The initial stage of Athabascan
penetration into the Plains may be connected with the Avonlea culture
(maximum spread at about 1200 b.p. in the Saskatchewan basin and Upper
Missouri) though such an interpretation is not beyond doubt (Dyck and
Morlan 2001: 125-126). Further archaeological traces of movements of
the Southern Athabascans to the Southwest remain elusive. Linguists,
however, agree that the splitting of Apachean from the main Athabascan
stock was hardly much earlier than 1000 b.p. (Campbell 1998: 112; Foster
1996: 75; Perry 1980). The arrival of the Apache and Navajo in the Southwest
could have been as late as 500 b.p. The genetic proximity of the Southern
Athabascans to Puebloan peoples (Cavalli-Sforza a.o. 1994: 323-324,
figs. 6.9.2, 6.10.1, 6.10.2) suggests their intensive interaction with
the local populations of the Southwest and adjacent Plains. The oral
literatures and especially the cosmologies of the Navajo, Western Apache,
Jicarilla, Mescalero, Chiricahua and even Lipan share many motifs with
those of the Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, Tewa and other Puebloan groups. The
absence in Southern Athabascan folklore of motifs which are typical
for Northern Athabascans would suggest that during migrations over long
distances with complete changes of environment, a set of folklore motifs
transforms easily and rapidly. If this were so, the areal distributions
of motifs would be a poor guide for reconstructing prehistoric migrations.
The systematic study of North American
Indian folklore demonstrates however that this is not the case -- Apache
and Navajo did preserve elements of their "pre-Puebloan" folklore.
Some of these elements are predominantly Athabascan. Others, though
known to other groups, are specific to northern areas of the continent.
Being unknown to the Pueblo, they could hardly have been brought to
the Southwest by any people other than the Athabascans. The Kiowa-Apache
stand somewhat apart from this study because, being isolated from all
other groups of the same language affiliation and being in a close contact
with the Plains groups (first of all the Kiowa), they had the least
favorable circumstances for preserving their northern cultural heritage.
Nethertheless some pan-Athabascan motifs have been found even in Kiowa-Apache.
Sarsi, another Plains Athabascan group (this time Northern Athabascan,
in intensive interaction with Algonkian Blackfoot) plays no role in
this research because there is insufficient information available on
their folklore.
Here I describe all links between Northern
and Southern Athabascan folklore that I could find.
Burned Moccasins (Th
K1615). Two men spend a night in a forest,and take their moccasins
or clothes off to dry them near the fire. One puts the moccasins or
clothes of another in such way that they would burn at night; or he
plans to throw them into the fire when his companion is soundly asleep.
The companion however interchanges the moccasins without being observed,
and as a result the first man burns his own property. He either dies
of cold or invents something to get home.
This episode is one (often the last one)
in a series of conspiracies made by a father-in-law against his son-in-law
whom he is eager to test or to kill. All corresponding texts are similar
in their general structure and particular episodes. The burned moccasins
motif, unknown outside of North America, has been recorded across the
Subarctic and adjacent areas of the Midwest and Plains, both in its
eastern part among the Algonkians and in its western part among the
Athabascans. It has been found among the Montagnais (Speck 1925: 16-17),
Menomini (Skinner, Satterlee 1915, no. II14: 366-371), Ojibwa (Jones
1916, no.24a: 377; Radin 1914, no.28: 54-59), Northern Saulteaux (Skinner
1911: 170-173), East Cree (Skinner 1911: 89-91; Swindlehurst 1905, no.3:
140-141), Swampy Cree (Ray, Stevens 1971: 52-57), and Plains Cree (Ahenakew
1929: 313-319; Bloomfield 1930, no.1: 16-18; Skinner 1916, no.2: 352-353).
The Northern Athabascan versions include the Kutchin (McKennan 1965:
120; Fredson, Sapir 1982: 86 in Norman 1990: 150-151; Schmitter 1910:
29), Kaska (Teit 1917a, no.1: 41-42), Beaver (Goddard 1916: 233-234)
and Tahltan (Teit 1919-1921, no.4: 227-224). The motif was not known
to the Athabascans of southwestern Alaska (Athna, Tanaina, Ingalik,
etc.) and I could not find it in the published materials on Chipewyan,
Dogrib, Hare and Slavey. Because of this the Algonikians with greater
reason than the Athabascans can be considered as the original possessors
of the burned moccasins motif. Athabascans of the Yukon, British Columbia,
Alberta and Northern Alaska probably acquired it later, though it is
not possible to suggest any absolute. The motif was not known to most
of the Indians of the Plains to the south of the Plains Cree. There
are only two exceptions. In the Northern Plains, a father-in-law
testing his son-in-law story with the burned moccasins
motif is found among the Assiniboin (Lowie 1909a, no.8a, 8b: 154-159)
who share also many other elements of their folklore with the Plains
Cree (since about 350 b.p. the two groups were in intensive political
and cultural interaction; DeMallie and Miller 2001: 572). Another case
is the Iowa of the Prairie subarea. Here the burned clothes
motif is integrated not into the father-in-law's tests story
but into the tale about an imposter who tries to take the hero's place
and to marry a woman (Skinner 1925, no.7: 458-461). In this respect
the Iowa text is different from all others and can be considered as
marginal.
