Arapaho Myths: The Flood and Origin of the Ceremonial Lodges
There was a man whose daughter was beautiful. Every morning, when she went to get water, she saw an antelope or some other animal lying by the trail and was…
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“The Flood and Origin of the Ceremonial Lodges” from Traditions of the Arapaho by George A. Dorsey and Alfred L. Kroeber, 1903.
There was a man whose daughter was beautiful. Every morning, when she went to get water, she saw an antelope or some other animal lying by the trail and was able to kill it by striking it with her spoon.
Her father said: "I wonder who it is that gives you these animals, for you alone would not be able to kill them with a spoon." So the girl went where the trail descended to the water and the banks were steep. There she dug a hole, and, having gone into it, covered it with vegetation.
Towards morning the ice cracked and from it emerged a skull. It vomited a black round object, and the girl saw that it was an old buffalo. She heard the skull say: "I think these people must be well fattened with food by this time. I will soon eat them.''
The girl ran to her father and told him what she had seen, and said to him : "Let us turn into eagles which fly high." He objected and said : "No, let us turn into hawks which fly swiftly."
Then she objected, and said: "No, let us turn into geese which fly a long time." Then they agreed, and she and her father and mother fled as geese, leaving their clothes lying in their shapes.
The skull arrived and swallowed the empty clothes. It found out its mistake. It looked about for the people. Four times, as it started in pursuit, the clothes called it back, imitating the voices of the people. But after the people had fled four days, the skull at last came in pursuit. It saw them just as they alighted and were changing back into human beings. Then it gained on them fast.
The girl said: "I wish there were thick timber behind us." Then there was thick timber behind them, but the skull passed through it. Then the girl said : "I wish there were a river behind us." And there was a river behind them, but the skull slid across it as if on the ice. Then the girl said : "I wish there were knives behind us." And there were knives behind them, but the skull hobbled through them. Then the girl said: "I wish there were paunches behind us." And there were paunches behind them, but the skull went into them and cut of them, and so passed over them.
Then they sent their dog to drive it back, but the dog was sucked in head first by the skull. Then, as it came nearer, it drew in the old woman; then it reached the old man and drew him in.
The girl still continued to run and at last came to a man who wore his robe inside out and was making a bow and arrows of oak.' She said to him: "A great danger is coming. Pity me!" She said this many times. At last he said, slowly and indifferently: "What is it?" She told him. He said to her: "Walk around me four times."
She was in such fear that she felt impelled to run away, but she walked around him four times nevertheless. Then the skull arrived, and called to the man: "Where is my food, the girl? Where is my food, the girl?" The man said: "She has gone on."
The skull passed by, but when it could find no tracks, it shouted again: "Where have you hidden her? Give her to me. She is mine to eat." Then the man motioned with his bow, and the skull burst, and all that it had eaten was visible; tents and people and entire camps. The last three victims were still wriggling.
The girl said to the man: "Pity my father, my mother, and my dog, and make them live, and I will be your wife." He rubbed the bow over their bodies, and they got up alive. Then he told the old man and the old woman: ''Load the dog with your property and go off to live at that hill." Then he and the girl went to where he lived near the river. They stood before his tent and he called: "My wife, come out. I have brought your younger sister." Soon an old, black, ugly woman came out and showed only joy for the young wife.
The man had to go hunting, but before going he warned his wife : "Do not do what my wife tells you; do not go away with her from the tent, or bathe with her." After three days the old woman finally succeeded in persuading the girl to go bathing with her. They went to a pool in the river covered with green scum. The old woman was slow to undress. Suddenly she attempted to push the girl from behind, but the girl stepped aside and threw the old woman in. Then she held her under the water and in spite of her cries for mercy drowned her and threw her into the deep pool. Then she went home and was afraid of her husband.
When he came back he was glad to be rid of the other wife. Then the girl warned him: "Do not pick up your arrows to shoot with them a second time at the same game." Once the man was hunting prairie chickens. He had shot away all his arrows. He saw one of the birds near him. Then he shot at it with one of the arrows he had already used. Immediately the whirlwind came and carried him up and away.
His wife went on a hill and mourned and cried there until she went to sleep. The second day that she went to cry, her abdomen was large and she wondered about it. The third day it was more so. The fourth day she gave birth to a boy. She went out on the hill and cried again. When she came back to the tent she found him larger. Whenever she went out she found him grown on her return; until on the fourth day he had become a young man. He was called Rock (haxaanaka). A crystal had slipped into her womb and caused him.
He said: ''My grandparents must be lonely. I am going' out to find them;" He had got his mother to make him a bow, half of it painted black and half of it red. He also caused her to make him turtle moccasins according to instructions he gave her, and he made her give him some pemmican. Then he started. He came to a spring and sat there waiting for a girl. He allowed many to pass him by, but at last the most beautiful girl in the village, wearing a white buffalo robe and a dress covered with elk teeth, came there.
