The next day they killed a good many ducks. When the aunt came toward them the boy said to his little brother: “Don’t scream.” But when the head looked up over the edge of the canoe the child couldn’t help screaming.
“Why does he always scream?” asked the grandmother. “You must be careful when you are down by the water.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the earth sometimes has a pain, and wants people.”
“Don’t be afraid, grandmother, we belong to the earth; it won’t hurt us.”
One day when the grandmother asked why the little boy screamed, his brother said: “He got choked with a bone. I got it out, but he was almost dead, and I cried.” [[106]]
“You must leave him at home.”
“No, the water looks ugly. I’m afraid when I’m alone.”
The next time Tekewas came to the canoe and tried to tip it over, the boy cut her head off with his sharp knife. He threw the head down in the end of the canoe, then dragged the body into a deep hole among the rocks in the water. The water around that place is Tekewas’ blood, and to this day it is as black as ink. As they pushed the body down into the hole, the elder boy said to it: “You will never be great again. You will be small and weak, and people will say you are too nasty to eat.” The spirit came out of the body and flew around the lake, an ugly bird.
The brothers shot ducks and piled them up on the head in the end of the canoe. When they got home, the elder boy said: “Grandmother, give us plenty of seeds and roots to eat.” While they were eating, the old woman began to bring in the ducks. Each time she went for a load, the elder brother talked to the fire, to the water, to the wood, to the bows and arrows, talked to the pounder, to the basket, and to the digging sticks, talked to everything in the house and everything outside, told them not to tell where he and his brother went,—but he forgot to tell awl. When he thought he had told everything, he took his brother and went down in the ground near the fire. He put a coal over the hole and started toward the east.