36. A YOUTH’S DOUBLE ABUSES HIS SISTER.
There was a lodge in the forest where very few people ever came, and there dwelt a young man and his sister. The youth was unlike other persons for one half of his head had hair of a reddish cast, while the other side was black.
He used to leave his sister in the lodge and go away on long hunting trips. On one occasion the young woman, his sister, saw, so she thought, her brother coming down the path to the lodge. “I thought you just went away to hunt,” said the sister. “Oh, I thought I would come back,” said he.
Then he sat down on the bed with the sister and embraced her and acted as a lover. The sister reproached him and said that she was very angry. But again he endeavored to fondle her in a familiar way, but again was repulsed. This time he went away.
The next day the brother returned and found his sister very angry. She would scarcely speak to him, though hitherto she had talked a great deal.
“My sister,” said he. “I am at loss to know why you treat me thus. It is not your custom.”
“Oh you ought to know that you have abused me,” said the girl.
“I never abused you. What are you talking about?” he said.
“Oh you know that you embraced me in an improper way yesterday,” said the sister.
“I was not here yesterday,” asserted the youth. “I believe that my friend who resembles me in every respect has been here.”
“You have given a poor excuse,” replied his sister. “I hope your actions will not continue.”
Soon the brother went away again, stating that he would be absent three days. In a short time the sister saw, as she thought, a figure looking like her brother skulking in the underbrush. His shirt and leggings were the same as her brother’s and his hair was the same. So then she knew that her brother had returned for mischief. Soon he entered the lodge and embraced her, and this time in anger she tore his cheeks with her nails and sent him away.
In three days the brother returned with a deer, but his sister would not speak to him. Said he, “My sister, I perceive that you are angry at me. Has my friend been here?”
It was some time before the sister replied, and then she wept, saying, “My brother, you have abused me and I scratched your face. I perceive that it is still torn by my finger nails.”
“Oh, my face,” laughed the brother. “My face was torn by thorns as I hunted deer. If you scratched my friend that is the reason I am scratched. Whatever happens to either one of us happens to the other.” But the sister would not believe this.
Again the brother went on a hunting trip, and again the familiar figure returned. This time the sister tore his hunting shirt from the throat down to the waist line. Moreover she threw a ladle of hot bear grease on the shirt. This caused his quick departure.
Returning in due time the brother brought in his game and threw it down. Again the sister was angry and finally accused him. Pointing to his grease-smeared torn shirt she said that this was evidence enough.
“Oh my sister,” explained the brother. “I tore my shirt on a broken limb as I climbed a tree after a raccoon. In making soup from bear meat I spilled it on my shirt.” Still the sister refused to believe him.
“Oh my sister,” said the brother, in distressed tones. “I am greatly saddened to think you will not believe me. My friend looks exactly as I do, and whatever happens to him happens to me. I shall now be compelled to find my friend and bring him to you and when I do I shall be compelled to kill him before you for his evil designs upon you. If you would believe me nothing evil would befall us, but I now think I myself shall die.”
The sister said nothing for she would not believe her brother.
The brother now began to pile up dried meat and to repair the lodge. He then went out into the forest without his bow and arrows, and in a short time returned with another man exactly resembling him, and whose clothing was spotted and torn in a similar way. Leading him to the lodge fire he began to scold him in an angry manner. “You have betrayed me and abused my sister,” he said. “Now is the time for you to die.” Taking out an arrow from a quiver he cast it into the heart of his double and killed him. The sister saw her assailant fall to the floor, and then looked up as she heard her brother give a war cry and fall as dead with blood streaming from a wound in his chest over his heart.