Then he asked her for a drink. But as he had a big belly, sore eyes, a nose dirty on one side, and was very ugly, she scorned him. She said: "Only if you have the turtle moccasins will I grant you favor." Then he showed her the turtle moccasins and won her love. While she looked down at her water in order to give it to him, he had changed into a beautiful young man. From this place he went on and again came to a spring. (He does the same thing four times, the details of each incident being the same, except that the girls are described as wearing dresses differently ornamented.) He had given each of the girls some of his pemmican. At last he reached his grandparents and he gave them all the rest of his pemmican. Then he started to go back to his mother, successively taking back with him on his way his four wives.
Blue-bird had said to his brother Magpie: "If I am killed, come four days later to the place where it happened." Then he was run over and trampled to death by the buffalo. Magpie mourned for him. and went to the place, and looked, and finally found a blue feather. He put it into the sweat-house and with his bow shot up into the air four times. The fourth time the arrow hit the top of the sweat-house, and Blue-bird came out alive. But they feared that place and went to join him who had the turtle moccasins.
They met Nih'āⁿçaⁿ, who went with them. Meeting him was a sign of death. The water began to rise. They went to the top of a high mountain. Nih'āⁿçaⁿ lay down on the very summit, which had been reserved for the children. When they told him to move away he feigned to be sick in his back. Then the waters came up. When the water almost touched them. Rock stretched out his foot with the turtle moccasin on it and the water receded. Four times the water came up and he caused it to go back by means of the turtle moccasin.
After the third time he told the people: "Go down and gather mushrooms which are light. My power is good only four times." So Crow, Magpie, and Blue-bird went and gathered small mushrooms, and putting cobwebs around them, made a boat or raft. When the water rose they all entered it. But he with the turtle moccasins remained on the mountain peak, and Nih'āⁿçaⁿ, knowing that he would not drown, remained with him. The water remained high a very long time. The mushrooms began to become soft, and the people called for help. The one with the turtle moccasins knew that he had made the boat and that it was not in his power to make it over.
Therefore he sent the white-nosed duck down to see whether the earth was far down, but the duck came up exhausted. Then he took off his moccasin and it changed into a turtle and it dived and finally came up with mud in each of its four arm pits. Then he took the mud and sent the turtle down to bring up a short rib. When it brought this, he sent it to bring up a bulrush. It brought this also. Then he sprinkled the earth which the turtle had brought him about the place where he was, and with the rib he pointed in the four directions. As he pointed, the land spread out in those directions to the ends of the earth. Then he pointed above and made the vault of the sky. Now the earth was bare. Then the one with the turtle moccasins made corn from the bulrush. After this Nih'āⁿçaⁿ lived in the sky and was called our father.
Now there was doubt whether the people should all speak one language or whether they should speak many, for they still spoke alike. Then a council was held and it was decided that most of them should change their languages from the original (Arapaho). And Nih'āⁿçaⁿ gave the Arapaho the middle of the earth to live in, and all others were to live around them. Since then there have been three lives (generations); this is the fourth. At the end of the fourth, if the Arapaho have all died, there will be another flood. But if any of them live, it will be well with the world. Everything depends on them.
Then the young bull and the horse were told to race. They said to the bull: "If you win, you will be free." They told the horse: "If you win, you will be used for carrying loads and for hunting the bull." The horse won, and the bull turned aside when only half way. Then it was done as they had said.'
Then man's life was ordained. The one with the turtle moccasins threw a buffalo chip into the water, saying: "As this floats, let the life of man be." But Nih'āⁿçaⁿ threw a stone and said: "Let man's life be like this, for if all live, there will soon be no room for them." And so men die.
Now the people lived peaceably until a man named Waxuuhuunen committed a murder. The people drove him away and he wandered about, making very many arrows, and crying and crying. At last our father, Nih'āⁿçaⁿ above, came to him and said: "Be comforted. Prepare racks for drying meat." Then as the man sat on a hill crying, something came running towards him; he saw that it was a buffalo cow.
He went close to the trail on which she was coming, in order to shoot her. But she turned aside and went over the hill. Four times he went to meet her, but she turned aside. The fourth time he started to pursue, and shot at her; but the cow was impenetrable to his arrows. She said: "I am the mother of all the buffalo. Do not shoot me ! I would not be enough for the entire tribe; others will follow me and you will then have plenty for all the people." At this time there was a famine among the people. Then the man ceased shooting at her and went back to his tent. When his wife went to go out of the tent, a hiintcӓbiit lay coiled around it with its head and tail together, so that she could not go out.
