Post by Okwes on Apr 14, 2008 13:25:31 GMT -5
Grandfather's Two Families - Winnebago
An old couple had ten sons who were consummate hunters. Their skill was so
great that full racks of their meat ran in rows as far as the eye could see.
One day a terrible hunger came over the father, so that every time he
finished eating, he seemed all the more famished. They boiled whole kettles
of meat for him, and he ate it all and drank the soup, yet nothing sated
him. In time the meat racks were empty, and despite their prowess, the sons
could not keep their father fed. One day the oldest son said to the others,
"I am beginning to fear father. It is like he is becoming another person.
Next he may eat us." So that night, the sons slipped out of the village to
escape their now ravenous father. However, the next night one of the sons
returned and quietly awoke his mother to give her some meat. After he left,
she did not eat it all, but woke her husband and gave him some of the food.
The old man realized now what had happened and that his sons had deserted
him. It made his heart sore to think that his sons would not share the
bounty of the hunt with him, so the old man wandered off to die. As he was
walking, he reached a creek. By then his anger waxed hot. He resolved that
his sons should die, so he took a handful of snow and cast it in the
direction that he had come. No sooner had the snow scattered in the wind
that it began to snow, and back in the village a blizzard raged.
As the old man walked along the stream, he could see something under the
ice. He cracked the ice with his cane, and quite unexpectedly, he found bear
entrails. These he ate. He left the creek and there, unexpectedly, was a
road, and in this road were tracks made by hunters. So he followed the
tracks back to their source in a lodge. He entered within but no one was
inside. There was a big kettle cooking that contained nothing but buffalo
tongues. As always, he was very hungry, but out of politeness, he touched
none of the food. Finally, a man entered the lodge and set his pack down. He
was impressed with the old man's restraint, so he dished out the food,
saying, "Grandfather, eat as much as you can, for my brothers will bring
more." Now the oldest brother had packed a bear, and soon after came the
second oldest carrying buffalo meat. Each brother returned in the order of
his birth: the third brother had an elk, and the fourth had a black deer,
the fifth had venison, the sixth had a marten, the seventh had a beaver, the
eighth had an otter, and the ninth had a raccoon. Each of the brothers
hunted only the animal that he himself brought back. The old man, as usual,
ate everything that was brought before him. The oldest brother had an idea:
he would hunt a bear, declare a Bear Feast, then allow the old man to be the
only one to participate. Maybe then he would feel better. So it was done,
and just as the eldest brother had thought, so it proved to be: the old man
felt at least a little better. This was done four times in succession, and
the fourth time the old man felt very much better.
Then one day while the brothers were out hunting, a stranger came walking up
to the lodge, his gourd rattling with every step. He boldly came in, and
said, "I am here to challenge your grandsons to a game." "I will tell them,"
said the old man, but when the brothers returned, he had forgotten all about
it. The next day, the visitor returned, and repeated his challenge, but
again the old man forgot about it. The third time that the man came, he
pulled out a warclub and swung it at the old man's head, but he ducked and
the club hit with such force that it left a pit in the lodge floor. The
challenger warned him, "Don't forget, or next time I will kill you!" When
the eldest son returned, the old man announced that he had something
important to tell him, but all the other brothers should be present. So each
brother called the other, until the youngest of the hunters arrived. When
the last of them came, he knocked over trees a he ran, but his brothers
yelled, "slow down." When he did, he slipped, and when he fell the wind
suddenly became calm. Then the old man told them all what had happened, but
he said, "The youngest brother must also be told." This last brother lived
behind a partition, and never went out to hunt. He was very holy, and spent
much time fasting. As they gathered around the youngest, footsteps could be
heard as someone approached the lodge. It was Turtle. Turtle said, "I heard
that there was to be a game. How are they going to compete?" The old man
replied, "It will be a race, and I will judge who among us will run the best
against them." The eldest said that he had his speed from long-legged bears,
but the old man replied, "They are not runners." And each brother said that
he got his speed from the animal he always hunted, but each time the
grandfather replied that such an animal was not a good runner. However, the
ninth brother said, "Grandfather, the Red Star blessed me with speed." The
old man replied, "This is very good, yet it is not the best possible." Then
the youngest one of all said, "Grandfather, I have been blessed with speed
by Morning Star." The old man replied, "This is the best of all. This is
what I was looking for." Turtle said, "Grandfather and I were always the
fastest. I could beat him in short distance runs, but he usually won over a
long course. So Grandfather and I shall race against them, since we are the
fastest."
