A man who lived in the Bad Water village had dug a deer pit in a place among the hills west of the village and cunningly covered it over to appear not different from the ground about it. By this means he hoped to capture a deer whose flesh would be food for his family, and whose skin would be useful for making clothing; whose sinew would be used for thread, some of its bones to be used for making awls and needles, others for other useful implements and tools. Its horns would be used to make garden rakes for working the ground of his family’s garden.
One morning in autumn there had been a snowfall during the preceding night, the first snowfall of the season. The man went out early in the morning into the hills to look at his trap to see if it might have caught something during the night. As he approached the place he saw that the cover was broken through, and when he came near and looked in he was rejoiced to see that he had captured a fine large black-tail deer.
Now when he came to the edge of the pit and looked down at his prize the deer looked up at him and spoke to him, saying, “O, man, do not kill me, but let me go free from the pit. If you release me you will do well.” The man was surprised to hear the deer speak to him like a man, and he was disappointed to think of losing his prize. But he thought to himself, “This is something mysterious, I must give heed; I must not defy the Mysterious Power, but listen to the message; for it must be that some Mysterious Power wishes to impart something to me through this animal as its messenger.” So as he thus hesitated in doubt the deer again made its plea and requested to be set free. But the man spoke of his duty to his family, who looked to him for food and for clothing. Again the deer spoke and said, “Indeed you do well to think of your family, and your endeavor to provide for them as well as you can is prompted both by your love and duty. But I say to you that you would do well if you allow me to go. If you do so, I promise you that you will have success in hunting; you shall find game abundant for the needs of yourself and family. And when war comes upon your people you shall be victorious over the enemy. So shall you be remembered among your people for bravery.”
The man gave heed to what the deer said to him, and he dared not disobey the message which had come to him in this mysterious way. So now he began to dig down the side of the pit so that the deer could come out. When he had finished he said to the deer, “Now you may go.” Then the deer came up the incline from the pit and ran down across the Bad Water Creek away toward the Eagle Beak Hill. As he ran the new fallen snow flew behind him from his hoofs in a white cloud, and he sang a song:
“I was glad when I saw the first snow,
But I almost lost the sight of day.”
The man watched the deer as it ran and observed that when it approached a conical butte west of Eagle-beak Butte that the butte opened with a loud roaring sound and the deer entered and he saw it no more, and then the butte closed again as before.
The man went home pondering these things in his mind. As time passed events came true as they had been promised to him in the message spoken to him by the deer. He became renowned among his people for his skill and success in the chase, for his generosity to the old people and to the sick and poor, and he attained many honors for his deeds of valour in warfare against the enemies of his people.
Ever since that time the Mandans have called the butte into which the deer disappeared after its release from the pit, The Lodge of the Black-tail Deer.
THE WONDERFUL BASKET
A Mandan Story