Читать книгу Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths - Jeremiah Curtin - Страница 48

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Once upon a time an uncle and his nephew lived together in the forest. Being very needy, they gathered and cooked for food fungi which grow on trees. After they had lived some time in this way his uncle said one day to the boy, who had grown nearly to the age of puberty, “To-morrow you must go out yonder into the ravine to listen, and as soon as you hear something you must hurry back to tell me what it is.”

The nephew did as he was ordered. The next morning as soon as he heard the song of a bird he hurried home, rushing almost breathless into the lodge and crying, “Oh, uncle, I have heard something!” “Wait a while, nephew,” said the uncle. “Wait until I light my pipe and the smoke rises from it.”41

Soon the smoke arose from the pipe; then Hatʻhondas told what he had heard, imitating the call of a bird. “Oh, nephew! that is nothing. Go again to-morrow,” said the uncle. He went the next day, and heard a bird of some other kind. After rushing to the lodge as before, and after his uncle had lighted the pipe, he told his uncle what he had heard. Each day he heard a new bird and told his uncle what he had heard. After several such fruitless trips to the ravine he heard two women singing, “I am going [am on my way] to marry Dooehdanegen.”42 The women were moving through the air coming toward his uncle’s lodge. Hatʻhondas rushed home almost breathless, crying, “Oh, uncle! I have heard it.” “Well, what is it?” asked the uncle, and straightway he lighted his pipe and the smoke arose from it. “I heard two women singing, ‘I am going to marry Dooehdanegen,’ and they are coming this way,” declared the nephew. “We must make ready to receive them,” said the uncle; “we must put the lodge in order.” He therefore smoothed the skins on his couch and put his nephew’s bed away from his own in the corner near the ashes, telling his nephew to lie there while the women were in the lodge, and to face the other way, and further to keep quiet and not to show his face. The old man then put on his best garments, with two feathers in his cap, and tried to be as nimble and bright as when a young man. He kept sending his nephew out to see how near the women were. When at last they reached the lodge the nephew ran in, crying, “Oh, uncle, they are here.” “Go to your bed; lie down, and do not stir,” said the uncle.

The women entered the lodge, bringing a basket of marriage bread.43 The old man hurried around to make it pleasant for them, but could not interest them, for their minds were elsewhere. They kept looking toward the corner where Hatʻhondas was lying. When night came the old man spread out the skins of his couch and told [140]them there was the place for them to lie down; but, going over to the corner where the ashes were piled, they lay down with Hatʻhondas. They smoothed his hair and fondled him, speaking pleasant words to and about him. The old man was very angry and slept none that night. The women left the lodge at daybreak. When Hatʻhondas awoke, he had become a man in full vigor, strong and fine looking.

The old uncle now called his nephew, saying: “You now have become a man. You must follow the women. The mother bears the most noted name in sorcery in her tribe. She is now seeking a husband for her daughter. Near her lodge grows a large hickory tree44 on which sits an eagle as a target. Whoever can bring down that eagle will get the daughter. Men go there from every direction and place to shoot at it, but no one has yet hit it. You must shoot at it, too.”

The old man then brought out from his chest an outfit consisting of a cap of otter skin, a panther-skin coat, leggings of wildcat skin, moccasins of owl skin, and a tobacco pouch of fawn skin. The garments, which were beautiful and endowed with rare orenda (magic power), fitted the young man well. Then the uncle took the garments off his nephew; and the cap became a live otter, the robe, or mantle, a live panther, the leggings a pair of live wildcats, and the moccasins two live owls. Again he put the garments on his nephew, telling him to sit down. The latter did so and, opening the pouch, took out a pipe, which he filled with tobacco. Immediately two girl sprites and two trick pigeons leaped out of the pouch; the girls brought fire to light the pipe, and as soon as he put it to his mouth the two pigeons, which were perched on the stem, rustled their wings and cooed, being very happy.

“Now, my nephew,” said the old man, “spit.” He spat and the spittle fell to the ground in a shower of wampum beads. “That is enough,” said the uncle; “you shall always spit wampum from this pipe. Your outfit will always do what it has done to-day. Now you must start. Go directly east. About noon you will find a trail. Take that and keep on until you come to the great hickory tree. Here are a bow and arrows. The arrows will never miss the mark. On the road you must keep no man company. Sleep alone and hurry on your way.”

