In many of the North American tribes are legends of “the Healer”, called Chee-zoos. These legends were told by the fireside of a “saintly white teacher,” who performed miracles with healing and control over the winds, waters, and other natural items. All describe his eyes as grey-green like the ocean and told stories of the future. His symbol has been woven into blankets, carved on canyon walls, put on pottery and danced in dances. His name has been given to mountains and rivers.
It is said that He then stopped and tapped a large rock with his staff and water gushed out of it. He drank from this sacred water and today it is called the Spring of Tacobya.
The Prophet Tells of His Birth
The Sandals of the Prophet carried Him to a city whose name has vanished in the dust of other ages. Today the name of Oklahoma, translated from the native language, means the Land of the Red Man. Here was a large Puant city, whose crests showed an interesting history, and to this metropolis came the Healer. Here He once more changed the temples, chose from the priesthood His twelve disciples, and lectured to all the people.
Here He was asked by is priesthood to speak to them of His childhood, and in some of the legends we have some interesting comments.
He told them that He was born across the ocean, in a land where all men were bearded. In this land He was born of virgin on a night when a bright star came out of the heavens and stood over His city. Here, too the heavens opened and down came winged beings singing chants of exquisite beauty.
When the University of Oklahoma was digging in the Spiro Mound, much pottery was discovered which showed winged beings singing, and here was also the hand with the cross through the palm, about which the professors were deeply puzzled, and still have no explanation as they stare at these things in their museums. About the campfires of the Ancients the tales of the Prophet are secret. For the benefit of their youth they chant the stories of long ages ago when they lived in cities, and of a sainted Healer who came and lived among them.
To them, He was known as Chee-Zoos, the Dawn God, and they whisper of Him about the campfires on winter evenings when no white man can listen. The love they bear Him is beyond measurement, for well they know He watches over them, and that when their journey here is over, He will meet them in the Land of Shadows, for such was His sacred promise. They smoke the Sacred Peace Pipe in His memory, and blow the smoke to the four directions, knowing that to each man comes his retribution, no matter how flows the river of history.
p. 48-49 He Walked the Americas, L. Taylor Hansen, 1963
Random Memories
Thees are a series of memories; a word or two dropped in passing.
The Pawnee remember the Prophet who came and taught them of His Father: the Mighty Holy of the Heavens. He told them not to forsake His precepts, and when they returned again to warfare, they thought often of His predictions, of how war but breeds more carnage. Even then He foretold the coming of white man. The Pawnee remember Him as Paruxti and His Father as Tirawa. They know that they disobeyed Him and they pray to Him in anguish.
The Algonkin of the Eastern Seaboard, when asked how they got their name for the Dawn Light, say that it was the name of the Pale One. They would not give Him their own name, as He had asked them, for to Him names meant nothing and He allowed each tribe to name Him. They asked instead His name in childhood when He lived across the ocean. The name He gave them was a strange one, hard to say in their liquid language, so today they try hard to say it: Chee-Zoos, God of the Dawn Light.
The Algonkin of the Great Lakes remember well the pale Great Master. The Chippewa say He gave them many medicine lodges whose signs and symbols are secret, fashioned from those across the ocean, and even today they hold this secret knowledge.
Even the proud Dakotah, they of the Turtle Totem, leading north the line of Serpents in their age-old migration, recall in long-lost adoration the sacred name of the pale-faced Healer.
“It was long ago that we knew Him. He gave to us our rite of baptism, many of our lodges, and our rites of purification. When He came to us the days were warmer; the sun cast down shorter shadows. Well do we remember how He foretold the coming of white man, and other predictions. We have backslid from His teachings, but to Him we dance the Sun Dance. We remember Great Wakona well.
pg. 53-54, Ibid
