west that can serve as a passage to the other side of the sky. Without one, there is no way that the soul can go beyond the western edge of the earth disk. The second assumption, widespread, but not universal, means that the ¤rst challenge the soul faces is to gain access to the portal to the Path despite the danger of the “falling sky.” This curious notion that the sky rises and falls at the horizon is suf¤ciently widespread that it has been given a motif number, Motif F791.1 The result of the action of the “rising and falling sky” is seen especially in “The Journey to the Sky” form of the Orpheus myth, where the death of one or more of the travelers is caused by their failure to negotiate the sky’s movement. In one case, that of the Chitimacha text, more than 20 travelers set out on the journey, but all of them except six are killed in trying to pass through the dangerous conjunction of the earth and the sky (Swanton 1911:358). It is an important motif for consideration from the viewpoint of the Path of Souls concept, because it is the focus of a problem that has been encountered repeatedly in this study: the passage of the soul to the west at the start of the journey but the location of that Path in the sky. The solution to the problem must lie in identifying the portal and understanding the sky movement. The motif of the “rising and falling sky,” found from the Plains Siouans to the Alabama in “The Journey to the Sky,” appears to be a mythic way of talking about this crucial problem.

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There is one solution to the “falling sky” problem that has a basis in the way in which the Milky Way moves. Beginning in early July, a portion of the Milky Way is visible on the eastern horizon when the sun ¤rst begins to blank out the stars at dawn. From that time on, the Milky Way is seen every dawn a little higher in the sky. In December, after months of “rising,” the Milky Way ¤nally is far enough advanced that it lasts all through the night, falling beneath the horizon. Finally, early in May that segment of the Milky Way is not seen anywhere in the night sky. The “dark” condition lasts until early in July, when the cycle begins again (see Table 9.1). From late November to April, the Milky Way can be seen nightly to drop below the western horizon. As it falls, it assumes a basically horizontal position, and it thus could be described as a “falling sky” (Figure 9.1). Native recognition of that phenomenon would square the simplistic metaphor with their astronomical knowledge that the celestial world does not end at the western edge of the world but continues down below it. If the soul on its journey must gain access to the Milky Way by leaping through a portal in the western sky, the window of opportunity each night is only a few minutes. If the soul leaps at the wrong moment, the result will be to miss the portal, bump into the solid “bottom” of the sky, and fall into the Beneath World or be condemned to remain in the west as a marooned soul that did not make it onto the Path of Souls for the rest of the journey. Although the way in which the motif was told in some narratives was simpli¤ed so as to present a simple movement of the sky vault, perhaps similar to a bowl rolling around on its rim, this phenomenon of the Milky Way’s straightening out to a horizontal line before dropping below the western disk edge seems to be an elegant explanation of the otherwise inexplicable Native American description. The known distribution of this motif is spotty, but it seems likely that the coverage was more thorough than collection would indicate, perhaps including prehistorically all tellings of the Journey to the Sky myth. The “rising and falling sky” motif is now known from the Kaska, Tahltan, Ponca, Fox, Navaho, Caddo, Chitimacha, Alabama, Koasati, Yuchi, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Shawnee, Cherokee, and Iroquois (see Figure 9.2).2 If this hypothesis has any merit, then the portal has to be close to the Milky Way, and if the vanishing of the Milky Way below the western horizon indi-

Figure 9.1. Three images of the “falling sky” in the west (image produced by Voyager II software for December 15, a.d. 1500, as seen from St. Louis at [a] 3:48 a.m., [b] 4:52 a.m., and [c] 5:56 a.m.]).

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Figure 9.2. Distribution of the rising and falling sky motif.

cates the failure to leap through the portal, then the portal must be either on or near the Milky Way. Moreover, the portal should be relatively close to the western point of the horizon. There is one constellation that ¤ts the requirements: Orion. Just off the edge of the Milky Way there is a distinctive bright constellation, one that is readily recognizable. The Greeks knew that constellation as Orion, “The Hunter,” and they had a myth about him. Their vision of the makeup of the Orion included two major stars, Rigel and Betelgeuse, the three stars of the “belt,” and the stars of Orion’s sword. Together they make up a large geometric ¤gure that sinks through the exact western point below the Milky Way (see Figure 9.3, left). Judging by the lack of Native American myths about Orion, there seems to have been little major interest in the constellation. Many tribal groups now retain no information about the ¤gure, or none that has been recorded. A few other groups point to the belt stars and identify them as “Three Stars in a Row,” which quali¤es as the sparest of descriptions. With that minimal de¤nition of the constellation, it seems unreasonable to try to ¤nd any cultural tradition re®ected in those who use the label. The list of people who believe in three men, hunters, fawns, vertebrae, or just stars in a row (Orion’s belt) includes Montagnais, Cree,

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Figure 9.3. Constellation of Orion (Greek) versus Hand (Dakota).

Naskapi, Chilcotin, Eskimo, Tlingit, Salinan, Tewa, Zuni, Jemez, Isleta, Laguna, Hopi, and Pawnee (Miller 1997:293–94). In contrast to these groups, however, is a small cluster of tribes who shared an unusual mythic identi¤cation of the constellation. They saw the constellation as a hand hanging in the sky. They used part of Orion when they traced the hand, but ignored Betelgeuse, the bright star nearest the Milky Way. The major focus for the “Hand” identi¤cation appears to be Siouan speakers, for it is found clearly among the Plains Village tribes—Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara— the Lakota and Oglala Sioux, and the Crow, with suggestive references from the Kansas, Arapaho, and Blackfoot. Figure 9.3 (right) shows the way they saw the constellation. The myth that is used to explain the origin of the Hand in the sky is well known, a story that was characterized by Paul Radin as “the basic myth of North America” (Radin 1950). In a Hidatsa version of the Lodge Boy and Thrown Away (LBTA) myth, which was apparently very similar to the Mandan myth, there is a mythological charter for the Hand constellation. The story is too lengthy to be quoted here in its entirety, but the relevant segment has several points of interest in regard to the Hidatsa understanding of the sky. The Twins were born out of the murder of their mother: one was left in the lodge and raised by their father, while the other was thrown into a spring and reared by the Be-

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neath World powers. After Spring-boy was caught and domesticated, the Twins went on adventures. Due to their enormous power, especially Spring-boy’s, they were able to overcome some of the most powerful forces in the cosmos, frightening the celestial powers. [T]he people in the sky became uneasy lest the boys who had killed so many mysterious beings below come up to the sky and kill them. So they held a council and asked [their chief ] Long Arm to bring Spring-boy who was dark and reckless, up in the sky and put him to death. Long Arm told them he saw nothing wrong with the boys and did not wish their death . . . But the people cried out all the more against Spring-boy, and Long Arm accordingly used his magic power to throw the boys into a deep sleep at noon. That is the origin of daytime napping . . . Then Long Arm reached down to earth to where Spring-boy lay and picked him up and carried him up into the air . . . Now when Lodge-boy woke from sleep and could not see his twin brother, he was alarmed and, taking the shape of a ®aming arrow, he ®ew over the earth . . . looking up into the sky, he saw a streak of light at the point where Spring-boy had been taken through. Flying through the air he entered at the same place . . . Long Arm went and placed his hand over the hole by which they passed through so as to catch them. Spring-boy made a motion with the hatchet as if to cut it off at the wrist and said, “This second time your hand has committed a crime, and it shall be a sign to the people on earth.” So it is today that we see the hand in the heavens. The white people call it Orion. The belt is where they cut across the wrist, the thumb and ¤ngers also show; they are hanging down like a hand. “The hand star” it is called.3 [Beckwith 1978:38–42] The Crow people, whose ancestors split off from the Hidatsa and were transformed into a Plains tribe several centuries ago, retain the myth and the constellation. It may be the separation from the Plains Village tribes that has caused some variation in the way the Hand is explained. There are alternate versions of the event. Below are three summaries. In the ¤rst version, as told by Peter, an elder from Pryor, there is a close resemblance to the story as told by the Hidatsa. Here the nemesis of the Twins is a character named Baaáalichke, or “One with a Long Arm,” who captures Thrown Into The Spring in order to kill and eat him, since the boy had killed his relatives on earth. But instead Baaáalichke loses his hand to Thrown Into The Spring who then throws it up into the skies to create the Hand Star (McCleary 1997:51).

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He thought about it and he ¤gured that it must have been Baaáalichke [One With A Long Arm] who took [his brother]. He looked to the sky and saw a hole. He then shot his arrows and where his arrows went he went. When he got to the sky, he found a camp and life there . . . Baaáalichke dropped the twin. Thrown Behind The Tipi Lining helped his twin up and put him on his shoulder and took him to the opening in the sky. He threw his arrows, which took them back to earth. Thrown Behind The Tipi Lining put his brother down on the ground. Then Baaáalichke reached down from the sky and tried to pick up Thrown Into The Spring, but Thrown Into The Spring cut the hand off at the wrist and it hit the ground. Then Thrown Into The Spring threw the hand back to the sky where it became the Hand Star. Thrown Into The Spring said, “You will no longer eat or destroy others. Your hand in the sky will be a symbol for all time of your cruelty.” And that is how the Hand Star came to be. [McCleary 1997:56–57] Another version features Red Woman as the malefactor. The twins chase her, cutting off parts of her with a sharp beaver’s tail. McCleary relates, “She wants to get away from these two, two twins, because they would destroy her. So she reached for the skies. As she reached for the sky, her hand got up, but the boys went and cut at the wrist, before she could reach for the sky. So she fell down, and they cut her to pieces, but her hand’s still up there, her hand, Ihkawaleische” (McCleary 1997:61). Despite the existence of variants, the basic similarity of the Crow and Hidatsa accounts indicates the importance of the mythic incident, which explains the constellation in which both tribes believe. The Hidatsa narrator also provided in the “Sacred Arrows” myth an account of the creation of the portal. It happened in earlier times, when Charred Body descended to the Middle World from the Above World: “Charred Body has his origin in the skies. There was a big village up there and this man was a great hunter . . . [He built a mound and] when he went out to the mound he took an arrow and stuck it into the ground and as the ground opened up a crack he worked the hole a little larger and, to his surprise, could look down through the hole . . . The chief of the village was named Long Arm. He was regarded as a holy man . . . [Charred Body] went back to the hole, transformed himself into an arrow and ®ew through the air to earth” (Beckwith 1978:22–23). That portal was the same one later used by Long Arm to seize Spring-boy, the one that was covered by Long Arm’s hand, to his eternal dismay. This discussion of the Hand constellation opened with an initial observation that it appears to belong to Siouan speakers, but the presence of the Hand

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identi¤cation, together with the relevant myth, among the Caddoan-speaking Arikara indicates that the type group included people of other tongues. As has been seen already in these studies, this is not as surprising a fact as it might seem, because of their proximity to the Plains Village Siouans. It is not clear when the Arikara branched off from the Skidi Pawnee, but they lived close to the two Siouan groups during the 19th century, and their relationship was probably much older. It is thus not unexpected that the Arikara would share a constellation and a myth, but the time depth of that sharing is not now interpretable. It may be signi¤cant that when George Dorsey collected Arikara myths in 1903, he did not record any information about the Hand or the Long Arm episode. At the same time, it should be noted that he did not collect any texts of the LBTA myth at all. When Douglas Parks collected materials from the Arikara in the 1980s, however, he found three separate texts of the LBTA myth, and two of them have the Long Arm episode. Here is the relevant portion of one of them: Now one time they were lying asleep on top of a hill. And then an arm suspended in the air came down. Then Long Teeth [= Spring-boy] was the one it picked up ¤rst. Then it took him up there into the sky, into this sky. Then this Drinks Brains [= Lodge Boy] awoke, and his brother was no longer lying there. Then he began to look for him. He searched everywhere. Now he lay there looking around at the sky up above. He was looking, and there in the sky was a hole. Then Drinks Brains changed himself into an arrow. Then he ®ew up. He disappeared as he went up into the sky. He was holy. Then he got there, and as he was traveling around he saw that it was a different world where he was looking for his brother. There in the distance was a village. Oh, it was a big village! And then that is where he went. As he looked on, there in the center of the village they were dancing a victory dance. And there was his brother Long Teeth. There he was, stretched out on a scaffold, as he watched him—as they watched him. Then Long Teeth knew his brother was there. He had great power! Then he said, “Now hurry, brother, I’m burning! These people living here have done their worst.” Then this boy Drinks Brains went off. At the far end of the village was a lodge . . .

