Like many other world cultures, Native American cultural and literary traditions include a culture hero or heroine (sometimes more than one), who undertakes quests that will ensure the survival of the human community. The figure should not be confused with questing heroes or legendary warriors, although a culture hero is also often both a warrior and a quester.
Culture heroes tend to display the following general characteristics: the abilities to conquer monsters; to steal fire or the sun from gods or evil beings; to (re)build institutions or redesign ceremonies; to transform themselves or other things into plants, geographical sites, or food items; and to die as a sacrifice to benefit the community. Culture heroes are not gods but often possess godlike qualities or divine powers, such as healing and creating. Tales of their feats are often stories of how things came to be or stories of redemption of humankind through the hero’s valor, although sometimes trickster culture heroes transform the world by accident.
Some of the most common types of culture hero stories concern the survival of the people either through the hero’s or heroine’s sacrifice or through the slaying of a monster that threatens the human community. Many tales begin with a kind of ecological or natural crisis, such as drought, famine, or eternal winter, or a similar catastrophic situation.
The Pueblo nations of the Southwestern United States tell stories of Yellow Woman, a legendary culture hero whose quests and deeds ensure the survival of her people. One Laguna Pueblo iteration of a Yellow Woman story begins with a time when there was a great famine and a terrible drought. Kochininako (Yellow Woman), the heroine, is frustrated that she has to walk further and further every day to find water, until one day, she finds a swirling whirlpool that frightens her. She turns to walk away from danger and sees a beautiful young man who is able to transform himself into a buffalo. She falls in love with him and Buffalo Man rides away with her. Although she does not return to her family, her union with the buffalo ensures that the Buffalo People will give their lives to her people so they will never be hungry. The theme of Kochininako’s love and desire is central in many stories telling of how her “fearless sensuality results in the salvation of the people of her village” (Silko 1996, 71).
Other stories revolve around a supernatural threat to the human community, such as an evil spirit, gambler, demon, or other monster. In Hidatsa and Crow tales, the twins Spring Boy and Lodge Boy kill several monsters, including the one that killed their mother. These tales are often very grotesque and violent; the twins are ripped from their mother’s stomach by a witch or other enemy, who throws one into a spring and the other into their father’s lodge. After they are reunited, the boys become heroes fighting evil and killing other creatures to avenge their mother, thereby making the world safe for the people.
The most common culture hero theme that occurs in many different tribal stories is the theft of fire motif. In these tales people and animals live in a cold world where food is hard to find and evil creatures are abundant. But a culture hero, sometimes displaying the attributes of a tribal trickster, goes to another world to steal fire from evil witches or monsters who guard it. Sometimes deities withhold the fire from humans and refuse to help. In one Lenni-Lenape story, Crow is the hero who flies to the creator to get the fire. This story also simultaneously explains why crows are black and do not have beautiful voices. The fire stick that the creator gave Crow to take to the humans charred his body and he inhaled the smoke, making him lose his voice. In other stories such as those of the Algonquin or Anishinaabe, Wenebojo steals fire from an old man. In other tribal traditions Raven or Coyote are the fire thieves. Because fire symbolizes culture and ingenuity, the theft of fire becomes an act of cultural development and survival.
Marianne Kongerslev
See also Algon and the Sky Girl; Coyote Tales; Gitchi Odjig, a Chippewa Hero; Napi; Tricksters, Native American; Water Jar Boy, a Tewa Legend; Wenebojo
Further Reading
Coffin, Tristram P., ed. 2014. Indian Tales of North America: An Anthology for the Adult Reader. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Erdoes, Richard, and Alfonso Ortiz. 1999. American Indian Trickster Tales. New York: Penguin.
Leeming, David. 2005. The Oxford Companion to World Mythology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. 1996. Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit. New York: Simon & Schuster.