In lesson three we considered the romantic idea of the development of mankind. As was pointed out then this impacts on the understanding of the Native American. Nicholas Poussin, in his Et in Arcadia Ego, is among the earlier of the French artists who treat this as a serious theme. Arcadia is the outlying region around Athens. In the ancient world it was thought to be much as we see the Garden of Eden. Shepherds there were innocent and free of the pains of complex society. In the painting we see them confronting a tomb. They come upon the awareness that death is found in Arcadia as well as in our world.

Edward Hicks, an untutored American artist sees the treaty between William Penn and the American Indians as a noble concept. It reflects on the nobility and highest instincts of mankind. In his Peaceable Kingdom he shows a reenactment of that event as a part of the heavenly world where lions lay down with lambs.

 In the Burial of Atala, Anne Louis Girodet reflects the French and general European interest in the Native American. Atala is the heroine of a very popular novel set in America. That the story is improbable is beside the point. It was popular. J. F. Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales sold more copies in the French version than in the English. This interest in the Arcadian leads to a new understanding of nature. Frederick Law Olmsted, in his designs for New York City Central Park expresses the belief that the natural is redemptive in nature. Albert Bierstadt in his Valley of the Yosemite  leads us to believe that those who inhabit these areas are somehow better than urban people. This complicates our understanding of the Native American. Somehow we want his land, more importantly we want him to be like us. (Note President Reagan's statements that it was about time they [American Indians] join the human race.) Yet we want to believe these a finer and nobler people.

Frederick Church in his View of Cotopaxi clearly shows that nature and the origin of man has a nature/religion meaning.

David Campbell includes the following stories in his excellent anthology, Native American Art and Folklore, A Cultural Celebration. Be especially aware of the range of ideas and approach to the narratives. Remember that myths communicate ideas that are important to the people. They cannot be judged as being true or false. Read them with the question of what do they teach.
 
 

There was a man called Donwenwa who wouldn't let anyone come into his house. He had two nephews old enough to hunt small game: birds, squirrels and coons. The boys lived in a house near their uncle's, and each morning called he to them saying, 'Up, boys! Or the game will be gone.' The boys jumped up and were off. One day, the younger boy heard something making a noise. He listened and listened and at last found that the noise came from the ground. He ran to his brother and said, 'Come and help me dig. I hear a noise down in the ground.' His brother went to the place with him and they began to dig with sharp sticks. When they got down some distance, they found a hollow and in it a little child.

'This is the best luck we've had yet,' said the elder boy. 'This will be our brother, but I'm afraid our uncle will find out about him. If he does, he'll kill him and eat him.'

'We'll try to save him. We'll fix it so our uncle won't find him' said the younger boy.

They carried the child home. That night, the uncle woke up, Stretched himself and said, 'I think my nephews have found game. I hear it breathing. I'll go and ask them.' He stuck his head in at their door and asked, 'Well, boys, have you any game?'

'No,' answered the younger brother, 'I hear it breathing.'

'How can you tell? There are two of us here.'

'I hear three breathing.'

'If you know there are three, you may as well kill us.'

'Our people don't allow a man to kill his nephews.'

'Well, you'll not kill our brother,' said the younger nephew. 'If you kill him, you must kill us.'

The old man went home, but came back and stuck his head in the door again. 'You might as well give me that boy,' said he.

'If you kill him, you'll kill us,' answered the elder nephew.

When the old man found that his nephews wouldn't give him the child, he promised not to harm it.

All went well for a time. Then the younger brother said, 'I think we had better go away and leave our uncle.' 'We can't leave him,' said the elder.

'Why can't we?'

'He would follow us.'

'We can try to get away. We are not safe here.' They gathered dry sticks and piled them up near the house. Then one morning they set the sticks on fire, and, running around on the housetop, they jumped into the smoke, and it carried them up and away.

After a while, they came to the ground and hid under a big stone.

That night Donwenwa thought the boys were very quiet. He went to their house, stuck his head in and found that they were gone.

'Oh, my poor nephews,' he said. 'They think they can get away from me.'

He tracked them to the top of the house and found that they jumped into the blaze and went off in the smoke. Then he went straight to the stone where they were and struck the stone with a dadisbe (a sort of cane). The stone split open and he found the three boys.

'Come out, boys,' he said. 'We'll go home. You should stay at home, not try to go away from me.'

