Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths Thirty-Second Annual...

One morning the brother went out as usual to hunt. He had not been gone long when seemingly he returned, laughing and looking at [667]his younger sister, it is said. He took a seat by her side as she sat on her bed and embraced her, whereupon she said to him: “What has happened to you?” He made no reply but attempted to throw her backward on the bed while he tickled her. At this she exclaimed: “You are abusing me; you have never before acted in this manner;” and she struggled with him as he continued to grapple with her, until at last he went out of the lodge.

Not long after this episode her brother entered the lodge. Having been injured, she was weeping. Her brother said to her: “What has happened to you? Are you, perhaps, ill?” She made no reply and would not give him any food. Then she spoke to him, saying: “It is, indeed, an awful thing, the manner in which you have abused me, your own sister.” He answered: “What have I done to you?” She replied: “You abused me and tickled me, and desired to throw me on my back. This is the reason why my mind is troubled.” Answering, he said: “Not in the least could I abuse you, for I have too much compassion for you.” But she did not believe him. Then he continued, saying, “Now: it is, perhaps, my friend who has visited you and who looks exactly like me, having hair like mine, of which half is red.” Then she said: “That is not true; at all events, it was you who came into the lodge.” Thereupon he added: “My friend made this visit, because you have now arrived at womanhood. Not far away stands the lodge where mother and son live; the son is my friend.” She told him that she would not believe a thing he had said to her. He answered that whatever happened to him happened also to his friend.

The brother himself warmed up some food and ate his meal. In the morning his sister would not arise, for she was still very angry with him; so he himself prepared his morning meal and ate it. When he had finished eating it he went out to hunt. Before going, he said to his sister: “Do not think hard of the conduct of my friend, for he only desires to marry you.”

When the sun was nearly set her brother returned to the lodge. He said to his sister: “Oh, my younger sister! I fell among thorns and briers—that is why I am all scratched up.” She was indeed astonished at what he had told her, for had she not herself scratched him in the face? So she replied: “I for my part can not believe what you say.” Then she began as usual to weep.

Finally, the brother said: “My sister, you believe that it is I who act thus, but it shall be made evident that it is not I who am doing this. To-morrow as soon as I depart the man will return and will [668]enter the lodge. As soon as he starts to leave you must seize his robe of skin and pull it off, for it is exactly like mine in all respects.”

In the morning the brother started, as was his custom, on a hunting trip. After he had been gone only a short time a man suddenly entered the lodge and at once seized the lone sister, whereupon they struggled fiercely. When he attempted to throw her on the ground she exerted her whole might to free herself. Having failed in his purpose, he started to flee from the lodge. As the ends of his robe were flying about, catching hold of it, she drew it off, at which he went out of the lodge leaving the robe in her hands, as its fastening broke.

It was not very long after this episode when her brother reentered the lodge. He said to her: “Has he made another visit?” She replied: “Yes, of course, he has; it is you yourself returning.” She did not believe in the least what her brother was telling her, for she felt sure that it was he who was tormenting her. By this time her mind had greatly changed from normal, for she did not cease from lamenting her situation, being so worried to think that it was her own brother who had attempted to outrage her. She then handed him the torn robe, saying: “Here is this robe.” Taking it, he said: “There, now! that is certainly the robe of my friend. As to me, in hunting I had climbed a tree on which a bear lived and fell from it, and in the fall my robe was torn.” Laying the two robes together and finding that both were torn, he said: “Now you see what I have been saying all along has come true; whatever happens to me happens also to my friend;” and he added, “Well, do you now believe what I have been telling you?” Then she stopped her weeping and gazed at the robes as they lay together and she saw that they were exactly alike in every respect. Again he asked: “Well, now, do you believe what I have told you?” But she did not say anything in reply.

