17. THE BOY WHO COULD NOT UNDERSTAND.

A Study in Seneca Idioms. Related by Edward Cornplanter, 1906.

There was a boy who had been reared in the woods by an old woman who never thought it worth while to teach him oratory [^[25]] or rhetoric [^[26]]. He had never attended a council or listened to a sachem’s speech and so he never learned the use of words. When the old woman died the boy’s grandfather came and took him home with him hoping to make him useful. The boy was very obedient and obeyed every word commanded. His grandfather began to have confidence in him and one day sent him out to locate a bear tree. “Now when you discover the tree wade’´ode”, (leave your nails on it),” said the grandfather.

Now the boy thought this strange advice but hastened to obey his old protector. After some wandering he found a bear tree and then remembering that he must leave his nails upon it tore off his finger nails and stuck them in the bark of the tree. This caused him most excruciating pain and he was hardly able to get home. However, he thought that this was to make him brave and he was confident that his grandfather knew best how to educate a warrior. He went to his grandfather and proudly displayed his bleeding fingers. “See, grandfather,” he said, “I have found a bear tree and have left my finger nails upon it.”

The old man looked at the boy in wonder. “What have you done?” he asked.

“Left my nails upon the tree,” answered the boy.

“Oh, you poor ignoramus,” laughed the old warrior, “I did not mean that you should tear out your nails by the roots and stick them in the bark. I meant that you should put your eyes on the tree when you saw one. When I said ‘put your nails on it’ I meant that you should remember the tree so that you could take it at any time you wished. Go now and put your eyes on the tree (ĕⁿse‘´ganeiondĕⁿ’).”

“Oh, grandfather,” moaned the boy, “why did you not say what you meant!” and ran out to put his eyes on the tree. He found the tree again, and began pulling at his eyelids and eyes. Having no nails he could not get a good hold and the operation was most painful. Finally he gouged out one eye with a stick and hung it on the bear tree. Going back to his grandfather’s lodge he greeted him.

“I have left one eye on the tree, grandfather,” he said. “I kept the other so that I could find my way home.”

The old man looked at his grandson and was angry. “You are most foolish!” he said. “When I say, ‘leave your eyes on a thing’ I mean that you must be able to recognize it instantly when you see it again.”

“Oh, grandfather,” wailed the boy, “why do you never say what you mean?”

“I do,” said the grandfather, “but you do not easily understand my meaning.”

Now when the boy was recovered from his bruises the old man asked that the boy take him to the bear tree that they might kill a bear. Each had a bow and quiver of arrows. When they reached the tree the old hunter climbed up the trunk and lighted a torch and threw smoke wood down the hollow to smoke out the bear. “Now, grandson,” he said, “shoot him here when he comes out,” and the old man patted his heart.

The bear came out on a run and as he did the boy lifted up his bow and aimed at the old man’s heart. It was the place that he had been instructed to shoot, so he thought.

The old man was exceedingly angry and yelled out, “You shoot the bear, not me.” The boy shot the bear and the old man slid down the tree. “You fool,” he yelled, “so you were going to shoot me!”

“You told me to shoot right there, grandfather,” pleaded the boy, “and I wanted to obey for I thought you knew best.”

“No, I meant the bear,” retorted the old hunter. “Now we will cut him up.” So they dressed the bear.

Now it is customary to call the pancreas, the oskwi´sont (tomahawk); the diaphragm the o’kăā (skirt); the fat around the kidneys the face (ogoⁿ’´sa’), and the ventral portion (oho´a), door. So the old man said, “I have placed the door, the tomahawk, the false face and the skirt aside. Go home and cook them for me and I will return. Split a stick and put the tomahawk in it and put it in the fire. When it snaps yell ‘Hai-ie’ and I will come.”

Now the grandfather busied himself cutting up the bear and cutting its meat into strips and chunks. He also prepared its skin. Then he was ready to go home. He glanced at the log where he had laid the organs and found them still there. “I wonder what blunder the boy has made now,” he mused and took them with him to the lodge. When he arrived there he found that the stupid orphan had torn the door from its fastenings and had split it into pieces. Moreover the boy was running around the lodge yelling, “Hai-ie!” Inside the old man saw his best stone tomahawk in the fire. It was red hot and when a draft of air struck it it would snap and every time it did the boy would whoop, “Hai-ie!” In a cauldron a false face, a breech skirt and the splinters of the door were boiling.

