Stories That Talk Discussions - Warrior Nation2024-03-29T08:31:27Zhttps://warriornation.ning.com/group/storiesthattalk/forum?feed=yes&xn_auth=noTHE LEGEND OF THE SACRED MOUNTAIN || Ancient Native American Wisdomtag:warriornation.ning.com,2023-10-02:6193495:Topic:6664162023-10-02T16:40:03.701Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ifiEP8sGQts?si=_nW95rImY0Q6NGbN&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ifiEP8sGQts?si=_nW95rImY0Q6NGbN&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> THE LEGEND OF THE TWO WOLVES || Native American Legendtag:warriornation.ning.com,2023-10-02:6193495:Topic:6664142023-10-02T15:32:37.922Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x95_BTeanI8?si=KF1jxgyOu9v0DB2s&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x95_BTeanI8?si=KF1jxgyOu9v0DB2s&wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Sanctuaries of Silencetag:warriornation.ning.com,2023-04-14:6193495:Topic:6645472023-04-14T17:50:44.705Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/69sr8wr7ZPY?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Native America: A Documentary Exploring the World of America’s First Peoplestag:warriornation.ning.com,2023-04-14:6193495:Topic:6646622023-04-14T16:28:02.635Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DJy9STLb9IU?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> The Comanche and the Horse | Native America | Sacred Storiestag:warriornation.ning.com,2023-04-14:6193495:Topic:6647252023-04-14T16:26:17.853Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MRXXvm-zKTY?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> An Oneida Elder Speaks About the Three Sisters Gardentag:warriornation.ning.com,2023-04-14:6193495:Topic:6645452023-04-14T16:23:50.552Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lSwGxJe4bVs?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Tales From the Longhouse - Native American Winter Storytelling Festivaltag:warriornation.ning.com,2023-04-14:6193495:Topic:6646602023-04-14T16:17:32.479Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_UbmB6HG1yg?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> The Boy Who Set a Snare for the Suntag:warriornation.ning.com,2020-11-17:6193495:Topic:6302162020-11-17T13:38:31.847Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
<p>At the time when the animals reigned in the earth, they had killed all the people but a girl and her little brother, and these two were living in fear, in an out-of-the-way place. The boy was a perfect little pigmy, and never grew beyond the size of a mere infant; but the girl increased with her years, so that the task of providing food and shelter fell wholly upon her. She went out daily to get wood for the lodge-fire, and she took her little brother with her that no mishap might befall…</p>
<p>At the time when the animals reigned in the earth, they had killed all the people but a girl and her little brother, and these two were living in fear, in an out-of-the-way place. The boy was a perfect little pigmy, and never grew beyond the size of a mere infant; but the girl increased with her years, so that the task of providing food and shelter fell wholly upon her. She went out daily to get wood for the lodge-fire, and she took her little brother with her that no mishap might befall him; for he was too little to leave alone. A big bird, of a mischievous disposition, might have flown away with him. She made him a bow and arrows, and said to him one day, “My little brother, I will leave you behind where I have been gathering the wood; you must hide yourself, and you will soon see the snow-birds come and pick the worms out of the logs which I have piled up. Shoot one of them and bring it home.”</p>
<p>Animals rule the world<br/> “The biggest of them all was Bosh-kwa-dosh, the Mastodon.” Illustration by John Rae. Published in American Indian Fairy Tales by Anonymous. 1921. P. F. Volland Company</p>
<p>He obeyed her, and tried his best to kill one, but he came home unsuccessful. His sister told him that he must not despair, but try again the next day.</p>
<p>She accordingly left him at the gathering-place of the wood, and returned to the lodge. Toward night-fall she heard his little footsteps crackling through the snow, and he hurried in and threw down, with an air of triumph, one of the birds which he had killed. “My sister,” said he, “I wish you to skin it, and stretch the skin, and when I have killed more, I will have a coat made out of them.”</p>
<p>“But what shall we do with the body?” said she; for they had always up to that time lived upon greens and berries.</p>
<p>“Cut it in two,” he answered, “and season our pottage with one half of it at a time.”</p>
<p>It was their first dish of game, and they relished it greatly.</p>
