FOOTNOTES:
[14] Told by Snowbird.
14. THE GIRL WHO MARRIED A STAR.[15]
In olden times, when the people lived upon the Missouri River, there was a village. In this village there were two girls who, in the night, slept outside of their lodge on an arbor. As they lay upon the arbor one night they were talking about the different young men in the tribe whom they liked. One of them spoke of liking a certain young man, while the other girl said she did not like any one of the young men in the tribe. She looked into the sky. She saw a bright, red star in the heavens towards the east. She said, “There stands the star I like, and if that star were here upon the earth I would marry him.” The girls then went to sleep.
In the morning they arose and went after water. As they were coming back, they saw a porcupine. The girls ran after it and tried to kill it. One of them said she wanted to get the porcupine, for she did not have enough quills to do some of her work. The porcupine got to a cottonwood tree that was near the river. The girl climbed up after it. The other girl wanted to go home and get an axe, so that they might chop the tree down, but this particular girl who had said she liked the star, said, “No, I can climb.” She climbed the tree.
As the girl climbed up the tree the tree grew higher. The girl disappeared, so the girl on the ground went home and told what had happened. The girl kept on climbing for the porcupine until she reached another world. When the girl came into the other world she recognized that she was in a strange country, and she began to cry.
The porcupine had turned into a man. The man spoke to the girl, and said: “Why do you cry? I am the Star that you saw and that you said you liked. I went down after you. I turned myself into a porcupine and you came after me, and now you are here in my home.” The girl saw that the man was not young, but middle-aged, though he was very handsome. She stayed with him and liked him, but the man kept going away every night. She cried every night, for she wanted to return to her people.
Many years afterward she gave birth to a male child. When the child was born his mother found the picture of a star upon his forehead. This woman told her husband one time that her son wanted some wild turnips and that she wanted to go and dig some. The man told her that it was very well for her to go and dig these turnips, but that she must not go to the valleys to dig them, but she must go to high places. While she was out digging these turnips she thought about her people and she began to cry. Then she went to the valley and dug into the ground to get a turnip. Her digging-stick ran through the earth. She removed the dirt, looked down, and there saw the people underneath. She then knew that she was far away from her people.
She covered the place and began to cry. While she was crying, she heard the voice of a woman calling her. The voice said, “My daughter, why are you crying?” She said: “I am crying for my people, for they are far away below us. I was brought up by my husband, who is a Star.” The woman told the girl not to cry, for she would help her. She took the girl to her cave in the side of a cliff, and there she confronted her. She told her to tell her husband that when he went to kill buffalo he must take all of the sinews from one whole buffalo, and that when she got these sinews she must bring them to her; that she would make a sinew string that would reach to the ground below.
The girl went home. She told her husband that she wanted to do much sewing, and that she needed sinew, and she wanted him to get all the sinew that was in a buffalo, so she could have many sinews and would not have to ask him for any more. The man went hunting. He killed a buffalo. He took all the sinews he could find. He forgot, however, to get the two sinews that are in the shoulder-blade of the buffalo. He brought the sinews to his wife, and gave them to her.
One time when the man was away she took the sinews to the old woman and gave them to her. The old woman was glad. She said: “Now go to your home, and remain there. I am to make a string, and when it is complete I shall let you know, so that you then can go to your people.” The girl went home and stayed, but once in a while she visited the old woman’s dwelling place, and she saw the piles of string that the woman was making. As soon as the old woman had completed the string she told the girl, and said that the girl must come to her place when her husband was away. The young girl had also made a long string of sinew, but it was separate from the string that the old woman had made. This she carried herself when she went to the old woman’s place.
