Betsune-Yenecan

When the old woman returned without the leg, Betsune-yenecan was very angry. “Because I am small they insult me, but I will make them starve.” The other people heard what he said and were angry. They said, “We’ll see whether the little boy can make us starve.” They went away. The grandmother stayed with the child.

Betsune-yenecan told the old woman to cut plenty of pine branches, to put the ends in the fireplace of each abandoned lodge, and to let him know as soon as the tips of the sticks were burnt. After a while she called him. In his uncles’ lodges the sticks were burnt in deer hoof shape, in the other lodges they were burnt round (?). “This means that my uncles will always have deer, while the other people will starve.” He started off with his grandmother, who was afraid of starving. Betsune-yenecan said to her. “There need be no fear of starvation, just do as I tell you.” She carried him on her back. They got to a muddy little lake. “Stop and fish here,” he said. “Why, there is nothing here but worms.” “Take me down and I’ll drop my hooks.” Some animal with a white covering came to the hook. It was a gigantic jackfish. Then Betsune-yenecan told her to lower the hook, and she caught a black trout. “That’s enough,” said the boy, “there won’t be any more now. Build a brush lodge here, dry the fish, make grease, and we’ll camp here.” The old woman did as she was bidden. Betsune-yenecan went out. She thought he was only playing, but at noon he was not yet back. She saw his snowshoe tracks leading to the brush. Then she began to bemoan his loss and was afraid that all alone she should starve. But in the evening she heard a noise, and he came in covered with ice. “I think, you have fallen into the ice.” “No, take off my belt.” Inside his coat there were plenty of deer tongue tips. He had killed the deer by biting off the tips of their tongues, and what seemed to be ice on him was only the foam from their mouths. The next morning he said, “Let us go where I have killed the deer. The first one we see you will dry and pound for me; gather the grease but don’t eat any yourself.” It was a little bit of a deer, which was lying on the lake. Betsune-yenecan bade his grandmother build a shelter. She dried the deer meat, of which they had plenty.

Then the boy went to see his uncles. He got to where they were, but concealed himself. By a lake he saw their hooks set for jackfish. He took off his snowshoes, turned himself into a deer, and scratched around near the hooks. Only his two uncles were alive, subsisting on fish and bear meat; the other Indians had perished. They noticed the deer. “It is odd that that little deer is continually scratching around where our hooks are.” Then one of them said, “That was a queer boy that our mother found; perhaps he is a medicine-man and has turned into a deer to laugh at us. We had better track him.” They got to a clump of pines; there the deer tracks ceased, and snowshoe tracks began. The men followed them until they got to a lake, where they saw a spruce tree lodge. They found their mother having plenty of meat and fat. The little fellow was there, so small that he could hardly be seen. After the arrival of her sons, the old woman soon fell sick and died. The boy turned into a deer again and disappeared towards the Barren Grounds. Before leaving he said, “As long as you and your children live, you will always tell a tale about me.”

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