The otter was sleeping when she returned. She proceeded to clean the fish and put on a large kettle full of the fish to boil for supper. She then crept into bed with her husband, and the next morning she was delivered of a young otter and a young wolf. After the father and mother had taken their breakfast the latter sat with her head hanging down and seemed to be in a miserable mood. The otter inquired of the wife wolf, “What is the matter with you that you sit so quietly?” The wolf answered: “I wish I had some deerskins with which to make clothing for the children. How nicely I should dress them!” The otter replied: “Open the door and I will show you where I get the deer.” It was yet early, and the otter went away to seek the deer. The otter saw a band of thirty deer, but had no gun with which to kill them, so he frightened them, and as they were running away he sprang at them each, and jumped through them from end to end. He killed all of them in this manner and then rolled in the snow to cleanse himself. After that was done he wended his way home, and on arriving informed his wife (for it was then a little after sunset) that on the morrow she should go to bring home the deer he had killed, adding that she could follow his track, and thus find them. The wife had a big pot of fish cooked for him when he returned, and when he had finished his supper he went to bed. As soon as the wife suspected her husband to be asleep she went after the deer, and by hauling four at a time she soon had them all brought, and laid them before the tent. When that was finished she went to bed. In the morning the otter told her to get up and make a fire, as she would have to go for the carcasses of the deer which he had killed the day before. The wife replied: “I have already brought them all home.” The otter asked her: “How could you bring them home in the dark?” The wife answered: “Look out through the door if you do not believe me.” The otter looked and saw the thirty deer all piled up before the door. He turned and looked at his wife, but made no remark. The wolf asked him: “Why do you look at me, so hard?” The otter said: “I was wondering how you could get them home in such a short time.” The wolf said: “Come, and take your breakfast, for you will have to help me skin the deer.” After they had finished eating their breakfast they began to skin the deer, and soon had them done. The wolf told her husband to make a stage or scaffold for the meat, adding that she would clean the skins. The otter prepared the stage, which in a short time was completed. The meat was placed on the stage and the skins hung up to dry around the tent. They then went in to take their supper. The wife was not in a talkative mood, and soon went to bed. The next morning the wolf hung her head down, and the otter seeing her again in such mood, inquired what was the matter with her that she should be so quiet. The wolf replied: “I am thinking of my poor father and mother and brothers; I suppose they will all be starved to death. My old father told me to tell you to put a mark on the middle of the lake so they would know where I am.” The otter went to the middle of the lake and erected a pile as a mark by which the wolf’s relations should know it. The brothers of the otter’s wife were on the hill looking for the mark set up by their sister’s husband, and when they saw it they exclaimed: “Our sister has saved us! our sister has saved us!” and ran back to their old father’s home to give him the joyful intelligence that they had seen the mark put up by the husband of their sister. The old wolf then told his family that they would go and seek their sister and daughter to live with her and her husband. They all went to the hill by the lake, and from the top of it they saw the mark, and from it they followed the track of the otter until they saw the tent in the edge of the woods. They exclaimed: “There is our sister’s tent, for the deerskins are hanging outside.” They raised such a joyful shout at the prospect before them, that the noise frightened some young otters (for the family had now become larger) which were playing outside. The little ones scampered in and hid themselves behind their father’s back. The father inquired, “What is the matter, that you are so frightened?” The little ones replied: “We are running from the Hunger” (for that was the name they applied to the wolves). The mother replied: “Perhaps they see my father, mother, and brothers coming.” The otter told his wife to go out and see. She complied, and when she opened the door they saw a row of gaunt wolves; nothing but skin and bones. The newcomers immediately fell to, and began to devour the meat which was on the stage. The otter’s wife remonstrated, and said: “Do not be so greedy; my husband is not a stingy man. I take my meals when he is sleeping, and pretend not to eat much during the day.” They all went into the tent and the otter soon went to bed. When they thought he was asleep, they began to eat all the raw meat and fish, and soon finished it. In the morning when the otter had awakened, he remarked to his wife: “I think your brothers will make a fool of me.” The wife asked: “What makes you think so?” The otter replied: “They look at me so hard, that I do not know where to turn my eyes.” After breakfast the otter and his wolf brothers went away to look for deer. They soon came upon a band of them, and the otter told the wolves to go and kill them. The wolves ran after the deer, but got only one of them. After the deer were frightened by the wolves, the otter sprang after the deer and soon killed every one of them in the same manner he had killed the others. He then cleaned himself in the dry snow and returned home. The wolves had started for the tent before the otter, so when the latter returned they asked the otter: “How many deer did you kill?” The otter replied: “I killed all that were in the band,” adding, “In the morning you will have to go for the deer.” So everything was got ready for an early start and they all retired to bed. When they awakened in the morning, one of the wife’s brothers said to another: “Look at our otter brother; he has a white mouth.” The otter turned to his wife and said to her: “Did I not tell you that your brothers would make a fool of me?” The otter then took his two otter children in his arms, and told his wife that she would have to make her living as best she could, as he would not live with her any more, that he was going away to leave her. He darted off to the lake, and disappeared under the ice, and was never seen again.
