In olden times when the Arikara lived in a village, there was a man who had a beautiful woman. This woman gave birth to a baby boy. One time when the child was about five years old the father went off on a hunt. While he was gone another young man, who was very handsome came and courted the woman. She liked the young man and did as he wanted her to do. They loved one another so much that they finally agreed that they would find a plan whereby either they could get rid of the husband or the woman would feign sickness and death. If she pretended to be dead she was to be placed upon an arbor instead of being buried; so the woman feigned sickness when her husband came home. She pretended to die, and they placed her upon an arbor. Her lover killed three dogs, skinned them, took the dogs up to the arbor and untied the girl. The dogs were placed upon the arbor, so that when the dog meat decayed it would smell. The young man brought leggings, moccasins, blankets, and beads, and in these the girl dressed as a boy. Her breast was tied with wide strings, so that not much of it appeared. They went off to another village, which was about four miles from the original village, where they lived happily. The young woman passed herself for a young man from the other village.
After they had stayed a long time in the village the woman grew anxious to see her child, so they painted up as men, and went and sat upon a rock that was by a spring. There they watched for the child to come to get water. One day the woman’s boy came to get water from the spring, and she recognized him. After she had seen the boy she wanted to take him up in her arms, but the young man said, “No!” The woman insisted, and said, “He will not find me out.” They went closer, and when the boy came where they were standing by the tree the woman spoke to her boy, and said, “Boy, will you let me drink out of your bucket.” The boy looked at the woman for a long time. He went into his lodge and told his father that he had seen his mother. The father would not believe it, but the boy said, “There are two people standing yonder, and one of them is my mother.”
The father thought, to make sure that it was true, that he would send for them. He had some dried buffalo meat boiled, and sent an invitation for the two young men to come and eat in his lodge. In the meantime he had sharpened a long knife and placed it under the meat. “Now,” he said, “if it is true that that woman is not a man, but my wife, I will find out. There are two things she is to do when she enters the lodge. First, when she enters and steps over the ridge inside of the lodge, he will step forward as he steps; and if she is a female she will step over the ridge with her foot sidewise. The second thing is, when they have eaten and when I offer them the pipe to smoke, I shall know she is a female if the person refuses to smoke.”
The two young men were sent for. They came, and the real young man entered the lodge, and stepped over the ridge straight forward, while the next young man, instead of walking straight forward like the first, moved her leg over sidewise. By this the husband knew that the person was not a man. He let them eat, and after they had eaten, the man filled the pipe and gave it to them. When the female took the pipe, instead of trying to smoke she put the pipe up to her mouth, and instead of drawing the smoke she blew into the pipe. The husband now took out his knife, and said: “I wanted to find you out. You are my wife.” The woman screamed, and asked him to forgive her, saying she would live with him and try to be a good woman. The young man ran away. But the husband was angry, and said: “You are dead to me any way, but rather than that your breasts be tied down to make you look like a man I will cut them off, so that your breasts will be smooth.” The husband took his knife out and cut her breasts off. The woman ran and fell at the entrance and died. She was taken up by her people and buried. The man went to the place where he supposed he had laid his wife, and there were three dead dogs. He knew by this that the two had played a trick on him. The girl’s parents never said anything, but they were glad that the woman was dead. Nothing more was said about it.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] Told by Young-Hawk.
68. THE WATER-DOGS.[69]
Once there was a young man who slept outside of the lodge. He heard dogs bark at night, and as it was moonlight he saw a dog coming out of the river carrying her little ones in her mouth, one at a time, into the hills, to a spring. This young man saw the water-dog carrying its young ones. His name was Poor-Bear. He died shortly after he saw the dogs. At another time an old woman went to get some water out of the river, at or about the same place the water-dogs were seen. As she stooped to dip the water up she heard the dogs chattering in the water. She became frightened. She went home with the water and told the story. She became sick and died shortly afterward.
These water-dogs are supposed to be very powerful in killing people. They are hardly ever seen by people, and when they are seen the person who sees them generally dies.