Raven Laughs: Tales of The People

~ © 2008 Laura H. Haglund, A.K.A Matera the Mad

www.firefromthesky.org

Contents:
• Foreword

• A Basket Full of Stars

• The First Drum

• Firebringer

• Spiders in the Soup

(A slightly different version of this story was published in Ursus2, on behalf of ecfans.com)

• Cold!

Raven from http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/

Foreword

This growing collection embodies the verbal tradition of

my imaginary tribe. All of them are, or will be eventually,
alluded to in the body of a novel, so they might as well exist.
Some of them refer to tales that I have not yet told, but
probably will. Writing them gets me deeper into the mindset of
The People, adding cultural depth to my portrayal of their lives.
The stories have no set order, and may contradict one another
at will, because they are intended to represent tradition rather
than history.
Like all such stories, they have more purpose to the
storyteller and the listeners than mere fireside entertainment.
They are chock-full of moral lessons and hints for living a good
life, without pounding it home in any obnoxiously obvious way.
I was deeply impressed by that sort of thing when I was young
and there were more real myths and less of the Evil
Grandmother's (television) shoddy commercial substitutes.
Once, long ago, I was in a hospital, with bandages over my
eyes, and the girl in the next bed read "The King of the Golden
River" to me. I think that warped me for life.
Manobaz is the primary culture hero of The People. He is
never consciously heroic, he just does what has to be done. He
does not brag about what he has done because he does not
think he has done anything by himself--and that is quite true.
Manobaz survives because others care about him. He is the
epitome of group survival. He saves the world because he lives
in it and cares about it.
And trust me, all that doesn't mean nobody has fun.
Raven laughs a lot.

1
A Basket Full Of Stars

ong, long ago when the world was new, there was no
light at night unless the Moon was in the right mood.
She came and went as she pleased--at least until she
married the Sun and had to visit his lodge regularly; but even
then, the nights that she spent with her mate were too dark for
anything but burrowing animals to get around easily.
Baradezhada decided to put some extra lights in the sky.
Fire is the brightest thing next to the Sun and Moon, and she
had control of all of it. She had made the magical spears that
the thunder giants hurl from the sky, and the big firestone that
lit and heated her lodge. There were a lot of small bits and
pieces left over from that. They would do nicely for lamps, she
thought, so she gathered a big basket full of them.
That night her sister the Moon was away. Baradezhada
took her basket of shining fragments out and began to set them
one by one in the sky, fastening them to the outermost sphere,
the great bowl that turns with the seasons. She arranged them
in patterns that told stories and marked the directions.
Raven happened to wake up, and he saw all the new lights
in the sky. He loves shiny things and he is always curious. Of
course he had to go see what was happening, even though
Raven is not fond of being out and about at night. There was
enough light to fly by. He headed for the glowing beam that rose
from a mountaintop. It turned out to come from a basket.
Baradezhada was taking bits of light out of it to stick to the sky.
Raven found a handy perch to watch from a safe distance.
Baradezhada was friendly enough in her way, but she did not
like being pestered. He didn't care to have his feathers singed
another time, though he had gotten used to being black and
thought he was handsomer that way.

2
 When Baradezhada was done putting up all the beautiful
lamps, she saw that there was a good deal of dust left in the
basket. It would be too tedious to set the tiniest pieces into the
sky bowl one by one, but it occurred to her that she could use
the dust as paint. The night sky would be lighter and even more
pleasant to look at, with patterns painted between the stars.
She left the basket on the mountaintop and went back to her
lodge to get brushes and other things.
Raven flew over to take a closer look at the basket. Light
poured out of it, so bright it made him blink. What a marvelous
addition this would make to his nest! He had to have it.
With his feet firmly gripping the rim of the basket, Raven
took off. But Raven's talons are not made for carrying heavy
things, like Eagle's, and the basket was made to be carried with
a hand on each side, not two bird feet on one. It tipped and
slipped as he flew across the sky, and the dust spilled out in a
long trail behind him. He felt the basket getting lighter, and
stopped to see what was the matter. Och! All his pretty light
was gone, drifted away to stick to the sky, mostly in a wide
band of pale light, some in little patches here and there. He felt
very foolish.
Baradezhada returned to find her basket stolen and all the
stardust spilled out. Owoo, she was angry! But when she saw
the sorry look on Raven's face, she almost fell over laughing.
Raven laughed too, because if you can't laugh at yourself,
you don't really know what's funny.

