Part 12

The boy took an elm bark rope and tied the juicy meat on his forehead.

“It is disagreeable, grandfather,” he complained, “for the juice and oil drip into my eyes.”

The old man explained, and the boy feeling much abused answered, “Oh why can you never say what you mean?”

The time came when the boy chief must marry. The grandfather told the boy where a family of lovely girls lived. “Go shove your legs in the door,” (Satci´nondăt—show your leg), said he, meaning that the boy should go visiting.

The young chief stuck his legs under the door and sat there all night. The next morning the old woman within gave him a blow with a corn pounder and he ran limping to his advisor to discover the trouble. “Oh you fool,” said the old man, “I meant that you should ‘shake the old lady’s skirt’,” meaning that he should seek a daughter. When he did this however he was kicked and pounded until he could hardly crawl. Now he had a very difficult time courting for it is hard to describe in direct words how to court and to marry, so when he followed his grandfather’s words he found much trouble. Now when he married his wife made him understand and he learned many new things. Now this is all that I can tell.

GENERAL NOTES.—The Boy Who Could Not Understand is the only tale of its kind secured by the writer among the Seneca. It is related as a humorous commentary on the literal meanings of certain idioms of the Seneca that are so well understood that they never cause confusion. The author of this tale must have deliberately analyzed each term and sought to give it a literal application. One might suppose that a captive Algonkin invented it to explain his own plight in learning the Seneca tongue.

This tale was related by Edward Cornplanter and it has been recorded essentially in his own language, except where better grammar or a better word straightens out the English. I am sure that Cornplanter might have expanded his story considerably, but he hastened it to a conclusion to give me the Seneca equivalents of some obscure bits of slang frequently heard in English. His own literal translations of American slang into Seneca made him wax merry, and he concluded by saying, “So you see it don’t make any sense at all.”

18. THE BOY WHO LIVED WITH THE BEARS.

Hono‘ was an unloved stepson. His foster father never had a kind word for him and begrudged the very food that little Hono‘ ate.

“You eat like a wolf,” the harsh man would snap. “It is a nuisance to feed you.”

“Agē´,” sighed little Hono‘, “when I am a man and can hunt and fight I will repay you. Then will you like me?” implored the boy, but his evil guardian only growled.

At length the stepfather began to cast about how he might rid himself of the child and after some meditation decided to feign friendliness and lure Hono‘ away on a hunting excursion. So it happened that one day he said pleasantly, “Come now Hono‘, it is time for you to learn to hunt. How would you like to go on a journey with me?”

Hono‘ was delighted and promptly replied he would go.

The two traveled for some time through the bush lands and Hono‘ thinking this strange said, “I always thought hunters went to the deep woods and not in the bushes.”

“Don’t worry,” the stepfather replied, “I am an old hunter and know my business. Come hurry along, I will show you a wonderful place.”

“Well where is my bow and my quiver of arrows?” asked Hono‘ anxiously. “I ought to have one.”

“Oh after a while,” was the retort. “Now hurry along.”

“And when I am a great hunter will you be good to me always?” asked Hono‘, dreaming of the success he hoped to achieve, but the only answer was a grunt.

After a journey of several miles the stepfather stopped abruptly and simulating surprise said excitedly, “See, look, look! There is a hole. Hurry Hono‘, crawl in and catch the game. Oh you will be a big hunter now!”

Little Hono‘ was happy that he could be of service and in imagination saw glorious days ahead. Dropping upon his hands and knees he crawled into the hole in the ground and ran down the tunnel until he could no longer see, because of the darkness. Then, as he was about to return he saw the round opening ahead suddenly grow dark and with it the entire cavern. Guided by the walls he ran forward with speed born of terror and crashed his head into the stone that obstructed the opening.

Outside the evil man laughed in savage glee as he thought how easily he had shaken off the untaught Hono‘.

“He will never push that boulder away,” said he, as he strolled back to his lodge.

