Part 1 (1/2)
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 s.h.i.+ne 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 moons.h.i.+ne wis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+ning 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.