THE STORY OF THE PECAN TREE – Kiowa
Written by G.T. Bludworth and Jeanine Plumer
I found this tale at the Eanes History Center in Westlake Hills, Austin. A man named John Lee Smith had heard this story from a Kiowa Indian, and then it was thoughtfully documented by G.T. Bludworth. He titled it The Texas Pecan; Man on the Moon.
Long, long ago the great White Father of the Kiowa Indians, whose home was on the plains of Texas, lived in their midst, directing them in their war councils, leading them in battles against the enemy, and accompanying them in their hunts. He was their personal leader. But the time came when he must leave. He must go to the spirit land, he said. However, he promised to continue to guide his people, through the medicine men, and to return to them when his mission in the spirit world was accomplished. He went away.
But he had no sooner entered the spirit world than the Evil One, who had been watching and hating him for many years, attacked him. In the combat that followed, the cohorts of the Evil Spirit and the cohorts of the Good Spirit fought until the whole upper world became an inferno of lightning and thunder. In the end the White Father was killed. His lifeless body fell to the earth that the Kiowas hunted over. They saw and recognized his form. They buried it in the bed of a stream, carefully covering the grave with rock and gravel.
The place of the burial became a shrine for periodical visits. One time when some red men came to do homage at it they saw that a green stem had pushed its way up out of the rock. They took this green thing as a good sign. As it grew year after year, they saw that it was a new kind of tree in their world. At last, after so many years had gone by that only the old could remember the burial of their White Father, the Indians found some nuts fallen from the great tree that had sprouted out of the grave. They found the meat in these nuts delicious and the nuts excellent for carrying on long hunting expeditions. Other trees came from the nuts scattered on the ground and after many, many years the nut-bearing trees were growing all along the streams of Texas. They called the tree PECAN, which means nut.
While flipping through the numerous books at the history center I came upon this folktale told by the Alabama-Coushatta Indians in east Texas. The tale was preserved by folklorist Francis E. Abernethy and it explains how the unique Texas terrain came to be.
In the beginning the hills and plains of Texas were without form and were void and water covered the face of the earth. The sky was blue and the sea was blue and that is all there was – except for one big cypress- log raft that floated right in the middle of the sea, somewhere between Austin and Lampasas.
The raft had been floating since the beginning of time, and the creatures that wondered about on the raft had been there as long as the raft had. They had been there for so long that they had become awfully tired of the robin’s egg blue sky and beautiful blue-green sea, and they were tired of the fine cypress-log raft. Fox was tired of playing dominoes with Wolf, and Jaybird was tired of playing to Possum. They never got hungry and they never had to work, and they were bored and dissatisfied, and all they did was gripe and whine.
“I’m sure tired of this old raft,” whined Armadillo. “I wish I had a rotten log to root around in. I’d eat a grub worm!”
“Grub worm! Yetch!” gagged Javelina. “I wish I had this whole raft growing with prickly pear.”
“Yea, gee, really! Me too!” squeaked wood rat. “I wish I had a bunch of prickly pear to burrow up in.”
“I wouldn’t burrow up in it, silly; I’d eat it,” said Javelina, popping his teeth snappishly.
Snake, who talked through her nose in a long thin little voice, said, “Wish, wish, wish! That’s all we do around here. Nothing fun ever happens and I’m b-o-a-r-d-bored. And I’m getting mighty tired of all these animals and all this hair and feathers and fur.” And she snuck off in a snakish snit and curled herself in a pile and sulked.
One evening Fox called them all together. “There must be something better,” he said, “than spending eternity floating on a raft.”
Everybody clapped and whistled in agreement. “I think,” he continued “that we ought to find some land.” More cheers. “Now who will volunteer to go in search of land?”
There was a lot of mumbling and looking for excuses.
Owl said, “Onliest time I could go is at night, so I guess that cuts me out.”
“I’d go but I gotta finish this web by Saturday,” said Spider.
