^^/^S] LEGENDS 581 



because a measure of tobacco will fall there, causing the ashes to fly 

 up. Then you shall think that I am still alive. I believe this shall 

 come to pass." 



Taking up his pack, the boy said : " My elder sister, I am start- 

 ing — you say that the path leads directly south ? " She replied : 

 " That is what I said." Thereupon he went out of the lodge. For 

 a long time she heard his voice around the lodge, as he went about 

 murmuring. After that she heard it no more. Then she said: 

 '' Now, I suppose he has started. Oh ! he is to be pitied, for he will 

 become wretched. It is doubtful whether we shall ever see each 

 other again." The lad followed the path, and in the evening he 

 suddenly came to a spot where it was plain that fires had been 

 kindled and people had spent the night. The remains were of 

 many times. Having decided to spend the night there, he kindled 

 a fire, by means of which he warmed the bread and the meat which 

 he took out of his pack. When he had finished his meal, he was 

 startled to see near by forked or crotched rods set in the ground, on 

 some of which were fixed pieces of bread, and on others pieces of 

 meat. These had been there for widely varying periods. At this 

 sight he exclaimed : " Oh, how wretched did they become ! Those 

 persons who have left these remains are indeed all dead, and they 

 were brothers to me. So I, too, shall do the same thing." Then he 

 set up in the ground a rod with a crotch, on which he fastened a 

 piece of bread among the other fragments of all ages — some of them 

 quite old. Then he lay down and went to sleep, with his body sup- 

 ported against his pack. In the morning, finding everything as it 

 should be, the lad said aloud: "I am thankful that I am still alive. 

 My elder sister said indeed that it was doubtful that she and I 

 would see each other again, because the path I must follow passes 

 through all manner of difficulties." 



Having said this, he set out along the jDath. When he had gone 

 a long way he was startled to hear at some distance the sound, " rfo", 

 <Zo", rfo", <^o"," which one would suppose was made by a woodpecker 

 loudly pecking on a great hollow tree. Going to the tree whence the 

 noise came, he saw fluttering from place to place and pecking holes 

 in the trunk a cuckoo of enormous size. A sight that caught his 

 eye and conveyed a more serious warning was the great number of 

 arrows stuck in the tree near the spot where the cuckoo was fluttering 

 about. He concluded that these arrows had belonged probably to 

 those who had been his brothers, and that therefore this bird was 

 possessed of great orenda (magic power), which it exerted with evil 

 purpose only. Thereupon the lad exclaimed : " It shall see its doom, 

 for now I will kill it." Aiming at the cuckoo, his arrow struck in the 

 very center of its body, whereupon it began to beat with its wings 

 against the tree to which it was pinned. 



