One day, an Osage chief was hunting in the forest, both for sustenance and for an image to inspire and guide his people.
After noticing the tracks of a giant buck, he whispered: “Grandfather Deer, I ask that you reveal yourself and affirm you are the symbol of my people.”
As the chief had become quite excited, he hurried less-than-carefully through the dense woods, his eyes fixed upon the ground. … until he ran smack into a gigantic spider web.
Angrily, he swatted at the spider who merely hopped aside and proceeded to ask what on earth he was doing, crashing through his web like that.
After the chief explained he was searching for an image for his people, the spider said, “Grandson, I can be such a thing. You may think me small and weak, but I am patient. I watch and wait, and eventually all things come to me.”
“Learn this lesson,” the spider added. “And your people will become strong indeed.”
The chief took heed, and thus the spider became one of the images of his people.
THERE IS a fine line between history and mythology, a line that blurs and deconstructs.
Yet myths are central to culture, and reveal how societies make sense of themselves and find meaning in the world. They even show one how to live.
(The most prevalent narratives for our own culture, in terms of reach and influence, are likely found in the Old and New testaments of the Hebrew bible.)
So certainly, the Osage people who forever belong to southeastern Kansas have experienced events recorded in written history (many of which depict subjection to tragic atrocities), but they also have orally-transmitted legends and stories that arguably provide an even more profound sense of their indigenous identity.
Let us dive into a couple more of these tales, then, and into the rich prairie landscapes to which they are inexorably tied.
Let us see what wisdom and religious/philosophical guidance they continue to provide, as they illuminate the culture of a people who, long before “us,” called this very place home.
(THE REVEALING of the earth.)
The Osages came from the sky, among the stars.
In contrast to the blue-black vastness of the cosmos, they called themselves “Little Ones.”
