Sioux Mythology

1895

An Interesting Study of the Works of the Great Mystery.

Before the advent of the white man these people believed that the earth was flat, with a circular form, and was suspended in a dark place and sheltered by the heaven or sky in the shape of a hollow hemisphere. The sun was regarded as the father and the earth the mother of all things that live and grow, and as they had been married a long time and had become the parents of many generations they were called the great-grandparents. As near as I can judge, the moon seemed to be their servant, at least she was required to watch, together with her brothers, the stars over the sleeping universe while the sun came down to rest with his family. In the thunder bird they believed God had a warrior who presided over the most powerful elements — the storm and the fearful cyclone. This symbolic creature is depicted as an impatient and wrathy son of war, at whose appearance even the ever smiling grandfather, the sun, hides his face. In the realms of water the whale is the symbolized chief of the finny tribes. In every great lake the Sioux imagines a huge fish as ruler of its waters.

Yet none of these possesses the power of speech. The great mystery had shown them some truths denied to man, but he did not trust them fully; therefore he made them dumb. They can only show to man some supernatural things by signs or in dreams — as, for instance, to foretell future events or explain the use of certain powerful remedies. The same holds that the key of heaven is vested in the visible phenomena of the universe. All creatures, save man, are assigned to a peculiar paradise, in which there is forbidden fruit — namely, the apple of speech and reasoning; hence the animals and inanimate things are exempted from sin. Thus it is that rocks, trees and rivers are surrounded with an atmosphere of grandeur, beauty and mystery. Nature is the interpreter of the great mystery, and through her man is convinced of truth. — Popular Science Monthly.

Stork Legends

1895

In an old collection of matronly stories entitled "The Gospel of the Distaff," printed at Bruges in 1475, I find this passage: "When a stork builds her nest over a chimney, it is a sign that the proprietor shall have wealth and long life." Ancient beliefs admitted that the stork protected buildings against lightning. It is a holy bird, and in certain German towns the arrival of the storks, heralds of spring, was announced with joyous blasts by the watchman on the tower.

What is certain is that which Michelet says of the swallow may be applied to the stork, "He has taken not only our house, but also our hearts."

Legends go still further. They consider storks as the incarnation of departed souls.

In that metamorphosed capacity they have for mission to search the bottom of wells for the souls of newborn infants. In the whole of northern and central Germany they have their baby wells. Hamburg, too, had her "kindelbrunnen." This naive faith has its origin in ancient mythology, which represents the stork, jointly with the peacock, as the favorite bird of Juno, goddess of maternity. — French of Maurice Engelhart.

Teacher Refuses Tribute to Santa Claus

1910

By Samuel Parker of Chicago

During the recent holiday season a teacher in one of the Chicago public schools was subjected to not a little criticism for refusing to pay tribute to the Santa Claus myth, declaring it to be wrong morally to teach a child a falsehood or to tell the child anything as a truth which it would discover to be false later on.

Instead of being a target for thoughtless ridicule that teacher should command the respect of every teacher and parent who conscientiously regards the moral training of children. The holiest thing this side of heaven is the faith of a little child and he who carelessly or purposely abuses it perpetrates a wrong from which the abused child seldom fully recovers. If parents and friends would sidetrack the heathen myth and bestow their endearing gifts in their own names the dear children would be just as happy and escape the shock of falsehood and deception at the hands of those who ought to love them too well to expose them to such danger.


Romance of the Future

"Do you see that cloud? It was behind one just like that that I first kissed you." — Town and Country.

Fox as "Will O' The Wisp"

1905

Curious Belief That Is Prevalent Among the Japanese

Among the many superstitions of the Japanese there is none more strange or more universal than the belief in the power of the fox to do them harm, and many are the stories told of those against whom this power has been exercised.

The Japanese fox is a pretty creature about two feet long and of a tawny color, and is found nearly everywhere in Japan. The mischievous tricks which foxes are said to play upon the unwary are many, and wonderful are the tales told to awed groups of listeners by those who have been duped by them.

The designing fox usually takes the form of a fairy maiden in order to play tricks upon some unsuspecting wayfarer, and beckons him on until he falls into a ditch or is lost in the mountains. It is almost always at night that the fox goes out to deceive, and those who have met with such adventures say that the only way to know the difference between a real maiden and a fox lady is that the latter is clearly distinguishable, even on the darkest night, the stripes or patterns on her clothing being clearly visible even in the darkness.

It is usually to those who are carrying some article of food that the artful fox appears, with the design of obtaining the dainty, and those who have been through the experience say that a bewildered feeling takes possession of them and they are not able to exert their own wills.