They now went to the valley, and there dug a hole, large enough for her with her boy on her back to go through. After this was done she went to her home, put the child upon her back, covered it with her robe, then tied the robe about her breast. She went to the place. The old woman had brought a large-sized stick, which was laid across the hole, and the sinew was tied to the pole. The girl tied the sinew about her body and covered her hands with a part of her robe. She slipped down, down, down the string and after a time she found herself at the end of the string. The earth was still far away. She took her own string and tied it to the string that she was tied to. She fastened herself to the other string after untying herself from the main string, and slid down upon it. She slid down until she had reached the end of the string, and she was at the height of the highest tree from the ground. She saw that she could not get down, so she made a loop and put her foot in it so that she stood upon the string, and there she hung.
When the woman’s husband came home he found her missing. He went out to hunt for her. After a time he came to the place where the hole was, and there he saw the woman hanging on the string. He went and took up a little stone, about the size of his thumb. He took this to the place where the hole was dug. He placed the stone on the string, then said, “Now I want you to slide down on the string and hit the woman upon the head and kill her, but do not harm my boy.” As he let go of the stone a sound was heard like that of thunder. The stone slipped down upon the string and struck the woman on the top of the head and killed her. As the woman fell down towards the earth the boy slipped out from the robe upon the back of the woman and fell on the ground, but was not hurt.
The boy stayed around where the woman was lying, for he was now about five or six years old. He would go off from his mother during the day and in the evening he would come back, crawl under the robe, and nurse at his mother’s breast. He did this for many days. At last the boy had to leave her, so he went on west from where his mother lay. He came to a patch of squash and also to a cornfield. This he went through, taking corn from the stalks and eating it raw. He returned to his mother and sat there.
In the morning, the owner of the field, who was an old woman, went into her field, and there she saw a child’s footprints. She was so glad to see the footprints that she went home and made a small bow and some arrows. She also made a small shinny ball, and a stick. The old woman thought if this child was a girl it would choose the shinny ball and stick, and if it was a boy it would choose the bow and arrows. In this way she thought she could tell whether the child was a boy or a girl. The old woman made these things, and took them into the field and left them there.
The next day, the boy went back into the field. There he saw these things upon the ground. When he saw the bow and arrows he jumped at them and picked them up. When he had picked them up he went through the squash field and began to shoot at the squash. The old woman came upon the boy and caught him. She called him her grandson, and told him that she had been waiting for him for a long time. She took the boy home.
The boy was satisfied to be with his grandmother. His grandmother, before she went into the field, used to roast a lot of corn. Then she scattered this corn in her lodge, then would go out hallooing, and say, “Blackbirds, come and eat of this corn that I have prepared for you.” The blackbirds would come in flocks and enter the lodge, and there they would eat the corn that she had scattered over the ground in the lodge. Then the old woman would go into her field and would leave the boy at home. Sometimes the boy went out to hunt rabbits and little birds. In the evening, when the old woman came home from the field, she used to take a lot of corn and put it in her corn mortar and pound it. She made mush out of the pounded corn. There was a curtain of buffalo hide in the lodge. The old woman, after she had made the mush would place a bowl of it behind the buffalo hide curtain. Why she did this the boy did not know.
One day when the old woman had gone out to feed the blackbirds, the boy began to roast some corn. After he had got a big pile roasted he went out and yelled, and said, “Come, blackbirds, I have prepared for you the corn that my grandmother told me to prepare; come and eat!” The blackbirds came in flocks into the lodge. The boy went out and stopped the smokehole with a piece of buffalo hide, then went into the entrance and stopped up the passageway with a dry buffalo hide, so that the birds could not go out. The boy then picked up a club and said: “Blackbirds, I am going to kill you all, for you have been eating my grandmother’s corn all this time. You shall not eat my grandmother’s corn any more.” So the boy began to run around in the lodge after the birds, hitting them with the club and killing them. He killed all of them, and placed them in a pile.
