Native American Legends
The Eagle
An American Indian Legend - Nation Unknown
The eagle is a great sacred bird. Our favorite is the golden or
war eagle, which we call "pretty-feathered eagle", because
of his beautiful tail feathers, white, tipped with black, which
we use for decorative and ceremonial purposes. A single tail feather
was often rated as equal in value to a horse.
In time passed, the killing of an eagle was something that concerned
the whole town. This could only be done by a professional eagle
killer, chosen for the purpose on account of his knowledge of the
prescribed forms and prayers to be said afterwards in order to obtain
pardon for the necessary sacrilege, and thus ward off vengeance
from our tribe.
The eagle must be killed only in winter or late fall after the
crops were gathered and snakes retired to their dens. If killed
in summertime a frost would destroy the corn, while the songs of
the Eagle dance, when the feathers were brought home, would so anger
the snakes that they would become doubly dangerous. That is why
the Eagle songs were never sung until the snakes had gone to sleep
in the winter.
It is told that one man deliberately killed an eagle in defiance
of the ordinances and the he was constantly haunted by dreams of
fierce eagles swooping down upon him in his nightmares.
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