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Subject : Shawnee - Star Maiden Story
Date/Time : 8/28/2012 8:40:32 AM

The Shawnee Indians tell of a group of star maidens who came secretly down to Earth to perform a mystical dance within a magical circle drawn upon the great prairie. One day by chance a young hunter saw the twelve beautiful girls just as they decended from their celestial chariot. He hid nearby and watched their strange fairy dances, fascinated not only by the grace of the movement, but also by the beauty of the dancers. On the following day the youth, White Hawk, returned to the place and found that so, too, the dancers came again. Intrigued, White Hawk watched the ceremonies day after day as he found himself falling deeply in love with the fairest and youngest of the maidens.

Knowing that the girls would be frightened away should he approach them, White Hawk used his supernatural powers to change his form into that of a field mouse. In that fashion he crept through the long prairie grass until he was right within the magic circle. When his love danced near, White Hawk suddenly resumed his normal form and rose to seize her firmly in his arms.

The others fled at once and sped away into the heavens, for the young maiden could not escape the lad's grasp and the rest had no choice.

Star Maiden looked at White Hawk and found him to be a handsome young man, and she returned his love. They were warmly welcomed in his village. The two were married and lived happily for many years. A son was born to them.

Yet after a period Star Maiden experienced a longing for her former home and people. She ran away, taking her little son with her, and journeyed to her land above, to the village of white tents in the sky.

But she was not happy there, for she truly loved White Hawk and could not think of living without him. In council, the chiefs of the star kingdom decided to invite White Hawk to make his home with them in the sky. Star Maiden's son, now grown to be a brave youth, was sent as a messenger to Earth; and he was able to persuade his father to return with him to star country.

As a token for his new countrymen, White Hawk took with him gifts such as a feather from an eagle, a horn from a bison, a cast-off skin from a rattleshake. These were accepted with much ceremony and delight, for the sky people had never seen these strange things. For himself and his wife and son, White Hawk took the feathers of a white falcon, and in that guise the three now live not in the land nor in the heavens, but they are free as the wind and can travel to either home.

The dancers no longer come to Earth for their ritual dances, but they can be seen in the sky in the constellation Corona Borealis. There they dance on summer evenings, their circle not fully complete, since Star Maiden is no longer with her sisters.

Subject : Shawnee Proverb
Date/Time : 8/28/2012 8:39:57 AM

We are all one child spinning through Mother Sky.

Subject : Shawnee Story
Date/Time : 8/27/2012 9:25:35 AM

Brother Crow and Brother Buffalo

The crow was pure white in the beginning. He was the brother to the buffalo. The Shawnee needed the buffalo for food and skins but everytime the Shawnee would hunt the buffalo, the crow would warn him.

The hunting party gathered around the campfire to prepare for the hunt. Cawanemua said,"We must do something about crow." "I will dress as a buffalo and when brother crow comes to warn the buffalo of our hunt, I will grab him."

The next day, Cawanemua pulled the buffalo skin over him and joined the herd grazing near by. Sure enough, crow came warning the buffalo as the Shawnee hunters approached. Crow was crying,"Caw, Caw, hunters afar!" Cawanemau jumped up and caught crow by his legs and carried him back to the camp.

That night, around the fire as the hunters discussed the fate of crow, Panseau , the smallest brave listened and watched crow. Some wanted to kill and eat crow, since they were very hungry and crow had spoiled the hunt by warning the buffalo. Others wanted to let crow go, thinking that he had learned his lesson and would not warn buffalo again.

Cawanemau was getting more and more angry...he grabbed crow and threw him in the fire. Panseau seeing crow turning black from the fire and soot....grabbed him from the flames. Cawanemau was furious with Panseau. He yelled, "Crow decieves us, we are hungry and cold because he warns buffalo!!! Yet you save him from the flames!!" Panseau, in a small voice, quietly said, "Crow warns his brother. Just as I would warn you, my brother."

Crow, who was shaken and blackened from the flames, heard Panseau. Everyone was very still, thinking about what Panseau the smallest brave had said. Crow spoke, " I am blackened for warning buffalo, who is my brother. I now say Shawnee is my brother also. I will never warn buffalo of your hunt and you, brother Shawnee, will remember to give thanks to buffalo for giving himself to you for food to fill your belly and skins to keep you warm.

