American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) (26 page)

He woke up because somebody was shaking him by the shoulder. It was the rich man. He asked Veeho: “Younger brother, what are you doing with my possible bag?”

“Oh, elder brother, I needed it for a pillow under my head.”

“But it’s lying by your side.”

“Well, it must have slipped while I was asleep,” Veeho tried to convince him.

“You better leave this bag alone,” said the man, tying it to a lodgepole. “It contains medicine and should not be used for a pillow or for anything else.”

Veeho looked around and saw that he had never left the lodge. The owner was so rich and powerful a magician that all the country roundabout, from horizon to horizon, was contained in his lodge.

They spent the day chatting. They ate buffalo tongues and livers. Veeho asked his host: “Elder brother, what are you afraid of?”

“The only thing in the world I’m afraid of is Goose,” said the rich man.

“Really? How strange,” said Veeho. “I also am afraid of Goose. It’s a very dangerous animal.” After a while Veeho added: “Brother, I have stayed too long. I must go now.”

Veeho left. Once outside the lodge, he changed himself into Goose. He had the power to transform himself. In the shape of Goose, Veeho went back into the rich man’s lodge, crying: “Honk, honk!”

The rich man had one look at him and almost fainted. Terrified by what he thought was Goose, he fled in a great panic, grabbing the possible bag, but leaving everything else behind.

Veeho went back to his own lodge, where his wife and children were waiting. Veeho told them: “I went to a rich man’s lodge. It is large, full of good things to eat and furnished with fine buffalo robes. I have frightened this man away. He won’t come back. Come and let us live in his lodge and enjoy what he has left behind.” Veeho and his family then went to the rich man’s lodge and settled down there.

Soon after, Veeho said to his wife: “The man who owned all this has a large possible bag. I think that in this bag is what made him rich. I very much want to have this bag. I will track him down and take this bag away from him. There is enough food for you here to last until I come back.” Veeho followed the man’s footprints. He followed them for four days and nights. He caught up with the rich man. When Veeho saw him from afar, he quickly transformed himself once more into Goose. He overtook his prey, crying loudly: “Honk, honk!”

The man was very scared. Trembling and with chattering teeth, he begged Veeho: “Please, uncle, have pity. Don’t kill me!”

Veeho asked: “What will you give me if I let you live?”

“Whatever you wish,” answered the man.

“Give me the possible bag you are carrying with you,” Veeho demanded.

“All right, all right, take it, but open it only four times. If you open it more often, bad things will happen.” Veeho took the possible bag and let the man go.

Veeho hurried home to his wife and children. He showed them the possible bag, crying: “This is what I wanted!” He could not wait to untie the bag. As soon as he did, a fat buffalo cow jumped out. “This is what made that man so rich,” cried Veeho. “Now we shall lack nothing. Now we shall have a feast every day. This is the way to live!” He quickly tied the bag shut. He fastened it to a lodgepole. It was hanging there. Veeho killed the cow. They butchered it. They had a big feast stuffing themselves with fat hump meat, delicious tongues, livers, and sweet kidneys. The meat lasted for many days.

When it was finally gone, Veeho said: “My wife and children, it is time to open that wonderful bag again.” He did and another young, fat buffalo cow jumped out. Again they feasted. Whenever they ran out of food, Veeho untied the possible bag. He was about to open it for the fifth time when his wife warned him: “That man told you not to open this bag more than four times. He told you that bad things would happen if you did.”

Veeho laughed. “That fellow was angry with me for taking the bag away from him. He does not want us to be rich forever. That’s why he said this. This bag is bottomless. It will bring forth a young, fat cow every time I open it.”

Veeho untied the possible bag for the fifth time. At once numberless buffalo tumbled out—bulls, cows, and calves, an unstoppable flood of animals. They trampled over everything. They almost crushed Veeho, his wife, and his children to death. They trampled down the lodge. They trampled Veeho’s horse to death. They stampeded all over the village, running over women and children left and right, tearing down lodges, stampeding horses, crushing dogs under their hooves. There seemed no end of buffalo. Their drumming hooves resounded like thunder as they rushed off in all the four directions—north, east, south, and west. Their herds covered the whole prairie as far as the eye could see. Finally they all disappeared beyond the horizon.

The people were all shook up. Their village lay in ruins. Their lodges were destroyed, their belongings trampled to bits, their horses gone. “Who could have caused this great evil?” the people asked each other.

“It wasn’t me,” said Veeho.

So this is the way buffalo came into this world. The people soon forgot the devastation caused by the onrushing buffalo. They recovered. They were overjoyed to have buffalo to hunt. Now there was much food. Now there was an end of famines. The people were asking each other: “Who has done this great thing for us?”

Veeho was about to say something, but his wife stopped him short, telling Veeho: “Husband, keep your mouth shut!”

{
Northern Cheyenne
}

Veeho was walking about. He came across two young, comely
tsis-tsis-
tas, maidens. He said to himself: “They are good-looking. I will talk to them. I will amuse them. Then maybe one of them will let me sleep with her. Maybe both will.”

Veeho walked up to the girls. “Good evening, little cousins. I am lousy. Would you please be so kind as to pick these nits out of my hair? They make my scalp itch so bad.” He laid down between them. The girls started to pick the lice out of Veeho’s hair, one sitting at his right side, and the other on his left. This made him drowsy and he fell asleep.

Then one girl said to the other: “Do you know who this louse-ridden fellow is? I think it is that no-account Trickster, Veeho.”

“I think it is, too,” said the other girl, “he is always playing nasty tricks on people, particularly on women. Let’s play a trick on him, for a change.” The two girls covered Veeho’s whole head with prickly, spiny burrs. Veeho slept through it all.

When Veeho woke up, he at once noticed that his head was covered with burrs. They had nested in his hair and tangled it all up. For hours Veeho tried to get the burrs out of his hair, but it was impossible. They had formed an impenetrable mass, making his head feel like the back of a porcupine. “Oh, this is bad!” said Veeho. For hours he tried to remove the burrs. His fingers were scratched and bleeding from the sharp, needlelike spikes. His scalp, too, was bleeding. “Oh, it hurts,” wailed Veeho. He gave up.

Walking toward his home with his big, painful headdress of burrs, he encountered Mouse. “Oh, little brother, help me,” said Veeho. “You see the sorry state I’m in. Please gnaw off this whole mess—hair, burrs, and all.”

“Gladly,” said Mouse. “Aren’t we relatives and friends? What are relatives for?”

Mouse got busy gnawing, gnawing, gnawing. It was hard work, but finally Mouse got it done. He had gnawed off everything, leaving Veeho’s skull bare, as if some enemy had scalped him. “Thank you, little brother,” said Veeho, continuing on his way.

When Veeho arrived back at his lodge, his wife at first did not recognize him. She thought he was some kind of monster and cried out in fear. “Foolish woman,” said Veeho, “don’t you see it’s me?”

“Oh, my poor husband!” lamented the wife. “What has happened to you? How did you lose your beautiful bushy hair?”

“Don’t ask so many dumb questions, nosy woman,” said Veeho. “What’s for supper?”

{
Cheyenne
}

There was a man whose leg was pointed, so that by running and jumping against trees he could stick in them. By saying
naiwa-toutawa,
he brought himself back to the ground. On a hot day he would stick himself against a tree for greater shade and coolness. However, he could not do this trick more than four times.

Once while he was doing this, Veeho, White Man, came to him, crying, and said: “Brother, sharpen my leg!”

The man replied: “That is not very hard. I can sharpen your leg.”

White Man stood on a large log, and the other man, with an ax, sharpened his leg, telling him to hold still bravely. The pain caused the tears to come from his eyes. When the man had sharpened his leg, he told him to do the trick only four times a day, and to keep count in order not to exceed this number.

White Man went down toward the river, singing. Near the bank was a large tree; toward this he ran, then jumped and stuck in it. Then he called himself back to the ground. Again he jumped, this time against another tree; but now he counted one, thinking in this way to get the better of the other man. The third time, he counted two. The fourth time, birds and animals stood by, and he was proud to show his ability, and jumped high, and pushed his leg in up to the knee. Then coyotes, wolves, and other animals came to see him; some of them came to ask how he knew the trick, and begged him to teach it to them, so they could stick to trees at night. He was still prouder now, and for the fifth time he ran and jumped as high as he could, and half his thigh entered the tree. Then he counted four. Then he called to get to the ground again. But he stuck. He called out all day; he tried to send the animals to the man who had taught him. He was fast in the tree for many days, until he starved to death.

{
Northern Cheyenne}

Veeho was walking through the camp. He saw a man whose wife was scraping his back with an elk-bone flesher. She scraped off shavings as from a buffalo hide. “Elder brother, doesn’t it hurt?”