90. Bald Eagle Sends Mud Turtle Around the World
A bald-headed old man lived on the top of a mountain, while his wife, who had three children, lived near a lake about half the way to the summit. It was the old man’s daily custom to go down to fish in the lake. On his way home he gave some fish to his wife, and thus they lived well and prosperously.
After he had lived in this way many years, the old man became curious to know how large the world is. Being the chief of his people, having called a council, he said to the people: “I should like to know the size of the world, and I wish some one would volunteer to go and get this information.” One young man said, “I will go.” “All right,” answered the old man; “how long will you be gone?” “I can not tell, for I do not know how far I shall have to go,” was the answer of the young man. “Go on,” said the old man; “and when you return, tell us all about your journey.”
The young man started on his journey, and after traveling two months he came to a country where everything was white—the forests, the ground, the water, and the grasses. He could not go farther. It hurt his feet to walk on the white substance, so he turned back. On returning home he sent word to the chief, who said, “I do not believe he has been around the world, but we shall hold a council and hear what he has to say.” The council was held, at which the young [[451]]man said that he had not gone very far, but that he had proceeded as far as he was able, and he told all he knew about the White Country.
The people, not satisfied with his relation, said, “We must send another man”; so they despatched a second man, who was gone four months before he returned. The old man again called a council, at which he asked him, “Did you go around the world?” “No, but I went as far as I was able,” answered the man. “Everything was as it is here until I came to the White Country. I traveled two months in the White Country and could go no farther. I could not have lived if I had gone on.”
So the people sent a third man, who went on until he reached the White Country, where he traveled longer than the second man. On coming back he reported that the people there lived in white houses and dressed in furs (looking like the animals).
Encouraged by this, the old man sent a fourth man, who went on, noticing everything, until he came to the White Country, whereupon he crossed white rivers and white lakes, keeping on the run. He was gone eight months. He said, “I returned more quickly than I went, for in coming home I cut across in a straight line, reaching the green land sooner than if I had come on the road by which I went.”
The old chief now sent a fifth messenger, who ran nearly all the time. He crossed the White Country and beyond found a place where there was nothing but rocks, rocks, rocks. He had to climb very high and then go down; so he went up and down until he wore off all his moccasins. After being gone ten months he came back. At a council called by the old man this fifth man said: “I have passed over the whole country and have crossed rocky places. In returning I came straight home. The route was not quite so long as the road by which I went. It can not be very far across the world.” “How did you know the way?” asked the old man. “Oh! I took notice of the trees. The tops of the hemlocks lean toward the east, and our home is in that direction, so I followed the bend of the hemlocks,” was the man’s reply.
The old man, the bald-headed chief, was learning something all the time. Various people went, one after another; each came back with a story slightly different from those told by the others, but still no one satisfied the chief until one man said: “I will start and will go around the world before I return.” The old man looked at him; he was very uncouth but strong. The chief said: “I think you will do, and you may go.” Thereupon the man went home to his people, who held a council of their entire tribe. Each one of their best travelers agreed to make a journey by himself in a different direction, and afterward to come home and tell all he had seen to the one who had promised the bald-headed man to go around the world. So the man and his whole tribe journeyed for forty months. At the end of this [[452]]period they returned, and, at a council, each told what he had seen. Then the old man whom the chief had sent out announced his return. The chief called a great council, before which the man appeared, telling all that he had seen himself and all that each one of his nation had seen and related to him. He finished with the words: “I have been all around the world; I have seen all kinds of people, all kinds of game, all kinds of woods and rivers. I have seen things which no one else has ever seen.”
The old bald-headed man was satisfied. “Now I am chief of all people, and you will be next to me. You will be second chief.” This was the reward the man got for his journey. So he immediately took his position as second chief.
The old chief was the Bald Eagle. The man who became the second chief was the Mud Turtle. The first man who went out was the Deer; his feet could not stand the ice of the White Land. All the others were different kinds of people (animals and birds).
91. The Poor Hunter and Djogeon[373]
Once there was a man who went hunting every autumn. In order to have better luck he was in the habit of taking medicine and emetics for 10 days before he started. The medicine he employed was made from the bark of various trees. Notwithstanding this long preparation by fasting and medication, he was not a successful hunter. For this reason he was accustomed to carry a heavy load of parched cornmeal, so that if he killed no game he would at least not starve to death.
