Indian Legends:

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22402, 24 April 1936, Page 8 (Supplement)

Indian Legends:

gends:

CHAPTER V. "WHILE Chief Duck was drying the world and finding a way to be Bure there would be the four great winds, Beaver and his men were busy making the world a good place for the Old Woman to live. At first the Old Woman only slept, for she was tired from her long fall from above the Blue. But when she wakened she was hungry, and she was soon weary from too much sun. Beaver saw that the Old Woman must have food and shelter. He asked her of her life above the Blue. "There were great trees," she said, "which had big, white flowers and bright red fruit. The trees made shadc 3 and their fruit was good to eat." So Beaver asked Swan if he could fly up to the Blue and find the tree with big, white flowers and bright red fruit. Swan said he could, and he began climbing in great circles. Swan climbed for two days and two nights, and he spent another day and a night finding the hole in the Blue through which the Old Woman had fallen. Swan went through that hole, and near by was one of the trees ho had gone to find. He went behind it and flapped his wings so fast they blew the tree out of the ground and down through the hole. Then Swan went to the edge of the hole and folded back his wings and dived down to the world again. When 1 the tree fell in the Endless Lake, Beaver sent his men to bring it to the edge of the world, and there they cut it into many pieces. Badger and bin brothers dug holes, and all these pieces were planted Many trees grew from these pieces of the tree from above the Bine, and beneath them the Old Woman found shade from the sun. On their branches grew fruit which she found good to eat, and from their bark she made moccasins for her feet. But because Badger and his men had planted the pieces of the tree in many places, there were many kinds of trees. Some had no fruit at all for the Old Woman to eat, but only bark for her moccasins. Some had fruit that was bitter. Some grew so tall that the Old Woman could not reach their fruit, but must wait for it to fall. Those were

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tho nut trees. And of all these trees, only one was just like that which Swan had brought from above the Blue. That was the tree which had grown from the big root, which Badger and his men had planted on the highest hill of the Backbone of the World. For a time these trees grew and made shade and bore fruit. Then they drooped and began to look sick, and their fruit withered. The leaves even fell from the great tree on the Backbone of the World, so that only its bright red fruit remained. And when the people in the valleys to the east looked at it in even* ing it made the whole sky red. They asked Beaver what it meant. "It means," said Beaver, slapping the ground with his broad tail, "that there must be rain." So Curlew and Snipe and Killdeer went to the Endless Lake and filled their beaks with water and flew high over the great tree and dropped the water on it. But that was not enough to bring back the leaves. It only made the great white blossoms grow. And just then Black Eagle flew out of the West and told Chief Duck there must be rain clouds, for the whole world was drying up. It was evening, and Chief Duck turned toward the West and looked toward the Backbone of tho World. He saw the red glow of the great tree's fruit, as did every one el:;e. He smiled, and he said, "There shall be rain clouds to-morrow." Next Story—Chief Duck Sends Rain.