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Meanwhile, the noise of the people singing and dancing died down. Then this little boy got up, and then he took a knife of hers. Then he ran to where his brother was stretched out. Now the ®ames had died down where the ¤re was. Then he cut the rope. Now his brother was weak from hunger. Oh, he laid him over his shoulder. Then he ran off with him. Meanwhile he kept the knife. The two reached the hole in the sky. They came ®ying down to earth. The long arm with the hand was coming after them. And when the hand reached close to them, Drinks Brains cut it. He cut the hand off. Now that is the reason there is an image of a hand outlined by stars in the sky. And then the two boys dropped down. They returned to earth here. Oh, they went back home. [Parks 1991:146–47; told by Alfred Morsette, Sr. (Not Afraid of the Enemy, 1911–1989), Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota; recorded by Douglas Parks, 1976–1980s] Parks collected two other narratives of the Twins, but one omits the incident of the cutting off of Long Arm’s hand (Parks 1991:474–84, 793–800). It is of interest that the Lakota also know the constellation and the myth, even though they locate the incident in another mythological context, that of a variant of the Star Boy myth. Goodman has provided a precise identi¤cation of the Lakota understanding of this constellation’s makeup, ensuring that it is the same Hand as the Plains Village constellation. Goodman’s informants connected the Hand constellation with the myth of the recovery of a chief ’s arm that was ripped off by the Thunderers, and it was explicitly related to the Sun Dance (Goodman 1992:219). Two more tribes have provided hints that they, too, knew the Hand constellation. There is a suggestive note from the Siouan-speaking Kansas, whose mourning ceremony includes a “song of sacri¤ce to the deities.” On the ritual memory device, the sign indicating this song was “a hand of which four ¤ngers are seen” (Dorsey 1885:676–77). As if to con¤rm the point of the diversity in the mythic charter for the Hand constellation, the Arapaho have provided evidence of their belief. A description of their unique ritual object, the Sacred Wheel, which has a major role in their Sun Dance, provides a list of celestial phenomena symbolized upon it: After the Wheel was nicely shaped, this man in the usual method, painted it, and placed the Four-Old-Men at the four cardinal points. Not only were these Old-Men being located on the Wheel, but also the morning star

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(cross); a collection of stars sitting together, perhaps the Pleiades; the evening star (Lone-Star); chain of stars, seven buffalo bulls; ¤ve stars called a hand, and a chain of stars, which is the lance; a circular group of seven stars overhead, called the “old-camp”; the sun, moon, and Milky Way. [Dorsey and Kroeber 1903:205; italics added] The Arapaho explanation of the hand is a brief reference to a heroic myth: “That small group of stars early at night, with a row of stars along the side represents the hand of Little-Star with his lance” (Dorsey and Kroeber 1903:228). Dorcas Miller found a reference to an unidenti¤ed Blackfoot hand constellation that might belong to this type group, even though the myth is unique. According to the narrator, a buffalo robe bearing a hand design was received from the wolves, along with a warning that the robe was only to be used by males. When the taboo was broken, “The hand had disappeared from the robe and gone into the sky. Even to this day there is a group of stars in the sky that looks just like a man’s hand” (Miller 1997:254–55). Neither the narrator nor Miller was able to identify the constellation referred to. Further confusion of the problem is the speculative identi¤cation of the “Smoking Star”—the stellar transformation of the hero Blood-Clot—as the nebula in the thumb/sword portion of Orion (Kehoe 1992; Miller 1997:252–53). The coincidence of the two references suggests a Blackfoot variant of the Hand constellation in their beliefs. By way of summary, the Hand constellation appears to have been known to at least a small group of tribes in the Plains—Mandan, Hidatsa, Crow, Arikara, Lakota/Oglala, Kansas, Arapaho, and Blackfoot. Connected to the constellation was a myth explaining its origin, basically a heroic cutting off of the hand of a sky power who blocked a portal in the sky, but the mythic incident has found its home in different locations in the tribal mythologies. At least for some of the tribes who know the Hand constellation, there is some indication of a connection with ritual, especially the Sun Dance variants, such as the Mandan okipa. Beckwith noted for the Hidatsa (and probably for the Mandan also) that the Hand is represented in ritual in trophy form: “The chief celebrant at these ceremonies has usually killed an enemy. He cuts off the hand, brings it home, skins it, removing the bones, and ¤lls it with sand. After it dries he empties out the sand and wears it at the back of the neck, where it ®aps up and down as he dances. It represents Long Arm’s hand” (Beckwith 1938:43). This use of a real hand recalls the observations of hands cut from leather that adorned the pole of the Sun Dance, another possible representative of the constellation. In this practice, the hand has several layers of meaning, including punishment for evil intentions, but the one of signi¤cance for this inquiry is the identi¤cation

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of the hand with the attempt to use it to close the portal into the sky and the speci¤cation of that portal as Orion. A Hidatsa note on the Sun Dance provides another link between the rituals and belief complexes: “The sacred objects needed for the dance included a buffalo skull, an enemy’s left hand, a scalp, and one whole rabbitskin to be used for a crown” (Lowie 1919:421; italics added). It may be signi¤cant that the Hidatsa, who knew both the Hand constellation and the Long Arm mythic episode, claimed that their version of the Sun Dance was brought by the most strongly stellar-oriented group among the Hidatsa people, the Awatixa, when they became part of the Hidatsa. These accounts of the Hand portal are signi¤cant, in that the Hand episode does not appear in the majority of the widespread LBTA texts or the Star Boy texts. It is, in other words, an incident of limited distribution that is found in different contexts in the small group that knows the myth of the Hand constellation. An obvious connection of the tribes of the Hand group is their practice of various versions of the Sun Dance. This hint suggests a closer look at the Sun Dance tradition. At the beginning of this century there was a concerted effort to record the ethnographic details of the Sun Dance as practiced by various tribes. The project culminated in Leslie Spier’s attempt to do a comparative study of them all. He assessed the wide diversity of purpose, organization, ritual details, and beliefs involved in the Sun Dance, and he concluded that the lowest-common-denominator de¤nition is a simple one: “the essential performance is simply erecting a pole within an encircling structure, before which the votaries dance” (Spier 1921:491). He quoted Brackenridge’s 1811 observation of a Siouan Sun Dance as a good summary: “a space, about twenty feet in diameter, enclosed with poles, with a post in the middle, painted red, and at the same distance, a buffalo head raised upon a little mound of earth” (Spier 1921:493). Additional details make it clear that this pole and circle are cosmological in nature, not just a utilitarian dance ground. The center pole is forked on top, it is painted (red or red-and-white striped), it has a Thunderbird “nest” placed at the fork, along with a buffalo hide or skull, and it is raised in a ritual manner by magic or a mythical bird (Spier 1921:468–70; see Dorsey 1905a:87 for a Ponca description). Although Spier did not discuss the details, since he was doing trait-list comparison, it is not dif¤cult to recognize in the building of the Sun Dance lodge the reenactment of the cosmogony. That surmise is supported by statements of purpose such as this from the Cheyenne: the Sun Dance is to “reanimate the earth and its life,” an elegant description of the function of ritual repetition of creation archetypes (Spier 1921:503). To assert this interpretation is to take a leap, of course, for as recently as 1980 a researcher could comment that “very little is known of the ceremony’s symbolism and its interpretation by religious specialists within

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each tribe: no adequate studies of these things have ever been made” (Liberty 1980:164). Spier was eager to arrive at some acceptable hypothesis about the origin and diffusion of the Sun Dance. He was aware that the ritual was not restricted just to those who identi¤ed it as the Sun Dance, for he pointed to the similarities between it and the Omaha hedewatci, the Mandan okipa, the Pawnee four-pole ceremony, and the Osage mourning ceremony (all tribes that have no Sun Dance, strictly de¤ned). After comparing and analyzing the various traits as they were distributed across the Plains, he concluded that the tradition probably began with the Village Tribes (Hidatsa and Arikara), Cheyenne, and Arapaho and then went to the Oglala, after which it spread to the rest of the Plains tribes (Spier 1921:480). His conclusions are not the last word on the subject, of course, for some of his assumptions bear reexamination, but it is provocative to note the overlap between Spier’s core Sun Dance group and the group that has preserved memory of the Hand constellation. All this leads to a grand hypothesis that can only be stated here, since to follow it would take this exploration too far a¤eld. An ancient prehistoric tradition involved a cosmogonic ritual that incorporated the creation of the axis mundi, whether solar or stellar, and the recognition of movement between cosmic levels. This crystallized by Mississippian times into a ritual occurring outside of the normal architectural structures—the building of the microcosm was an essential part of the ritual, so old architecture would not serve. Such structures would look like circles of posts surrounding a center post, similar to the so-called Woodhenge at Cahokia. Such structures could not be torn down after use, logically, for that would be an act destructive of the cosmos, nor could they be reused, so they would be left to the protection of the cosmic powers— precisely the treatment that is accorded to the Sun Dance lodges to the present. This ritual/belief complex moved into the Plains by migration and by trade/ communication, ¤nding a core group in the Village Tribes and their neighbors (see Schlesier 1994 for a summary of the close relationships of these peoples over the past millennium). Time, diffusion, and adaptation resulted in a wide diversity in Sun Dance and related rituals, including the myths and celestial knowledge. Time also took its toll in the extinction of the lore surrounding the cosmogonic traditions, so that only a small group preserved the Hand constellation and its role. One of the major losses appears to be the awareness that the Hand also contains a portal, one that could be available to Sun Dancers at any time but that would be available to all during part of the year—when the Hand touches the western horizon. If this very speculative hypothesis is correct, it points to the existence of a true regional oicotype, a particular type of cosmogonic ritual tied to a particular era.

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That argument has a corollary, in that the dynamics of mythological transformations suggest a prior “raw material” from which the Hand complex might be derived. From this viewpoint, it is instructive to note that the Hand is not completely unknown elsewhere. There are only two clues, but they suggest ancient Algonkian knowledge of the celestial meaning for the Hand. In her study of Ojibwa artistic designs, Coleman found the “hand” design used both in a cosmological pattern and by itself on peace pipes (Coleman 1947). Although one informant interpreted it as representing the hand of the gambler, it is likely that she had derived her understanding from its appearance on the side of a drum used in the gambling game, and there are cosmic uses and meanings of the drum that might indicate a more profound early meaning of the sign. She wrote, “Other informants referred to the design as the hand of Kijé manito, representing universal power. It was also used on legal documents signifying the honor of the tribe. The hand strengthened an agreement or treaty, and consequently was used on the peace pipe” (Coleman 1947:12–13, cf. 86). This Central Algonkian hand of the Great Spirit probably should be considered the same as the hand of the Creator who, according to the Algonkian Delaware, sits in the 12th level of sky and rests his hand upon the central post (Müller 1968:168). The reference is almost certainly to the Big House ceremony, and the central post is surely the world axis. The Hand may thus have become either a metaphor for a particular portal or for portals in general. In either case, it seems clear that the Delaware image is cognate to the Central Algonkian Hand referred to above, which is presented as a known iconographic object in the Ojibwa world; both are connected with the Great Spirit, who lives on or above the Milky Way. The hand is thus a celestial sign, and all that is missing is an indication that it is in fact a visible phenomenon in the sky, Polaris. It is not a great leap to see this Eastern Woodlands Hand as an ancestor of the Hand that distilled out into the Sun Dance Hand constellation. In contradistinction to the antiquity of the Path of Souls in general, the Hand portal that gave access to it appears to be a more recent phenomenon. It is the key to the identi¤cation of an oicotype, the property of only a few of the tribes participating in the larger model. Dating the belief in the constellation is dif¤cult. In an earlier study, the hand and its portal has been interpreted to be the belief behind the hand-and-eye design of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex iconography, which would probably date the oicotype to late prehistoric Mississippian times (Lankford 2004, 2007b). The focus of that study was a design known as the hand-and-eye, found on prehistoric ceramics, shell, and other media from Oklahoma to Alabama.4 The hypothesis identi¤es the iconographic image as the indicator of the Hand constellation, with the “eye” as the portal. Since the Moundville ceramics have been placed archaeologically in the 14th century or earlier, the argument indicates that the belief in the Hand constellation goes

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Figure 9.4. Distribution of the Hand type.

back at least that far. That chronological placement, of course, depends on the correctness of the equation of the iconography with the ethnoastronomy and mythology of historic times. Regardless of dating problems, though, it is clear that the Hand was not an unknown metaphor in the lore of the Eastern Woodlands and Plains (see Figure 9.4).

