And this, O White Brother, is the story of the fool who walked for the moon!
VIII
THE WHITE WAKUNDA
HE was the son of Sky-Walker’s oldest squaw and he was born in the time when the lone goose flies (February). It was a very bitter winter, so that many years after the old men spoke of it as “the winter of the big snows.”
Sky-Walker, his father, was a seer of great visions, and he had a power that was more than the power of strong arms. He was a thunder man, and he could make rain.
And when Sky-Walker’s oldest squaw bore a son there was much wonder in the village, for she was far past her summer and the frost had already fallen on her hair. Also, she was lean and wrinkled.
So the old men and women came to the lodge of Sky-Walker and looked upon the newborn child. They looked and they shook their heads, for the child was not as a child should be. He was no bigger than a baby coyote littered in a terrible winter after a summer of famine. He was not fat.
“He can never be a waschuscha [brave],” said one old man; “I have seen many zhinga zhingas [babies] who grew strong, but they were not like this one. He will carry wood and water.”