Turkey hen quickly walked to the edge of the raft and began thoughtfully studying the water, first with one eye then the other, as if she had something really important to do.
Terrapin pulled in his head and clamped down on his shell like nobody was at home.
Hummingbird hummed.
Finally Muskrat stood up and said, “I’m probably the best swimmer here, so I shall swim out to see if I can find some land.”
Muskrat left early the next morning but at nightfall he was back, exhausted. “I swam a great circle around the raft,” he said, “but I couldn’t find anything that looked like land.”
That evening they gathered again and crow said, “I’m probably the best flyer here, so I shall fly up to see if I can find some land.”
Crow left early the next morning, but by nightfall he was back, exhausted. “I flew a great circle around the raft,” he said, “but I couldn’t find anything that looked like land.”
That evening they gathered again, and Fox said, “if the land is not out or up, it must be down. Now who will volunteer to go down in search of land?”
Crawfish said, “I’m probably the best diver here, so I shall dive down and see if I can find land.”
Crawfish left early the next morning. By the middle of the afternoon, she was back with a piece of land in her claw.
Everybody cheered and hollered and they had a parade, carrying crawfish around on their shoulders. Then they began to wonder what good land would do them as long as it was down there and they were up here. At first they wanted crawfish to bring it up so they could plaster the raft with it. Then they decided that crawfish could just build a big crawfish chimney up from the bottom of the sea.
Crawfish argued awhile because she knew what a job it was going to be, but everyone talked so loud at her that she went back down and began building her chimney. Crawfish worked on her chimney almost a week, scraping up balls of mud with her tail and patting them in place with her claws. Finally she got it up to sea level, but to make sure that she had plenty she kept adding mud until the top of the chimney spilled out in a great broad plain as far as the eye could see.
All the animals jumped off the raft and began wading around in the mud and rolling in it and laughing and giggling at each other’s tracks. They played all that day and then got up early the next morning to play some more. Late that afternoon when they were getting a little tired, Banty Hen said, “All this mud is better than that raft, but it sure is flat. It looks like Lubbock County to me.”
Everybody started to look around, and sure enough, it did look like the flat West Texas plains. “Looks great to me,” barked Prairie Dog.
“Me too,” said Coyote. “I like open space to howl in.”
“Well I don’t particularly like it,” said raccoon. “It ought to look more like East Texas, with creeks and pine trees and red dirt.”
Panther, who wasn’t very sociable, said that he always thought the world should look like big rocky mountains with bear grass and cactus growing everywhere, where there was some privacy.
Well they all started arguing about how the world- or at least Texas- should be decorated. Some wanted pine and post oak, some wanted mesquite- some wanted sandy land to play in, some wanted – a lot of water or a little- sagebrush or yaupon. Before long they were back sitting on the edge of the raft, still arguing, dangling their feet in the mud, watching Badger and Prairie Dog trying to figure out where to dig their holes.
Buzzard drooped around and thought awhile. Then he said, “Don’t you all worry. I’ll make it look like Texas!” So he flew out in ever widening circles, flapping his big wings and soaring. Every time he flapped down he made a valley, and when he flapped up he made a mountain. Sometimes he just soared and rested and made flat meadows and prairies. Finally he flew one last pass from north to south and dragged his wing tips. On the west he cut the Rio Grande and the Pecos Rivers. On the east he cut the Neches and the Sabine Rivers. And through the middle he dragged his toes and scratched out the Colorado and the Brazos Rivers. Buzzard then went to the top of Enchanted Rock and looked at all that he had done. He could see all the way from the Big Bend to the Big Thicket and from the Panhandle to the Valley, and he could see all his friends running up and down the hills and mountains and poking around the arroyos and creek banks. Some of them had already started setting out cedar trees.
So Buzzard pulled his head in between his shoulders, smiled a satisfied smile, and took a nap because he could tell that it was good!
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