American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) (37 page)

Old Man Napi was traveling. He arrived at Sun’s tipi. Sun invited him in, saying: “Stay awhile. See what it’s like around here. Make yourself at home.” So Napi moved in with Sun. One day Sun told him: “We are short of meat. Let’s go hunting. Let’s go after deer and antelope.”

“Good,” said Napi, “I like deer meat. I also like antelope.”

Sun put on his special leggings. They were beautiful, made of soft, tanned buckskin, wonderfully decorated with feathers and designs made from quillwork. “Why put on your best leggings, brother?” asked Napi. “Hunting in rough country will ruin them. Such fine leggings should only be worn at a ceremonial dance.”

“Don’t speak of things you know nothing about,” said Sun. “These leggings are big medicine. They are my hunting charms. Wearing them, I stamp my foot, and that starts a grass fire. Then the deer will jump out of the brush and we can easily shoot them with our arrows.”

These leggings are indeed big medicine,“ said Napi. ”If you would offer them to me as a gift, I would not refuse them.“

“Oh, no,” said Sun. “I need my hunting leggings. I shall never part with them.”

“I must have these wonderful leggings,” thought Napi, “even if I have to steal them.” They went out hunting. Sun stamped his feet and the leggings started a brush fire. They burned all the bushes and tall grasses near them. Many white-tailed deer burst from out of the bushes. Sun and Napi each shot one. They went a little farther. Again Sun stamped his feet, and many pronghorn antelope jumped out of the bushes. Sun and Napi again each killed one with their arrows.

Sun and Napi butchered the game they had shot. They brought the meat to Sun’s tipi. They had a big feast. The warmth of their fire and their full bellies made them drowsy. Sun took off his medicine leggings and placed them by his side. Then he fell asleep. Napi only pretended to doze off. In the middle of the night he tiptoed over to where Sun was sleeping, grabbed the wonderful leggings, and ran away with them.

He hurried to get as much distance as possible between himself and Sun’s tipi. “How happy I am,” he said to himself, “to have these big-medicine leggings. I will run as fast as I can. By the time Sun wakes up, I’ll have a head start so that he can never catch up with me. He won’t know where to find me. How I will enjoy these magic leggings!” Napi ran on and on until he was exhausted and could go on no farther. Then he lay down, put the leggings under his head for a pillow, and fell asleep.

When Napi woke up, he heard someone talking to him. He rubbed his eyes and saw that it was Sun. He also discovered that he was still inside Sun’s tipi. He was unable to figure out how this could have happened. He did not know that all the world was contained in Sun’s lodge and that, no matter how far he ran, he would never be able to leave it.

Sun asked him: “Old Man, why are my leggings under your head?”

“Oh, your tipi’s floor is so hard,” stammered Napi, “I used them as a pillow. I was sure you wouldn’t mind.”

As night fell again, Sun once more placed the leggings by his side and went to bed. This time Napi did not even wait until midnight to steal the leggings. As soon as he was sure that Sun was asleep, he seized the leggings and ran off with them. Napi still had not grasped the fact that the whole universe was inside Sun’s tipi and that, even if he ran to the end of the world he would still find himself inside Sun’s lodge. He at last fell down, utterly spent, and went to sleep with the leggings under his head.

Napi was again awakened by Sun asking: “Old Man, what are my leggings doing under your head?”

He opened his eyes and found himself at the place he had started from. He did not know what to say. Sun told him: “Old Man, if you like them so much, I make you a present of these leggings.”

“Well, thanks,” Napi mumbled, joyful but embarrassed. “Well, I’ll be going home now.” He crept away without looking back.

Sun thought: “Napi can’t help stealing. It’s in his nature.”

When Napi got home, he said: “The big-medicine leggings are mine. Now I shall be a greater hunter than Sun. Now I shall never be hungry again.” Napi put on the leggings. He walked to someplace covered with bushes. He stamped his feet. He cried: “Deer, come out!” The brush caught fire, but no deer appeared. Instead the flames swept toward Napi with terrifying speed. He fled, but the fire kept pace with him. It overtook Napi. The flames licked at his heels, singed his pack, and burned his hair. The leggings caught fire. Napi ran on, shrieking with pain and fear. He ran fast, but the flames ran faster. At last Napi came to a river and jumped in. Napi swam to the far bank. The flames could not follow him there. He was badly burned. His clothes had been reduced to cinders, the leggings to a heap of ashes scattered to the winds. His body was sore and his skin was covered with blisters. This was Sun’s way of punishing Napi for his treachery.

Now, it happened that when Glooskap had conquered all his enemies, even the Kewahqu, who were giants and sorcerers, and the M‘teoulin, who were magicians, and the Pamola, who is the evil spirit of the night air, and all kinds of ghosts, witches, devils, cannibals, and goblins, that he thought upon what he had done and wondered if his work was at an end.

And he said this to a certain woman, but she replied, “Not so fast, Master, for there yet remains One whom no one has ever conquered or gotten the better of in any way, and who will remain unconquered until the end of time.”

“And who is he?” inquired the Master

“It is the might Wasis,” she replied, “and there he sits; and I warn you that if you get involved with him you will get into trouble.”

Now, Wasis was the
baby.
And he sat on the floor sucking a piece of maple sugar, contented, troubling no one.

As the Lord of Man and Beast had never married or had a child, he knew nothing of how to handle children. Therefore he was quite certain that he knew all about it. So he turned to the Baby with a bewitching smile and told him come to him.

Then Baby smiled again, but did not budge, and the Master spoke sweetly and made his voice like that of the summer bird, but it was of no avail, for Wasis sat still and sucked his maple sugar.

Then the Master got angry, and ordered Wasis to come crawling to him immediately. And Baby burst out into crying and yelling, but did not move for all that.

Finally the Master had recourse to magic. He used his most awful spells, and sang the songs that raise the dead and scare the devils. And Wasis sat and looked on admiringly, and seemed to find it very interesting, but all the same he never moved an inch.

So Glooskap gave it up in despair, and Wasis, sitting on the floor in the sunshine, went, “Goo! goo!” and crooned.

And to this day when you see a baby well contented, going, “Goo! Goo!” and crooning, and no one can tell why, you know that it is because he remembers when he overcame the Master who had conquered the world. For of all the beings that have ever been since the beginning, Baby alone is the only invincible one.

{
Passamaquoddy
}

There was a certain tribe. Its people were rowdy and lecherous. Whatever they wanted to do, they did. They were disrespectful. They thought about nothing but copulating and gorging themselves with food.

Glooskap told those people: “A great flood is coming.”

They said: “We do not care.”

He told them: “The water will be so high it will go way above your heads.”

They said: “We are good swimmers.”

“The flood will sweep you away,” Glooskap told them.

They said: “We like to take baths.”

Glooskap told them: “This will be a really tremendous flood.”

They said: “We don’t mind.”

Glooskap told them: “Be good and pray!”

They said: “Don’t bother us. Go away!”