<p>The boy kept on in his efforts, and in the course of time he killed ten birds—out of the skins of which his sister made him a little coat: being very small, he had a very pretty coat, and a bird skin to spare.</p>
<p>“Sister,” said he, one day, as he paraded up and down before the lodge, enjoying his new coat, and fancifying himself the greatest little fellow in the world—as he was, for there was no other beside him—”My sister, are we really alone in the world, or are we playing at it? Is there nobody else living? And, tell me, was all this great broad earth and this huge big sky made for a little boy and girl like you and me?”</p>
<p>She told him, by no means; there were many folks very unlike a harmless girl and boy, such as they were, who lived in a certain other quarter of the earth, who had killed off all of their kinsfolk; and that if he would live blameless and not endanger his life, he must never go where they were. This only served to inflame the boy’s curiosity; and he soon after took his bow and arrows and went in that direction. After walking a long time and meeting no one, he became tired, and stretched himself upon a high green knoll where the day’s warmth had melted off the snow.</p>
<p>It was a charming place to lie upon, and he fell asleep; and, while sleeping, the sun beat so hot upon him that it not only singed his bird-skin coat, but it so shrivelled and shrunk and tightened it upon the little boy’s body, as to wake him up.</p>
<p>When he felt how the sun had seared and the mischief its fiery beams had played with the coat he was so proud of, he flew into a great passion, and berated the sun in a terrible way for a little boy no higher than a man’s knee, and he vowed fearful things against it.</p>
<p>“Do not think you are too high,” said he; “I shall revenge myself. Oh, sun! I will have you for a plaything yet.”</p>
<p>On coming home he gave an account of his misfortune to his sister, and bitterly bewailed the spoiling of his new coat. He would not eat—not so much as a single berry. He lay down as one that fasts; nor did he move nor change his manner of lying for ten full days, though his sister strove to prevail on him to rise. At the end of ten days he turned over, and then he lay full ten days on the other side.</p>
<p>When he got up he was very pale, but very resolute too. He bade his sister make a snare, for, he informed her, that he meant to catch the sun. She said she had nothing; but after awhile she brought forward a deer’s sinew which the father had left, and which she soon made into a string suitable for a noose. The moment she showed it to him he was quite wroth, and told her that would not do, and directed her to find something else. She said she had nothing—nothing at all. At last she thought of the bird-skin that was left over when the coat was made; and this she wrought into a string. With this the little boy was more vexed than before. “The sun has had enough of my bird-skins,” he said; “find something else.” She went out of the lodge saying to herself, “Was there ever so obstinate a boy?” She did not dare to answer this time that she had nothing. Luckily she thought of her own beautiful hair, and pulling some of it from among her locks, she quickly braided it into a cord, and, returning, she handed it to her brother. The moment his eye fell upon this jet black braid he was delighted. “This will do,” he said; and he immediately began to run it back and forth through his hands as swiftly as he could; and as he drew it forth, he tried its strength. He said again, “this will do;” and winding it in a glossy coil about his shoulders, he set out a little after midnight. His object was to catch the sun before he rose. He fixed his snare firmly on a spot just where the sun must strike the land as it rose above the earth; and sure enough, he caught the sun, so that it was held fast in the cord and did not rise.</p>
<p>The animals who ruled the earth were immediately put into great commotion. They had no light; and they ran to and fro, calling out to each other, and inquiring what had happened. They summoned a council to debate upon the matter, and an old dormouse, suspecting where the trouble lay, proposed that some one should be appointed to go and cut the cord. This was a bold thing to undertake, as the rays of the sun could not fail to burn whoever should venture so near to them.</p>
<p>At last the venerable dormouse himself undertook it, for the very good reason that no one else would. At this time the dormouse was the largest animal in the world. When he stood up he looked like a mountain. It made haste to the place where the sun lay ensnared, and as it came nearer and nearer, its back began to smoke and burn with the heat, and the whole top of his huge bulk was turned in a very short time to enormous heaps of ashes. It succeeded, however, in cutting the cord with its teeth and freeing the sun, which rolled up again, as round and beautiful as ever, into the wide blue sky. But the dormouse—or blind woman as it is called—was shrunk away to a very small size; and that is the reason why it is now one of the tiniest creatures upon the earth.</p>
