Читать книгу The Indian Fairy Book - Henry Rowe Schoolcraft - Страница 8

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THERE was never in the whole world a more mischievous busy-body than that notorious giant Manabozho. He was everywhere, in season and out of season, running about and putting his hand in whatever was going forward. To carry on his game, he could take almost any shape he pleased; he could be very foolish or very wise; very weak or very strong; very poor or very rich—just as happened to suit his humor best. Whatever any one else could do, he would attempt without a moment's reflection. He was a match for any man he met, and there were few mani-toes that could get the better of him. By turns he would be very kind, or very cruel; an animal or a bird; a man or a spirit. And yet, in spite of all these gifts, Manabozho was always getting himself involved in all sorts of troubles; and more than once, in the course of his busy adventures, was this great maker of mischief driven to his wits' ends to come off with his life.

To begin at the beginning, Manabozho, while yet a youngster, was living with his grandmother near the edge of a wide prairie. It was on this prairie that he first saw animals and birds of every kind; he also there made first acquaintance with thunder and lightning; he would sit by the hour watching the clouds as they rolled, and musing on the shades of light and darkness as the day rose and fell.

For a stripling, Manabozho was uncommonly wideawake. Every new sight he beheld in the heavens was a subject of remark; every new animal or bird, an object of deep interest; and every sound that came from the bosom of nature was like a new lesson which he was expected to learn. He often trembled at what he heard and saw.

To the scene of the wide open prairie his grandmother sent him at an early age to watch. The first sound he heard was that of the owl, at which he was greatly terrified. Quickly descending the tree he had climbed, he ran with alarm to the lodge.

"Noko! noko! grandmother!" he cried. "I have heard a monedo."

She laughed at his fears and asked him what kind of noise his reverence made. He answered:

"It makes a noise like this: Ko-ko-ko-ho."

His grandmother told him he was young and foolish; that what he heard was only a bird which derived its name from the peculiar noise it made.

He returned to the prairie and continued his watch. As he stood there looking at the clouds, he thought thus to himself:

"It is singular that I am so simple and my grandmother so wise; and that I have neither father nor mother. I have never heard a word about them. I must ask and find out."

He went home and sat down, silent and dejected. Finding that this did not attract the notice of his grandmother, he began a loud lamentation, which he kept increasing, louder and louder, till it shook the lodge and nearly deafened the old grandmother. She at length said:

"Manabozho, what is the matter with you? You are making a great deal of noise."

Manabozho started off again with his doleful hubbub; but succeeded in jerking out between his big sobs, "I haven't got any father or mother; I haven't," and he set out again lamenting more boisterously than ever.

Knowing that he was of a wicked and revengeful temper, his grandmother dreaded to tell him the story of his parentage; as she knew he would make trouble of it.

Manabozho renewed his cries and managed to throw out, for a third or fourth time, his sorrowful lament that he was a poor unfortunate, who had no parents and no relations. Finally his grandmother said:

"Yes, you have a father and three brothers living. Your mother is dead. She was taken for a wife by your father, the West, without the consent of her parents. Your brothers are the North, East, and South; and being older than yourself, your father has given them great power with the winds, according to their names. You are the youngest of his children. I have nursed you from your infancy; for your mother, owing to the ill-treatment of your father, died when you were born. I have no relations beside you. Your mother was my only child, and you are my only hope."

"I am glad my father is living," said Manabozho. "I shall set out in the morning to visit him."

His grandmother would have discouraged him, saying it was a long distance to the place where his father, Ningabiun, or the West, lived.

This information seemed rather to please than to disconcert Manabozho; for by this time he had grown to such a size and strength that he had been compelled to leave the narrow shelter of his grandmother's lodge and to live out of doors. He was so tall that, as he stood up, he could have snapped off the heads of the birds roosting in the topmost branches of the highest trees, without being at the trouble to climb. And if he had at any time taken a fancy to one of the same trees for a walking-stick, he would have had no more to do than to pluck it up with his thumb and finger and strip down the leaves and twigs with the palm of his hand.

Bidding good-bye to his venerable old grandmother, who pulled a very long face over his departure, Manabozho set out at great headway, for he was able to stride from one side of a prairie to the other at a single step.