When the boys were back in their own house, the second brother asked, 'Haven't we any relatives except this old man?' 'We have,' said the elder brother. 'We have another uncle worse looking and crosser than this one, and we have aunts.' 'Can't we go and see our uncle?'

'We can, but we must ask this uncle how to go.'

The younger brother went to the old man, struck him with a mallet and said, 'I want you to tell me how I can go and see my uncle in the East.'

'You have no uncle in the East.'

'Yes, I have.'

'You have no uncle there, or if you have; he is very cross. He is Hatdedases, the Whirlwind Maker. He'll kill us all if he comes here. But you can go and see him if you are able to draw a bow that I will make for you.'

The old man made a strong bow and a big double-headed arrow, and told his nephew to try it. The elder brother took the bow first and couldn't bend it. The younger brother bent it easily. Then the uncle gave him the arrow and, pointing to a great hickory tree, said, 'Shoot that.'

He shot and the arrow split the tree.

Then the old man said, 'That will do. You many go and try to see your Uncle Dagwanoenycet (or Datdedases). If he sees you before you shoot him, he'll say "Ogongabgeni," and fly off. If you succeed in shooting him before he sees you, pick up the arrow and shoot again. Then he'll ask you what you want and you'll answer, 'I want you to come and live with us. We'll give you plenty of rocks and hickory sticks to eat and make you a nest to lie in.'

The boy started, and after traveling a long distance came to a place where he heard a great cracking and gnawing noise. He called his medicine mole and told it to make a trail under the ground to the place the noise came from so he could follow the trail.

Dagwanoenyent stopped gnawing and listened; the mole stopped. The old man gnawed again; the mole went on. A second time the old man stopped and listened; the mole stopped. And so it went on until the mole was straight in front of Dagwanoenyent. Then the mole made a hole and the boy came to the top of the ground, drew his bow and hit his uncle in the middle of the forehead. The arrow rebounded; he caught it and shot again. The third time he shot, Dagwanoenyent called out, 'I give up. What do you want?'

'I want you to come and live with us. We'll give you plenty of rocks and hickory sticks to eat and a good nest to live in. If you don't come, I'll shoot you again.'

Dagwanoenyent said, 'Go and fix the nest and gather rocks and sticks for me to eat, and I'll come.'

The boy went home, and he and his brother and uncle put up a strong platform, and on top of it, they made a nest. When all was ready, the old man came and settled on the nest.

Once, when the two boys were out hunting, the younger boy heard a noise off in the South. While he stood listening, a False Face ran toward him. The boy was frightened. He darted around trees and tried to get away. At last, when he was getting tired, he called loudly, 'Donwenwa, if you don't come, I shall be killed.'

That minute, Donwenwa was there, saying, 'I'll save you.' He struck False Face with his onwe and killed him.

After a time, the elder nephew thought he would go toward the South and see if anything would happen to him. When he had traveled a long distance, he heard someone singing, and, going toward the voice through the dense woods, he came to an opening and at the farther end of the opening saw the singer. Her song said, 'A young boy is coming for me. He has no power--he can't come where I am.'

When the boy heard this, he was angry and said, 'She isn't strong enough to keep me back. I'll go there and pound her.' He doubled up his fist and ran toward the woman. She didn't look up and kept on singing. When he came to where she was sitting, he struck her a heavy blow, but instead of falling over, she said, 'Ha, ha! Who touches me?' That minute, the boy fell to the ground dead.

The woman straightened out the body and talked to it, saying, 'Poor boy, you thought you could kill me. Now you are dead,' She pushed the body a little to one side and kept on singing.

When the boy didn't come home, his brother went to hunt for him. He tracked him till he came to where he had stood and listened to the singing. He heard the same song, and, looking across the opening saw the woman and his brother's body. He was angry, and, doubling up his fist, he ran across the opening and struck the woman a heavy blow on her head.

'Ha, ha! Who touches me?' she growled. That minute, the  boy fell to the ground, dead. She straightened out the body and kept on singing.

The third boy--the boy the brothers had dug out of the ground--went to look for the other two and was killed as they had been.

That night, Donwenwa wondered why he heard no breathing at the other house and wondered if the boys had run away again. Going to the house, he stuck his head in, and, seeing no one, said, 'They can't get away from me! I'll find them, wherever they are.'

The next morning, he went toward the South till he came to the place where the boys had stood and listened to the woman's song. When he saw the woman and the three bodies he said, 'You've killed my nephews. Now I'll kill you.'