In the Southwest, the burned moccasins
motif is recorded among the Navajo (Matthews 1994: 175-194) though not
among the Apache. The tale is based on the same father-in-law's
tests motif as the Northern Athabascan and Algonkian texts. A special
detail proves that at the Navajo the motif did not emerge independently
but was brought from the North. Here the burning episode lacks its original
reason for being, because there is no deep snow or cold in Navajo country
and consequently the destruction of the moccasins and clothes at night
would not be as fatal as it was in the Subarctic. In the Navajo story,
the father-in-law simply says that the place where they will stay for
the night is Ridge of the Burnt Moccasins. Neither he nor his son-in-law
hang their possessions by fire (their moccasins do not need any drying)
but rather put them under the heads.
Weather birds. A
man comes to a nest of giant birds. When the birds return home, they
bring with them clouds, rain, hail, etc. The male and the female birds
bring different kinds of atmospheric conditions (e.g. snow and rain,
rare night and day). The nestlings, answering the hero's question, tell
him beforehand how their father and mother will appear.
Unlike the burned moccasins,
the motif of the weather birds can be considered as being specific
to Athabascan folklore. Other cases of this motif are not numerous and
belong to those groups which either certainly or very probably had intense
connections with Athabascans. In some cases the motif is integrated
into the same father-in-law's tests tales as the burned
moccasins, the hero coming to the nest of the birds in search of
the feathers for arrows which his father-in-law wanted him to bring.
In such a context the motif is recorded at Upper Tanana (McKennan 1959:
179-180), Kutchin (McKennan 1965: 102; Schmitter 1910: 21-23), Tagish
(Norman 1990: 111-113) and Kaska (Teit 1917a, no.1: 435-441). We might
assume that the motif was also known to the Tutchone, but the data on
their legends is incomplete. To the west of this core group inside Yukon
– northern Alaska, the task-giver is the hero's rival or while
climbing to the nest of the birds appears to be pursuing no clear aim
at all. Such are Koyukon (Jetté 1908-1909: 498; Wright 1908:
33-34) and Tanana (Chapman 1914, no.30, 101-102) texts. To the east
of the Yukon among the Hare (Petitot 1886, no.13: 141-144) and Slavey
(Petitot 1886, no.5: 321-327), the man climbs to the nest because he
himself needs feathers for arrows. According to another Canadian version
shared by Beaver (Goddard 1916: 233-234), Yellowknife (Petitot 1886,
no.3: 352-361) and Chipewyan (Goddard 1912, no.1: 46-49; Lowie 1912:
189-193), the hero first comes up to the sky and then descends back
down by a rope or in a basket. Before he gets to earth, he falls into
the nest of giant birds.
Among non-Athabascan groups, Tlingit (Swanton
1909, no.31: 97) and Kutenai (Linderman 1997, no.9: 90-107) possess
versions according to which the birds are dangerous enemies and have
to be killed. Algonkian Gros Ventres of the Northern Plains preserve
tales based on the father-in-law's test motif similar to the
Athabascans of the Yukon (Cooper 1975, no.11: 482-487; Kroeber 1907b,
no.20: 82-89). Among the Arapaho, another Algonkian group of the area,
the birds are dangerous monsters destroyed by hero twins (Dorsey, Kroeber
1903, no.139-142: 341-387). Among the Crow (who were the first among
the Siouans to enter the Plains from the east) the hero helps the birds
to overcome a water monster who regularly devoured the nestlings (Lowie
1918: 144-148). This version has parallels in Central Eurasia which
do not concern us now. A Wichita tale (Dorsey 1904a, no.16: 122-123)
stands somewhat apart from the rest (a cannibal bird carries a man to
its nest, he kills bad- weather nestlings, preserves good-weather nestlings,
then kills the adult bird).
In the Southwest most of the heroic stories
describe the deeds of the twins who rid the earth of monsters, cannibal
birds among those monsters. These heroes (often War Gods or War Brothers)
occupy a distinguished part in legend and religion of both Athabascans
and Puebloan peoples (Parsons 1939(1), table 2). However, the ornithomorphic
enemies of the heroes are identified with the weather birds
more regularly in Athabascan folklore, among the Navajo (Matthews 1994:
116-121), Western Apache (both San Carlos and White Mountains, Goddard
1918: 7-19; 1919: 132-135), Chiricahua (Opler 1942: 3-9, 12), Jicarilla
(Mooney 1898a: 200-209; Russel 1898: 255-258) and Lipan (Opler 1940,
no.1: 19-21). Among the Puebloan peoples, the weather birds
are known only to the Hopi (Stephens 1929, no.7: 17-18). The latter
have also such a detail shared with the Apache and Navajo as specific
as one of the twins being conceived by the Sun and another by water.
Another link that connects the Hopi and the Athabascans is a story which
explains the emergence of monsters. They were born by the women who
quarrelled with men, had been living apart and masturbated with different
objects. The cannibal birds were conceived when women masturbated with
feathers, and another monster, a giant antelope / elk / buffalo, was
conceived from a horn. It seems that among the Puebloan peoples, the
Hopi were in a more intensive cultural interation with Southern Athabascans
(mainly with the Navajo) than were other groups.
