24 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 56 



THE MIRACULOUS LITTLE MAN 



Long time ago, before the "Old Man" and "Old Woman," lots of Indians 

 were together and they fought until all were killed except an old woman and 

 her daughter. This old woman cried every day because there was no man to 

 help her do her work or get her wood. Every day when she had to get her 

 wood from the brush she cried, and each day she had to go a little farther for 

 the wood. One day she heard a sound like a baby crying in the woods. At 

 first she did not go to see what it was, but told her daughter, for she knew 

 there were no people there. Her daughter said, "Next time you hear it ; go to 

 it, and if you find a baby bring it." She went for wood again and heard it, 

 and going to it she found a baby boy at the foot of a spruce tree. The boy 

 was not born, but found by the old woman in the brush. When she brought 

 it mother and daughter rejoiced, for bye and bye they would have a man. As 

 soon as they got him home he became strong and could work. As a joke the 

 old woman told him to take their dog and go out hunting, thinking that he 

 didn't know how. She told him to tie a rope around the dog's neck. He tied 

 it on the dog, then went out hunting, and on the way he pulled so hard that 

 he choked the dog and dragged it back with him. 



The old woman still had friends in another place. So she and her daughter 

 and the little man went amongst these Indians again. The boy was small and 

 didn't grow. When he went hunting he would put on an eagle-skin like a coat 

 and fly. He was a pretty good hunter. People asked him, "How do you cut 

 moose with a knife? You are too small." He said that when he kills a moose 

 he is like a big man, but is small when he comes home again. He does all 

 miracle work. He does not bring his eagle-skin home again, but leaves it two 

 miles away on a tree. The daughter found the eagle-skin and took one tail 

 feather to stick in her hair. The boy found it out and was angry, so he said to 

 his sister, "I wish all your friends would be killed again." Then she said, 

 "What are you going to do with your mother?" (the old woman), and he said, 

 "I will put her in the corner of the birch-bark basket." In a little while war 

 came and all were killed except the old woman and the daughter and the little 

 man. Then the little man made lots of very small arrows and made a few 

 from a bear's ribs. He worked all the winter making these arrows, because he 

 was going to fight the people all by himself. These people who killed his 

 friends lived by a big lake. The old woman was with the little man, but the 

 daughter had been captured by these people. He got lots of bags for arrows, 

 and, being small, he walked under the snow and hid a bag of arrows about 

 every 50 j'ards apart, so that when he shot away his arrows in fighting them 

 he could run back to get some more. When he came near, the people thought 

 that he was a raven because he was such a small black thing. His sister said, 

 "You people didn't kill the little man with the old woman." There was one 

 man who wasn't in the fight, so he was selected to kill the little man. The 

 man took a small stick to kill the little man, thinking it would be easy, but 

 the little man threw a small object at him, striking him in the chest and killing 

 him. Then all the people, thousands in number, ran after him without their 

 arrows, because he was too small to shoot. He ran back the same trail on 

 which he came. He would come out of his hole and shoot some; they would 

 rush after him, and back he would go and come up elsewhere and shoot again. 

 Every time he shot he killed. He killed all those people in a day. He brought 

 his sister back to the old woman at home. 