When starting out one day he passed on the outskirts of the village a lodge in which an old woman and her granddaughter lived. As he passed, the granddaughter was standing outside the lodge, and when she saw him coming she shrugged her shoulders, saying, “Hu, hu! there goes a poor hunter.” Running into the lodge she told her grandmother that “All-kinds-of-trees” had just gone past, giving him a nickname which derided his medicines, which were made from the bark of “all kinds of trees.” But the grandmother chided her, saying, “Why do you make fun of him? He is a good man—the best in this village. He keeps on hunting, no matter whether he kills anything or not. I wish he were your husband.” The young woman answered, “If you say so, I can go with him.” Her grandmother told her that she would better go. So they made bread in great haste, and when it was ready they put it in a basket, which the girl placed on her back; then she followed the trail of the man. When night overtook her she lay down beside a log to sleep. She had not been there long before she heard some one at a distance calling in a pleasant voice. As the sound of the voice approached the girl became [[453]]frightened. Shortly Djogeon came up to her, saying, laughingly, “Ha, ha! There is Gadata[374] sleeping, and she is following the trail of a very poor hunter. Get up. Do not sleep. Your man is near here, and you should go to meet him.” But the girl, covering her face, kept quite still. He shook her, called her names, and teased her in all manner of ways to seduce her, but without result. When daylight came he ran away. Thereupon Gadata arose, and after making a cold bite do for breakfast, she again took up the trail. Just as she had been told, she found the camp of the hunter not far from the spot where she had slept the night before. When the hunter saw her, he said to her, “Are you following me?” She replied, “Yes. My grandmother told me that I should try to become your wife, as she said you are a good man.” He then welcomed her, and they went on together. At midday he ate some of the bread which the young woman had brought, and in the afternoon he killed a deer. After this he had very good luck at all times, for he had a wife.
One day while he was hunting he saw a small lodge, whereupon he said to himself, “How strange it is that I never before saw this lodge.” On entering a small woman welcomed him and gave him a bowlful of fine green-corn hominy. While he was eating it he saw a wee, tiny baby. Seizing the infant and placing it in his bosom, he ran away with it, the little woman pursuing him. Immediately there was a tempest. The wind twisted trees and tore them up by the roots, sending them flying through the air in every direction. Gripped with great fear, the hunter now thought that he was surely about to die. As he was running past a fallen tree a small man, springing upon it (it was he who had tormented Gadata), called out to the hunter, “You have stolen my baby. Give it back to me at once.” The hunter stopped, saying, “Yes, I stole it because I never saw before anything so pretty. Here it is—take it.” So saying, he handed it back to the little man, who was Djogeon. Then Djogeon carefully unwrapped the baby, and taking a tiny arrow from among its wrappings, gave it to the hunter, saying to him: “Take this and keep it. It will bring you good fortune and success in all your undertakings—in hunting, in warfare, or in any other pursuit.” As soon as the hunter had returned the baby, the tempest ceased and the winds calmed down. Then the hunter returned to his home with his wife and always after this episode had the best of fortune.
92. The Man Killed by the Three Hunters[375]
A man with his wife and child lived happily together in a village. One day the man said to his little family, “We will start off to the woods tomorrow to hunt.” They set out the next day and were two days and nights on the road. Having reached their destination, they [[454]]built a fire, and the man started off hunting, telling his wife to boil samp and that he would be back in time to put meat with it. He went up a stream and came back in time with game. Having cut up some of the meat, his wife put it with the samp. About dusk supper was ready and they ate heartily. The man continued to hunt every day, killing one to three deer, and also bear, so they soon had a great deal of dried venison and bear meat, whereupon the man said, “We shall soon have plenty of meat.”
One night he said that he dreamed there were other hunters near by who could kill nothing. Now this man had four dogs. One day he met a man who said that he could kill nothing; that he had three companions who could find no game in the wood; and that the three had nothing to eat. Another day the man met the same three hunters in the woods. They asked him whether he would not give them some meat, something to eat. “No; I will not,” said he; “I have told my wife that we would stay long enough to get a sufficient quantity of meat. I have nothing to give away.” So saying, he went home.
The next morning his wife went for a load of wood, leaving her child in a swing in the lodge. When she returned she heard somebody talking to her baby. She was frightened at this, for she thought it must be Genonsgwa. The words were, “You look very sweet to me.” On going in, the mother saw a large naked woman sitting by the swinging cradle, who said: “I know just what you thought when you heard me singing. You gave yourself up for lost. I am not going to harm you. I came in to get something to eat. Perhaps you would give me some meat.” She replied, “I will give you some, for you seem very kind and good.” With these words she took two or three pieces of meat from the side of the lodge, saying, “I will cook them for you.” “No,” said the naked woman; “I will eat the meat as it is.” After eating three hams of venison she asked for more, “For,” said she, “I eat a great deal when I get started.” When she had eaten enough, she said, “I have finished now. I shall go and come again.” The woman watched her as she went out, saying to herself, “That woman looks very savage.” The naked woman, turning to her, said, “I am Genonsgwa.” When he came the woman told her husband what had happened.
