Page:Myths of the Iroquois.djvu/44

78 The fox soon made his appearance, but instead of men his companions proved to be a dog and a lame cat. While awaiting in their turn, the cat, perceiving the slight motion of one of the uncovered ears of the hog, sprang upon it, whereupon the squeals of the invisible pig put the whole company to flight, and the bear never had the satisfaction of avenging the loss of his tail.

Chief Mt. Pleasant, one of the Bear clan, relates that once on a time a sickly old man, covered with sores, entered an Indian village where over each wigwam was placed the sign of the clan of its possessor; for instance, the beaver skin denoting the Beaver clan, the deer skin the Deer clan. At each of these wigwams the old man applied for food and a night's lodging, but his repulsive appearance rendered him an object of scorn, and the Wolf, the Tortoise, and the Heron had bidden the abject old man to pass on. At length, tired and weary, he arrived at a wig-wam where a bear skin betokened the clanship of its owner. This he found inhabited by a kind-hearted woman who immediately refreshed him with food and spread out skins for his bed. Then she was instructed by the old man to go in search of certain herbs, which she prepared according to his directions, and through their efficacy he was soon healed. Then he commanded that she should treasure up this secret. A few days after, he sickened with a fever and again commanded a search for other herbs and was again healed. This being many times repeated he at last told his benefactress that his mission was accomplished, and that she was now endowed with all the secrets for curing disease in all its forms, and that before her wigwam should grow a hemlock tree whose branches should reach high into the air above all others, to signify that the Bear should take precedence of all other clans, and that she and her clan should increase and multiply.

A man while walking in a forest saw an unusually large bird covered with a heavily clustered coating of wampum. He immediately informed his people and chiefs, whereupon the head chief offered as a prize his beautiful daughter to one who would capture the bird, dead or alive, which apparently had come from another world. Whereupon the warriors, with bows and arrows, went to the "tree of promise," and as each lucky one barely hit the bird it would throw off a large quantity of the coveted coating, which, like the Lernæan hydra's heads, multiplied by