A woman had two children, a boy and a girl. She lived with them at Yáni.
The mother gave the boy dry red roots to eat, but she always fed the little girl fresh white roots; for herself she pounded seeds. The boy was jealous. One day, when his mother was digging roots, he said to his sister: “Let us go and play. I am lonesome here.”
While they were playing, he kept saying to the little girl: “Our mother loves you better than she does me.”
His sister said: “No, she doesn’t; but I am little.” The boy wouldn’t give up; he kept saying: “Our mother loves you better than she does me.”
At last the girl said: “I don’t want to play any longer; I want to go back to the house.”
“All right,” said the boy, “but we will stay where we can see mother.”
When they got to the house, he told his sister to sit where she could look out, then he began to sing: “Nénûm, nénûm!” (Up, up!) After a while he asked: “What is our mother doing?” [[277]]
The girl said: “She is down by the pond digging roots and putting them in her basket.”
Again the boy sang: “Nénûm, nénûm!” then he said: “Look again. What is our mother doing now?”
“She is putting the basket on her back.”