<p>The little boy returned home when he discovered that the sun had escaped his snare, and devoted himself entirely to hunting. “If the beautiful hair of my sister would not hold the sun fast, nothing in the world could,” he said. “He was not born, a little fellow like himself, to look after the sun. It required one greater and wiser than he was to regulate that.” And he went out and shot ten more snow-birds; for in this business he was very expert; and he had a new bird-skin coat made, which was prettier than the one he had worn before.</p> The Boy Who Was Saved by Thoughtstag:warriornation.ning.com,2020-11-17:6193495:Topic:6299602020-11-17T13:37:09.763Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
<p>Apoor widow woman once lived near the sea in Eastern Canada. Her husband had been drowned catching fish one stormy day far off the coast, and her little boy was now her only means of support. He had no brothers or sisters, and he and his mother, because they lived alone, were always good comrades. Although he was very young and small, he was very strong, and he could catch fish and game like a man. Every day he brought home food to his mother, and they were never went without a…</p>
<p>Apoor widow woman once lived near the sea in Eastern Canada. Her husband had been drowned catching fish one stormy day far off the coast, and her little boy was now her only means of support. He had no brothers or sisters, and he and his mother, because they lived alone, were always good comrades. Although he was very young and small, he was very strong, and he could catch fish and game like a man. Every day he brought home food to his mother, and they were never went without a meal.</p>
<p>Now it happened that the Great Eagle who made the Winds in these parts became very angry because he was not given enough to eat. He went screaming through the land in search of food, but no food could he find. And he said, “If the people will not give me food, I will take care that they get no food for themselves, and when I grow very hungry I shall eat up all the little children in the land. For my young ones must have nourishment too.” So he tossed the waters about with the wind of his great wings, and he bent the trees and flattened the corn, and for days he made such activity on the earth that the people stayed indoors, and they were afraid to come out in search of food.</p>
<p>At last the boy and his mother became very hungry. And the boy said, “I must go and find food, since there is not a crumb left in the house. We cannot wait longer.” And he said to his mother, “I know where a fat young beaver lives in his house of reeds on the bank of the stream near the sea. I shall go and kill him, and his flesh will feed us for many days.” His mother did not want him to make this hazardous journey, for the Great Eagle was still in the land.</p>
<p>But he said to her, “You must think of me always when I am gone, and I will think of you, and while we keep each other in our memories I shall come to no harm.” So, taking his long hunting knife, he set out for the beaver’s home in his house of reeds on the bank of the stream near the sea. He reached the place without mishap and there he found Beaver fast asleep. He soon killed him and slung him over his shoulder and started back to his mother’s house. “A good fat load I have here,” he said to himself, “and we shall now have many a good dinner of roast beaver-meat.”</p>
<p>But as he went along with his load on his back, the Great Eagle spied him from a distance and swooped down upon him without warning. Before he could strike with his knife, the Eagle caught him by the shoulders and soared away, holding him in a mighty grip with the beaver still on his back. The boy tried to plunge his knife into the Eagle’s breast, but the feathers were too thick and tough, and he was not strong enough to drive the knife through them. He could do nothing but make the best of his sorry plight. “Surely I can think of a way of escape,” he said to himself, “and my mother’s thoughts will be with me to help me.”</p>
<p>Soon the Eagle arrived at his home. It was built on a high cliff overlooking the sea, hundreds of feet above the beach, where even the sound of the surf rolling in from afar could not reach it. There were many young birds in the nest, all clamuring for food. Great Eagle threw the boy to the side of the nest and told him to stay there. And he said, “I shall first eat the beaver, and after he is all eaten up, we shall have a good fat meal from you.” Then he picked the beaver to pieces and fed part of it to his young ones.</p>