He found his father on a high mountain-ground, far in the west. His father espied his approach at a great distance and bounded down the mountain-side several miles to give him welcome; and, side-by-side, apparently delighted with each other, they reached in two or three of their giant paces the lodge of the West, which stood high up near the clouds.

They spent some days in talking with each other—for these two great persons did nothing on a small scale, and a whole day to deliver a single sentence was quite an ordinary affair, such was the immensity of their discourse.

One evening Manabozho asked his father what he was most afraid of on earth.

He replied—"Nothing."

"But is there nothing you dread, here—nothing that would hurt you if you took too much of it? Come, tell me."

Manabozho was very urgent, and at last his father said:

"Yes, there is a black stone to be found a couple of hundred miles from here, over that way," pointing as he spoke. "It is the only thing earthly that I am afraid of, for if it should happen to hit me on any part of my body it would hurt me very much."

The West made this important circumstance known to Manabozho in the strictest confidence.

"Now you will not tell any one, Manabozho, that the black stone is bad medicine for your father, will you?" he added. "You are a good son, and I know you will keep it to yourself. Now tell me, my darling boy, is there not something that you don't like?"

Manabozho answered promptly—"Nothing."

His father, who was of a very steady and persevering temper, put the same question to him seventeen times, and each time Manabozho made the same answer—"Nothing."

But the West insisted—"There must be something you are afraid of."

"Well, I will tell you," said Manabozho, "what it is."

He made an effort to speak, but it seemed to be too much for him.

"Out with it," said Ningabiun, or the West, fetching Manabozho such a blow on the back as shook the mountain with its echo.

"Je-ee, je-ee—it is—" said Manabozho, apparently in great pain. "Yeo, yeo! I cannot name it, I tremble so."

The West told him to banish his fears and to speak up; no one would hurt him.

Manabozho began again, and he would have gone over the same make-believe of anguish, had not his father, whose strength he knew was more than a match for his own, threatened to pitch him into a river about five miles off. At last he cried out:

"Father, since you will know, it is the root of the bulrush."

He who could with perfect ease spin a sentence a whole day long, seemed to be exhausted by the effort of pronouncing that one word, "bulrush."

Some time after, Manabozho observed:

"I will get some of the black rock, merely to see how it looks."

"Well," said the father, "I will also get a little of the bulrush-root, to learn how it tastes."

They were both double-dealing with each other, and in their hearts getting ready for some desperate work.

They had no sooner separated for the evening than Manabozho was striding off the couple of hundred miles necessary to bring him to the place where the black rock was to be procured, while down the other side of the mountain hurried Ningabiun.

At the break of day they each appeared at the great level on the mountain-top, Manabozho with twenty loads, at least, of the black stone, on one side, and on the other the West, with a whole meadow of bulrush in his arms.

Manabozho was the first to strike—hurling a great piece of the black rock, which struck the West directly between the eyes. The West returned the favor with a blow of bulrush that rung over the shoulders of Manabozho, far and wide, like the whip-thong of the lightning among the clouds.

And now both rallied, and Manabozho poured in a tempest of black rock, while Ningabiun discharged a shower of bulrush. Blow upon blow, thwack upon thwack—they fought hand to hand until black rock and bulrush were all gone. Then they betook themselves to hurling crags at each other, cudgeling with huge oak-trees, and defying each other from one mountain-top to another. At times they shot enormous boulders of granite across at each other's heads, as though they had been mere jack-stones. The battle, which had commenced on the mountains, had extended far west. The West was forced to give ground. Manabozho pressing on, drove him across rivers and mountains, ridges and lakes, till at last he got him to the very brink of the world.

"Hold!" cried the West. "My son, you know my power, and although I allow that I am now fairly out of breath, it is impossible to kill me. Stop where you are, and I will also portion you out with as much power as your brothers. The four quarters of the globe are already occupied, but you can go and do a great deal of good to the people of the earth. They are beset with serpents, beasts and monsters, who make great havoc of human life. Go and do good, and if you put forth half the strength you have to-day, you will acquire a name that will last forever. When you have finished your work I will have a place provided for you. You will then go and sit with your brother, Kabinocca, in the North."

Manabozho gave his father his hand upon this agreement. And parting from him, he returned to his own grounds, where he lay for some time sore of his wounds.