10

The Serpent in the Stars

If the departing souls get on the Milky Way via the Hand constellation and its portal, what is their destination? Where in the sky are they going? The general answer provided in the ethnographic material is “on the Path to the south.” They have to travel south to reach the village of souls, which is located somewhere in the south or southwest, as some informants insisted. The “south” has to be connected with the Path, of course, so the search should not be dif¤cult. What part of the Path appears in the south, and what constellations are there? There is only one serious candidate. The constellation the Greeks knew as the scorpion, Scorpio (or sometimes Scorpius), lies directly across the Path on the southern horizon (Figure 10.1). In northern latitudes it rises above the horizon primarily in the summer nights. The rest of the year it is obscured by the sun or by the horizon. Because it does not rise far above the southern horizon even at its seasonal height, it is easily made invisible by atmospheric conditions. On a clear summer night, however, people all across North America are treated to the spectacular sight of Scorpio dominating the southern sky. Its bright stars stretch across the Milky Way, and its alpha star, Antares, one of the “royal” stars in the Western astronomical tradition, shines crimson just west of the Path. In the scienti¤c view, the seasonal tilt of the earth is responsible for the movement of constellations in relation to the northern and southern horizons. That annual cycle produces the north-south shift of constellations in relation to the horizon, and the cycle can be plotted. For Scorpio, the appearance and disap-

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Figure 10.1. Scorpio lying across the Milky Way in the southern sky (image produced by Voyager II software for May 16, a.d. 1500, as seen from St. Louis at 1:20 a.m.).

pearance is related to the location of the viewer, of course. In Table 10.1, St. Louis in a.d. 1500 has been selected as the viewer’s position on the earth. Without direct diffusion from the Western astronomical tradition, it seems unlikely that Native Americans would have identi¤ed the stars of Scorpio as a scorpion, since the star pattern is not self-identifying. How did they see it? The clues that are suggested by the constellation itself are few: a ¤gure that is in the southern sky, seen primarily during the summer, with a bright red star, connected to the Path of Souls. Some tribal traditions identi¤ed Scorpio as a serpent, but the clues point to many more ethnographic references that are not speci¤c, but provide reason for inferring a serpent image. The evidence, when marshaled together, appears to make a strong case that Scorpio was seen as a serpent across eastern North America, and perhaps farther, and not as just any serpent, at that. This chapter presents an understanding of the spectacular constellation of the south as the Great Serpent, one of the major Powers of the ancient Native American cosmos.1 “The Great Serpent” is a name used here as a generic speci¤cation for the master of the Beneath World, a ¤gure who can take many guises. The artistic appearances or verbal descriptions of the master range through the ordinary water creatures (¤sh, turtles, snakes) to underwater panthers and horned serpents and on to monstrous combinations of traits of all of those ¤gures. The irony of all of the imagery is that a widespread understanding of the powerful ¤gure in relation to human beings is that he is invisible, being seen only by those to whom he grants the favor. As one ethnographer commented on the Ojibwa understanding, “These manitous often come upon earth and pass among the people; they are not always visible to the eyes of everybody” ( Jones 1911:214). More frequently, only their works are seen, and their presence is simply supplied by the common worldview. The Great Serpent thus should probably be thought of as a Power

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seen only by adepts in trance states or during other visionary experiences, and no particular image should be regarded as the “real” one. In regard to the ambiguity of form of the Beneath World powers, one ethnographer of the Ojibwa was careful to point out that “[m]y consultants extended the name [Mishebeshu, ‘Great Panther’] even further to include not only these great water dwelling lynxes but water serpents and monster ground snakes . . . To the Anishnaabeg [Ojibwa], Mishebeshu is at once a manitou and a class of manitouk, the ogimaa [‘boss’] of all underwater and underground creatures, and any of these creatures that might be termed extraordinary. He is not a person with a plurality of forms like Nanabush but a kind of ‘plural person’ who is met with in a complex of symbols and realities” (Smith 1995:97). Perhaps the most famous of the images of the Underwater Panther was encountered by Europeans in the Mississippi Valley. In the 16th to the early 19th centuries, on a sheer bluff high above the waters of the Mississippi River was a painting of a composite creature that was surely Mishebeshu. Fr. Hennepin took note of it and preserved the local legendary explanation: “There is a common tradition amongst that People, That a great number of Miamis were drown’d in that Place, being pursu’d by the Savages of Matsigamea; and since that time, the Savages going by the Rock, use to smoak, and offer Tobacco to those Beasts, to appease, as they say, the Manitou” (English 1922:154). Although the pictograph was gone by the end of the 19th century, its presence was noted by several observers and its name remembered: “Piasa.” That word derives from the Algonkian-speaking Illinois who are assumed to have occupied the area in late prehistoric times. Eyman described the Ojibwa ¤gure this way: “Michibichi, the Ojibwa Underwater Panther, was second in the hierarchy of deities. A curious combination of cougar, rattlesnake, deer and hawk, he is a central ¤gure in an Orpheus myth which explains the origin of death, of the hereafter, and of the Medicine Lodge” (Eyman 1962:33). The Underwater Panther form is a ¤gure that does not have universal distribution, and that makes it of special interest in determining its antiquity. It appears to be restricted to the central area of the continent. Howard, focusing on the Prairie Potawatomi, did a recent study of this mythological beast and commented that “I have personally secured descriptions of the creature from Arikara, Eastern Dakota, Middle Dakota, Delaware, Fox, Mandan/Hidatsa, Ojibwa,

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Omaha, Plains-Ojibwa, and Ponca informants” (Howard 1960:217). To his listing should be added the Winnebago, the Illinois, the Miami, the Shawnee, the Iroquois, the Creeks, and the Natchez (Schutz 1975; Swanton 1929). Eyman simply commented that the Piasa was “a major deity to Creeks, Iroquois, Delaware, Ojibwa, and many others” (Eyman 1962:35). This distribution links the Underwater Panther to the Central Algonkian and Siouans, with marginal extensions to the Iroquois and the Muskhogeans. It thus appears reasonable to see the particular form of the Underwater Panther as historically related to the tribes in the heartland, especially the Central Algonkian, but only as a subgroup of the larger category of the Great Serpent. In other areas of the Eastern Woodlands the Great Serpent is known primarily in its form as a horned serpent. The Central Algonkian also share the vision of the water serpent, despite their emphasis on the Underwater Panther. One serpent form seems to be a way of referring to a speci¤c functional aspect of the Underwater powers. According to the Fox, in the south is a directional manitou, Cawana, which is understood to be a great serpent, part of the Underworld manitouk ( Jones 1939:16). Among the Sauk, “Shawa’natasiu is the manitu of the south . . . He is personi¤ed as a great serpent, and was desired as a dream guardian” (Skinner 1923a:34–36). The Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee called the Great Serpent the Uktena: “In ancient times there lived great snakes, glittering as the sun, and having two horns on the head. To see one of these snakes was certain death. They possessed such power of fascination, that whoever tried to make his escape, ran toward the snake and was devoured. Only great hunters who had made medicine especially for this purpose could kill these snakes. It was always necessary to shoot them in the seventh stripe of their skins” (ten Kate 1889:55). Ultimately, the complexities of ritual and myth dealing with the Horned Water Serpent make it quite clear that it is a major ¤gure in the religious and cosmological understanding of the Woodlands and Plains. The problem of the variations in the ways of imaging the Great Serpent is greatly augmented by the dif¤culty of separating the Underwater Panther and Horned Water Serpent. Figure 10.2 charts the list, probably incomplete, of peoples expressing belief in the two major forms of the Great Serpent, with the overlap of belief in both. Although Western eyes might readily identify the two creatures as quite different species, the Native view, rooted in shape-shifting and symbolic imagery, seems to ¤nd much less distinction between the two. It appears, in fact, that the two quite different images of Panther and Serpent would be better envisioned as the two ends of a pole, with various combinations and variations between the extremes. As might be expected from the wide distribution and variation of myths and beliefs, the Great Serpent was a well-known ¤gure throughout the Native American world. As the master of the Beneath World, he is the representative and

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Figure 10.2. Distribution of belief in the two major forms of the Great Serpent.

“ruler” of half of the cosmos. The narratives about the Great Serpent come from virtually every tribal group, and they range in genre from contemporary legends about recent appearances to a set of well-recognized myths. Although this material has been surveyed at length in an earlier study (Lankford 2007b), a brief summary is needed here to aid in understanding the importance of this ¤gure. When that has been done, we will return to exploring the connection between the Great Serpent of the Beneath World and the constellation in the southern sky.

The Great Serpent in Myth There are many myths and historical legends about the Beneath World powers, but the most widespread are seven different myths or mythic motifs that detail the knowledge humans possess about the Beneath World powers. Here are brief sketches of the seven plots, all of which are widely known. Thunderbirds versus Horned Water Serpents The fundamental opposition between the Above World and the Beneath World is expressed most graphically in the stories that revolve around physical con®ict

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between the Thunders (usually in bird form in these myths) and the Horned Water Serpent. Humans regarded the con®ict as similar to war. George Dorsey was told this story: Long ago, the Tetons encamped by a deep lake, whose shore was inclosed by very high cliffs. They noticed that at night, even when there was no breeze, the water in the middle of the lake was constantly roaring. When one gazed in that direction he saw a huge eye as bright as the sun, which caused him to vomit something resembling black earth moistened with water, and death soon followed. That very night the Thunderers came, and the crashing sounds were so terrible that many people fainted. The next morning the shore was covered with the bodies of all kinds of ¤sh, some of which were larger than men, and there were also some huge serpents. The water monster which the Thunderers fought resembled a rattlesnake, but he had short legs and rusty-yellow fur. [Dorsey 1889:136] Both powers can shoot lightning at the other according to some informants, but the Horned Water Serpent can crush the Thunderbird in its coils, while the Thunderbird can seize a serpent in its talons and take it into the sky, tearing it to pieces and dropping it. Since the enmity between the two polar powers, like the cosmology in general, places humans at the point of intersection, myths sometimes express the tension of life in the Middle World, caught between major powers at war. In some texts a human is begged by both combatants to take sides and assist. An orphan was walking about shooting arrows. One day he came to the lower end of a creek where the water was deep and heard a noise like thunder. Looking closely he discovered a Tie-snake [the Creek name for the Horned Water Serpent] and the Thunder-being ¤ghting, and when they saw him both asked him to help them. The Tie-snake spoke ¤rst, saying, “My friend, help me, and I will tell you what I have learned.” The boy was about to aim at his antagonist when the Thunder said, “Don’t shoot me. Kill the Tie-snake. There is a spot under his throat and it is there that his heart is. If you shoot him there you will kill him.” Upon hearing this the boy aimed at the white spot and killed the Tie-snake. In this way he obtained all of the Thunder’s power, but the Thunder told him not to tell anyone where he was getting it. [Swanton 1929:7–8] The story continues, but the point is made—humans can receive power from either of these Powers, and the process may entail a choice of allegiance. The Muskogee myths balance this myth by another in which a human is befriended by a Tie Snake and receives war-powers (Swanton 1929:34–36).

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Even terrestrial snakes are related to the Horned Water Serpent complex, and they may also attract unwanted attention from the Thunders. Thus some tribes found snakes dangerous, sacred or not, because of the ongoing cosmic war: “Snakes are called Manitu’wuk, or Spirits, by the Potawatomi, as by the Sauk. They are not desired about the lodge, as lightning often strikes places where they lurk. If seen they are offered tobacco, and driven or coaxed away with prayers for good luck” (Skinner 1923b:48). On the other hand, one of the etiological beliefs related to the Horned Water Serpent is that the eternal struggle, which results in the presence of the storm powers, can mean desirable rain. Thus humans have developed some ways in which they can turn that ¤ght to their advantage. Among the Ojibwa, “killing frogs and snakes is said to bring on a storm, especially if one lays the snake on its back, thus exposing its belly both as a taunting gesture and as a tempting morsel for the Thunderbirds” (Smith 1995:138). Whale Boat (R245) The curious name of this motif comes from the historical fact that Franz Boas ¤rst identi¤ed the plot in his studies of myths of the Northwest, where the whale is the major water ¤gure. The name has stuck, even though it does not accurately describe the Eastern mythic ¤gure. The basic plot is simple: the hero needs to cross a body of water, so he asks the Horned Water Serpent to give him a ride. The human comes prepared with food, whether corn-balls, dead birds, or pieces of his own ®esh, and he feeds the Horned Water Serpent at intervals to keep it moving across the water. He barely makes the shore and leaps off, when (in many versions) a thunderbolt from the sky strikes and kills the helpful serpent. In both a Koasati and a Natchez version of the “whale boat” episode, the hero takes advantage of the journey to saw off one of the horns, re®ecting the belief in the medicine power of that substance (Swanton 1929: Koasati #13, Natchez #9; there is another Koasati text of the same story [#12], and the Alabamas have a variant [#12]). The myth is of fairly widespread distribution, being found among both eastern (Naskapi, Micmac, Malecite, Passamaquoddy) and western (Kickapoo, Ojibwa) Algonkian peoples, as well as among the Huron, Arikara, and Dakota (Thompson 1929:329n179). This list from Thompson is not exhaustive, for the Mandan/Hidatsa and the Chitimacha ought to be added, as well as the Koasati, Alabama, and Natchez, whose texts are mentioned above (Beckwith 1938; Bowers 1950; Swanton 1907) (see Figure 10.3). In a Mandan myth, Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies told the Twins to call a serpent to take them across the river: You will see the waves moving, and a large snake with a single horn will come out of the deep water. When he reaches the shore, tell him he is not

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Figure 10.3. Distribution of the Whale Boat myth.

