Lately I have been enjoying taking photographs of hummingbirds and butterflies at the butterfly garden on the Riverwalk. Watching the brightly colored, graceful butterflies and the aggressive little hummingbirds brought to mind some of the old Southern and Native American tales and fables about those winged occupants of the garden. In most of the tales butterflies are associated with their beauty and gentleness, while hummingbirds are portrayed as reeking of arrogance.
There are several different Native American traditions about races between a hummingbird and a great white crane. In all of them, often in a fashion of the tortoise and the hare, the crane wins. One of the tales has a local tie. Around 1900, Henry S. Halbert, a Lowndes County native, recorded the Choctaw tale of, “The Hummingbird and the Crane.”
As the story went, in early times the hummingbird was a giant bird rivaling the great white crane in statue. One day the hummingbird was standing on the bank of a pond watching the crane chase after fish. The hummingbird told the crane he was awfully slow and bragged that he was the fastest flying of all the birds.
In response, the crane challenged the hummingbird to a race to the end of the world. The loser would pay a dear price. The hummingbird accepted the challenge. On the appointed day the two birds flew away toward the end of the earth. The hummingbird flew much faster and soon had taken a long lead over the crane. When night came the hummingbird decided he had a big enough lead to get a good nights rest sheltered in a cedar tree. The crane kept flying through the night and as morning broke had caught up with the hummingbird.
For several days the same routine kept up and then the birds arrived at the edge of the earth, first the crane before sunrise and then after sunrise the hummingbird. They reversed their route and headed back toward the pond from which they had left. Once again the hummingbird flew only during the day while the crane flew both day and night. Each day the hummingbird took a lead, which the crane erased at night. With a great effort on the last night the crane soared ahead and after sunrise the hummingbird was unable to make up the lost time and the crane won the race. For losing the race the hummingbird was cut down with a flint knife until he was no longer the great bird he once had been but was the smallest bird of all and not much bigger than a butterfly.
During the 1840s there was a popular fable about the butterfly and the hummingbird which was published in several Mississippi newspapers. This is the version that appeared in the Yazoo Whig in 1842.
“A hummingbird once met a butterfly, and being pleased with the beauty of its person, and the glory of its wings, made an offer of perpetual friendship.
‘I cannot think of it,’ was the reply, ‘as you once spurned at me, and called me a drawling dolt.’
‘Impossible,’ exclaimed the hummingbird. ‘I always entertained the highest respect for such a beautiful creatures as you.’
‘Perhaps you do now,’ said the other, ‘but when you insulted me I was a caterpillar. So let me give you this piece of advice; never insult the humble, as they may one day become your superiors.'”
If you haven’t been there, a visit to the butterfly garden on the Riverwalk is a real visual treat. The scores of butterflies among its beautiful flowers is something to behold. They are as described in a poem published in 1850 in The Mississippi Creole of Canton:
“The butterfly on pinions bright
launched in full splendor on the day
Her slender form, ethereal light
Her velvet-textured wings enfold
with all the rainbow’s colors bright
and dropt with spots of burnished gold”
For those interested in Native American traditions and stories about animals, I would recommend “Choctaw Tales,” collected by Tom Mould and published by University Press of Mississippi.
Rufus Ward is a local historian. Email your questions about local history to him at [email protected].
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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