The blow had stunned the boy but after some time he was awakened by the sound of voices. Listening he discovered that on the earth outside a council was in session and his name was being frequently used. He had not long marvelled over the matter when he heard someone endeavoring to remove the stone. Finally it rolled down the hill and a voice called down the hole.

“Come out upon the earth if yet you are living,” it said.

Shyly the boy emerged from the hole and sat down upon the grass. About him on every hand were animals.

“The boy is rescued,” said a porcupine, who seemed to be the spokesman. “Who will care for him?”

Instantly there was a prolonged medley of cries. Each animal about him was either barking, yelping, grunting or screeching. Everyone was shouting “I’ll care for him!”

“Hold!” cried the porcupine. “Do not volunteer without reason. You must be fit for the task. Let each tell his temper and his habits and most of all what he eats, then the boy may choose his own guardian.”

Acting upon the suggestion each one extolled its own merits to the boy, but all in turn were rejected until a bear woman said, “I am old and rather surly, but I have a warm heart. I live happily in summer and sleep much in winter. I eat honey, nuts and berries.”

“Oh you will do,” interrupted Hono‘, shouting as loudly as he could. “I can stand that all right!”

To Hono‘ the strange part of the proceedings was that all the animals seemed human creatures and yet like beasts. They all spoke in one language and acted as friends although Hono‘ believed many mortal enemies.

The council adjourned and Hono‘ followed his bear mother down a trail that led to a thick wood.

On the way the bear spoke. “I wished you to become my grandson,” she said, “because I have lost one and wish you to take his place and drive away my sorrow.”

The two soon arrived at a great hollow stub and the bear taking the boy by the neck like a cub drew him into the hollow. Hono‘ looked about and found his quarters very comfortable. He was greatly pleased when the grandmother introduced him to two young bears, her grandsons, and told him they were his playmates.

When Hono‘ was hungry the grandmother bear gave him a honey-comb and some dried berries. When he was thirsty she gave him her paw to suck.

Hono‘ found his playmates boisterous fellows and many a time he received hard knocks but gave back as many as he received.

“Have care, Hono‘,” his grandmother warned him. “Wherever you get scratched hair will grow. So take caution, for unless you do you will look like a cub.”

Summer came and the berries ripened. The bear grandmother suggested that it might be sport for the boys to go with her and gather the winter store of berries. The boys were delighted and consented instantly. Then the old bear said: “Now, Hono‘, we always have much trouble while gathering berries. Bad animals and bad men and bad birds swarm to the berry patches and seek to harm us. Now you are a warrior and I wish to dress you in skins, to paint your face and to give you a bow and a quiver of arrows. Run around the hill and shout and whoop as loud as you can, and if enemies appear, shoot without mercy. This done we will have a prosperous season.”

Hono‘ did as was asked and returning reported that he had shot many birds but nothing else. The bears, therefore, went upon the hillside fearlessly and gathered great baskets full of berries.

The summer season grew into autumn and nutting time came.

“This is a dangerous time,” said the old bear, “and I feel that evil will befall us. Hunters swarm the woods now after autumn fruits, roots and game.”

It was cautiously, indeed, that the bears gathered up the winter’s store of nuts but for some time no human hunter was seen. One day, however, the old bear exclaimed, “Ah, here he comes. Now Hono‘, I will show you the classes of hunters you humans have. I do not fear this one for he is a Do-sko-a-o, or brush-in-the-mouth-hunter. See, he is chewing a pine twig. This gives us the scent and we can flee long before he reaches us, for this ‘brush-mouth’ is too careless.”

The bears were hiding in a large hollow tree, and, true to the mother bear’s prophecy, the hunter did not see them but plodded along trailing his bow and chewing the pine. When he had passed by the bears scampered back to the chestnut tree and climbing it shook down the delicious brown nuts.

