Symbols Definitions,                     Animal Mythology

Legends

 

Speaker's Staff

Smiling Fox

Mother bear


The Raven and the fish milt

Raven: the Brave Warrior

The Deer who was a Wolf Slave

The Beaver and the Frog woman

The Mink, the Raven and the Sea Eggs

The Raven proposes and is accepted

Chief Squamish Jim (sikemkin) and the Grizzly Bear

Kalkalilh and t'it'ki7tsten

A Dakota Legend of Creation

Thunderbird's Story

Raven finds the First Men

Raven

 How Rabbit Stole Otter's Coat

Iroquois Creation Legend

The girl who broke all taboos

The Loon

Why Raven is black

The strange woman

Raccoon

Cannibal Lady

Origin of disease

Saynday

The flying chain

The river of ghosts

Creation of the land

The killer whale people
American Indian Butterfly Legend
Wendigo

The Medicine Wheel, Circle of life.

The Frogs And The Crane

Legend Ojibwe Dream Catcher

 

Wild boy and the cave

Storytellers Native American Authors Online
Anishnaabe / Chippewa / Ojibway
Randy Chitto Turtle Storyteller


Turtle Storyteller by Randy Chitto

 

Argillite
Baskets
Beadwork
Bear
Beaver
Bentwood Box
Bookwus
Copper
Cowichan Knits
Dogfish
Dragonfly
Drums
Eagle
Eagle Feather
Frog
Halibut
Hawk Mask
Hok Hok
Human
Hummingbird
Inukshuk
Killer Whale

Komokwa
Moon
Mosquito
Ojibway Basketry
Owl
Pugmis
Raven
Red Cedar
Salmon
Sea Lion
Seal
Shaman
Sisiutl
Soapstone
Sun
Talking Stick
Thunderbird
Totem Poles
Watchmen
Wolf
Wren Mask

more symbol folklore http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/symbols/native-american.html

other folklore and educational text documents links

 

"Three Noted Chiefs of the Sioux."

"Raven Steals the Light" This story is shared by many northwest coast nations.

There was a time many years ago when the earth was covered in darkness. An inky pitch blanketed the world making it very difficult for anyone to hunt or fish or gather berries for food. An old man lived along the banks of a stream with his daughter who may have been very beautiful or possibly quite homely. This didn't matter to the old man however because after all it was dark and who could tell.

The reason why the world was dark had to do with the old man who had a box that contained a box that held many other boxes. In the very last box was all the light in the universe and this was a treasure he selfishly kept to himself.

The mischievous Raven existed at that time because he always had. He was none too happy about the state of the world for he blundered about in the dark bumping into everything. His interfering nature peaked one day when he stumbled by the old man's hut and overheard him muttering about his boxes. He instantly decided to steal the light but first had to find a way to get inside the hut.

Each day the young girl would go to the stream to fetch water so the Raven transformed himself into a tiny hemlock needle and floated into the girl's bucket. Working a bit of his "trickster" magic, he made the girl thirsty and as she took a drink he slipped down her throat. Once down in her warm insides he changed again; this time into a small human being and took a very long nap.

The girl did not know what was happening to her and didn't tell her father. One day the Raven emerged as a little boy child. If anyone could have seen him in the dark, they would have noticed that he was a peculiar looking child with a long beaklike nose, a few feathers here and there, and the unmistakably shining eyes of the Raven.

Both father and daughter were delighted with their new addition and played with him for hours on end. As the child explored his new surroundings he soon determined that the light must be kept in the big box in the corner. When he first tried to open the box, his grandfather scolded him profusely which in turn started a crying and squawking fit the likes of which the old man had never seen. As grandfathers have done since the beginning of time he caved in and gave the child the biggest box to play with. This brought peace to the hut for a brief time but it wasn't long until the child pulled his scam again, and again, and again until finally only one box remained.

After much coaxing and wailing the old man at last agreed to let the child play with the light for only a moment. As he tossed the ball of light the child transformed into the Raven and snatching the light in his beak, flew through the smoke hole and up into the sky.

