Prairie Smoke, a Collection of Lore of the Prairies

by Melvin R. Gilmore

Then all her neighbors begged her to teach them how to make a wonderful basket. So she taught them as she had been taught by the holy cedar tree how to make a wonderful basket out of its tiny roots.

And so, from that time, whenever a woman went out to gather June berries or wild cherries, or raspberries, or wild plums or pembinas or tipsin, or wild rice; or to their cultivated fields to gather corn or beans, she was not obliged to carry the load home. When she was ready she started towards the village singing, and the basket came with her cheerfully carrying the burden.

One day, long after this, a woman had found the winter store-house of the hintunka people, which they make under-ground, and into which they garner their store of food for the winter time. The hard-working hintunka people put away in their store-houses quantities of wild ground beans, various kinds of seeds and roots and tubers to provide themselves food for the cold time when the ground is frozen and the earth is covered with snow.

It happened that the woman who found this store-house of the hintunka people was one who was not considerate of the rights of other people. She thought only that here was a quantity of food which was desirable and easy to obtain. So she filled her basket with the wild ground beans which are so delicious when cooked with bits of meat. She cared not that it had cost the hintunka people many weary hours of hard work to dig these beans and bring them together in this place, nor did she care that without them the hintunka people, their old people and their little ones, all would be left destitute of food and must perish from famine.

While she was filling her basket a poor little hintunka woman cried pitifully and said, “This is our food. We have worked hard for it. You ought not to rob us of it. Without it we shall die miserably of hunger.” But the woman took the beans and heeded not the pitiful crying of the hintunka woman. She had filled her basket, and was making ready to go home but there was no song in her heart.

Then, while the filled basket sat there waiting a coyote standing near by, laughed. At this the basket was vexed, and said, “You are rude. Why do you laugh at me?” But the coyote only laughed all the more. This annoyed the basket greatly, and made it feel very uneasy and distressed, for it knew something must be wrong. And it said to the coyote, “Do tell me why you laugh. What is it which is strange?”

Then the coyote replied, “I laugh because you are so foolish. For a long time you have been carrying burdens to the village while the women go their way singing.”

But the basket said, “I am not foolish, I have the good spirit of the cedar tree. I am willing to carry burdens to help the women. I am glad when I hear their joyful singing.” The coyote said, “But what do you get for it, friend? You work like a slave. You receive nothing for it. No one offers you a mouthful of food. When you rest for a time from your labor you are not covered with a robe made beautiful with quill-work. When you have carried burdens for a woman she merely hangs you upon a peg on the wall till the next time she wishes you to carry something for her.”

As the basket considered the things which the coyote said it began to be discontented. It felt that it had been treated unfairly; that it had no pay nor thanks for all it had done, and so the basket was sulky, and refused to carry the load to the village, and the woman at last had to take up the burden and carry it upon her back; and she felt aggrieved and bitter because the basket would not carry it for her. She did not consider that all the service she had ever had from the basket was from kindness and good will and not from obligation.

And ever since that time the women have had to carry burdens upon their backs, for the baskets no longer carried burdens for them.