“It is too hot within!” explained the boy. “Hai-ie!” he paused to say as the tomahawk snapped. “It’s too hot, so I am watching outside and—hai-ie!”

The patience of the long suffering grandfather was exhausted and he said some things that the boy thought himself much aggrieved for he said, “Why did you not tell me what you meant?”

The grandfather took matters in his own hand and cooked the meal. The time was at hand also when he must notify his charge that by right of birth he was a chief and that on the morrow he must commence his duties as a runner. The next day the old man with due solemnity told the boy that he was a secondary chief. “We will have a great feast,” he said. “I want you to run and notify all the tall trees (Gai´esoⁿs), all the rough places (Ain´djatgi), all the swamps (Gaiⁿ´dagoⁿ), and all the high hills (Gai´nonde). When you return do not fail to ‘jounce your uncle on your knee’ (esĕⁿ´sĕnt’o’).”

Now the young chief thought this peculiar but he found tall trees in plenty and invited them all to the feast, likewise he invited the mountains and the swamps and returning gave his uncle a kick that knocked him down. The uncle immediately did the same thing to the impudent boy who ran rather lamely back to his grandfather. The old man listened to the tale with impatience and then explained that the ‘tall trees’ were the sachems, the ‘mountains’ the war chiefs, and the ‘swamps’ the common warriors. By ‘uncle’ he meant the relatives of the family and by ‘jouncing with his knee’ simply to notify them. “Oh,” gasped the boy, “why do you never say what you mean!” Of course he had the work to do all over and the feast came in due season. When it was over the boy said, “Grandfather, there is meat left and soup also.”

“Well,” said the grandfather, “give each one half a spoon.”[^[27]]

The lad did not see what good that would do but he instantly obeyed, going to the shed and chopping twenty wooden spoons in halves and then giving each guest a piece.

“Here you,” some one objected, “What are these things for?”

The boy was about to say that he had but obeyed his grandfather when the old man himself looked up and saw that the stock of finely carved spoons had been destroyed by his stupid ward. “Shawĕn´noiwĭs!” roared the old fellow. (Sha-wen-noi-wis means incurable fool.) “Why have you ruined my good spoons?”

“I did just as you said,” was the meek answer. Then he answered, “There is yet meat left, Haksot!”

“De sa di wa o gwut, tie it on your head and let it hang,” commanded the grandfather, meaning that it should be distributed to the particular friends of the family.

The boy took an elm bark rope and tied the juicy meat on his forehead.

“It is disagreeable, grandfather,” he complained, “for the juice and oil drip into my eyes.”

The old man explained, and the boy feeling much abused answered, “Oh why can you never say what you mean?”

The time came when the boy chief must marry. The grandfather told the boy where a family of lovely girls lived. “Go shove your legs in the door,” (Satci´nondăt—show your leg), said he, meaning that the boy should go visiting.

The young chief stuck his legs under the door and sat there all night. The next morning the old woman within gave him a blow with a corn pounder and he ran limping to his advisor to discover the trouble. “Oh you fool,” said the old man, “I meant that you should ‘shake the old lady’s skirt’,” meaning that he should seek a daughter. When he did this however he was kicked and pounded until he could hardly crawl. Now he had a very difficult time courting for it is hard to describe in direct words how to court and to marry, so when he followed his grandfather’s words he found much trouble. Now when he married his wife made him understand and he learned many new things. Now this is all that I can tell.

GENERAL NOTES.—The Boy Who Could Not Understand is the only tale of its kind secured by the writer among the Seneca. It is related as a humorous commentary on the literal meanings of certain idioms of the Seneca that are so well understood that they never cause confusion. The author of this tale must have deliberately analyzed each term and sought to give it a literal application. One might suppose that a captive Algonkin invented it to explain his own plight in learning the Seneca tongue.

This tale was related by Edward Cornplanter and it has been recorded essentially in his own language, except where better grammar or a better word straightens out the English. I am sure that Cornplanter might have expanded his story considerably, but he hastened it to a conclusion to give me the Seneca equivalents of some obscure bits of slang frequently heard in English. His own literal translations of American slang into Seneca made him wax merry, and he concluded by saying, “So you see it don’t make any sense at all.”