<p>For some days the boy lay in terror in the nest, trying to think of a way of escape. Birds flew high over his head, and far out on the ocean, he could see great ships going by. But no help came to him, and he thought that death would soon be upon him. And his mother sat at home waiting for him to return, but day after day passed and still he did not come. She thought he must surely be in great danger, or that perhaps he was already dead. One day, as she was weeping, thinking of her lost boy, an old woman came along. “Why do you cry?” she asked.</p>
<p>And the weeping woman said, “My boy has been away for many days. I know that harm has come upon him. The men of my tribe have gone in search of him, and they will kill whatever holds him a prisoner, but I fear he will never come back alive.” And the old woman said, “Little good the men of your tribe can do you! You must aid him with your thoughts, for material things are vain. I will help you, for I have been given great power by the Little People of the Hills.” So the woman used her thoughts and her wishes to bring back her boy.</p>
<p>That night the boy noticed that the beaver had all been eaten up and that not a morsel remained. He knew that unless he could save himself at once he would surely die on the morrow. The Great Eagle, he knew, would swoop down upon him and kill him with a blow of his powerful beak and claws. But when the boy slept, he saw his mother in his slumber. And she said to him, “Tomorrow when Great Eagle goes from the nest, brace your knife, point upwards, against the rock. When he swoops down to kill you his breast will strike the knife, and he will be pierced to death. You are not strong enough to cut through his feathers with your knife, but he is powerful enough to destroy himself.”</p>
<p>The next morning when Great Eagle went out, the boy did as the vision of the night had told him. He braced his sharp hunting-knife, point upwards, against the rock and sat still and waited. Then he heard the young eagles making a great noise and crying loudly for their breakfast. He knew that his hour had come. Soon the Great Eagle, hearing the screams of his young ones, came flying back to the nest to kill the boy. He circled around above him with loud cries and then with great force swooped down upon him, hoping to kill him with his beak and claws. But instead, he struck the blade braced upwards against the rock. The knife pierced far into his breast, and with a loud scream he rolled over dead into the nest. The boy then killed the young eagles, and he knew that now for a time he was safe.</p>
<p>But he did not know how to get down from the Eagle’s nest, for it jutted out like a shelf far over the beach, and behind it was a wall of rock around which he could not climb. He had no means of making a ladder, and his cries would not be heard upon the beach because of the constant roaring of the surf. He thought he would surely starve to death, and that night he cried himself to sleep. But in the night he again saw his mother in his slumbers. And she said, “You are a foolish boy. Why do you not use the thoughts I send you? Tomorrow skin the eagle and crawl inside the skin. If the wide wings can hold the Eagle in the air they can likewise hold you. Drop off from the cliff and you will land safely on the beach.”</p>
<p>The next day the boy did as the vision of the night had told him. He carefully skinned the Great Eagle. Then he crawled inside the skin and thrust his arms through the skin just above the wings, so that his extended arms would hold the wings straight out beneath them. Then he prepared to drop down. But when he looked over the cliff, he was very frightened, for the sight made him dizzy. On the beach, men looked like flies, they were so far away. But he remembered the promise made to him in his slumbers. So he pushed himself from the cliff and dropped down. The wings of Great Eagle let him fall gently through the air and he landed safely and unhurt upon the beach. He crawled out of the skin and set out for his home. It was a long journey, for Great Eagle had carried him far away, but towards evening he reached his home safely, and his mother received him with great gladness.</p>
