Читать книгу The Mythology of Cherokee, Iroquois, Navajo, Siouan and Zuñi - James Mooney - Страница 234

In the long ago there existed a hill of ogre-like propensities which drew people into its mouth and devoured them. The Rabbit's grandmother warned him not to approach it upon any account.

But the Rabbit was rash, and the very fact that he had been warned against the vicinity made him all the more anxious to visit it. So he went to the hill, and cried mockingly: "Pahe-Wathahuni, draw me into your mouth! Come, devour me!"

But Pahe-Wathahuni knew the Rabbit, so he took no notice of him.

Shortly afterward a hunting-party came that way, and Pahe-Wathahuni opened his mouth, so that they took it to be a great cavern, and entered. The Rabbit, waiting his chance, pressed in behind them. But when he reached Pahe-Wathahuni's stomach the monster felt that something disagreed with him, and he vomited the Rabbit up.

Later in the day another hunting-party appeared, and Pahe-Wathahuni again opened his capacious gullet. The hunters entered unwittingly, and were devoured. And once more the Rabbit entered, disguised as a man by magic art. This time the cannibal hill did not eject him. Imprisoned in the monster's entrails, he saw in the distance the whitened bones of folk who had been devoured, the still undigested bodies of others, and some who were yet alive.

Mocking Pahe-Wathahuni, the Rabbit said: "Why do you not eat? You should have eaten that very fat heart." And, seizing his knife, he made as if to devour it. At this Pahe-Wathahuni set up a dismal howling; but the Rabbit merely mocked him, and slit the heart in twain. At this the hill split asunder, and all the folk who had been imprisoned within it went out again, stretched their arms to the blue sky, and hailed the Rabbit as their deliverer; for it was Pahe-Wathahuni's heart that had been sundered.

The people gathered together and said: "Let us make the Rabbit chief." But he mocked them and told them to be gone, that all he desired was the heap of fat the hill had concealed within its entrails, which would serve him and his old grandmother for food for many a day. With that the Rabbit went homeward, carrying the fat on his back, and he and his grandmother rejoiced exceedingly and were never in want again.

1. See p. 129, "The Soul's Journey."