Many Swans Sun Myth Part 1

Many Swans: Sun Myth of the North American Indians.

by Amy Lowell.

1920.

[NOTE. -- "Many Swans" is based upon a Kathlamet legend, the main theme and many of the episodes of which I have retained, while at the same time augmenting and freely departing from it in order to gain a wider symbolism. Four of the songs in my poem are real Indian songs, one is an adaptation, the others are merely in the Indian idiom. In the interest of atmospheric truth, I have felt at liberty to make occasional use of Indian expressions and turns of thought, and I here wish to record my grat.i.tude to that small body of indefatigable workers in that field of Indian folk-lore and tradition whose careful and exact translations of Indian texts have made them accessible to those who, like myself, have not the Indian tongues. -- A. L.]

When the Goose Moon rose and walked upon a pale sky, and water made a noise once more beneath the ice on the river, his heart was sick with longing for the great good of the sun. One Winter again had pa.s.sed, one Winter like the last. A long sea with waves biting each other under grey clouds, a shroud of snow from ocean to forest, snow mumbling stories of bones and driftwood beyond his red fire. He desired s.p.a.ce, light; he cried to himself about himself, he made songs of sorrow and wept in the corner of his house. He gave his children toys to keep them away from him. His eyes were dim following the thin sun. He said to his wife: "I want that sun.

Some day I shall go to see it." And she said: "Peace, be still. You will wake the children."

So he waited, and the Whirlwind Moon came, a crescent -- mounted, and marched down beyond the morning, and was gone.

Then the Extreme Cold Moon came and shone, it mounted, moved night by night into morning and faded through day to darkness. He watched the Old Moon pa.s.s, he saw the Eagle Moon come and go.

Slowly the moons wound across the snow, and many nights he could not see them, he could only hear the waves raving foam and fury until dawn.

Now the Goose Moon told him things, but his blood lay sluggish within him until the moon stood full and apart in the sky. His wife asked why he was silent. "I have wept my eyes dry," he answered.

"Give me my cedar bow and my two-winged arrows with the copper points. I will go into the forest and kill a moose, and bring fresh meat for the children."

All day he stalked the forest. He saw the marks of bears' claws on the trees. He saw the wide tracks of a lynx, and the little slot-slot-of a jumping rabbit, but nothing came along. Then he made a melancholy song for himself: "My name is Many Swans, but I have seen neither sparrow nor rabbit, neither duck nor crane.

I will go home and sit by the fire like a woman and spin cedar bark for fish-lines."

Then silver rain ran upon him through the branches from the moon, and he stepped upon open gra.s.s and laughed at the touch of it under his foot." I will shoot the moon," he thought, "and cut it into cakes for the children."

He laid an arrow on his bow and shot, and the copper tip made it shine like a star flying. He watched to see it fall, but it did not. He shot again, and his arrow was a bright star until he lost it in the brilliance of the moon. Soon he had shot all his arrows, and he stood gaping up at the moonshine wishing he had not lost them.

Then Many Swans laughed again because his feet touched gra.s.s, not snow. And he gathered twigs and stuck them in his hair, and saw his shadow like a tree walking there. But something tapped the twigs, he stood tangled in something. With his hand he felt it, it was the feather head of an arrow. It dangled from the sky, and the copper tip jangled upon wood and twinkled brightly. This -- that -- and other twinkles, p.r.i.c.king against the soft flow of the moon, and the wind crooned in the arrow-feathers and tinkled the bushes in his hair.

Many Swans laid his hand on the arrow and began to climb -- up -- up -- a long time. The earth lay beneath him wide and blue, he climbed through white moonlight and purple air until he fell asleep from weariness.

Sunlight struck sidewise on a chain of arrows, below were cold clouds above a sky blooming like an open flower and he aiming to the heart of it. Many Swans saw that up was far, and down was also far, but he cried to himself that he had begun his journey to the sun. Then he pulled a bush from his hair, and the twigs had leaved and fruited, and there were salmon-berries dancing beneath the leaves. "My father, the sun, is good," said Many Swans, and he eat the berries and went on climbing the arrows into the heart of the sky.

He climbed till the sun set and the moon rose, and at midmost moon he fell asleep to the sweeping of the arrow-ladder like a cradle in the wind.

When dawn struck gold across the ladder, he awoke. "It is Summer," said Many Swans, "I cannot go back, it must be more days down than I have travelled. I should be ashamed to see my children, for I have no meat for them."Then he remembered the bushes, and pulled another from his hair, and there were blue huckleberries shining like polished wood in the midst of leaves.

