466 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS [etii. ann. 32 



Having become ravenous, she fell to devouring everything in the 

 lodge — meat, bread, corn, beans, skins; in fact, everything that could 

 be eaten. When she had eaten everything in the lodge, she started 

 in pursuit of her husband. She soon discovered his tracks and fol- 

 lowed tliem. Once in a wliile on the way she would stop and dance, 

 listening with delight to the rattle of the small pebbles in her bones. 

 Afterward she would take up the trail again. 



Shortly after the hunter had fled from the lodge of the old man his 

 wife came running along. Coming up to the banlc of the river, she 

 sci'eamed : " Old man, take me across this river. I am pursuing my 

 husband to seize him and eat him. Come ! Be quick ! " The old 

 ferryman, not being accustomed to hear words like these, slowly 

 turned toward the woman, saying : " I can not take you across. There 

 is no walk for you, who are chasing your husband to eat him." But 

 the woman begged and begged him to comply with her request. At 

 last the old man replied : " It is well. Go bring me a basketful of 

 fish and also dig me a basketful of groundnuts." Going out, the 

 woman caught a basketful of fish in the old man's pond; then from 

 his garden she dug a basketful of groundnuts and brought them to 

 the old man. When he had prepared and cooked them, she would 

 not eat them, for she now craved nothing but human flesh. After 

 eating by himself, the old man went to the bank of the river and, 

 getting into position, stretched his neclt across the water like a turtle, 

 making a very narrow, high, arching span. Then he told her to walk 

 across. But the woman became angry and said: "How do you sup- 

 pose I am going to cross on that kind of walkP' The old man 

 replied: "Oh! you can do just as you like about it. I am old now 

 and can not make my neck flat. If I did, it would break down. As 

 it is, you must walk very carefully." No matter how the woman 

 raged she had to go on that narrow path; so she picked her steps 

 carefully, scolding as she went along. The river, which was very 

 lingry and deep, was full of terrible creatures. When the woman 

 reached the middle of the river, she made the old man so angry by 

 her scolding that he suddenly jerked his neck, making her fall into 

 the water; whereupon she was devoured instantly, with the exception 

 of her stomach, in which was her life, which floated downstream, pass- 

 ing the lodge of the three aunts of the hunter, her husband. Seeing 

 it on the surface, the three aunts, having caught it, chopped it up fine, 

 thus killing the woman. 



In the meanwhile the husband came to the lodge of his three aunts, 

 who told him to keep on his way and that they would watch and do 

 what they could to aid him. So he kept on until he came to a wood, 

 in whicli he saw a young woman gathering sticks for fuel. She 

 asked him: " Wliere are you going?" He replied: "I am going on 

 until I find pleasant people to live with." The young woman an- 



