The Rape of the To account for how man first learned the use of fire the American Indians invented and told scores of myths all the way from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego. These myths show more invention than those of the creation. Most of them make the fire hero obtain his gift for man by rob bery, stealth or deception, as in the preceding myth. The fire was usually guarded by some terrible, supernatural being. Frequently the guardian of the fire lived on the top of a great mountain or deep down in the earth. Sometimes the fire was gotten from the light ning, or from the Thunder Bird or from the clouds. The reason for these sources is evi dent. From the heart of the earth, the volcano throws forth its fire; and out of the clouds comes the lightning. According to various American myths the fire was most jealously guarded because there existed a strong belief that some day it would burn up the world, as it had already done in the Aztec, Maya, Cen tral American and at least one United States myth. Hence the desperate efforts made by the culture gods to obtain it and the difficulties placed by the story teller in the way of their achievement of their object. It was dark throughout all the land, so a west coast myth runs, and it was cold; so all the people suffered. The Raven resolved to find both light and fire. After many adventures he arrived at the home of the Great Thunder Bird, and from him he obtained a little fire. Some of this he hid in the trees, where any one still can find it, and with the rest he made a tiny sun, which he threw up into the sky. There it grew large and lighted the whole earth. Many people had tried to steal the fire from the Fire Spirit, so the Algonquins say; but no one had succeeded. Nanabozho's grandmother was old, and she felt the cold very much as did all the old people. So Nanabozho went away eastward in his bark canoe, determined to find some fire and bring it back to his people. When he had crossed the Great Sea-water, he hid his canoe and changed himself into a white hare, and in this shape he came to the wigwam where the Fire Spirit guarded the sacred fire; and where he lived with his two great, strong, fierce daughters. Nanabozho wet himself in the lake near by, and apparently miserable and suffering from the cold, he crawled into the sacred wig wam, where one of the women took pity on him and set him by the fire to warm himself and to dry his fur. There they left him while they went to attend to their duties about the place in a distant part of the big lodge.• Nana bozho the Hare moved closer to the fire; but his tread caused the earth to tremble so that the women ran up to see what had happened; and the Fire Spirit, who had been dozing by the door, woke up in a terrible fright. But the hare looked so miserable and bedraggled they did not suspect him. Finding everything ap parently all right, the old man went to sleep again and the women went about their work. When all was quiet once more, Nanabozho transformed himself into a swift young Indian runner, seized a fire-brand and ran out of the wigwam in the direction of the Great Sea water where he had hidden his canoe. The Fire Spirit and his daughters ran after him and, by their superior magic, gained rapidly on him. Nanabozho set fire to the prairie grass and raised a great thick smoke which blinded his pursuers and hid him from sight, and al lowed him to reach his canoe in safety. But the fire people went round the smoke and, reaching the lake, followed Nanabozho across it. Nanabozho called to his canoe that went by-itself to go faster and faster. Faster and faster it went and so it reached the shore ahead of the fire people. There Nanabozho hid the fire in a hollow log. The firepeople looked everywhere for it but could not find it. When they had gone away Nanabozho took the fire out of its hiding place and warmed his grandmother and all the old people. But ever since that day there has been fire in wood and more in dry logs. According to the western Algonquins, Sistmakoo, the Fire King, who was a very great magician, held the fire imprisoned in the heart of the earth, in the very centre of four corrals, one within the other. In each of these corrals there was only one door. At the first door a monstrous venomous snake stood guard; at the second a great savage panther; at the third the King of the Grizzly Bears and at the fourth mighty Sistinakoo himself. At a council of all the animals, the Fox was sent out to try to break through the barricades, but he failed. Then the chief of the Coyotes was sent. By his cunning he succeeded in passing all the guards one by one as they slept; and fastening a fire brand to his tail, he got through with all the inhabitants of the infernal re goons on his track. He reached home in safety. This legend is common to various other United States tribes. It naturally varies in the re counting of the obstacles Coyote met with and the means by which he overcame them. The Carrier Indians had light, but they had no fire, and so they were terribly cold. Up on the top of a very high mountain old Old Chief had all the fire guarded and as he would not give the people any they resolved to get it by stealth. So they called upon Caribou and Muskrat, two great magicians, to help them. They all put on their dancing aprons and masks and entered the Fire Chief's lodge and began to dance and sing. All uninvited they did this. Muskrat sang magic words of his tribe, and all the people sang these words of Muskrat.
