Sal’s mother liked the myths and legends of the Native Americans, especially the creation myths that explained how things came to be. Mrs. Hiddle was proud of the Native American blood in her veins. When she named Sal “Salamanca,” she thought it was the name of an Indian tribe, but she was mistaking it for “Seneca,” a real tribe. Her own name was “Chanhassen,” which was an Indian word for “sweet maple sugar,” so everyone...
Sal’s mother liked the myths and legends of the Native Americans, especially the creation myths that explained how things came to be. Mrs. Hiddle was proud of the Native American blood in her veins. When she named Sal “Salamanca,” she thought it was the name of an Indian tribe, but she was mistaking it for “Seneca,” a real tribe. Her own name was “Chanhassen,” which was an Indian word for “sweet maple sugar,” so everyone called her “Sugar.” She sometimes objected, saying that this was not her name. It was Chanhassen.
Sal heard her mother tell her several stories of the Indians. One she relates is of a time when the sky was so low that people kept bumping their heads on it. They got tired of this, so they pushed it up with poles. They pushed it so high that it stayed up there.
Another story is of Napi, the god who made people. He had to decide if they would live forever or if they would die. He dropped a stone in the water, stating that people would live forever if the stone floated, or they would die if it sank. It sank. Sal’s mother told Sal that, because she was so good at skipping stones on water, she would have been able to make the stone float.