The world was instantly changed forever. Mountains sprang into the bright sky and reflections danced on the rivers and oceans. Far away, the Eagle was awakened and launched skyward - his target now clearly in sight.

Raven was so caught up in all the excitement of the newly revealed world that he nearly didn't see the Eagle bearing down on him. Swerving sharply to escape the outstretched talons, he dropped nearly half of the ball of light which fell to the earth. Shattering into one large and many small pieces on the rocky ground the bits of light bounced back up into the heavens where they remain to this day as the moon and the stars.

The Eagle pursued Raven beyond the rim of the world and exhausted by the long chase, Raven let go of what light still remained. Floating gracefully above the clouds, the sun as we now know it started up over the mountains to the east.

The first rays of the morning sun brought light through the smoke hole of the old man's house. He was weeping in sorrow over his great loss and looking up, saw his daughter for the first time. She was very beautiful and smiling, he began to feel a little better.



THE LEGEND OF THE DREAM CATCHER
According to legend, dreams are messages from sacred spirits. It is said that the hole in the center of the web allows the good dreams through while bad dreams are trapped in the web until they disappear in the morning sun. Dream Catchers are believed to bless the "sleeping one" with pleasant dreams, good luck and harmony throughout their lives.

 The Legend of the Dream Catcher
Long ago when the word was young, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language. As he spoke, Iktomi the spider picked up the elder’s willow hoop which had feathers, horsehair, beads and offerings on it, and began to spin a web.

He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life; how we begin our lives as infants, move on through childhood and on to adulthood. Finally we go to old age where we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle. “But”, Iktomi said as he continued to spin his web, “in each time of life there are many forces; some good and some bad. If you listen to the good forces, they will steer you in the right direction. But, if you listen to the bad forces, they'll steer you in the wrong direction and may hurt you. So these forces can help, or can interfere with the harmony of Nature. While the spider spoke, he continued to weave his web.

When Iktomi finished speaking, he gave the elder the web and said, “The web is a perfect circle with a hole in the center. Use the web to help your people reach their goals, making good use of their ideas, dreams and visions. If you believe in the great spirit, the web will catch your good ideas and the bad ones will go through the hole.” The elder passed on his vision to the people and now many Indian people hang a dream catcher above their bed to sift their dreams and visions. The good is captured in the web of life and carried with the people, but the evil in their dreams drops through the hole in the center of the web and are no longer a part of their lives. It’s said that the dream catcher holds the destiny of the future.

 The World is a Box of Souls

The peoples of the west coast consider the world to be like a huge box, which contains all the souls in the universe as either humans or animals. On the west coast, the sides of boxes are made from a single board of cedar that has been curved and bent to form a container with but one seam.

 

Life for the individual begins in a steamed and bent cradle; those of high rank progress to a seat, which is a three-sided box turned inside out. Life is sustained by food (from fish and animals) that is kept in bent boxes stacked along the walls of the house. And at death the body is placed in a coffin box that is stacked in special houses or mortuaries for the dead.

The lineage or family group, a collectivity of souls, is contained in a house constructed like a box. Living people enter through the front and sides, while the deceased leave only through the back of the house (by removing special planks); the souls depart through the smoke hole above the hearth in the center of the house.

 

Each box is also a living form in which the design is continuous from one side to the other, describing a single being (often a supernatural guardian of the box's contents). The house is also a living being as well as a container of souls. The house has both a skin (made of removable cedar planks) and bones (the house posts, beams and rafter, which are considered to be arms, legs, backbones and ribs). Similar guardian and crest figures ornament the façade and sometimes the sides of the house.

The ultimate house/box is the universe, through which the sun passes every day, entering the front entrance (symbolic of life) and exiting from the back (symbolic of death). During the night the sun passes over the world house but can be seen as starlight shinning through the holes in the roof.

The unifying symbol of the box as container of souls and wealth provides a decorative field, used for generations by Native artists on the coast to create complex and subtle designs.

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