Then the brother said: “Your mind is still unchanged that it is I who am abusing you, so now this shall take place to-morrow. As soon as I start again I shall hide myself in a place near by. As soon as the man attempts to attack you again or to leave the lodge you must seize him and not let him go. Thereupon I shall come in and kill my friend, and then it may be that you will believe me in saying that it is not I but my friend who is abusing you. We two, of course, shall be doomed to death because of my act, for his mother has the power to transform herself into a great bear, so potent in sorcery is she.”

In the morning, when he had finished his meal, he again started out to hunt, saying to his sister, “You must now carry out my instructions as I have given them to you.” He did not go to his hunting grounds, however, but hid himself near the lodge and kept a faithful watch on his home. He had been there quite a long time when suddenly he perceived his friend running toward the lodge, which he entered. After waiting a few minutes the brother ran to the lodge and on entering saw his sister and his friend struggling fiercely, the latter striving to get out of the lodge. As the brother entered the man let go at once of the sister, whereupon the former said: “My brother, my friend, now we are doomed to die. I can do nothing in the matter.” Making ready an arrow, with a twang it sped into the breast of the man, where it stuck quivering, while the victim, reeling, fell backward to the ground. Thus the brother killed the man who had been his friend. Drawing out the arrow he exclaimed: “Well, do you now believe what I have told you in this matter?” But his sister made no reply.

Then the brother said to his sister: “Now, I suppose we must hide the body of this man, and, moreover, you must by all means aid me in this matter, for now, of course, we are both guilty. It had been better had you consented to what he desired, for he wanted to marry you. We will dig a grave where the fire burns—that is, under the fireplace.” Then they two dug a very deep grave under the fireplace, in which they placed his body. They took great pains in covering the grave, so that one would not know that a man’s body lay buried there. Over the spot they rekindled their fire, and thus finished the task.

The brother then said: “My younger sister, now have the courage to do the best you can, for we two in appearance at least must live as husband and wife, as it is certain that in one, or perhaps in two days the woman will come here. When she does it must appear that we are indeed husband and wife in order to mislead her.” Then he said further: “I shall not go to another place again; we shall remain here together.”

So they dwelt together thus until the next day. As soon as it was morning they sat together, because they constantly expected that at any moment the mother of the dead man would come in haste. Hence they lived as husband and wife, and the brother kept saying to his sister: “Be of good courage; you must do exactly as I tell you, for we must try to escape in order that we may live until we reach the distant place whence we two started.” [670]

When the sun had sunk low in the west the door flaps were thrust aside suddenly, and the old woman entered the lodge. They two who lived there were indeed husband and wife (in appearance). The old woman thereupon said: “Oh! I am exceedingly thankful that now for certain I have a daughter-in-law.” At this they two smiled.

The young man replied: “So be it.” Just then the fire began to sing unexpectedly, and the fire spoke too, saying three times: “He, my friend, has killed me.” At this the old woman exclaimed: “Kyū-uʼ! It is frightful. It is an astonishing thing that is happening in the fireplace which you two have for yourselves; for it does not cease from saying: ‘My friend has killed me, there in your fire.’ ” The young man answered: “I do not know anything about the thing concerning which you are perplexed.” Reaching for an arrow, he scraped it, saying: “It is so that we two, I and my friend, use the fire for the scrapings from our arrows;” and thereupon he threw the scrapings into the fire. At once the voice from the fire pit exclaimed several times very rapidly: “My friend has killed me!” The young man again said: “We use the fire for the scrapings from our arrows.” The old woman exclaimed: “Kyū-uʼ. You two have no sense,” and she then departed. The young man said to her as she was leaving the lodge: “We will soon be there.”