3
The First Drum

t was after The People came out from the First World for
the second time that they learned how to make and
use drums. It happened like this.
The Great Ice Spirit had gone back to sleep in his den in
the north, but the Middle World was still very cold. The People
huddled together at night shivering. Some of them died of the
cold. After Manobaz brought them the gift of fire from
Baradezhada's great lodge in the sky, they were better off. But
it was still a very hard life. The animals all had warm coats of
fur, of course, and the hunters would wrap their feet in bits of
hide so their toes didn't freeze off. They used the hides for
shelter in bad weather too. But the hides got stiff, or they
rotted, and the fur fell out.
Then Mama Baba saw how a hide that was smoked over a
fire--because it was part of a tent--got softer and didn't rot. She
tried doing it on purpose, and put all her daughters to work
fooling around with hides. They learned how to clean them
better, and how to soften them by rubbing fat into them, and
how to get the hair off on purpose so they would make better
tents and so on.
The hides that were treated properly could be made into
clothing. The People no longer froze their butts off. They got
even more clever when they weren't shivering all the time, and
learned to carve and paint. They sang better songs, which
pleased the spirits.
Raven often came to visit Mama Baba's big camp to listen
to the singing and pick up an easy meal. They gave him nice
bits of meat so his luck would come to them.

4
 One day he got curious about a hide that was stretched to
dry by one of the lodges. It was a nice clean one with the hair
removed, stretched real tight on a wood frame. Raven saw that
the sun's light shone right through it onto the ground.
He sat on the roof of the lodge to admire it. "That is a fine
hide," he said to the woman who sat nearby making a basket.
"What are you going to make from it?"
"I don't know yet," she replied. "Probably something to put
food in. Hai, don't you go and plop on it, bird." She laughed,
because she was only joking.
Just to tease her, Raven flew over to the hide and landed
on it. He started to do a little dance. The hide was quite dry,
and stretched so tight it bent the wood frame. Every time his
feet hit it, the hide went Boom! Boom! It scared the crap out of
him! He flew off and landed back on the lodge.
The woman got up and shouted at him, "Vahé! Look what
you've done! I can't use the hide to put food in now you've shat
on it." She put down her basket and took some dry grass to
wipe the big wet streak of plop off of the hide.
All the people in the camp heard the sound of Raven's feet
on the hide and wondered what it was. They thought it was
thunder, but the sky was clear. What were thunder-spirits
doing here away from their home in the clouds? Some of them
hid in their lodges, too afraid to look.
The shaman was not afraid of spirits. He came right over
to where the woman was glaring at Raven. "What tricks are you
up to now, Raven?" he said.
"Tricks? Me?" Raven ruffled up his feathers and settled
them flat again. "I was just dancing on that pretty hide, and it
shouted at me."
"It did, ah?" The shaman took a look at the stretched hide.
"Let me see you dance."
Raven flapped his wings and glided down onto the hide. It
was nice and clean and dry again, so it made a good loud noise.
He took a few more steps. Boom! Boom! Pahm! Boom! Now he
kind of liked it, and he had no more shit in him anyway, so he
kept dancing.

5
 "Hai, this is good," the shaman said. "Now I will have a
new way to call the spirits; they will always be able to hear this
sound. You have brought us a fine gift, Raven."
Raven was happy. He danced and sang. The hide went
Boom! Pahm! Boom! Everyone came out then to see what it was
all about. The shaman told them that Raven had brought them
this new way to speak to the spirits.
Raven sang:
"Cruck! Craaawk! I am clever!
I make thunder with my feet.
Drum is the sound of thunder.
Give me something to eat!"
They gave Raven a whole roast pig. It was more than he
could eat, but he shared it with them in a big feast.

