Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1881 — Indian Legends. [ARTICLE]

Indian Legends.

Vlrglnia City (Nev) Enterprise. About the time the new comet was at its brightest, we took the occasion ol a call from Captain Sam, of the Piute tribe,to ask him about the notions held by his people in rega d to such celestial visitants. Sam said he would presently bring to us an old man of his tribe who had thtf whole dome of Heaven by heart. In some trepidation, aftef so much ceremony and prepatatiou, we finally ventured to ask the venerable savant if ho knew anything about the comet recently seen flaming in the northern sky- He did—he knew all about it. “It was,” be said “a wounded star.” Said he: “It is'badly hurt, but it wilt get away-” Without further ceremony or preamble he proceeded to give us the whole ecouoray of the celestial realms iu a nut-shell, so to sas. It was as follows: “The sun rules the heavens. He is the big chief; the moon is his wife,and the stars are his children. The sun he eat him children whenever he can catch them. They are aU -the time afraid when he is passing through in ‘the above. When he, their father,gets up in the morning.you see all the "stars, his children, fly out of sight—go away into the blue—and they do not make to be seen again till he, their father, is about for going to bed. Dowji deep under ground—deep, deep—is >a great hole. Here he go into this hole, the sun, and he crawl and he creep till he come to his bed; see • then he sleeps there all night. This is so little,and be, the sun, eo big, that he can Dot turn around in it, so he must, when he has had all his sleep, pass on then through, 1 and we see him next mdrning come out in the East. When he so comes

oat he begins to hunt up through 'the sky to catch and eat any that he can of the stars, his children. He, the sun, is not all seen. The shape of him is like a snake or lizard. It is not his head that we see, but bis belly stuffed with the stars he has times and times devoured. His wife, the moon, she goes into the same hole as her husband to sleep her naps. She have always great fear of him. the sun, that have her for his wife, and when. he comes into the hole to sleep she long not stay there if he be cross. She, the moon, have great love for her children, the stars, and is happy to be traveling tip where , they are. And they, the children, feel safe and smile as she passes along. But she, their mother, cannot help but that one must go every month. It is ordered by Aah-ha, the Great Spirit, that lives above the place of all. Every mQptfe to do iWftilow QUO Of ohU4-

ren. Then then the moon feel sorrow. She must to mourn. Her face she do paint it Mack, for a child is gone. But the dark you will see wear away frond her face—little, little, little every day, and after a while we see again all the face bright of the mother moon. But soon he, the stm, her husband, swallow another child, and she pat again on her face the pitch and the black.”. “But bow about the comet?” ’ r ’. “ Well,!’ said the philosopher, “sometimes you see tbe sun snap at one of the stars, bis children, and not. get good, fast hold—only tear one hole and hurt it. It get wild of pain and go fly away across the sky with great .mout of blood from it. It then tery ’ffkid; and, as it fly. always keepits head turn to watch the sun, its father, and uevfei* turn awfty froth him its fkce till faj out of his reach. Having thus disposed of the whole f business of the realms above, the sage was inclined to come down to mundane matters, and suggested that much, talk made him hubgry. He was not too proud to accept four bits. Sam, however, who had been listening very attentively to tile astronomical doctrine* of thb Wise man ,6f. hW tribe, and who evidently wished to hear more, went on to say that when the white men first came to the country and began to dig great shafts, many of his people feared they intended to dig down to the subterranean passageway of tbe sun and moon, cateh them both, carry them away, and leave the whole world in darkness. To this the old philosopher answered that such a thing was impossible, owing to the great beat above and about the hole. He said all the white men could do was to get out some of thb rocks above tbe underground road of orbs, and which had absorbed their brightness as. they Jfty aslefep in their beds below, these rocks producing, iff the case of tbe moon white metal, .(silver) and in the case of the sun the yellow metal (gold). Captain Sam now said that they were ready to take their leave, and would be glad to carry with them a small piece of the white' metal mentioned by the wfce man of the tribes