Sioux Tales — Part 2: Iktomi and the Coyote · The Badger and the Bear · The Toad and the Boy
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
Three more 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).
Iktomi the spider fairy is back, and this time the joke is on him: the coyote he carries home for a roast is only playing dead, and means to enjoy the ride. Then a great black bear, grown fat on the badger family's open-handed kindness, repays it by driving them out of their own dwelling — and learns what answer the Great Spirit sends to a hungry father's prayer, when the Avenger comes and justice is done without a single arrow loosed. And the episode closes beside the marshy lakes, where a mother has searched ten long years for her stolen baby, and a wild boy hears a voice that makes his eyes grow wet.
Stories in this episode:
0:35 Introduction
2:01 Iktomi and the Coyote
9:54 The Badger and the Bear
25:44 The Toad and the Boy
Source: Old Indian Legends, retold by Zitkala-Sa (Ginn & Company, 1901) — public domain. Narrated by Morgana.
Music: "Winter Palace Rhapsody 2" (instrumental) — opening and closing theme, with a short excerpt between stories.
