Читать книгу Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths - Jeremiah Curtin - Страница 65

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37. A Raccoon Story

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An uncle and a nephew lived together in a lodge in the forest. The nephew was a fine hunter. One day when the nephew was off in the woods hunting for game, a handsome woman, bringing a basket of bread, came to the lodge and said to the old man, the uncle, “My father and mother have sent me here to marry your nephew.” “Is it true that they sent you?” asked the uncle. “Yes,” said the young woman. “It is well,” said the old uncle. Lowering the basket, the girl set it before the old uncle. In it was the customary marriage bread. When the nephew came home, the old uncle said, “You are married now; here is your wife,” showing him the young woman. “It is well,” replied the nephew, and he and the young woman became man and wife.

Every day the nephew went out hunting, always returning with a heavy load of game.

One day while out hunting he came to a tree in the top of which was a large hole. In this he found a litter of raccoons. Climbing the tree, he threw one raccoon after another to the ground. All at once he heard a woman’s voice under the tree, saying, “Come down! come down! you are tired.” With that, she ran off through the forest. When he reached home, he told what had happened. His wife laughed at his perplexity, but said nothing.

Not long afterward, on a hunting trip, while packing up his game and making ready to start home, a woman came up behind him, and taking him by the arm, led him to a neighboring log. They sat down on it, whereupon drawing his head on her lap, she began to look for vermin. He was soon asleep from her orenda (magic power). Putting him into a basket, which she threw on her back, the woman went to the rocks in the middle of a lake. Then she took him out, and awakening him, asked, “Do you know this place?” Looking around, he replied, “Yes. This is the place where my uncle and I used to fish,” and giving a sudden spring into the water, he became a bass and escaped in a flash.

On reaching home, he told his wife what had happened to him. She laughed, but said nothing. He was so frightened at what had taken place that he remained at home for several days. At last the feeling of fear wore away and he started off to hunt. [192]

As he was packing up his game to return home, a woman’s voice said, “Stop! Wait a while, for you must be tired.” They sat down on a log, and she, drawing his head on her lap, began looking for vermin. The man was soon asleep. Putting him into a basket, the woman carried him off to a great ledge of rocks, where there was only a small foothold. Taking him out of the basket, she asked, “Do you know this place?” “I will tell you soon,” said he, looking around. But at that instant the woman disappeared. He soon saw some one farther along on the rock, and heard him say, “I am fish hungry. I will fish a while.” Then, throwing out his line into the water below, he began singing while he pulled up one fish after another. At last he said: “I have enough. I shall take a rest now and have something to eat. This is what we people eat when we are out all night in the rocks.” Then he took a baked squash out of his basket.

The young man said to the rock, “Stand back a little, so that I can string my bow.” The rock stood back. Stringing his bow and saying, “Now boast again!” he shot the fisherman. The young man soon heard a loud noise, and looking in the direction from which it came, he saw an enormous bat pass a little to one side of him. Taking from his pouch a hemlock leaf, and dropping it over the rocks, he began to sing, “A tree must grow from the hemlock leaf.” Soon a tree came in sight. Then he talked to the tree, saying, “Come near to me and have many limbs.” As the tree came to a level with the place on the rocks where the young man was sitting, it stopped growing. He had seen along the narrow shelf on the rocks many other men. He called to the nearest one, asking him to tell all to come, so they could escape. Slowly creeping up, one after another, they went down the hemlock tree.

When all had reached the ground, the young man, taking a strawberry leaf out of his pocket and laying it on the ground, said, “Grow and bear berries.” Then he began singing, “Ripen berries, ripen berries.” The vines grew, and were filled with berries, which ripened in a short time.55 When they had all eaten as many berries as they wanted the young man picked off a leaf and put it into his pouch, whereupon all the vines and berries disappeared.

Then he said, “Let us go to our wife” (meaning the woman). After traveling some distance the young man killed an elk. Cutting into strings the hide they made a “papoose board,” but big enough for an adult; then they started on. Soon they came near a lodge, where they saw a woman pounding corn. When she noticed them coming she began to scold and, holding up the corn pounder, was going to fight with them. When the young man said, however, “Let the corn pounder stop right there,” it stopped in the air, half raised. [193]Seizing the woman, they strapped her to the board, saying, “You must be very cold.” Then they set the board up in front of the fire in order to broil her slowly. Just at this time the young man’s wife came. Finding that they were roasting the woman, she was angry and, freeing her, said, “You are now liberated and I shall go home.” Making her way to the lake, she called on the bloodsuckers to stretch across it so that she could walk over on them. Each man went to his own lodge. When the young man came home his wife was there.