These being, however, greatly allayed and soon after cured by his grandmother's skill in medicines, Manabozho, as big and sturdy as ever, was ripe for new adventures. He set his thoughts immediately upon a war excursion against the Pearl Feather, a wicked old manito, who had killed his grandfather. Pearl Feather lived on the other side of the great lake, but that was nothing to Manabozho. He began his preparations by making huge bows and arrows without number; but he had no heads for his shafts. At last Noko told him that an old man, whom she knew, could furnish him with such as he needed. He sent her to get some. She soon returned with her wrapper full. Manabozho told her that he had not enough and sent her again. She came back with as many more. He thought to himself, "I must find out the way of making these heads."

Instead of directly asking how it was done, he preferred—it was just like Manabozho—to deceive his grandmother and come at the knowledge he desired by a trick.

"Noko," said he, "while I take my drum and rattle, and sing my war-songs, do you go and try to get me some larger heads, for these you have brought me are all of the same size. Go and see whether the old man is not willing to make some a little larger."

As she went he followed at a distance, having left his drum at the lodge, with a great bird tied at the top, whose fluttering should keep up the drum-beat the same as if he were tarrying at home. He saw the old workman busy and learned how he prepared the heads; he also beheld the old man's daughter, who was very beautiful. Manabozlio now discovered for the first time that he had a heart of his own, and the sigh he heaved passed through the arrow-maker's lodge like a gale of wind.

"How it blows!" said the old man.

"It must be from the south," said the daughter; "for it is very fragrant."

Manabozho slipped away, and in two strides he was at home, shouting forth his songs as though he had never left the lodge. He had just time to free the bird which had been beating the drum, when his grandmother came in and delivered to him the big arrowheads.

In the evening the grandmother said, "My son, you ought to fast before you go to war, as your brothers do, to find out whether you will be successful or not."

He said he had no objection; and privately stored away, in a shady place in the forest two or three dozen juicy bears, a moose, and twenty strings of the tender-est birds. The place of his fast had been chosen by Noko, and she had told him it must be so far as to be beyond the sound of her voice or it would be unlucky. So Manabozho would retire from the lodge so far as to be entirely out of view of his grandmother, fall to and enjoy himself heartily, and at nightfall, having just despatched a dozen birds and half a bear or so, he would return tottering and woe-begone, as if quite famished, so as to move deeply the sympathies of his wise old granddame.

But after a time Manabozho, who was always spying out mischief, said to himself, "I must find out why my grandmother is so anxious to have me fast at this spot."

The next day he went but a short distance. She cried out, "A little farther off;" but he came nearer to the lodge, the rogue that he was, and cried out in a low, counterfeited voice, to make it appear that he was going away instead of approaching. He had now got so near that he could see all that passed in the lodge.

He had not been long in ambush when an old magician crept into the lodge. This old magician had very long hair, which hung across his shoulders and down his back like a bush or foot-mat. Noko welcomed him kindly and they commenced talking earnestly. In doing so, they put their two old heads so very close together that Manabozho was satisfied they were kissing each other. He was indignant that any one should take such a liberty with his venerable grandmother, and to mark his sense of the outrage, he touched the bushy hair of the old magician with a live coal which he had blown upon. The old magician felt the flame; he jumped out into the air, making his hair burn only the fiercer, and ran, blazing like a fire-ball, across the prairie.

Manabozho who had, meanwhile, stolen off to his fasting-place, cried out in a heart-broken tone and as if on the very point of starvation, "Noko! Noko! is it time for me to come home?"

"Yes," she cried. And when he came in she asked him, "Did you see anything?"

"Nothing," he answered, with an air of childish candor; looking as much like a big simpleton as he could. The grandmother looked at him very closely and said no more.

Manabozho finished his term of fasting, in the course of which he slyly despatched twenty fat bears, six dozen birds, and two fine moose. Then he sang his war-song and embarked in his canoe, fully prepared for war. Besides weapons of battle, he had stowed in a large supply of oil.

He traveled rapidly night and day, for he had only to will or speak, and the canoe went. At length he arrived at a place guarded by many fiery serpents. He paused to view them, observing that they were some distance apart, and that the flames which they constantly belched forth reached across the pass. He gave them a good morning and began talking with them in a very friendly way; but they answered:

"We know you, Manabozho; you cannot pass."