Then they heard the gourd rattle as the challenger approached. He was
carrying a screed pipe. He offered it to the eldest brother first, but he
refused, and the same offer was refused by each brother in turn. Turtle
said, "I know exactly what you came for: you want us to go on a retaliation
raid with you as reinforcements." "No, that's not it at all," replied the
visitor in an agitated tone of voice. "Well," said Turtle, "it's plain to
see that you came to play a gambling game, so we will clear a place here in
the lodge for the action." "No, that's not right either," said the visitor.
"Turtle, you confuse everything!" Turtle persuaded the challenger to put up
lives as a wager on the outcome of the race, and this was accepted. Then
they smoked on it. When the visitor returned to his people, he told them
that there used to be just ten, but with Turtle and an old fat man among
them, they now numbered twelve. These people were Giants, and they coveted
the fat man, for they planned to eat the people that they won in the wager.
The Giants showed up at the race field and gave a war hoop, but the brothers
were silent. The Giants said, "Pick your fastest runners," and Turtle
replied, "That would be me and grandpa." The Giants scoffed, and told Turtle
that he was confusing everything. The Giants struck a baldheaded warclub
into the ground to mark the start and finish line, since they were going to
race to a distant point and back again. However, as the race was to begin,
Turtle ducked out, saying, "No, I think it would be better if grandfather
ran this race alone, since he is just a little faster than me." Two of the
Giants with the longest legs were chosen to run for their side. They took
off running, and before long, the Giants had crossed four hills before
grandfather had made it up just one of them. The brothers felt that all was
lost. After grandfather struggled to the top of the first hill with the aid
of his cane, he took off his pack and a necklace from which was suspended a
large leather disc. He detached this disc and as it rolled down the hill it
made a great whirring noise. Soon the old man had passed the Giants and was
headed back. He returned to where he left his pack, then very leisurely
walked to the finish line, just barely beating his competitors. The Giants
thought that perhaps grandfather had simply doubled back before reaching the
midway point, but before they could ask their own runners whether the old
man had actually beaten them, Turtle jumped up and killed them. The old man
sprinkled the dead Giants with cattails, and burned them up. The Giants
challenged them a second and a third time, but things went exactly as they
had before, with Turtle killing the Giants before they could get a word out.
The fourth contest went as the others had, and by now almost all the Giants
had been bet and lost. However, this time the Giants' runners were able to
speak, and confessed that they had been beaten by the fat old man. The
Giants who had been wagered were killed by Turtle, and grandfather burned
their bodies until nothing was left but bones.
The Giants left, but Turtle realized that they were going to try to escape,
so he spoke to grandfather and said, "The Giants have taken flight, so let's
chase after them." Nevertheless, it was the youngest brother who joined
Turtle in chasing the Giants. They found the Giants' village abandoned, but
they could clearly see the four different paths by which its inhabitants had
fled. Turtle and the youngest brother went down each path and killed
everyone on it. However, on the fourth path they found only an old man
carrying on his back a little boy and a little girl. Turtle decided to spare
them: "The Creator saw fit to create you, therefore your race shall not be
completely extinguished. You did wrong in eating humans, but now you will
eat something else and live beyond the ocean." Then he forced them to eat
grass, and afterwards grabbed them and pitched them across the sea. The
younger brother and Turtle parted ways after that, each going back to his
own home.
Grandfather assembled everyone and told them, "Now I will go off to another
place where I shall live ever after. I ate all the food of my first family,
and they became disgusted with me. The Creator did not make me for that
purpose." Then grandfather went back to his old village carrying a sack of
Giants' bones with him. He took the bones and pounded them into powder, and
spread it over the whole village. Much noise was heard as far away as the
village of the brothers, so that they became fearful that the Giants had
returned in force. In fact, the inhabitants of the old village had come back
to life, the old man's wife and his ten sons as well. The old man,
Grandfather, was in fact Sun, and his wife was Moon. The ten young men whom
he raised in his first family, were not brothers at all. They were ten
children who were the only survivors of a village that was massacred by the
Giants. Sun had taken pity on them, and had come to earth to raise them to
adulthood. The eight eldest brothers of the second village, however, each
turned into the kind of animal that he always hunted. The two youngest
turned into stars: the ninth brother became Red Star (the Evening Star), and
the youngest and most holy, became Morning Star (Wiragocge Xetera, "The
Great Star").
Paul Radin, "Morning Star (Wiragocge Xetera)," [unpublished] Winnebago
Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Library) #8, pp.