6
Firebringer

anobaz was the oldest son of Mama Baba. He was a

curious fellow, like his friend Raven. Between the two
of them, they got The People kicked out of the First
World before they were ready. The Middle World was still half
covered with ice. Life was very hard, even in summer. Many
people died when winter came. Manobaz wept until his eyes
bled because he felt so bad for all of them. It was his fault that
they suffered--he could have minded his own business.
"What can I do," he cried out to the spirits in his anguish.
"How can I help my people to live?"
No one answered him. It was not easy to talk to the Good
Spirits any more, now that he was here in the Middle World.
There were no drums in those days and people had no totem
spirits to help them.
But Manobaz still had his old friend Raven. One day
Raven came to visit him and found him weeping and crying out.
"Hai, my friend, what troubles you so?" he asked.
"Ah, Raven, what can I do? My people are dying of the
cold! Your brothers the crows will have us all to eat soon if we
don't find a way to keep warm."
That would be all right for the crows, but Raven did not
want The People to die out. The Middle World would be a very
dull place without their laughter. Besides, Manobaz was his
friend, and he felt bad for helping him get into trouble.
"Fire is what you need," Raven said after thinking about it
a while. "Go to Baradezhada's lodge and ask her for some."

7
 Hope and fear sprang up side by side in Manobaz's
bleeding heart. Fire was indeed warm, but it was a devouring
force that destroyed anything in its path. He had seen
Baradezhada's spears of fire strike old trees or dry grass and
start a raging blaze that left a blackened wasteland in its wake.
He had also tasted the flesh of an animal killed by the fire, and
it had been delicious and tender. If mere humans could control
such great power, they would surely be able to overcome all
difficulties.
What if his request was refused? Manobaz didn't think it
would be granted easily, not after the crap he and Raven had
pulled back in the First World. The knowledge he had gained
then had been paid for with great loss and they were still
paying. He expressed his doubts to Raven.
"You can ask," Raven replied, with a shrug.
There seemed to be nothing else he could do, so Manobaz
set out on the long and difficult journey. The lodge of
Baradezhada was on top of a high mountain on the western
edge of the world. There were many dangers on the way. All
Manobaz had was his spear, his knife, and his mother's
blessing.
He went as fast as he could, only stopping to dig a few
roots or catch a fish when he got hungry. One day he passed by
a badger that was trying to dig a hole with only one front foot.
The badger called to him, "Hai, Manobaz, please help me."
Manobaz stopped, because the badger called him by name
and it sounded so pitiful. "What's the matter, Badger?"
"I need to dig a new den for my children, but I hurt my
foot and I can't dig fast enough. I'm afraid some other animal
will eat my babies if I don't get the hole dug before nightfall.
Will you help me?"
"Well...I'm in a bit of a hurry myself, but--all right, I'll lend
a hand."

8
 He stayed to dig, and it took the rest of the day. The
badger was very grateful. Next morning when he left, she told
him that if he ever needed any help, he should just ask. He
didn't think there was anything a badger could do for him, but
he told her thank you anyway.
It was not long before he encountered another animal with
a problem. A foal, much too young to be without its mother,
stood in his path. Much to Manobaz's surprise, it did not run
away when he approached, but blocked his way. "Hai, little
horse," he said, "what do you want?"
The shy little foal said nothing, but it took a few steps off
to one side and then looked back.
"Ah, you want me to follow you," Manobaz said, and he
followed where it led. The foal took him to a low, swampy place.
It stopped by a hole in the ground. Down in the hole was a
mare, up to her belly in muddy water. Manobaz could see that
she must have been stuck in there for a while, she looked
exhausted from trying in vain to get out.
Manobaz was not happy about this second delay, but he
pitied the poor creatures. He studied the situation for a bit and
then set about helping the mare get out.
First he cut many branches from trees and bushes and
brought them to the hole. One armload at a time he dropped
the branches in, and the mare stomped them down into the
muck. Soon she had a floor of packed-down branches to stand
on. She still could not get up the side of the mudhole, but
Manobaz reached out and caught her by the mane. He pulled
with all his great strength and she made one last effort--and
out she came.
The mare was so tired that she had to lie down. Manobaz
stayed with the horses until the next day. Then he went his way
and they went theirs.