Young Caribou jerked his head from side to side, very fast he jerked it, as he danced, and his magic mask of fine shavings, which he had made before he started out, caught fire. Old Old Chief sprang up and put the fire out. But Muskrat danced, Young Caribou danced. the people all danced; very swift they danced and the fire came again stronger than before, and again old Old Chief put it out. Once more the people and Caribou danced swifter and swifter. But Muskrat didn't dance. Behind the dancers he burrowed and burrowed with swift magic through the earth. Suddenly some one cried: "Look, look!" and pointed to a great mountain from which rose dense clouds of smoke. There stood Muskrat scattering the fire upon the land below. According to another story Bear had a wonderful medicine tree which he valued very highly for in it he had hidden the fire. Chip munk discovered this secret and one day he shook the tree so violently that it set itself on fire and thus fire came into the world.
Day and Night.— Further west the Thomp son River Indians have this same myth; but with them it refers not to the bringing of fire, but to the division of day and night. When Chipmunk set fire to Bear's medicine tree Bear put the flames out, for they were at the foot of the tree, by throwing earth on the fire. For some time a battle raged, Chipmunk alter nately lighting and Bear putting out the flames. At last they both grew tired and agreed to have it alternately dark and light. This is how daylight and darkness came about. The Shuswaps have a very similar myth. They assert, however, that at first there was plenty of light, light all the time. But Grizzly Bear did not like this, so by very great medicine, singing and dancing, he tried to make it dark. When Coyote found what he was up to he at once called up all his big medicine, singing and dancing and crying in a very loud voice: "Light, light, light P Bear danced and cried: "Dark, dark, Sometimes it was dark when Bear shouted the loudest; sometimes it was light when Coyote shouted the loudest. But with so much dancing, singing and shout ing they both grew very tired after a while and agreed to have it dark half the time and light half the time. This is why darkness always follows the sun's path. According to the Blackfeet, Napi, their traditional hero, had a wife who was in love with a rattle snake. He set fire to the wood where the rattle snake lived, and when his wife came at him in a rage, he severed her head from her body. The head rolled along the ground after the children who had run away and the body still lived and was as terrible as before. So Napi ran for his life with his wife after him. To-day Napi the sun is still followed by his wicked, headless wife, the moon.
The Seasons.— Very few Indian tribes have no myth to account for the seasons. Fisher, the Ojibway hero, went to the Swallow land, the Sky-land, far to the south where the swallows live. There the Swallow-man had them all tied together so that they could not wander. After numerous adventures, Fisher liberated the birds and allowed them to escape through a hole in the sky. But the Summer man closed the hole before they all got through. This is why it isn't summer all the time. The Algonquins, the Iroquois and other tribes picture Spring as a Young Man and Winter as an Old Man continually at strife with one another. Sometimes one conquers, then the other. Thus it is warm and cold alternately. Another and much more detailed myth tells of Glooskap's journey to the land of the guardian of Winter, where he was enter tained by the old man with stories. And as he told his stories Glooskap fell asleep and slept for six long months. Then he awoke and wandered further southward. As he went the air began to be warmer, the grass and flowers appeared and the leaves came again upon the trees. He came to a great forest where the little Summer-Woman lived. He caught her and abducted her and ran away with her fol lowed by all the people of Summer-land. Out distancing them he came again to the home of the guardian of Winter. There the old man again tried to throw his magic spell over Gloos kap. But the latter, with the little Summer Woman in his bosom gave the guardian of Winter back story for story. He described all the beauty of the southland and the little Sum mer-Woman listening was pleased and put forth all her magic. and the snow and ice house of the Winter melted away and he fled to the north as the leaves came again upon the trees and the birds sang in them and all nature awoke once more to hail the coming Spring. Then came the Summer-people; and Glooskap left the land with them. Since then the Summer people go to the northland every year from the Summer-land far to the south. The Blackfeet say that the Lord of Cold Weather is a tall white-haired old man clothed all in white who lives in a wonderfully sunlit white tepee far in the Northland, where he sits and smokes in silence all the dreary winter months through. Across his yellow face run two lines, one com pletely round the mouth and another across the forehead, just above the eyes, from ear to ear. He it is who sends the fierce Winter of the northwest of Canada and the great plains of northern United States. Estoneapesta, he of the Yellow-painted Snow-tepee, is his name and he is the lord of all the snows and biting winds of the Northland.