Early the next morning her husband went hunting. At night the dogs began to bark and became terribly frightened. The husband said, “I think that Genonsgwa is going to come and kill us. You would better go home with the child.” “I will stay with you and will be killed, if necessary,” replied the woman. She begged her husband to go with her, but he said, “No; I will stay and save our meat.” Then he heard the bushes around the lodge breaking and a wind blowing down the smoke-hole. [[455]]
The next night they heard something again coming nearer and nearer, and the dogs were greatly frightened. Then a face looked down through the smoke-hole from the top of the lodge—the face of one of the three hunters. Making a hole through the bark wall of the lodge, the man said to his wife, “Creep through and escape,” but she did not want to go. The dogs began to bark at a distance on the side opposite the hole in the wall, coming closer to the lodge, and again he told his wife to creep through the hole and hurry away on a side trail. Having done so, she started off with the baby on her back. She went on, and by and by she heard a dog howl. The dog, coming up to her, said, “Your husband is killed.” Keeping on a little way farther, she heard a second dog making a noise as though dying. The first dog said, “Go on as fast as you can; save yourself.” Only two dogs were left now. The woman remembered a place through which they had come on the way to the woods—a hollow log—but she feared that when the men came up they might run a stick into it, causing the baby to cry. Next day she climbed a hemlock tree, hiding herself and the child in its branches. She said to the little one, “Now you must be good and keep quiet.” After the woman had become somewhat rested, she saw the three men coming with loads of meat on their backs, engaged in talking about how they got the good venison. They stopped under the hemlock tree in which the woman and her baby were resting. While the men were lying below the child made water, whereupon the woman, thinking how she could save herself and the little one, caught the water in her hands and drank it. One drop, however, fell on a man directly beneath her, at which he said, “There must be a hedgehog in this tree; we will cut it down in the morning.” At daylight one of the hunters said, “Let us go on.” When they were out of sight, the woman, coming down from the tree, went homeward.
On the way the mother said to her child, “You have now no father, poor baby.” When she was near home she saw that there was a light there. The three men, having parted, went to their homes. The woman hurried on, crying, Goʹweh! goʹweh! meaning that a man had been killed. The people who heard the cry hurried to meet her. She told everything. Taking her home, they put her in her lodge. An old man came to the lodge and asked, “Are you telling the truth?” “Yes,” she replied. “Well, we will have a dance,” said he, “and call the neighbors together. You must hide so that nobody will see you.” He hung up a blanket in a corner of the Long Lodge, and when the people were coming in she hid behind it. When the people were dancing one of the three hunters came with blood on his clothes, while the other two had blood on their backs. The old man said to them, “Your backs are all bloody.” “Yes; we are good hunters,” they replied; then they danced a while—[[456]]the women first, then the men. After fastening the door the old man asked the three men about their hunting. He said they should dance once more, and then they would talk a little. All felt free and happy, and one of the three men was talking pretty loud. The people danced again, and having finished, sat around a while. Then the old man said, “I will ask these three men whether they are free of crimes during their absence.” They replied, “We are; we hunted all the time.” Thereupon the old man brought out the woman, who told all. The old man next called on the warriors present to kill these three men, and they did so, afterward scalping them one after another. Then the people, going to the lodge in the woods, brought home the body of the dead man in a robe.
93. Hinon[376] and the Iroquois
In olden times there was in a certain village an orphan lad, who had always been regarded as a very peculiar child by all his friends. He was, moreover, without relatives and very destitute, so he was cared for largely by the kindness of the people in general.
The boy seemed to know intuitively many things that other and older people did not know, and it was a custom for him to bring up and talk about many mysterious topics. Quite often when it rained he would say that he could see Hinon walking about in the clouds above their heads, and he would ask those who might be near him whether they, too, did not see Hinon, at the same time pointing him out to them.
At last the orphan requested the people to be so good as to make him an arrow of red willow and also a bow, assuring them that he would shoot Hinon. So they made him a bow and an arrow out of red willow. One day, while standing in the doorway of the bark lodge which he called his home, during a passing storm he suddenly shot at Hinon, the arrow swiftly winging its way into the clouds. Soon the people saw it come down near a large tree some distance from the lodge. Rushing to see it, they found it sticking in the ground, but there was no man nor other object near it; but they could not pull the arrow from the ground, no matter how much they tried. Thereupon, returning to the boy, they told him what they had discovered, and that they could not draw his arrow from the ground. As an answer to them he accompanied them back to the tree and, taking hold of the arrow, drew it forth without trouble; but as he did so there appeared the body of a dead human being, which had been shot through the heart by his arrow. It was the body of a small person, not more than four or five feet in height, beautifully ornamented with the finest feathers they had ever seen. The people constructed a neat little lodge of bark, which they lined [[457]]with fine skins and furs. In this they carefully and reverently laid the body of the strange personage. From time to time they would go to this lodge to view the body. When they were going to war they would take two or three feathers from his arms, in the belief that these would secure them success. If they wished for rain, they had only to carry these feathers along after dipping them in water. All their trails were obscured in this manner. The people kept this body many years, and the feathers served them during this time; but after the advent of the whites these Indians, being driven from their home in the south (North Carolina), lost both the body and the feathers.