The Creeks also called upon the four winds, whose duty it was to distribute showers.
The Wild Parsnip was a bad man, going around doing harmful deeds, until, by transformation, compelled to stay in one place, he could no longer cause damage except by killing people when they ate him.
The Spirit of Fire was supposed to ride, bow in hand and face blackened with rage, in a cloud of smoke. When he drew the bow, quickly the flames spread over the prairie.
The Navajos thought that fire was first brought to earth through the efforts of the coyote, the bat, and the squirrel. The coyote attached some splinters to his tail, ran quickly through the fire and fled with his prize. Being pursued, he was compelled to run rapidly and became exhausted, whereupon, the bat relieved him. The squirrel assisted him at the last, to carry it to the hearths of the Navajos.
In some tribes fire was considered a type of life. The Shawnee prophet said to his followers:
"Know that the life in your body and the fire on your hearth proceed from one source."
The greatest feast of the Delawares was to their "grandfather, fire." Referring to the immortality of their gods, the Algonquins said: "Their fire burns forever."
The imagery of the red man compares favorably with that of other races. The Indian lived near to the very heart of Nature and understood her fundamental truths. To him, all things were divided into the animate and inanimate. Everything endowed with life or capable of action was thought to possess intelligence and reason. There were lessons in the movements of the winds and waves; in flying clouds and in the azure skies; the countless stars had a language of their own; and even the comet, sweeping across the heavens, told a story with a strong moral.
The earliest record of the Indians of the Middle West, that of Father Marquette, has been preserved at St. Mary's College, Montreal, Canada. The document refers to the Kaws, Osages and Pawnees, as the dominant tribes. The Padoucas, of whom little is known, then dwelt near the head waters of the Kansas River. They were strong and numerous, and ranged the country southwest, in Colorado and New Mexico. The nation and language were unknown in other parts of the continent; and no relationship could be traced to the four principal Indian families. The habits of the people were different from those of any other tribe. They lived in houses in villages with streets regularly laid out; but raised no grain, depending for subsistence chiefly upon the products of the chase. Certain students of ethnology have asserted that the Kiowas are their somewhat degenerate descendants.
As years went by, all was changed. The Padoucas became extinct and the Pawnees reduced in numbers; the Osages ceded nearly all of their territory in Missouri to the United States and were allowed a reservation in Kansas. A few years later, a large percentage of their lands and that of the Kaws was purchased by the Government, to be used as a home for the Eastern Indians. The Delawares, Wyandots, Pottawatomies and Shawnees were the emigrant nations of the Kansas River valley.