<p>The boy began to boast of his adventure, and he told how he had killed Great Eagle and how he had dropped down unscathed from the cliff. He spoke of himself with great pride and of his strength and his shrewdness. But the old woman from the Land of the Little People, the fairies of the hills, who was still present with his mother, said, “Oh, vain boy, do not think so highly of yourself. Your strength is nothing; your shrewdness is nothing. It was not these things that saved you, but it was the strength of our thoughts. These alone endure and succeed when all else fails. I have taught you the uselessness of all material things, which in the end are but as ashes or as dust. Our thoughts alone can help us in the end, for they alone are eternal.” And the boy listened and wondered at what the old woman from the Land of Little People had said, but he boasted of his strength no more.</p> The Little Spirit or Boy-Mantag:warriornation.ning.com,2020-11-17:6193495:Topic:6301522020-11-17T13:35:12.265Zbridget ormanhttps://warriornation.ning.com/profile/bridgetotman
<p>In a little lodge at a beautiful spot on a lake shore, alone with his sister, lived a boy remarkable for the smallness of his stature. Many large rocks were scattered around their habitation, and it had a very wild and out-of-the-way look.</p>
<p>The boy grew no larger as he advanced in years, and yet, small as he was, he had a big spirit of his own, and loved dearly to play the master in the lodge. One day in winter he told his sister to make him a ball to play with, as he meant to have…</p>
<p>In a little lodge at a beautiful spot on a lake shore, alone with his sister, lived a boy remarkable for the smallness of his stature. Many large rocks were scattered around their habitation, and it had a very wild and out-of-the-way look.</p>
<p>The boy grew no larger as he advanced in years, and yet, small as he was, he had a big spirit of his own, and loved dearly to play the master in the lodge. One day in winter he told his sister to make him a ball to play with, as he meant to have some sport along the shore on the clear ice. When she handed him the ball, his sister cautioned him not to go too far.</p>
<p>He laughed at her, and posted off in high glee, throwing his ball before him and running after it at full speed, and he went as fast as his ball. At last his ball flew to a great distance; he followed as fast as he could. After he had run forward for some time, he saw what seemed four dark spots upon the ice, straight before him.</p>
<p>When he came up to the shore he was surprised to see four large, tall men, lying on the ice, spearing fish. They were four brothers, who looked exactly alike. As the little boy-man approached them, the nearest looked up, and in his turn he was surprised to see such a tiny being, and turning to his brothers, he said:</p>
<p>“Tia! look! see what a little fellow is here.”</p>
<p>The three others thereupon looked up too, and seeing these four faces, as if they had been one, the little spirit or boy-man said to himself:</p>
<p>“Four in one! What a time they must have in choosing their hunting-shirts!”</p>
<p>After they had all stared for a moment at the boy, they covered their heads, intent in searching for fish. The boy thought to himself:</p>
<p>“These four-faces fancy that I am to be put off without notice because I am so little, and they are so broad and long. They shall find out. I may find a way to teach them that I am not to be treated so lightly.”</p>
<p>After they were covered up, the boy-man, looking sharply about, saw that among them they had caught one large trout, which was lying just by their side. Stealing along, he slyly seized it, and placing his fingers in the gills, and tossing his ball before him, he ran off at full speed.</p>
<p>They heard the pattering of his little steps upon the ice, and when the four looked up all together, they saw their fine trout sliding away, as if of itself, at a great rate, the boy being so small that he could not be distinguished from the fish.</p>
<p>“See!” they cried out, “our fish is running away on the dry land!”</p>
<p>When they stood up they could just see, over the fish’s head, that it was the boy-man who was carrying it off.</p>
<p>The little spirit reached the lodge, and having left the trout at the door, he told his sister to go out and bring in the fish he had brought home.</p>
<p>She exclaimed, “Where could you have got it? I hope you have not stolen it.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” he replied, “I found it on the ice. It was caught in our lake. Have we no right to a little lake of our own? I shall claim all the fish that come out of its waters.”</p>
<p>“How,” the sister asked again, “could you have got it there?”</p>
<p>“No matter,” said the boy; “go and cook it.”</p>
<p>It was as much as the girl could do to drag the great trout within doors. She cooked it, and its flavor was so delicious that she asked no more questions as to how he had come by it.</p>
<p>The next morning the little spirit or boy-man set off as he had the day before.</p>