When they were alone he said to his sister: “It is just as I have been saying right along: we two are about to meet our death.” He believed that she was in great fear, so he added, “Do you have courage; and do not let it appear that you fear anything.” Just as the sun sank low in the west they started for the place where stood the lodge of the old woman. They arrived there just before night. As they entered the lodge and sat down in the place where the friend of the young man was accustomed to sit they were surprised to see standing on one side a screech owl and on the other a horned owl. They were more distressed when the screech owl sang out, “It is another, it is another, it is another, it is another.” Then the old woman said: “Lo! This is happening all the time, and it gives me a troubled mind.” The young man answered her: “It is very strange that you pay any heed to the various notes of the screech owl,” and he said to the owl: “Here, this is what you eat,” giving it meat. It stopped uttering its warning notes and merely repeated its usual note thrice, saying, “Ho-ho-ho-wāʼ.”

Then all lay down for the night, and the brother and sister lay together in the place where the dead friend of the brother was accustomed to lie. All of a sudden the horned owl cried out: “Hi, [671]hi, hi, hi; he takes to wife his younger sister.” This it repeated thrice. At once the old woman arose, saying: “Why do you two not stop it constantly saying, ‘He takes to wife his younger sister.’ ” But the young man exclaimed: “Fie upon it! Why do you pay any attention to all the notes made by a common horned owl?” With these words he again gave it meat, which it greedily seized as he said to it: “Here, take this; it is what you eat.” As soon as it had finished eating the meat it resumed its regular note, “Hi, hi, hi, hi.” Then the young man said to his suspicious host: “So let it be; now lie down again.” However, the old woman continued to grow more and more suspicious, for she began to believe that something had perhaps happened to her son and that he was no longer alive. At midnight the brother said to his sister: “You must lie as still as possible and I, too, shall do the same; we must pretend to be asleep.” They at once began seemingly to snore, but of course they were not snoring; they did not know what the old woman would do should they fall asleep.

The old woman arose very stealthily while the notes of the owls continued, the screech owl saying, “It is another, it is another, it is another,” and the horned owl, “Hi, hi, hi, hi; he takes his younger sister to wife.” Creeping slowly over to the spot where the two were lying, and thrusting her hand under the coverings, the old woman made an examination of their private parts, after which she exclaimed: “Pshaw! Of course things are as they are with those who do as married people are accustomed.” Then she went back to her part of the lodge and again lay down.

In the morning the old woman prepared the morning meal, and all ate their breakfast. When they had finished eating the old woman said: “I have mysterious premonitions. I visited the place there where thy friend has kindled a fire, and it says continually, ‘My own friend has killed me; my own friend has killed me; my own friend has killed me.’ ” The young man replied: “Pshaw! It is foolish to pay any attention to that noise, for it is caused by our scraping arrows there.” As he spoke he got his arrow and began scraping it, and cast the litter into the fire, whereupon the fire said several times, “My own friend has killed me.” He added, “Now cease paying any attention to such idle things.” The old woman replied, “So be it, as you say.”

Then the young man said: “Oh, mother! We two will now go back to the other place. I said that of a certainty we would remain here only one night, and perhaps now my brother-in-law is anxious about us.” The old woman replied: “So let it be as you have spoken.” He answered: “In two days we two will return again.” So they started for their home, where they arrived all right. Then the young man said to his sister: “The only thing left for us [672]to do is to make preparations to escape. You shall take the lead and I will remain, and I shall overtake you if it so be that I shall survive.”

The brother then drew from under the couch whereon he was accustomed to lie a small case and took therefrom a very small black dog and a little rod of red willow. He used the rod to tap lightly the dog, which immediately began to grow in size. At first he said: “It is not yet large enough,” although the dog was then of the size of ordinary dogs. So he tapped it again and it continued to grow and had now reached the size of the largest kind of dogs. Yet he said: “Still I do not think the dog is large enough, for it is not yet large enough for you to ride astride of it;” so he tapped it with still other blows, which caused it to grow in size. It had become at last a very large dog.