the one you want. Call again, and there will be another snake with two forked horns but send him back, also, for he is not the one either. A third one will come out, and you will see a growth of young willows and small cottonwoods between his two horns. Tell him he is not the one you want either. Call “Grandfather” again, and there will be large waves along the shore. The last snake will have long horns with cottonwood, willows, grass, and sage growing all over his head. [Bowers 1950:263] Horned Water Serpent Killed from Within (K952) Another episode tells of the swallowing of the hero after a great many other people have been devoured. Inside the serpent, he ¤nds many dead but some still alive. He retains a weapon of some type, in some cases only a ®int chip, with which he is able to slice and destroy the serpent’s internal organs. When the heart is cut apart, the serpent dies, and the hero is able to cut a hole in its side, through which the survivors escape. Even more than the preceding myth, this episode has extremely widespread distribution. Although the nature of the monster changes from group to group, the plot is found from the Eskimo throughout North America. In the Eastern

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Woodlands and Plains, the monster is usually the Horned Water Serpent, and the episode is found among the Siouans, Caddoans, and Central Algonkian, with marginal representation among the Southwestern Hopi and Navaho and the Southeastern Cherokee (Thompson 1929:321n159). Journey to the Underwater Lodge Since the Horned Water Serpent is a powerful creature who grants power to humans, legends of the shamanistic journey are to be expected, and the myth collections do not disappoint. Whether a society practiced a universal vision quest or simply reserved the quest for the few courageous religious specialists, they would want to have a model for the encounter between the human and the Horned Water Serpent. Such tales are found throughout the Woodlands, usually posing just as a simple legend of a man’s peculiar adventure. A Micmac text included a transformation, and the evaluation of the experience was apparently negative, so the power was not universally acclaimed: “A man went to a Tcipitckaam lodge underwater and began to change into one. A medicineman brought him back: ‘With a wooden knife the medicineman cut off the creature’s head, and removed the entire body of the man . . . If he had stayed there another day, it would not have been possible for him to come back’ ” (Wallis and Wallis 1955:346). Others, however, did not see the transference of power negatively, and the myth serves as a charter for shamans who would use power from the Horned Water Serpent. The plot tells of the journey of a young man to the underwater lodge of the water serpents, where he is befriended. After he passes some tests of courage and strength of will, he is granted power and taught the appropriate lore before being sent back to his people. The legend is widespread in the Southeast, where it is found among the Creeks, the Hitchiti, the Alabama, the Cherokees, and in fragmentary form among the Biloxi (Dorsey and Swanton 1912: #18; Mooney 1900: #73, #83, #85, #87; Swanton 1929: Creek #28, Hitchiti #18, Alabama #29). As one of the great cosmic powers, the Great Serpent is a source of power, for good or ill, in human life. It relates directly to the world of humans in wielding power and being willing to give it to people—especially power in hunting, love, and curing illness. Those blessings were sought by the daring who wished to establish a vision relationship with the Great Serpent. As the Potawatomi said, “When one appears to a man he will become a great warrior” (Skinner 1923b:47– 48). Among the Sauk, “he is personi¤ed as a great serpent, and was desired as a dream guardian” (Skinner 1923a:34–36). If the relationship could be established, the blessings were received in the form of objects. The metaphorical conception is that the Great Serpent bestows power as gifts of his own body. The three major

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forms the gifts take are horns, bones, and scales (which were considered manifest in this world as shells or copper). Pieces of the fabled multicolored horns are understood to be an important part of the medicine bag of healers throughout the Woodlands. There are many myths that include the detail of the sawing or breaking off of part of the powerful horn for use in medicine, but other parts of the body will also serve. In one reference the gift is not the horn itself but a red object that becomes in human magical practice powdered vermilion (ochre?). An Ojibwa text collected by Kohl tells of an encounter between a human and an underwater manitou: “ ‘Dost thou see,’ the snake said, ‘what I wear on my head, between my horns? Take it: it will serve thee. But one of thy children must be mine in return for it.’ The Indian saw between the horns of the water-king something red, like a ¤ery ®ower. He stretched out his trembling hand and seized it. It melted away in his ¤nger into a powder, like the vermilion with which the Indians paint their faces. He collected it in a piece of birch bark, and the serpent then gave him further instructions” (Kohl, quoted in Smith 1995:109–10). Schutz concluded that the water manitou ¤lls the role among the Shawnee of explaining the origin of certain medicine and bundles. He offers references to the shamanistic tradition associated with the killing of the Underwater powers: “As early as 1648 the Huron received amulets from the Algonquians . . . Ragueneau said these were called onniont and were a certain kind of charm of great virtue— a sort of a serpent of almost the same shape of an armored ¤sh which pierces everything it meets and hence was called Oky par excellence. Those who killed it or obtained a piece of it brought good fortune on themselves” (Schutz 1975: 163–64). The key characteristic of the horn is its power, usually expressed in the use of pieces of it in healing and other forms of magic. Swanton noted that “[t]he old Creeks sometimes got hold of the horns of this snake, and they were broken up into very minute fragments and distributed among the hunters of the Creek nation. These fragments are red and look like red sealing wax” (Swanton 1928a:494). Intimately related to this function of furnishing to humans sources of power is what may be historically the most important locus of all, the Midé Society of the Central Algonkian. In their view, the Great Serpent did not freely give these medicine powers to humans; he was highly dangerous to people and not especially sympathetic to them. There are indications that the outcome from a human attempt to gain power from the sky layers was more likely to be successful than a similar attempt to join in partnership with the Mishebeshu. As Smith put it, “Mishebeshu could be courted by shamans eager to share in his great power, but such alliances with the monster carried great risks for human beings” (Smith

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1995:109). Possibly because it was considered such a mark of achievement for human spirit travelers to be able to use the power of the Underwater Panther, the Midé Society claimed to harness that power to all other powers to produce a major focus of cosmic force. In the basic Central Algonkian myth, Manabozho’s brother Wolf was killed by the Underwater Panthers. That ¤rst death had two general outcomes. The majority of the local versions tell of Manabozho’s revenge on the water manitous in which he killed several of them through a deception at the water’s edge and an impersonation of a doctor, with the Flood as the Underwater Panthers’ response. A few of the myths, however, insert a special episode in which the manitous effect a reconciliation with the disconsolate Manabozho by sharing their medicine powers, in effect creating the Medicine Lodge; this event is found among the Potawatomi, Sauk, Ojibwa, and Menomini. One example of the episode concludes, “Thus, by pooling their supernatural knowledge, all of the gods compiled the mythology and the rituals of the Medicine Lodge. The most ancient of the gods, those underwater, provided most of the knowledge and most of the ritual forms. Wolf was released, and was the ¤rst ‘to go home by a road that he had never before traveled.’ The rites and the lore of the Midewiwin have ever since been taught and practiced, to give men the power of dealing with death” (Eyman 1962:35). Eyman noted generally that in the western Great Lakes area, the Great Serpent/Panther “was the major subterranean deity and played central roles in the mythology of the Midewiwin, the Grand Medicine Lodge” (Eyman 1962:33), and Howard observed that “among the Ojibwa and Potawatomi the monster is especially venerated by the members of the Midéwiwin or Grand Medicine society” (Howard 1960:218). That linkage simply makes clear what was implicit in the majority versions—that the Underwater Panther is closely associated with the Midéwiwin, as source of power or even as mythic founder. While Schutz saw a negative or ambivalent attitude toward the medicine from the underwater manitous in recent historic times, the version of the myth by the Shawnee Prophet, whose revitalization movement at the beginning of the 19th century demanded an abandonment of the ancient shamanistic practices, made the Underwater Panther the source of evil medicine. Schutz thought the identi¤cation of witchcraft with the Underwater powers goes back much further, but it is tempting to see the negative valuation as a more recent transformation of attitude toward the ancient respected medicine lodge (see Lankford n.d.). Killing of the Horned Water Serpent A variant of the journey to the underwater lodge is the myth of the attraction of the powerful serpents to the shore by human shamans, where the monster is killed and its body broken up for use in medicine. The result is the same as

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before, but the monster comes to the humans rather than the reverse. This myth is particularly characteristic of the Shawnee, where it was told as the origin of witchcraft. The story begins with the Turtle’s taking of some warriors into the water by means of their magical sticking to his shell; because they have been killed, the shamans of the tribe call forth the various water monsters, until ¤nally the culprit comes forth. He is killed and fragments of his body become the source of witchcraft medicine (Schutz 1975; truncated versions of the myth appear also among the Cheyenne, Dakota, and other Plains tribes; see Dorsey 1889:136; Gatschet 1889:68–69; Kroeber 1900:184). That outcome, however, is probably best understood as a historical re®ection of a negative attitude toward shamanism in general, for the same story is more frequently told to explain the origin of Horned Water Serpent medicine, regardless of the purposes for which it was used. Here is an outline of the same plot among the Creeks. The ancient Creek Indians believed in a miraculous horned snake, which at times appeared at the surface of water-holes, and whose horns, used as a war-physic, were prized higher than any other fetish within their knowledge. When the snake was seen in a blue hole ¤lled with deep water, the old men of the tribe sang their incantations, which brought the snake to the surface. They sang again, and it emerged a little from the moving waves. When they sang for the third time, it came ashore and showed its horns, and they sawed one off; again they sang, and it emerged for the fourth time, when they sawed off the other horn. Fragments of the horns were carried along in the warriors’ shot pouches on their expeditions, and the song lines of the horned-snake referred to all the manipulations connected with the capture of the snake’s horns or tchito yabi. [Gatschet 1899:259] A slightly different version was found among the Yuchi, where it appears to be a major cosmological myth. It begins with the primeval water of the Earth-Diver myth, but it includes an episode of the killing of a water serpent—even decapitation does not destroy him, until the head is placed on top of a cedar tree: “The cedar was alive, but covered with blood, which had trickled down from the head. Thus the Great Medicine was found” (Swanton 1929: Creek #90). Snake Paramour (B613.1) A classic way of portraying the close relationship of humans and powerful others is to tell of a marriage (or mating) between a human (usually a woman) and a member of the other species. The Horned Water Serpent tradition is no different, and there are widespread versions of the basic concept. In some the marriage is

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broken up and the woman restored to the people, and in others the marriage is stronger and the people are punished for trying to oppose it (see Thompson 1929:341nn228, 228a, 341–42n231, 342n235, and 350n262 for a sample of the possibilities). This myth is also found as the story of the marriage of a woman with an Underwater Panther in the Southeast. The Muskogee used both snake-man and water-panther-husband myths as introductions to the legend of the Coosa ®ood; in this case they appear to function as allomotifs. Similar texts, but with the serpent form as the primary image of the water husband, are found among the Iroquois, Menomini, Zuni, Hopi, Tunica, and Caddo (see Wycoco 1951: #571, and Thompson 1929:343–44nn238 and 239 for references). Man Who Became a Snake Another very widely known myth is the story of two men who disagree on the wisdom of eating some unusual food. The one who eats it undergoes a transformation into a water serpent, and he becomes a protector of the tribe from his position as a guardian of a pool that magically expands into a lake. The myth is known in several variants throughout the Plains and Eastern Woodlands. Even the Micmac of the far Northeast have a variant of it, for a boy (identi¤ed as Gluskap in one text) gets a horn rooted on his head, and he is freed from it only after his sister undergoes several adventures (Parsons 1925:62). The basic myth of the snake-man, however, is strongest in the Southeast, where 10 texts were collected from the Creeks alone. The same story is found even in Central America, and the myth is best understood as yet another account of how close relationships between humans and the Horned Water Serpent came about.2 Each of these seven myth types displays a range of variation, as is to be expected with stories about one of the ancient divinities of North America who is known almost universally across the continent. The stories describe the guises of the Great Serpent, the ways in which humans meet that Power, the different powers wielded by the Great Serpent, and the possibilities for humans in dealing with the master of the Beneath World. Implicit in these descriptions of the Great Serpent is a set of clear roles. It is above all the guardian of the waters and, by extension, all that is beneath the surface of the earth. All groundwater is apparently understood as connected, so that inhabitants of lakes and rivers are also in communication with those who live in the sea; it is, in effect, a single race of manitous that governs the waters. Just as each animal species has a chief, the Great Serpent is the leader of the various races that live in the water, or even, to use Smith’s (1995:97) provocative phrase, the “plural person” who represents all the powers of the Beneath World. Since the earth is but a disk ®oating in the water, however, “the waters” is a shorthand way of referring to the lower

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half of the cosmos. Any deed done by a water manitou is thus the work of the Great Serpent as one of the major cosmic powers. One deed of great signi¤cance to humans is the protection of the water, which is frequently violent; most drownings of humans and animals were (and in some cases, still are) attributed to the Great Serpent. The Potawatomi are illustrative. They called the Piasa “Nampe’shiu,” and they were precise as to the manitou’s activities: “There is also an evil power in the water, who possesses the ability to pass through the earth as well as its natural element. This is the great horned Water-panther, called Nampe’shiu, or Nampeshi’kw. It is at constant war with the Thunderbirds. When one appears to a man he will become a great warrior. Such panthers maliciously drown people, who are afterwards found with mud in their mouths, eyes, and ears. One of these lived at Mana’wa, now Milwaukee, and sucked people in. The name Mana’wa refers to its den” (Skinner 1923b:47–48). Most of the references to the Tie Snake in the literature from the Muskogee portray it as an objective danger associated with the rivers, and as a legendary ¤gure it serves an etiological function—the Tie Snake is responsible for drownings and vanished animals and people (see Swanton 1929: Natchez #16, Hitchiti #16; Lankford 1987:88–91). It is to the Great Serpent as guardian that tobacco is offered at the outset of a journey on water, a nearly universal practice in the Eastern Woodlands. Moreover, hidden behind these myths, but rarely articulated, is the fact that for many people in the Woodlands and Plains, the Great Serpent—in whatever guise—was the founder of the Medicine Lodge. The Great Serpent was therefore a permanent presence in the midst of community life, an inescapable ¤gure for every human being’s life decisions, as well as the death journey.

