There are peasant lads in France, Italy, and other European countries who can entertain by the hour with tales of their rivers and mountains—not those of some distant province, but the peaks that tower above their native village, the streams along which they trudge on their way to school. California, Washington, and Oregon children should be given legends of the Yosemite, of Lake Tahoe, of Mount Shasta, of the Columbia River, and of Mount Rainier. Boys and girls among Southern bayous should be taught the traditions of their region, of the Indians and Creoles who made history there when that section was a province of France; while along Northern lake and inland river are tales of forest folk, of pathfinder and black-robed message bringer, of knights of the Old World come to seek fortune in the New, that are a part of the heritage of every youth living there. Let us give them to our young people, that they may love their home spots, not just because they are beautiful and are theirs, but as the French child loves the Rhone or the Austrian the Danube, because of the stories that tend to make them enchanted ground.
In using the story in geography the teacher’s work does not end with telling the story. The places mentioned in it should be located on the map, that their exact position may be fixed in the mind of the child. Interest in the story will make this a pleasure rather than a task for the boy, just as it becomes a delight rather than a hardship for him to follow the route taken by his father or uncle when he goes on a journey, or to work out the itinerary of a trip he hopes to take himself. One small boy studied the geography of Virginia with keen interest after reading Lord Cornwallis’ Silver Buckles, and more than one man and woman attest to the fact that some book read and loved during their school days did more to fix the location of river, city, and mountain in their minds than hours of classroom recitation spent in bounding states and countries and tracing the courses of rivers.
The following legend of Niagara Falls is illustrative of one type of tale that will greatly add to the child’s interest in geography by investing certain localities with story associations. Much other material is given in the appended bibliography, and the wide-awake teacher will be able to glean much more from libraries and adapt it to her work.
THE GOD OF THE THUNDERING WATER
Retold from an Iroquois Legend
Before the white man sailed westward across the Atlantic, in fact, before Columbus was born or anybody even dreamed about a short route to the Indies, a little Indian girl lived on the shore of Niagara not so very far above the cataract. She was a happy little thing, and as she grew to maidenhood she became the fairest girl of her tribe, and her father, who was a mighty chieftain, promised her in marriage to the most powerful of his braves. This Indian was a swift runner, and around the council fire not another tongue was so nimble or eloquent as his, and never did his arrows fail to pierce the heart of the deer at which he aimed them. But that mattered little to the girl. He was not her ideal of a husband, and she could think of nothing more dreadful than becoming the mistress of his wigwam. Yet her father had spoken and she must obey, and with a sad heart she made ready for the wedding, weaving the handsomest of wampum belts and ornamenting her moccasins with gay beads and bits of woodpecker feather.
The wedding morning dawned, and the Indians began the games and merrymaking that always marked a marriage. The bridegroom and the young braves vied in races and wrestling matches, and the women too had a part in the festivities, singing and chanting weird songs as they tended the fire and roasted venison for the feast. Everybody was happy,—every one but the bride, who did not want to marry, and who sat in her wigwam looking sadly out upon the sport. Suddenly came the decision that she would not be the squaw of the man she detested.
Quickly, softly, she crept from the wigwam and hurried to the river bank. The others were so busy with their merrymaking that they did not see her go, and soon she came to where her canoe was moored to some bushes. She stepped into it, pushed it from shore, and began drifting down the stream. It was good to be there on the water, for, like all Indian girls, she loved to paddle, and in her joy of skimming along with the current she began to sing.
Suddenly a whoop went up from the village of her people. It was not the cry of those victorious in a game, it was a shout of anger, a cry of alarm, for they had seen her and believed she was trying to escape from the marriage every one knew was distasteful to her. The bridegroom started in pursuit, then another Indian and another, until every man in the village was rushing to the river and some had already begun the chase in canoes.