Running to the woman, he gave her a terrible blow, and, before she had a chance to say anything, he gave her a second and a third blow. But then she got a chance to call out, 'Ha, ha! Who touches me?' and that instant, the old man grew weak and died.

Now Dagwanoenyent missed his brother and nephews. 'My brother,' said he, 'thinks that he has great power, but he hasn't. Maybe that woman in the South has killed him. I'll go and find him.'

He followed the tracks of his nephews and brother till he came to the clearing and saw the woman sitting on the ground singing. He flew at her and struck such a heavy blow that she had no chance to speak. He hit her a second and third blow. Then his hair began to fall out--his strength was in his long hair--but he kept striking. The woman had no chance to speak and at last he killed her. Then he called to his brother and nephews. 'Get up. You ought to be ashamed to lie there.'

The four came to life and went home. They lived on quietly for a while. Then the younger brother said that he was going to travel around the world and see what he could find, and he started off toward the East. After traveling some distance, he saw a hut, and, going into it, found an old, blind man and began to torment him.

The old man said, 'My brothers will come soon and then you'll stop abusing me.'

The boy thought he would go before the other men came. He spent the night under a tree, and the next day he traveled till nearly sundown, and then came to a house. There was an old man in the house who said, 'I'm glad you have come. I want to gamble with plum stones.'

'What will you bet?' asked the boy.

'I always bet heads. If you beat me, you'll cut off my head; if I beat you, I'll cut off your head.'

The old man had a stone bowl and some plum stones. The boy threw first and lost. Then the old man threw and lost. But in the end the boy won, and he cut off the old man's head, and then traveled on.

Soon he saw a wasp's nest hanging from the limb of a tree. He stopped up the hole in the nest, and, cutting off the limb carried it along with him in a bundle. He hadn't gone far when he saw a great many people coming toward him. He wanted to pass them, but they caught hold of him and said, 'You are only a boy. We are going to kill you.'

'You must wait awhile,' said the boy. 'When anyone is going to be killed, it is the custom to let him do something first.' He put down his bundle and said, 'Tear it open if you want to.'

They snatched up the bundle and tore it open. The wasps flew at them, and in the excitement, they forgot the boy, who ran off as fast as he could. This time he ran toward home. When he came in sight of his uncle's house, things looked strange. He didn't see Dawanoenyent's nest. Then he found that his uncles and brothers were gone.

He searched for tracks, and, finding none, he began to mourn. And he mourned till at last he changed into a red fox.

The woman in the South was Summer, the boys Autumn and old Cyclone, and he who at last conquered her was Winter.

The first man created by Coyote was called Aikut. His wife was Yototowi. But the woman grew sick and died. Aikut dug a grave for her close beside his campfire, for the Nishinam did not burn their dead then. All the light was gone from his life. He wanted to die so that he could follow Yototowi, and he fell into a deep sleep. There was a rumbling sound and the spirit of Yototowi arose from the Earth and stood beside him. He would have spoken to her, but she forbade him, for when an Indian speaks to a ghost he dies. Then she turned away and set out for the dance house of ghosts. Aikut followed her. Together they journeyed through a great, dark country, until they came to a river that separated them from the Ghostland. Over the river there was a bridge of but one small rope, so small that hardly a spider could crawl across it. Here the woman started off alone, but when Aikut stretched out his arms, she returned. Then she started again over the bridge of thread. And Aikut spoke to her, so that he died.

Thus together they journeyed to the Spiritland.
 
 

It was in the long ago. Our fathers had no horses then, but used dogs to carry their belongings. One spring, needing the skins of bighorn to tan into soft leather for clothing, the tribe moved up here to the foot of the Lower Two Medicine Lake and began hunting. Many men would surround and climb a mountain, driving the bighorn ahead of them, their dogs helping, and at last they would come up to the game, often several hundred head, on the summit of the mountain. The dogs were then held back, and the hunters, advancing with ready bow and arrows, would shoot the bighorn at close range and generally kill most of them.

One day, while most of the men were hunting, three young, unmarried women went out to gather wood, and while they were collecting it in little piles here and there, a thunderstorm came up. Then one of them--a beautiful girl, tall, slender, longhaired, big-eyed--said, 'Oh, Thunder! I am pure! I am a virgin. If you will not strike us, I promise to marry you whenever you want me!'

Thunder passed on, not harming them, and the young women gathered up their firewood and went home.

