Part 21

Once an Indian alone was just at the edge of a forest. Then the Thunder Beings raised a great storm. So he remained there for the night. After it was dark, he noticed a light in the woods. When he reached the spot, behold! there was a sweat lodge, in which were two persons talking.

One said, "Friend, someone has come and stands without. Let us invite him to share our food."

Then the Indian fled because they were ghosts. But they followed him. He looked back now and then, but he could not see them.

All at once he heard the cry of a woman. He was glad to have company. But the moment he thought about the woman, she appeared. She said, "I have come because you have just wished to have company."

This frightened the man. The woman said, "Do not fear me; else you will never see me again."

They journeyed until daybreak. The man looked at her. She seemed to have no legs, yet she walked without any effort. Then the man thought, "What if she should choke me." Immediately the ghost vanished.

THE MAN WHO SHOT A GHOST

Teton

In the olden time, a man was traveling alone, and in a forest he killed several rabbits. After sunset he was in the midst of the forest. He had to spend the night there, so he made a fire.

He thought this: "Should I meet any danger by and by, I will shoot. I am a man who ought not to regard anything."

He cooked a rabbit, so he was no longer hungry. Just then he heard many voices. They were talking about their own affairs. But the man could see no one.

So he thought: "It seems now that at last I have encountered ghosts."

Then he went and lay under a fallen tree, which was a great distance from the fire. They came around him and whistled, "Hyu! hyu! hyu!"

"He has gone yonder," said one of the ghosts. Then they came and stood around the man, just as people do when they hunt rabbits. The man lay flat beneath the fallen tree, and one ghost came and climbed on the trunk of that tree. Suddenly the ghost gave the cry that a man does when he hits an enemy, "A-he!" Then the ghost kicked the man in the back.

Before the ghost could get away, very suddenly the man shot at him and wounded him in the legs. So the ghost cried as men do in pain, "Au! au! au!" At last he went off, crying as women do, "Yun! yun! yun! yun!"

The other ghosts said to him, "Where did he shoot?"

The wounded ghost said, "He shot me through the head and I have come apart." Then the other ghosts were wailing on the hillside.

The man decided he would go to the place where the ghosts were wailing. So when day came, he went there. He found some graves. Into one of them a wolf had dug, so that the bones could be seen; and there was a wound in the skull.

Arapahoe chief, and a leader in the ghost-dance.

Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution]

Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution]

THE INDIAN WHO WRESTLED WITH A GHOST

Teton

A young man went alone on the warpath. At length he reached a wood. One day, as he was going along, he heard a voice. He said, "I shall have company." As he was approaching a forest, he heard some one halloo. Behold, it was an owl.

By and by he drew near another wood, and as night was coming on he lay down to rest. At the edge of the trees he lay down in the open air. At midnight he was aroused by the voice of a woman. She was wailing, "My son! my son!" Still he remained where he was, and put more wood on the fire. He lay with his back to the fire. He tore a hole in his blanket large enough to peep through.

Soon he heard twigs break under the feet of one approaching, so he looked through his blanket without rising. Behold, a woman of the olden days was coming. She wore a skin dress with long fringe. A buffalo robe was fastened around her at the waist. Her necklace was of very large beads, and her leggings were covered with beads or porcupine work. Her robe was drawn over her head and she was snuffing as she came.

The man lay with his legs stretched out, and she stood by him. She took him by one foot, which she raised very slowly. When she let it go, it fell with a thud as though he were dead. She raised it a second time; then a third time. Still the man did not move. Then the woman pulled a very rusty knife from the front of her belt, seized his foot suddenly and was about to lift it and cut it, when up sprang the man. He said, "What are you doing?" Then he shot at her suddenly. She ran into the forest screaming, "Yun! yun! yun! yun! yun! yun!" She plunged into the forest and was seen no more.

Again the man covered his head with his blanket but he did not sleep. When day came, he raised his eyes. Behold, there was a burial scaffold, with the blankets all ragged and dangling. He thought, "Was this the ghost that came to me?"