THE POOR BOY WHO TURNED INTO AN EAGLE. 173 
stars carried the woman and the boy to the ground, and placed them 
near a stream of water. The stars gave corn, squash, and beans to 
them, and during the winter brought meat to them. The woman saved 
some of the meat and tried to save as much corn as possible. 
When spring came she arose each morning and went to the bottom 
land and cleared a place to plant corn. One morning she put a few 
grains of corn into a dry bladder of a buffalo and tied the grains up and 
hung them on the wall and said, ‘‘My uncle, do not touch these, for they 
are seeds.’’ The woman then went down into the bottom land and began 
to work, softening the ground and making hills for the corn. While she 
was working the little boy walked up and began to look for something 
to eat. He could not find anything, and so he climbed up and took the 
bladder with the seeds in it, untied it, and said to himself, ‘‘I will eat one 
of these grains of corn and put the rest back.’’ He took one kernel and 
parched it on a hot coal and then ate it. He ate another and another 
until he had eaten all the seeds, then he hung the bladder up again where 
it had been. 
The boy was young and lazy; his head was bushy, and his face and 
hands always dirty. When the woman came in and saw that her seeds 
were gone she kicked the boy and said: ‘‘Uncle, arise. What have you 
done with the seeds? I have worked hard, and here you have eaten up 
the seeds.” She gave him a whipping, and he cried. Then the woman 
took some other corn which she had and began to pound it, for she was 
going to make some mush. The boy stopped crying, and began to sing: 
My sister, something is about to happen, 
My sister, something is about to happen. 
They will talk to you. 
Your seed corn; your seed corn is very fine. 
Something is about to happen; 
My toes are turning into eagle’s claws. 
* * * * * 
My feet are turning into eagle’s feet. 
* * * * * 
My legs are turning into eagle’s legs. 
* * * * * 
My body is turning into an eagle’s body. 
* * * * * 
My nose is turning into an eagle’s beak. 
* * % * * 
My arms are turning into eagle’s wings, 
Then the boy gave one scream, threw his robe to one side, and the woman 
saw that her uncle had turned into an Eagle. She ran and tried to 
catch him, but the Eagle flew around the lodge and out of the hole at the 
1 The first five lines of the remaining five verses are the same as the first verse. 