9
 On and on Manobaz walked, Yet it seemed as though he
would never reach the edge of the world. Something always
came up to slow him down. There were rivers, and sometimes
he had to go a long way to find a place to cross. Steep cliffs had
to be gone around as the land got higher and rockier. It took
time to gather food, too, as he could not go long or far without
eating now and then.
One day he stopped in a small valley where he managed to
dig up a lot of parsnips, so many that he wove a bag out of
grass to carry what he didn't need to eat right away. They
would last him many days, he hoped. The next day he had
barely set out when he heard someone call his name.
"Hai, Manobaz, will you stop a moment?" It was a very old
mammoth.
Manobaz stopped to speak with her. "What can I do for
you, Old Mother?"
"May all good be with you, Manobaz. Are you carrying
parsnips? I can smell them."
"Yes, I have a bag full of them."
"Ah, if only I had some parsnips," the old mammoth
sighed. "I am old, as you can see, and I have hardly a tooth left.
I can't chew grass any more. That is why I am traveling alone.
But I am afraid that my strength will give out before I reach the
burial place of my ancestors. There are no tender plants here in
this rocky land."
In those days, mammoths all went to the same place to die
when they got old, a secret valley in the mountains near the
edge of the world that was filled with bones and tusks. "Do you
have far to go?" Manobaz asked her.
"Not far, but too far for me--I am weak with hunger. Oh,
please, could I have some of your parsnips?"
Manobaz sighed and set down his bag of parsnips. He
opened it up and the mammoth took a bunch in her trunk. Ah,
how happy she looked, chewing those succulent roots. She took
another bunch, and another. When she was finished eating,
there was one skinny root left for Manobaz.

10
 He had little more to eat after that, since it was as the
mammoth had said, there was not much to be had. But he was
not sorry that he had given away his food. He had made the old
mammoth happy, and her spirit would be content.
At last he came to the foot of the Mountain of Fire where
Baradezhada had her dwelling-place in the Middle World. As he
was making his way up a long, narrow ravine, Manobaz found
his way blocked by a spider's web. He was about to brush it
away, when he heard a voice call out.
"Hai, Manobaz, please don't destroy my web! It took a long
time to build, and I need it to catch my food." It was a spider,
sitting in a crevice in the rocky wall of the ravine.
"What, you can build another," Manobaz snapped back.
But he looked again at the web. It was a marvel to see, shining
in the sun, every strand perfectly placed to form a map of the
inner and outer worlds. With a great sigh, he turned around
and went back to find another way up the mountain.
One good thing about not having enough to eat and
getting as skinny as his spear was that Manobaz had less
weight to carry hauling his own ass uphill. Still, he was getting
awfully hungry. He thought he had it made when he saw a nice
big egg sitting in a patch of soft moss at the bottom of a cliff.
He picked up the egg, and his mouth had just begun to
water when he heard someone say, "Oh, thank you, Manobaz. It
is so good of you to come to help me get my child back into our
nest." Sure enough, there was an eagle sitting on a ledge far
above where Manobaz found the egg.
"Good day to you, Mother of the skies," Manobaz said
politely. "It's a long way up to your nest, but I suppose I can
try." He couldn't very well eat the egg with its mother watching.

11
 He still had the empty bag that had once been filled with
parsnips, so he put the egg in it, cushioned with some moss,
and tied the bag to his belt. Then he started climbing. The cliff
had enough cracks in it for footholds, so he made it all the way
up to the nest. The eagle thanked him and wished him all good.
She nestled down on her egg. Manobaz rested a few moments,
and then climbed down. He was so tired that he had to rest
until the next day, sleeping on a bed of moss.
In the morning he continued up the mountainside. He
found a few berries to eat, which restored his strength enough
for the climb.
The lodge of Baradezhada sat on the very top of the
mountain, and it was guarded night and day by fierce thunder
giants. The moment they saw Manobaz approaching, they
shouted in their mighty voices and shook their fiery spears
threateningly at him. Manobaz hid behind a big rock.
"How ever am I going to even get near the lodge?" he said
to himself. "There's no talking to those fellows, they will kill me
and I will never see my people again." He wept in despair.
"Hai, Manobaz," a quiet voice said quite close to him.
"What makes you weep?"
Manobaz looked up. It was a badger. "Ah, good day,
brother Badger," he said. "I am without hope. I have come a
long, long way and nearly starved to death, only to find that I
can't even get near the lodge of Baradezhada, much less into
it."
"Why do you need to get in?"
"I have come to get fire so that all of my people will not die
of the cold in winter. Too many have died already. There are
very few grandmothers and grandfathers left. Little babies die
because their mothers can't keep them warm enough."
"Ah, that is terrible," said the badger. "Let me show you a
way in. You helped my kin in need, now I will help you."

