Seneca Indian Myths: The Deserted Boy

One night a great uproar was heard outside; the Cherokees were there. Men, women and children sprang up and fled as fast as they could, going in every direction. Among the people of the village was a woman with a baby only two days old. She also ran, holding the child in her arms. After a time she got so tired that she decided to get rid of the bundle. Coming to a tree with a hole in one side, not far from the ground, she dropped the child into the hole and ran on. In the tree a bear lived and as the bundle fell the mother bear caught it.

When the woman overtook her people, they asked what she had done with her child, but she made no answer.

After many persons had been killed, the Cherokees disappeared, but the Senecas did not go back to their village. They made a new home for themselves.

One Spring a hunter, when out looking for game, came to a chestnut grove. He had not been there long when he saw a bear with cubs. Getting a good chance he killed the mother bear. As she fell over, she hit one of the cubs and it cried out like a child. The other cubs ran up a tree. The man, thinking the cry sounded strangely, went to the place quickly and saw a small boy. The boy jumped up and ran away; the man followed and at last caught him.

"Stop crying, Nephew," said he, "Stop crying, nobody will harm you."

"You made me cry," said the child, "You have killed my mother. Over there are my brothers" (pointing to the tree).

"I wouldn't have killed her if I had seen you first," said the man, "but how came the bear to be your mother."

The boy didn't like this, but at last he stopped crying, and the man strapped him on to his back and carried him to where a party of hunters were camped.

After this, whenever the man went out to hunt, he tied the boy up so he couldn't get away. One day the child said, "Don't tie me up, I'll never leave you."

He was not tied again and as soon as he was old enough the man let him go with him when he went out to hunt. The boy seemed to know where bears lived, but he never told his father where a mother bear was. The man had always been a poor hunter, but as soon as he found the boy he began to have wonderful luck.

After a while the man said, "It is time to go back to my village."

"My mother will see me, and take me away from you," said the boy.

"Pay no attention to her," said the man. "She threw you away."

When they had been two days in the village, the woman heard that a certain hunter had brought home a little boy he found in the woods. She went to the hunter's cabin and watched every move of the child. The boy was afraid of her. He knew her thoughts when she threw him away and he knew them now. When she asked him who he was, he said, "This man is my father." But she decided that the boy was hers and she began to urge him to go home with her. He wouldn't go. One day when the woman knew the hunter was off in the woods, she went to his house and tried to catch the boy. He ran to the woods, crying from fright. She followed, but after a while lost sight of him and turned back.

When the hunter came home and couldn't find the child,

One day the boy said, "I wish that I had a boy to play with me."

The man went to the village and brought back one of his sister's boys, a child a little younger than the other boy.

Now there were three in the house. When the man went hunting and left the boys at home he told them not to go far from the house, but each day they ventured farther, till one day they came to a place where the leaves and grass and everything seemed to be moving. They looked closely and saw that a wide strip of land was going along as if on a river. They saw a coon going down with this stream of land. Watching it made them forget everything, but at last the elder boy said, "We must go home now. We'll come to-morrow and stay all day."

The next morning, when the hunter started off, he cautioned the boys not to go far from the house, telling them that if they disobeyed him something would happen to them. But the boys were so anxious to get to the place where they had been the day before that the man wasn't out of sight when they started.

They found the moving ground. It was dry land, but was moving like a river. It was not wide; a person could have jumped across it. The boys saw animals on it, and they thought, "What fun! Why not try it?" They sprang on and sat down.

The Younger boy said, "Let's go as far as the stream goes."

They laughed and had a good time.

Soon they came to a place where the land seemed to pass into an opening like a great door. The elder boy saw the younger go in, and he thought, "This is great fun!"

Then he heard a noise as if some one were killing his play-mate, that minute he too went in at the door. Then he saw that it was a place to snare game, that no one could get away after coming that far. In an instant an old man with a mallet hit the boy on the head and killed him.

Two Stone Coats lived in this house, and they had such power that they could make everything come to them. Each took a boy and sat down on his own side of the fire to roast him. As the flesh began to cook, fat oozed out, fell on the fire, and sputtered. One body called out to the other, "You are burning!"

"Guah!" said one of the Stone Coats, "My game has a voice!"