So the young nephew set out. In an hour he came to a trail. Finding it so soon, he thought it could not be the right one and ran back to inquire. “Oh! you are a swift runner,” said the uncle; “you found the right trail. Follow it.” Hatʻhondas started again. Again he found the trail, which bore toward the east. Near evening he saw a man who was making a fire by the wayside, and who inquired of Hatʻhondas, “Where are you going?” “Oh! where all are going—to shoot at the eagle on the hickory tree,” replied the [141]young man. “Stay with me. It is too late to go farther,” said the stranger. “No! I must go on,” answered Hatʻhondas, hurrying away. At night he built a fire and slept by himself. The next day he went on without interruption until evening, when a man who was building a fire beside the trail urged him to stop, but he refused to do so. Again the man urged him but Hatʻhondas would go on.

The third evening he came on a man who insisted and coaxed so much that he remained with him overnight. Each occupied one side of the fire. After supper, Hatʻhondas took off his garments and soon fell asleep. The strange man attempted to steal the clothes, but the mantle, changing into a panther, would not let him come near. Then the man, bit by bit, fed meat to the panther until the animal was pacified, when he put the mantle on his own shoulders. So with the leggings and all the other things, until at last he got possession of the whole outfit of the young man, except the bow and arrows, which he forgot. When ready, he thrust a sharp dart of hickory bark down the backbone of Hatʻhondas, and at daylight hurried away to the company which had gathered at the great woman’s lodge to shoot at the eagle.

Hatʻhondas awoke in terrible pain; he was doubled up like an old man and began to cough badly. After much effort and great suffering, he succeeded in putting on the other man’s garments and in dragging himself some distance to a log, on which he sat, holding his bow and arrows, with his head bowed in sorrow.

After he had been sitting there a couple of hours, a poor, destitute-looking girl came to him, saying: “My mother lives not far from here. I will take you to her.” On going home with the girl he learned that her mother was his own sister and that she was therefore his niece. He told his sister about the visit of the two women, about setting out to shoot the eagle and being robbed on the road of everything but his bow and arrows, and, lastly, about becoming decrepit and aged-looking from the effects of the hickory bark thrust down his backbone. His sister and her daughter were very poor. They had no meat. As they were talking, a robin perched on the edge of the smoke-hole. Hatʻhondas drew his bow with great difficulty and shot an arrow which killed the bird. His sister cut it into small pieces and, bruising them, made some soup, which in a measure strengthened her brother. The next day a partridge came in like manner and he killed that, too; and then a turkey, so they had provision enough. Many days later his sister drew the bark from her brother’s back and he became well again.

As he sat by the door one day he heard a great shouting and tumult, and asked what it meant. They told him that it was the sounds made by those who had assembled to shoot the eagle, and [142]pointed out the great hickory tree, the top of which could be seen above the forest, seemingly not more than 200 or 300 rods away.

The next day, on looking toward the tree, he could see that some arrows came very near the eagle, some not so near, and others far away from it. At last he said, “I must shoot an arrow at that eagle.” “Oh!” said the sister, “you can not hit it from here.” But he would have his own way, and going outside of the lodge with his bow and arrow, he said to his sister’s daughter: “Go out into the crowd. When I shoot the arrow and the bird falls to the ground run and bring it here with the arrow sticking in it, and let no one take it from you.” The girl went. Her uncle shot, and his arrow, flying through the air, struck the eagle. When she grasped the bird after it had fallen to the ground a man pushed her aside, and snatching the bird from her disappeared in the crowd. She cried out, but no one heeded her. Now, the crowd gathered at a mound, a short distance from the tree. On this mound the great witch woman was sitting with her friends to witness the shooting. The people stood in a circle. The stranger came up with the eagle and claimed her youngest daughter, who, insisting that he was not the right man, refused to marry him; but the old woman said her promise must be kept, and had the marriage proclaimed.

When, in the evening, the young wife would not remove her designated husband’s clothing, the old woman did so. On taking off the moccasins, and throwing them, tied together, over a crossbar near the couch, they became owls, so wretchedly weak that they were barely able to hold on to their perch; and so with the panther, the wildcats, and the otter; they seemed scarcely alive.