Cawanemau stood. "Crow is our brother. Buffalo is our brother also. We will only hunt buffalo when we need food and skins. We will remember to always give thanks. Brother crow will remain black, so he too can remember and remind us of his promise to never warn our brother buffalo." That my friends is how the crow became black.

Subject : Shawnee Proverb
Date/Time : 8/27/2012 9:25:03 AM

Each person is his own judge.

Subject : Sioux - Devil's Tower Story
Date/Time : 8/24/2012 8:26:43 AM

A Story of Devil's Tower

Out of the plains of Wyoming rises Devil's Tower. It is really a rock, visible for hundreds of miles around, an immense cone of basalt which seems to touch the clouds. It sticks out of the flat prairie as if someone had pushed it up from underground.

Of course, Devil's Tower is a white man's name. We have no devil in our beliefs and got along well all these many centuries without him. You people invented the devil and, as far as I'm concerned, you can keep him. But everybody these days knows that towering rock by this name, so Devil's Tower it is.
No use telling you its Indian name. Most tribes call it bear rock. There is a reason for that - if you see it, you will notice on its sheer sides many, many streaks and gashes running straight up and down, like scratches made by giant claws.

Well, long, long ago, two young Indian boys found themselves lost in the prairie. You know how it is. They had played shinny ball and whacked it a few hundred yards out of the village. And then they had shot their toy bows still farther out into the sagebrush. And then they had heard a small animal make a noise and had gone to investigate.

They had come to a stream with many colorful pebbles and followed that for a while. They had come to a hill and wanted to see what was on the other side. On the other side they saw a herd of antelope and, of course, had to track them for a while.
When they got hungry and thought it was time to go home, the two boys found that they didn't know where they were. They started off in the direction where they thought their village was, but only got farther and farther away from it. At last they curled up beneath a tree and went to sleep.

They got up the next morning and walked some more, still headed the wrong way. They ate some wild berries and dug up wild turnips, found some chokecherries, and drank water from streams. For three days they walked toward the west. They were footsore, but they survived.
Oh, how they wished that their parents, or aunts or uncles, or elder brothers and sisters would find them. But nobody did.

On the fourth day the boys suddenly had a feeling that they were being followed. They looked around and in the distance saw Mato, the bear. This was no ordinary bear, but a giant grizzly so huge that the two boys would only make a small mouthful for him, but he had smelled the boys and wanted that mouthful. He kept coming close, and the earth trembled as he gathered speed.

The boys started running, looking for a place to hide, but there was no such place and the grizzly was much much faster than they. They stumbled, and the bear was almost upon them. They could see his red, wide-open jaws full of enormous, wicked teeth. They could smell his hot, evil breath. The boys were old enough to have learned to pray, and they called upon Wakan Tanka, the Creator:
"Tunkashila, Grandfather, have pity, save us."

All at once the earth shook and began to rise. The boys rose with it. Out of the earth came a cone of rock going up, up until it was more than a thousand feet high. And the boys were on top of it. Mato the bear was disappointed to see his meal disappearing into the clouds.

Have I said he was a giant bear? This grizzly was so huge that he could almost reach to the top of the rock, trying to get up, trying to get those boys. As he did so, he made big scratches in the sides of the towering rock. But the stone was too slippery; Mato could not get up. He tried every spot, every side. He scratched up the rock all around, but it was no use. The boys watched him wearing himself out, getting tired, giving up. They finally saw him going away, a huge, growling, grunting mountain of fur disappearing over the horizon.

The boys were saved. Or were they? How were they to get down? They were humans, not birds who could fly.
Some ten years ago, mountain climbers tried to conquer Devil's Tower. They had ropes, and iron hooks called pitons to nail themselves to the rockface, and they managed to get up. But they couldn't get down. They were marooned on that giant basalt cone, and they had to be taken off in a helicopter. In the long-ago days the Indians had no helicopters.
So how did the two boys get down? The legend does not tell us, but we can be sure that the Great Spirit didn't save those boys only to let them perish of hunger and thirst on the top of the rock.

Well, Wanblee, the eagle, has always been a friend to our people. So it must have been the eagle that let the boys grab hold of him and carried them safely back to their village.
Or do you know another way?

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