Note 397 — MYTHS

The elder brother told the younger to run toward the north. The next morning the latter started, having cautioned the elder to stay in the lodge while he was gone, as he would bring his uncle home with him. He ran for several days until he came near the place which his brother had described. Possessing magical power over a mole, he said to it, “You must carry me under the ground so that the leaves shall not rustle. When we are very near my uncle, Dagwanoenyent,397 let me out.” Thereupon he entered the mole, which ran on until they were near the Great Head, when he looked out. He was almost afraid to come forth, so terrible was this enormous object, but he sprang out of the mole with his arrow drawn, crying as he did so, “Uncle, I have come after you!” Away sped the arrow! As it whizzed through the air it grew to the size of a large tree. When it hit the Great Head above the eyes, with a loud laugh the latter, rolling off the rocks, swept along in the air, making a broad track of fallen trees as it passed through the forest like an immense cloud. The young man kept ahead by running with lightning speed. As the Great Head was nearly on him, he turned and shot another arrow, which drove it back some distance, and again he got ahead. This act he repeated whenever he was in danger of being overtaken, otherwise he would have been killed by the big trees that fell in the track of the Great Head. So on he ran for his life, and as his last arrow was spent, he reached home. Each time the rebound of the Great Head decreased, so it gained on him continually.