"Guah! My game has a voice," said the other Stone Coat. "This is fine, when one begins to burn it tells the other. It's queer game that talks like this."

When the bodies were sufficiently cooked, the Stone Coats began to eat. When they had eaten the last mouthful and not a particle of flesh or a bone was left, they began to be in terrible pain.

One said to the other, "It must be that strange game is making us sick."

They rolled around and groaned till daylight came, then the two boys were there and the two Stone Coats were dead.

One boy said to the other, "This is why our father warned us not to go far from the house. We'll go home and tell him what happened to us."

As they were starting, the younger boy said, "We must burn up this house. Our uncles have done great harm to

When the boys were near home, they heard singing and the younger said, "Our father is mourning for us. When we get home you must tell him what happened. He will believe you sooner than he will me, for you are older than I am."

The hunter was sitting by the fire and his song was about the loss of his children.

The elder boy called out, "Father, we've come home. We've not been killed. We shall never die. There is nothing that can harm us."

The man greeted the boys and was glad. They told him of their adventure, and said, "Now we are going farther."

The man said, "Beyond the house you burned, there are other houses and in those houses are uncles of yours, man-eaters."

"I don't care," said the younger boy. "I want to see everything there is in the world."

The man knew that the boys were full of power (witchcraft). The younger boy had control of his uncle's mind and it was through his influence that the man let them do as they liked.

The boy said, "You can stay here and hunt. We'll go and see our uncle who lives beyond Stone Coat's house. Maybe he'll tell us stories. We are lonesome."

The man said, "The first house is three looks from here and they are all three looks apart."

When the boys came to the house they had burned, they halted and looked. They could see some object in the distance, and there was the end of the first look. When they came to that object they looked again, went to the object, they saw, and looking off again saw an opening, and said, "Our uncle must live there."

When they reached the opening, they saw a house.

"What do you want?"

"This, Nephew: when anyone comes to see me, I play hide-and-seek. I'll play with you. If you find me, I lose my head. If I find you boys, you'll lose your heads."

The house was empty, but the younger boy saw, hanging on the posts where they met in a point, a very small bag, and he thought, "My uncle will hide in that bag."

As usual in those days there was a large log on the fire.

The old man said, "The finder must go over the top of that hill out there and when the hider is ready, he will call. You must hide first."

The boys agreed and the old man started off. They heard his bones rattle as he ran. The younger boy said, "I'll go into the log on the fire and you can go behind the sun. When you are ready I'll call."

After a time he shouted, "Onch!"

"This is what I do to my nephews," said the old man, and catching up his club he ran into the house and began to strike the posts singing out, "Here you are! Come out!"

The boy in the log looked at his uncle and laughed; the boy behind the sun was also watching him. When the old man's time was up, he said, "Come out! I can't find you."

As he said this, the nephew behind the sun showed himself and, laughing at the old man, came down to the house; the other boy crawled from the heart of the log. The old man laughed loudly, and said, "Now go beyond the hill and I'll hide."

When the boys heard the old man call, they ran to the house. The younger boy caught up the club and did as he had seen his uncle do. At last he stopped striking the posts and called out, "Uncle, you are up there in your medicine bag. Come out!"

The water of the river was thick and red. When the elder boy saw his brother go in, he thought, "that must be fun!" and without waiting to be called he waded in. Filth gathered on his body and he sank out of sight. His brother rescued him, then said, "If you had waited till I called, you would have been saved this trouble. Now we will go on till we come to a village where they are playing ball."

They soon came to an opening and saw a crowd of people standing near a pole in the center of the opening. The two went forward and the younger said to the chief, "We have come to challenge you. What are your rules?"

"We wager heads."

"There must be two men on a side," said the boy.

The chief said to the people, "These strangers challenge us to a game of ball. There will be two players on a side!"

"You must be one of those players," said the boy to the chief. Then he commanded a spider to weave a strong web across the ball ground.

The game began. The ball flew off in the direction of the web and hitting it was thrown back. The elder boy caught the ball and ran for the first point, got it, had one inning and called out, "The game is mine! We have the inning! The game is finished."

"It is not," said the chief.

"This is the way we play," said the younger boy.

"Whoever gets the first inning wins the game."

"Very well," said the chief, "You have won the head of the men you played with."

Footnotes