[ The devil punishing a liar.—]
A bear (mackwh) had two young cubs which she did not want to let know that summer had come, but kept them in the den and would not let them go out. The young ones continually inquired if the summer had come, and repeated the question every time the mother returned from the outside. She invariably answered, “No.” Some days after she fell asleep, when she had returned from one of her trips, and while sleeping her mouth opened wide. The young ones said to each other: “Surely the summer is come, for there are green leaves in our mother’s mouth.” The mother had told her children how beautiful was the summer time, how green the trees, how juicy the plants, and how sweet the berries; so the cubs, impatient, while longing for summer that they might enjoy what was outside of their den, knew by the leaves in their mother’s mouth that she had deceived them. The older cub told the younger that they would slip out at the top of the den and go out while their mother was yet sleeping. They crept out and found the weather so fine and the surroundings so pleasant that they wandered some distance off by the time she wakened from her sleep. She ran out and called loudly for her children, seemingly surprised, and exclaimed: “My sons, the summer has come; the summer has come.” The cubs hid when they heard their mother’s voice. She called to them until nightfall. The older cub said to his brother: “I wish the devil (A-qan´) would hear her and kill her for telling us the summer had not come, and keeping us in the house so long when it was already pleasant outside.”
The mother bear soon screamed to her sons: “The devil has heard me and is killing me.”
The cubs heard the devil killing their mother with a stone, pounding her on the head.
They became frightened and ran-away.
[ A wolverene destroys his sister.—]
A wolverene having wandered far, for several days without food, suddenly came upon a bear. The former, feeling very hungry, conceived the plan of destroying his larger prey by stratagem. The wolverene cautiously approached the bear and exclaimed: “Is that you, sister?” The bear turned around and saw the wolverene, but in a low tone, which the wolverene did not hear, said to herself: “I did not know that I had a brother,” so ran quickly away. The wolverene continued to scream: “Come here, sister, our father has sent me to look for you. You were lost when you were a little girl out picking berries.” Thus spoken to, the bear approached the supposed brother, who informed her that he knew of a place, on the hill there, where a lot of nice berries were ready for eating, saying: “Do you not see the berries growing on that hill, sister?” The bear answered: “I cannot see so great a distance.” So the two went up the hillside where the berries grew. When they arrived at the place, and it was some distance off, the bear asked: “How is it that your eyes are so good?” The wolverene replied: “My father mashed a lot of cranberries into my eyes and put me into a sweat house.” The bear said: “I wish my eyes were as good as yours.” The wolverene answered: “I will make your eyes as good as mine if you will gather a lot of cranberries while I prepare a sweat house.” The bear went to gather berries while the other prepared the house during her absence. The wolverene selected a stone having a sharp edge, which she concealed under the moss in the sweat house, while she procured a larger stone for the pillow.
After the sweat house was completed the wolverene cried out: “Sister, the sweat house is finished!” The bear returned, bringing a quantity of berries. They both went into the sudatory, whereupon the wolverene instructed the bear to lie with her head upon the stone pillow, while he prepared the crushed berries to put in her eyes. He then said to her: “Now, sister, do not move; you may find the berries will hurt the eyes and make them very sore, but they will be better soon.” The wolverene filled the bear’s eyes full of the sour berries, which made her exclaim: “Brother, they are making my eyes very sore.” The wolverene answered: “You will find them the better for that. After I get your eyes full of the berries I will blow my breath on them.” After the eyes of the bear were full of berries the wolverene said: “You are too good to be a sister,” so he struck her on the head with the sharp-edged stone and cleft her skull between the eyes and killed her.