Note 345 — LEGENDS (continued 2)

In the night when all had retired the wife of Okteondon told him in confidence: “My mother will try to kill you (by testing your orenda). She does not care much about the other two men, for she knows just what powers of orenda they have, and that she can take their lives whenever she wishes to do so.” So toward evening of the next day the old woman, Kahenchitahonk, said: “Whuʼ! I think that it is going to be terribly cold tonight. I will get some large logs to make a fire to warm my back during the night.” So bringing great logs into the lodge from the woods, she made a hot fire. The wife of Okteondon said to her husband: “My mother will say tonight, ‘I dreamed that my son-in-law must go to hunt to kill the Sʻhadahgeah, and that he must return to this lodge before the door-flap, which he swings shut behind him in going out, stops swinging, because if these things are not performed something direful will happen.’ ” There were then only two men besides Okteondon in the lodge, for the third companion of Okteondon, Hoisʻheqtoni,345 had been turned into bones on the lake by the collapsing of the power of his orenda. In the middle of the night the old woman, Kahenchitahonk, began to groan horribly and to writhe and toss in her sleep. Finally she rolled out of her bed into the fire with such force that she scattered the firebrands and coals about the lodge. Quickly rising from his bed, Okteondon struck his mother-in-law on the head with the corn-pounder, to awaken her, calling out, “Well, mother-in-law, what are you doing, and what is your trouble?” Thereupon the old woman, sitting up, said: “Oh! I have just had a dream. I dreamed that you, my son-in-law, must kill Sʻhadahgeah346 tomorrow and bring his body in here, before the door-flap, which you will swing shut behind you in going out, stops swinging, because if these things are not performed something direful will happen.” “Oh, mother-in-law! Go to sleep now; we will attend to this matter in the morning,” answered Okteondon. So Kahenchitahonk lay down again and slept.