Читать книгу Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths - Jeremiah Curtin - Страница 41

[Contents]

18. The Ongwe Ias (the Cannibal) and His Younger Brother

Table of Contents

Two brothers were in the woods on a hunting expedition, and after they had been on the hunt a good while they had success in finding game, and they had built a good sized lodge, in which they enjoyed everything in common.

The elder said to the younger brother: “Now, for the future we must live apart; let us make a partition through the middle of the lodge and have a door at each end, so that you shall have a door to your part and I a door to mine.” The younger brother agreed, and they made the partition. The elder brother said further: “Now, each will live for himself. I will not come to your room and you shall not come to mine; when we want to say anything to each other we can talk through the partition. You may hunt game as before—birds and animals—and live on them, but I will hunt men and eat them. Neither of us will ever marry or bring a woman to the lodge; if I marry, you shall kill me, if you can, but if you marry I will try to kill you.” The brothers lived thus apart in the same lodge, each going out to hunt alone.

One day while the brothers were out hunting, a woman came to the younger brother’s room. The elder brother tracked her to the lodge, caught her at the door, dragged her into his room, and killed and ate her. When the younger brother came home the elder said, “I have had good luck today near home.” The younger brother knew that he must have killed and eaten the woman, but he said merely, “It is well if you have had good luck.”

On another day the elder brother tracked a woman to his brother’s part of the lodge and, going to the door, knocked, calling out, “Let me have a couple of arrows; there is an elk out here.” The woman brought the arrows, and the moment she opened the door he killed her and took her body to his part of the lodge, where he cooked and ate it. When his brother came back they talked through the partition as before. The younger brother warned the next woman against opening the door; he told her to open it for no one, not even for himself; that he would come in without knocking. [119]

The next time the elder brother ran to the door and knocked hurriedly, calling out, “Give me a couple of arrows; there is a bear out here,” the woman sat by the fire, but did not move. Again he called, “Hurry! Give me the arrows—the bear will be gone.” The woman did not stir, but sat quietly by the fire. After a while the elder brother went into his part of the lodge. When the younger brother came home the woman told him what had happened. While they were whispering the elder brother called out: “Well, brother, you are whispering to some one. Who is it? Have you a woman here?” “Oh,” answered the younger, “I am counting over my game.” All was silent now for a time. The younger brother then began whispering cautiously to the woman, saying, “My brother and I will have a life-and-death struggle in the morning, and you must help me; but it will be very difficult for you to do so, for he will make himself just like me in form and voice, but you must strike him if you can.” The woman tied to his hair a small squash shell so as to be able to distinguish him from his elder brother. The latter again called out, “You have a woman; you are whispering to her.” The younger brother denied it no longer.

In the morning the brothers went out to fight with clubs and knives. After breaking their weapons they clenched and rolled on the ground; sometimes one was under and sometimes the other. The elder was exactly like the younger and repeated his words. Whenever the younger cried, “Strike him!” the elder cried out almost at the same time, “Strike him!” The woman was in agony, for she was unable to tell which to strike. At last she caught sight of the squash shell, and then she struck a heavy blow and finished the elder brother.

They gathered a great pile of wood and, laying the body on the pile, set fire to the wood and burned up the flesh. When the flesh was consumed they scattered the burnt bones. Then the younger brother placed the woman in the core of a cat-tail flag, which he put on the point of his arrow and shot far away to the west. Running through the heart of the upper log of the lodge, he sprang after the woman and, coming to the ground, ran with great speed and soon found where the arrow had struck. The cat-tail flag had burst open and the woman was gone. He soon overtook her and they traveled on together. He told her she must make all speed, for the ghost of his brother would follow them.

The next morning they heard the whooping of some one in pursuit. The younger brother said, “My brother has come to life again and is following; he will destroy us if he can overtake us.” Thereupon he turned the woman into a half-decayed stump and, taking off his moccasins and telling them to run on ahead,31 he secreted himself a short distance away. “Go quickly through swamps and [120]thicket and over mountains and ravines, and come to me by a round-about way at noon tomorrow,” he said to the moccasins.