Tunnel under the Monster.
The Hero has to kill a monstrous Stag, Moose, Antelope, or Buffalo.
The monster's hide cannot be pierced by any weapon. Being always on
guard, the monster does not let anybody come near unnoticed. To solve
these problems, a small rodent (mouse, gopher, or the like) digs an
underground tunnel to the place where the monster lies and then gnaws
off its hair under its heart. When the monster asks what it is about,
the animal explains that it needs some hair to make warm its small children.
The hero crawls along the tunnel and pierces the monster's heart from
below at the hairless spot. Then he uses its sinews to make a bow (in
Subarctic versions) or (in the Southwest) makes a dagger of its horn
or puts a bowel with the monster's blood under his clothes (later he
breaks the bowel to make the cannibal bird believe that he is dead).
Among Southern Athabascans these motifs
(or better: this chain of motifs) is recorded among the Navajo (Haile
1938: 113-117; Klah 1960: 116-118; O'Bryan 1956: 85-86), Western Apache
(Goddard 1918: 7-19), Jicarilla (Goddard 1911, no.4: 197; Mooney 1898a:
200-209; Russel 1898: 255-258), Chiricahua (Opler 1942: 3-9) and Lipan
(Opler 1940, no.1: 16-17). Among the Puebloan peoples, the same story
was known to the Hopi (Mullett 1993: 127; Stephens 1929, no.8: 20),
Zuni (Cushing 1901: 32-35; Quam 1972, no.37: 182-194) and Eastern Keres
at Sia (Stevenson 1894: 52-53) and Cochiti (Boas 1928a: 252).
The tunnel under the monster with helpful rodent detail
is known also to some Interior Salish of the Plateau, in particular
Kalispel (Teit 1917d, no.5: 117) and Flathead (Edmonds, Clark 1989:
20-23). In the Plains it is recorded among the Assiniboin (Lowie 1909a,
no.8b: 156), Mandan (Bowers 1950: 265, 288), and Kiowa (Parsons 1929,
no.1-2: 1-8). Among the Yuman people it was recorded at Yavapai (Gifford
1933a: 355, 404), a group which mythology combines traits typical for
the Southwest and Great Basin. In all these cases borrowing from Athabascans
is possible.
The Cliff ogre (G321). An
ogre induces people to walk on a cliff, and kicks or pushes them over
the edge. The hero escapes death either by landing safely (e.g. as a
feather) or (more often) dodging off and throwing the ogre himself over
the precipice. In many cases the ogre's pets, children, or wife devour
the victims who fall from the cliff, and in this way they mistakenly
kill their own father or husband.
There are at least four Northern Athabaskan
cases, including Kaska (Teit 1917a, no.1: 430), Southern Tutchone (Cruickshank
1992: 291-292), Beaver (Goddard 1916: 232-237), and Chilcotin (Farrand
1900, no.10: 24-26). The corresponding Southern Athabaskan texts have
been recorded among the Navajo (Haile 1938 : 125; Klah 1960: 15; Matthews
1994: 122-123; O'Bryan 1956: 94-95), Western Apache (Goddard 1918: 7-19;
Goodwin 1994, no.4: 16-38), Jicarilla (Goddard 1911, no.8: 202-203;
Opler 1938, no.9: 57-80), and Lipan (Opler 1940, no.6: 33-36). The same
episode was known also to the Kiowa-Apache (McAllister 1949, no.6: 30-44),
though not to the Kiowa. Its spread among the Pueblo Indians is restricted
to Zuni (Cushing 1901: 76-77, 424-418; Quam 1972, no.37: 182-194) and
Eastern Keres (Stevenson 1894: 46).
The Polar Eskimo version (Holtved 1951,
no.3: 104-120) is an argument in favor of the cliff ogre having been
established long ago in the American North, and the complete absence
of Siberian, Meso-, and South American cases is against its easy independent
emergence. One should not confuse the cliff ogre with related but different
motifs like "person thrown into a hole with dangerous beings"
(no deception element) or "demons devour one of their own kin taking
him for the hero" which have somewhat wider distributions, mainly
in South America.
Most non-Athabaskan Amerindian versions
of the cliff ogre are localized not far from the potential routes of
Athabaskan migrations or among Indians who were in close contact with
the Apache. These are the Kalispel (Teit 1917b, no.3: 116), Chinook
(Boas 1894, no.1: 21), Nez Perce (Spinden 1917, no.1: 180-181), Arapaho
(Dorsey, Kroeber 1903, no.130: 298-304), Yavapai (Gifford 1933a: 361-362),
and Northern Shoshoni (Lowie 1909b, no.13, 15: 260, 262). The Shoshoni
text lacks the typical detail of the ogre systematically killing his
victim in this way. Only Wintu and Micmac are far from the routes of
Southern Athabaskan migrations -- but it should be verified whether
their texts show a precise match in their wording of the motif (at this
moment I do not have access to the originals and include these two cases
only because they were mentioned by Waterman (1914: 43).
