Читать книгу The Mythology of Cherokee, Iroquois, Navajo, Siouan and Zuñi - James Mooney - Страница 219

A certain chief who had a very beautiful daughter was unwilling to part with her, but knowing that the time must come when she would marry he arranged a contest for her suitors, in which the feat was to break a pair of elk's antlers hung in the centre of the lodge.

"Whoever shall break these antlers," the old chief declared, "shall have the hand of my daughter."

The quadrupeds came first—the Snail, Squirrel, Otter, Beaver, Wolf, Bear, and Panther; but all their strength and skill would not suffice to break the antlers. Next came the Birds, but their efforts also were unavailing. The only creature left who had not attempted the feat was a feeble thing covered with sores, whom the mischievous Blue Jay derisively summoned to perform the task. After repeated taunts from the tricky bird, the creature rose, shook itself, and became whole and clean and very good to look upon, and the assembled company saw that it was the Salmon. He grasped the elk's antlers and easily broke them in five pieces. Then, claiming his prize, the chief's daughter, he led her away.

Before they had gone very far the people said: "Let us go and take the chief's daughter back," and they set off in pursuit of the pair along the sea-shore.

When Salmon saw what was happening he created a bay between himself and his pursuers. The people at length reached the point of the bay on which Salmon stood, but he made another bay, and when they looked they could see him on the far-off point of that one. So the chase went on, till Salmon grew tired of exercising his magic powers.

Coyote and Badger, who were in advance of the others, decided to shoot at Salmon. The arrow hit him in the neck and killed him instantly. When the rest of the band came up they gave the chief's daughter to the Wolves, and she became the wife of one of them.

In due time the people returned to their village, and the Crow, who was Salmon's aunt, learnt of his death. She hastened away to the spot where he had been killed, to seek for his remains, but all she could find was one salmon's egg, which she hid in a hole in the river-bank. Next day she found that the egg was much larger, on the third day it was a small trout, and so it grew till it became a full-grown salmon, and at length a handsome youth.