The Great Serpent in the Sky Mooney recorded several Cherokee myths about the Uktena, the horned serpent whose jewel in the head provided powerful medicine for anyone who was able to get a piece of it (Mooney 1900:252–54, 297–300, 458–61; see Hudson 1978). The Uktena was described in a way that made its connection with the Great Serpent very likely, but it was also consistently located on the earth. There was a single reference that indicates otherwise, however. In the Cherokee version of the Orpheus myth, “the Uktena grew angrier all the time and very dangerous, so that if he even looked at a man, that man’s family would die. After a long time the people held a council and decided that he was too dangerous to be with them, so they sent him up to Galun’lati [the sky], and he is there now” (Mooney 1900:253). The Great Serpent is, surprisingly, connected in some way with the celestial world. This surmise is supported by a curious Chickasaw note: “Another big snake

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was called nickin-¤tcik (“eye-star”) because it had a single eye in the middle of its forehead. If anything passed in front of its lair the snake would catch it, but none have been seen in the western country” (Swanton 1928b:252). That this snake is cognate to the Uktena with its jewel seems clear, but why is it named “eye-star”? The simple answer, albeit speculative, is that it enshrines an understanding no longer current among the Chickasaw, that there is a Great Serpent in the sky characterized by a bright “eye” star. Scorpio has an important star in it, the bright red star Antares, located in the approximate position of the head of the creature. The Chickasaw “eye-star” may be a reference to Antares, and the Uktena’s jewel may be the same. It is signi¤cant that one of the characteristics of the Great Serpent is that it bears upon its head “something red” that became an important ritual ingredient in Algonkian life (recall the Ojibwa text recorded by Kohl, quoted above). If a connection can be made between the Beneath World manitou and the celestial ¤gure of the southern sky, then the red object may be seen as cognate with Antares. The Caddoan-speaking Pawnee, especially the Skidi, are generally recognized as the most astronomically oriented people north of Mexico. In his analysis of the ethnographic information about Pawnee ethnoastronomy Chamberlain (1982) ventured an identi¤cation of most of the stars and constellations mentioned in the material. The location of the Serpent is not in question, being universally agreed upon by all informants and interpreters—it is Scorpio: “Antares . . . has been identi¤ed as the head of the serpent in Skidi constellation lore” (Chamberlain 1982:82). Fletcher had little doubt, as Chamberlain related: “Fletcher . . . quoted Running Scout and said that ‘the old man told me to look to the southeast and see a bright star. This is the head of the snake which is coming up; the snake has many little stars for its body.’ In her published paper Fletcher (1903:15) added that the body of the Snake lies close to the horizon . . . The Skidi Snake outline probably began with Theta Scorpii at the end of the tail and Antares at the head” (Chamberlain 1982:132). The location of the Serpent, and therefore Antares, thus seems clear, even though Chamberlain, persuaded by the redness of Antares, speculated that it was also the red world-quarter star of the southeast (Chamberlain 1982:101). The Pawnee identi¤cation of Scorpio and Antares as the Serpent and his red eye points to an ethnoastronomical belief complex that cut across tribal and linguistic lines.

A Curious Taboo This celestial meaning of the Great Serpent is rati¤ed from an unexpected direction. It has been noted that there is a seasonal aspect to the presence of Scorpio

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in the sky. The Great Serpent (Scorpio) disappears for the winter. This natural phenomenon helps explain the widespread taboo on the telling of myths about the Beneath World powers during the summer. The explanation that is usually given is that the master of the serpents can overhear any disrespect during those months and will communicate his displeasure to his representatives who are nearby the erring humans, with dangerous results. A century ago scholars were intrigued by the taboo; they were able to point it out but were unable to offer an explanation. A. F. Chamberlain gathered some of the data: With not a few primitive peoples there exists a taboo of tale-telling in summer. The Ojibwa and certain other Algonkian tribes of the Great Lakes . . . give as a reason for not telling the “tales of the fathers” in summer, that “frogs and other disagreeable things would enter into the camp” . . . Concerning the Winnebago Indians, Mrs. F. D. Bergen . . . observes:— “The old people do not like to tell their stories after the spring opens. The children are told that they would see snakes if they should listen to tales during warm weather.” Among the Omaha Indians . . . there is “a superstition which prevents the telling stories in the summer season, as the snakes may hear and do mischief ” . . . Rev. J. Owen Dorsey . . . tells us: “Myths must not be told during the day, nor in summer, as violation of this rule will cause snakes to come.” [Chamberlain 1900:146–47] A century later the taboo still exists among the Ojibwa, and Smith has offered a slightly different explanation, which, however, is not mutually exclusive: “Since to speak someone’s name was to conjure that person, one had to be very careful not to invite an unwanted presence. While this proscription has been relaxed on Manitoulin, consultants often declined to mention Mishebeshu by name during our summer talks. They most often referred to him as ‘that monster,’ ‘the big snake’ ” (Smith 1995:52). Provocative as these notes are, it is again evidence from the Pawnee that completes the picture and connects the traditional taboos ¤rmly with the annual appearance of the Great Serpent in the southern sky. For them, also, the Serpent provided an explanation for a widespread taboo on the telling of certain myths during the summer. As Dorsey explained, “[Coyote] tales are not told during the summer months, for it is supposed that the tutelary god or star of the snake is in direct communication with the star of Coyote, for during these months the Coyote Star is early visible in the eastern horizon, and, not liking to be talked about, directs the Snake-Star to tell the snakes of those who talked about him that they may bite them” (Dorsey 1904c:xxii–xxiii; cf. Welt¤sh 1977:277–78; Chamberlain 1900; Lankford 1987:49–50).

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This ethnographic note from the Pawnee seems to clarify the puzzle. When the Great Serpent (“Snake-Star”) is in the sky, it is dangerous to run the risk of offending the Powers by telling their stories, because the Serpent will send the snakes to punish them. By the same token, the Great Serpent disappears for the winter. This natural phenomenon helps explain the general scheduling of mythtelling during the cold months. During that time the master of the serpents can no longer overhear the conversations of humankind. The conclusions from these varied considerations are fairly simple. To the eyes of an outsider, the many references to water panthers, horned water serpents, and other water creatures appear to point to a multiplicity of imaginative ¤gures. When the evidence is brought together, however, it becomes clear that a single well-known ¤gure—a “plural person”—is the reference. The fact that people of different ritual organization, different languages, and different social and economic structure all appear to have known the Great Serpent, by whatever name, argues for a widespread religious pattern more powerful than the tendency toward cultural diversity. The evidence suggests further that there was a common ethnoastronomy, at least in regard to the Great Serpent, and a common mythology that referred to that fundamental Power known to everyone in eastern North America up to recent times. Such a multicultural reality hints provocatively at more common knowledge that lay behind the façade of cultural diversity united by international trade networks. The Great Serpent, though master of the Beneath World, is nonetheless sometimes in the Above World, and his location at the foot of the Milky Way makes him the guardian of the entry into the Realm of Souls. His presence in the Middle World is assured by his patronage of the Medicine Lodge. Thus the Great Serpent is a ¤gure that is present in all levels of the cosmos—a permanent part of the life of humans.

11

Some Ethnoastronomical Insights

The preceding chapters have been long and tedious. That is the necessary outcome of any search for type and oicotype groupings when the examination must begin with the texts themselves. The reader may justi¤ably feel overwhelmed with the ®ood of plots and variations, because it is a simple fact that human minds cannot maintain awareness of so many variables simultaneously. However, it is possible to build up the mass of details into generalizations about the distribution of myths, and that has been the goal of the previous chapters. This ¤nal chapter has as its task the synthesis of what has been found in the preceding explorations of beliefs and narratives about celestial phenomena. The ¤rst step is to summarize the ¤ndings of Chapters 2 through 10, a process that will also be a helpful review of the ¤elds that have been traversed in this study. When that has been accomplished, then perhaps some patterns will have emerged and concluding generalizations and hypotheses can be offered.

Clusters Chapter 2: The Star Husband Although the myth of the Star Husband is very widely distributed across North America, some clear oicotypal groups are de¤nable. The “Animal Tricksters” group is a northern one, including the Micmac, Passamaquoddy, Ojibwa, Assiniboine, Cree, Ts’ets’aut, Tahltan, Carrier, and Kaska. Distinctly separate from that group is the largely Plains cluster telling the Porcupine/Star Boy version of the Star Husband: Gros Ventre, Crow, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Blackfoot, Hidatsa, Dakota, Arikara, and Pawnee. There may be other oicotypes, but their

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ambiguities make it safer to let them remain unde¤ned (see Figure 2.3 for Star Husband oicotypes). Chapters 3 and 4: The Morning Stars In turning to the famous “Morning Star” myths, we found that what had seemed a simple examination of a limited distribution was in fact a complex mass of material with different myths, different concepts, and even different asterisms. By continuing the examination of the Star Husband oicotype of the Porcupine/ Star Boy, we found a subgroup of peoples who thought of the Star Boy as the Morning Star. These peoples were largely the Plains Village groups—Mandan, Hidatsa, Crow, Arikara, and possibly Blackfoot. The Cosmogram type was not as clearly delineated, since the information was more based in ritual and belief than myths, but the distribution appeared to be con¤ned to the other Plains Siouans and Caddoans—Pawnee, Wichita, Caddo, Osage, Kansa (?), and Ponca/ Omaha (?). The Decapitated Hero myth as a Morning Star etiology, which proved to be complex indeed, could not be found outside of the local distribution of Winnebago, Iowa, and Dakota, and even there the Morning Star connection is ambiguous. The Southwestern tradition of the Morning Star as symbol of the Twins was found in the Pueblo, Navaho, and Apache beliefs, but it may have extended more widely in the Southwest (see Figure 3.4 for Morning Star mythic clusters). Chapter 5: Ursa Major Examination of the polar stars produced four clear types. The “Celestial Hunt” group is extremely large, and despite its inclusion of some Southwestern peoples, it seems a truly circumpolar type, being found in northern Asia. Moreover, while the animal hunted is not universal (bear, elk, and others), the Celestial Hunt may be the mythic background that produced the Greek tradition of the “Great Bear” that is still the Western name of the constellation. Although such a large-scale examination is far beyond the limits of this study, the possibility of an ancient myth encompassing the northern hemisphere is a provocative thought. That possibility also highlights the fact that in North America the variation begins as the focus moves south from the polar region. The “Brothers and Sister” myth type is a somewhat messy grouping in the Plains, exhibiting signi¤cant variations from tribe to tribe. Even so, it is clear that the overall myth is quite different from the Celestial Hunt. A smaller group in the Plains believed in yet another distinctive way of envisioning Ursa Major. In their view, the four stars of the quadrilateral formed a bier on which a sick or dead person was carried, followed by the companions in procession. Although an Iroquois Celestial Hunt text also included the carrying of one of the hunters on a stretcher, the “Bier” belief seems restricted to the Plains, with a possible expression of it in Caddoan and Natchez

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ritual tradition. Finally, some Muskhogean-speaking peoples of the Southeast saw a boat in Ursa Major, but no de¤nitive myths about it seem to have survived, and only linguistic evidence remains (see Figure 5.6 for Ursa Major myth types). Chapter 6: The Star Cluster The examination of the myths about the Pleiades produced a signi¤cant number of examples, as might be expected for so functional an asterism. Its easy recognition in the sky, coupled with its ability to mark various important points in the agricultural growing season, should produce an almost universal representation among tribal peoples. It is thus perplexing that there are signi¤cant omissions. As the map (Figure 6.4) shows, a small cluster of Plains peoples using variations of the Brothers and Sister myth are surrounded by a widespread myth of the “Dancing Children.” Although the preliminary examination of the corpus showed variations in emphasis, such as denial of food versus holiness, those differences seem too slight to place much weight on. Thus the Dancing Children is treated simply as a single myth type in the mapping, with no attempt to delineate oicotypes. The major omission is clear from the map: the Central Algonkian peoples are missing. That may be an error in the original ethnographic process, or it may be a failure in the gathering of materials for this study. Whatever the reason, the Pleiades myths are missing for those peoples in the center, and they surely existed. It seems likely that they were also part of the Dancing Children type, since the northeastern Algonkians participated in it and since the Plains type is a pattern that confuses Ursa Major and the Pleiades in the etiology of the Brothers and Sister myth. However, it may be that the Central Algonkians as a group, under the in®uence of the shamanic practice of the shaking tent, shifted to the identi¤cation of the Pleiades as the portal known from the “Woman Who Fell from the Sky” myth. If that is the case, then Conway’s (1992) testimony to that belief for the Ojibwa is a lone indicator of a more widespread additional etiology for the Pleiades. But silence is silence, and we can operate on the assumption that the Dancing Children was the primary Pleiades myth of the Eastern Woodlands only with a reservation about the gap in the distribution. It is important to note, however, that the same myth was collected from two South American tribes, and there may have been more examples in that area. Thus the Dancing Children appears to have been a widely distributed New World myth, rather than a local one. Further, the extensive pattern suggests great antiquity. Chapter 7: The Star Women The “Star Women” myth is an oicotype of the widely known “Swan Maiden” myth, but it is not clear whether it developed as a way of explaining a single