When the grandmother came home the boy said, “Grandmother, I have killed all these blackbirds that have been eating your corn all this time; they shall not eat your corn any more.” The old woman appeared glad. She told the boy that he had done right in killing the birds. The boy said, “You may cook the blackbirds, a few at a time.” The old woman really was not glad, for these blackbirds guarded her field for her. She owned these blackbirds. She placed them upon her robe and took them out. She brought them to life again, and said: “My blackbirds, fly away.” The old woman returned to the lodge.
The old woman then told the boy that he must go into the timber and cut a good-sized ash and some dogwood. The boy went and brought back the ash and the dogwood to the old woman. The old woman scraped on the ash wood, cutting it the right length for the bow and the right length for the arrow sticks. She then told the boy to go west of her lodge and to throw the arrows into a pond that he would come to. The old woman told the boy that when he should throw these sticks into the water he should say, “Grandfather, I want the strongest bow that you can give me, and I want wonderful arrows with it.” So the boy took up the sticks and went west from the lodge. He came to the pond. He threw the sticks into the water, and said, “Grandfather, give me the strongest bow that you can give me, and wonderful arrows.” Then the boy returned into the lodge. The next morning, the boy went down to the pond, and there he found a black bow and four black arrows. These he picked up, then he went home.
The boy went to hunt every day, for now he had a good bow and good arrows. One day the boy saw the old woman place a bowl of mush behind the buffalo curtain. When she went out to her field, the boy wanted to see what made the old woman place the mush behind the curtain, for each time she pulled out the wooden bowl that had held the mush, the mush was gone. The boy went to the curtain, lifted it up, and there he saw a serpent, with its big eyes looking at him. The boy then said: “Ah! I see now! You are the one that eats all my grandmother’s mush.” The boy took his bow and arrows and shot the serpent in the head and killed it. The serpent made one great, big noise, fell back, then slipped down into the pond. After the serpent had slipped down into the pond the water spread out and formed a lake.
When the old woman came home, the boy said, “Grandmother, I have killed the big monster that was lying behind the curtain, for he was eating all your mush.” The old woman said: “My grandson, you did right. I am glad you killed him. He has gone back into the lake, where he will always remain.” The old woman really was not glad, but mad, in her heart, for she now saw that the boy had supernatural powers. She wanted the boy killed. She did not let this be known, for she decided that she would send him to the place where her wild animals were stationed. When the boy was gone the old woman cried and mourned for her husband, who was the serpent. She said (without the boy hearing), “My grandson, you have killed your grandfather.”
The next day, when the old woman was ready to go to her cornfield, she told the boy that he must not go to a certain place, for the place was dangerous. After the old woman had gone into the field the boy went to the place where the old woman told him not to go, and there he went around looking for the dangerous place. He finally saw a mountain-lion coming towards him, ready to leap upon him, but he gave a command for the mountain-lion to stop, and the mountain-lion obeyed. The boy went and led the mountain-lion to the old woman’s lodge. He told the old woman to come out, that he had an animal for her which she could ride when she went off to her field. She told the boy she was glad he had brought the animal, but she whispered to herself, “Well, you must be a wonderful boy, but you shall be killed.” She then took the animal into the brush and told it to go away, for the boy was wonderful and might kill him. As the old woman was going towards the lodge she whispered to herself, “You must be a wonderful boy, but I will send you to a place where you can not kill my animals.”
The old woman then told the boy that he must not go to a certain mountainous place, for the place was dangerous. The boy went, notwithstanding. There he found the cinnamon bear coming to attack him. He commanded the bear to stand still and do nothing. The bear obeyed. The boy then caught the bear by the ear and led it into the old woman’s lodge. He said: “Grandmother, I have an animal for you that is very tame. You can ride it, and you can have it to help you clear your field.” The old woman appeared to be glad, but she was not. She took the bear, led it into the timber, and told it to go away, for the boy was wonderful and might kill it.
