SNAKE MEDICINE

a Black Rattlesnake

"In time, the warrior hero known as Snake's Medicine grew tired of having adventures. He was all but lame, and wanted to settle down, have a family, and give up the warrior's way"

"Did he put his lance in the earth?" one of the children around the storyteller's camp fire asked.

"He did indeed'" replied Many Names, "and became a chief known far and wide for his great wisdom and power."

"Did he ever have children, Grandfather?"

And Many Names Told them: "He married a young woman named Buffalo Calf, but it is hard to say why they did not have any children. They tried, but for them it was no possible. For many years, the two lived in a childless world, a world without stars, a world of winters without spring. And then one day while Snake's Medicine was gathering mushrooms in the woods, he saw something that caught his eye; a pine knot growing out of the trunk of a great pine tree. Now the more he studied it, the more he became convinced that this might be an answer to his, and his wife's childless lodge. Here was a burl of twisted wood, a pine knot that looked just like the face of a child. He took out his knife and freed the knot, then sat down and carved the bark off it. Such a wonderful thing, he thought, this little pine knot looks just like a happy boy. When he was through whittling, he brought the pine knot home to his wife, saying nothing of it except that he had found it on the trail."

Buffalo Calf took the pine knot in her arms, hugged it to her breast, and placed it in a fine cradle board of bead and fur. 'Husband,' she said, 'speak to no one of this, for it is our secret and no one else's.' He agreed, and the two of them fed and clothed the pine knot, calling it Carving Boy. They talked to it and treated it tenderly, just as if it had been their newborn son. Buffalo Calf fed it stew of boiled corn, and while this gruel, of course, ran out of the whittled mouth of Carving Boy, the two delighted parents did not really care, for at last their wish was granted...they had a child."

"Now, eleven moons grew from thin to full, and Snake's Medicine and Buffalo Calf pretended they had a son named Carving Boy. But one morning as Buffalo Calf was feeding him some crushed berries, he suddenly broke out of his cradle board, and roared, 'Mother, get me some meat!' Well, Buffalo Calf nearly fell over, she was so surprised, but her sense of devotion took over immediately, and she fed Carving Boy a piece of broiled buffalo hump, which he devoured in one bite, without even swallowing. For the rest of the day, he ate whatever she offered him. And he grew quite stout, so that by the time Snake's Medicine came home from hunting, deer slung over his shoulder, the starved boy wanted to eat all of it."

"Snake's Medicine was amazed. Here was the boy he had carved out of a pine knot, eating raw deer meat! Nor was that all: Carving Boy could not seem to fill his belly; he ate all of that deer...blood, bones, horns, hooves, even the fur...and there was nothing left for his mother and father, but still they did not complain, for this child was what they had always wanted."

"Now, Carving Boy grew very large; in four days he was as big as a skin tent. And by then, as you can imagine, he was eating horses, popping them into his mouth like strawberries. When his father's horses were gone, he ate the horses of other people. And when they were gone, we went out on a hunt and ate a whole buffalo herd.. Nor was that all...for Carving Boy now began to eat the hills and the mountains, the plains and the valleys."

At this the children listening to the old chief Many Names became a little uneasy. They began to look over their shoulders, and as the wind moaned around the teepee walls, little shivers went up their spines and their eyes got big.

"Is he out there somewhere?" one of the children wanted to know. The chief shook his head.

"He is no longer around," he said somewhat sadly.

"What happened to him/"

"Well, his father had to kill him with a stone ax. First, he chopped off one of his feet, so Carving Boy toppled over; then chopped off one of his knees; and then split his belly. And what do you think happened then?"

The children looked at one another with wondering eyes. No one could guess.

"Then," the old chief went on, "all the animals Carving Boy had eaten came out of his belly and ran away. There were deer, buffalo, elk, antelope, rabbits, mice, rats, and squirrels, not to mention the flocks of birds and the hills and mountains and valleys."

"Was that when he died?" a boy asked.

"Oh," said the old chief, "don't you know that a lie *never* dies, never goes away? That Carving Boy is still out there somewhere, and just like all the lies of this world, he a waiting, once again, to be born."

"Grandfather, what happened to the great warrior Snake's Medicine?" a girl questioned.

Many Names grinned and, stirring the fire, said, "He is still around." The children looked all around them.

"You mean he is still alive?"

The old chief shrugged. "I suppose so."

"What keeps him alive?" asked the girl

"Stories," the old chief said, chuckling, "stories and little children, just
like yourselves."

~ from Tunkashila (grandfather) by Gerald Hausman