Three legends of the Dakota, retold by Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird), the Yankton Dakota writer who heard them from the old story-tellers of both Dakotas and carried them, root and all, into English in Old Indian Legends (1901).
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
All three belong to Iktomi, the spider fairy — the snare-weaver in his beaded jacket and long fringed leggins, whose hands are always kept in mischief and whose conceit forever leads him hard against the common sense of simpler people. A race for a pot of fish teaches him the plains custom of sharing with a guest. Three wishes — to be a peacock, to be an arrow, to wear a fawn's brown spots — teach him the price of never keeping one condition. And the episode closes on the darkest of prairie nights, where the field mice hold their feast and dance inside a great buffalo skull, and two fiery eyes come creeping through the grass.
Stories in this episode:
0:35 Introduction
1:47 Iktomi and the Muskrat
9:26 Iktomi and the Fawn
22:26 Dance in a Buffalo Skull
Source: Old Indian Legends, retold by Zitkala-Sa (Ginn & Company, 1901) — public domain. Narrated by Madame de Pamplemousse.
Music: "Luminous Springs 2" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