The old woman then told the boy that he must not go into the southwest country; that there were four wonderful men there. The boy went, though, and he saw the four wonderful men killing buffalo. These men looked up, and said: “Here comes Old-Woman’s-Grandson. He is a wonderful boy.” The boy got to where the men were skinning a buffalo cow, and, as the entrails were taken out, the boy saw that the cow had a calf in her and that the men were taking it out. The youngest man picked the calf up, and said, “Old-Woman’s-Grandson, take this to your grandmother.” The boy jumped away from it, for he was scared. When the youngest of the men found out that the boy was afraid of the calf he kept on trying to get it near him. Old-Woman’s-Grandson kept running from the calf, until he came to a tree. He climbed the tree. The young man placed the calf on the forks of the tree, so that the boy could not get down. The men then went home with their meat. The boy stayed in the tree many days, and nearly starved, when one of the men came, and said, “Old-Woman’s-Grandson, if you will promise your grandmother to us, I will take this calf down.” The boy said, “I promise.” So the man took the fœtus down.
The boy came down from the tree and went home. The old woman, when she saw the boy coming back, said that she was glad to see him again, for she thought that he had been killed. She asked the boy where he had been, and what had kept him so long. He told her that the men had tried to kill him by placing the fœtus next to him. He also said that he had had to promise the men that they could have her if they would remove the fœtus from the tree; that he had promised and they had removed the fœtus. The old woman said that it was well, but that she had one thing to ask of them, and that was, that they should give the boy something in return for his grandmother. So the boy went and visited these men in their lodge. He said to the men: “What is it that you are to give me in return for my grandmother? My grandmother has consented to marry you men.” The men said, “We are to give you a bow and arrows.” The boy went home and told his grandmother that they were to give him a bow and arrows. The old woman said: “That is good. That is what I wanted you to have. Go to the lodge of the wonderful men, and as you enter the lodge, rush around to the south side of the lodge, where there are five bows set up. The middle bow you shall take up, and say, ‘This I shall take in return for my grandmother.’” So the boy went into the lodge with the men. He ran to the south side of the lodge, and there the bows were, leaning up against the wall of the lodge. He picked up the middle bow and arrows. The men were all sorry that the boy had picked out the middle bow and arrows. The boy then told the men they could go to the home of his grandmother and be with her. Itaque hi ad anus domicilium venerunt ibique cum ea sicut cum uxore concubuerunt.
After they had left the lodge the old woman called the boy, and said, “Take this flute and play around the lodge of these wonderful men.” Her grandson took the flute and went to the lodge of the wonderful men and there he played the flute, circling around the lodge. When the wonderful men heard the flute they were scared. They closed up their lodge with earth. The boy kept on whistling, for he was now taking revenge on them for trying to put the fœtus next to him. The men lived on the meat they had in their lodge, but this soon gave out. These wonderful men died of hunger, and were never to be known again upon the earth.
The young man went home and told the old woman that the men had died; that the earth had closed in on them. The old woman was satisfied. Then she thought, “Now is the time to send my grandson to dangerous places, so that he may be killed, and I shall be freed from him.” The grandmother told the boy he must not go upon a certain hill, for the place was very dangerous. The boy went upon the hill, and there he found a den. He entered this den. He found that it was a den of Snakes. Before the boy entered the den he picked up a little rock and took it with him, and when he sat down in the lodge in the den of Snakes he placed the stone upon the ground and sat upon it as upon a stool. The Snakes were glad to see the boy. The boy said: “Well, you people are here in a den, trying to catch eagles. It seems to me that you people ought to welcome a stranger to your den. It seems that I am not welcome.” The Snakes all spoke up, and said: “Old-Woman’s-Grandson, you have spoken the truth. We will now give you something to eat.” So one of the Snakes spread out hot coals and placed a long gut for the boy to eat. This was rolled in the hot coals until it was burned a little, then it was taken off and given to the boy to eat. The boy took up the gut by each end and placed the ends together. He commenced to tell the Snakes that he had come a long way and was very hungry; that he would very much like to eat that, but as he saw that the gut was not well done he could not eat it. He twisted the ends, and the Snakes whispered to one another, “Why, he knows that this is a Snake, for he has twisted the head off.” As he twisted the head off he saw plainly that it was a Snake. He threw the head into the fire and placed the gut upon the hot coals again and roasted it some more. He left the Snake burning until it was burned so that he could not eat it. Once in a while he would hear the Snakes say, “What are you waiting for?” Then some Snake would disappear in the ground and would come up and try to get into the boy’s rectum, and they would hit the rock and tell the rest of the Snakes that they could do nothing, that the boy was sitting upon a rock.
