Myths and Legends of the Sioux | Page 4

I at an early age
acquired a thorough knowledge of the Sioux language, and having
lived on Indian reservations for the past forty years in a position which
brought me very near to the Indians, whose confidence I possessed, I
have, therefore, had exceptional opportunities of learning the legends
and folk-lore of the Sioux.
The stories contained in this little volume were told me by the older
men and women of the Sioux, of which I made careful notes as related,
knowing that, if not recorded, these fairy tales would be lost to
posterity by the passing of the primitive Indian.
The notes of a song or a strain of music coming to us through the night
not only give us pleasure by the melody they bring, but also give us
knowledge of the character of the singer or of the instrument from
which they proceed. There is something in the music which unerringly
tells us of its source. I believe musicians call it the "timbre" of the

sound. It is independent of, and different from, both pitch and rhythm;
it is the texture of the music itself.
The "timbre" of a people's stories tells of the qualities of that people's
heart. It is the texture of the thought, independent of its form or
fashioning, which tells the quality of the mind from which it springs.
In the "timbre" of these stories of the Sioux, told in the lodges and at
the camp fires of the past, and by the firesides of the Dakotas of today,
we recognize the very texture of the thought of a simple, grave, and
sincere people, living in intimate contact and friendship with the big
out-of-doors that we call Nature; a race not yet understanding all things,
not proud and boastful, but honest and childlike and fair; a simple,
sincere, and gravely thoughtful people, willing to believe that there
may be in even the everyday things of life something not yet fully
understood; a race that can, without any loss of native dignity, gravely
consider the simplest things, seeking to fathom their meaning and to
learn their lesson--equally without vain-glorious boasting and trifling
cynicism; an earnest, thoughtful, dignified, but simple and primitive
people.
To the children of any race these stories can not fail to give pleasure by
their vivid imaging of the simple things and creatures of the great
out-of-doors and the epics of their doings. They will also give an
intimate insight into the mentality of an interesting race at a most
interesting stage of development, which is now fast receding into the
mists of the past.
MARIE L. McLAUGHLIN (Mrs. James McLaughlin). McLaughlin, S.
D., May 1, 1913.

THE FORGOTTEN EAR OF CORN
An Arikara woman was once gathering corn from the field to store
away for winter use. She passed from stalk to stalk, tearing off the ears
and dropping them into her folded robe. When all was gathered she

started to go, when she heard a faint voice, like a child's, weeping and
calling:
"Oh, do not leave me! Do not go away without me."
The woman was astonished. "What child can that be?" she asked
herself. "What babe can be lost in the cornfield?"
She set down her robe in which she had tied up her corn, and went back
to search; but she found nothing.
As she started away she heard the voice again:
"Oh, do not leave me. Do not go away without me."
She searched for a long time. At last in one corner of the field, hidden
under the leaves of the stalks, she found one little ear of corn. This it
was that had been crying, and this is why all Indian women have since
garnered their corn crop very carefully, so that the succulent food
product should not even to the last small nubbin be neglected or wasted,
and thus displease the Great Mystery.

THE LITTLE MICE
Once upon a time a prairie mouse busied herself all fall storing away a
cache of beans. Every morning she was out early with her empty
cast-off snake skin, which she filled with ground beans and dragged
home with her teeth.
The little mouse had a cousin who was fond of dancing and talk, but
who did not like to work. She was not careful to get her cache of beans
and the season was already well gone before she thought to bestir
herself. When she came to realize her need, she found she had no
packing bag. So she went to her hardworking cousin and said:
"Cousin, I have no beans stored for winter and the season is nearly
gone. But I have no snake skin to gather the beans in. Will you lend me

one?"
"But why have you no packing bag? Where were you