Both in Northern and in Southern Athabaskan
texts, the motifs of tunnel under the monster, weather birds, and cliff
ogre follow each other as episodes in the same tales. As Tyhurst (1975)
has noted already, they could well have been transmitted as a single
entity.
Stone sinks, stick floats.
Humans are mortal because stone thrown into the water sinks; they have
missed a chance to be likened to wood or other organic matter that floats.
Among the Northern Athabascan languages
which share especially high number of cognates with Southern Athabascans
is Carrier (Perry 1980:281-283). Carrier oral literature is not especially
similar to that of the Navajo or Jicarilla but this circumstance has
its explanation. The Carrier, like the Southern Athabascans, have only
recently moved into the territory where they now live. It was earlier
occupied by non-Athabascan, probably Salishan, groups (Pokotylo and
Mitchell 1998: 98; Tobey 1981:415). This Plateau substratum has made
the legends of the Carrier quite unique. Nevertheless there does exist
at least one folklore motif shared by Carrier and Southern Athabascans.
In the Subarctic this motif was known
to the Tagish (Cruickshank 1992: 74; McClelland 1987: 275), Hare (Petitot
1886, no.6: 115), Dogrib (Franklin 1828: 293 in Boas 1917: 489), Kaska
(Teit 1917a, no.4: 443-444), and Carrier (Jenness 1934, no.67: 249)
and among Southern Athabaskans it was known to the Jicarilla (Goddard
1911, no.2: 194; Opler 1938: 45-46, 268; Russel 1898: 258), Western
Apache (Goddard 1919: 138), Chiricahua (Opler 1942: 28), Lipan (Opler
1940, no.1, 2: 38-40), Navajo (Goddard 1933: 138; Klah 1960: 17; Matthews
1994: 77; O'Bryan 1956: 31-32, 99), and Kiowa-Apache (McAllister 1949,
no.2: 20-22) though not to the Kiowa. No texts including it are found
among the Puebloan peoples. The non-Athabascan Plains groups who also
know the motif are few. These are mostly Algonkians of the Northern
and Central Plains, namely the Blackfoot (Josselin de Jong 1914: 29;
Wissler, Duvall 1908, no.3, 4: 20-21), Gros Ventres (Cooper 1975, no.4:
437), Arapaho (Clark 1966: 224-225; Dorsey 1903: 204-205; Dorsey, Kroeber
1903: no.6, 41: 17, 81), and Cheyenne (Kroeber 1990, no.1: 161). All
of these could easily have been in contact with Athabascans at different
times during their history. The only other group is Comanche (Saint
Clair 1909b, no.16: 280).
Fat horns. Mountain
sheep horns were of fat.
This motif has a restricted distribution
and is recorded only among the Kaska (Teit 1917a, no.20: 466-467) and
in the Southwest among the Navajo (Haile 1984, no.15: 79; O'Bryan 1956:
42), Western Apache (Goddard 1919: 138) and also at Hopi (Wallis 1936,
no.11: 43). At Kaska Fog-people eat sheep's horns, which they call fat
and cut like back-fat. In the Southwest, after a collective hunt Coyote
does not receive the horns of a mountain sheep (the horns are considered
to be a choice piece). To punish people, he causes horns to become pure
bone and inedible.
The various motifs described above connect
not just Northern and Southern Athabascans in general but more particularly
peoples of British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, and northern Alaska, on
the one hand, and Navajo, on the other, though at least some Apachean
groups usually also share the same episodes. The tunnel under the
moster chain of motifs is complex enough to be a proof by itself
of Northern – Southern Athabascan connections. In the Subarctic
it is also known to precisely the same groups as the weather birds,
that is to Kutchin (McKennan 1965: 101-102; Schmitter 1910: 21-23),
Upper Tanana (McKennan 1959: 179), Tagish (Norman 1990: 110), Kaska
(Teit 1917a, no.1: 435-441), Beaver (Goddard 1916: 235-237), and Slavey
(Petitot 1886, no.5: 321-327). In all cases both episodes are included
in the same text. Some of these texts (Tagish, Beaver and Kaska) contain
also the burned moccasins motif. The concentration of correlated
episodes in the western Alberta – eastern British Columbia –
southern Yukon area should thus point to a possible homeland of the
ancestors of the Southern Athabascans.
Other motifs shared by Northern and Southern Athabascans have different
distributions and are of lesser interest for us because they are not
so specific, but are rather widely known to groups not speaking Athabascan
languages. In the Southwest, the Apache (often also the Lipan) are the
ones who usually possess these motifs, not the Navajo. If corresponding
motifs were brought to the Southwest by Athabascans, the latter could
well have borrowed them on their way to the south. Because the split
between western and eastern Apachean dialects may have taken place before
their separation from the main body of Athabascans (Perry 1980:285),
it is possible that the sets of motifs which "proto-Navajo"
and "proto-Apache" (only Jicarilla – Lipan?) had and
shared with their non-Athabascan neighbors were somewhat different.
Raven tries to starve people serves as an example of motifs
which are typical of Apache only.
Moving genitals. Female
genitals existed separately from people before they become part of the
human body.
