Old Indian Legends
By Zitkala-Sa
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About this ebook
Among Native American tribes, the Sioux are one of the best known and most important. Participants in some of the most famous and notorious events in American history, the history of the Sioux is replete with constant reminders of the consequences of both their accommodation of and resistance to American incursions into their territory by pioneering white settlers pushing further westward during the 19th century. Some Sioux leaders and their bands resisted incoming whites, while others tried to accommodate them, but the choice often had little impact on the ultimate outcome. Crazy Horse, who was never defeated in battle by U.S. troops, surrendered to them in 1877, only to be bayoneted to death by soldiers attempting to imprison him. Black Kettle, who flew a large American flag from his lodge to indicate his friendship with the white man, was shot to death by soldiers under George Custer's command in 1868.
Throughout the 19th century, the U.S. government and its officials in the West adopted a policy of dividing the Sioux into two groups: "Treaty Indians" and "Non-treaty Indians." Often they used these groups against each other or used one group to influence another, but the end was always the same. They were forced off the land where they resided, their populations were decimated by disease, and they were forced onto reservations to adopt lifestyles considered "appropriate" by American standards.
Despite being some of the most erstwhile foes the U.S. government faced during the Indian Wars, the Sioux and their most famous leaders were grudgingly admired and eventually immortalized by the very people they fought. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse remain household names due to their leadership of the Sioux at the fateful Battle of the Little Bighorn, where the native warriors wiped out much of George Custer's 7th Cavalry and inflicted the worst defeat of the Indian Wars upon the U.S. Army. Red Cloud remains a symbol of both defiance and conciliation, resisting the Americans during Red Cloud's War but also transitioning into a more peaceful life for decades on reservation.
Zitkala-Sa
Zitkála-Šá (1876-1938) was a Yankton Dakota writer, translator, musician, teacher, and activist. Born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Zitkála-Šá—also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin—was raised by her mother following their abandonment by her German American father. Zitkála-Šá grew up on the reservation, but was taken by missionaries at the age of eight to the White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker school in Wabash, Indiana. There, Zitkála-Šá was forced to suppress her heritage by cutting her hair and praying as a Quaker, but she also took advantage of the opportunity to learn reading and writing, as well as to play violin. She briefly returned to the reservation in 1887 before going back to Indiana to finish her education, after which she studied at Earlham College and played violin at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. After working from 1899 to 1901 as a music teacher at the notoriously abusive Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, Zitkála-Šá began to speak out against the program. In 1901, she wrote an article for Harper’s Monthly chronicling a young boy’s experience as a student at the school, where he felt forced to sacrifice his identity in order to assimilate. That same year, Zitkála-Šá began collecting stories for Old Indian Legends, which recorded traditional stories she learned in her youth and from members of various tribes. Over the next several decades, she wrote several story collections, countless articles for Harper’s Monthly and the Atlantic Monthly, and the libretto and songs for The Sun Dance Opera (1913). She also worked as an advocate and activist for the rights of women and American Indians, founding the National Council of American Indians with her husband and running grassroots policy and voter-registration campaigns around the country. She is remembered not only for her contributions to American Indian culture as a writer and translator, but for her tireless advocacy for resistance and reform that led to better education, healthcare, and legal standing for American Indians nationwide.
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Old Indian Legends - Zitkala-Sa
OLD INDIAN LEGENDS
..................
Zitkala-Sa
FIREWORK PRESS
Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the author.
This book is a work of nonfiction and is intended to be factually accurate.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2015 by Zitkala-Sa
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PREFACE
IKTOMI AND THE DUCKS
IKTOMI’S BLANKET
IKTOMI AND THE MUSKRAT
IKTOMI AND THE COYOTE
IKTOMI AND THE FAWN
THE BADGER AND THE BEAR
THE TREE-BOUND
SHOOTING OF THE RED EAGLE
IKTOMI AND THE TURTLE
DANCE IN A BUFFALO SKULL
THE TOAD AND THE BOY
THE WARLIKE SEVEN
Old Indian Legends
By
Zitkala-Sa
Old Indian Legends
Published by Firework Press
New York City, NY
First published 1901
Copyright © Firework Press, 2015
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
About Firework Press
Firework Press prints and publishes the greatest books about American history ever written, including seminal works written by our nation’s most influential figures.
FOREWORD
..................
Zitkala-Sa (1876 – 1938)
ZITKALA-SA WAS A 19TH CENTURY Sioux author and activist. Old Indian Legends is a collection of Native American tales you compiled during trips to various reservations.
A table of contents is included.
PREFACE
..................
THESE LEGENDS ARE RELICS OF our country’s once virgin soil. These and many others are the tales the little black-haired aborigine loved so much to hear beside the night fire.
For him the personified elements and other spirits played in a vast world right around the center fire of the wigwam.
Iktomi, the snare weaver, Iya, the Eater, and Old Double-Face are not wholly fanciful creatures.
There were other worlds of legendary folk for the young aborigine, such as The Star- Men of the Sky,
The Thunder Birds Blinking Zigzag Lightning,
and The Mysterious Spirits of Trees and Flowers.
Under an open sky, nestling close to the earth, the old Dakota story-tellers have told me these legends. In both Dakotas, North and South, I have often listened to the same story told over again by a new story-teller.
While I recognized such a legend without the least difficulty, I found the renderings varying much in little incidents. Generally one helped the other in restoring some lost link in the original character of the tale. And now I have tried to transplant the native spirit of these tales — root and all — into the English language, since America in the last few centuries has acquired a second tongue.
The old legends of America belong quite as much to the blue-eyed little patriot as to the black-haired aborigine. And when they are grown tall like the wise grown-ups may they not lack interest in a further study of Indian folklore, a study which so strongly suggests our near kinship with the rest of humanity and points a steady finger toward the great brotherhood of mankind, and by which one is so forcibly impressed with the possible earnestness of life as seen through the teepee door! If it be true that much lies in the eye of the beholder,
then in the American aborigine as in any other race, sincerity of belief, though it were based upon mere optical illusion, demands a little respect.
After all he seems at heart much like other peoples.
ZITKALA-SA.
IKTOMI AND THE DUCKS
..................
IKTOMI IS A SPIDER FAIRY. He wears brown deerskin leggins with long soft fringes on either side, and tiny beaded moccasins on his feet. His long black hair is parted in the middle and wrapped with red, red bands. Each round braid hangs over a small brown ear and falls forward over his shoulders.
He even paints his funny face with red and yellow, and draws big black rings around his eyes. He wears a deerskin jacket, with bright colored beads sewed tightly on it. Iktomi dresses like a real Dakota brave. In truth, his paint and deerskins are the best part of him — if ever dress is part of man or fairy.
Iktomi is a wily fellow. His hands are always kept in mischief. He prefers to spread a snare rather than to earn the smallest thing with honest hunting. Why! he laughs outright with wide open mouth when some simple folk are caught in a trap, sure and fast.
He never dreams another lives so bright as he. Often his own conceit leads him hard against the common sense of simpler people.
Poor Iktomi cannot help being a little imp. And so long as he is a naughty fairy, he cannot find a single friend. No one helps him when he is in trouble. No one really loves him. Those who come to admire his handsome beaded jacket and long fringed leggins soon go away sick and tired of his vain, vain words and heartless laughter.
Thus Iktomi lives alone in a cone-shaped wigwam