Every day when the little boy went out to play the other would join
him, but as he always went back again into the water the old people
never had a chance to see him. At last one evening Kana'ti said
to his son, "Tomorrow, when the other boy comes to play, get him
to wrestle with you, and when you have your arms around him hold
on to him and call for us." The boy promised to do as he was told,
so the next day as soon as his playmate appeared he challenged him
to a wrestling match. The other agreed at once, but as soon as they
had their arms around each other, Kana'ti's boy began to scream for
his father. The old folks at once came running down, and as soon as
the Wild Boy saw them he struggled to free himself and cried out,
"Let me go; you threw me away!" but his brother held on until the
parents reached the spot, when they seized the Wild Boy and took him
home with them. They kept him in the house until they had tamed him,
but he was always wild and artful in his disposition, and was the
leader of his brother in every mischief. It was not long until the
old people discovered that he had magic powers, and they called him
I'nage-utasûñ'hi (He-who-grew-up-wild).
Whenever Kana'ti went into the mountains he always brought back a fat
buck or doe, or maybe a couple of turkeys. One day the Wild Boy said
to his brother, "I wonder where our father gets all that game; let's
follow him next time and find out." A few days afterward Kana'ti took a
bow and some feathers in his hand and started off toward the west. The
boys waited a little while and then went after him, keeping out of
sight until they saw him go into a swamp where there were a great
many of the small reeds that hunters use to make arrowshafts. Then
the Wild Boy changed himself into a puff of bird's down, which the
wind took up and carried until it alighted upon Kana'ti's shoulder
just as he entered the swamp, but Kana'ti knew nothing about it. The
old man cut reeds, fitted the feathers to them and made some arrows,
and the Wild Boy--in his other shape--thought, "I wonder what those
things are for?" When Kana'ti had his arrows finished he came out of
the swamp and went on again. The wind blew the down from his shoulder,
and it fell in the woods, when the Wild Boy took his right shape
again and went back and told his brother what he had seen. Keeping
out of sight of their father, they followed him up the mountain
until he stopped at a certain place and lifted a large rock. At
once there ran out a buck, which Kana'ti shot, and then lifting it
upon his back he started for home again. "Oho!" exclaimed the boys,
"he keeps all the deer shut up in that hole, and whenever he wants
meat he just lets one out and kills it with those things he made in
the swamp." They hurried and reached home before their father, who
had the heavy deer to carry, and he never knew that they had followed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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