On another day, these three young women went out again for firewood, one ahead of another along a trail in the deep woods, and Mink Woman, she who had promised herself to Thunder Man, was the last of the three. She was some distance behind the others and singing happily as she stepped along, when out from the brush in front of her stepped a very fine looking, beautifully dressed man, and said: 'Well, here I am. I have come for you.'

'No, not for me! You are mistaken. I am not that kind. I am a pure woman,' she answered.

'But you can't go back on your word. You promised yourself to me if I would not strike you, and I did not harm you. Don't you know me? I am Thunder Man.'

Mink Woman looked closely at him and her heart beat faster from fear. But he was good to look at. He had the appearance of kind and gentle man, and although thoughtlessly she had made a promise to him, a god, she could not break it. So she answered, 'I said that I would marry you. Well, here I am. Take me!'

Her two companions had passed on and saw nothing of this meeting. Thunder Man stopped forward and kissed her then took her in his arms, and, springing from the ground, carried her up into the sky to the land of the Above People.

But the two young women soon missed her. They ran back on the trail and searched on all sides of it, and called and called to her, but of course got no reply. 'She may have gone home for something,' said one of them, and they hurried back to camp.

She was not there. They then gave the alarm, and all the people scattered out to look for her. They hunted all that day and wandered about in the woods all night, calling her name but got no answer.

The next morning, Mink Woman's father, Lame Bull, made medicine and called in Crow Man, a god who sometimes lived with the people. 'My daughter, Mink Woman, has disappeared,' he told the god. 'Find her, even learn where she went, and you shall have her for your wife.'

'I take your word,' Crow Man answered him. 'l believe that I can learn where she went. I may not be able to get her now, but I will some time, and then you will not forget this promise. I have always wanted her for my woman.'

Crow Man went to the two young women and got them to tell him where they had last seen Mink Woman. He then called a magpie to him and said to the bird: 'Fly around here and find this missing woman's trail.'

The bird flew around and around, Crow Man following it and at last it fluttered to the ground, and looked up at him an said, 'To this spot where I stand came the woman, and here the trail ends.'

'Is it so!' Crow Man exclaimed. 'Well stand just where you are and move that long, shining black tail of yours. Move it up and down and sideways. Twist it in every direction that you can.'

The magpie did as he was told, and Crow Man got down on hands and knees and went around, watching the shifting, wiggling, and fanning tail. Suddenly, he cried out, 'There! Hold your tail motionless in just that position!' and he moved up nearer and looked more closely at it. The Sun was shining brightly upon it, and the glistening, black feathers mirrored everything around. They were now spread directly behind the bird's body and reflected the treetops, and the sky beyond them. Long, long, Crow Man stared at the tail, the people looking on and holding their breath. At last, he said to Lame Bull, 'I can see your daughter, but she is beyond my reach. I cannot fly there. She is up in sky land, and Thunder Man has lied!'

'Ai! Ai! She did promise herself to him the other day if he would spare us, one of the two wood gatherers said, 'but she did not mean it; she was only joking.'

'It is no joke!'

Lame Bull sat down and covered his head with his robe and would not be comforted.

Thunder Man took Mink Woman to sky land with him, and somehow, from the very first, she was happy there with him. She seemed to forget at once all about this Earth and her parents and the people. It was a beautiful land up there: warm and sunny, a country just like ours except that it had no storms. Buffalo and all the other animals covered the plains, and all sorts of grasses and trees and berry bushes and plants grew there as they do here.

But although Mink Woman was very happy there, Thunder Man was always uneasy about her, and kept saying to his people, 'Watch her constantly. See that she gets no hint of her country down below, nor sight of it. If she does, then she will cry and cry, and become sick, and that will be bad for me.'

Thunder Man was often away, and during his absence his people kept a good watch on Mink Woman, and did all they could to amuse her, to keep her interested in different things. One day, a woman gave her some freshly dug mas, and she cried out, 'Oh, how good of you to give me these. I must go dig more for myself'

'Oh, no! Don't go! We will dig for you all that you can use,' the women told her, but she would not listen.

'I want the fun of digging them for myself,' she told them. 'Somewhere, sometime back, I did dig them. I must dig them.'

'Well, if you must, you must,' they answered, and gave her a digging stick and cautioned her not to dig a very large one, should she find it, for that mas was the mother of all the others. She was constantly bringing forth new ones by scattering her seed to the winds. She promised that she would not touch it. She went off happily with her digging stick and a sack.