"The sun weaves the seasons," thought Many Swans, "I have been under and over the warp of the world, now I am above the world,"

and he went on climbing into the white heart of the sky.

Another night and day he climbed, and he eat red huckleberries from his last bush, and went on -- up and up -- his feet scratching on the ladder with a great noise because of the hush all round him.

When he reached an edge he stepped over it carefully, for edges are thin and he did not wish to fall. He found a tall pine-tree by a pond. "Beyond can wait," reasoned Many Swans, "this is surely a far country." And he lay down to sleep under the pine-tree, and it was the fourth sleep he had had since he went hunting moose to bring meat to his family.

The shadow crept away from him, and the sun came and sat upon his eyelids, so that by and by he opened them and rubbed his eyes because a woman stared at him, and she was beautiful as a salmon leaping in Spring. Her skirt was woven of red and white cedar bark, she had carved silver bracelets and copper bracelets set with haliotis sh.e.l.l, and earrings of sharks' teeth. She sparkled like a river salmon, and her smile was water tipping to a light South breeze. She pleased the heart of Many Swans so that fear was not in him, only longing to take her for himself as a man does a woman, and he asked her name. "Gra.s.s-Bush-and-Blossom is my name," she answered, "I am come after you. My grandmother has sent me to bring you to her house." "And who is your grand-mother?" asked Many Swans. But the girl shook her head, and took a pinch of earth from the ground and threw it toward the sun. "She has many names. The gra.s.s knows her, and the trees, and the fishes in the sea. I call her 'grandmother,' but they speak of her as 'The-One-Who-Walks-All-Over-the-Sky.'" Many Swans marvelled and said nothing, for things are different in a far country.

They walked together, and the man hungered for the woman and could not wait. But he said no word, and he eat up her beauty as though it were a ripe foam-berry and still went fasting until his knees trembled, and his heart was like hot dust, and his hands ached to thrust upon her and turn her toward him. So they went, and Many Swans forgot his wife and children and the earth hanging below the sharp edge of the sky.

The South wind sat on a rock and never ceased to blow, locking the branches of the trees together; a flock of swans rose out of the South-East, one and seven, making strange, changing lines across a smooth sky. Wild flax-blossoms ran blue over the bases of black and red totem poles. The colours were strong as blood and death, they rattled like painted drums against the eyesight. "Many Swans!" said the girl and smiled. "Blood and death," drummed the totem poles. "Alas!" nodded the flax. The man heeded nothing but the woman and the soles of his feet beating on new ground.

The houses were carved with the figures of the Spring Salmon.

They were carved in the form of a rainbow. Hooked noses stood out above doorways; crooked wooden men crouched, frog-shaped, gazing under low eaves. It was a beautiful town, ringing with colours, singing brightly, terribly, in the smooth light. All the way was sombre and gay, and the man walked and said nothing.

They came to a house painted black and carved with stars. In the centre was a round moon with a door in it. So they entered and sat beside the fire, and the woman gave the man fish-roes and gooseberries, but his desire burnt him and he could not eat.

Gra.s.s-Bush-and-Blossom saw his trouble, and she led him to a corner and showed him many things. There were willow arrows and quivers for them. There were mountain-goat blankets and painted blankets of two elkskins, there were buffalo skins, and dressed buckskins, and deerskins with young, soft hair. But Many Swans cared for nothing but the swing of the woman's bark skirt, and the sting of her loveliness which gave him no peace.

Gra.s.s-Bush-and-Blossom led him to another corner, and showed him crest helmets, and wooden armour; she showed him coppers like red rhododendron blooms, and plumes of eagles' wings. She gave him clubs of whalebone to handle, and cedar trumpets which blow a sound cool and sweet as the noise of bees. But Many Swans found no ease in looking save at her arms between the bracelets, and his trouble grew and pressed upon him until he felt strangled.

She led him farther and showed him a canoe painted silver and vermilion with white figures of fish upon it, and the gunwales fore and aft were set with the teeth of the sea-otter. She lifted out the paddles, the blades were shaped like hearts and striped with fire-hues. She said, "Choose. These are mine and my grand-mother's. Take what you will." But Many Swans was filled with the glory of her standing as a young tree about to blossom, and he took her and felt her sway and: fold about him with the tightness of new leaves. "This" -- said Many Swans, "this -- for am I not a man!" So they abode and the day ran gently past them, slipping as river water, and evening came, and someone entered, darkening the door.