On the morrow, as Hono‘ and the bears were starting out, the old bear exclaimed in a whisper, “A hunter is coming, but fear not, he is a blind man. See, he is eating and holds his bowl so far over his eyes that he cannot see anything before him. When he walks through the forest he looks neither right nor left but walks unconcerned, yet strangely hopes for game. Look again, for another hunter will shortly appear. He is ‘heavy stepper’ and warns before he comes. Still another hunter comes,” continued the bear woman, “He is ‘swinging mouth’; keep away from his chin and you are safe. Notice, he appears to be singing loudly, but in reality he is only humming very low or even only thinking of his song. Listen to me Hono‘, bears can hear singing if only thought and sung in the mind.”

On their homeward journey the old bear putting her nose to the ground said: “Alas, alas! We must hurry now and hide for real evil is coming.” The bears hastened their steps and soon were safely concealed in their tree. Then the wise old bear looking through her window in a frightened tone said: “At last, a true hunter has come. He is of the class we call four eyes. He has a dog with him and no sign escapes their eyes. See even now he is approaching this tree. Ah, he is a great hunter and is your own evil foster father. When he cuts down the tree let me run first, and, last of all, Hono‘ you follow.”

Scarcely had she spoken when the hunter approached the tree and surveyed it critically. Gathering some dry leaves and twigs he built a fire around the dry old stub and as the flames ate in he cut out the coals, leaving a fresh surface for the fire. In a few minutes it crashed and fell. The old woman bear rushed out and began to run towards the west but had only taken a few leaps when an arrow pierced her heart, but her ghost-body ran on. The two cubs emerging met death in a similar way, then Hono‘ crawling out cried, “Father, are you going to shoot me, too?”

“Agē´!” exclaimed the hunter in surprise. “How came you here,” and Hono‘ told his story.

The stepfather was greatly impressed, and taking the boy by the hand, said, “I am sorry, my boy, I was ever unkind. I am sorry I killed your friends. If you had only called me I should have hearkened and all would have been well, but now Agē´! I shall always have bad luck!”

The hunter looked upon his stepson with great awe and invited him back to his home, for he was afraid of the bear ghosts.

“And am I useful now?” asked the boy, “and will you like me?”

The hunter said, “truly.”

He never dared hunt again but Hono‘ did.

GENERAL NOTES.—In this legend an unloved stepson is lured to a hole in the ground by his foster father and caused to enter it on the pretense of looking for game. The hole is then closed by a boulder and Hono‘ left a prisoner. Soon he hears animals talking about his fate and in a few moments the boulder is rolled away and he emerges to hear a lively discussion by the animals as to who can best care for him. A bear mother finally secures him and takes him with her, instructing him in the ways to avoid the human beings who hunt bears. In the end the bear mother gives up her life to save Hono‘ and he escapes only to find that this foster father was the hunter. The two become reconciled.

The ideas of the bear mother and of the bear wife of a human man are common Seneca concepts.

This legend was related during the winter of 1904–1905 by Edward Cornplanter. Later I secured versions from Mrs. Aurelia J. Miller and David George. From the notes of all these versions this present version has been compiled. I am aware that it is in my own words rather than in the language of any one of my informants. I have added nothing, however, and have carefully kept the story to its original form.

19. THE SEVENTH SON.[28]

My grandfather used to tell it to go to sleep by.

There were seven brothers two years apart. Their grandparents took care of them. They were all extra hunters. It seems the way my grandfather told it, each one shot an animal and used its skin for a short skirt; one had bear skin and the others different skins.

The grandparents knew of a family of beautiful daughters a good ways east that would make good wives, but had bad habits. Oh my, they were queer folks.

It seems each boy must go out when he was come to manhood and listen for signs of women,—the women to marry. So when the oldest was a man the grandfather said, “Now you must go away and listen, then come back.” All right, so he went away and by and by he came back and said: “Oh Grandfather!” “Now wait,” said the grandfather, “I must smoke first.” So he filled up his pipe hard and took a coal and made big clouds,—smoke, it was. Then by an’ by he said, “Now you tell me.” So the boy,—man now,—said, “O-whoo-oo-o. Whoo-ho-wa-a!” “All right,” grandfather says, “next morning you go off again. Go east and don’t stop. You keep right on.” So he went on and didn’t come back.