According to the Upper Tanana, first men lived alone. Raven came to
a country where women's vaginas lived flying about like ducks. He killed
a good number, brought them to men, and put vaginas over the penises
of some men, thus transforming them into women (McKennan 1959: 191-192).
More or less similar texts about vaginas living as separate beings are
recorded among the Kutchin (McKennan 1965: 92), Southern Tutchone and
Inland Tlingit (McClelland 1975, vol.1: 93), and Tlingit and Haida (Boas
1916, no.124: 575). In Comox (the northernmost Coastal Salish) the story
is not connected with the theme of acquisition of females in the originally
all-male world (Boas 1895, no.4: 72-73) . There are somewhat similar
South American tales, but in North America, the Jacarilla case (Opler
1938, no.9: 68-70) is the only one that is a direct analog to the Northern
Athabaskan stories. Here it is included in the series of adventures
of the Killer of Monsters (after the cliff ogre), which strengthens
the argument that it was brought from the north.
Raven tries to starve people.
Raven hides or scares big game animals. preventing hunters
from killing them. People first starve but then ultimately outwit him.
There is not much doubt that all recorded
versions of this motif being historically related. They occur inside
a continuous area from the Kutchin of northern Alaska (McKennan 1965:
98), across the western Canadian Subarctic to the Kaska (Teit 1917a,
no.1: 441), Beaver (Goddard 1916: 250-251), Chipewyan (Birket-Smith
1932: 87; Lowie 1912: 184-185; Petitot 1986, no.16: 379-281), and Hare
(Petitot 1886, no.14: 150-154); to the western and southern Plateau
among the Kutenai (Boas 1918, no.65: 213-219, 303-304), Western Sahaptin
(Farrand, Mayer 1917, no.9: 157-164), and Nez Percé (Phinney
1934: 170-172); across the Plains among the Blackfoot (Spence 1985:
208-212; Wissler, Duvall 1908, no.1: 50-52), Arapaho (Dorsey, Kroeber
1903, no.122: 275-276), Cheyenne (Grinnell 1921: 308-312 in Edmonds,
Clark 1989: 188-192), Kiowa (Parsons 1929, no.9: 21-26), Kiowa-Apache
(McAllister 1949, no.9, 10: 52-53, 53-55), Wichita (Dorsey 1904a, no.27:
191-194), and Caddo (Dorsey 1905, no.1: 10-11); in the southeastern
Great Basin among the Ute (Lowie 1924, no.34: 62-63; Smith 1992: 37,
64-65) and as far as the Great Southwest among the Jicarilla (Goddard
1911, no.20, 21: 212-214; Russel 1898: 259-261), Western Apache (Goddard
1919: 126-127), Chiricahua (Opler 1942, no.4: 15-18), and Lipan (Opler
1940, no.11: 122-125). Jemez (one of the Eastern Puebloan peoples, Tanoans)
are the only Puebloans who know it (Espinosa 1999: 41-49). Most of these
texts contain several specific details like the motif of a person being
transformed into a puppy, picked up by Raven's children and letting
animals loose at night (Kutenai, Sahaptin, Nez Percé, Blackfoot,
Gros Ventres, Arapaho, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Wichita, Tonkawa, Caddo,
Ute, Jicarilla, Western Apache, Chiricahua, Lipan). Because Northern
Athabascan texts lack this and some other details, they could not be
the direct source of the Apachean version, which probably acquired its
final form only in the Plains.
One additional motif can be mentioned
as a possible link between Northern Athabascans and the Apache though
corresponding connections are far from being certain.
Death feigned to meet paramour
(Th K1539). A person (a man or a woman) pretends to die. When his
wife (or her husband) abandons the person pretending to be dead at some
burial place, that person marries his (or her) paramour.
This motif is widespread across Alaska
where it is known to most groups, whatever their language affiliation.
It is also popular along the NW Coast as far down as Chinook (Wasco)
and among the Inuit Eskimo. It is completely unknown in Siberia, although
it appears again in Europe. The isolated cases in the New World outside
of the Northwest are Ecuadorian Colorado (Calazacón, Orazona
1982: 50-54), Sauk (Algonkians) at the Midwest (Skinner 1928, no.9:
162-164) and Osage (Sioux) at Plains (Dorsey 1904c, no.21: 25-26). The
Southern Athabaskan versions include Western Apache (Goodwin 1994, no.30:
142-145), Jicarilla (Opler 1938, no.18C: 371-373), Chiricahua (Opler
1942, no.1: 87) and Lipan (Opler 1940, no.1: 219-217). The three of
them contain specific details: woman marries her lover and is recognized
by her children. This peculiarity is shared with Osage, Tlingit (Swanton
1909, no.85: 245-247) and Tahltan (Teit 1919-1921, no.48: 243-244).
Some Athabascan group related to Tahltan or having been in contact with
them looks like a plausible source of the spread of the motif into the
Plains and further into the Southwest. All other groups are geographically
more remote and/or their versions are less similar to Apache and Osage.
It is also possible that Osage or some other Siouan group could have
been a source for the Apachean version. This motif is unknown to the
Navajo.