He was not, however, to be put off so easily. Turning his canoe as if about to go back, he suddenly cried out with a loud and terrified voice:

"What is that behind you?"

The serpents, thrown off their guard, instantly turned their heads, and he glided past them in a moment.

"Well," said he quietly, after he had got by, "how do you like my movement?"

He then took up his bow and arrows, and with deliberate aim shot every one of them, easily, for the serpents were fixed to one spot and could not even turn around. They were of an enormous length, and a bright color.

Having thus escaped the sentinel serpents, Mana-bozho pushed on in his canoe until he came to a part of the lake called Pitch-water, as whatever touched it was sure to stick fast. But Manabozho was prepared with his oil, and rubbing his canoe freely from end to end, he slipped through with ease, the first person who had ever succeeded in passing through the Pitch-water.

"There is nothing like a little oil to help one through pitch-water," said Manabozho to himself.

Now in view of land, he could see the lodge of Pearl Feather, the Shining Manito, high upon a distant hill.

Putting his clubs and arrows in order, Manabozho began his attack, yelling and shouting, heating his drum, and calling out in triple voices:

"Surround him! surround him! run up! run up!" making it appear that he had many followers. He advanced, shouting aloud:

"It was you that killed my grandfather," and shot off a whole forest of arrows.

The Pearl Feather appeared on the height, blazing like the sun, and paid back the discharges of Mana-bozho with a tempest of bolts, which rattled like the hail.

All day long the fight was kept up, and Manabozho had fired all of his arrows but three, without effect; for the Shining Manito was clothed in pure wampum. It was only by immense leaps to right and left that Manabozho could save his head from the sturdy blows which fell about him on every side, like pine-trees, from the hands of the Manito. He was badly bruised and at his very wits' end, when a large woodpecker flew past and lit on a tree. It was a bird he had known on the prairie, near his grandmother's lodge.

"Manabozho," called out the woodpecker, "your enemy has a weak point; shoot at the lock of hair on the crown of his head."

He shot his first arrow and only drew blood in a few drops. The Manito made one or two unsteady steps, then recovered himself. He began to parley, but Manabozho, knowing that he had discovered a way to reach him, was in no humor to trifle, and let slip another arrow, which brought the Shining Manito to his knees. And now, having the crown of his head within good range, Manabozho sent in his third arrow, which laid the Manito out upon the ground, stark dead.

Manabozho lifted up a huge war-cry, beat his drum, and took the scalp of the Manito as his trophy. Then calling the woodpecker to come and receive a reward for the timely hint he had given him, he rubbed the blood of the Shining Manito on the woodpecker's head, the feathers of which are red to this day. Full of his victory, Manabozho returned home, beating his war-drum furiously and shouting aloud his songs of triumph. His grandmother was on the shore ready to welcome him with the war-dance, which she performed with wonderful skill for one so far advanced in years.

The heart of Manabozho swelled within him. He was fairly on fire and an unconquerable desire for further adventures seized upon him. He had destroyed the powerful Pearl Feather, killed his serpents, and escaped all his wiles and charms. He had prevailed in a great land fight, his next trophy should be from the water.

He tried his prowess as a fisherman, and with such success that he captured a fish monstrous in size and so rich in fat that with the oil Manabozho was able to form a small lake. To this, being generously disposed and having a cunning purpose of his own to answer, he invited all the birds and beasts of his acquaintance; and he made the order in which they partook of the banquet the measure of their fatness for all time to come. As fast as they arrived he told them to plunge in and help themselves.

The first to make his appearance was the bear, who took a long and steady draught; then came the deer, the opossum, and such others of the family as are noted for their comfortable case. The moose and bison were slack in their cups, and the partridge, always lean in flesh, looked on till the supply was nearly gone. There was not a drop left by the time the hare and the martin appeared on the shore of the lake, and they are, in consequence, the slenderest of all creatures.

When this ceremony was over, Manabozho suggested to his friends, the assembled birds and animals, that the occasion was proper for a little merry-making; and taking up his drum, he cried out:

"New songs from the South! Come, brothers, dance!"

In order to make the sport more mirthful, he directed that they should shut their eyes and pass around him in a circle. Again he beat his drum and cried out:

"New songs from the South! Come, brothers, dance!"