FOOTNOTES:
[28] Told by White-Bear.
28. THE COYOTE, THE GIRL, AND THE MAGIC WINDPIPE.[29]
A long time ago there lived a beautiful girl who had her lodge in the center of the timber. She loved nobody, but she always had plenty of buffalo meat, and plenty to eat. She had some wonderful bundles hung up in her lodge.
One day as she was eating in her lodge the Coyote visited her. He saw that she had plenty of meat, so he made his home with her. Every day they had meat. The Coyote was now the girl’s errand man, and made fires for her and carried water for her. One day the girl was up early in the morning, and she said: “My uncle (Coyote), we are out of meat. I want fresh meat. My brothers will be here to-day, and I want you to stay on the north side of the entrance and cover your head up with your buffalo robe, and not to watch.” The girl swept out the lodge, placed some hot coals between the altar and the fireplace, and put some sweet grass upon the coals. As the smoke arose from the coals she went to the sacred bundle, and from it took the windpipe of a buffalo, which was round, and small at one end and large at the other end. She waved this over the smoke, then took it and turned it upside down so that dust came out from it, and as the dust fell out it turned into seven young men, who were her brothers. On the north side, where the sacred bundle hung, were several bows and arrows. These bows and arrows the brothers took down. When the boys took their bows and arrows the girl put her buffalo robe about her. She went up on to the lodge. She gave one yell toward the north, moved toward the west, moved toward the south, and then the buffalo came, from the north and from the west. She went back into the lodge, and her brothers began to kill the buffalo. They killed so many buffalo that the buffalo finally ran off. The brothers went into the lodge and stood in a row on the north side. The girl took some hot coals and placed them west of the fireplace, put some medicine and sweet grass upon them, and each brother, when his turn came, passed his bow and arrows through the smoke and laid them by the coals. Then they let the smoke pass through their bows. Then one stepped to the south of the coals and stopped; he finally disappeared. After that all disappeared. The girl took the windpipe, passed it over the smoke, then put her hand on the ground, got the dust together, and put it back into the windpipe. She passed the windpipe over the smoke, tied it, and hung it up in its place again. She even took the bows and arrows, passed them over the smoke and threw them upon the ground. They became tiny bows and grass arrows. These she hung up by the bundle again.
While all this was going on the Coyote had one eye open. After the girl was through with the performance she told the Coyote to come out. She went out with the Coyote and they skinned the buffalo. They brought the meat into the lodge, and left the hides outside. Every day the girl and the Coyote jerked the meat. The Coyote laid the bones around the fireplace and roasted them. When the Coyote ate the roast meat that was cooked he would think of his hungry children far away. At last he decided to steal the windpipe that contained the young men and to take it far away into his country, so that he could call the buffalo and have the young men to kill them. He said to himself: “If I find the enemy’s camp I will attack them. I will turn that windpipe upside down and those brothers will come out, and they will fight for me. The people will think that I am a wonderful man.” One day the Coyote asked the girl if her seven brothers in the windpipe were the only ones there. She said, “No, for, if I am attacked, I turn that windpipe upside down and there will be many young men, and my seven brothers will lead them out and they will fight for me.” The Coyote said to himself, “That is good; I will steal it.” So the Coyote made up his mind to steal the windpipe that night. The girl knew what the Coyote was planning all the time, but she allowed him to steal it. The Coyote went up to the windpipe, took it down and went out of the lodge, to the north. He traveled far. He thought, “I am now far away from the girl; I will lie down by the side of this log and sleep.” The girl knew just where the Coyote had lain down, and so she had her brothers bring the Coyote back and place him at the ridge just before the entrance of the lodge, on the north side. In the morning the girl got up, went to the Coyote and waked him. When the Coyote awoke he found himself in the lodge. He said: “My niece, I thought the enemy were coming, so I took this thing down, so that I could put the brothers outside so that they could fight for us. I must have gone to sleep here. Put it back.” Again the Coyote thought, “Well, I will stay, and I will yet steal this windpipe.” So one night he took the windpipe down again and went off. He went until he came to a place where there were some ashes where timber had been burned. He lay down to rest. The girl told her brothers to bring him back and place him outside of the lodge, where there was a pile of ashes. She went out in the morning, waked him, and the Coyote, when he awoke, found himself by the lodge. “My niece,” he said, “I took this thing down, for there was a war-party coming to attack us. I went to meet the war-party and they ran away, and I came back and lay down here, for I was tired.” The third time he tried to steal the windpipe, but again he failed. The fourth time, the girl let the Coyote carry the thing off. So the Coyote went off, and the girl did not have him brought back. He became hungry, and as he saw a village he thought to himself, “If I do this wonderful thing to these people they will find out that I am wonderful and they will take me from one lodge to another to feed me.” So the Coyote went up on the hill. He commenced to howl at the people in the village to come and kick with him. He thought that if he could get them to kick with him he would turn the windpipe upside down and the young men would run. The young men in the village said: “That fellow is howling for us to come and kick with him. Let us go up and kick with him.” So several young men went up on the hill where the Coyote was. The Coyote took the windpipe and turned it upside down, but instead of dust and the boys coming out, a swarm of bumblebees came out, and they commenced to sting the Coyote all over. The boys continued to kick him. The Coyote began to beg them not to kick. The young men ran into the timber and the bees left the Coyote and went up into a hollow tree. There they stayed. The Coyote went off as a coyote. The bees stayed in the timber, as bees.