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constellation or as a general astronomical narrative. In analyzing the Alabama text, one scholar hypothesized that Ursa Major was the subject of the story, but the Shawnee version is identi¤ed as referring to Corona Borealis. It seems unlikely that the issue will be settled, for the tradition seems to have died early. The oicotype, however, remains for consideration, and it shows a curious distribution, ranging from the Iroquois to the Kuna of Panama (see Figure 7.2 for this distribution). Yet again, there is a hint of a trans-Caribbean connection. This oicotype featuring a group of women who land in a vehicle of some sort, a Swan Maiden without feathers, so to speak, ranges from the northern part of South America to the Southeast and to the Iroquois. Its absence elsewhere and its family relationship to the widespread northern type of the Swan Maiden suggest that it is a marker for a special grouping whose unusual history, unfortunately, cannot now be discerned. Chapter 8: The Milky Way The Western tradition has no serious place for the Milky Way in its astronomical system, and so there is no constellation name or story for it. By contrast, the Native American view of it as the Path of Souls seems very widespread. Other than the single Winnebago note about the Milky Way’s accidental creation in a diving contest, the only myth of the Milky Way’s origin is the seemingly whimsical etiological reference to a dog dropping corn meal across the sky. It may be that such a popular story was the standard story for children and that the more somber reference to the journey of the dead souls was reserved for ritual and adult usage. It seems signi¤cant that where the dog myth appears, in most cases there is also a reference to the Milky Way as the Path of Souls, with its more somber functions for dogs. The major myths connected with the Path of Souls are the “Orpheus” tradition and the closely related myth of the journey of a group of men to visit the sky world. Both of them give descriptions of the journey, with references to events and personages along the way that are probably symbols for particular asterisms. The continental pattern formed by the distribution of these myths is unusual, both in the thoroughness of the distribution and the striking absence of them in certain areas, such as the eastern Plains (see Figure 8.3). As we discovered in the examination, there are reasons to believe that the Orpheus tradition has functioned in recent centuries as a basic myth of revitalization movements such as the Ghost Dance. That is signi¤cant for analysis of the distribution pattern, because it means that there is a recent overlay of rapid migration and adoption of the Orpheus myth, a characteristic of revitalization religious movements. As a result, the evidence for a suspected mortuary cult movement in the Eastern Woodlands, one that could serve as an ancestral com-

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plex that developed into the Ghost Dance, would likely be submerged beneath the more recent diffusion. This explanation of the distribution pattern indicates that there is little use to be gained from the Milky Way beliefs as a way of charting smaller group clustering in prehistory. At the same time, however, it is a useful illustration of an important diffusion dynamic to which little attention has been paid—the role of revitalization movements in the distribution of myths and other cultural elements rapidly over large areas. Chapter 9: Orion With Orion, on the other hand, there is some helpful information about early clusters. Although the “Hand” constellation in its current distribution re®ects only a small group of tribes in the Plains, its role as a portal to the sky world suggests that there was formerly a more widespread participation in the concept. If, as hypothesized, the “rising and falling sky” motif is linked to the use of the Hand portal as the passage to the sky world, the distribution is much broader (see Figures 9.2 and 9.4). The dual clusters suggest a northern tradition focused on the Plains Village peoples and a more general Southeastern tradition of the dangers of the sky portal. If the two are related in a mortuary/cosmological common tradition, the distribution suggests a rooting in Mississippian times or earlier. If the hypothesis is correct that an important Southeastern Ceremonial Complex symbol re®ects the Hand constellation, then there is additional corroboration of the wider geographical extent of the tradition. Chapter 10: Scorpio The multiple mythic traditions about the Great Serpent as master of the Beneath World are so widespread and so indicative of the vital importance of that basic power in the general Native American religious cosmology that there seems no reason to doubt a great longevity for the belief complex. The evidence that the virtually universal belief was coterminous with the identi¤cation of the Great Serpent as a constellation in the southern sky is very weak, however. If the reasoning offered here is correct, there are some clues to the distribution of the belief that the Great Serpent was the constellation Scorpio: references to a serpent in the southern sky and the presence of a widespread taboo on myth-telling during the summer months when the constellation is visible in the night sky. It can only be a speculative extension of that pattern to argue that the development of mortuary beliefs in eastern North America included the Scorpio/ Great Serpent connection as part of the belief complex, but such a hypothesis would help explain archaeological manifestations of the serpent tradition in Mississippian times. Within that framework, it would not be unreasonable to see the

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mortuary astronomy discussed in Chapters 9, 10, and 11 as an emphasis of the Mississippian prehistoric era, with corresponding wider diffusion of those astronomical ideas during that period, even though they may have had greater antiquity. If that were the case, then the ethnoastronomy of the Great Serpent constellation might itself be considered a subtype within the larger mortuary belief complex (see Figure 10.2).

Patterns The most important question of this book awaits an answer. Do all of these distribution patterns of types and oicotypes make an overall image that reveals different astronomical traditions? In at least one respect, the answer is af¤rmative. Repeatedly through these chapters there has been a difference between the Eastern Woodlands and the Plains in the way in which the tribes explain and identify asterisms. Just from an impressionistic viewpoint, there seems to be a disjunction between the ethnoastronomy of the two areas. There is a more controlled way to get at the issue, though. If the various identi¤able beliefs and groupings are plotted in a table, it should be possible to identify any clusters embedded in the overall aggregation. Table 11.1 is a preliminary listing, with a number code used for the motifs and subtypes: 1. Ursa Major: Bear 2. Ursa Major: Elk 3. Orion: Falling Sky 4. Star Husband: Porcupine/Star Boy 5. Ursa Major: Brothers and Sister 6. Pleiades: Dancing Children 7. Star Husband: Animals 8. Ursa Major: Bier 9. Orion: Hand 10. Star Woman: Star 11. Morning Star: Star Boy 12. Morning Star: Cosmogram 13. Morning Star: Decapitated Hero 14. Pleiades: Brothers and Sister 15. Serpent: Taboo on Tale-telling 16. Morning Star: Children of the Sun 17. Star Woman: Swan Maiden 18. Path of Souls: Orpheus Although it would be possible to do a statistical analysis of these occurrences, producing mathematical demonstrations of the similarities and clusters, there is

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Table 11.1. Continued

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a more graphic way of producing the same conclusions. If the rows are shuf®ed so as to bring together the marked boxes, and if the columns are shifted so as to do the same thing, the result—if there are indeed real clusters embedded in the layout—should appear as a graphic pattern of similarities. That, in fact, is what does appear. Table 11.2 shows the result. What these two clusters reveal is that these groups of peoples shared more than one belief/myth about the stars. The diffusion of the astronomical information was not random, with each tribe just adopting a potpourri of ideas. It was diffusion within a circumscribed group of tribes, so that each of the two major clusters re®ects what might be termed a common ethnoastronomy. The result is a map of two different zones of belief, albeit with ambiguous borders. This is an important observation. Explaining it, however, is not a simple process. The simplest of all explanations would be that the two clusters developed in isolation through time, resulting in separate evolutionary sequences of belief. That does not work very well here, though, because of the known makeup of the Plains tribes. Many of them were immigrants into the Plains from the Eastern Woodlands, and they may be assumed to have carried with them Eastern traditions. Some of those peoples, particularly some Caddoan speakers and Siouan speakers, were participants in the Mississippian period cultural development of the Mississippi Valley/eastern Plains: mounds and plazas, maize agriculture, complex chiefdoms, iconographic art, and religious movements. These Mississippian in®uences have appeared in the ethnoastronomical analyses several times, and it is possible to speculate that the Cosmogram (Morning Star), Bier (Ursa Major), and the Hand (Orion) were Mississippian traditions. The late prehistoric advent of horse culture in the Plains increased mobility and the concomitant diffusion of lore, and there were other sources of information, such as the Southwest (e.g., the “Children of the Sun”), that probably became in®uential in the creation of a common belief sphere. The Eastern cluster, on the other hand, probably re®ects more stability through the same centuries and millennia. The developmental model constructed by archaeologists for the Eastern Woodlands shows relative locational permanence, with ®orescences, alterations, and collapses. The diffusion patterns involving the Eastern Woodlands, as these studies have shown several times, include Circumpolar and Caribbean traditions. It is hard to escape the unprovable conclusion that the Eastern Woodlands cluster contains older ethnoastronomical traditions than does the Plains cluster. In several of the astronomical traditions examined in this study, it is the Plains that appears to be the innovative area, over against the Eastern area with its resonance of Circumpolar and South American lore. To speak of these clusters in this way is to treat them as aggregates of peoples who shared a common belief system. The shared body of astronomical beliefs,

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Table 11.2. Continued

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of course, is what led to their identi¤cation as separate areas. But are they really belief systems? Do the individual constellations and their etiological myths comprise an interlocking body of related beliefs, or is the grouping only the result of the accidents of prehistory—a palimpsest of myths and beliefs diffused among the same peoples but having no inherent relationship to each other? Is there any sense in which these collections of beliefs can be thought of as a single corpus, one that could be transmitted as a unit? What kind of clusters are these ethnoastronomical groupings? There are reasons for thinking of them as palimpsests. Like ancient manuscripts on parchment, written as layers on top of each other through the years, these collections appear to be individual stories and beliefs that have been added to the tribal wisdom over time, and some of them replaced earlier myths and beliefs. One clue that this is the nature of these ethnoastronomies is that the patterns of distribution that have been produced by the study in each chapter cannot be overlaid upon each other with a perfect ¤t. While that may be due in some cases to problems in the collecting or preservation of the memories, in some tribes there are contradictory beliefs about a single constellation. The ethnoastronomies do not appear to have been incorporated and adopted as a unit, but as individual items, and they were probably transmitted the same way. Another clue lies in the omission of some parts of the ethnoastronomy in a tribal collection. The fact that omissions are possible suggests that single parts of the “system” were not essential. The tribal group could get along ¤ne without part of it in their beliefs. That observation leads to the conclusion that these ethnoastronomies do not constitute systems in any organic sense of the concept. Only in one area, the Milky Way as the Path of Souls, do we see even a hint of a system at work. The mortuary context of the belief requires that the story of the journey of the soul function reasonably well, and that means that travel on the Path must work at every stage. To get from the grave to the sky necessitates some sort of mechanism or portal. While allomotifs are available, along with alternate portals, the Path requires some such motif. The Hand constellation thus “belongs” with the Path in a special way, even though it might have a separate ritual function. The Great Serpent is not an essential part of the mortuary complex, but its location across the southern foot of the Milky Way increases the likelihood that it will be made part of the Path astronomical system in some way. The systemic connection of these beliefs is their use in mortuary belief and ritual, and thus they may be transmitted together as a unit as part of the mortuary complex. The other constellations and their stories do not appear to have such connections among them. The Pleiades, for example, is an asterism with no inherent connection to other constellations, not even the nearby Hyades. While those two constellations were brought together into the same mythic explanation in South

