105. The Twelve Brothers and Their Uncle, Dagwanoenyent
Once there lived 12 brothers who were great hunters, and who dwelt very happily together. Everyone knew that they excelled in whatever they undertook, for they had great magical powers and were honest.
Every morning the brothers would start off in different directions to hunt, and would return in the evening. The eldest brother seemed to understand best the women, who went around the world to destroy men, so he always avoided them. One day, however, while he was hunting he saw a red-headed woodpecker drumming on the trees, making a great noise. As he watched the bird, it went around the tree and then flew to another tree and around that. Finally it flew to the ground, and, behold! a beautiful young woman took the place of the bird. She said to the hunter, “Are you not ashamed to point an arrow at a woman? Come and talk to me.” Thereupon he went up to her—this was the last thing he remembered. She took him to a high rock where stood another woman, who said “Let his bones come to the ground,” and his body fell, becoming a heap of bones. Great piles of human bones lay around this rock, for many men had been decoyed to the place by the first woman and destroyed by the other.
Night came, and as the eldest brother did not return, the remaining 11 said that some evil had befallen him, and that he would never return. As predicted, he never came home; his mat remained vacant, and they left everything as it was and mourned him as dead.
After a long time another brother was missing one evening and he, too, never returned. Later it was learned that while walking along in the woods he came upon two women, who with their wiles put him to sleep. One of them said: “Let us put him into the ground until mold appears all over him—he shall be alive—and let him remain there until his uncle finds out where he is and rescues him.”
Now, the 10 remaining brothers were greatly alarmed, and they told their youngest brother, whom they loved very dearly, that “he must stay at home and not go roaming about the forest, for he was young and did not know the world as well as they did.”
Again many moons passed, and then one night the third brother was missing. The others knew he must be dead, or he would not have failed to return when night came. Now, three mats were vacant, and the remaining brothers were almost heartbroken. [[486]]
Time went on, and one brother after another had disappeared, until only two were left—the second and the youngest, and there were 10 empty places. Then the elder said to his younger brother: “You must not go out of doors. You must stay close at home, where no harm can come to you, for you are all I have to depend on when I grow old.” “But,” said the younger, “it may be that our brothers are still alive and are being kept captive and tormented by the spell of some magic power. I wish to go in search of them.” “No; you can not,” replied the elder; “you are still young. But we have a great uncle, who knows everything. He is a terrible man; no one can go near him. He could bring our brothers back, if we could get to him, but the trouble is he would not know that we are his nephews, so we would be destroyed. He is Dagwanoenyent. He lives on a rock. His long hair sweeps the ground, so that all around the rock it is as smooth as ice; and he has enormous eyes.”[396] “I must go to see this uncle,” said the younger, “and find out where our brothers are.” “You will travel the wide world over and never find them unless he tells you,” came the reply.
“What does he live on?” asked the younger. “He gnaws the bark of hickory trees,” answered the elder. “That is an easy living. I will get plenty of it,” said the younger, and having cut down the largest hickory trees he could find, he took off great blocks of bark for his uncle to eat. Then he made himself six arrows, each arrow being a great tree. He would lift the tree out of the ground by the roots. “I want you to be small,” and made an arrow of it; the blunt end of the arrow was the butt near the roots. The elder brother did not know that these arrows were large trees. He was afraid to have his brother go and put but little faith in his success. While the younger brother was making his arrows he practiced running. One day while so engaged he thought he heard a groan under his feet, as it were, and going back and forth he found the exact place whence it seemed to come. It was as though he ran over a man and each time hurt him fearfully; so digging down into the ground, he found a living man, whose features were perfect but whose face was covered with thick mold. He took him home to his elder brother, saying, “We have plenty of bear’s oil, and you can anoint him until he regains his natural skin.” The newly found man could neither see nor hear.
