The boy was very angry. When night came he said to his grandmother, “I am going to the gathering.” She warned him to beware of evil men and women who played games and tried to deceive people. When he arrived at the gathering he pretended to be a little boy, playing around with the children and going into the Long Lodge with them. There he saw his mother decked out gaily, perched on a high seat in the middle of the room, where she could be seen by everybody. He saw his father secured to a stake. Over the fire his sister was roasting, and he heard his dog coughing, barely alive. Then he told his grandmother what he had come for; that the woman was his mother and the man his father. “Now, my mothers, the two sisters, told me to ask you to help me. Tell me what to do.” Consenting, she said: “I know everything and am ready to help you. I have a pair of moccasins you must wear. At certain intervals your mother orders your father to be branded. Now, you must stand near the fire. The moccasins, being made of the skin of a woman’s private parts, have sympathetic power over them. When your mother calls out, ‘Brand him,’ you must stick your foot into the fire.” The boy obeyed her, sticking his foot into the flame as the woman gave the order “Brand him.” That instant his mother screamed with pain. All, wondering at this, questioned her, but she would not tell. She was ashamed. Then the boy ran out of doors, but when it was time for her to give the order again he was near the fire. As she was beginning to say “Brand him,” again he put his foot into the fire and at that moment she screamed with pain. He tormented her in this way until she died. Each time she suffered his father and sister felt great relief. When she was dead, he took his father and sister and dog out of the building. Then he said, “Let this building turn to red-hot flint.” Immediately the lodge was in flames. As some of the people of the lodge had magic powers, their heads burst, the pieces striking against the stone walls, while their spirits flew out through the top into the air in the form of owls and other birds of ill omen. [[187]]
Spitting on his hands, the young man rubbed his father and sister and dog, and they became as well as ever. Then he said, “Now, we will go home.” Thanking his grandmother, they started for the sisters’ cabin. When they came near, the sisters ran to meet them, saying, “We will be your father’s wives.” And they all lived happily together.
36. The Dagwanoenyent (Daughter of the Wind) and Her Husband
There were a nephew and an uncle, who lived together in a bark lodge in the woods. The uncle gave the nephew nothing to eat, making him live on fungus. He told him he must not go north to collect fungus, but always south. The uncle himself went hunting every day but brought back no game. At home he lived on chestnut pudding and bear’s oil. The nephew could not find out for a long time how he made the pudding, but at last he discovered the process. The uncle had a little pot and a chestnut. He would put the least bit of chestnut into the pot, saying, “Watchisgwengo, Swell, Pudding.” Thereupon the mush would increase in quantity.
The next day after his discovery the boy did just as he had seen his uncle do, with the result that he had a good meal of chestnut pudding. He did likewise every day while his uncle was hunting. Then he began to wonder why his uncle forbade him to go northward. After thinking over the matter a few days, he determined to go in that direction notwithstanding his uncle’s injunction.
The boy started on his journey, traveling until he came to a Long Lodge. In the lodge was a great supply of venison and bear meat, and skin bags of bear’s oil were hanging all around the wall. The only person within was a woman, who was sitting in the middle of the room, with her head bent down. There was also a small boy toddling around, who clapped his hands and laughed when he saw the young man. The woman took no notice of him. The young man played a while with the child. After a time he started for home, taking with him a small piece of meat which he had filched. The uncle, returning home, prepared his pudding in secret as before.
Thus it happened every day from year to year. It was the custom for the old man to set out to hunt and for the young man to go to the Long Lodge to play with the little boy. The woman never moved nor spoke.
The little boy of the Long Lodge was about 15 when one day he said to the young man: “You and I are cousins. Your uncle is my father and that woman sitting there is my mother.” The nephew then asked, “Why does she never speak?” He asked her various questions, but she would not answer him a word. Thereupon with his bow and arrow he shot at a bag of bear’s oil which hung above [[188]]her head. The arrow pierced the bag and the oil flowing out fell upon the woman’s head and face. This made her very angry, but she did not speak.
Now, all the meat in the lodge was the game which the uncle of the young man killed and brought in every day. He never came there until late in the day while the nephew went home early, so that in all these years they had never met at the Long Lodge. When the uncle came that evening he found the bag broken and the oil spilt over the woman. He suspected that his nephew had been there. On reaching his own lodge that night he asked, “Have you been at the Long Lodge?” “Oh, yes,” said the nephew; “I have been going there for the last 13 years. I have always eaten of the meat there. I have not eaten fungus for many years.” The uncle was very angry, and asked him whether he broke the bag containing the bear’s oil. “Yes,” the young man answered. “Oh! you have destroyed us both, I fear. That woman is an awful witch. She can not be killed. She will ruin us both,” said the uncle.