Algonquian Spirit: Contemporary Translations of the Algonquian Literatures of North America

The Rolling Head

cheyenne The Rolling Head Introduction by Wayne Leman The Cheyennes live in Oklahoma and Montana.Originally they lived near the Great Lakes, but they moved westward as they experienced pressure from other tribes in the area. After they obtained horses, they were able to sustain a nomadic lifestyle on the Great Plains, hunting buffalo and eating berries and other food that they were able to find. Today the Cheyennes in Oklahoma are part of the same tribal organization with the Southern Arapaho.There are approximatelyeight thousand enrolled members of the Northern Cheyenne tribe on their reservation in southeastern Montana. The story of a rolling head has traditionally been told in Cheyenne, Cree, and likely other Algonquian languages. The version in this book was narrated in the Cheyenne language by Laura Rockroads in February 1975. At that time Rockroads had been bedridden with arthritis for a number of years. We do not know the circumstances of the recording, but it is quite possible that the recordist was Ray Mueller, audiovisual specialist of Busby School, operated by the Northern Cheyenne tribe, which was located a couple of blocks from the home of Laura Rockroads . We do know that Mueller collected a number of Cheyenne stories from Rockroads to preserve them for future generations of Cheyenne children. We are all in her debt for recording these stories since today they are seldom told to Cheyenne children, especially in the Cheyenne language, which is no longer learned by most Cheyenne children.The stories recorded by Laura Rockroads were published in the large volume of Cheyenne texts, Náévâhóó’ôhtséme / We Are Going Back Home: Cheyenne History and Stories Told by James Shoulderblade and Others (listed in the ‘‘Suggested Reading’’ section). This entire volume of Cheyenne texts was dedicated to Rockroads as follows: ‘‘Dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Laura Rockroads (1910– 1979) who wanted Cheyenne young people to know how to live and so left us her teachings. Nea’eshemeno, Sóena’hané’e (Thank you, Kills Through the Enemy Woman).’’ Typical of indigenous legends, the story of the rolling head is told from the viewpoint of the Algonquian worldview. To those who are not familiar with the Algonquian worldview, a number of elements in the story may not make sense until some background information is provided to explain the culturally implicit 502 cheyenne information assumed by those who narrate the story in its traditional form. We provide such background through footnotes at appropriate points in the story. Cheyennes are aware that non-Indians feel a certain amount of revulsion when they encounter the story of the rolling head. But they respond by pointing out that there are traditional stories in European folklore that, similarly, have elements which can cause revulsion. One such story mentioned by Cheyennes is Little Red Riding Hood, in which a wolf eats the grandmother of Little Red Riding Hood, the heroine, and in some versions, also eats the heroine. Laura Rockroads’s version of the rolling head story was transcribed into the modern Cheyenne spelling system by linguist Wayne Leman and Cheyenne language teacher Josephine Stands in Timber Glenmore, daughter of the tribal historian , John Stands in Timber. Josephine Glenmore also helped Leman translate the Cheyenne transcription of ‘‘The Rolling Head’’ to English. Typical of the narration of traditional legends, a number of slightly different versions of the story of the rolling head have been told in Cheyenne. Another version of the story, which linguist Leman has published (1980), was told by Albert Hoffman, a Cheyenne who lived in Oklahoma.The Rockroads version of this story was previously published in Cheyenne, with interlinear English translation, in the book Náévâhóó’ôhtséme / We Are Going Back Home, mentioned earlier. A particularly interesting aspect of the Rockroads version of this story is the way that Laura Rockroads inserts herself into the narrative, using traditional Cheyenne exclamations for what occurs at various points in the story. At the beginning of the story, Rockroads provides a person comment about what the value of this story might be. Such personal comments on the story expand the length of this version of the story over the shorter versions, which simply state the action within the story itself. Cheyennes often point out that their stories and humor do not sound nearly as good in English as they do in Cheyenne. This, of course, has much to do with the fact that things that are said in life are usually...