Legendary lore is generally interesting. It reveals the mental qualities of
the people who make and believe it, and also shows how the child mind of
the race acts. For the aboriginal makers of legends are the child minds of
the race in active operation. There are many legends attaching to this
great Canyon. One is told by Major Powell in his "Explorations" as follows:
Legend of the River's Birth. "Long ago, there was a great and wise chief,
who mourned the death of his wife and would not be comforted until
Ta-vwoats, one of the Indian gods, came to him and told him she was in a
happier land, and offered to take him there, that he might see for himself,
if, upon his return, he would cease to mourn. The great chief promised.
Then Ta-vwoats made a trail through the mountains that intervene between
that beautiful land, the balmy region in the great west, and this, the
desert home of the poor Numa.
"This trail was the canyon gorge of the Colorado. Through it he led him;
and, when they had returned, the deity exacted from the chief a promise
that he would tell no one of the joys of that land, lest, through
discontent with the circumstances of this world, they should desire to go
to heaven. Then he rolled a river into the gorge, a broad, raging stream,
that should engulf any that might attempt to enter thereby.
"More than once I have been warned by the Indians not to enter this canyon.
They considered it disobedience to the gods, and contempt for their
authority, and believed it would surely bring upon one their wrath."
Hopi Legend of Tiyo, their Cultus-Hero, and the Canyon. One of the most
interesting legends of the Hopi cultus-hero, Tiyo, relates to the Grand
Canyon of the Colorado River, and is told by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, the
eminent authority on the ethnology of the Hopis. It is a long story, but
the chief portions of the narrative are as follows:
Origin of Antelope and Snake Clans. "Far down in the lowest depths of the
Grand Canyon of the Colorado River (Pi-sis-bai-ya), at the place where we
used to gather salt, is the Shipapu, or orifice where we emerged from the
underworld. The Zunis, Kohoninos, Paiutes, white men, and all people came
up from 'the below' at that place. Some of our people traveled to the
North, but the cold drove them back, and after many days they returned.
The mothers, carrying their children on their backs, went out to gather
seeds for food, and they plucked the prickly pears and gave it to their
children to still their cries, and these have ever since been called the
Prickly Pear People.
"'Morning Dove' flew overhead, spying out the springs and calling us to
come, and those who followed him, and built their houses at the waters he
found, are still called after him the Hu-wi-nya-muh, or Morning Dove
People. All that region belonged to the Puma, Antelope, Deer and other Horn
people, and To-hi-a (puma) led my people, the Tohi-nyn-muh, to To-ko-na-bi
(Navaho Mountain), and the Sand people and the Horn people also dwelt in
the same region.
"We built many houses at To-ko-na-bi, and lived there many days, but the
springs were small, the clouds were thin, rain came seldom, and our corn
was weak. The Ki-mon-wi (village chief) of the To-hi-nyn-muh had two sons
and two daughters, and his eldest son was known by the name of Tiyo (the
youth). He seemed to be always melancholy and thoughtful, and was wont to
haunt the edge of the cliffs. All day he would sit there, gazing down into
the deep gorge (of the Grand Canyon), and wondering where the ever-flowing
water went, and where it finally found rest. He often discussed this
question with his father, saying, 'It must flow down some great pit, into
the underworld, for after all these years the gorge below never fills up,
and none of the water ever flows back again.' His father would say, 'Maybe
it flows so far away that many old men's lives would be too short to mark
its return.' Tiyo said, 'I am constrained to go and solve this mystery, and
I can rest no more till I make the venture.' His family besought him with
tears to forego his project, but nothing could shake his determination, and
he won them to give their sorrowful consent.
"The father said, 'It is impossible for you to follow the river on foot,
hence you must look for a hollow cottonwood-tree, and I will help you make
a wi-na-ci-buh (timber box) in which you may float upon the water.' Tiyo
found a dry cottonwood-tree, which they felled, and cut off as long as his
body, and it was as large around as they both could encompass with their
outstretched arms. They gouged and burned out all of the inside, leaving
only a thin shell of dry wood like a large drum; small branches and twigs
were fitted in the ends to close them, and the interstices were pitched
with pinion gum. All this work was done with the stone axe and the live
ember.
"The father then announced that in four days Tiyo should set forth, and
during that time the mother and her two daughters prepared kwip-do-si (a
kind of corn meal made from corn which has been dried and then ground. A
thin gruel is made of it) for food, and the father made prayer emblems and
pahos. On the morning of the fifth day the father brought the emblems to
Tiyo and laid them on a white cotton mantle, but before he wrapped them up,
he explained their significance.
