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Indian Legends Retold By: Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863-1953) |
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BY
ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
GEORGE VARIAN
[Decoration]
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1919 Copyright, 1919 ,
By Little, Brown, and Company. All rights reserved Published, September, 1919
Norwood Press
Set up and electrotyped by
J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
Presswork by
S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
BOOKS BY
ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN Yellow Star
Indian Legends Retold
In Collaboration with
CHARLES A. EASTMAN Wigwam Evenings
[Illustration: THE CAPTIVE
The murdered dove instantly became a whole flock of hawks.
Frontispiece. See page 18. ]
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author wishes to thank the Bureau of American Ethnology,
Washington, D.C., for kind permission to make use of certain of the
stories contained in their collections.
INTRODUCTION THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INDIAN LEGENDS
The first Indian legends, repeated by the fireside to children, deal
with the animals humanized, their gifts and their weaknesses, in such
a way as to be a lesson to the young. Our view of the creation allows
a soul to all living creatures, and rocks and trees are reverenced as
sharers in the divine. Beyond their simplicity and realism there is
always the unexplained, the background of mystery and spirituality. These animal fables serve as an introduction to more complicated
stories with human actors, which almost always have their hidden moral
and are accepted by our people as guides to life. They are full of
humor and poetry, of pride, tenderness, boastfulness, and real
heroism. Human lives are mingled with the supernatural, with elements
and mysterious powers, bringing swift punishment for wrong doing. This
is the basis of our Indian philosophy, the groundwork early laid in
the mind of the child, for him to develop later in life by his own
observation. One who reads these stories carefully and thoughtfully will understand
something of Indian psychology. Mystery to the Indian is not mystery
after all, but a reflection of the Great Mystery which opens out as
simply as a flower. To us nothing is strange or impossible. It seems
natural that an animal or even a rock should speak; God is in it and
speaks through it. It must be remembered that these are only fragments of what were once
consecutive and continued stories, too long and involved to be set
down here in full. With just such stories the foundation of my early
education was laid in the cold winter evenings, and the impression
made was permanent. The characters were real people to me, and the
tales of the old men and old women fostered a love of nature,
reverence, a kindly spirit, and finally patriotism and the inspiration
to heroic effort. Like the other boys, I was expected to learn them by
heart and rehearse them in the family circle. It is gratifying to have
these old stories saved for the children of another race and
generation. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa).
CONTENTS
PAGE Introduction vii A Little Talk about Indians 1 Pima Tales 11 Cherokee Tales 23 Choctaw Stories 51 Iroquois Tales 65 Tsimshian Tales 77 Alaskan Stories 137
ILLUSTRATIONS
The murdered dove instantly became a whole
flock of hawks Frontispiece One contrived to pull her son down but the
other six went up into the sky PAGE 44 He makes it choose one of three gifts " 55 He rudely pushed her backward until she
fell down " 83 He discovered the woman in a small pool " 111 He took him to a tall stump in the very
middle of the lake and there he left him " 144
INDIAN LEGENDS RETOLD
A LITTLE TALK ABOUT INDIANS
Many of us think of the American Indians as all one people... Continue reading book >>
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