Her husband told her: "Take a [buffalo?] skin, and feathers from four kinds of eagles, and wave the skin before you." Then the woman took the skin and the four feathers and waved them, and the animal made room for her. Then she spread the skin out before it and tied the feathers to the four ends and gave it to the hiintcӓbiit. Then the animal was gratified. The man and his wife carried it to a spring and put it in, saying: "Here is a place for you to live." Then it said: "Thanks, I am content. I will reward you." Next morning there were buffalo all about the tent, grazing near by. The man made holes in his tent and through these he shot the many arrows that he had made. Without his leaving the tent, the buffalo lay about outside in large piles. Then he and his wife cut up and skinned the buffalo.
Then Nih'āⁿçaⁿ came to him and said: "Take an entire skin and fill it with pemmican. Then go to the people and tell the cryer to call the people, to come, arranged in the following companies: kit-fox-lodge, star-lodge, hiitceӓoxāⁿwu (tomahawk-lodge), biitahāⁿwu (drum? lodge), hahaⁿkāⁿwu (fool-lodge, crazy-lodge), hӓçawāⁿwu (dog-lodge), hinanahāⁿwu (= ?), bӓnuxtāⁿwu (the women's buffalo-dance), and tciinetcei bӓhӓeihaⁿ (water-sprinkling old men). They are to come to feast with you. Tell the cryer also to call out for the hӓçaⁿwunenaⁿ and hӓçaⁿbӓsein to come."
Then the man did as Nih'āⁿçaⁿ told him. When he came into the camp circle carrying his big load and weeping, the people wondered. According to his instructions from Nih'āⁿçaⁿ, he looked for the largest tent and entered it. Then he sent out the cryer. After a while the kit-fox company came in. He selected one of them to cry out and do his errands. Then he himself ate first of the pemmican which he had brought, and then the others of the company all ate. Next came the star company, and he selected one to be a cryer, and ate of the pemmican, and they all ate of it.
And so all the companies entered and were fed, until all the people had eaten. Then the murderer pledged himself to erect the bӓyaāⁿwu (all-lodge, united-lodge). When this lodge had been erected, and the people were inside, he showed them a skin on which were painted all the lodges (dances). This painted skin Nih'āⁿçaⁿ had given him. The bӓyaāⁿwu remained standing for four days in the middle of the camp circle, and was the largest tent erected.
On the fourth day the sweat-house was also put up. Then the man explained the painted skin. The next lodge was the dog lodge. This was also pledged by the murderer and was made according to the paintings on the skin. During the first three days of the lodge they made the ornaments to wear. After they had made them, Nih'āⁿçaⁿ examined them, and, finding them good, said: "It is well. Now dance for the fourth day, wearing these ornaments and painting yourselves." Ever since they have continued to wear these ornaments and paint in the same manner.
The next lodge was the crazy-lodge, and for this they made the apparel and painted themselves as they still do. Before making each new dance they moved the camp to another place. Next he made the drum (?) dance (biitahāⁿwu). In this there was one man who carried a club and was the chief of the company; he represented the Thunder-bird. Next the man looked at his painting in order to see where the singers, the dancers, the spectators and the place for the fire should be in the tomahawk-lodge. From the skin they also learned how to make the (ceremonial) tomahawks. Then Nih'āⁿçaⁿ came and looked at them and found them right. So they used them and made the tomahawk-lodge.
Next they made the buffalo-lodge. On the skin was a painting of the white-woman (naⁿkuuhisei). What she wore was covered with white feathers, and she carried a white weasel and a stick and a wheel. They also made the regalia for the buffalo calves and for the bull who has the tent poles (hiitakāⁿxuunit), and for the other ranks of the dance; and when they had made them all, Nih'āⁿçaⁿ looked at them and approved them, and the people used them.
Then they made the offerings-lodge (sun-dance), which was also represented on the skin. The first part of it, while the people were collecting the wood for the lodge, consisted of the rabbit lodge. In the rabbit lodge were the straight-pipe, the badger, the snake, the wheel, and the black-bird. There was also a buffalo skin, a rabbit skin, a pipe-stem, and a rattle. The rabbit skin and the badger skin were tied to the robes of the dancers. The wife of the man who pledged the lodge wore a fringed dress, embroidered above the fringes, and on her head a beaded feather. All the other dancers wore on their heads only a plume.
All this was given to the people, the lodges being erected in order to teach them. After this first time when they were taught, the lodges were pledged only for sickness and other causes. Men pledged them according to their age, except the buffalo-lodge and the offerings-lodge. These could be pledged by a person of any age.— K.
Dorsey, George A., and Kroeber, A. L. Traditions of the Arapaho, Field Columbian Museum, 1903.
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