By and by the second son said, “I am a man now. Now’s my time to go off.” All right, so he went off and came back and heard a wren and he said he had heard something. When the grandfather finished smoking he said: “Now you follow that on and keep right east and don’t stop ‘tall.” So he never came back.

So turns came to all and they went too, same way and heard crow, rabbit, deer, cracking sticks, and they followed the sounds.

Then the seventh son came of age and he was a kind of a witch [_sic_] and he dressed up in his best. Now I am going to describe his dress. He had a short skirt to the middle, most to his knees, made of nice spotted deer-skin,—yearling,—and he had nice moccasins and nothing else only a ga-gē-da, (a breast sash). And so he was like a big witch.[29] He went off and he didn’t turn round when he heard a noise but kept right on going.

By and by he came to a path and saw one man’s tracks, by and by two, three, four, by and by, good many,—regular path. Pretty soon so many that the path, it was good deal dust in it, and he kept on. Then he noticed other tracks and paths coming on,—the big road it is, now, from every direction. Now way off in the distance he saw smoke rising. He kept looking. He thought something was going to happen. He was all alone on the big path in the dusty plain. Path gets wider the more he goes along. By and by he thinks he’d better look nice so he stripped off some bark and rolled it and spit on it to make a nice neck-string. My! it was a nice one and shined where he spit on it. By and by he went along and he saw a bush and a big thing on it—what hornets live in,—hanging down. It was a very big thing, so he went up slow and took some moss and clay in his fingers and made a plug and pasted up the door where hornets came out. Then he picked it off and he was a big witch, and rolled the big,—why, I guess it’s nest, you call it,—roll in his hands and got it small like a little bottle and he spit on it. My, it shined! Then he fastened the bottle to his neck on the bark. Oh it looked nice! Then he shook up the bottle hard. Oh! Then he went along and he saw a milk-weed stalk with pods popped open. So he pulled out the white threads and cut the stalk and got his hands sticky—and rubbed it on his long hair. Then he spit on it some more and stuck in the white stuff and worked a long time and it looked nice. You couldn’t see his black hair. It looked all white, like a dandelion. So he went along and he thought he would spit on his hands and rub it on his body and he did and it got all colors and they changed. Oh my! And he went on and he began to notice he was going down hill and he went on and the hill got steeper. He saw smoke all the time and now he saw it coming out of a big house and the road went right into the door. And the hill got steeper and by and by very steep and slippery. And he got there and said, “Yo hoh´! I am in for it now!” So he looked sharp and saw a woman in the door and he was all right. Then all of a sudden he looked around and oh my! his foot slipped and he fell right down the hill and didn’t stop until he landed right in the middle of the room. Now the old woman there said, “Yes, get the kettle ready. We’ve been waiting long enough for that animal.”

Now there were seven sisters there and the oldest was an old maid and all were except the youngest, and the oldest said, “Go get the knife and we will butcher him.” So they tied his body to a post and they were ready to kill him. Then the youngest said, “Oh look, he isn’t like the others. He has curious hair and his body shines! His skirt is nice, it is spotted and pretty and has deer’s hoofs rattling for a fringe. Let us look at him.” So she touched his hair and pulled it and said, “My, it is funny, it won’t pull out. Let’s not kill him yet.” So she looked at him some more. Pretty soon she says, “Oh what a funny bottle,” and she pulled out the cork and all of a sudden, out came something, bump, on the floor. Now he was a great witch and when the hornets struck the floor he used his great magic, and oh! it was strong magic! Now when the women looked, Ah-gey! the hornets were warriors! And they kept falling out until the house was full and the hornet captain took out his knife and cut the strings on the post and then he stopped up the bottle.

The old woman called her youngest daughter to her and said: “I am a big witch but he is a bigger one. If I get beaten you must burn down the house and all things in it. You must burn all the medicine because it will kill you all if you don’t. Then have all the ashes of me and everything buried.” Then the mother rushed and yelled, “Kill him!” and she tried it but a hornet-man warrior raised his tomahawk and he didn’t hit her but she fell down dead. So the oldest sister ran to stick a knife in him and a warrior raised his arm and she fell dead and he didn’t hit her. And they were all afraid and stood back and the youngest daughter kind o’ cried and said, “I’ll give up my way and eat what he eats and I’ll take him for my husband.” So right away the chief hornet married them.