Mink Woman wandered about on the warm grass and flower-covered plain, digging a mas here, one there, singing to herself and thinking how much she loved her Thunder Man, and wishing that he would be more often at home. Thus wandering, in a low place in the plain, she came upon a mas of enormous size. Actually, it was larger around than her body.

This is the mother mas--the one they told me not to dig,' she cried, and walked around and around it, admiring its hugeness. 'I would like to dig it, but I must not,' she at last said to herself, and went on, seeking more mas of small size.

But she could not forget the big one. She kept imagining how it would look out of the ground, in the lodge, all nicely washed, a present for Thunder Man when he would return home.

She went back to it. Walked around it many times. Went away from it, trying to do as she had been told. But when halfway home, she could no longer resist the temptation. With a little cry, she turned and never stopped running until she was beside it. Then she used the digging stick with all her strength, thrusting it into the ground around and around and around the huge growth, prying up. At last it came loose, and, seizing it by its big top leaves, she pulled hard and tore it from the ground and rolled it to one side of the hole.

What a big hole it was! Light seemed to come up through it. She stepped to the edge and looked down. Upon pulling up the huge mas, she had torn a hole clear through the sky Earth! She stooped and looked through it, and there, far, far below, saw why, everything came back to her when she looked through it. There it was--her own Earth land! There was the Two Medicine River, and there, just below the foot of its lower lake, was the camp of her people.

She threw away her digging stick and her sack of mas, and ran crying to camp and into Thunder Man's lodge. He was away at the time but some of his relatives were in the lodge, and she cried out to them, 'I have seen my own country, the camp of my people. I want to go back to them!'

Said Thunder Man's relatives to one another, 'She has found the big mas and has pulled it up and made a hole in our sky Earth! Now, what shall we do? Thunder Man will be angry at us because we did not watch her more closely.'

Thinking of what he might do to them in his anger, they trembled. They tried to soothe Mink Woman, but she would not be comforted. She kept crying and crying to be taken back to her father and mother.

Thunder Man came home in the evening, and upon learning what had happened, his distress was as great as that of Mink Woman, whom he loved. When he came into the lodge, she threw herself upon him, and with tears streaming from her eyes, begged him to take her back to her people.

'But don't you love me?' he asked. 'Haven't you been happy here? Isn't this a beautiful, rich country?'

'Of course I love you! I have been happy here. This is a good country. But oh, I want to see my father and mother!'

'Well, sleep now. In the morning you will likely feel that you are glad to be here instead of down on the people's Earth,' Thunder Man told her.

But she would not sleep. She cried all night, would not eat in the morning and kept on crying for her people.

Then said Thunder Man, 'I cannot bear to see or hear such distress. Because I love her, she shall have her way. Go, you hunters, kill buffalo. Kill many of them and bring in the hides. And you, all you women, take the hides and cut them into long, strong strips and tie them together.'

This, the hunters and the women did, and Thunder Man himself made a long, high-sided basket of a buffalo bull's hide and willow sticks. This and the long, long, one-strand rope of buffalo hide were taken to the hole that Mink Woman had torn in the sky Earth, and then Thunder Man brought her to the place and laid her carefully in the basket, which he had lined with soft robes.

'Because I love you so dearly, I am going to let you down to your people,' he told her. 'But we do not part forever. Tell your father that I shall soon visit him and give him presents. I know that I did wrong, taking you from him without his consent. Say to him that I will make amends for that.'

'You are good, and I love you more than ever. But I must see my people. I cannot rest until I do,' Mink Woman told him, and kissed him.

The people then swung the woman in the basket down into the hole she had torn in the sky Earth, and began to pay out the long rope, and slowly, little by little, the woman, looking up, saw that she was leaving the land of the sky gods. Below, the people, looking up, saw what they thought was a strange bird slowly floating down toward them from the sky. But after a long time, they knew it was not a bird. Nothing like it had ever been seen. It was  coming down straight toward the center of the big camp. Men, women, children all fled to the edge of the timber, the dogs close at their heels, and from the shelter of thick brush watched this strange, descending object.

It was a long, long time coming down, twirling this way, that way, swinging in the wind, but finally it touched the ground in the very center of the camp circle, and they saw a woman rise up and step out of it. They recognized her: Mink Woman! And as they rushed out from the timber to greet her, the basket that had held her began to ascend and soon disappeared in the far blue of the sky.