Soon the boy said: “It is well that we should tell some tales.” The Snakes said, “Let Old-Woman’s-Grandson tell his story first.” But the boy said, “No, you tell the first story.” The leader, the chief of the Snakes, who was very large, said that he would tell a story. This Snake began to tell a story of how a girl had said she liked a certain Star, and how the next day, the girl found the porcupine; that the porcupine had climbed the tree and she also had climbed it; that the tree had stretched and went up to the Star that the girl liked; that the Star had married this girl; that a boy had been born to them; that the boy had the image of a star upon his forehead; that the boy’s father was a Star; that the woman had requested her husband to get sinews for her; that this woman had given the sinews to an old woman that she might make a sinew string; that the Star had forgotten to get the two sinews under the shoulders of the buffalo, and for that reason the string had proved too short to reach the ground; that the Star had missed his wife and child; that he had hunted and had found a hole in the ground; that the Star had picked up a stone and had sent it down on the string to kill the woman, telling it to save the child; that the child had stayed around its mother until she had decayed; that the child had gone to the old woman’s lodge and gone into her field; that the old woman had made bow and arrows and a shinny ball and stick, had placed them in the field, so that she might find out whether the child was a boy or a girl; that the boy had come and picked up the bow and arrows and had gone to shoot at the squash in the field; that the old woman had caught the boy and had taken him home and made him her grandson, when he became known through the country as “Old-Woman’s-Grandson;” that through the boy’s powers he had scattered the blackbirds through the earth; that the mountain lions were also scattered through the earth; that the bears were scattered through the earth; that even the water-serpent had been killed and sent back to the lake; that the serpent had been the boy’s grandfather; that the boy had killed the old woman’s husband, who was really his grandfather; that the boy had visited the four wonderful men; that the four wonderful men had found a fœtus in a buffalo cow; that they had tried to put it next to him to scare him; that the boy had climbed the tree and they had placed the fœtus at the forks of the tree, so that he could not climb down; that the boy had offered his grandmother to the four wonderful men to get the men to take away the fœtus and let him down the tree; that the boy had taken the wonderful bow and arrows from the four wonderful men; that these men had married the old woman; that afterwards the boy was given a flute by his grandmother, which was done that he might take revenge upon the four wonderful men; that he had killed the four wonderful men, so they would be no longer on the earth; that now Old-Woman’s-Grandson had come to the people who were sitting in a den trying to catch eagles; that he now sat before them, sitting on a rock; that he was given a long gut to eat, but that he had found out that it was a Snake; that he had thrown it in the fire and burned it. “This,” said the leader, “ends our story. Old-Woman’s-Grandson will now please tell us a story.”
The boy then began to tell about himself, just as the Snake had told it, following it up. “Now,” said the boy, “as the people in the den were sitting around, listening to Old-Woman’s-Grandson, there came a strong wind from the southeast, and blew towards the den.” As the wind blew from the southeast the Snakes on that side went to sleep. Then he told about the wind coming from the southwest, and those Snakes in the southwest went to sleep. Then the wind from the northwest came, and those who were there went to sleep. Then the wind from the northeast came, and those Snakes on that side went to sleep. Now the boy waved his hand all around the circle, and all went to sleep as they were listening to Old-Woman’s-Grandson.