<p>He made all sorts of sport with his ball as he frolicked along—high over his head he would toss it, straight up into the air; then far before him, and again, in mere merriment of spirit, he would send it bounding back, as if he had plenty of speed and enough to spare in running back after it. And the ball leaped and bounded about, and glided through the air as if it were a live thing, and enjoyed the sport as much as the boy-man himself.</p>
<p>When he came within hail of the four large men, who were fishing there every day, he cast his ball with such force that it rolled into the ice-hole about which they were busy. The boy, standing on the shore of the lake, called out:</p>
<p>“Four-in-one, pray hand me my ball.”</p>
<p>“No, indeed,” they answered, setting up a grim laugh which curdled their four dark faces all at once, “we shall not;” and with their fishing-spears they thrust the ball under the ice.</p>
<p>“Good!” said the boy-man, “we shall see.”</p>
<p>Saying which he rushed upon the four brothers and thrust them at one push into the water. His ball bounded back to the surface, and, picking it up, he ran off, tossing it before him in his own sportive way. Outstripping it in speed he soon reached home, and remained within till the next morning.</p>
<p>The four brothers, rising up from the water at the same time, dripping and wroth, roared out in one voice a terrible threat of vengeance, which they promised to execute the next day. They knew the boy’s speed, and that they could by no means overtake him.</p>
<p>By times in the morning, the four brothers were stirring in their lodge, and getting ready to look after their revenge.</p>
<p>Their old mother, who lived with them, begged them not to go.</p>
<p>“Better,” said she, “now that your clothes are dry, to think no more of the ducking than to go and all four of you get your heads broken, as you surely will, for that boy is a monedo or he could not perform such feats as he does.”</p>
<p>But her sons paid no heed to this wise advice, and, raising a great war-cry, which frightened the birds overhead nearly out of their feathers, they started for the boy’s lodge among the rocks.</p>
<p>The little spirit or boy-man heard them roaring forth their threats as they approached, but he did not appear to be disquieted in the least. His sister as yet had heard nothing; after a while she thought she could distinguish the noise of snow-shoes on the snow, at a distance, but rapidly advancing. She looked out, and seeing the four large men coming straight to their lodge she was in great fear, and running in, exclaimed:</p>
<p>“He is coming, four times as strong as ever!” for she supposed that the one man whom her brother had offended had become so angry as to make four of himself in order to wreak his vengeance.</p>
<p>The boy-man said, “Why do you mind them? Give me something to eat.”</p>
<p>“How can you think of eating at such a time?” she replied.</p>
<p>“Do as I request you, and be quick.”</p>
<p>She then gave little spirit his dish, and he commenced eating.</p>
<p>Just then the brothers came to the door.</p>
<p>“See!” cried the sister, “the man with four heads!”</p>
<p>The brothers were about to lift the curtain at the door, when the boy-man turned his dish upside down, and immediately the door was closed with a stone; upon which the four brothers set to work and hammered with their clubs with great fury, until at length they succeeded in making a slight opening. One of the brothers presented his face at this little window, and rolled his eye about at the boy-man in a very threatening way.</p>
<p>The little spirit, who, when he had closed the door, had returned to his meal, which he was quietly eating, took up his bow and arrow which lay by his side, and let fly the shaft, which, striking the man in the head, he fell back. The boy-man merely called out “Number one” as he fell, and went on with his meal.</p>
<p>In a moment a second face, just like the first, presented itself; and as he raised his bow, his sister said to him:</p>
<p>“What is the use? You have killed that man already.”</p>
<p>Little spirit fired his arrow—the man fell—he called out “Number two,” and continued his meal.</p>
<p>The two others of the four brothers were dispatched in the same quiet way, and counted off as “Number three” and “Number four.”</p>
<p>After they were all well disposed of in this way, the boy-man directed his sister to go out and see them. She presently ran back, saying:</p>
<p>“There are four of them.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” the boy-man answered, “and there always shall be four of them.”</p>
<p>Going out himself, the boy-man raised the brothers to their feet, and giving each a push, one with his face to the East, another to the West, a third to the South, and the last to the North, he sent them off to wander about the earth; and whenever you see four men just alike, they are the four brothers whom the little spirit or boy-man dispatched upon their travels.</p>