All the rest of that day and far into the night Mink Woman told her parents and her people about the sky gods and the sky Earth, and even then did not tell it all. Days were required for the telling of all that she had seen and done.

Not long after Mink Woman's return to Earth and her people, Thunder Man came to the camp. He came quietly. One evening, the door curtain of Lame Bull's lodge was thrust aside and someone entered. Mink Woman, looking up from where she sat, saw that it was her sky god husband. He was plainly dressed and bore a bundle in his arms.

'Father! She cried, 'here he is, my Thunder Man!'

And Lame Bull, moving to one side of the couch, made him welcome.

Said Thunder Man: 'I wronged you by taking your daughter without your permission. I come now to make amends for that. I have here in this bundle a sacred pipe, my Thunder pipe. I give it to you and will teach you how to use it, and how to say the prayers and sing the songs that go with it.'

Said Lame Bull to this man, his sky god son-in-law, 'I was very angry at you, but as the snow melts when the black winds blow, so has my anger gone from my heart. I take your present. I shall be glad to learn the sacred songs and prayers.'

Thunder Man remained for some time, nearly a moon, there in Lame Bull's lodge and taught the chief the ceremony of the medicine pipe until he knew it thoroughly in its every part.

'It is a powerful medicine,' Thunder Man told him. 'It will make the sick well, bring you and your people long life and happiness and plenty, and success to your parties who go to war.'

And, as he said it was, so it proved to be a most powerful medicine for the good of the people.

Thunder Man's departure from the camp was sudden and unexpected. One evening, he was sitting beside Mink Woman in Lame Bull's lodge, and all at once straightened up, looked skyward through the smoke hole and appeared to be listening to something. The people there in the lodge held their breath and listened also, and could hear nothing but the chirping of the crickets in the grass outside. But Thunder Man soon cried out: 'They are calling me! I have to go! I shall return to you as soon as I can finish my work.' And with that, he ran from the lodge and was gone. And Mink Woman wept.

Who can know the ways of the gods? Surely not us of the Earth. Thunder Man promised to return soon, but moons passed, two winters passed, and he came not to Lame Bull's lodge and his woman. But soon after he left so suddenly, Crow Man returned from far wanderings and heard all the story of the god and Mink Woman. He made no remark about it, but spent much time in Lame Bull's lodge. Then, after many moons had passed, he said to the chief one day, 'Do you remember what you once promised me? When your daughter so suddenly disappeared, you promised that if I would even find her, or tell you whither she had gone, you would give her to me when she was found. Well, here she is. Fulfill your promise!'

'But she is no longer mine to give. She now belongs to Thunder Man,' the chief objected.

'Let me tell you this,' said Crow Man, 'You promised to give her to me if I would even tell you where she had gone. I did that. And now, as to this Thunder Man, he will never return here because he knows that I am in the camp, and he fears me. So you might as well give me your daughter now, as you will anyhow later.'

'Ask her if she will marry you. I agree to what ever she chooses to do,' Lame Bull answered.

Crow Man went outside and found Mink Woman tanning a buffalo robe. 'I have your father's consent to ask you to marry me. I hope that you will say yes. I love you dearly. I will be good to you,' he told her.

Mink Woman shook her head. 'I am already married. My man will soon be coming for me,' she answered.

'But if he doesn't come, will you marry me?' Crow Man asked.

'We will talk about that later. I will say now, though, that I like you very much. I have always liked you,' she replied.

More moons passed, and as each one came, Crow Man never failed to ask Mink Woman to marry him. She kept refusing to do so. But after two more winters had gone by and Thunder Man still failed to appear and claim her, her refusals became fainter and fainter, until, finally, she would do no more than shake her head when asked the great question.

Then, at last, in the Falling Leaves Moon of the second summer, when Crow Man asked her again and she only shook her head, he took her hand and raised her up and drew her to him and whispered, 'You know now that that sky god is never coming for you. And you know in your heart that you have learned to love me. Come, you are now my woman. Let us go to my lodge, my lodge that is now your lodge.'

Without a word of objection, Mink Woman went with him. Ai! She went gladly! She was lonely and she had for some time loved him, although she would not acknowledge it.

It was a good winter. Buffalo were plentiful near camp all through it, and Crow Man kept the lodge well supplied with fat cow meat. He and Mink Woman were very happy. Then came spring and one day, in new green grass time, Thunder Man was heard approaching camp, and the people went wild with fear. They believed that he would destroy them all as soon as he learned that Mink Woman had married Crow Man. They all crowded around his lodge, begging him to give her up, to send her at once back to her father's lodge.