So there was no more fighting and it was dark and he and the seventh daughter went to bed because they were married and the five sisters planned to kill him as he slept but it was so he had a friend, a guard who was a star. And the star came down and sat on his eye and the witch sisters thought him awake and by and by the star went away, but it was morning then and they couldn’t kill him.

So that day he ordered the big lodge to be burned and all the medicine in it and the body of the mother in it. It was a very big fire and hot and after awhile the mother’s head burst open and up in the smoke flew all kinds of evil birds that no one eats,—owls and screech-owls, and hawks and crows, and big crow buzzards, and black eagles and wild poison animals with feathers. Now the wife said he must not kill those animals but let them fly away. She told him before her mother died that must be the way. So that’s how it happened all kinds of mischief got scattered around.

Then the sisters told him that once in a fight all of their men were killed and everybody else only them and they didn’t have any men and wanted some now because they had made up their minds that they wouldn’t eat any more people. So some of his warriors married the sisters and others he sent out to find wives for some of the hornet men had no hornet wives. He wanted to make a big village there.

So then he went back and brought his grandparents to the new village and they were surprised and knew he was a big witch then. Now when all the warriors had returned with wives he said, “You are mine.” Then he uncorked his bottle and let out more warriors for his grandparents. So they went to another village and the warriors built houses and boats and cleared land and made a big town.

Now the youngest daughter told her husband where his brother’s bones were hidden. And she showed him the spot and he dug up the bones and was in a hurry to match them and smoked on them and they came to life again but he had been in too much of a hurry. He didn’t put the bones together the right way they ought to be and that was very bad because when the meat grew on again some had long legs, some long some short, some had broken arms, some too many fingers, some not enough, some had not enough ribs and so were soft and bent over. Oh they were in an awful fix! Their bones were not a match and some were missing because they had been chewed up. Oh! But the brothers had lots of hornets to work for them and it was easy. So now that’s why crooked and lame people come to be born. They are the grandchildren,—way down,—of the brothers, and it is awful!

Now that’s only how far my Grandfather told us because he said we wouldn’t go to sleep if we listened to more and he never finished it but next time began it all over again.

GENERAL NOTES.—This is a characteristic Seneca legend and its elements are not at all unusual. As a variation I have given it almost exactly in the same language as originally related to me by Mrs. Aurelia Jones Miller. My informant was a woman of unusual natural intelligence and spoke English fairly well, but she frequently omitted the articles, “the,” “an” and “a,” and in other ways her language was picturesquely provincial, but typical of the reservation brogue.

The conclusion of the story copies a common theme, that of restoring the bones of persons slain by witchcraft. The hero is in too much of a hurry and forces the skeletons to assemble so quickly that the bones are mismated, producing cripples and misshapen people when they are conjured back to living flesh.

20. THE BOY WHO OVERCAME ALL MAGIC BY LAUGHTER.[30]

The world was once visited by a demon of enchantment who scattered all the people and bewitched all the animals, all the trees, all the lakes, all the rivers, all the boys and girls and all the older people. Strange to say, nobody knew that they had been enchanted; they only knew that all their wishes were thwarted and that there was misery everywhere.

Now, Gajihsondis did not know that he had been placed under an evil spell. He was a boy and was filled with all the ambitions of a boy, but all his desires were curbed by his queer-looking old grandfather. The boy did not even know that it was strange to live in a hole in the ground under his grandfather’s bed or to be whipped with burning switches.[31] He only knew that he wanted to do things,—to play down by the spring and to go hunting. After a while he grew curious to know the reason of things and so asked many questions.

One day when he had grown to the age of twelve years he asked: “My grandfather, where are my parents? Why have you never taken me to my father and my mother?”