Conclusions
Several folklore motifs which are complex
enough to make multiple independent emergence rather improbable, some
certainly so and others possibly so, were preserved by the Navajo and
Apache after their split from the main Athabascan stock. Most of the
rest of the Southern Athabascan folklore consists of elements either
borrowed from Puebloan peoples or shared by most or at least by a significant
number of North American peoples to the south of the Subarctic. Such
motifs are Eye-juggler (J2423) or Bungling host (J2425).
The sharing of motifs between the Athabascans
of the Southwest and of the Subarctic suggests that the homeland of
the Southern Athabascans was in western Canada. This conforms well both
with linguistic facts and with historical plausibility. It does not
of course directly demonstrate that the Kaska, with whom Navajo and
Apache share the greatest number of common folklore elements, must be
the closest of their language kin. Motifs are not only inherited inside
the group but also borrowed during intertribal contacts. We must also
remember that our data on the oral literature of some Athabascan groups,
Chipewyan among them, is far from perfect. Despite this uncertainty,
it is clear that the oral literatures of most Alaskan Athabascans, other
than Kutchin, have fewer elements in common with Apache than do the
oral literatures of Alberta and Yukon groups.
(oral literature publicatitions to be included)
Ahenakew, Rev. Edward
1929 "Cree trickster tales". Journal of American Folklore
42(166):309-353.
Birket-Smith, Kaj
1930 Contributions to Chipewyan Ethnology. Copenhagen. Report of the
Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24, vol. 6, no. 3. 115 p.
Bloomfield, Leonard
1930 Sacred Stories of the Sweet Grass Cree. Ottawa. Canada Department
of Mines, Natural Museum of Canada, Bull. 60, Anthropological Series
11. 346 p.
Boas, Franz
1894 Chinook Texts. Smithsonian Insititution.
Bureau of American Ethnology, Bull. 20. Washington D.C. 278 p.
1895 Indianische Sagen von der Nordpazifischen
Küste Amerikas. Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft für
Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte 1891-1895. Sonderdruck. Berlin:
Asher. 363 S.
1916 Tsimshian mythology. 31th Annual
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian
Institution (1909-1910):29-1037. Washington D.C.
1917 "The origin of death". Journal of American Folklore 30:486-491.
1918 Kutenai Tales. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology,
Bull. 59. Washington, D.C. 387 p.
1928a Keresan Texts. New York. Publications of the American Ethnological
Society, vol. 8, part 1. 300 p.
Bowers, Alfred W.
1950 Mandan Social and Ceremonial Organization. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press. 407 p.
Calazacón, Catalina, & Dolores Orazona
1982 Yo Imin Tsachi. El Colorado que se Convirtió en el Sol.
Traducción de los textos al español por Ramón Aguavil
Calazacón y Fernando Avilés Garaícoa. Guayaquil:
Banco Central del Ecuador. 319 p.
Campbell, Lyll
1997 American Indian Languages. New York, Oxford: Oxford University
Press. 512 p.
Cavalli-Sforza, L., P. Menozzi and A. Piazza
1994 The History and Geography of Human Genes. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Chapman, John W.
1914 Ten’a Texts and Tales from Anvik, Alaska. Leyden: E.J. Brill;
New York: G.E. Stechert. Publications of the American Ethnological Society.
Vol. 6. 230 p.
Clark, Ella Elizabeth
1966 Indian Legends from the Northern Rockies. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press. 350 p.
Cooper, John
1975 The Gros Ventres of Montana. Part 2. Religion and Ritual. Ed. by
Regina Flannery. First published in 1956. Washington D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press. 491 p.
Cruickshank, Julie
1992 Life Lived Like a Story. Life stories of three Yukon native elders.
By Julie Cruickshank in collaboration with Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith,
& Annie Ned. Lincoln & London: Universty of Nebraska Press.
Cushing, Frank Hamilton
1883 "Zuñi fetiches". 2nd Annual Report of the Bureau
of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Instituition (1880-1881).
Washington, D.C. Pp. 3-45.
1901 Zuñi Folk Tales. New York; London: G.P.Putnam; The Knickerbocker
Press. 474 p.
DeMallie, Raymond J. and David Reed Miller
2001 "Assiniboin". Handbook of North Americann Indians. Vol.
13. Plains. Pp. 572-595. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
Dorsey, George Amos
1904a The Mythology of the Wichita. Carnegie Institution of Washington,
Publ. 21. 351 p.
1904c Traditions of the Osage. Field Columbian Museum. Publication 88.
Anthropological Series vol.7(1). 60 p.
1905 Traditions of the Caddo. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publ.
41.
Dorsey, George A., and Alfred Luis Kroeber
1903 Traditions of the Arapaho. Chicago. Field Columbian Museum, Publication
81, Anthropological Series, vol.5. 475 p.
Dyck, Jan, and Richard E. Morlan
2001 "Hunting and Gathering Tradition: Canadian Plains". Handbook
of North Americann Indians. Vol. 13. Plains. Pp. 115-130. Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
Edmonds, Margot, & Ella E. Clark
1989 Voices of the Winds. Native American Legends. New York, N.Y.: Facts
on File, Inc. 368 p.
