Songbirds such as kingbirds and warblers are extolled. During the start of the world, Hard Beings Woman, an earth goddess, wishes to make a gift for Sun Father. She rubs the scales of her cuticles upon feathers and bones from winter birds and lays a cloth above the pile. Sun Father kindles a fire on the east side of the cloth, chirps and whistles commence, and new, bright-colored birds fly into being. Each spring their yellow plumages bring the warmth of the sun and scatter pollen on earth.
Summer birds sing pleasantly to keep people happy while they work in hard heat.
But in the winter the musical, yellow birds vanish. They are kept far away, locked in a crystal cage that can only be opened again by Sun Father. Pueblo Birds and Myths was my first glimpse of Native American stories about birds, and the discovery was like seeing my first wood warbler. As I read other Indian myths, I was delighted to find that birds play integral roles in stories describing the creation of the world. I found the Cheyenne account of creation in American Indian Mythology , by Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin.