North American Indians of the plains / by Clark Wissler.

  • Clark Wissler
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: North American Indians of the plains / by Clark Wissler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a little mud or sand. Of other tales found both within and without the Plains area we may mention, the “Twin-heroes/’ the “Woman who married a star and bore a Hero,” and the “Woman who married a Dog.” Working out the distribution of such myths is one of the fascinating tasks of the folklorist and will some time give us a clearer insight into the prehistoric cul¬ tural contacts of the several tribes. A typical study of this kind by Dr. R. H. Lowie will be found in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, September, 1908, where, for example, the star-born hero is traced through the Crow, Pawnee, Dakota, Arapaho, Kiowa, Gros Ventre, and Blackfoot. Indian mythologies often contain large groups of tales each reciting the adven¬ tures of a distinguished mythical hero. In the Plains, as elsewhere, we find among these a peculiar character with supernatural attributes, who transforms and in some instances creates the world, who rights great wrongs, and corrects great evils, yet who often stoops to trivial and vulgar pranks. Among the Blackfoot, for instance, he appears under the name of Napiwa, t white old man, or old man of the dawn. He is dis¬ tinctly human in form and name. The Gros Ventre, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Iiidatsa, and Mandan seem to have a similar character in their mythology. In the Plateau area to the west, this character is usually given the animal name and attributes of a coyote, and appears in the Plains among the Crow, Nez Perce, and the Shoshone. Again, the Assiniboine, Dakota, and Omaha give him a spider-like character (Unktomi). On the