HRm^r] FICTION 283 



5G. S'hodieonskon ^" (the Trickster) 



S'hodieonskon went on ;i journey to distant places in visits of ad- 

 "venture. In the first place he came to he found a large number of 

 lodges. Here he told the people that in his village everyone was ill 

 -of a certain disease; that the same disease would come to them, too; 

 and that his people had discovered but one cure for it — all persons 

 who were married slept with other men's wives and other women's 

 husbands, and this saved them. Believing this, the people did as he 

 had told them. 



Then S'hodieonskon started oft' in another dii'ection. When he came 

 in sight of the second village he began to call out according to the 

 custom of runners, Go'weh! go'weh! so the people knew that news of 

 some kind was coming. As they gathered around him after his ar- 

 rival, he told them that a plague was upon the place from which he 

 had come, and that if they wished to prevent or cure this plague they 

 must cut holes in the bark walls of their lodges and close these by 

 putting their buttocks into them, and that all the families must do 

 this. Going home, the people defecated into their lodges through 

 these holes in the walls, whereupon S'hodieonskon mocked them for 

 being fools, and thrust his walking-stick through the holes as he 

 went, jeering at them, from lodge to lodge, before his departure. 



In the next adventure he met a crowd of men; this time he wore 

 long hair reaching to the ground. All looked at his hair, wondering 

 how he got it. When they asked him, he said that he had climbed a 

 tree and, after tying his hair to a limb, jumped off. In this way the 

 hair became stretched as much as he wanted. Further, they could do 

 likewise if they wished. After S'hodieonskon had gone his way one of 

 the men, saying, " I am going to make my hair long." climbed a tree 

 and, having tied his hair to a limb, jumped down. His scalp was 

 torn off. and, falling to the ground, he was killed. The other people, 

 enraged, said, "That man is S'hodieonskon; we must overtake and 

 kill him." Running after him, they soon came in sight of a creek, in 

 which they saw a man spearing fish. Every little while, raising his 

 foot, he would pull off a fish, for he had sharpened his leg and was 

 using it for a spear. They watched him take several fish from his 

 leg. When they reached the bank he came up out of the water. They 

 were astonished at the number of fish he had caught and asked him 

 how he had taken so many. " You can all see," he replied, " I have 

 sharpened my leg and use it for a spear; when I get all the fish T 

 want I spit on my leg, and it becomes as well as before." Then he 

 showed them how he did it. He put the fish he had speared on a 

 string. Then the men wanted to spear fish, so they asked him, " Can 

 not you sharpen our legs, so that we may spear fish? " After he had 

 sharpened their legs, entering the water, they went to work, while he 

 disappeared. Presently they began to feel sore and had caught noth- 