Having done this, he said to his sister: “You two shall go together. This shall be done on the way: As soon as you become wearied, the dog will stop beside a tree, and then you must descend from his back; and as soon as he becomes tired he will likewise stop beside a tree. You must watch for this, and then you must descend from his back, and run ahead as fast as it is possible for you to go. Thus you two must make your way homeward. You must keep a course directly eastward without fail. You two must remain in camp at night on the way; and you, my sister, must lie down beside the dog’s body. You two must not get far apart from each other, and you must take rests. He himself knows when you should rest, and you must regulate your actions by what he does, for it is a fact that he is our brother. You must know, too, that it is uncertain whether you will see the old woman, who is immune to the arts of sorcery and who, too, is able, it may be, to overcome our orenda (magic power). It seems uncertain whether you shall again see Hahadodagwatʻha; it is uncertain, I say, for verily, it is I who am called Hahadodagwatʻha.” Then he added: “Now, you two flee;” whereupon the younger sister mounted the dog’s back, and her brother again spoke to her, saying: “Have courage. We shall have the good fortune of your safe arrival in the place where our mother dwells.”

As the sister rode the dog, he would stop beside a tree, whereupon she would say: “Oh, now! my brother has become quite wretched, and I suppose he is now very tired.” With this she would descend from his back, and they two would go on. They kept a certain course directly toward the east. Having gone a great distance, they two would stop for the night, and the young woman lay down right beside the dog. In the morning they would again start on their journey. After going only a short distance, the dog would again stop [673]beside a tree. Then the young woman would say: “Oh! my brother is to be pitied; now he wants to bear me again on his back, I suppose.” So saying, she would mount the dog, which at once would start running with her. When at midday the dog stopped beside a tree, the woman said: “I suppose he is now tired out,” descending from his back. As the dog crouched down she decided that it desired that they should take some rest. Then the dog lay down near by, and she seated herself close to him, saying: “I suppose he is now asleep, being very tired.”

Thus, she sat for a long time looking around. Suddenly a fine-looking bird alighted near her, which she resolved to catch. When she was about to seize it, the bird would fly away, but would usually alight again a little way from its former perch. When the young woman would run up to it with the intention of seizing it, it would fly away just in time to foil her purpose. Thus she pursued it a little farther, still a little farther, but could not catch it, although she was determined to do so.

Suddenly she heard the loud barking of a dog which was approaching, saying, Wuʹ, wuʹ, wuʹ, and at once she ran toward the place, then quite distant, where lay the dog. When she returned to this place the dog was gone, for it had resumed its course and was barking as it went farther and farther. At last it disappeared in the distance. Then the young woman began to weep, indeed, and she repeated the words of her elder brother: “You must not change your course, but you must keep going directly eastward.” While she was so engaged her brother, Hahadodagwatʻha, arrived there, having overtaken her.

He remained for two days, when the footsteps of some one were heard by him, and suddenly the old woman, entering the lodge, said: “Lo! Where is your wife?” He answered: “Did you not meet them on the way?” “I did not,” she replied. He said to her: “It may be that while you and they were gathering things by the way you missed one another.” The old woman answered: “Oh, that is true, of course, I suppose. Without ceasing, his pets are uttering notes. At times my mind is deeply troubled by this state of affairs. So let it be. I shall now go back to the other place, for they have probably arrived there now.”

In a very short time the old woman departed for her home. Running through bypaths, the young man reached it ahead of the old woman, who found him sitting there when she arrived. Her son’s pets were making a great noise when she entered the lodge, whereupon she said: “Lo! Where is my daughter-in-law?” He answered her sneeringly: “Pshaw! My daughter-in-law, you say! Why, she has gone home. When she and I returned there all the food was exhausted, so she longed for her mother. I said that in two days’ time [674]we would return here.” Thereupon the screech owl kept saying: “It is another one, it is another one, it is another one,” while the horned owl said: “Hi, hi, hi, hi; he has taken his younger sister to wife; hi, hi, hi, hi.” Finally, the old woman exclaimed: “I am beginning to give attention to what is being said, for they have never before during the time you have had them as pets acted in this manner.” In reply the young man said: “Pshaw! you are all the time paying attention to what they are saying; instead you must give them meat, and then they will stop as usual. This is all you have to do to quiet them.” Then he started for his own lodge, saying: “After two days’ time you must again go there.”

