Old Indian Legends by Zitkála-Šá
I can’t convince. I can’t really explain. All I can do is say that there is nothing more enjoyable, to me, than simple, vivid versions of another culture’s folklore. Maurice Collis wrote up some of the Rama legend in The Quest for Sita and other folkloric stories in The Mystery of Dead Lovers. I enjoyed both immensely. As anyone who has ever taught primary school children knows, there is little that small people like more than tales of Norse gods. Anyone who has ever read versions of Hindu legends to children knows that the Ramayana is a very firm fan favourite. The monkey kings and especially the devoted Hanuman are crowd-pleasers without compare.
English and British folklore is wonderful; I often write about it in my leisure hours. But there is nothing like reading for the first time about a wholly alien tradition, and seeing what kinds of allegorical and practical matter the writers of that tradition can put into their tales. It’s a wonder it took me this long to find the books of Zitkála-Šá, a member of the Dakota tribe and a writer on their culture, their stories, and the Indian situation of her own day.
This is a very enjoyable collection of stories, simply but vividly told. Many of the characters of this book are quite straightforward. A good number of them are merely animals whose natures are used as source to derive fables and tales. The badger who is evicted from his comfortable sett, with his weeping family in tow, by a greedy bear. (‘Old father badger was a great hunter,’ we are told. ‘He knew well how to track the deer and buffalo. Every day he came home carrying on his back some wild game. This kept mother badger very busy, and the baby badgers very chubby. While the well-fed children played about, digging little make-believe dwellings, their mother hung thin sliced meats upon long willow racks.’)
The great red bird that terrorised a tribal camp. (‘Every morning rose this terrible red bird out of a high chalk bluff and spreading out his gigantic wings soared slowly over the round campground. Then it was that the people, terror-stricken, ran screaming into their lodges. Covering their heads with their blankets, they sat trembling with fear.’)
The mice who hold a jamboree inside the skull of a buffalo, little knowing that some form of animal nemesis was heading their way. (‘Tiny little field mice were singing and dancing in a circle ... They were laughing and talking among themselves while their chosen singers sang loud a merry tune.’)
The mother frog who stole a human baby from its real mother, so she could bring up something more beautiful than her own spawn. These stories are not just charming, they’re delightful.
And, of course, there are more overt supernatural elements. We are introduced very early to the recurring figure of the trickster, Iktomi.
He is a spider; he is a fairy; but he is also able to change his shape at will. Sometimes, he is a man, if he wishes to deceive men in the shape of one of their own. Sometimes, he begs the leave of animals to teach him how to become one of them. He wants to have plumage and to fly like a peacock. He wishes to have the beautiful colouring of the fawn’s delicate face. But always, he wishes to steal, to take with advantage, and he is often cruel to those who do him a good turn, be they animal, man, or even one of the gods who takes pity on him and grants the trickster a bounty.
We need to be told early on that the trickster is all bad. Zitkála-Šá informs us. ‘Iktomi is a wily fellow,’ she writes. ‘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.’
There is no one and nothing from whom Iktomi will not steal. He will impersonate a great hero brave if it means he might dishonestly win the prize – a beautiful princess wife – that the brave is due. He will insist that animals who might offer him half of all they have wager with him for the whole, and then attempt to rig the competition.
We must know Iktomi is all bad. That way we do not mind when Iktomi himself falls victim to his own schemes. He deserves it; he deserves it well and proper. When he is burnt under a fire by some animals from whom he wishes to learn the secrets of their colouring. When he drowns trying to find a creature he has undertaken to rob. When all this happens, we must be glad he has been thwarted.
There are many mythic, supernatural characters in this collection, from the legendary fiend Iya, the eater of the world, whose appetite is infinite, to the magical saviour whom the gods grant to the badger who has been deprived of his home by a bear.
In this story, the badger has been left only a single clot of buffalo blood to eat by his persecutor, where once he had food and lodging. The badger retreats to a safe distance to console his family and begins to pray. He carries the blot clot into the small lodge.
After placing it near the sacred stones, he sat down beside it. After a long silence, he muttered: “Great Spirit, bless this little buffalo blood.” Then he arose, and with a quiet dignity stepped out of the lodge. Close behind him someone followed. The badger turned to look over his shoulder and to his great joy he beheld a Dakota brave in handsome buckskins. In his hand he carried a magic arrow. Across his back dangled a long fringed quiver. In answer to the badger’s prayer, the avenger had sprung from out the red globules.
‘My son!’ the badger cries, and takes the brave’s right hand.
If this kind of thing does not make you grin with happiness, as it does for me, this book might not be for you. It’s your loss.