Ojibwa Dancer’s Beaded Medicine Bag.
Eleven times the boy thus failed to kill a manito, and thus he had but one arrow left. He held this in his hands a long while, looking around. Now these evil manitoes had very strong medicine. They could change their form in a moment. But they feared the boy’s arrows because they were also strong magic. And because they had been given to him by a good manito, they had power to kill.
At last the boy saw the chief of the evil manitoes. He drew his bow and shot his last arrow; but the chief saw it coming. At once he changed himself into a rock. And the arrow buried itself in a crack of the rock. The chief was very angry. He cried, “Now your arrows are all gone! And because you have dared to shoot at me, you shall become the trail of your arrow.”
Thus at once he changed the boy into Nazhik-a-wawa, the Lone Lightning.
THE THUNDERS
Cherokee
THE Great Thunder and his sons, the two Thunder boys, live far in the West, above the Sky-plain. The lightning and the rainbow are their beautiful robes. Medicine men pray to Thunder, and call him the Red Man because there is so much red in his dress.
There are other thunders that live lower down, in the cliffs and mountains, and under waterfalls. They travel on bridges from one peak to another, but the Indian cannot see these bridges. The Great Thunders above the sky are kind and helpful when we make medicine to them, but the others are always plotting mischief. One must not point to the rainbow.