The young woman would not go near her designated husband, but, rolling herself up in a bearskin, slept apart. The next morning the mother-in-law, addressing her intended son-in-law, said: “What can you do for me [in thaumaturgy]?” He opened his pouch, from out of which came the girls, who were barely able to bring a coal of fire, and the pigeons, nearly lifeless. He smoked, and cast spittle on a deerskin which was spread before him, and spittle it remained. Again he tried, but with the same result. Then the mother-in-law, growing angry, went away in disgust and chagrin.

The evening after Hatʻhondas was robbed the sky was red, and his uncle at home knew that his nephew was in great trouble—that his life was in danger. He sat down by the fire, throwing ashes on his head, and wept, saying, “Oh! nephew, I shall mourn for you ten summers.” But now the sky was not so red, and the old man knew that his nephew had gained some relief.

The second night the young woman slept apart from her designated husband. [143]

The next day Hatʻhondas’s niece, the poor woman’s daughter, said, “I will visit the great witch woman, for she is a friend of mine.” When the girl went to the lodge, the great woman was glad to see her. She heard all the news of the marriage and that the young woman would not go near her designated husband. On reaching home she told her mother all she had heard. The next day very early, while the strange man was still asleep, Hatʻhondas’s sister went into the great witch woman’s lodge and, taking the panther-skin coat with the rest of the garments and having thrust the piece of hickory bark into the back of the sleeping husband, hurried home.

Hatʻhondas now had his whole outfit. Putting on his garments and taking his bow and arrows he went to the lodge of the great witch woman. When the daughter saw him coming, she could scarcely retain herself for joy, crying out, “That is the man! That is the man!”

It was now almost noon, and the designated husband had not appeared. On looking for him they found him on the couch all doubled up, old and miserable, and coughing terribly.

As the arrow which was still sticking in the eagle was unlike his arrows but just like those which were in the quiver of Hatʻhondas, the people were convinced that the old man was a deceiver, so they threw him out without pity.

Hatʻhondas was now married to the young woman and her mother proclaimed to all the people, “My youngest daughter is now married.” In the evening, when the young wife pulled off her husband’s moccasins and threw them on the crossbeam, they became a pair of fine owls with great eyes, and hooted; as soon as the panther-skin coat touched the beam it became a large panther; the leggings became two wildcats; and the cap an otter.

The next evening the mother-in-law asked her son-in-law, “What can you do for me?” and spread a deerskin in front of him. As he opened his pouch the two girls jumped out of it, followed by the two pigeons. The girls, running nimbly to the fire, brought coals for lighting the pipe. The pigeons, perching on the pipe as he put it into his mouth, rustled their wings and cooed. As often as he spat the spittle fell on the skin in a shower of wampum beads.

The next day he went hunting and killed so many deer, bear, and elk that all the people had enough, and he sent a great supply to his sister.

After they had enjoyed life a while, he said, “Now, I must go to my uncle.” His sister prepared provisions for the journey. She would shake all the flesh of a deer until it became small as the end of her little finger, continuing this process until she had in a small pouch venison enough to fill a lodge. On the way when they wanted [144]to eat venison all they had to do was to strike a very small portion, when the meat would resume its natural size. So they traveled till they came to the old uncle’s lodge.

While his nephew had been away, animals had tormented him by coming to his door while he was sitting near the fire mourning for his nephew. He would hear a voice at the door cry, “Quick, Uncle! I have returned,” but on opening the door-flap he would find merely a fox, rabbit, or some other creature.

Now, to make sure, he cut a hole in the skin door-flap saying, “Put your hand through the hole, if you are my nephew.” This being done, he tied a strong bark string around the wrist and fastened the other end to the pole at the fireplace; then, seizing the corn-pounder, he opened the door carefully, intending to strike the intruder. On discovering, however, that it was really his nephew, he rejoiced and cried out: “Oh! you have come at last with your wife. Wait, until I clean up a little.” Soon he let them in. The venison was increased in quantity again by striking it against the ground, and there was more than enough to fill the lodge, so they had to build a new lodge in which to store it.

They lived on together happily. This is the story of Hatʻhondas, “The Listener.”