Myths and Legends of the Sioux is a compilation of stories about the beliefs and everyday life of the Sioux, told to Marie McLaughlin, who was part Sioux, by the older members of the tribe. These stories were recorded and preserved so as not to be lost by the passing of the primitive Indian.
The stories contain the inherent character of a race of Indians who believe in the greatness of nature and have respect for the powers that rocks and animals possess.
The timbre of a people’s stories tells of the qualities of what is inside that people’s heart. It is the texture of thought 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 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 and sincere people, living in intimate contact and friendship with nature.
This is a race not yet understanding all things, a race sincere and thoughtful, willing to believe that there may be in even the everyday things of life something not yet fully understood; a race that can consider the simplest things, seeking to fathom their meaning and to learn their lesson.
These stories present a vivid imaging of the simple things and creatures of nature and the epics of their doings. They give valuable insight into the quality of an interesting race which is now fast receding into the mists of the past.
170 pages; ISBN: 978-1-453866-48-1
37 stories with original b/w illustrations
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Story of the Peace Pipe
Two young men were out strolling one night talking of love affairs. They passed around a hill and came to a little ravine or coulee. Suddenly they saw coming up from the ravine a beautiful woman. She was painted and her dress was of the very finest material.
“What a beautiful girl!” said one of the young men. “Already I love her. I will steal her and make her my wife.”
“No,” said the other. “Don’t harm her. She may be holy.”
The Maiden Who Gave the Pipe of Peace to the Sioux Nation, and When She Departed She Turned Into a Gray Cow
The young woman approached and held out a pipe which she first offered to the sky, then to the earth, and then advanced, holding it out in her extended hands.
“I know what you young men have been saying; one of you is good; the other is wicked,” she said.
She laid down the pipe on the ground and at once became a buffalo cow. The cow pawed the ground, stuck her tail straight out behind her and then lifted the pipe from the ground again in her hoofs; immediately she became a young woman again.
“I am come to give you this gift,” she said. “It is the peace pipe. Hereafter all treaties and ceremonies shall be performed after smoking it. It shall bring peaceful thoughts into your minds. You shall offer it to the Great Mystery and to mother earth.”
The two young men ran to the village and told what they had seen and heard. All the village came out where the young woman was.
She repeated to them what she had already told the young men and added, “When you set free the ghost (the spirit of deceased persons) you must have a white buffalo cow skin.”
She gave the pipe to the medicine men of the village, turned again to a buffalo cow and fled away to the land of buffaloes.
Copyright 2010 by Pueblo Publishing.