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America, that connection does not seem to have been made in North America. The lore of the Pleiades may be transmitted and adopted as an independent unit, and the same seems to be true with the other constellations examined in this study. In order to get several constellations tied together into a larger system, some unifying factor needs to be employed. Judging from the history of Western astronomy, what is missing in this aggregation of constellations and their myths is the zodiac. Many people are dismissive of the zodiac today, because of its connection with a discredited astrology. In the study of beliefs, however, it is extremely important, because it is a real phenomenon, not an invention. It is physically there in the night sky, but it is visible only to the eyes of people with special knowledge. A belief in the zodiac rests upon some crucial intellectual steps. First, the movements of the ¤ve visible planets must be observed enough to be distinguished from the stars because of their individualized movements across the sky. Second, there needs to be a category and language for dealing with the planets and their paths. Third, whether the ¤ve planets are linked with the sun and moon or not (producing the sacred Seven that led to the Old World’s seven gods and the seven-day week), the north-south changes in the rising and setting of the planets over time must be observed, which also implies that some form of recording of data must be available. Fourth, enough information about those strange movements of the Seven must be collected and synthesized that the invisible limits of the planetary movements can be plotted in the sky, at least in the mind’s eye. That invisible band, the “path” of the planets, is the zodiac. When a society takes the steps necessary to incorporate a zodiac into their belief system, it is a big step for their cultural development. Knowledge of the existence of a path for the planets, including the sun and moon, almost inevitably leads to the charting of the zodiac itself, the discovery of 12 or 13 constellations scattered around the band at roughly the same distance apart. It is then but one step to a celestial religion organized around the quite real movements of the various planets through the “houses” in the sky, each of which may become the focus of a myth to explain its qualities and powers. Despite the fact that such a zodiacal and planetary religion developed in Mesoamerica (Milbrath 1999:Chapter 7, passim), the lack of any evidence of a zodiac in the Eastern Woodlands and Plains is a powerful dissuasive argument in the ongoing debate over Mesoamerican in®uence to the north. If there had been a zodiac in the northern part of the continent, there would have been many more chapters in this book, because each of the zodiacal constellations would probably have had its myth. It should be noted, however, that all that can be claimed is that there is no evidence. Since today it is axiomatic that every generation of people has its geniuses, it is by no means impossible that the intellectual steps necessary for the recognition of a zodiac were taken multiple times by

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individuals whose insights were simply too advanced for incorporation into the societal lore. However, there remains the possibility that some enterprising student of intellectual history may yet recognize evidence of a zodiac coded in petroglyphs or pottery, much as Alexander Marshack (1972) found lunar tables scratched on Aurignacian bone. Even if that should occur, though, the lack of societal impact would leave the insight in the realm of the lone genius, and the discovery would be only a prehistoric curiosity. Why didn’t the Native Americans of the northern areas develop a zodiac, especially with such knowledge only a few hundred miles to the south? Archaeoastronomical studies have repeatedly shown that various groups over the northern areas invented or made use of the knowledge of how to construct observational techniques to read the solar calendar on the basis of the location of the sun’s rising, so part of the intellectual preparation was in place. As has been noted, Murie (1981) and Chamberlain (1982) have made it clear that at least the Pawnees knew a great deal about some of the planets, so some of the planetary underpinnings were also in place. Yet there is no sign of a zodiac. Why? A large part of the answer to that important question probably lies in the principle of intellectual pragmatism. As pointed out in the introductory chapter, there are far more stars and constellations than any society needs. The uses for celestial knowledge are fairly limited, especially in societies with low levels of technological complexity. An annual calendar is important for societies that need to predict accurate dates for planting or for the movements of animals, but once that knowledge is developed as a solar mechanism or a plan for interpreting the position of the Pleiades, there is no need to take the inquiry further. A society with a need to judge the time of night is likely to be satis¤ed with a simple knowledge of how to use the rotation of Ursa Major to do so. The ethnoastronomy that results from such pragmatic uses of celestial knowledge is fairly limited. The chapters in this book re®ect the major portion of the ethnoastronomy of the Plains and Eastern Woodlands, although there are other single stars and constellations referred to in the ethnographic literature. Those cases, however, are seldom found in large numbers and widely distributed; they seem more like local traditions rather than movements. We are left with the evidence of two clusters of similar beliefs regarding the constellations, and those seem not to re®ect integrated astronomical systems. If the body of myths and beliefs about the stars is not a single system, then it must be made up of separate items communicated and incorporated at different times. That leaves us with an important insight: the corpus of each cluster of ethnoastronomical belief must re®ect the history of transmission events in which those tribes participated. The two ethnoastronomies thus represent palimpsests whose history, unread, stands as a challenge for archaeologists. As has been noted in the analyses, there are a few of those events whose na-

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ture and dates can be hypothesized. An undated Eastern mortuary complex and its Orpheus myth was distributed anew all the way to the Far West in historic times as part of a revitalization movement, providing a recent palimpsest layer of unity regarding the Path of Souls. The cultural explosions of the Mississippian period can be discerned in some of the Plains astronomical developments, such as the Morning Star traditions and Star Boy, possibly rooted in the diffusion of the Sun Dance phenomenon. Other astronomical traditions, such as the Eastern myths with connections to northern Eurasia—the Celestial Hunt of Ursa Major is a prime example—may be descended from lore that came with the Beringian immigrants. The few South American connections that have been noted may be related to archaeological data such as the advent of pottery and early cultigens in North American sites. Beyond those broad strokes, the historical dimension of the palimpsest awaits interpretation. Such endeavors will inevitably take the form of speculative hypotheses, but they may prove to be useful approaches to prehistoric reconstruction— witness the work that has already been done, some of which has been discussed in this survey (Aveni 1975, 1977; Williamson and Farrer 1992; a parallel effort should also be noted from the realm of linguistic reconstruction: Rogers et al. 1990). Some avenues have been noted in passing, such as the concept of portals. Three have been listed without pursuit—the Orion/Hand portal, the possible belief in Polaris as a portal by the Delaware and others, and the recognition of the Pleiades as a shamanistic portal by the Central Algonkians. Since there is no place for the concept in scienti¤c astronomy, the search for portals in the ethnographic literature is an appropriate one for students of ethnoastronomy. There are likely to be other portals that have not heretofore been recognized as such, and they can be doorways into unknown chapters of Native American astronomy. Discoveries may await researchers in the etiological tags that were placed at the end of myths collected long ago. In this study there have been several illustrations of the enduring validity of the warning of T. T. Waterman (1914) about etiology. In the study of the Ursa Major traditions alone there are examples of true etiological myths (the Celestial Hunt) and preexisting narratives to which etiological tags have been applied, such as the Brothers and Sister myths of the Plains. The Star Boy variations and etiological tags have proved to be of great importance in interpreting the uses of the myth for astronomical lore. Waterman’s warning should alert the interpreters of myth, reminding us of the importance of collecting all available narrations of a single type for comparison, rather than focusing on single texts. His alert, however, may also sensitize us to the importance of the information included in the etiological tag and its diffusion and provide another way of looking at the narratives. The tag, once attached to a myth, may become a reason for its diffusion. As this present survey comes to an end, I cannot pass up the opportunity to

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point out another highly speculative line of research that I think should be undertaken. In this survey little has been said about some peculiarities of ethnoastronomy that have been found in the Plains area, largely because the focus has been on the widespread beliefs, not the unique. There are some phenomena that need explanation, however. The most obvious is the peculiar astronomical emphasis of the Skidi Pawnee, whose lore is distinctive even within the larger Pawnee context. Their mythology has been available in print for a century, and it and other ethnographic collections were the basis of Chamberlain’s excellent study of the astronomical knowledge of the Skidi (Chamberlain 1982). The Pawnee ritual of the human sacri¤ce to the Morning Star was notorious in the 19th century, becoming a cause célèbre for moralists of the time. That notoriety gave birth to a popular notion that such practices were widespread, and it fed the debates over Mesoamerican in®uences in the northern part of the continent. The fact is, however, that the Morning Star sacri¤ce was distinctive, another aspect of the peculiar astronomical focus of that group of people. Its origin has never been explained. Two other astronomical peculiarities are also known. One of the groups that merged with the Hidatsa in times recent enough to have been retained in historical memory was called the Awatixa. The ethnographic record points out that they were thought of as being peculiar by the rest of the Hidatsa amalgamated group. Their peculiarity lay primarily in their celestial orientation—they thought their origin was from the stars, rather than from the earth, as was common in the Hidatsa tradition. They apparently had rituals and myths that formed part of their astronomical slant. The historic Cheyenne tribe was known to have been the result of a merger of two earlier tribes, each bringing to the union its own peculiar contributions. One of them brought its “Sacred Arrows” tradition, a celestial complex that embodied some astronomical lore that was distinctive (Bowers 1963; Chamberlain 1982; Powell 1969). This is a provocative set of historical clues. Three tribal groups became amalgamated in late prehistoric times with other groups that recognized them as being distinctive in their emphasis on astronomical lore. An obvious hypothesis is that there was some sort of context in the Plains in which astronomical knowledge was a special focus and that it was instrumental in the shaping of the culture of these three groups. When it is recalled that these three groups represent three different language families—Caddoan, Siouan, and Algonkian—then another speculative possibility comes to mind. What sort of mechanism would account for the generating of astronomical knowledge among people who were not even linguistic kin? Could there have been some sort of prehistoric school of astronomy in the Plains that served as a source for intellectual innovation? Could there have been a religious astronomical cult that attracted groups of new adherents? Such a school or gathering for ritual intensi¤cation or even a religious

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movement might explain the later ethnographic recollection of some peculiarly astronomical peoples bringing their lore to alien social contexts. One scholar has suggested that something like this might have occurred in the prehistoric complex in the lower Missouri River valley known as the Steed-Kisker focus, for he hypothesizes that as the locus for the creation of the Skidi cultural intensi¤cation in astronomy (Robert Hall, personal communication 2004). This is as far out on this speculative limb as it is reasonable to go at this point. This speculation, however, serves to illustrate the kinds of exploration that remain to be done by students of intellectual history. From this study of ethnoastronomy informed primarily by distribution patterns, it is clear that there are many other things yet to be learned about the intellectual adventure of North American Indians—possibly, as Howard Carter said when he was asked what he saw as he looked through the peephole into Tutankhamen’s tomb, “wonderful things.”

Notes

Introduction 1. Fredric Brown, The Lights in the Sky Are Stars (Dutton, New York, 1953). 2. Much of the above history of the ¤eld of folklore is told in detail in Thompson 1946.

Chapter 4 1. Paul Radin’s Winnebago Notebooks, unpublished, are housed at the American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia. Richard L. Dieterle has begun cataloguing the Notebooks in The Encyclopedia of Hotcâk (Winnebago) Mythology (Dieterle 2005), and citations herein to the Winnebago Notebooks refer to this web site. 2. I include this text in the Winnebago list simply because of its similarity. 3. I am grateful to Richard L. Dieterle for locating this text for me. 4. See Hall 1997:68–70 for an account of one of Radin’s collecting episodes.

Chapter 5 1. Wycoco (1951) established a single type, No. 51, that she identi¤ed as “Escape to the stars; the origin of the Big Dipper.” In her description of the content, she made it clear that she referred to this tale type. See also Thompson 1929:292n71a, on Motif R321, “Escape to the Stars.” 2. “Buffalo Suitor” was not given a separate motif or tale number by Thompson or Wycoco, but it is characteristic of the themes of “Animal Wives and Husbands” (Types 500–599) and “Stories of jealous and rejected lovers” (Types 600–699).

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Chapter 6 1. A similar observation of the Algonkians of the Hudson Valley in 1624 apparently misread the asterism as “the head of the Bull,” rather than the Pleiades, and indicated “the season of planting” ( Jameson 1909:72). It could be that the local practice focused on the adjacent Hyades rather than the Pleiades as the marker. 2. This is Motif A773.5: “Pleiades from hunters marooned in sky after felling world tree.”

Chapter 7 1. For more on Swanton’s analytical methods, see the introduction to the 1995 University of Oklahoma Press edition of his Myths and Tales of the Southeastern Indians (Swanton 1929).

Chapter 9 1. Thompson 1932:3:213 provides a single reference to a Siberian occurrence in addition to the North American occurrences in Thompson 1929:275–76n15a and Dorsey 1893. 2. See Dorsey 1893; Swanton 1929; Thompson 1929:275–76n15a. Hultkrantz (1956:79) lists non-Orpheus occurrences as Cherokee (Mooney 1896:971, 1900:255ff ), Yuchi (Speck 1909:97), Creek (Swanton 1928a:512f ), Chickasaw (Swanton 1928c:256), and Chitimacha (Swanton 1907:287, 1911:358). He wrote, “Even if the notion [of the ‘horizon curtain’] is perhaps most common in the Southeast, it has not been of rare occurrence in other parts of North America. The distribution and the frequency with which it has been instanced support the assumption that the Orpheus tradition did not give rise to this motif, but adopted it” (Hultkrantz 1956:79n). 3. Beckwith noted, “The Long Arm episode is found in Hidatsa, Matthews [1877], 69–70; Crow, Lowie [1918], 66–67, 83–85, 91–93, 96–98. Compare Iowa, [Skinner 1925] 439–440; Wichita [Dorsey 1904a], 101. It occurs in the Iron-Hawk story of the Oglala Sioux, although in different form” (Beckwith 1978:38–42). 4. For images of the hand-and-eye, see, for example, Moore 1905:Figures 21, 22, 63, 147, 153.

Chapter 10 1. For earlier studies of this ¤gure, see especially Gatschet 1899, Barbeau 1967, Emerson 1989, and Lankford 2007a. 2. For a more extensive discussion of the distribution and variations in this myth, see Lankford 1987:83–86.