The Oldest Mystery — The Swastika

1922

The Swastika is the oldest symbol in the world. Also, it is the oldest mystery. You find it engraved on primitive tools, dug up in the mounds of the Ohio, Tennessee and Mississippi mound-builders, who inhabited America, before the Indians. The Swastika also is found in the most ancient ruins of Alaska, Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, Babylonia, China, Japan, India, Assyria, Phoenicia, Persia, Tibet, Greece — and nearly every other country in the world, including obscure islands. It is the international symbol for good luck and general welfare — like our horseshoe, the negro's rabbit-foot and the "chung-meng-fui-goi" sign that is painted on the door of nearly every Chinese home.

The Swastika's origin is unknown. But archaeologists, the ditch-diggers of science, have traced it back to the beginning of the Bronze Age, 4500 years ago. For all we know, the Swastika may have been old then. How did it spread over the earth and become known in countries that are supposed to have had no knowledge of each other in ancient times?

The only plausible explanation of the universal use of the Swastika comes from China. The Chinese — who claim that their explorer, Fu-sang, visited America 1060 years before Columbus — believe that civilization travels in an endless wave — up 30,000 years, then down 30,000, so on forever. That's why Chinese mythology tells of "flying men" far back in antiquity.

The earth may be 1,700,000,000 years old, says Prof. William Duane, of Harvard Medical School. He bases his calculation on radioactivity. Regardless of the number of years, queer things are buried back there in the past, as shown by the Swastika, the oldest mystery.

—The La Crosse Tribune, La Crosse, Wisconsin, May 27, 1922, p. 3.

Women's Oaths

1895

The Fair Sex Swore More in Old Times Than Nowadays

Dr. Barker Newhall, of Brown University, in his paper on "Women's Speech in Classic Literature," said: "Disconnected thought and inconsequent expression are characteristic of the female mind, and are exhibited, e.g., in oration 32 of Lysias, by the lack of connection between the sentences in one place and by the excess of it in another; while in Terence the insertion of a parenthesis often breaks the continuity. Again, we notice the prolixity of style, as shown by useless repetitions or such diffuseness and garrulity as are familiar in Chaucer's 'Wife of Bath.' Plato and Cicero tell us that women are conservative and keep many antiquated phrases. Such are found in Corndia's letter and elsewhere, while proverbs abound in Theocritus's fifteenth idyll. Women also show their emotion by pathetic repetitions and exaggeration, as in the speeches ascribed by historians to certain Roman matrons and in Alciphron's love letters. Swearing was once quite common among English women, so Juliet's nurse and Dame Quickly swear very freely, while Hotspur reproaches Kate for using the weak oaths of women. In classic antiquity the weaker sex swore the more frequently and matrons most of all. In Greece, as men swore by no goddess save Demeter, so the women by no god but Zeus, while oaths by Aphrodite were especially characteristic. In the best period Roman men never called Castor to witness, nor the women Hercules. Similarly certain interjections were the exclusive property of the women, as among some savage tribes they have peculiar names for many objects."

A Blind Girl's Interests at the Art Institute

Chicago, 1895

Mysterious Old Woman and Sightless Girl Doing the Art Institute

They tell a story over at the Art Institute on the lake front about an old woman who goes there on free days leading a blind girl, says the Chicago Tribune. The old woman totters in her steps and her face is wrinkled. Her attire is not shabby, but it is severely plain and doesn't belong to this generation. The girl has a face as white as marble and her blind eyes are unusually full. Her mouth is expressive and a singularly sad smile nestles about it.

Somebody who asked the old woman one day tells that the twain live on Mohawk street and that the girl has been blind since she was 4 years old. She is now 12. The girl always, since she was old enough to know, evinced a passion for art. At one time she undertook drawing, but had to quit it. They say she plays naturally and sweetly. But her strong like is art in sculpture. The old woman leads the child among the statuary and reproductions of the various rooms, mentioning, of course, anything new. The girl has learned the location of the principal works, and after they have been in one room for awhile the girl will say to the woman: "Let's go into the room where ——-," mentioning what it is she wants to "see," as she expresses it. One of her favorites is the group of Amphion and Zethus chaining Dirce to the bull. Someone told her the story one day, and seemed to fascinate her, and she asked several curious questions about it.

But after they have wandered about the rooms most of the day the girl nearly always says to the woman: "Let's go and see the child that is listening to the sea." The work is in one of the corridors, and has been noticed with interest by thousands. The child said one day when she was told that the figure was listening to the murmur of the sea, and that it appeared to please her, "Then she must be blind." Several people have asked the woman her name, but she evades the inquiry, and when the child is questioned she nestles to the woman and makes no reply. It is believed that they are mother and child.

