"So he went back. When he got his oil bag, he flew to his own village. He landed near by and took the skins from the frames. There were so many of them that he had to make many trips to carry them to his lodge. The people wondered. They asked him how he had carried so many skins from the hunting grounds. He said he had found a way to do it."
Indian Myths
The Untruthful Man
Indian boys and girls like fun as much as white children do. So sometimes the Indian father tells them a story just to make them laugh. Here is one such story.
Yenhen lived in a village on the bank of Lake Erie below the town of Sandusky, and he had a gun, for he was a hunter. One day he had no bullets for his gun. So he loaded it with cherry stones. He went across a field. At the edge of the woods he shot a rabbit in the head with his cherry stones and killed it. But he did not take up the rabbit. He let it lie where it fell.
On another day he went into the woods to hunt, He shot an elk, but did not kill it. The elk ran away. It was as big as any forty elks now found. Yenhen followed the elk he bad shot. He tracked it by the trail of blood it left on the ground from its wound. Suddenly his gun struck against something and he stopped. Then the gun fired itself. To his surprise Yenhen found that the elk was killed. He now had plenty of elk meat, which he took to his lodge.
When his elk meat was all gone, he went out again to hunt. He passed by the place where he had shot the rabbit. He found that one of the cherry stones had grown into a large tree. Then he heard a great noise, look up; he saw that the tree was full of pigeons eating cherries.
Yenhen fired into this flock of pigeon. He killed them al at one shot. But when the pigeons fell to the ground, each one grew at once into a cherry tree. And each tree was as full of pigeons as the first tree had been.
And he saw a large rabbit among the branches jumping from tree to tree.
He shot all the pigeons. But again when each pigeon touched the ground, it became a, cherry tree filled with pigeons, as the others had been. And great rabbits were jumping from treetop to treetop.
Soon the whole forest was filled with cherry trees, pigeons, and rabbits. Yenhen was so frightened that he ran home to his lodge. There he was sick. He supposed that he was sick two hundred years. But he found out that it was only one day.
Yenhen went again into the woods to hunt. When he came home, he told a friend he had found a bear tree. He thought there might be young bears high up in the hollow of that tree with their mother. So he set out to get these bears.
He leaned a small tree against a limb of the bear tree near the hole where the bears went in. Then he began to climb the small tree. The limb broke off and the small tree crashed to the ground. Yenhen fell clear around the Lower World, but struck the ground under the bear’s door. Be fainted and lay there a week.
When he opened his eyes he saw the whole sky full of bears dancing and laughing at him. One by one they went away until only the bear in the hole in the tree was left. She looked down and smiled from ear to ear.
Then his gun stood up without his touching it and fired itself and killed the bear. The bear fell upon him. He believed she broke every bone in, his body. He lay there, as he thought, for three hundred years before he got well. But when he reached home he found that he had been gone only two weeks.
Yenhen went again into the woods to hunt. He built himself a hunting lodge, for now he was far from home. He had good luck in hunting. When the spring came he had so many skins that he did not know how to get them home. He made a bag of deerskin and filled it with bear’s grease.
At last he thought of a plan. He made a frame of poles and put wings to it so he could make it fly. He covered the wings with skins for feathers. Then he put skins on this frame and got it up on the top of his cabin. There he got into it and sailed away like a big bird.
After flying along for a while, he said, “I forget. I am now a bird. All birds have oil bags. I must go back and get my bag of bear’s grease for an oil bag. I must do this at once.”
So he went back. When he got his oil bag, he flew to his own village. He landed near by and took the skins from the frames. There were so many of them that he had to make many trips to carry them to his lodge. The people wondered. They asked him how he had carried so many skins from the hunting grounds. He said he had found a way to do it.
It was now time to take his furs to market. Yenhen made a canoe. He packed his furs in it and went down the lakes to the Great Falls. Now, no one could go over these falls in a canoe without being dashed to pieces. But Yenhen went over without any difficulty.
At the town where he sold his furs, he bought some gunpowder. He also bought a flint and a piece of steel for striking fire. He put all these things into a bag together and started back to his canoe. The steel rubbed against the flint. This set fire to the powder and blew Yenhen above the clouds.
When he struck the ground, he bounced as high as he was before. The people now put feather beds on the ground for him to fall upon. When he came down they seized him and tried to hold him. But he carried them all as high as the tops of the trees. When they came down some were frightened to be near such a man.
When at last Yenhen found himself safely down, he went back to the merchant and bought more powder, flint and steel. But this time he put them into different bags. Then he set out for home.
He went up the river. When he came near the Great Falls he rowed so fast that he was going almost like lightning. When the water of the falls began to roar about him, he struck it with his paddle. The canoe rose and sailed through the air, and it came down again far above the falls.
When he reached home he told the young men of the village all the strange things that had happened to him. The young men could not believe that it was all true. This made Yenhen feel so bad that he went away into the woods and was never seen afterward.
