“Seha shall be a seer of things far off. His thought shall be quick as
the lightning, and his voice shall be as thunder in the ears of men!”
Seha awoke, and he was shivering with the dews of morning. Then he
arose and walked back toward his village, slowly, for his thoughts were
great. Four days he went about the village, speaking to no one; and the
people whispered: “Seha has had a vision; do you not see that his eyes
are big with a strange light?”
One night after the four days had passed, Seha arose from his blankets
and, creeping stealthily out of his tepee, he went to the lodge of
Ebahamba, who was a great medicine-man, for Seha wished to tell his
vision into a wise ear.
Pulling back the buffalo robe that hung across the entrance he saw the
great man sleeping in the moonlight that fell through the opening at
the top of the tepee. Entering, he touched the shoulder of the sleeper,
who awoke with a start, and, sitting up, stared at the young intruder.
Then Ebahamba being thoroughly awakened, spoke:
“Seha has come to tell his vision; I knew he would come; speak.”
“You are a great man,” began Seha, “and your eyes are like the sun’s
eyes to see into the shadow. Hear me and teach me.”
Then he told of his vision on the lonely hill.
As Ebahamba listened to the wonderful thing that had befallen the
youth, his heart grew cold with envy; for certainly great things were
in store for Seha, and might it not come to pass that the youth should
grow even greater in power than Ebahamba himself?
So, when the youth had ceased, breathless with the wonder of the thing
he told, the old man said coldly: “Wakunda will teach Seha; let him go
learn of the wind and the growing things!”
Then the youth arose and left the lodge. But the big medicine-man slept
no more that night, for jealousy is sleepless.
At that time it happened that the winds were hot from the southwest,
and the maize grew yellow as the sun that smote it, and the rainless
air curled its blades. And the old man Ebahamba cried to Wakunda for
rain; but the skies only glared back for answer.
Then a great moan went up before the lodge of the big medicine-man,
Ebahamba. “Ebahamba speaks with the spirits; let him pray to the
thunder spirits that we may have food for our squaws and our children!”
And Ebahamba shut himself in his tepee four days, fasting, crying to
the thunder spirits, and performing strange rites. But every morning
the sun arose glaring like the eye of a man who dies of fever, and the
hot wind sweltered up from the southwest, moaning hoarsely like one who
moans with thirst; and the maize heard the moan and wilted.
Then when the people grew clamorous before the lodge of Ebahamba, he
came forth and said: “The thunder spirits are sleeping; they are weary
and drowsy with the heat.” And the hooting of his people drove him back
into his lodge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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