Eli Clouse Revives Annual Hunting Story

1909

It is reported in the city papers that Eli Clouse of Friend's Cove, 30 miles northeast from Cumberland, in Bedford County, has again killed a big deer that had been roaming over the Martin Mountain for many years. The deer was called "Old Elick." It is peculiar that the same old Eli Clouse kills the same old deer every year but he does. Next year "Old Elick" will be roaming again and old Clouse will kill him and tell the old story again to the old hunters who come to hunt on the State reservation and the story will get in the city papers as is its custom. Another peculiar feature of this story is that Martin Hill, where Clouse kills his old deer, is only a few miles from each reporter's headquarters. Surely the mountain do move as often as the deer has lives. It is the reporter's faith that moves the mountain every time. — Cumberland Alleganian.


The Man in the Moon

Russian folklore tells that the man in the moon was one who was seeking the isle in which there is no death. At last, after traveling far, he found the longed-for heaven and look up his above in the moon. After a hundred years had passed, death called for him one Christmas eve and a fierce struggle ensued with the moon, who was victorious; and so the man stayed where he was.


Daily Thought

Whoever you are, be noble; Whatever you do, do well; Whenever you speak, speak kindly — Give joy wherever you dwell.

The Pied Piper's Anniversary

1915

Recently occurred the anniversary of the visit to "Hamelin Town in Brunswick," in 1876 of him "who, for the fantastical coat which he wore being wrought with sundry colors, was called the Pied Piper."

Old Verstegan told the story in prose of how "the Pied Piper, with a shrill pipe went through all the streets, and forthwith the rats came all running out of the houses in great numbers after him; all of which he led into the river of Weser, and therein drowned them."

It is to Macready's young son that we are debtors for the poem, for it was he who persuaded Browning to weave the prose into poetry to amuse a sick child. Its preservation was due to a lucky accident, for in Browning's next collection of poems was a blank page or two to be filled, and "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" was just big enough to do it. So if in his life the Pied Piper destroyed hundreds of children his biography has amused thousands. — London Chronicle.

Eagle Always an Emblem

1918

From Mythological Times the Monarch of the Air Has Been Chosen as Representative of Power

In mythology the eagle usually represents the sun. The great mythical eagle of India, the Garuda, is the bearer of the god Vishnu, victorious by his brightness over all demons. In Scandinavian mythology the eagle is a gloomy figure, assumed by demons of darkness or by Odin himself, concealed in the gloomy night or in wind swept clouds. The storm giant Hrasweigr sits in the form of an eagle at the extremity of heaven and blows blasts over all people and on the great tree Yggdrasil sits an eagle observing everything that happens. When Zeus was preparing for his struggle with the Titans the eagle brought him a thunderbolt, whereupon the god took the bird for his emblem.

It naturally became the emblem of nations after its long use in mythology. Ptolemy Soter made it the emblem of the Egyptian kingdom. In the Roman story the eagle was the herald to Tarquinus of his royal power, and it was one of the most important insignia of the republic, and was also assumed by the emperors, and adopted into medieval heraldry after the time of Charlemagne.


Keeping the Faith

A man returning from Philadelphia tells of a ragged newsboy, who, after his papers were all sold, still stood near Independence hall lustily shouting the news of Germany's surrender, "I'm just a-doin' what the Liberty bell would do if it could," explained the little patriot.


There is no graduating from the school of experience.

Live For Today, Look Forward, Not Back to Past

1912

Heart to Heart Talks
By EDWIN A. NYE

LOOKING BACKWARD.

Do you remember the legend about that ancient Greek from whom Apollo took "the backward looking mind?"

All things became new.

The world was transformed to that Greek. For the first time he saw how beautiful was the world. Flowers he had not yet seen bloomed under his feet, new stars shone over his head and the changing moods of nature filled him with delight.

Why?

The change was not in the world but in the Greek. His mind had been turned backward to the happiness and the grief of the past. Now he looked outward and forward to the beauty and the joy all about him.

In our day is no Apollo to take away the backward looking mind, more's the pity.

But the symbolism holds.

Many of us need to have our mind reversed.

I know a woman who persists in looking backward and who always tells of a day when her people were rich and accustomed to many luxuries she is now denied. She is constantly deploring a situation she cannot help. She does not live save in a former day.

Worse than Lot's wife, who took a single look over her shoulder, she always faces backward.

I know a man whose constant theme of regret is the fact that he ever changed his business. He did well, he says, at the old place and was a fool to change. Certainly he is doing little good at his new place, largely for the reason that he is forever harking backward to the old.

He needs an Apollo.

Older persons are apt to foster the backward looking habit. Says grandpa from his chimney corner: "There are no days like the good old days. Now, when I was young" —

Poor grandpa!

He magnifies the past, minimizes the present and omits the future. He is dying, like some trees, at the top.

You cannot change the past, but you can discount the present and spoil the future by refusing to live in the one and to face the other.

To be successful, to stay young, to find happiness, cultivate the outward looking, forward looking mind.

Face the sun.

When you stand with your back to it the shadow is in front of you. When you face the sun the shadow is behind.

—The Janesville Daily Gazette, Janesville, WI, July 22, 1912, page 4.