parsons] folk tales 399 



she must take the chOdren, tie the moccasins to the children, and 

 throw them into the sprino;. They gave her some eagle feathers and 

 turkey feathers. Wlien she and her mother got to the spring, she 

 took one child and threw him in. After she threw him in she did not 

 want to throw in the other one. She drew back. After that she and 

 her mother talked of how they coidd raise up the other child. Her 

 mother said, "We will take him and leave hun in the woods and cover 

 him up well, and at night we will come after him." And so they 

 went home without any chOdren. They told the t'ailvabede they had 

 done what they were told to do, and he was pleased. 



Afterwards the grandmother went and got the little boy and brought 

 him home. They raised him secretly. He grew up very fast. A 

 few months afterwards they learned that this girl had a child, and thej' 

 called another council (natoim). After they called the council they 

 brought in the girl and her mother and the little boy. They brought 

 in every man that was around the village. Then they started to ask 

 the woman again to whom the child belonged. ^Tiy had she not done 

 as she had been told? The girl said she had obeyed and thrown away 

 one to please the t'aikabede, and she had kept one for the sake of the 

 pains she had before the child was born. So the t'aikabede asked her 

 again who those children belonged to. She said she did not Icnow for 

 she had not been around with anj^body, unless it was our Wind father 

 (Idkaawei walason) or our Sun fatlier (kikaawei luride) or our Moon 

 father (Idl^aawei paiide). "What makes you say this?" said the 

 t'aikabede, " when you are only a sinner in tliis world (nabiirlade) *> 

 and how do you expect to have a child from one of these three men?" 

 After the t'aikabede asked this she answered again, "Nobody comes 

 into the house, no man but Wind father, Sun father, and Moon father." 

 They decided, "If that is so, we Mill let the little boy stay here and let 

 all the men come in, and he wdl go to one of them, and that man will 

 have to support him, and if he is the son of the Sun of God he will go 

 where Sun comes through from the hole in the roof. If he is the son of 

 Wind, he will go out where wind is blowing. If he is the son of Moon, 

 he will go out and he down and wait until Moon comes out. In this 

 way we will find it out." So they took the baby out of the woman's 

 arms and put him in the middle of the Idva. After they put him 

 there the baby looked around, laughing and smiling. Soon he started 

 crawhng to the east and then back, and then to the north and then 

 back, and then to the west and then back, and then to the south and 

 then back (there in the center where his little moccasins were lying), 

 and then he went around (in circuit) all of them sitting there and 

 picked up his little moccasins and went to the spot where the smi was 

 coming in. They said, "Probably he is the son of Sun. If he is the 



** Somebody might say, " I wish I could see through the wall." Another would rejoin, "You can not; 

 you are nabiirlade; you have not the power; only a person not a sinner can do it." 



