The old man was exceedingly angry and yelled out, “You shoot the bear, not me.” The boy shot the bear and the old man slid down the tree. “You fool,” he yelled, “so you were going to shoot me!”
“You told me to shoot right there, grandfather,” pleaded the boy, “and I wanted to obey for I thought you knew best.”
“No, I meant the bear,” retorted the old hunter. “Now we will cut him up.” So they dressed the bear.
Now it is customary to call the pancreas, the oskwi´sont (tomahawk); the diaphragm the o’kăā (skirt); the fat around the kidneys the face (ogon’´sa’), and the ventral portion (oho´a), door. So the old man said, “I have placed the door, the tomahawk, the false face and the skirt aside. Go home and cook them for me and I will return. Split a stick and put the tomahawk in it and put it in the fire. When it snaps yell ‘Hai-ie’ and I will come.”
Now the grandfather busied himself cutting up the bear and cutting its meat into strips and chunks. He also prepared its skin. Then he was ready to go home. He glanced at the log where he had laid the organs and found them still there. “I wonder what blunder the boy has made now,” he mused and took them with him to the lodge. When he arrived there he found that the stupid orphan had torn the door from its fastenings and had split it into pieces. Moreover the boy was running around the lodge yelling, “Hai-ie!” Inside the old man saw his best stone tomahawk in the fire. It was red hot and when a draft of air struck it it would snap and every time it did the boy would whoop, “Hai-ie!” In a cauldron a false face, a breech skirt and the splinters of the door were boiling.
“It is too hot within!” explained the boy. “Hai-ie!” he paused to say as the tomahawk snapped. “It’s too hot, so I am watching outside and—hai-ie!”
The patience of the long suffering grandfather was exhausted and he said some things that the boy thought himself much aggrieved for he said, “Why did you not tell me what you meant?”
The grandfather took matters in his own hand and cooked the meal. The time was at hand also when he must notify his charge that by right of birth he was a chief and that on the morrow he must commence his duties as a runner. The next day the old man with due solemnity told the boy that he was a secondary chief. “We will have a great feast,” he said. “I want you to run and notify all the tall trees (Gai´esons), all the rough places (Ain´djatgi), all the swamps (Gain´dagon), and all the high hills (Gai´nonde). When you return do not fail to ‘jounce your uncle on your knee’ (esĕn´sĕnt’o’).”
Now the young chief thought this peculiar but he found tall trees in plenty and invited them all to the feast, likewise he invited the mountains and the swamps and returning gave his uncle a kick that knocked him down. The uncle immediately did the same thing to the impudent boy who ran rather lamely back to his grandfather. The old man listened to the tale with impatience and then explained that the ‘tall trees’ were the sachems, the ‘mountains’ the war chiefs, and the ‘swamps’ the common warriors. By ‘uncle’ he meant the relatives of the family and by ‘jouncing with his knee’ simply to notify them. “Oh,” gasped the boy, “why do you never say what you mean!” Of course he had the work to do all over and the feast came in due season. When it was over the boy said, “Grandfather, there is meat left and soup also.”
“Well,” said the grandfather, “give each one half a spoon.”[[27]]