Native American Legends
The boy who was blessed by a Mountain Lion
A Winnebago (Hotcâk) Legend
Once in a village, there lived a very poor boy. His family wished
to bring him up so that he would be blessed by the spirits. They
made him fast and coaxed him to fast for long periods of time that
he might be blessed by the great spirits and do something for his
people. At first the boy thought that there was nothing in fasting,
but one night, he heard a voice which said, "My grandson, try
hard to dream of my brothers and myself, for if you do not pay much
attention to your fasting we cannot bless you. Your people depend
upon you, and that is why they have asked you to fast as long as
you can. The longer you fast, the more you will be able to accomplish
for yourself and for your people." Thus spoke the voice.
The next morning, he told his father that some voice had spoken
to him. "It is good," said the father, "but you must
get a blessing from someone who is in charge of great blessings,
be he above in the sky, under the earth, or in the waters. Thus,
when you get to be a man, the people will all say that you are the
young man who fasted for a long time. 'He must know very much,'
they will say. So blacken your face still more, my son." Then
the boy took some charcoal from the fireplace and rubbed it upon
his face, and then went away, taking with him his bow and arrows.
When he got to a place at some distance from the village, he said
to himself, "There must be something in this preaching. I will
try to dream of something. I will stay out in the wilderness and
try to obtain some blessing." Thinking of these things, he
wandered farther and farther away. Finally, he made a shelter for
himself in a hollow log. When night came he crawled into the log
backwards and stuffed the hole with dried leaves so that he would
not be too cold. There he slept and the next day he got up and went
hunting as usual. He shot many squirrels and birds, and when he
was tired he put up a target to shoot at, just as many other boys
do. When night came again, he crept into the log again and slept.
This he kept up for ten days. He was tired and hungry by this time,
but he said to himself, "If my ancestors would see me as I
as now, tired out and hungry, they would surely bless me."
Thus he thought. He tried to stand it as long as possible, and so
he kept it up for another ten days. By this time he was so emaciated
that he was practically only skin and bones. He could hardly walk.
Then he thought to himself, "Tonight, I shall sleep out on
the hill, and if I starve to death, my people, when they find my
body will know that I met a good death." So there he lay and
went to sleep.
In the middle of the night he awoke and felt that something was
near him. He peered into the night, and there was a mountain lion
sitting quite close. He got frightened at first, but he did not
move, thinking to himself, "Well, if I am going to die, I might
as well die now." Just then the lion spoke to him and said,
"I am the cause or your being in your present condition. I
made you come to this place. My brothers sent me to see you and
to bless you We knew long ago that you were making yourself pitiable,
but only when you became thin and indeed most pitiable, only when
you remembered my brothers, did I come to you. Now I am going to
tell you about some war party that you are to lead. You will kill
as many people as you want to, as long as you remember to pour tobacco
for my brothers and myself. We are in possession of great war-giving
powers. I am in charge of the others besides and should any difficulty
befall you, therefore, call my name and I will come to your aid
immediately. When you kill any one, you may retain the head, but
the body you must leave for us and we shall eat it. I shall stay
with you all night, and tomorrow I shall go and get you something
to eat." Thus the lion spoke.
Early the next morning the lion went out and killed a deer and
cooked a piece of meat for the boy. "Eat and drink some soup
so that you may be strong enough to go home to your parents. They
are hunting for you, and are about to give up all hope of ever finding
you alive. I am there every day as it is not far from here. It is
just over the hill." The boy ate and then thanked the lion,
saying, "Grandfather, you have conferred a great blessing upon
me and what you have asked of me, I will do for you as long as I
live." The lion replied, "Well, you may go hoe now, grandson.
There is a man who is just about to start out on the warpath. Go
along with him and do your best. Always think of me, and then I
will keep my mind upon you in order to aid you."
So the boy went home, and the lion went to his home. All day and
part of the night, the boy traveled, reaching his home late at night.
