One summer morning a beautiful girl called Feather-woman, who had been sleeping outside her lodge among the long prairie grass, awoke just as the Morning Star was rising above the horizon. She gazed intently at it, and so beautiful did it seem that she fell deeply in love with it. She awakened her sister, who was lying beside her, and declared to her that she would marry nobody but the Morning Star. The people of her tribe ridiculed her because of what they considered her absurd preference; so she avoided them as much as possible, and wandered alone, eating her heart out in secret for love of the Morning Star, who seemed to her unapproachable.
One day she went alone to the river for water, and as she returned she beheld a young man standing before her. At first she took him for one of the young men of the tribe, and would have avoided him, but he said:
"I am the Morning Star. I beheld you gazing upward at me, and knew that you loved me. I returned your love, and have descended to ask you to go with me to my dwelling in the sky."
Feather-woman trembled violently, for she knew that he who spoke to her was a god, and replied hesitatingly that she must bid farewell to her father and mother. But this Morning Star would not permit. He took a rich yellow plume from his hair and directed her to hold this in one hand, while she held a juniper branch in the other. Then he commanded her to close her eyes, and when she opened them again she was in the Sky-country, standing before a great and shining lodge. Morning Star told her that this was the home of his parents, the Sun and Moon, and requested her to enter. It was daytime, so that the Sun was away on his diurnal round, but the Moon was at home. She welcomed Feather-woman as the wife of her son, as did the Sun himself when he returned. The Moon clothed her in a soft robe of buckskin, trimmed with elks' teeth. Feather-woman was very happy, and dwelt contentedly in the lodge or Morning Star. They had a little son, whom they called Star-boy. The Moon gave Feather-woman a root-digger, and told her that she could dig up all kinds of roots, but warned her on no account to dig up the large turnip which grew near the home of the Spider Man, telling her that it would bring unhappiness to all of them if she did so.
The Great Turnip
Feather-woman often saw the large turnip, but always avoided touching it. One day, however, her curiosity got the better of her, and she was tempted to see what might be underneath it. She laid her little son on the ground and dug until her root-digger stuck fast. Two large cranes came flying overhead. She begged these to help her. They did so, and sang a magic song which enabled them to uproot the turnip.
Now, although she was unaware of it, this very turnip filled up the hole through which Morning Star had brought her into the Sky-country. Gazing downward, she saw the camp of the Blackfeet where she had lived. The smoke was ascending from the lodges, she could hear the song of the women as they went about their work. The sight made her homesick and lonely, and as she went back to her lodge she cried softly to herself. When she arrived Morning Star gazed earnestly at her, and said with a sorrowful expression of countenance: "You have dug up the sacred turnip."
The Moon and Sun were also troubled, and asked her the meaning of her sadness, and when she had told them they said that as she had disobeyed their injunction she must return to earth. Morning Star took her to the Spider Man, who let her down to earth by a web, and the people beheld her coming to earth like a falling star.