Coming to Light by Brian Swann

Author:Brian Swann [Swann, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-75528-5
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

NOTES

1. George Bird Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales (New York: Field and Stream, 1889).

2. George A. Dorsey, Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee, Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, vol. 8 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904) and The Pawnee: Mythology, pt. 1, Carnegie Institution of Washington Publication no. 59 (Washington, D.C., 1906).

3. See Douglas R. Parks and Raymond J. De Mallie, “Plains Indian Native Literatures,” boundary 2 19 (1992): 105–47.

4. Gene Weltfish, Caddoan Texts: Pawnee, South Band Dialect, Publications of the American Ethnological Society no. 17 (New York: G. E. Stechert, 1937).

5. James R. Murie, Ceremonies of the Pawnee, Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology no. 27, ed. Douglas R. Parks (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 2:228, 274, 322.

6. Dorsey, Traditions of the Skidi Pawnee, 300–301.

7. For a survey of riddles among American Indians, see John Bierhorst, ed., Lightning Inside Ton and Other Native American Riddles (New York: William Morrow, 1992).

8. Grinncll, Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales, 25–44.

9. For a description of Ankara oral style, which is nearly identical to Pawnee style, see Douglas R. Parks, Traditional Narratives of the Arikara Indians, 4 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press), 1991.

SPEAKS-IN-RIDDLES AND WISESPIRIT

There were two bands of Indians, and in one of the two there was a person who was very wise. They called him Wise Spirit. And living in the other band was another person, named Speaks-in-Riddles. And each of them wanted to see the other one, but the day had not yet come for them to meet.

And then eventually Wise Spirit thought, “Oh, I wish I could meet Speaks-in-Riddles.”

Then Speaks-in-Riddles thought, “I wish I could meet Wise Spirit.”

Now this is what Speaks-in-Riddles did: he went to see Wise Spirit. That band where he lived was camped not far away. And he arrived there.

Then he said, “I guess you have heard that I’ve come. I am Speaks-in-Riddles. I hear that you’re named Wise Spirit. I’ve come looking for you. Now I want to say what I want to say. It won’t take long, and then I’ll go.”

Then Wise Spirit said, “Now sit down there, and say what it is that you want to say!”

Now Speaks-in-Riddles sat down. “Now I’m going to tell you about things I saw on my way here. My, while I was coming along the bank of that rapidly flowing river, it seemed as if there were someone with me. And now after I crossed the river and looked back, there appeared to be dead red birds lying there on the ground.

“Well, after I came up the hill, I also saw these things. And again this is what I did: while I was watching things as I looked off into the wide valley, why, off in the distance in the wide valley, there appeared to be lines of black rope.*Why, there appeared to be Unes of black rope. Well, now, I looked around at the valley with many streams of water extending through it—with those streams spreading out in different directions—and there appeared to

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