[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.