Читать книгу Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths - Jeremiah Curtin - Страница 60

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33. A Dead Man Speaks to His Mother through the Fire

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An old woman and her son lived in a lodge in a certain village, and a brother and his sister in another. The old woman’s son and the brother were of the same height and looked so much alike that they could scarcely be known from each other; they were great friends.

The son often visited the brother and sister, and the brother found out that he thought of marrying his sister, who was yet very young, when she became old enough. The brother was not pleased with this prospect, so he made up his mind to kill his friend. The next time the latter came the brother killed him. Digging a deep hole under the fireplace and putting the body therein, he covered it with earth, and made a fire again over the spot.

The mother waited for her son, but he did not come home. Then she went to the other lodge and asked, “Where is my son?” “He left here to go home. It may be he is in the woods now. He said he was going to cut wood for arrows,” answered the young man.

When the woman went out the brother started off and, cutting wood, quickly ran to her lodge, where he sat down and began to whittle arrows. Soon afterward she came in. Turning to her, he asked, “Where have you been, mother?” “Oh! I have been over at your friend’s lodge.” She failed to detect any difference between her son’s voice and his. He said, “Well, mother, I am going over there a while.” Putting up the arrows and running home, he said: “I am afraid, my sister, that there is impending danger and that we are going to die. Hurry to the spring and leave your pail there: then run around in every direction so as to make many trails and come back to the lodge.”

Going to the spring, the girl covered the ground with tracks and returned. The brother said, “I am now going to put you into the head of my arrow and send you off to a safe place.” Taking hold of his sister’s arm, he shook her until she became very small; then opening the arrowhead, he put her into the cavity, and after carefully securing her there, said: “I am going to shoot you toward the east. When the arrow strikes the ground you must jump out and run. I will soon overtake you.” Standing by the fireplace, he shot the arrow out of the smoke-hole. In due time it came down on a stone far off in the east, when the arrow burst and the girl came out and ran off. [173]

After running around in circles and making many tracks around the lodge, the brother then went up the smoke-hole and stood on the roof. There was visible a long streak, or trail, which the arrow had made through the air. Running under this trail, he soon came to the spot where the arrow had struck the stone, and then he followed his sister’s tracks.

The old woman, the murdered man’s mother, growing tired of waiting for her son, went over to the neighboring lodge to see what he was doing. She found the lodge empty. While sitting there by the fire, a voice spoke to her out of the flames, saying: “My friend has killed me. My friend has killed me.” Thereupon she dug down under the hearth until she found her son’s body. On reaching home she became a Ganiagwaihegowa. Then she followed the girl’s tracks to the spring and back again to the lodge. She could find no one in the lodge. At last, looking up through the smoke-hole, she saw the trail of the arrow through the air. Hurrying out, she ran toward the east.

In the meantime the young man had overtaken his sister before she had gone far from the stone. After a while they heard the roaring of Ganiagwaihegowa. The girl trembled from great fear and grew weak. Her brother encouraged her. Stopping at night, they lay down and slept a little. The young man dreamed that a woman came to him, saying: “You think you and your sister are about to die, but you are not; here is a stone with which to defend yourself. Tomorrow about noon throw this piece of stone behind you, with the words, ‘Let there be a ridge of rocks across the world so high that nothing can climb over or pass it.’”

In the morning he saw near the brush lodge the very stone he had seen in his dream. He took this piece of stone with him. Before midday they heard the roaring of Ganiagwaihegowa. At noon the young man threw the piece of rock behind him, and at that moment a ridge of rocks, rising so high that no living thing could climb over it, stretched itself across the world.

On coming to the ridge the Ganiagwaihegowa saw that the tracks of the brother and sister went through the wall. She clambered up and then fell backward, howling terribly and crying, “I will overtake and eat them both.” The young man’s sister heard the words of the monster. The Ganiagwaihegowa ran toward the north, but could find no end to or opening in the wall of rocks. Then, coming back, the monster ran to the south, but could find no end there. Once more returning, she lay down near the tracks by the wall. It was now night. The Ganiagwaihegowa staid there until morning. On rising she was greatly surprised at finding nothing but a small stone in her way. Picking up the stone, she ground it to powder in her mouth, and then, roaring terribly, went on. [174]

The brother and sister had now gone far ahead. Toward noon they heard the roaring of the Ganiagwaihegowa and knew that she was drawing near. Taking a pigeon feather from his pouch, the young man threw it behind him, saying, “Let there be a thick rampart of pigeon droppings across the world, so high that nothing can pass over it or go through it.” Then he hurried on with his sister. Soon the bear rushed up to the rampart in a fearful rage. She tried to climb the rampart, but could not do so. Then she tried to push through it, but went out of sight in the filth, nearly smothered, and had hard work to get out. Then the monster ran as fast as possible to find an opening, but without success; so, coming back at night, she lay down and slept until morning, when she found nothing in the way but a feather. This she bit and chewed to pieces.

