The Woodcraft Kalendar is founded on the Indian way of noting the
months. Our own ancestors called them "Moons" much as the Indians did.
Our word "month" was once written "moneth" or "monath" which meant a
"moon or moon's time of lasting." The usual names for the moons to-day
are Latin, but we find we get closer to nature if we call them by
their Woodcraft names, and use the little symbols of the Woodcraft
Kalendar.
TALE 107
Climbing the Mountain
Afar in our dry southwestern country is an Indian village; and in the
offing is a high mountain, towering up out of the desert. It is
considered a great feat to climb this mountain, so that all the boys of
the village were eager to attempt it. One day the Chief said: "Now boys,
you you may all go to-day and try to climb the mountain. Start right
after breakfast, and go each of you as far as you can. Then when you are
tired, come back: but let each one bring me a twig from the place where
he turned."
Away they went full of hope, each feeling that he surely could reach the
top.
But soon a fat, pudgy boy came slowly back, and in his hand he held out
to the Chief a leaf of cactus.
The Chief smiled and said: "My boy, you did not reach the foot of the
mountain; you did not even get across the desert."
Later a second boy returned. He carried a twig of sagebrush.
"Well," said the Chief. "You reached the mountain's foot but you did not
climb upward."
The next had a cottonwood spray.
"Good," said the Chief; "You got up as far as the springs."
Another came later with some buckthorn. The Chief smiled when he saw it
and spoke thus: "You were climbing; you were up to the first slide
rock."
Later in the afternoon, one arrived with a cedar spray, and the old man
said: "Well done. You went half way up."
An hour afterward, one came with a switch of pine. To him the Chief
said: "Good; you went to the third belt; you made three quarters of the
climb."
The sun was low when the last returned. He was a tall, splendid boy of
noble character. His hand was empty as he approached the Chief, but his
countenance was radiant, and he said: "My father, there were no trees
where I got to; I saw no twigs, but I saw the Shining Sea."
Now the old man's face glowed too, as he said aloud and almost sang: "I
knew it. When I looked on your face, I knew it. You have been to the
top. You need no twigs for token. It is written in your eyes, and rings
in your voice. My boy, you have felt the uplift, you have seen the glory
of the mountain."
* * * * *
Oh Ye Woodcrafters, keep this in mind, then: the badges that we offer
for attainment, are not "_prizes_"; prizes are things of value taken by
violence from their rightful owners. These are merely tokens of what you
have done, of where you have been. They are mere twigs from the trail to
show how far you got in climbing the mountain.
[Illustration: THE OMAHA TRIBAL PRAYER.
Harmonized by PROF. J. C. FILLMORE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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