When the elder brother reached the rotten stump he looked at it and, seeing something like nostrils, put his finger in and almost made the woman sneeze. Though suspicious of the tree, he followed the moccasin tracks swiftly all day and night.

At the break of day the younger brother and the woman continued their journey. At noon the elder brother came back to the place where he saw the stump and not finding it, he was in a terrible rage. He knew now that he had been deceived. He continued to follow the tracks, and on the second day the pursued couple heard his whoop again. Taking out of his pouch a part of the jaw of a beaver with a couple of teeth in it, the younger brother stuck it into the ground, saying, “Let all the beavers come and build a dam across the world, so that the waters may rise to his neck, and let all the beavers in the world bite him when he tries to cross.” Then he and the woman ran on.

When the elder brother came up, the dam was built and the water neck-deep; finding that the tracks disappeared in the water, he said, “If they have gone through I, too, can go through.” When the water reached his breast all the beavers began to bite him, and he was forced to turn back and look for another crossing. All day he ran but could find no end to the dam and cried out, “I have never heard before of a beaver dam across the world.” He then ran to the place whence he had started. The dam was gone and all that remained was a bit of beaver jaw with two teeth in it. He saw his brother’s work in this and was now raving with anger. He rushed along with all speed.

The second day after the younger brother and the woman heard his whoop again. Taking out a pigeon feather from his pouch, the younger brother placed it behind him on the ground, saying, “Let all the pigeons of the world come and leave their droppings here, so that my brother may not pass.” All the pigeons of the world came, and soon there was a ridge of droppings 6 feet high across the country. When the elder brother came up he saw the tracks disappearing in the ridge; thereupon he said, “If they have crossed I, too, can cross it.” He walked into it but he could not get through, and so he turned back with great difficulty and ran eastward to look for an opening; he ran all day, but the ridge was everywhere. He cried in anger, “I have never known such a thing.” Going back, he slept until morning, when he found that all was clean—nothing to be seen but a pigeon feather sticking in the ground. He hurried on in a frenzy of rage.

After dropping the feather the younger brother and woman ran until they came to an old man mending a great fish net. The old man [121]said: “I will stop as long as I can the man who is chasing you. You have an aunt who lives west of here, by the roadside. The path passes between two ledges of rock which move backward and forward so quickly that whoever tries to pass between is crushed, but if you beg of her to stop them for a moment she will do so and will give you information.” They hurried on until they came to the woman, their aunt, and prayed her to let them pass. She stopped the rocks long enough for them to spring through, saying: “Your path is through a river, on the other side of which is a man with a canoe; beckon to him and he will come and take you over; beyond the river is a whole army of Sʻhagodiyoweqgowa, but they will not harm you. A little dog wagging his tail will run to meet you. Follow him and he will lead you to an opening in which is your mother’s lodge. The dog will enter—follow him.”

When the elder brother came to the old man who was mending his net he passed, and, pushing him rudely, called out, “Did anyone pass here?” The old man did not answer. Then he struck him a blow on the head with his club. When he did that the old man threw the net over him and he became entangled and fell. After struggling to get out for a long time, he tore himself free and hurried on. When he reached the old woman where the rocks were opening and closing, he begged her to stop them, but she would not; so, waiting for a chance, he finally jumped, but was caught and half his body was crushed; he rubbed it with spittle and was cured. Then he hurried on in still greater fury. When he came to the river he shouted to the man in the canoe, but the man paid no heed; again he shouted, and then he swam across. On the other side he found an immense forest of withered trees, which for miles had been stripped of their bark and killed by the hammering of turtle-shell rattles by Sʻhagodiyoweqgowa, keeping time with them while dancing. These Sʻhagodiyoweqgowa, turning upon him immediately, hammered all the flesh off of him; they then hammered all his bones until there was not a trace of him left. When the mother saw her son and his wife she was very happy, and said: “I am so glad you have come. I was afraid your elder brother who took you away would kill you. I knew he would try to do so. Now you will always stay with me.”