He immediately went to his father's lodge, and there he found the
old man with his head in his hands. "Father," said the
boy, "It is I. I have come home. I got along very well while
I was away. What you asked me to try and obtain, I did obtain and
I think I have been blessed with great powers." Then the father
awoke his wife and told her to prepare some food for their son as
he must be hungry. He said to him, "My son, we were just about
to give up searching for you, for we all thought that you were dead
by this time. Really, it is good that you have succeeded so well
in your fasting. In the future you will never have to worry about
anything. What brave men do, that you will also be able to do, so
that in years to come your people will be able to mention you whenever
they recount the deeds of their famous war leaders." The old
man continued, "A certain man is just about to start n the
warpath, and thus, you have come just in time to go along. His folks
are going to give a Winter Feast tomorrow, and the day after he
will start out. He will first go through the village and all the
young men who have accomplished anything, and those who have fasted,
will join him. Now I shall tell your mother and sisters to get moccasins
and some medicine ready for you so that you may be able to join
this man."
The next morning the Winter Feast was given and the old man and
his son were invited. So the two went over and the people kept on
saying, "Look, there is the old man with his son whom we all
thought to be dead. He must be a great person, because he has been
away so long a time fasting." At the feast, the man who was
going on the warpath made a speech and asked all the young men who
had never had anything to do with women to join him the next morning
at the break of day. They were to get together yonder at the hill
and start form there. So the next morning, the young men went to
the appointed hill, and when they had gathered together, they started
out. They were led by a warrior. When night came they sat around
the fires they had built, telling stories. On the second and third
nights they did the same. On the fourth night, the leader addressed
them as follows: "Young men, whatever you have dreamt of, whatever
you have been blessed with, you must tell us for we are near the
enemy now. I want to select those whom I wish to send out to scout
the enemies' position." So all the young men told the leader
of their dreams. When the boy's turn came he got up and said, "Well,
when I fasted and wanted to die in the wilderness, a mountain lion
came to me and said that he was the chief of the lions and that
he had come to me purposely to bless me. Then he went out and killed
a deer for me and cooked it and gave it to me to eat. Before leaving,
he told me to go home and join this war party. The leader said,
"Well, that is good." He also added, "I am going
to select one person, the one that I think will make the best scout."
Then he selected the boy.
Before the boy started, he poured some tobacco on the ground and
asked his grandfather to bless him. Then the lion came to him again,
and said, "You are to stay here, while I go forward and scout
their position." So the boy stayed there and the lion growled
and started forward, tearing the brush as he went. In a little while
he returned to the boy and said, "Everything is well. They
have no suspicion at all of your coming, so that you will be able
to surprise them." Then the lion departed. When the boy got
back, the leader said to hi, "What did you find out?"
The boy replied, "My grandfather went to spy upon them for
me and said that everything was all right, and that we would be
able to surprise them." The leader said, "That is good,
that is what we want. Be ready, boys, about day break, because just
as our grandfather the sun makes his appearance in the sky, we shall
rush upon the enemy. Each of you must try his best because we want
to kill as many of the enemy as we can. I shall go ahead, and when
I give a whoop then you boys can follow." But the boy snuck
away and hid himself in front of the place where they were sleeping,
and when the leader came past in the morning and gave the whoop,
the boy ran past the leader. The leader said, "That is good,
that is what I call a good warrior." The boy rushed into the
midst of the enemy and killed their leader, cut off his head, and
brought it to his own leader. The leader struck the head and said,
"He is the one I have come after, but you killed him before
I could reach him. Now I am glad that I can count the second coup."
So he gave a whoop and struck the head. They fought until late in
the afternoon, and then they started for home. Almost all of them
carried a scalp with them. When they got home, they told how the
boy had killed the leader, and had given the head to their own war
leader. The boy's father was very glad.
Then the boy got married, and used to go hunting with his wife.