The elder brother told the younger to run toward the north. The next morning the latter started, having cautioned the elder to stay in the lodge while he was gone, as he would bring his uncle home with him. He ran for several days until he came near the place which his brother had described. Possessing magical power over a mole, he said to it, “You must carry me under the ground so that the leaves shall not rustle. When we are very near my uncle, Dagwanoenyent,[397] let me out.” Thereupon he entered the mole, [[487]]which ran on until they were near the Great Head, when he looked out. He was almost afraid to come forth, so terrible was this enormous object, but he sprang out of the mole with his arrow drawn, crying as he did so, “Uncle, I have come after you!” Away sped the arrow! As it whizzed through the air it grew to the size of a large tree. When it hit the Great Head above the eyes, with a loud laugh the latter, rolling off the rocks, swept along in the air, making a broad track of fallen trees as it passed through the forest like an immense cloud. The young man kept ahead by running with lightning speed. As the Great Head was nearly on him, he turned and shot another arrow, which drove it back some distance, and again he got ahead. This act he repeated whenever he was in danger of being overtaken, otherwise he would have been killed by the big trees that fell in the track of the Great Head. So on he ran for his life, and as his last arrow was spent, he reached home. Each time the rebound of the Great Head decreased, so it gained on him continually.
While the pursued and the pursuer were still a long way off, the elder brother began to hear a frightful roar and to feel a great wind rising. Thereupon, saying, “My uncle is coming,” he opened the skin doors (there was one at each end of the lodge) and put great pounders on them, and made a big fire. When the younger brother reached the lodge he took up the pounder, and as the Great Head came down to the threshold and rolled in, both brothers began pounding it and kept on doing so until it rolled almost to the end of the lodge and became silent. At this the young man said: “I brought you here, uncle; now, you must stay with us and tell us where our brothers are.” “I can not stay,” replied the Head, “but I will help you, and your brothers will come back.”
By this time the elder brother, having rubbed nearly all the mold from the man’s face, found he was his brother. The Great Head blew on the body, whereupon the man became well and sound again. Now there were three brothers. At night the Great Head would remain outside the lodge, gnawing the hickory bark provided for it. After a time it said, “I can not remain and must be going home, but I will take you to the spot where your brothers are”; so they started off together. The Great Head would make long leaps, springing high from the ground. It conducted the young man to the woman on the rock. As they passed the first woman the Great Head said, “We shall have to kill this woman.” She tried to make the Great Head laugh, but it would not, saying, “Oh, woman! Come down and be bones.” Enraged at these words, she tried to spit at the Great Head, which repeated the words. The third time, both women rolled off, and as they fell their bones made a noise like the pouring out of many shells, and the Great Head said, “Scatter the bones.” So the young man, gathering them up by handfuls, threw them in every direction, [[488]]commanding them to become such and such birds; and they became birds—horned owls, hawks, crows, and woodpeckers—which disappeared in the air. “Now,” said the Great Head, “you must work hard. Fit all these other bones together nicely, giving to each body its own bones by putting together as many bodies as you can. While you are doing this, I will go off a long distance and then come back straight over this forest. When I approach you will hear the roar of the wind, and thereupon you must cry out to these bones, ‘Arise, or the trees will fall on you.’ They will obey you. I will pass over them and go to my home; if you want me again, you may come for me.” The young man went to work with great haste and laid together many skeletons. Nearly all the bones were arranged when he heard the deep roar of the wind and knew thereby the Great Head was coming. Then he called out, “Arise, you bones, or the trees will fall on you,”[398] and as the Great Head swept with an awful noise over the skeletons, all sprang to their feet. The bones of two skeletons were interchanged. One who from the shape of his foot had gone by the name of Sharp-pointed Moccasins had but one of his own feet, while the second man had the other, so both were cripples. One of these men had been enticed from a great distance; he was a man-eater and wished to commence a meal at once, but the young man killed him with a single blow of his club. Among those now restored to life were the nine missing brothers. Each man found whatever he had brought with him and all separated; those who did not know where their homes were went with the brothers. Thus, again, after many years the 12 brothers were united.
106. Ongwe Ias[399] and His Brother, Dagwanoenyent
There was a man who had three nephews, and all lived in a lodge which was divided into two parts by a partition. The old man lived in one part and the young men in the other. There was no door between the two rooms; they could talk only through the partition. The old man, however, was an Ongwe Ias; he was a brother of the Dagwanoenyent who chased the panther and her cubs.
When the old man went hunting he always started on a run, and one could hear the sound of his going. The young men used to go hunting, too. Whenever the old man came home they could hear him throw down a person’s body and cut it up; then they could hear him eating. Afterward he would ask the boys whether they had all returned from hunting, whereupon they would say, “Yes.”
