Oct., 1903. Arapaho Traditions — Dorsey and Kroeber. 7 



4. — The Origin of Culture/ 



A man tried to think how the people might kill buffalo. He was 

 a hard thinker. He would go off for several days and fast. He did 

 this repeatedly. At last he dreamed that a voice spoke to him and 

 told him what to do. He went back to the people and made an inclos- 

 ure of trees set in the ground with willows wound between them. At 

 one side of the inclosure, however, there was only a cliff with rocks at 

 the bottom. Then four untiring runners were sent out to the windward 

 of a herd of buffalo, two of them on each side. Thev headed the 

 buffalo and drove them toward the inclosure and into it. Then the 

 buffalo were run about inside until a heavy cloud of dust rose and in 

 this, unable to see, they ran over the precipice and were killed. 



This man also procured horses for the people. There were many 

 wild horses. The man had an inclosure made which was complete 

 except for an opening. Horses were driven into this just as the 

 buft'alo had been, and then the opening was closed. The horses ran 

 around until they were tired ; then they were lassoed. At first it took 

 a long time to break them. In the beginning only one horse was caught 

 for each family, but this was not enough and more were caught. After 

 a few years the horses bred, and soon every man had a herd. The 

 dogs now no longer had to drag the meat and baggage, nor did the 

 women have to carry part on their backs. 



' The people had nothing to cut up meat with. A man took a 

 buffalo shoulder blade and with flint cut out a narrow piece of it. 



Nih'an(;an made the world, but that it is not known who did it. The word is now the ordinary 

 word for white man in Arapaho, just as in Cheyenne the name of the mythical character Vihuk has 

 been applied to the whites. This is in accord with a tendency found elsewhere in America. Among 

 the .Arapaho it may have contributed to a change in the conceptions of the creation, especially as 

 the name Hixtcaba Nih'angan, above-white-man, is the Arapaho name for the God of the mis- 

 sionaries. Nih'an(;an means, however, also spider, and this is no doubt the original signification of 

 the word, just as the Menomini character that corresponds to Nih'angan is the rabbit. Among the 

 Dakota the trickster Unktomi is the spider. Among the Sia the spider. Siissistinnako, is the creator. 

 The Hopi have a mytholog^ical Spider-woman, and among the Pima (Grossman, Smiths. Rep., 1871, 

 407) the spider is the original creator. In none of the Arapaho myths is there the slightest trace of 

 any animal or spider-like qualities attributed to Nih'angan. He is entirely human. Apart from the 

 hesitating identification of him with the creator of the world, he is not found as the hero of any serious 

 myths, but always in a ridiculous form and often in obscene tales. He is thus the equivalent of 

 Ictinike and U°ktomi, latherthan of Napi and Miinabush. .Among the Gros Ventre, where his 

 name is Nix'anf, he shows somewhat more the character of the creator In combination with that of 

 trickster. A comparison of the more important traditions centering about this character among 

 the central Algonquins has been made by Chamberlain in the Journal of American Folk Lore, 1891, 

 193. The nature and scope of these traditions is however considerably different from those of the 

 westernmost Algonquin tribes, the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Gros Ventre, who were 

 within the typical plains culture. The word Nih'a°i;an is explained by the Indians as meaning wise 

 or skillful, and again as slender or narrow-bodied, in reference to spiders and insects; but both 

 etymologies are uncertain. 



" Told by informant B. 