1-93.
An old couple had ten sons who were consummate hunters. Their skill was so
great that full racks of their meat ran in rows as far as the eye could see.
One day a terrible hunger came over the father, so that every time he
finished eating, he seemed all the more famished. They boiled whole kettles
of meat for him, and he ate it all and drank the soup, yet nothing sated
him. In time the meat racks were empty, and despite their prowess, the sons
could not keep their father fed. One day the oldest son said to the others,
"I am beginning to fear father. It is like he is becoming another person.
Next he may eat us." So that night, the sons slipped out of the village to
escape their now ravenous father. However, the next night one of the sons
returned and quietly awoke his mother to give her some meat. After he left,
she did not eat it all, but woke her husband and gave him some of the food.
The old man realized now what had happened and that his sons had deserted
him. It made his heart sore to think that his sons would not share the
bounty of the hunt with him, so the old man wandered off to die. As he was
walking, he reached a creek. By then his anger waxed hot. He resolved that
his sons should die, so he took a handful of snow and cast it in the
direction that he had come. No sooner had the snow scattered in the wind
that it began to snow, and back in the village a blizzard raged.
As the old man walked along the stream, he could see something under the
ice. He cracked the ice with his cane, and quite unexpectedly, he found bear
entrails. These he ate. He left the creek and there, unexpectedly, was a
road, and in this road were tracks made by hunters. So he followed the
tracks back to their source in a lodge. He entered within but no one was
inside. There was a big kettle cooking that contained nothing but buffalo
tongues. As always, he was very hungry, but out of politeness, he touched
none of the food. Finally, a man entered the lodge and set his pack down. He
was impressed with the old man's restraint, so he dished out the food,
saying, "Grandfather, eat as much as you can, for my brothers will bring
more." Now the oldest brother had packed a bear, and soon after came the
second oldest carrying buffalo meat. Each brother returned in the order of
his birth: the third brother had an elk, and the fourth had a black deer,
the fifth had venison, the sixth had a marten, the seventh had a beaver, the
eighth had an otter, and the ninth had a raccoon. Each of the brothers
hunted only the animal that he himself brought back. The old man, as usual,
ate everything that was brought before him. The oldest brother had an idea:
he would hunt a bear, declare a Bear Feast, then allow the old man to be the
only one to participate. Maybe then he would feel better. So it was done,
and just as the eldest brother had thought, so it proved to be: the old man
felt at least a little better. This was done four times in succession, and
the fourth time the old man felt very much better.
Then one day while the brothers were out hunting, a stranger came walking up
to the lodge, his gourd rattling with every step. He boldly came in, and
said, "I am here to challenge your grandsons to a game." "I will tell them,"
said the old man, but when the brothers returned, he had forgotten all about
it. The next day, the visitor returned, and repeated his challenge, but
again the old man forgot about it. The third time that the man came, he
pulled out a warclub and swung it at the old man's head, but he ducked and
the club hit with such force that it left a pit in the lodge floor. The
challenger warned him, "Don't forget, or next time I will kill you!" When
the eldest son returned, the old man announced that he had something
important to tell him, but all the other brothers should be present. So each
brother called the other, until the youngest of the hunters arrived. When
the last of them came, he knocked over trees a he ran, but his brothers
yelled, "slow down." When he did, he slipped, and when he fell the wind
suddenly became calm. Then the old man told them all what had happened, but
he said, "The youngest brother must also be told." This last brother lived
behind a partition, and never went out to hunt. He was very holy, and spent
much time fasting. As they gathered around the youngest, footsteps could be
heard as someone approached the lodge. It was Turtle. Turtle said, "I heard
that there was to be a game. How are they going to compete?" The old man
replied, "It will be a race, and I will judge who among us will run the best
against them." The eldest said that he had his speed from long-legged bears,
but the old man replied, "They are not runners." And each brother said that
he got his speed from the animal he always hunted, but each time the
grandfather replied that such an animal was not a good runner. However, the
ninth brother said, "Grandfather, the Red Star blessed me with speed." The
old man replied, "This is very good, yet it is not the best possible." Then
the youngest one of all said, "Grandfather, I have been blessed with speed
by Morning Star." The old man replied, "This is the best of all. This is
what I was looking for." Turtle said, "Grandfather and I were always the
fastest. I could beat him in short distance runs, but he usually won over a
long course. So Grandfather and I shall race against them, since we are the
fastest."
