Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales / With notes on the origin, customs and character of the Pawnee people

by George Bird Grinnell

At last, after he had visited all the council lodges of the Nahu´rac, the bird flew swiftly back to the lodge at Pa-hŭk´, and told them there what the animals at the other lodges had said. In the council of the Nahu´rac at Pa-hŭk´, there were four chiefs, who sat there as judges to determine such matters as this, after they had all been talked over, and to decide what should be done. When the messenger bird came back, and told the Nahu´rac what the other councils had said, these judges considered for a time, and then spoke together, and at length the chief of the judges said to the bird, “Now, messenger, we have concluded that we will not decide this question ourselves. You decide it, and say what shall be done.”

The messenger was not long in deciding. He did not hesitate. He said, “I want this boy brought back to life.” Then all the Nahu´rac stood up, and went to where the boy lay, and stood around him and prayed, and at last the boy breathed once, and then after a little while he breathed again, and at last he came to life and sat up. He looked about and saw all these animals standing around him, and he wondered. He said to himself, “Why, my father stabbed me, and killed me, and now here I am among this great crowd of animals. What does this mean?” He was surprised.

The Nahu´rac all went back into the lodge, and took the boy with them. When all were seated in the lodge, the four judges talked to each other, and the chief one stood up, and said, “Now, my people, we have brought this boy back to life, but he is poor, and we must do something for him. Let us teach him all we know, and make him one of us.” Then the Nahu´rac all made a noise. They were glad. Then they began to sing and they danced. They taught the boy all their secrets, and all their ways. They taught him how to cut a man open and cure him again, and how to shoot an arrow through a man and then cure him, and how to cut a man’s tongue out and then to put it back, and how to make well a broken leg, and many other things. After they had done all these things, they said to the boy, “Now we have brought you back to life, and have taught you all these things, so that you are one of us. Now you must stop with us one season. Your people have gone off on the summer hunt. You must stay with us until the autumn. Then you can go back to your people.” So the boy stayed with the Nahu´rac in their lodge.

At length the Skidi had returned from the hunt with plenty of dried meat. Soon after this, the Nahu´rac said one day to the boy, “Your people have got back from the hunt. Now you can go back to the village. Go back and get a lot of nice dried meat, and bring it back to us here, and we will have a feast.”

The boy went home to the village. He got there in the night, and went to his father’s lodge, and went in. There was a little fire burning in the lodge. It was nearly out, and gave only a little light, but he knew the place where his mother slept. He went up to her, and put out his hand and touched her, and pushed her a little. She awoke, and sat up and looked at him, and he said, “I’ve come back.” When she saw him, and heard him speak, she was very much surprised, and her heart was glad to see her boy again. She called to his father, and he woke up. When he saw the boy he was afraid, for he thought it was a ghost. The boy told them nothing of what had happened, or where he had been. He just said, “I have come back again.”

In the morning all the people were surprised to hear that he had come back, and to see him, and they stood around looking at him, and asking him questions, but he said nothing. The next day the people still questioned him, and at last the boy said, “I have been all summer with friends, with people who have been good to me. I should like to take them a present of some nice dried meat, so that we can have a feast.” The people said that this was good. They picked out four strong horses, and loaded them with dried meat, the nicest pieces. The boy’s father gave some of it, and all the other people brought pieces and put them on the horses, until they had big loads. They sent two young men with the boy, to help him load and drive the horses, and they started to go to the Nahu´rac lodge at Pa-hŭk´.

When they had come pretty near the place, the boy sent the young men back to the village, and he went on alone, driving the pack-horses before him. When he reached the home of the Nahu´rac, he unloaded the horses, and turned them loose, and then went into the lodge. When he went in, and when the Nahu´rac saw him, they all made a hissing noise. They were glad to see him. The boy brought into the lodge all the dried meat, and they had a great feast. After the feast they had a doctors’ dance, and the boy was made a doctor, and again was taught all that the Nahu´rac knew. After that he could do many wonderful things. He could sometimes go to a man that had been dead for a day, and then bring him back to life.

No one ever knew what the father had done, for the boy never told any one. He knew that he could never have learned all these wonderful things unless his father had sacrificed him.

FLESHERS.