Old Man Coyote and the Strawberry

One day Old Man Coyote came down to the river valley and was eating wild strawberries from a bush when he saw four women coming toward him. He quickly transferred himself under the earth and under the strawberry bush and caused his penis to project up in the bush among the strawberries and when the women came along to the strawberry bush where Old Man Coyote was concealed, they began to pick and eat the strawberries, and one of them tried to pick the head of the penis for a strawberry, and as she could not pluck it, she stooped over and tried to bite it off, and she called out to her companions, who also tried to pluck it but could not. So they determined to cut it off and take it home, and began to hunt for a sharp piece of flint, and on their return to the strawberry bush the strawberry had disappeared, and they then declared it to have been Old Man Coyote who had done this. They then agreed to retaliate and watched Old Man Coyote all the time, until one day they saw him coming through the woods, and they quickly disrobed and made their noses bleed by hitting themselves, and took the blood and smeared it over their bodies to make it appear as though they had been murdered, and laid themselves down on the grass, all spread out ; and in this manner Old Man Coyote soon found them and exclaimed, "How came they here, these pretty things!" and then went over and touched their breasts and felt all over them and put his hand over their persons, to find by smelling, how long they had been lying there, and he said, "They must have been dead for a long time, because they smell so badly." Then he turned away, and had gone but a short distance when the women got up and laughingly told him they had retaliated for what he did to them.