Then Gra.s.s-Bush-and-Blossom wrapped her cedar-bark skirt about her and sprang up, and her silver and copper ornaments rang sweetly with her moving. The-One-Who-Walks-All-Over-the-Sky looked at Many Swans. "You have not waited," she said. "Alas! It is an evil beginning. My son, my son, I wished to love you." But he was glad and thought: "It is a querulous old woman, I shall heed her no more than the snapping of a fire of dead twigs."

The old woman went behind the door and hung up something. It pleased him. It was shining. When he woke in the night, he saw it in the glow of the fire. He liked it, and he liked the skins he lay on and the woman who lay with him. He thought only of these things.

In the morning, the old woman unhooked the shining object and went out, and he turned about to his wife and said sharp, glad words to her and she to him, and the sun shone into the house until evening, and in the night again he was happy, because of the thing that glittered and flashed and moved to and fro, clashing softly on the wall.

The days were many. He did not count them. Every morning the old woman took out the shining thing, and every evening she brought it home, and all night it shone and cried "Ching-a-ling" as it dangled against the wall.

Moons and moons went by, no doubt. Many Swans did not reckon them out. Was there an earth? Was there a sky? He remembered nothing. He did not try. And then one day, wandering along the street of carved houses, he heard a song. He heard the beat of rattles and drums, and the shrill humming of trumpets blown to a broken rhythm:

"Haioo'a! Haioo!

Many salmon are coming ash.o.r.e, They are coming ash.o.r.e to you, the post of our heaven, They are dancing from the salmon's country to the sh.o.r.e.

I come to dance before you at the right-hand side of the world, overtowering, outshining, surpa.s.sing all. I, the Salmon!

Haioo'a! Haioo!"

And the drums rumbled like the first thunder of a year, and the rattles pattered like rain on flower petals, and the trumpets hummed as wind hums in round-leafed trees; and people ran, jumping, out of the Spring Salmon house and leapt to the edge of the sky and disappeared, falling quickly, calling the song to one another as they fell so that the sound of it continued rising up for a long time.

Many Swans listened, and he recollected that when the Spring Salmon jump, the children say: "Ayuu! Do it again!" He thought of his children and his wife whom he had left on the earth, and wondered who had brought them meat, who had caught fish for them, and he was sad at his thoughts and wept, saying: "I want to shoot birds for my children. I want to spear trout for my children."

So he went back to his house, and his feet dragged behind him like nets drawn across sand.

He lay down upon his bed and grieved, because he had no children in the sky, and because the wife of his youth was lost to him. He would not eat, but lay with his head covered and made no sound.

Then Gra.s.s-Bush-and-Blossom asked him: "Why do you grieve?"

But he was silent. And again she said: "Why do you grieve?" But he answered nothing. And she asked him many times, until at last he told her of his children, of his other wife whom he had left, and she was pitiful because she loved him.

When the old woman came, she also said: "What ails your husband that he lies there saying nothing?" And Gra.s.s-Bush-and-Blossom answered: "He is homesick. We must let him depart."

Many Swans heard what she said, and he got up and made himself ready. Now the old woman looked sadly at him. "My son," she said, "I told you it was a bad beginning. But I wish to love you.

Choose among these things what you will have and return to your people."

Many Swans pointed to the shining thing behind the door and said, "I will have that." But the old woman would not give it to him. She offered him spears of bone, and yew bows, and arrows winged with ducks' feathers. But he would not have them. She offered him strings of blue and white sh.e.l.ls, and a copper canoe with a stern-board of copper and a copper bailer. He would not take them.

He wanted the thing that glittered and cried "Ching-a-ling" as it dangled against the wall. She offered him all that was in the house.

But he liked that great thing that was shining there. When that thing turned round it was shining so that one had to close one's eyes. He said: "That only will I have." Then she gave it to him saying: "You wanted it. I wished to love you, and I do love you."

She hung it on him. "Now go home."

Many Swans ran swiftly, he ran to the edge of the sky, there he found the land of the rainbow. He put his foot on it and went down, and he felt strong and able to do anything. He forgot the sky and thought only of the earth.

Many Swans made a song as he went down the rainbow ladder. He sang with a loud voice:

"I will go and tear to pieces Mount Stevens, I will use it for stones for my fire.

I will go and break Mount Qa-tsta-is, I will use it for stones for my fire.

All day and all night he went down, and he was so strong he did not need to sleep. The next day he made a new song. He shouted it with a great noise:

"I am going all round the world, I am at the centre of the world, I am the post of the world, On account of what I am carrying in my hand."