Читать книгу Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park - James Willard Schultz - Страница 10

“It was in the long ago. Our fathers had no horses then, but used dogs to carry their belongings.

“One spring, needing the skins of bighorn to tan into soft leather for clothing, the tribe moved up here to the foot of the Lower Two Medicine Lake, and began hunting. Many men would surround and climb a mountain, driving the bighorn ahead of them, their dogs helping, and at last they would come up to the game, often several hundred head, on the summit of the mountain. The dogs were then held back, and the hunters, advancing with ready bow and arrows, would shoot and shoot the bighorn at close range and generally kill the most of them.

“One day, while most of the men were hunting, three young, unmarried women went out to gather wood, and while they were collecting it in little piles here and there, a thunderstorm came up. Then said one of them, a beautiful girl, tall, slender, long-haired, big-eyed, ‘O Thunder! I am pure! I am a virgin! If you will not strike us I promise to marry you whenever you want me!’

“Thunder passed on, not harming them, and the young women gathered up their firewood and went home.

“On another day these three young women went out again for firewood, one ahead of another along the trail in the deep woods, and Mink Woman, she who had promised herself to Thunder Man, was last of the three. She was some distance behind the others and singing happily as she stepped along, when out from the brush in front of her stepped a very fine-looking, beautifully dressed man, and said: ‘Well, here I am. I have come for you.’

“‘No, not for me! You are mistaken. I am not that kind; I am a pure woman,’ she answered.

“‘But you can’t go back on your word. You promised yourself to me if I would not strike you, and I did not harm you. Don’t you know me? I am Thunder Man.’

“Mink Woman looked closely at him, and her heart beat fast from fear. But he was good to look at, he had the appearance of a kind and gentle man, and—although thoughtlessly—she had made a promise to him, a god, and she could not break it. So she answered: ‘I said that I would marry you. Well, here I am, take me!’

“Her two companions had passed on; they saw nothing of this meeting. Thunder Man stepped forward, and kissed her, then took her in his arms, and, springing from the ground, carried her up into the sky to the land of the Above People.

“But the two young women soon missed her. They ran back on the trail, and searched on all sides of it, and called and called to her, and of course got no reply: ‘She may have gone home for something,’ said one of them, and they hurried back to camp. She was not there. They then gave the alarm, and all the people scattered out to look for her. They hunted all that day, and wandered about in the woods all night, calling her name, and got no answer.

“The next morning Mink Woman’s father, Lame Bull, made medicine and called in Crow Man, a god who sometimes lived with the people. ‘My daughter, Mink Woman, has disappeared,’ he told the god. ‘Find her, even learn where she went, and you shall have her for your wife.’

“‘I take your word,’ Crow Man answered him. ‘I believe that I can learn where she went. I may not be able to get her now, but I will some time, and then you will not forget this promise. I have always wanted her for my woman.’

“Crow Man went to the two young women and got them to show him where they had last seen Mink Woman. He then called a magpie to him, and said to the bird: ‘Fly around here and find this missing woman’s trail.’

“The bird flew around and around, Crow Man following it, and at last it fluttered to the ground, and looked up at him, and said: ‘To this spot where I stand came the woman, and here her trail ends.’

“‘Is it so!’ Crow Man exclaimed. ‘Well stand just where you are and move that long, shining black tail of yours. Move it up and down, and sideways. Twist it in every direction that you can.’

“The magpie did as he was told, and Crow Man got down on hands and knees, and went around, watching the shifting, wiggling, fanning tail. Suddenly he cried out: ‘There! Hold your tail motionless in just that position!’ and he moved up nearer and looked more closely at it. The sun was shining brightly upon it, and the glistening black feathers mirrored everything around. They were now spread directly behind the bird’s body, and reflected the tree-tops, and the sky beyond them. Long, long, Crow Man stared at the tail, the people looking on and holding their breath, and at last he said to Lame Bull, ‘I can see your daughter, but she is beyond my reach: I cannot fly there. She is up in sky land, and Thunder Man has her!’

“‘Ai! Ai! She did promise herself to him the other day, if he would spare us,’ one of the two wood gatherers said, ‘but she did not mean it; she was only joking. It is no joke!’

“Lame Bull sat down and covered his head with his robe, and wept, and would not be comforted.

“Thunder Man took Mink Woman to sky land with him, and somehow, from the very first she was happy there with him; she seemed to forget at once all about this earth and her parents and the people. It was a beautiful land up there: warm and sunny, a country just like ours except that it had no storms. Buffalo and all the other animals covered the plains, and all sorts of grasses and trees and berry-bushes and plants grew there as they do here.

“But although Mink Woman was very happy there, Thunder Man was always uneasy about her, and kept saying to his people, ‘Watch her constantly; see that she gets no hint of her country down below, nor sight of it. If she does, then she will cry and cry, and become sick, and that will be bad for me.’

“Thunder Man was often away, and during his absence his people kept a good watch on Mink Woman, and did all they could to amuse her; to keep her interested in different things. One day a woman gave her some freshly dug mas,[2] and she cried out: ‘Oh, how good of you to give me these! I must go dig some for myself!’