In the evening, when the Sun and Moon were together in the heavens, the Sun said: “I shall do something to No-Tongue, some way.” The Moon heard the Sun say this. Then the Sun said to the Moon: “Just see what my son No-Tongue has done; he burned my back. To-morrow morning I am going to scalp him, so the people in the village will be afraid to see him, and so they will make fun of him.”
Then the Moon went to No-Tongue in the night, and said: “My son, you always like to be up early in the morning, singing. I want you to get a good scalp to-night—one that has hair, just like this. Then kill a dog and get some of its blood, put the blood inside the scalp, and put the false scalp over your head so your hair will not show.”
The boy got the scalp with the hair on it, killed a dog, put some of the blood in the scalp and hung it over his bed. Early in the morning, before the Sun rose, the boy arose, put the scalp over his head, went out, and sang some songs through the village. As the Sun came up in the east the boy heard a noise, and the Sun took the scalp off from the boy, so that the blood ran down. When the Sun saw that he was satisfied. The boy went into the lodge, washed, came out again, and the Sun saw that the boy had hair on, and that he was not really scalped. When the Sun reached the Moon he told him that he was going to let No-Tongue alone until he was old and great, and that he was then going to take him up to his home.
The Moon came to No-Tongue and told him what the Sun, his father, had said. Years went by, and No-Tongue lived peacefully. Finally he became old and blind. At this time the people were about to move away from this place to another place. The Moon came and told old man No-Tongue that it was time his father, the Sun, was coming after him to take him up to his home; and that he himself would come with the Sun to take him up; that he should not be afraid.
While they were breaking camp the old man took his clothes that he used to wear in his early days, and put them on. He also painted himself. He told the people to go on; that he himself would come later. The people went on. The old man went up on the top of a hill, made a circle of red sticks to represent the Sun, and another of white sticks, to represent the Moon, for the west side. While he was doing this the Sun and Moon came. The Sun wanted to know what the Moon was doing there. No-Tongue said, “My father, the Moon is also my father; he has helped me all along.” So the Sun was satisfied, and the Sun took the old man up to his home.
Several days afterwards, four young men went to the place where the old man had sat, and he was gone. The sticks were there as he had left them, but No-Tongue was gone. He was never heard from or seen again after that. He was called “No-Tongue,” for the Sun had taken his tongue, but after he had failed to kill him, he gave him back his tongue.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Told by Standing-Bull.