Subject:  MSR Old Indian Legends
Author:  Zitkala-Sa
Uploaded By:  HOST Comp Joots
Date:  6/9/2002

File:  Old Indian Legends.lit (131371 bytes) 
Estimated Download Time (53797 baud):  < 1 minute
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Equipment:  Windows computer or Pocket PC
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Keywords:  Old Indian Legends, Aitkala-Sa, Family fiction

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.