“Like beings that live on this earth. Some are as men. Others are as birds, or beasts, or even plants and other things. Not all the gods are good. Some seek to harm us. The good gods send us buffaloes, and rain to make our corn grow.”
“Do they send us thunder?” I asked. There had been a heavy storm the day before.
“The thunder bird god sends us thunder,” said my grandfather. “He is like a great swallow, with wings that spread out like clouds. Lightning is the flash of his eyes. His scream makes the thunder.
“Once in Five Villages,” my grandfather went on, “there lived a brave man who owned a gun. One day a storm blew up. As the man sat in his lodge, there came a clap of thunder and lightning struck his roof, tearing a great hole.
“This did not frighten the man at all. Indeed, it angered him. He caught up his gun and fired it through the hole straight into the sky. ‘You thunder bird,’ he shouted, ‘stay away from my lodge. See this gun. If you come, I will shoot at you again!’”
My grandfather paused to fill his pipe. “That was a brave man,” he said as he reached for a coal. “Perhaps the thunder bird loves brave men, and did not harm him. But it is not well to provoke the gods. My little granddaughter should never laugh at them nor speak of them lightly.”
My grandfather spoke very solemnly.