<p>But this was not the last display of the boy-man’s power.</p>
<p>When spring came on, and the lake began to sparkle in the morning sun, the boy-man said to his sister:</p>
<p>“Make me a new set of arrows, and a bow.”</p>
<p>Although he provided for their support, the little spirit never performed household or hard work of any kind, and his sister obeyed.</p>
<p>When she had made the weapons, which, though they were very small, were beautifully wrought and of the best stuff the field and wood could furnish, she again cautioned him not to shoot into the lake.</p>
<p>“She thinks,” said the boy-man to himself, “I can see no further into the water than she. My sister shall learn better.”</p>
<p>Regardless of her warnings, he on purpose discharged a shaft into the lake, waded out into the water till he got into its depth, and paddled about for his arrow, so as to call the attention of his sister, and as if to show that he hardily braved her advice.</p>
<p>She hurried to the shore, calling on him to return; but instead of heeding her, he cried out:</p>
<p>“You of the red fins, come and swallow me!”</p>
<p>Although his sister did not clearly understand whom her brother was addressing, she too called out:</p>
<p>“Don’t mind the foolish boy!”</p>
<p>The boy-man’s order seemed to be best attended to, for immediately a monstrous fish came and swallowed him. Before disappearing entirely, catching a glimpse of his sister standing in despair upon the shore, the boy-man hallooed out to her:</p>
<p>“Me-zush-ke-zin-ance!”</p>
<p>She wondered what he meant. At last it occurred to her that it must be an old moccasin. She accordingly ran to the lodge, and bringing one, she tied it to a string attached to a tree, and cast it into the water.</p>
<p>The great fish said to the boy-man under water.</p>
<p>“What is that floating?”</p>
<p>To which the boy-man replied:</p>
<p>“Go, take hold of it, swallow it as fast as you can; it is a great delicacy.”</p>
<p>The fish darted toward the old shoe and swallowed it, making of it a mere mouthful.</p>
<p>The boy-man laughed in himself, but said nothing, till the fish was fairly caught, when he took hold of the line and began to pull himself in his fish-carriage ashore.</p>
<p>The sister, who was watching all this time, opened wide her eyes as the huge fish came up and up upon the shore; and she opened them still more when the fish seemed to speak, and she heard from within a voice, saying, “Make haste and release me from this nasty place.”</p>
<p>It was her brother’s voice, which she was accustomed to obey; and she made haste with her knife to open a door in the side of the fish, from which the boy-man presently leaped forth. He lost no time in ordering her to cut it up and dry it; telling her that their spring supply of meat was now provided.</p>
<p>The sister now began to believe that her brother was an extraordinary boy; yet she was not altogether satisfied in her mind that he was greater than the rest of the world.</p>
<p>They sat, one evening, in the lodge, musing with each other in the dark, by the light of each other’s eyes—for they had no other of any kind—when the sister said, “My brother, it is strange that you, who can do so much, are no wiser than the Ko-ko, who gets all his light from the moon; which shines or not, as it pleases.”</p>
<p>“And is not that light enough?” asked the little spirit.</p>
<p>“Quite enough,” the sister replied. “If it would but come within the lodge and not sojourn out in the tree-tops and among the clouds.”</p>
<p>“We will have a light of our own, sister,” said the boy-man; and, casting himself upon a mat by the door, he commenced singing:</p>
<p>Fire-fly, fire-fly, bright little thing,<br/> Light me to bed and my song I will sing;<br/> Give me your light, as you fly o’er my head,<br/>
That I may merrily go to my bed.<br/>
Give me your light o’er the grass as you creep,<br/>
That I may joyfully go to my sleep;<br/>
Come, little fire-fly, come little beast,<br/>
Come! and I’ll make you to-morrow a feast.<br/>
Come, little candle, that flies as I sing,<br/>
Bright little fairy-bug, night’s little king;<br/>
Come and I’ll dream as you guide me along;<br/>
Come and I’ll pay you, my bug, with a song.<br/>
As the boy-man chanted this call, they came in at first one by one, then in couples, till at last, swarming in little armies, the fire-flies lit up the little lodge with a thousand sparkling lamps, just as the stars were lighting the mighty hollow of the sky without.</p>
<p>The faces of the sister and brother shone upon each other, from their opposite sides of the lodge, with a kindly gleam of mutual trustfulness; and never more from that hour did a doubt of each other darken their little household.</p>