Espinosa, Carmen Gertrudis
1999 The Freeing of the Deer and other New Mexico Indian Myths. Se Da
Libertad al Venado y otras leyendas de los indios de Nuevo México.
Albuquerque: University of the New Mexico Press. 83 p.
Foster, Michael K.
1996 "Languages and the culture history of North America".
Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 17. Languages. Pp. 64-110.
Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
Gifford, Edward Winslow
1933a "Northeastern and Western Yavapai myths". Journal of
American Folklore 46(182):347-415.
Goddard, Pliny Earle
1911 Jicarilla Apache Texts. Anthropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History. Vol. 8. 276 p.
1912 "Chipewyan texts". Anthropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History 10(1):1-66.
1916 "The Beaver Indians". Anthropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History 10(4):201-293.
1918 "Myths and tales from the San Carlos Apache". Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 24(1):3-86.
1919 "Myths and tales from the White Mountain Apache". Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 24(2):87-139.
1933 Navajo Texts. New York. Anthropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History. Vol.34, part 1. 179 p.
Goodwin, Grenville
1994 Myths and Tales of the White Mountain
Apache. Tucson & London: The University of Arizona Press. 223 p.
Originally published in 1939 as volume 33 of the Memoirs of the American
Folklore Society.
Haile, Berard
1938 Origin Legends of the Navajo Enemy
Way. New Haven: Yale University, Department of Anthropology. Yale University
Publications in Anthropology, no.17. 320 p.
1984 Navajo Coyote Tales. The Curly To'Aheedlíinii version. Lincoln;
London: University of Nebraska Press. American Tribal Religions, vol.
8. 146 p.
Holtved, Erik
1951 The Polar Eskimos. Language and Folklore.
II. Myths and Tales translated by Erik Holtved. København: C.
A. Reitzels Forlag. Meddelelser om Grønland. Udgivne af Kommissionen
for Videnskabelige Undersøglser i Grønland 152(2). 153
p.
Jenness, Diamond
1934 "Myths of the Carrier Indians of British Columbia". Journal
of American Folklore 47(184-185):97-257.
Jetté, Julius
1908-1909 "On Ten'a folk-lore". Journal of the Royal Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain 38:298-367, 39:460-505.
Jones, William
1916 "Ojibwa tales from the North Shore of Lake Superior".
Journal of American Folklore 29(113):368-391.
Josselin de Jong, Jan P.B. de
1914 Blackfoot Texts from the Southern Piegans Blackfoot Reservation
Teton County, Montana. Amsterdam: Johannes Müller. Verhandlingen
der Koninglijke Akademie von Wetenschappen te Amsterdam 14(4). 154 p.
Klah, Hasteen
1960 Navajo Creation Myth told by Hasteen Klah and rewritten in a shorter
form by Mary C. Wheelwright. Santa Fe: Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art.
Bulletin 6.
Kroeber, Alfred Luis
1900 "Cheyenne tales". Journal of American Folklore 13(50):161-190.
1907b "Gros Ventre myths and tales". Anthropological Papers
of the American Museum of Natural History 1 (part 3):55-139.
Linderman, Frank B.
1997 Kootenai Why Stories. The Authorized Edition. Intr. by Celeste
River. Repr. from the original 1926 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press. 166 p.
Lowie, Robert H.
1909a The Assiniboine. New York. Anthropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History 4(1). 270 p.
1909b "The Northern Shoshone". Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 2 (part 2): 165-306.
1912 "Chipewyan tales". Anthropological Papers of the American
Museum of Natural History 10(3):173-200.
1918 Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians. New York. Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 25(1). 308 p.
1924 "Shoshonean tales". Journal of American Folklore 37(143-144):1-242.
Matthews, Washington
1994 Navaho Legends. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. 303 p.
(First published in 1897 in Memoires of American Folklore Society, vol.
5. Boston & New York).
McAllister, J. Gilbert
1949 "Kiowa-Apache tales". In Mody C. Boatright, ed. The Sky
Is My Tipi. Austin & Dallas. Publications of the Texas Folklore
Society 22:1-141.
McKennan, Robert A.
1959 The Upper Tanana Indians. New Haven: Yale University, Department
of Anthropology. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, no. 55.
226 p.
1965 The Chandalar Kutchin. Montreal. Arctic Institute of North America.
Technical Paper no.17. 156 p.
McClelland, Catharine
1987 Part of the Land, Part of the Water. A History of the Yukon Indians.
Vancouver; Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre. 328 p.
Mooney, James
1898a "The Jicarilla Genesis". American Anthropologist 11:197-209.
Mullett, George C. Merrick
1993 Spider Woman Stories. Legends of the Hopi Indians. Tucson &
London: the University of Arizona Press. 142 p.
Norman, Howard
1990 Northern Tales. Traditional Stories of Eskimo and Indian Peoples.
Selected and ed. by Howard Norman. New York: Pantheon Fairy Tale and
Folklore Library. 347 p.
O'Bryen, Aileen
1956 The Dîné: Origin Myths of the Navaho Indians. Bureau
of American Ethnology, Bull. 163. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
187 p.