One morning after the old man had gone off the youngest of the three started by himself. At a short distance from the lodge lay a big tree, over which moss had grown everywhere. When he put his knee on this tree to get over it he saw a man who had grown to the [[489]]tree. The man said: “I am glad you have come; I am tormented here. I think you would better take me to your lodge. I will be a brother to you and stay with you as long as you live.” “I do not think this would be well,” replied the young man, “for our uncle is a man-eater; but I will go home and talk with my two brothers, and tomorrow I will let you know our decision.” That night when the old man got home he asked whether all had gotten back. “Yes,” they answered. Then the youngest said to his uncle: “We have found a man who wants to come here to be our brother and live with us. You must not touch him.” The old man agreed not to injure him, saying, “I will give him a name; he shall be called The-Found-One.”[400] They brought the man in. When he had recovered his health he was a swifter runner than the old man-eater.
One morning all started off to hunt, the three brothers and The-Found-One. In the afternoon the old man came back home and stayed in his part of the lodge. At night he asked, “Are you all here?” One answered, “No; our eldest brother has not come.” The old man was astonished, and told the second brother that he must start early the next morning and follow his brother’s tracks.
In the morning the second brother started on the run to look for his elder brother. After a while he came to a clearing, in the middle of which sat an old woman; his brother’s tracks went straight toward her. He made up his mind to inquire of the woman about him. Going straight up to her, he asked, but she gave no answer. Then she struck him and straightway he turned into bones. Now, two of the brothers were gone. When night came and the uncle reached home, he asked the lone brother whether all had returned. The youngest said, “No,” whereupon the uncle said, “You must follow them and see what has happened.”
So the youngest went out the next morning, and soon reached the opening or clearing, where he saw the gray-haired woman. It came into his mind that she was the cause of the trouble; so taking a start he ran and then jumped on her back, asking “Have you seen my brothers?” Having said this, he jumped off. After trying in every way to hit him, at last the woman just touched him and thereupon the three brothers were gone; he, too, then becoming merely bones, like the other two.
At night when the old uncle returned he asked the fourth person, The-Found-One, “Have your brothers come back?” “No,” was the answer. At this the old man, astonished, said, “When you rise in the morning get crotched sticks and make a platform on them; put as many stones as possible on the platform, and then start in search of your uncle. You can not help finding him. When you see him you must shoot him in the forehead; then he will follow in the direction [[490]]from which the arrow comes.” The next morning, having made a platform, the man put on it as many big stones as possible. After doing this, he started in the direction the old man had pointed out. During the forenoon he heard a big noise, and when he came out into a broad opening, or clearing, he saw his uncle, Dagwanoenyent, on a great rock which he was eating, biting off large pieces. On seeing him, The-Found-One shot an arrow at his forehead, saying at the same time, “I have come for you, uncle.” His uncle, the Great Head, followed him, and he shot another arrow. The Great Head always followed the course of the arrow. After shooting twice The-Found-One was back at the lodge, where he called to the old man-eater, “Uncle, I have come.”
Very soon they heard the noise of a great wind, and Dagwanoenyent came, and standing on the platform, began to eat stones;[401] the sound of his craunching could be heard a long way. The man-eater spoke to his brother Dagwanoenyent, saying: “I sent after you, and you have come. The three brothers have gone and have not come back. Now I am going for them, and if I do not return, you will come after me.” The next morning The-Found-One was alone. Dagwanoenyent came, and standing on the platform, ate a stone, and called out, “Have they returned?” “No,” was the reply.
“Well, I am going after my brother; he ought not to eat men, if he too gets lost.” With these words, Dagwanoenyent flew up high in the air. The old woman knew he was coming, so shading her eyes with her hand, she kept watch; presently she saw him approaching. Flying down where she was, he bit at her, but she had disappeared; then he bit gravel. On flying up he could see nothing. At last he hid behind a cloud and watched until he saw her; thereupon, plunging down, he bit deep into the ground, this time killing the old woman and letting out her blood. Then he said to himself, “My brother should not eat people, if he is such a coward that he can not kill an old woman.”
Dagwanoenyent had to bring to life his three nephews and his brother. The-Found-One came to the place where the old woman was killed, and Dagwanoenyent told him to put the bones together, and then to go to a big hickory tree near by and push against it, calling out, “Rise! you people, lest the tree fall on you.” Having put together the bones as directed, he pushed against the tree, at the same time calling, “Rise! lest the tree fall on you.” At once all came to life, whereupon the man-eater said, “I give up; I will never eat man again.” All went home together, and are said to be living in some parts of the Rocky Mountains now. Dagwanoenyent is living still. [[491]]