The Deer-Folk

Meanwhile the girl was hungry, so turning herself into a doe she made a good meal of grass and shrubs. When the boy called her in to eat, she had turned back into a girl once again. However, she was not hungry any longer and would not eat the tortillas and frijoles that had been prepared.

After they had been living together some time, the girl suggested that they should visit her relations. Now, her relations were all deer. They decided to make the visit, but before they left, the grandmother gave her grandson three seeds. One was the seed of the cotton tree (yastse), the second of the gourd tree (was), and the third of the quebracho (tsintok). She also set out a calabash of chicha. If that overflowed or turned into wine, it would mean that the boy was in danger, and she would loose the three magic dogs she had, and they would rush to the aid of the boy.

They set out and walked a very long way until they came to a lake. This they crossed and found themselves in a broad savanna, the home of the deer. Then the girl turned back into a doe and summoned her deer relatives, and urged them to attack the boy. On realizing his danger, the boy called out to his grandmother for aid, and remembering the three seeds, he threw down one, the cotton-tree seed. Immediately a huge cotton tree sprang up, into the highest branch of which he climbed. Meanwhile the grandmother paid no attention to his call for help, for she was drunk. Then the deer began to saw down -the tree by rubbing their antlers against it. Crick, crick, crick, went their antlers, as they slowly rubbed down the trunk. The boy was frightened. At last the trunk was almost sawn through; then just as it was about to fall, the boy threw down the calabash seed, and immediately a large calabash tree sprung up beneath him. The enraged deer started to saw this down too. Along came a humming- bird. The boy called it to help him. “What can I do to help you, young man?” Then the boy asked him to go and wake up his grandmother. The humming-bird sped off to her house. When he arrived there, she was lying in a drunken stupor. He called her, but she would not wake up. Then approaching close, he hovered in front of her face and darting in thrust his tongue up the old lady’s nostril. She gave a terrific sneeze, and the humming-bird was blown out through the door and far across the tops of the trees. However, he had done his work well; the grandmother was awakened. Immediately she realized what had happened. The gourd had overflowed with blood, and the floor of the hut was covered with it. She released the three dogs, who rushed off to the boy’s rescue.

Meanwhile the deer had sawn through the gourd tree with their antlers, and were engaged in sawing through the trunk of the quebracho, which had sprung up from the last seed. After a while, however, the deer moved off to rest awhile. Then a tortoise came by, and in response to the boy’s appeal for help, he turned the tree into stone by urinating at its base. When the deer discovered this, they were furious, and set to work with renewed vigor. Just as they were sawing through the last few inches, the dogs arrived, and rushing on the deer slew them all including the traitorous deer- woman. Thus the boy was saved.

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