But Crow Man only laughed. 'I will show you what I can do to that sky god,' he told them, and got out his medicines and called Cold-Maker to come to his aid.

By this time Thunder Man had almost reached the camp and was making a terrible noise just overhead. But Cold-Maker came quickly, came in a whirling storm of wind and snow. Thunder Man raged-- shooting lightning and making thunder that shook the Earth. Cold-Maker made the wind blow harder and harder, so that some of the lodges went down before it, and he caused the snow to swirl so thickly that the day became almost as dark as night. For a long time the two fought, lightning against cold, thunder against snow, and little by little Cold-Maker drove Thunder Man back. He could not face the cold, and at last he fled and his mutterings died away in the distance. He was gone!

'There, I told you I could drive him away,' said Crow Man. 'Mink Woman, you people all, rest easy. Thunder Man will never again attempt to enter this camp.'

And with that, he told Cold-Maker that he could return to his Far North home. He went, taking with him his wind and storm. The Sun came out, the people set up their flattened lodges, and all were once more happy.

Lame Bull retained the pipe that Thunder Man had given him, and found that its medicine was as strong as ever. And from him it had been handed down from father to son and father to son to this day, and still it is strong medicine.
 
 

A man sat thinking. 'Let me see. My songs are too short. I want more songs. Where shall I go to find them?' Hasjelti appeared,and, perceiving his thoughts, said, 'I know where you can get more songs.'

'Well, I want to get more. So I will follow you.' They went to a certain point in a box canyon in the Big Colorado River, and here they found four gods, the Hostjobokon, at work, hewing cottonwood logs.

Hasjelti said, 'This will not do. Cottonwood becomes water-soaked. You must use pine instead of cottonwood.'

The Hostjobokon began boring the pine with flint, but Hasjelti said, 'That is slow work.' He commanded a whirlwind to hollow the log. A cross, joining at the exact middle of each log, a solid one and the hollow one, was formed. The arms of the cross were equal.

The song-hunter entered the hollow log and Hasjelti closed the end with a cloud so that water would not enter when the logs were launched upon the great waters.

The logs floated off, and the Hostjobokon, accompanied by their wives, rode upon the logs, one couple sitting upon each Hasjelti, Hostjoghon and the two Naaskiddi walked upon the banks to keep the logs offshore. Hasjelti carried a squirrel skin filled with tobacco, with which to supply the gods for their journey. Hostjoghon carried a staff ornamented with eagle and turkey plumes and a gaming ring with two hummingbirds tied to it with white cotton cord. The two Naaskiddi carried staffs of lightning. The Naaskiddi had clouds upon their backs in which the seeds of all corn and grasses were carried.

After floating a long distance down the river, they came to waters that had a shore on one side only. Here they landed. Here they found a people like themselves.

When these people learned of the Song-hunter, they gave him many songs and they painted pictures on a cotton blanket and said, 'These pictures must go with the songs. If we give this blanket to you, you will lose it. We will give you white earth and black coals which you will grind together to make black paint, and we will give you white sand, yellow sand and red sand. For the blue paint, you will take white sand and black coals with a very little red and yellow sand. These will give you blue.' And so the Navajo people make blue, even to this day.

The Song-hunter remained with these people until the corn was ripe. There he learned to eat corn, and he carried some back with him to the Navajos, who had not seen corn before, and he taught them how to raise it and how to eat it.

When he wished to return home, the logs would not float upstream. Four sunbeams attached themselves to the logs, one to each cross arm, and so drew the Song-hunter back to the box canyon from which he had started.

When he reached that point, he separated the logs. He placed the end of the solid log into the hollow end of the other and planted this great pole in the river. It may be seen there today by the venturesome. In early days, many went there to pray and make offerings.
 
 

Before the beginning of the New-making, the All-father Father alone had being. Through the ages, there was nothing else except black darkness. In the beginning of the New-making, the All-father Father thought outward in space, and mists were created and up-lifted. Thus through his knowledge he made himself the Sun, who was thus created and is the great Father. The dark spaces brightened with light. The cloud mists thickened and became water.

