Indian Legends About The Grand Canyon 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. Athin 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. He also gave him a wand to be used in guiding his box-boat, after which Tiyo crept into the box, received from his mother and sisters the food, and then his father closed the end of the box, gave it a push with his foot, and it floated away, bobbing up and down.
