Legends of The Kaw

Legends of The Kaw is a book by Carrie de Voe, first published in 1904, which gathers the traditional folklore, mythology, and oral legends of the Indigenous tribes of the Kansas River Valley. The collection shines a light on the cultural and spiritual heritage of tribes such as the Kaw (Kansa), Pawnee, Sioux, Osage, Delaware, Wyandot, Potawatomi, and Shawnee — weaving myths of creation, nature-spirits, ancestral legends, tribal traditions, rituals, and tales passed down through generations.

Through these pages, readers are offered a window into a vanished world: a time when nature, spirituality, myth, and daily life were intimately intertwined. The book preserves stories of star formation, water spirits, sacred rites, tribal customs, myths about giants and prehistoric races, creation legends, and tribal histories.

As such, the work stands as a significant record of Native American oral tradition, folklore, and early ethnographic history, and remains valuable to anyone interested in Indigenous culture, American history, or myth and folklore.