Then they heard the gourd rattle as the challenger approached. He was
carrying a screed pipe. He offered it to the eldest brother first, but he
refused, and the same offer was refused by each brother in turn. Turtle
said, "I know exactly what you came for: you want us to go on a retaliation
raid with you as reinforcements." "No, that's not it at all," replied the
visitor in an agitated tone of voice. "Well," said Turtle, "it's plain to
see that you came to play a gambling game, so we will clear a place here in
the lodge for the action." "No, that's not right either," said the visitor.
"Turtle, you confuse everything!" Turtle persuaded the challenger to put up
lives as a wager on the outcome of the race, and this was accepted. Then
they smoked on it. When the visitor returned to his people, he told them
that there used to be just ten, but with Turtle and an old fat man among
them, they now numbered twelve. These people were Giants, and they coveted
the fat man, for they planned to eat the people that they won in the wager.
The Giants showed up at the race field and gave a war hoop, but the brothers
were silent. The Giants said, "Pick your fastest runners," and Turtle
replied, "That would be me and grandpa." The Giants scoffed, and told Turtle
that he was confusing everything. The Giants struck a baldheaded warclub
into the ground to mark the start and finish line, since they were going to
race to a distant point and back again. However, as the race was to begin,
Turtle ducked out, saying, "No, I think it would be better if grandfather
ran this race alone, since he is just a little faster than me." Two of the
Giants with the longest legs were chosen to run for their side. They took
off running, and before long, the Giants had crossed four hills before
grandfather had made it up just one of them. The brothers felt that all was
lost. After grandfather struggled to the top of the first hill with the aid
of his cane, he took off his pack and a necklace from which was suspended a
large leather disc. He detached this disc and as it rolled down the hill it
made a great whirring noise. Soon the old man had passed the Giants and was
headed back. He returned to where he left his pack, then very leisurely
walked to the finish line, just barely beating his competitors. The Giants
thought that perhaps grandfather had simply doubled back before reaching the
midway point, but before they could ask their own runners whether the old
man had actually beaten them, Turtle jumped up and killed them. The old man
sprinkled the dead Giants with cattails, and burned them up. The Giants
challenged them a second and a third time, but things went exactly as they
had before, with Turtle killing the Giants before they could get a word out.
The fourth contest went as the others had, and by now almost all the Giants
had been bet and lost. However, this time the Giants' runners were able to
speak, and confessed that they had been beaten by the fat old man. The
Giants who had been wagered were killed by Turtle, and grandfather burned
their bodies until nothing was left but bones.
The Giants left, but Turtle realized that they were going to try to escape,
so he spoke to grandfather and said, "The Giants have taken flight, so let's
chase after them." Nevertheless, it was the youngest brother who joined
Turtle in chasing the Giants. They found the Giants' village abandoned, but
they could clearly see the four different paths by which its inhabitants had
fled. Turtle and the youngest brother went down each path and killed
everyone on it. However, on the fourth path they found only an old man
carrying on his back a little boy and a little girl. Turtle decided to spare
them: "The Creator saw fit to create you, therefore your race shall not be
completely extinguished. You did wrong in eating humans, but now you will
eat something else and live beyond the ocean." Then he forced them to eat
grass, and afterwards grabbed them and pitched them across the sea. The
younger brother and Turtle parted ways after that, each going back to his
own home.
Grandfather assembled everyone and told them, "Now I will go off to another
place where I shall live ever after. I ate all the food of my first family,
and they became disgusted with me. The Creator did not make me for that
purpose." Then grandfather went back to his old village carrying a sack of
Giants' bones with him. He took the bones and pounded them into powder, and
spread it over the whole village. Much noise was heard as far away as the
village of the brothers, so that they became fearful that the Giants had
returned in force. In fact, the inhabitants of the old village had come back
to life, the old man's wife and his ten sons as well. The old man,
Grandfather, was in fact Sun, and his wife was Moon. The ten young men whom
he raised in his first family, were not brothers at all. They were ten
children who were the only survivors of a village that was massacred by the
Giants. Sun had taken pity on them, and had come to earth to raise them to
adulthood. The eight eldest brothers of the second village, however, each
turned into the kind of animal that he always hunted. The two youngest
turned into stars: the ninth brother became Red Star (the Evening Star), and
the youngest and most holy, became Morning Star (Wiragocge Xetera, "The
Great Star").
Paul Radin, "Morning Star (Wiragocge Xetera)," [unpublished] Winnebago
Notebooks (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society Library) #8, pp.
1-93.