In the center was the fire. There was a long stick in the form of a circle around the den, and all the Snakes were upon this, in a circle all around. The boy now arose, took his flint knife, and commenced to cut the heads on the stick around the fireplace. When he came to the last one, it opened its eyes and woke up. It ran into a hole, and said, “Old-Woman’s-Grandson, watch yourself, for hereafter I am your enemy.” The Snake disappeared in the ground.
Now the boy went out and went home, and he told the old woman that he had killed the Snakes. The old woman was then afraid of the boy. She knew that he was wonderful. After that, the boy watched himself in all of his journeys, because of the Snake he had failed to kill. Whenever he wanted to drink he had to go among the rocks, where he would drink from the pools of water. The boy could not drink water from the springs, for the Snake was always ready to jump into his mouth. When the boy wanted to sleep he lay down, placing the arrows he had as follows: One outside of each knee and one outside of each shoulder, sticking them in the ground. The bow the boy used for a pillow. Whenever the Snake approached him sleeping the arrows fell upon him, so that he woke up.
The boy became very sleepy one time, for he had not slept much during all this time. He lay down, and placed the arrows as usual, and went to sleep. The Snake came. One of the arrows fell on the boy, but failed to wake him. Another fell on him, but he did not wake. Then another arrow fell, then the last one fell, but the boy did not wake. The Snake crawled up to the boy, and, as it reached his stomach, the boy, in his sleep, reached for his knife and made motions to cut the Snake, but the Snake kept on going. The boy kept trying to get the Snake, but it went into the boy’s mouth. It crawled up into the skull and nestled itself there. The boy lay there as though dead; but the Snake knew that the boy was not dead. The Snake remained there until the boy dried up and became nothing but a skeleton.
The father of the boy studied hard as to how to get the Snake out of the boy’s skull. Although the boy was dead, the skull was the living part of the boy. The boy’s father then found a plan for getting the Snake out. A storm came from the north. It rolled the skull over and turned it up so that the hole in the skull was upward, and as the rain fell it ran into the skull and filled it with water. This did not drive the Snake out. The father called on the Sun to get nearer to the earth, so as to heat the skull so that the Snake would have to jump out. The Sun moved towards the earth and heated the skull. Soon the water was boiling. It became too hot for the Snake, and finally the Snake crawled out of the skull. No sooner had it got out than the boy stood up and caught the Snake by the neck. He then took up stones and hit the Snake’s snout, so that it made its head short. Then the boy sat down upon a rock and began to rub the Snake’s teeth upon it, and said, “Now you must promise that you will never bother people again.” The snake promised. The Snake, as it was turned loose, said, “Once in a great while I shall bite people, but not often.” The boy reached for the Snake and it disappeared,—that is why the people get bitten by snakes once in a great while.
The boy then returned to his grandmother, who was glad to see him. The boy told his grandmother that she was now free to do as she pleased, for he was going off; that the country was now free from wild animals. So the old woman disappeared, and the boy went southeast to the village of the people.
There the boy told his story, and the people knew that he was the son of the girl who had climbed up the cottonwood tree. The boy did many wonderful things for the people, and the people said that it was through the boy that the people could travel through these wild countries, for now all the wild animals had been scattered and were not as fierce as they had been before. The old woman had disappeared and had made her camp in some other place. The boy died after he had cleared the country of all the wild animals.
There is an old cottonwood tree on the south side of the Missouri River, close to the place known as Armstrong, that the people claim is the tree that stretched upward, taking the girl up to the Star. Still south of the cottonwood tree is the place where the people say the stone is that was thrown down by the Star and which killed the woman. To the west is the lake where the monster fell. At the southwest of the cottonwood, it is supposed, was the Snake den. The people say that to-day snakes are very numerous there. South of this place, among the hills, is where the mountain-lion is supposed to have been. Close to the cottonwood, in the timber along the Missouri River, is the place where the bear is supposed to have been.