The next morning, after eating his repast of parched cornmeal, he started, directing his course southward. But when he was out of sight of his lodge he changed his course toward the north. Making a circuit around his home, he passed all three places where he had visited his uncles, and finally came to a fourth opening with a lodge standing in its center. Arriving at the lodge, he peeped into it; there he saw a man who was still older than his other uncles. Making his presence known, he said, “Well, uncle, I have come to visit you.” The old man answered, saying: “It is well, my nephew. Come in and sit down. I have a game which I play with all those who come to visit me. I play the bone-dice game. Each has only one throw, and we bet our heads on the result. So get ready.” The youth replied: “It is well, uncle; I will play with you. I will go out for a moment, but will return in as short a time as possible.” Going to the river bank, and seeing a flock of ducks, the youth called them to come to him. When they did so, he said to them: “I have a bet, and I want you to aid me with your magic power. I desire six of you to lend me your right eyes[315] for a short time. I will bring them back as soon as I make my throw.” At once six of the ducks, removing their right eyes, gave them to the youth. On his way back to the lodge the youth said to the eyes, “When the old man throws, some of you drop into the bowl with your sight down, but when I play you must all drop with your sights turned up.” When he entered the lodge, he said to the old man, “We will play with my dice.” The old man objected to the use of the dice belonging to the youth, but the latter insisted on his right to use his own dice, as the person challenged. They spread a deerskin on the ground, on which they placed a bowl. When the youth had put his dice into the bowl, he asked his uncle to take the first throw, but the old man was not willing to do so. After disputing for some time, however, the old man shook the bowl, whereupon the eyes, as ducks quacking as they flew, rose slowly to the smoke-hole, and then fell back into the bowl as dice, some right side up and others the wrong side up. Then the youth shook the bowl, and the dice flew up as ducks, quacking loudly, and going out of the smoke-hole, they disappeared in the clouds. The old man, as was the custom, sat, saying: “Let there be no count. Let there be no count,” while the youth cried out: “Let the count be five. Let the count be five.” In a short time they heard the ducks coming in the distance, and then they soon dropped into the dish as dice again, all being right side up, at which the youth cried out, “I have won the game.” The old man begged to be permitted to take one smoke [[354]]more, but the nephew, refusing him, proceeded to cut off the old man’s head with his flint knife. Then placing the head and body of the old man in the lodge, he set it on fire. When the head burst open, out flew an owl. Then the youth took the six eyes back to the river, and calling up the ducks to him, he moistened the eyes with spittle and replaced them in the heads of the ducks. Thanking the ducks for the aid they had given him, he dismissed them, and they flew far away.
The youth now went home, where he told his grandmother what he had done. After hearing his story she said: “I am well pleased with what you have done, my grandson. You can now hunt with freedom in all directions, for there is now no one to harm you. You had a number of brothers, but their uncles destroyed them without mercy.”
She sent him to hunt, as usual. Being now quite a man, he could kill deer, bear, and other large game, but he had to go so far away to find them that he always returned late at night. Not liking this, he thought of a method by which this might be avoided. He went into the forest, after telling his grandmother that he was tired of going so far to hunt, that he would merely sing, and that the game would come to him. In the forest he made arrows, and by the time night came he had as many white-ash arrows as he could well carry.
The next morning, bringing out a deerskin, he caused his grandmother to sit on it. Then, covering her head with the skin, he said to her: “Now, you must not look out. If you do I shall leave here, never to return.” First, placing the great bundle of arrows on the ground outside the lodge, he began to sing: “Come to me, you elk. Come to me, you bears. Come to me, you raccoons. Come to me, you deer.” As he stood singing, soon there arose a great commotion in the forest, caused by the sound of many feet running toward the singer. The animals were coming from every direction. As they were drawn near him by his singing he began to shoot his arrows. When he had shot away about half of his arrows, and while the animals were near him—bears, raccoons, deer, and elk—and while hedgehogs were climbing the lodge roof, the grandmother, becoming frightened at the strange sounds, removing the buckskin covering from her head, looked up through the smoke-hole to see what was the cause of the tumult. In an instant a great white deer sprang over the other animals, and, taking the youth on his antlers, ran off with him into the forest.[316] All the other animals followed the man, who was singing as they ran. Then the grandmother rushed to the doorway, and, looking out, saw all the game killed, but she did not see her grandson anywhere. Then she remembered his words, but it was too late. [[355]]
While the great white deer was rushing through the forest a pack of black wolves came upon its tracks, and, soon overtaking it, killed both it and the man. The next morning the aged grandmother, in an attempt to repair the damage done through her lapse of memory and great curiosity, followed the tracks of the game in order to find her grandson. The game had beaten a broad trail through the forest as they ran. In the afternoon of the day the youth disappeared the sky and clouds in the west appeared very red.[317] Seeing this, the grandmother exclaimed: “This is certainly an evil sign. My grandson is surely in trouble.” This was the very time at which the great white deer and the man were killed. The grandmother followed the trail all that day until the evening at about the time she had seen the red sky and clouds the day before. Then she came on the spot where her grandson and the deer had been killed. There she saw pieces of bloody deerskin, but not a bone, nor a bit of his body. Then she returned home in despair, weeping all the way.
61. Heart Squeezing and the Dance of Naked Persons
A woman and her son lived together in a lodge situated not far from a small settlement. The boy began his career by hunting small game, but he soon killed such large game that everyone was astonished at his prowess. As he grew older, he went farther and farther into the woods. His mother, however, always warned him against going toward the northeast, saying that an evil woman lived there.
One day while hunting the boy thought, “I do not believe there is anyone who can overcome me magically,” whereupon he determined to go toward the northeast. Starting thither, he soon came to an opening, where he saw a woman who sang out, “I have caught you, my brother,” and at that moment the boy, feeling her in his body squeezing his heart, screamed with pain. Then the woman stopped an instant and then squeezed his heart harder than before, causing him intense pain. Just then he heard a woman’s voice say, “Hurry home, and as you go, sing, ‘I am going to have a naked dance[318] and a pot.’ ” The young man did this, and as he sang he felt easier. When he got home his mother said, “You have been toward the northeast, although I told you that you would get into trouble if you went there.” The mother immediately sent a messenger to tell her uncle, her mother’s brother, what had happened, and he inquired what the boy sang. The messenger told him, and he replied, “Tell his mother to notify everyone that she is going to have a dance of naked persons.”
All the people were notified accordingly. The old man came, and one by one all the rest assembled. Then the old man asked whether all the guests were there who had been invited. The woman, the youth’s mother, after looking around, said, “Yes.” Telling the [[356]]people to take off their garments, and to dance facing the wall, the old man, seating himself in the center of the room, began to sing. When he had finished the song, he said, “That will do.” Thereupon the dance broke up, the people dressing themselves and going home.