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Index

Aarne, Antti, 12 Alcor, 126 Aldebaran, 162 allomotif, 17, 37, 39, 141, 151 American Anthropological Association, 12 American Folklore Society, 12 Antares, 32, 208, 210, 240, 254 archaeoastronomy, 1 archaeology, 15, 18 archetype, 48 archives, 11, 15, 35 Arcturus, 198 astronomy, 4, 7, 20 ballgame, 182–85, 198 Barbeau, Marius, 192 Barnouw, Victor, 206 belief systems, 270 Benedict, Ruth, 99 Betelgeuse, 229–30 Bierhorst, John, 169 Big Black Meteoric Star, 23, 29, 33, 61 Big House Ceremony, 170, 238 Black Star, 62 Bladder, 73, 123 Blowsnake, Sam, 75, 90, 114 Bluehorn, 89–90, 97–98, 120–22 Boas, Franz, 12 boat, 130, 159–61 Brave, Lillian, 27 Bright Star, 53, 55 Brinton, Daniel, 12

Brumbaugh, Lee, 217, 221–23 Bunzel, Ruth, 99 Byrd, William, 211 Caddoan language. See language families Campbell, Edith Gore, 36–37 Capella, 31–32 Carter, Howard, 275 Cass, Lewis, 183 Ceci, Lynn, 163, 165 Chamberlain, A. F., 255 Chamberlain, Von Del, 21, 59, 63, 162 Charred Body, 232 Chase, Eleanor, 28 clan origin myths, 190 comet, 9 compound myth, 38, 80, 95, 109, 118, 196 constellations, 2, 6, 8, 9; Cassiopeia, 198; Corona Borealis, 32, 62, 198; Cygnus, 225; Hand, 27, 29, 30, 228, 230–40, 230, 239, 261, 270; Hyades, 32, 162, 163; Milky Way, 30, 32, 56, 201–25, 227, 241, 260; Orion, 30, 32, 229, 230, 261; Pleiades, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 140, 143, 144, 148, 162–81, 163, 179, 181, 192, 198, 200, 259, 270–71; Scorpio, 240–56, 241; Stars in a Row, 229– 30; Taurus, 162; Twelve Sisters, 182– 83; Ursa Major, 30, 32, 33, 68, 126–61, 173, 176, 178, 198–200, 258–59; Ursa Minor, 126, 143, 145, 153, 154, 199 cosmos, 3

300 Cosmogram, 62, 67, 69, 69, 71, 71, 74– 75, 106, 258 Coyote, 145–46, 180, 255 Creek. See Tribes: Muskogee Cushing, Frank, 99 decapitation, 107–13, 258 Deneb, 224–25 Devil’s Tower, 28, 149, 178 Dieterle, Richard L., xi, 74, 119–20 dogs, 208–10, 212–14 Dorsey, George A., 21, 22, 233, 245 Dorsey, James O., 68 Draper, Lyman, 185 Dundes, Alan, 49, 195 eagle, 213, 225 Earthmaker, 73, 77 eclipse, 9 ecliptic, 162 enculturation, 3 Enuma elish, 114 episode, 37 ethnoastronomy, 3, 4, 6, 22, 270 ethnography, 20 etiology, 36, 152 Evening Star, 31, 53, 61, 63, 65, 66, 68, 74, 118–20, 177, 211 Finnish method, 11, 12 folklore, 6, 11–15 Folklore Fellows Communications, 12 Forked Men, 122 function, 9, 27–28, 30, 32, 115, 127, 139, 146, 163–66, 174, 190 galaxy, 201–4, 202, 203 Galileo, 4 Gayton, Anna, 217–18, 223 genre, 14 geography, 7 Georges, Robert, 14 Gerow, Bert, 39

index Ghost Dance, 218, 221–22, 260 Ghost Society, 207, 214 Gibbon, William, 13, 128, 131, 152 Great Star, 31, 63, 66, 74, 75, 85, 120 Greyeyes, Kitty, 192 Grimm brothers, 11 hactcin, 105 Hagar, Stanley, 31, 127 Haile, Berard, 102 Hall, Robert, 60 Hatto, A. T., 13, 196–97 hedewatci, 237 Henry, Celissy, 187 Henry, George, 187 historic-geographic method, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 35, 194–95 horn, 248–49, 251 Howling Wolf, Dan, 47 Hultkrantz, Ake, 217–21 Human Head Earrings, 76, 78, 79, 88, 121 Indo-European, 11 Jupiter. See planet Keyes, Greg, 161 Krohn, Julius, 11 La Flesche, Francis, 68 language families: Algonkian, 129, 131, 209, 213–14, 223, 274; Athapaskan, 103; Caddoan, 22, 67, 68, 211–13, 274; Iroquoian, 31, 131, 223; Muskhogean, 31, 131, 187, 212; Siouan, 23, 60, 68, 72, 131, 210–11, 223, 230, 274 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 50, 180–81 linguistics, 11 literacy, 5, 6 Long Arm, 231, 233 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 12 Lowie, Robert, 29 Lupardus, Karen, 199

Index Manabozho, 190, 205–7, 250 Mars. See planet Marshak, Alexander, 272 Martin, Howard N., 191 Matthews, Washington, 101 McCleary, Timothy, 29, 55 McKern, W. C., 75 medicine lodge, 205–8, 214–15, 242, 249–50 Medicine Rite, 74, 112, 120 Meeker, Louis L., 76, 89, 123 meteor, 9 Midéwiwin, 112, 208 Miller, Dorcas, 235 Mishebeshu. See Myth: Great Serpent moon, 8, 9, 31, 51, 63, 65, 74, 120, 177 Mooney, James, 31 Morning Star, 30–33, 52, 53–71, 71, 72– 125, 211–12, 258 Morsette, Alfred, 26, 28 Mother Corn, 23, 24 motif, 10, 17, 36, 37, 39 Murie, James R., 21, 61–62 myth, 5–7, 9, 10, 16, 17; Bead Spitter, 107, 109, 110–12, 111, 113; Bear Hunt, 128–33, 258; Bear Woman, 138, 144, 147, 178; Bier, 152–59, 159, 161, 258; Blood-Clot Boy, 39, 235; Brothers and Sister, 133–52, 151, 176–79, 179, 181, 258–59; Buffalo Suitor, 141, 143; Children of the Sun, 90–107, 101; Contest with Giants, 82–88; Dancing Children, 166–75, 175, 181, 192, 259; Dog Paramour, 146–47; Earth Diver, 24; Emergence, 23, 24; False Bridegroom, 107, 109, 110, 111; Gambler, 115; Girl Who Became a Bear, 27– 28; Grandson/Orphan, 54, 66, 75; Great Serpent, 241–56, 244, 261, 270; Hare, 72, 123; Journey to the Underwater Lodge, 248–49; Lodge Boy and Thrown Away, 26–27, 39, 90, 117, 230–33; Man Who Became a Snake,

301 252; Men Who Went to the Sky, 191, 217, 226, 260; Obstacle Flight, 28, 138, 141, 149, 151, 151, 176, 178; Orpheus, 191, 198, 205, 215–24, 220, 242, 260; Path of Souls, 204–25, 226, 240– 41, 260, 270; Poïa, 58; Red Dog and the Four Stars, 28–29; Red Horn, 72, 73, 75, 76, 79–80, 88–89, 113, 116–17, 123; Rising and Falling Sky, 226, 228, 229, 261; Rolling Skull, 99, 139, 141, 176; Sacred Arrows, 232; Snake Paramour, 139, 141–43, 251–52; Splinterfoot Birth, 143–44, 178; Star Boy, 43, 45–46, 48, 52, 59, 71, 74, 234, 236; Star Husband, 24–26, 35–52, 44, 49, 195, 258; Star Wife, 50; Star Woman, 70, 182–200, 194, 199, 259–60; Swan Maiden, 196, 199, 259–60; Tie-Snake, 245, 253; Trickster, 72, 73; Twins, 72, 78, 100, 258; Whale Boat, 246–47, 247; Woman Who Fell from the Sky, 39; Young Woman Who Swallowed a Stone, 28

Nesaru, 23 North Star, 66 nova, 9 oicotype, 17–19, 43, 44, 48, 49, 51, 51, 175, 195, 196, 200, 218–21, 237–38, 257–61 okipa, 235 Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies, 56, 57 oral tradition, 4–7, 10, 11 Parker, A. C., 192 Parks, Douglas R., 21, 47, 233 Parsons, E. C., 99 Perkins, Esther, 27 Piasa. See Myth: Great Serpent planet, 7–9; Jupiter, 53, 61; Mars, 53, 55, 56, 61, 63; Venus, 30–32, 53, 55, 57, 61, 63, 66 plot, 10

302

index

Polaris, 30, 33, 62, 64, 66, 126, 127, 177, 238 Porcupine Redaction, 26, 43–45, 47, 195, 257–58 portal, 52, 162, 224, 226–32, 237–38, 259, 261, 273 precession, 7 Radin, Paul, 72 Red Star, 61, 95, 98, 120 Red Woman, 232 Reichard, Gladys, 36, 195 reincarnation, 214–15 revitalization movements, 205, 218, 222– 24 260–61 Rigel, 229 Sacred Wheel, 234 Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 183–84, 192 Schorer, C. E., 184, 195 serpent, 211, 214, 224, 240–56 Seven Stars, 64, 138, 148 shamans, 196–98, 220–22, 251 Shell Woman, 207 Sirius, 30, 32, 53, 55, 56, 58, 65, 66, 67 Skinner, Alanson, 79 Small, Robert 79 Smoking Star, 235 solar mythology, 12 South Star, 62, 64, 66, 153, 211 Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, 158, 238, 261 Spider Woman, 26 Spier, Leslie, 236–37 Spiro, 157–58 Steed-Kisker Focus, 275 stone canoe, 193–94 Sumner, Mary, 39 sun, 8, 9, 31, 63, 64, 74, 177 Sun Dance, 59, 124, 234–38 Swanton, John R., 16, 159, 185, 187 taboo, 191, 217, 235, 254–56 Tenskwatawa, 182–84 Thompson, Charles M., 187

Thompson, Stith, 12, 35, 36, 195 Thunderbirds, 73, 244–46 Tirawahat, 61–63 Tribes: Alabama, 159, 185–87, 190–91, 198–200, 213; Apache, 102–4, 178; Arapaho, 143–44, 178, 234–35; Arikara, 21–29, 44, 46, 47, 178, 230, 233; Assiniboine, 141, 173; Aztec, 60; Blackfoot, 58, 60, 134–41, 174, 235; Bororo, 164; Caddo, 64, 65–66, 172–73; Caduveo, 164, 175; Carib, 164; Cherokee, 31, 32, 71, 131, 165, 172, 210; Cheyenne, 141, 178–79, 236; Chitimacha, 226; Choctaw, 71; Crow, 29– 31, 51, 55–56, 147, 173–74, 230–31; Dakota, 67; Delaware, 169–71, 209, 238; Fox, 70, 129–30; Hidatsa, 23, 27, 29, 47, 51, 56, 57, 146–47, 178, 230–31, 235; Hopi, 104; Huichol, 60; Huron, 209–10, 216–17; Illinois, 242; Inca, 164; Iowa, 78, 109–10; Iroquois, 69, 155–56, 165–69, 173, 192, 209–10; Kansa, 234; Kiowa, 149; Koasati, 172; Kuna, 193; Macusi, 174–75; Mandan, 23, 27, 57, 230, 235, 246–47; Manitou, 206; Maori, 164; Mataco, 174; Maya, 164; Miami, 208, 224, 242; Micmac, 130; Muskogee, 32, 33, 200, 212, 245, 251; Natchez, 171; Navaho, 101–3, 106, 115; Ojibwa, 162, 206–8, 238, 242; Omaha, 152, 179, 237; Osage, 68, 153, 179; Oto, 110–11; Pawnee, 21, 22, 47, 53, 59–64, 153–54, 163, 165–66, 176– 77, 254, 255; Plains Village Indians, 23, 67, 230, 233, 258; Potawatomi, 242, 253; Saponi, 211; Sauk, 214, 243; Seminole, 213; Seneca, 69; Shawnee, 182–84, 190, 208, 251; Sherente, 164; Sioux, 152, 230, 234, 245; Taulipang, 164; Wichita, 64–65, 145; Winnebago, 72–125, 141–43; Wyandot, 171–72; Yuchi, 184–85, 187, 190, 251; Zuni, 99–100, 104–5 Trowbridge, C. C., 183–84

Index Turtle, 73, 123 type, 10, 14, 15, 16, 37, 257 Uktena, 32, 243, 253 Underwater Panther. See Myth: Great Serpent Urform, 13–15, 49, 50 vagina dentata, 99, 103 Venus. See planet von Sydow, C. W., 17 Walker, B. N. O., 192 Waterman, T. T., 36, 273

Waters, Ella P., 28, 47, 58 White Bear, Matthew, 28 Whiting, Henry, 183–84 Williamson, Ray, 159, 198–200 Wolf, 205, 207, 213, 250 Woodhenge, 237 woodpecker, pileated, 68 Wycoco, Remedios, 40 Yellow Bear, 47 Yellow Bird, 47 zodiac, 7–9, 271–72

303