They used to go away from home and camp out for some time. One day,
when they had gone camping, he went out hunting and left his wife
in the camp. In the evening when he returned, his lodge poles were
standing very straight. Looking about, he found that his wife and
been taken prisoner. So he said, "I shall go after my wife.
I am a man, and it would be a shame for me to go back to my people
without her." So he started out and soon came upon a trail.
Looking carefully at it, he discovered his wife's foot prints. This
made him angry and he went faster. He traveled until he came in
sight of a village. There he hid himself near a spring. About dark
he saw a woman coming to the spring and he recognized her as his
wife. So he went up to her and said, "I love your very much,
and for that reason I have come after you." The woman, however,
was already married to a son of the chief of that village, and she
liked her new husband, so she told him to wait there until she went
back to get some moccasins. He waited there while she went back
to the village. But she told her husband that her old husband had
come and was at the spring. Thereupon they sent a few warriors to
capture him. The warriors, coming upon him unexpectedly, captured
him. They placed him in the Warrior's Lodge and guarded him there.
The next morning the son of the chief sent for him and said, "You
must have been very fond of your wife to have come so long a distance
to see her." The boy answered, "I always said that if
ever my wife was captured, I would go and get her." The son
of the chief then said, "I have a little soup on the fire for
you, for you must be hungry. You are going to eat as a real man
should, and when you have finished eating, we will go out into an
open field and have a little fun." "So he placed the boiling
kettle before him, and told him to eat the soup with his hands.
The boy did it, and burned his hands until they were raw and bloody.
Nevertheless, he ate all that they put before him. The old chief
protested and told his son that this was not the way to make a man
suffer, but the son laughed and told him that it was just in this
that the fun came in. Then he took the boy to an open field and
after driving stakes in the ground, tied his limbs to them. Then
the chief's son and his wife got on horses and ran towards him.
The horses, however, jumped over him. They kept on running their
horses at him until the horses stepped on him. By evening there
was nothing left of him. Then they went back the village and the
chief's son said, "Why, that man did not have any blessings
at all. He couldn't help himself in the least."
Sometime during the night the mountain lion was walking about,
and he smelled the flesh of a human being. He went to the spot where
the man had been killed, and putting his head down, he sniffed again
and said, "Why this is the man I have blessed. He evidently
did not think of men and hence was killed. I will try and revive
him." So he licked the earth and made peculiar noises. Then
the man's bones came together. When he made the noise the fourth
time, the man said, "They took me unexpectedly, grandfather,
so I did not have time to think of you." They sat together
awhile and then they went away into the wilderness.
Then the man and the lion fasted for four years. At the end of
that time the man said, "Grandfather, I am going to stop fasting.
I am really blessed now, and the spirits in charge of war have given
me that whole village. Now I will go to that village and no one
may go with me but you." So the lion went forth and killed
a deer, and the man gave a feast. Then the man went and got the
deer and the lion gave the feast, and the man feasted. Then they
started out for the enemy. "Grandson," said the lion,
"I will kill one half of the village and you will kill the
other half. They proceeded onward carrying a few scalps with them.
When the man's folks saw him coming back with a big mountain lion,
they were frightened. When they reached home they went the lodge
of the young man's parents, and the father asked him where his wife
was. The boy replied, "The enemy took her away from me and
when I went after her, they killed me. But my grandfather, whom
you see here, resuscitated me. Then the two of us went and killed
every person in that village. Here are a few scalps, and if any
people want a few more, that can go and get them." Then the
father sent a crier through the village with the news, and the people
were glad. The wife's brothers came running to him and said, "Young
man, you have done very well."
Then the lion said, "If I remain here, it will not be all
right. Earth-Maker does not wish it to be that way, so I shall go
where my brothers are." If he had remained, he and the man
would have killed all the people, and as the lion knew this, he
went away. This is the story of how the lion blessed the human being,
and then later took his blessing away because Earth-Maker did not
like it.
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