From his flesh, the Sun-father created the Seed-stuff of worlds, and he himself rested upon the waters. And these two the Four-fold-containing Earth-mother and the All-covering Sky-father, the surpassing beings, with power of changing their forms even as smoke changes in the wind-were the father and mother of the soul-beings.

Then as man and woman spoke these two together. 'Behold!' said Earth-mother, as a great terraced bowl appeared at hand, and within it water. 'This shall be the home of my tiny children. On the rim of each world-country in which they wander, terraced mountains shall stand, making in one region many mountains by which one country shall be known from another.'

Then she spat on the water and struck it and stirred it with her fingers. Foam gathered about the terraced rim, mounting higher and higher. Then with her warm breath she blew across the terraces. White flecks of foam broke away and floated over the water. But the cold breath of Sky-father shattered the foam and it fell downward in fine mist and spray.

Then Earth-mother spoke. 'Even so shall white clouds float up from the great waters at the borders of the world, and clustering about the mountain terraces of the horizon, shall be broken and hardened by thy cold. Then will they shed downward, in rain-spray, the water of life, even into the hollow places of my lap. For in my lap shall nestle our children, mankind and creature-kind, for warmth in thy coldness.'

So even the trees on high mountains near the clouds and Sky-father, crouch low toward Earth-mother for warmth and protection. Warm is Earth-mother, cold our Sky-father.

Then Sky-father said, 'Even so. Yet I, too, will be helpful to our children.' Then he spread his hand out with the palm downward, and into all the wrinkles of this hand he set the semblance of shining yellow corn-grains. In the dark of the early world-dawn, they gleamed like sparks of fire.

'See,' he said, pointing to the seven grains between his thumb and four fingers, 'our children shall be guided by these when the Sun-father is not near and thy terraces are as darkness itself. Then shall our children be guided by lights.'

So Sky-father created the stars. Then he said, 'And even as these grains gleam up from the water, so shall seed grain like them spring up from the Earth when touched by water, to nourish our children.' And thus they created the seed-corn. And in many other ways they devised for their children, the soul-beings.

But the first children, in a cave of the Earth, were unfinished. The cave was of sooty blackness, black as a chimney at nighttime, and foul. Loud became their murmuring and lamentations, until many sought to escape, growing wiser and more man-like.

But the Earth was not then as we now see it. Then the Sun-father sent down two sons, the Beloved Twain, Twin Brothers of Light, yet Elder and Younger, the right and the left, like to question and answer in deciding and doing. To them, the Sun-father imparted his own wisdom. He gave them the great cloud-bow, and for arrows the thunderbolts of the four quarters. For buckler, they had the fog-making shelf, spun and woven of the floating clouds and spray. The shield supports its bearer, as clouds are supported by the wind, yet hides its bearer also. And he gave to them the fathership and control of men and of all creatures. Then the Beloved Twain, with their great cloud-bow, lifted the Sky-father into the vault of the skies, that the Earth might become warm and fitter for men and creatures. Then along the Sun-seeking trail, they sped to the mountains westward. With magic knives they spread open the depths of the mountain and uncovered the cave in which dwelt the unfinished men and
creatures. So they dwelt with men, learning to know them and seeking to lead them out.

Now there were growing things in the depths, like grasses and vines. So the Beloved Twain breathed on the stems, growing tall toward the light as grass is wont to do, making them stronger and twisting them upward until they formed a great ladder by which men and creatures ascended to a second cave.

Up the ladder into the second cave-world men and the beings crowded, following closely the two Little but Mighty Ones. Yet many fell back and were lost in the darkness. They peopled the underworld, from which they escaped after time. In this second cave, it was as dark as the night of a stormy season, but larger of space and higher. Here again men and the beings increased, and their complaining grew loud. So the Twain again increased the growth of the ladder, and again led men upward, not all at once, but in six bands, to become the fathers of six kinds of men--the yellow, the tawny gray, the red, the white, the black and the mingled. And this time also many were lost or left behind.

Now the third great cave was larger and lighter, like a valley in starlight. And again they increased in number. And again the Two led them out into a fourth cave. Here it was light like dawning, and men began to perceive and to learn variously, according to their natures, wherefore the Twain taught them first to seek the Sun-father.

Then as the last cave became filled and men learned to understand, the Two led them forth again into the great upper world, which is the World of Knowing and Seeing.

When it rains, some Indian, sick in heaven, is weeping. Long ago, there was a good young Indian on Earth. When he died, the Indians wept so that a flood came upon the Earth and drowned all people except one couple.