Opler, Morris Edward
1938 Myths and Tales of the Jicarilla Apache Indians. New York. Memoires
of the American Folklore Society, vol.31. (New York 1969: Kraus reprinting
Co.). 406 p.
1940 Myths and Legends of the Lipan Apache Indians. New York. Memoires
of the American Folklore Society, vol.36. (New York 1969: Kraus reprinting
Co.). 296 p.
1942 Myths and Tales of the Chiricahua Apache Indians. New York. Memoires
of the American Folklore Society, vol.37. (New York 1969: Kraus reprinting
Co.). 114 p.
Parsons, Elsie Clews
1929 Kiowa Tales. New York. Memoires of the American Folklore Society,
vol. 22. (New York, 1969: Kraus reprinting Co.). 152 p.
1939 Pueblo Indian Religion. Vols. 1-2. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. 1275 p.
Perry, Richard J.
1980 "The Apachean transition from the Subarctic to the Southwest".
Plains Anthropologist 25:279-296.
Petitot, Émile
1886 Traditions Indienne du Canada Nord-Ouest. Paris: Maisonneuve Frères
et Ch. Leclerc. 521 p.
Pokotylo, David L., and Donald Mitchell
1998 "Prehistory of the Northern Plateau". Handbook of North
Americann Indians. Vol. 12. Plateau. P.81-102. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution.
Quam, Alvina
1972 The Zunis. Self-Portrayals. By the Zuni People. Alvina Quam, translator.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 245 p.
Radin, Paul
1914 Some Myths and Tales of the Ojibwa of Southwestern Ontario. Ottawa.
Canada Department of Mines, Geological Survey Memoir 48. Anthropological
Series 2. 83 p.
Ray, Carl, & James Stevens
1971 Sacred Legends of the Sandy Lake Cree. Toronto: McClelland and
Steward. 144 p.
Russel, Frank
1898 "Myths of the Jicarilla Apache". Journal of American
Folklore 11:253-271.
Schmitter, Ferdinand
1910 Upper Yukon Native Customs and Folklore. Washington. Smithsonian
Miscellaneous Collections 56(4). 30 p.
Skinner, Alanson
1911 "Notes on the Eastern Cree and Northern Saulteaux". Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 9(1):1-178.
1916 "Plains Cree tales". Journal of American Folklore 29(113):341-367.
1925 "Traditions of the Iowa Indians". Journal of American
Folklore 38(150):425-506.
1928 "Sauk tales". Journal of American Folklore 41(159):147-171.
Skinner, Alanson, and John V. Satterlee
1915 Folklore of the Menomini Indians. New York. Anthropological Papers
of the American Museum of Natural History 13(3). 546 p.
Speck, Frank Gouldsmith
1925 "Montagnais and Naskapi tales from the Labrador Peninsula".
Journal of American Folklore 38(147):1-32.
Spinden, Herbert J.
1917 "Nez Percé tales".
In Franz Boas, ed. Folk-Tales of the Salishan and Sahaptin Tribes. Memoires
of the American Folk-Lore Society 11: 180-201.
Stephens, Alexander M.
1929 "Hopi tales". Journal of American Folklore 42:1-72.
Stevenson, Matilda Coxe
1894 "The Sia". 11th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology
to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1889-1890):3-157. Washington
D.C.
Swanton, John R.
1909 Tlingit Myths and Texts. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American
Ethnology, Bull. 39. Washington D.C. 351 p.
Swindlehurst, Fred
1905 "Folk-lore of the Cree Indians". Journal of American
Folklore 18:139-143.
Teit, James A.
1917a "Kaska tales". Journal of American Folklore 30:427-473.
1917d "Pend d'Oreille tales". In Franz Boas, ed. Folk-Tales
of the Salishan and Sahaptin Tribes. Memoires of the American Folk-Lore
Society 11:114-118.
1919-1921 "Tahltan tales". Journal of American Folklore 32(123):198-250,
34(133):223-253, 34(134):335-356.
Tobey, Margareth
2001 "Carrier". Handbook of North Americann Indians. Vol.
6. Subarctic. Pp. 413-432. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
Tyhurst, Robert
1975 "Comparative analysis of Northern
and Southern Athapaskan "Slayer of Monsters" myth". Abstract.
Proceedings of the Second Congress, Canadian Ethnological Society, Vol.
1. Jim Freedman & Jerome H. Barkow, eds. National Museum of Man,
Mercury Series. Canadian Ethnological Service Paper no.28. Ottawa: National
Museums of Canada. Pp.149-153.
Wallis, Wilson D.
1936 "Folk tales from Shumopovi, Second Mesa". Journal of
American Folklore 49:1-68.
Waterman, Thomas Talbot
1914 "The explanatory element in
the folk-tales of the North American Indians". Journal of American
Folklore 27:1-54.
Wissler, Clark, & D. C. Duvall
1908 "Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians". Anthropological
Papers of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. 2, Part 1. Pp.
1-163.
Wright, Arthur
1908 "An Anthapascan tradition from Alaska". Journal of American
Folklore 21(80):33-34.
Email to the Author Dr. Yuri
Berezkin, Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia |