American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) (29 page)

His penis stood up and shouted: “You girls, do not come. He only wants to abuse you! Stay away.” The young women ran off. Nixant was angry and embarrassed.

Nixant sat among a circle of warriors. He boasted of the great deeds he had done.

The penis swelled up and said: “Nixant has not done these things. He is a liar. He never fights.” The penis laughed. Then everybody laughed. Nixant was ashamed.

Again he sang the song: “Come to me, buffalo, come. We don’t want to kill you for food. We want to dance for you.”

The penis shouted: “Oh, you buffalo, don’t believe him. Nixant is lying. He means to kill you. Teach him a lesson!” Then the buffalo came, crowded together, and shit all over Nixant, over his fine beaded war shirt, over his fine leggings, over his moccasins.

“This can’t go on,” said Nixant to his penis. “You shut up or I’ll cut you off!”

The penis laughed. “You’ll never do that. You’re much too fond of copulating.” The penis had a very good laugh. Everybody heard it.

A very ugly woman came to Nixant and said: “I can make your penis stop talking if you copulate with me every day.”

Nixant had a good look at the woman. She was truly ugly. He said: “I’d rather not.”

Nixant went to the powerful man. “Make my penis stop talking,” he begged.

“Even I am not powerful enough to do that,” said the man. “Only the ugly woman can help you. Go to her and do what she wants.”

Nixant went to the ugly woman’s tipi. He went inside. He stayed there for a long time. They did something in there. Nixant was not smiling when he came out of the ugly woman’s tipi. He looked grim, but after that his penis never talked again.

“How did the ugly woman cure you?” a friend asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Nixant.

{
Gros Ventre
}

Nixant saw two women getting ready to cross a stream. He felt like having sex with them. But then, he always wants to do it. He decided to play a trick on them. He quickly put on a woman’s dress and let his hair hang loose. He joined the two women. He pretended to be a woman himself. It was already getting dark; that is why he could get away with this. Crossing the stream, they all were hitching up their dresses, way up.

One of the girls said to Nixant: “I never saw a woman who had such hairy legs as you have.”

“Oh,” said Nixant, “it’s just grass stuck to my legs.” He made his voice sound like a woman’s voice.

The light was fading. The other girl asked: “What’s that dangling under your dress?”

“It’s a love root,” said Nixant.

They got to the other bank of the river. They laid down to rest. “This love root of yours,” said one of the girls, “what do you use it for?”

“Oh, it’s good for whatever ails you—aches and pains, a sickness. Even if you’re not sick, it makes you feel good.”

“Do you cook it or eat it raw?” the girls asked.

“No, no, it only works if you stick it up between your legs. Here, let me show you.”

He showed it to them. He did this several times. “You are right,” said the girls. “This root makes one feel good.”

They went to sleep. At dawn, at sunrise, when the girls woke up, they discovered that Nixant had tricked them. They saw his hairy legs. They lifted his dress and saw what his “love root” was. They discovered that the person they had taken for a woman was Nixant. “He’s put one over on us,” they said, “but let’s not complain. If we tell, people will only laugh at us.”

{
Assiniboine
}

Sitconski used to walk along the bank of a river. He saw a buffalo skull lying there. Whenever he passed it, he kicked it into the water, but he invariably found it in exactly the same position next time. He wished to find out the reason. Once he burned the skull and pounded it into powder, which he threw away, but the next time he again found the head in the same old place.

“This is queer,” he thought. He burned it up again and lay down to sleep a short distance from the remains. He heard something like a buffalo’s footsteps. Looking about, he could not see anything. He went to sleep once more; again he heard the noise, but could not see anything on looking up. “I must be mad. I’ll sleep and won’t open my eyes until it is nearby.” When the noise approached, he looked up, but saw nothing. The fourth time he heard the sound, he said: “I won’t look anymore.” He did not look. At last he heard snorting and felt something puffing in his face. Looking up, there was an old buffalo, preparing to hook him.

Sitconski fled, pursued by the buffalo, which nearly caught him. Sitconski cried for help. He saw a hard rock and ran toward it. It had a crack, which admitted him and then closed up. The buffalo began to lick the rock with his tongue until it was worn down to a small size. Then Sitconski fled to a stump and sought shelter in its hollow. The buffalo hooked the tree and split it apart.

Sitconski fled; once the tip of the buffalo’s horns just caught him and he yelled. He asked a willow to help him, twisted its trunk into a swing, and swung back and forth, avoiding the buffalo’s horns. Then the buffalo twisted the willow until it broke. Sitconski cried, “Let me go, brother!” and again ran away.

He came to a big lake and plunged in. The buffalo began to lap it up until Sitconski was left high and dry on the mud. He could not run, but only crawled on his hands and feet. The buffalo pursued him. Sitconski said, “I’ll give you tobacco. Let me go.”

“You kicked my skull every time you passed. Hurry up and get me tobacco.”

“What sort of tobacco would you like to have?”

The buffalo told him. Then Sitconski cut some willow bark, made tobacco, and gave it to the buffalo, who lit it by holding it toward the sun. Then he let Sitconski alone.

{
Assiniboine
}

Sitconski wanted to marry the daughter of a chief, but she refused to have him. He planned a scheme to get back at her. The people had broken camp. He went to the old campsite and found a piece of white robe. Shaking it, he said, “I wish I had the whole robe.” He thus secured a whole robe. He picked up some red cloth and similarly transformed it into a large piece. In the same way he got a weasel skin and an otter-skin headdress. He then tracked the people.

He met one of the chief’s sons, who conducted him to his father’s lodge. The chief’s daughter liked Sitconski in his disguise. “I am going home soon,” said Sitconski. “My people live far away.”

The girl said she would get some wood. Sitconski waited for her. She called out to him, “I’ll go with you.”

He stood still and said, “Get your things and we’ll go together.”

The girl got her dress and ran back to Sitconski, but he was gone. She only found a weasel-skin legging on the ground, which turned into excrements. The girl returned to camp and told her father how Sitconski had fooled her.

The chief said to the people, “We had better move camp. My daughter is ashamed.”

{
Arapaho
}

 

Ni‘hancan was traveling. He met Whirlwind Woman crawling.
¹
He said, “Get out of my way.” So Whirlwind Woman went away, and the dust spun in a circle. Soon he came to her again. “I do not want you, Whirlwind Woman, go away!” he said. Then she whirled off. Again he came to her and said: “There are some people that I like to have near me, but I do not like you.” So she flew off, but came back in his path along the riverbank.

Ni‘hancan came to her again. Then he began to like her. “I want you for my sweetheart,” he said.

“No,” she answered, “I am not used to remaining in one place. I travel. I would not be the wife for you.”

“You are like me!” said Ni‘hancan. “I am always traveling. Moreover, I have the same faculty as you,” and he began to run, and turn, and spin about, raising the dust and throwing the dirt up into the air with his feet. But Whirlwind Woman refused him. Then he started again, running and spinning, stirring more dust and kicking it higher. Coming back to her he said: “There, I have the same power as you. I can throw the earth just as high!”

Whirlwind Woman started, whirled, caught him, and blew him over the bank, so that he fell headfirst into the water. “I was only joking, I was not intending to do anything to you,” he called.

Whirlwind Woman called back: “Such is my power.” She was already far away.

{
Arapaho
}

There was a party of young men going on the warpath. One of them carried the buttocks of a woman. While these men were walking, Ni‘hancan came along and joined the party. “Say, young man, let me carry that, so that you may rest yourselves,” said Ni’hancan.

“No, you might stumble and break it. We can’t travel without it, for we brought it with us to use,” said one of the party.

“We are always particular with it and it does not allow anybody else to carry it,” said they.