The only thing he did when he arrived at his lodge was to make preparations for leaving, and when everything was ready he departed. He followed his sister, keeping on the track made by the dog as it ran along homeward. He had fled some distance when his body became very weak.

At the end of two days the old woman went to the lodge of the young people, where she found no one. Turning to the fire pit in her great anxiety she was surprised by hearing the fire again say, thrice in succession: “My friend has killed me.” Thus it spoke. Thereupon the old woman said: “Oh! my son lies there where I have been thinking he lay all the time. It is exceedingly dismal to think of.” Then she began to dig up the fireplace; and she found him lying there with his face upturned and an arrow sticking through the middle of his breast. At this discovery she began to weep and lament, saying: “Oh, my dear child! you have indeed become wretched. When I have killed them I will return to pay the last rites to you.” So saying, she went out of the lodge and started for her home.

Having arrived at her lodge, she took from a bark receptacle in which it was kept hickory-nut meat and ate it, making the sounds, “Gaoñʼ, gaoñʼ, gaoñʼ,” and saying, too, “I shall fortify my body with this meat.” When she had finished eating her meal she went out of the lodge, and going to a neighboring tree, by her great strength she tore off a great part of it with her paws. Exclaiming, “I do not think that this will suffice,” she reentered the lodge and ate more of the hickory-nut meat. Then she exclaimed, “Now I wonder whether this will do.” Going again to the tree she tore it into shreds, and then exclaimed, “This is now sufficient; I have strength enough.”

Then she started away, running swiftly. She had become a bear of enormous size and power. Going to the place where the tracks of the fugitives showed the direction they had taken, and placing her paws on the path along which they had fled, she exclaimed: “It is impossible for you to escape even though you should have gone to the end of the earth.” With these words she started in pursuit of the fugitives. As she ran along she often placed her paws on the [675]track made by the young man, and this act caused him to reel and stagger, so potent with evil orenda was the body of the old woman. They were at this time two days’ journey apart, but the old woman, who had transformed herself into a huge bear, was rapidly overtaking the fugitives, every moment drawing nearer and nearer to them, for she was indeed running rapidly.

Finally the young man overheard the old woman, who had resumed her real character (that of a great bear), say: “Thou shalt surely die.” As he listened to the words he drew from his fawn-skin pouch the feather of a wild pigeon. Casting this back of him he made the invocation: “Right away let there be a roost of pigeons here and let their numbers be so great that their droppings shall form a rampart stretching across the world and equal in height to half that of the tallest tree.” As soon as he had finished speaking the air resounded with the sounds made by the alighting of many thousands of wild pigeons; among these sounds one heard, Gäk, gäk, gäk, gäk, and Dūm—m.453

There was no possibility for anyone else to possess more orenda than that possessed by the young man; so he passed on, and behind him the great bear came on a run. The monster arrived at the roosting place of the wild pigeons. There was a rampart of their droppings extending upward half the height of the tallest trees. The bear made an attempt to force its way through the great rampart of droppings, but was unable to do so, merely becoming thoroughly covered with the filth. It was not easy for the monster to extricate herself from the great rampart, hence she decided on another course of action.

She started on a run along the rampart’s edge, saying: “There has never been a time when a pigeon roost extended across the world.” After following the rampart for a long time she became tired and returned to the place where the tracks of the fugitive seemingly entered the rampart, where she lay down for the night. In the morning there was nothing to be seen, for the rampart had disappeared. Thereupon the bear exclaimed: “How exceedingly unfortunate this is; verily, he is a great wizard.” Starting in pursuit again, she placed her paws on the track of the young man, causing him to stagger and reel.