These tricksters and culture heroes may create or arrange the stars. Gluskap names the constellations. Breath Maker creates the Milky Way. Coyote scatters the stars, spoiling the plans of Black God and the creators. Raven walks across the sky in snowshoes, and his tracks become the Milky Way. Coyote's family is the PLEIADES, his cane the BIG DIPPER, he himself the star Aldebaran.
The navajo constellation Man with Legs Ajar indicates the arrival of Parting of the Seasons (November)...
One day as they danced, they found themselves rising little by little into the air, their heads being light through hunger. How this happened they did ot know, but one said, "Do not look back, for something strange is taking place." A woman, too, saw them rise and called them back, but with no effect, for they still rose slowly above the Earth. She ran to the camp, and all rushed out with food of every kind, but the children would not return, though their parents called piteously after them . But one would even look back, and he became a falling star. The others reached the sky, and are Oot-kwa-tab (There They Dewll in Peace). Every falling or shooting star recalls the story, but the seven stars shine on continuously, a pretty band of dancing children.
(Reprinted from Beauchamp, Onondaga Tale of the Pleiades, 281-282)
A Chippewa tale about how a fox scatters the stars around the sky is si milar to the Navajo creation myth in which Coyote blows the stars into the heavens, spoiling the patterns that Black God had planned (see pages 187-188).
Each night Ojishonda, the ruler of Starland, carried a sack of stars around with him and placed the stars in the sky. But being early one evening, he dropped the sack on the ground and took a short rest. His pet red fox, a crafty fellow, decided to have some fun, so he grabbed the bag and took off with it. The stars spilled out everywhere, all over the sky, and Ojishonda was never able to gather them together again. Now Ojishonda must walk around and light the stars one by one, a job that takes the entire night. Sometimes, when the snow is deep or when he is tired, he is not able to light them all. That is why you cannot see some stars in the sky and why some stars disappear in winter. It is just that Ojishonda is getting older and older and annot complete his rounds.
(Adapted from Cappel, Chippewa Tales, 45-46).
Even modern Ojibway shamans believe that the PLEIADES are the point of exchange between our world and the star world. Traditionally, shamans with certain powers built small structures with seven poles to represent the seven stars of PLEIADES for the shaking-tent (also called conjuring-lodge) ritual. In this ritual, which is held at night, the shaman enters the one-person mite'win lodge and communicates with invisible spirits. The spirits shake the lodge, giving the ritual its name. The shamans spirit may leave the body and go through the hole in the sky to the spirit world. The shaking-tent rite is also important to the Cree and the Menominee.
Much celestial information, however, was not recorded, whether because it did not seem important to Euro-Americans at the time, or because Native people did not want to provide details. James Swan, a teacher on the Pacific Coast in the mid-1800's wrote that the Makah were reluctant to show him constellations. "Most, if not all the constellations have names...but I have never had any of them pointed out to me; [the Makah] seemed to have a superstitious repugnance to doing so, and although they will at times talk about the stars, they generally prefer cloudy weather for such conversations."...
Long ago, the world was entirely dark. A chief kept the sun for sunlight, the moon, and the stars in three wooden boxes. To secure sunlight for the people Raven turned himself into a hemlock needle. The chief's daughter ate the needle and then gave birth to a baby boy (Raven). The boy pleaded for his grandfather's wonderful boxes. When his grandfather relented, the boy opened the boxes with the moon and stars and threw their contents into the sky. Then he turned himself back into a raven and took the box containing the sun to a place called Dry Bay. When Raven opened the box, all the people were afraid of the sunlight and they ran from him. People wearing seal skins ran into the water and became seals while people wearing the skins of various other animals became those animals.
(Adapted from de Laguna, Under Mount Saint Alias: The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit, 796.)
"I am not your younger brother."
"Oh! yes, you are my younger brother. We were once coming down Nass River in a canoe with our father and had just reached its mouth when you fell overboard and sank foreer."
Then the Sculpin said, "I cannot be your younger brother for I am a very old person."
Said Raven, "I want you to be next to me. There will be many sculpins, but you shall be the principal one." So he placed the sculpin (weq!) in the sky where it may still be seen.
(Reprinted from Swanton, Tlingit Myths and Texts, 107.)
When the Changer made the world . . . The Changer made the sky too low. People bumped their heads on it and sometimes ventured into the Sky World. Everyone wanted to raise the sky, but they spoke different languages and lied in different areas. ow could they solve the poblem? Some wise men got together and decided that everyone would push at a signal, Ya-hoh, which in all of the languages means "lift together."
Everyone in the area, people and animals alike, made giant poles from fir trees with which to push up the sky. At the signal Ya-Hoh, they all pushed as hard as they could. Each time the wise man shouted Ya-hoh, they pushed again. Eventually, they pushed the sky to its present position, where no one can bump into it and no one can climb into the Sky World.
(Adapted from Clark, Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest, 148-149 and Shelton, The Story of the Totem Pole, 11-12.)
Black God strode into the hogan of creation with the Pleiades on his ankle. He stamped his foot several times, and the star group jumped to a different location each time--his knee, his hip, his shoulder, and finally his left temple. "There it shall stay," he told the Creators, in this way he established his mastey over the stars and secured the right to arrange them in the sky.
Black God took mica crystals from the fawn-skin pouch that he carried and began placing them in the heavens. He made a group called Man with Legs Ajar in the eastern sky and placed Horned Rattler, Bear, Thunder, and First Big One in the southern sky. In the North, he created Male One Who Revolves and Female One Who Revolves, who whirl around the star that stands still. He made First Slim One, Pinching Stars, Rabbit Tracks, and Dilyebe. He gave each group a star that would ignite it and provide light. Then, he placed stars across the sky to make the Milky Way.
He was ready to sit down when Coyote came near and exclaimed, "What have you done!" Coyote snatched the pouch from Black God, opened it up, and blew the rest of the stars into the sky in an unorganized array. "The sky looks nice that way," Coyote said. He held back one star, which he named Coyote Star, and placed it in the southern sky.
(Adapted from Haile, Starlore Among the Navaho, 1-3).
But people were not content to leave the brother and sister alone. They hired a medicine man to intercede. Wind Man turned himself into a whirlwind and transported the woman to the top of a desolate mountain. With the help of Buzzard, the brother finally located her, but neither of them could get her down. They secued the assistance of a Ceremonial Clown who planted a vine, the gourd, that grew up to the woman and allowed her to escape. But the brother and sister knew that they could not be happy living where they were anymore.
The woman went into the eastern sky and became the Morning Star, while the man became a falling star that made earthquakes when he hit the earth.
(Adapted from Saxton and Saxton, Legends and Lore of the Papago and Pima Indians, 11-19)
What shall we turn into?" they asked one another. One said, "Let us change into the earth." The one named Ksabe (the Wise-One) said, "No, the earth is mortal. It gets caved in."
Then another one said, "Let us become rocks." "No, they are destructible. They all break asunder."
... The Wise-One said, "No, the blue sky above is never dead. It is always in existence. Shining things live there. Such we shall change into. In that region let us dwell."
Well, so they do. The smallest of them took them up, hoisting them by means of his spider-web. He set three on one side and three on the other, seating himself in the middle. When the last one had gotten up, he tore the web in the middle, threw it down, and gave it to the spider.