From the bleak coasts of Labrador and the icy borders of the Frozen Sea,
in the east, through the river-threaded steppes and plains of the
interior with all their charming lakes, over the tremendous, gleaming
white heights of the Canadian Rockies, and onwards by cañon and pass to
the more pacific climate of the western coast—it is a far sweep of
country, this British North America, and occupied in bygone times by
many a tribe of red men.
Yet from eastern coast to western, from the long southern boundary to
the Arctic Ocean, one finds everywhere the same questioning among these
red men. Who was the Someone who had cut and carved the rivers and
plains and great mountain heights? Who was the Someone who gave Squirrel
a beautiful bushy tail which swept his back, and gave Rabbit no tail at
all? Why did Someone send the icy winds of winter, the storm winds that
shriek around the tepee and rattle the flaps, howling through the trees
and blowing the snow down the smoke-hole? It seemed impossible that it
was the same One who sent the warm breezes in summer, when the lakes
were full of fish and the bushes laden with berries, when the forests
full of game, and life was easy. Therefore there must be two Powers, one
strong and ugly, one beautiful and good, always battling against each
other—the universal human belief in both good and evil.
Indian myths and legends are the efforts of the red men to answer these
questions, as well as to interest and amuse each other in the long
winter evenings when the fires burned brightly in the tepees and the
carved plumstone dice were thrown. Men forgot their games and women the
beading of the moccasin, while children listened intently, as the story
tellers of the camp related, with dramatic gestures, stories of the Days
of the Grandfathers, in the beginning of the Newness of Things. Nothing
was too large or too small to come within the bounds of their beliefs,
or within the play of their fancy.
As in all other volumes of this series, only the quaint, the pure, and
the beautiful, has been taken from the tales of the Indians. Any one
wishing pure ethnology, good and bad together, would do better to go to
ethnological reports.
The Indians omitted many stories we wish they had told. There are few
references to the snowy mountains, probably because of their belief that
all above the snowline was governed by vague, misty, but powerful
spirits who sent down the thundering avalanches in the sunlit valleys
when summer had come and all was green and beautiful. There are few
references to large lakes or rivers, which is characteristic, for even
the Indian names of rivers apply to localities on the river, not to the
entire river itself. And in the myths of British North America,
especially on the western coast, there are many legends involving
cannibalism—an element entirely lacking in the myths of the United
States, whether east or west. Even Alaskan myths practically omit that
subject, while in the Old South-west—New Mexico and Arizona—one finds
myths of rare beauty and charm of imagery. Indeed, climatic conditions
played not only a distinct part in the physical life of the Indian, but
had a tremendous influence over his thinking.
Only authentic myths and legends have been used in the compilation of
this volume. The leading authorities are the publications of the United
States Bureau of Ethnology, of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, of
the Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, as well as the
ethnological publications of the Canadian Bureau of Mines.