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Traditions of the Arikara

Chapter 5: FOOTNOTES:
By George A. Dorsey
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Archaeology & AnthropologyMythology, Legends & Folklore

About This Book

A collection of Arikara myths and oral narratives gathers creation accounts, emergence variants, and a long series of transformer legends that explain origins of people, animals, dances, and sacred objects. Stories recount land brought into being by animal and culture figures, people fashioned by spiders, visits of a corn spirit, escapes from buffalo, marriages between humans and celestial or animal beings, and the deeds of trickster figures alongside a recurrent culture-hero poor boy. Many tales also serve as etiologies for ceremonies, dances, medicine societies, and ritual powers, often linking human life with animal and cosmic forces.

TRADITIONS OF THE ARIKARA

1. THE WOLF AND LUCKY-MAN CREATE LAND.[2]

There was a big lake. On this lake were two Ducks swimming around. They saw the Wolf coming from the southwest. Then they saw in the north, Lucky-Man coming. The Wolf and Lucky-Man met on the shore of the lake.

The Wolf challenged Lucky-Man to see who could endure the rain the longest. The Wolf hung up his own skin, while Lucky-Man hung up all kinds of feathers on a long stick. It commenced to rain. The Wolf finally gave in. He said: “I am beaten, but now I want you to create with me. I want to make land. I want you to make land, and whatever things should live on it.” Then the Wolf said, “I will take the north side of the Missouri River, and I will make land.” The Wolf called a Duck, and said, “Now, Duck, can you dive away down under the lake and fetch me some dirt from the bottom?” The Duck said, “Yes.” The Duck dived and brought up mud and placed it before the Wolf. The Wolf then threw the mud in the north, and said, “Form into land, and let it be prairie, and let the buffalo roam over this prairie!” And it was done.

The Wolf told Lucky-Man that it was now his turn. Lucky-Man then turned and called the Duck and told it to bring up the mud from the lake. He brought up even more than he had brought up for the Wolf. Lucky-Man threw this dirt on the south side of where the Wolf had made his land. Hills and mountains were formed. The buffalo were seen on the land. Lucky-Man said: “When the people come they shall choose to live on the south side of the Missouri River, for there are hills and valleys, so that their ponies, dogs, and buffalo can find shelter in the hills and mountains. You made your country level; in the winter time the buffalo will be driven away from there by the storm.”

The Wolf made the land on the north side, and Lucky-Man made the land on the south side; so there was a channel between the two countries, and that is where the Missouri River bed is. The first thing they knew, the stream of the Missouri began to flow along the dividing line of the two countries they had created.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Told by Yellow-Bear.