Falling Star
Cheyenne · demigod · myth age / culture hero age · Recorded classification
Falling Star is a Cheyenne star-born hero whose cycle Grinnell recorded among the hero myths in By Cheyenne Campfires (1926), with related star-husband and hero tales collected earlier by Alfred Kroeber (1900). A Cheyenne woman who married a star fell from the sky world; her infant son survived, was raised by an old woman, and grew into a wandering hero who visited the Cheyenne camps in turn, destroying the monsters and malevolent beings that oppressed the people. He belongs to the widespread Plains star-boy hero pattern but is an individuated, named figure of the Cheyenne narrative tradition.
Domains
- heroic monster slaying
Powers
- to destroy the monsters and cannibal beings afflicting the people's camps
Sources
- Falling Star is the Cheyenne star-born culture hero, son of a star and a mortal woman, who travelled among the camps destroying monsters.: George Bird Grinnell, By Cheyenne Campfires, Yale University Press, 1926 (secondary); A. L. Kroeber, 'Cheyenne Tales', Journal of American Folklore 13(50), 1900 (secondary)