The brother and sister came to a great wood, all the trees of which were dried up and leafless. They found a lodge, which they entered. An old man, who was their uncle, was sitting inside. They told him their trouble; whereupon he said, “I will do all I can for you, but you have another uncle living not far from here who can help you much better than I can.” The old man was engaged in chipping flints. When he got a handful of flint chips he would fling them out at the trees; in this way he had killed the whole forest, for he had great powers of witchcraft.

The brother and sister then went to the next lodge. The old uncle whom they had left had a heap of flint chips piled up near him. When he heard the Ganiagwaihegowa coming he struck it again and again with the chips. But the Ganiagwaihegowa did not turn away; coming up to the door, she asked the old man, “Have you seen a couple of persons pass here?” “No,” said he, “I pay no attention to anyone who comes.” Thereupon the monster crushed his head, thus killing him. Then, discovering the tracks, the Ganiagwaihegowa said, “They have gone ahead; it is too bad that I have killed the old man.” Roaring loudly, she rushed on. “I will overtake you and eat you,” she said.

Soon the brother and sister came to the other uncle. After hearing of their troubles he said, “I will help you all I can, but hurry on until you come to another uncle.” Then he made a trap on the trail, and near that a second and a third. When the Ganiagwaihegowa came up, she rushed into the first trap, where she struggled a long time. Finally, breaking through this trap, the monster went on until she got into the second trap. After a longer struggle she broke through this, only to fall into the third trap, from which also she escaped at last. Coming soon to the third old man, the Ganiagwaihegowa asked, “Have you seen a couple of persons pass this way?” “I have not,” was the reply, whereupon the monster, seizing the old man, ground him to pieces with her teeth. Then, finding the tracks [175]of the young couple, she said: “Here are the tracks again; they have passed on. I am sorry that I killed the old man.”

The brother and sister went to the third uncle. Rushing into his lodge, they found him making a net. His eyes were closed and filled with matter, but still he was at work. He had long upper eyelids hanging down on his cheeks. Raising the lids he cleaned his eyes; then with a piece of buckskin he tied the lids across his forehead. When the brother and sister rushed in, they said, “Uncle!” but he did not hear them. They called again, “Uncle! we are running away and want your assistance,” but he did not stop, for he failed to hear them. Then the brother hit him on the head with a corn pounder, whereupon, raising his eyelids, he said, “I heard a voice.” The brother and sister exclaimed, “We are closely pursued by a Ganiagwaihegowa.” “I will help you as far as I can, but your grandfather, who lives near here, will do more than I. Run to him,” was his answer. They hurried on.

The Ganiagwaihegowa came nearer and nearer. The old man laid a long net across the trail, in which the Ganiagwaihegowa was caught. After struggling somewhat, she cleared herself. On coming to the old man’s door she asked, “Have you seen two people pass this way?” “No!” said he. The old man had told them to run to their grandfather, and they had done so.

On reaching their grandfather they found Sʻhagodiyoweqgowa there, who had rattles. When the brother and sister came up Sʻhagodiyoweqgowa told them to go on and that they would come to a lodge, and that the people in that lodge were very strong in sorcery, having great orenda.

The boy and his sister went on. The bear came to the Sʻhagodiyoweqgowa, whom she killed after a hard fight. The two fugitives reached the lodge, in front of which was an old Djogeon49 woman, who was very small. She told them to go in and sit down. She had three sons inside and also a great deal of bear’s fat. The old woman told the boys to make a fire on the tracks of the brother and sister and to put over it to boil a kettle of bear’s oil. They made two fires, putting two kettles over them, into which they poured the oil. Then the three boys got red willow, from which they soon made a number of arrows.

The Djogeon woman stood near the first kettle when the Ganiagwaihegowa came rushing along asking, “Are the two persons here who made these tracks?” “Yes; they are in the lodge,” was the reply. The Ganiagwaihegowa started to go around the kettles, but the woman said, “No, you must go the way they went, right through the fire, kettles and all; you must do the same as they did.” On starting to do so the Ganiagwaihegowa got her paws in the boiling oil and overturned the first kettle. Badly burned, the monster fell back, [176]growling. In making for the second kettle, that too was upset in the same way and she was burned still more. Then the boys killed the Ganiagwaihegowa with their red-willow arrows, and, building a fire, they burned her bones to powder, so that the monster could not come to life again.

The old Djogeon told the brother and sister to stay two or three days at her lodge and rest; then her sons would take them home. She told her sons that this old Ganiagwaihegowa woman stole a young boy and girl from them and took them away, wishing to make the girl marry her son. The boys took the brother and sister two days’ journey, which was as far as they could go. Then they directed the former fugitives so that they got home.

It is said that the Ganiagwaihegowa woman’s boy had a tuft of yellow hair hanging down his back, and that when he was killed, his companion, having cut off this tuft, fastened it to the top of his own head. When the Ganiagwaihegowa woman’s boy went hunting, he would send his arrows home and they would go into the lodge just where they belonged; but after the other man obtained the hair, his arrows would go home in the same way, for the orenda was in the tuft of yellow hair.