A Guide to Mythology

by Helen A. Clarke

The Indians of Mt. Shasta have a little wind child, who also became the ancestress of the grizzly-bear people. They tell how once a terrific storm came up from the sea and shook to its base the wigwam—Mt. Shasta itself—in which lived the Great Spirit and his family. Then the Great Spirit commanded his daughter, little more than an infant, to go up and command the wind to be still; but he cautioned her at the same time, in a tender, fatherly manner, to be sure and not put her head out into the blast, but to thrust out her little red arm and make a sign before she delivered her message. But she could not withstand the temptation to look out upon the world, and of course, being such a little thing, she was caught up by the storm and blown down the mountain into the land of the grizzly-bear people. She married one of them, and became the ancestress of a new race of men. When the Great Spirit heard that his daughter still lived, he ran down the mountain for joy, but when he found out that his daughter had married one of the grizzly-bear people, he was so angry that he cursed the grizzly people and turned them into the present race of bears of that name. Then he drove them and the new race of men out of their wigwam, shut to the door, and passed away to his mountains, carrying his daughter with him; and her or him no eye has since seen.

A very important mythical being in Polynesian mythology is a little boy called Maui-tiki-tiki-o-Taranga, and how he caught the Sun is told in the story of him in this chapter.

The Egyptians called the sun itself a child when it was rising. The name of this Child-Sun was Horus, and he was sometimes regarded as the god of silence and represented as a child with his finger held up to his lip. The principal children in Greek myths are Heracles and Hermes, who, although they figure in many stories after they had become full-grown gods, were both very remarkable when they were babies. Heracles was the God of Strength, but it is very probable that there are some cosmic elements in the conception of this god. His struggle with the serpents in his babyhood resembles very closely other battles in mythology between the sun and the powers of darkness, Ra and Anapef or Apollo and the Python. Hermes, who is a roguish little imp, is full of such tricks as the wind plays, and he has become the model of many a mediæval tale of tricksy thieves and wonder-workers.

Other stories to be given in this chapter show how important little human children were among primitive people—so important in one story that all the animals in the world assembled and tried to save two little boys who went sound asleep upon a rock that gradually rose higher and higher until their faces touched the moon; and so important in another that even the great god of the Algonquins, Glooskap himself, was conquered by the baby; and in still another Indian myth so important that if it had not been for the wishes of the little son of a Manito, there would never have been any summer; but this last, if he really were the son of a Manito, was, of course, a little more than human.

LEGEND OF TU-TOK-A-NU-LA

(Indians of the Yosemite Valley)

There were once two little boys living in the valley, who went down to the river to swim. After paddling and splashing about to their hearts’ content, they went on shore and crept upon a huge bowlder that stood beside the water, on which they lay down in the warm sunshine to dry themselves. Very soon they fell asleep, and slept so soundly that they never wakened more. Through moons and snows, winter and summer, they slumbered on. Meantime the great rock whereon they slept was treacherously rising day and night, little by little, until it soon lifted them up beyond the sight of their friends, who sought them everywhere, weeping. Thus they were borne up at last beyond all human help or reach of human voice; lifted up into the blue heavens, far up, far up, until their faces touched the moon; and still they slumbered and slept, year after year, safe among the clouds.

Then, upon a time, all the animals assembled together to bring down the little boys from the top of the great rock. Every animal made a spring up the face of the wall as far as he could leap. The little mouse could only jump up a hand-breadth; the rat, two hand-breadths; the raccoon, a little farther; and so on—the grizzly bear making a mighty leap far up the wall, but falling back like all the others. Last of all the lion tried, and he jumped up farther than any other animal, but he, too, fell down flat on his back.

Then came along an insignificant measuring-worm, which even the mouse could have crushed by treading on it, and began to creep up the rock. Step by step, a little at a time, he measured his way up, until he presently was above the lion’s jump, then pretty soon out of sight. So he crawled up and up, through many sleeps, for about one whole snow, and at last he reached the top. Then he took the little boys and came downward as he went up, so bringing them safely to ground.