Note 5 — FICTION

So the next morning he looked around in many places. Finding the loft in the lodge, he climbed up into it, and while he was searching the place he was surprised to find a man lying down who was so lean that he appeared to be merely dried bones covered with skin. The boy said to him, “What is it that you want?” And the skeletonlike man replied, “The only thing I desire is tobacco, for I want to smoke again.” The boy, answering, said, “Where is it that tobacco may be found in abundance?” The man replied: “It is to be found in a certain place which is, beyond measure, one of forbidding difficulties and frightful aspect; and I know that in that place dwell Seven Sisters and an old woman, their mother and tutor. These people are immune from the effects of normal orenda or magic power; and it is these people who have the tobacco.” After a pause he added: “Along the way through which the path thither goes are obstructions of the most appalling character. In the first place, there stands a Tree, a Pine Tree, whose leaves drop on the intruder, piercing his body and causing him to die. Some distance beyond this point are two living things, which are called Osigwaon; that is, two huge Rattlesnakes, which occupy each side of the path, and which bite with deadly effect any intruder. Still farther beyond stands a great rock, through an opening in which passes the path, and there stand two great living things, two Sʻhagodiyoweqgowa, which also have the power to kill any intruder who may succeed in reaching this point. Farther on flows a river, on the other side of which stand two Blue Herons, whose duty it is to give an alarm by loud cries to the Seven Sisters and their mother on the approach of any intruder; and these, on hearing the alarm, issue from their lodge in great fury, carrying their war clubs, with which they quickly dispatch the unwelcome intruder. Still farther on toward the lodge stands a tree, on which hangs the dried skin of a human being, which, on the approach of an intruder, sings, thereby giving the inmates of the lodge warning of the approach of any person whatsoever, and these at once issue from their home, bearing their war clubs, to kill the unwelcome guest.” After a long pause the man of skin and bones continued: “This is the number of the things which have the power to kill persons along the pathway to the place where the tobacco is to be found.”5