576 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS [eth. Ann. 32 



Thereupon the two started. She followed him a long distance, 

 when at last he stopped and she did likewise. He said : " Right 

 here I stood when suddenly j'onder there walked a very large animal, 

 and when I said, ' Tci, tci, tci^ td, tci. Stop thou first.' Just this 

 way [indicating] I did with my arrow. I shook my arrow. The 

 animal stopped. Then I said, 'What, indeed, is thy name? Bald- 

 head, it may be, you are named; Snot-nose, it may be, you are 

 named.' Then I shot it there so that the arrow fixed itself just in 

 the center of the body, making it fall backward, saying [with its 

 wings] du, du, du, du; it fluttered loudly its wings as it fell back- 

 ward. Thereupon then I ran thither, saying as I went, ' Do not break 

 my arrow ' ; which I prize so much. Then T ropnt near the place 

 where it lay. So right there it lies." 



Hodadefion then asked: '■^Give. What is its name? " She replied; 

 " O'soont it is called." Seizing it by the neck and throwing it on 

 her shoulder she started homeward bearing the body, and said: 

 " Come, go thou on ; let us go home." So they started homeward. 

 They had not gone far when he said : " O'soont, is it not the name 

 of what I have killed ? " " That is it," she said. Soon afterward 

 he again said: " O'soont, is it not the name of what I have killed?" 

 "That is it," she again replied; "go thou onward; so be it." 



Once more they started forward. It was troublesome to answer 

 him as they went along, for every little while he would stop again, 

 saying: "My elder sister, what is the name of what I have killed?" 

 Her answer was always: " O'soont is its name. Come, do you go on." 

 She became thoroughly provoked with him because at short intervals 

 during the day he kept asking her the same question over and over. 



When finally they reached their home, he asked : " Does it taste 

 good? " She replied: "Z/oA, it tastes good. It must be accompanied 

 with hulled-corn mush." After plucking the animal and cutting it up, 

 she boiled it in a kettle over the fire. AVhile it was cooking she ex- 

 claimed : " Hoh, how fat it is," for the oil came bubbling up in the 

 kettle. Again Hodadenon stood around and kept saying: "My 

 elder sister, does it taste good ? " She would reply, " Woh, it does, 

 indeed, taste good." Then she hulled corn and made meal, from 

 which she prepared mush to go with the boiled meat. Having re- 

 moved the kettle from the fire and skimmed off the fat, she mixed 

 it with the corn-meal mush. Next pouring the meat into a bark 

 bowl and the corn-meal mush into another, the sister said : " Come 

 now, let us two eat together." While they ate the boy still kept 

 saying : " Elder sister, T do think that the thing I killed tastes good. 

 It is called O'soont, and it certainly does taste good." They finished 

 their meal, whereupon the boy said: "Tomorrow again I shall go 

 to hunt. This time perhaps I shall kill something which will indeed 

 be much larger than what I have killed already." Soon it became 