12
 The badger led him to a hole in the mountainside behind
the great lodge of the Lady of Fire. Manobaz was so thin now
that he had no trouble slithering through a badger-hole. The
hole went all the way under the lodge and there was an opening
in the floor. It was covered with a flat stone, which he pushed
aside.
Manobaz crept cautiously up into the lodge. In a hearth in
the center was a great shining stone with flames dancing all
over it. There it is, thought Manobaz, but how do I take some
home with me? He reached toward it, but the heat was terrible
and blistered his skin. Then he heard the thunder giants bellow
a greeting. The goddess of fire was coming! Manobaz was very
afraid--what would she do when she found that he had sneaked
into her lodge?
He looked around and saw a big basket with a lid. There
was nothing in it, so he got in and pulled the lid down. He
could see and hear through small holes in it.
The woman who came into the lodge was an awesome
sight. Her eyes were every color of the sky, her hair coiled like
smoke around her head, and she wore nothing but strands of
amber beads--so many that she needed no other clothing.
She looked around and noticed that the hole in the floor
had been left uncovered. "Hai, who has come to visit me?" she
said. "It is not Badger, he has no need to hide."
Manobaz was a brave man, but the sight of her and the
power of her voice made him shake. Baradezhada saw the
basket quivering and went straight to it. She lifted off the lid.
"Who are you, and what are you doing in my lodge?" she
demanded.
Manobaz pulled himself together and answered, "I am
Manobaz, O Great One, eldest son of Mama Baba. My people
are in a terrible state because they cannot keep warm. They will
all die when winter comes again, unless I can bring them some
fire to heat their poor dwellings. I ask nothing for myself, O
Lady of Fire. I only wish to save my people." He bowed his head
and awaited her judgement.

13
 "You have entered my lodge without my permission and
hid from me. Death should be your reward. But I will spare you
if anyone can tell me some good of you. "Hai!" she cried out in a
voice that sounded like it could pierce the walls of the world,
"Who will speak for this man?"
"I will speak for him," said a familiar voice. Manobaz
looked up. There was the spirit of the old mammoth. He could
see the fire right through her, but she spoke as she had in life.
"Good day, Old Mother," Baradezhada said. "I see that you
have passed on into the Spirit World. What have you to say?"
"This man helped me to get to my final resting place so
that my spirit would not have to roam the Middle World forever.
He gave me all of his food so that I would have the strength to
go on. Do not strike him dead, O Great One. He deserves to
live."
Baradezhada looked down on Manobaz, who still crouched
in the basket. "Very well," she said. "You shall live, and you
shall have your fire. As for getting back home with it, that is
none of my affair. You will have to manage on your own as you
did coming here. I will warn you, though--beware of my thunder
giants. If they see you leaving here with any of my fire, they will
pursue you. That is not my will, it is simply the way things are.
Thunder giants are not very smart, they only do what they
know to do."
Manobaz thanked her humbly. Baradezhada reached into
the flames and broke off a small piece of the shining stone. She
held it out to him. He was fearful of touching it, having been
burnt by merely putting his hand near it, but he had no choice.
Much to his surprise, the small piece of stone did not burn him;
it actually felt cool. "There is fire in this?" he asked her.
"Yes, but it is locked inside. You must strike it with a
piece of flint to release a little of the fire. Go now, Manobaz, and
may all good go with you."
Manobaz put the precious fire stone in his bag and tied it
securely to his belt. Then he slipped back into the badger hole
and wriggled all the way out into the open.

14
 He was as careful as he could be, but the way down was
not easy and he could not always choose his path. His heart
chilled when he heard the voice of a thunder giant behind him--
"Hai! Stop, you thief!" The shout rattled his teeth and made
stones fall. Manobaz tried to run, but he came to the edge of a
cliff. Trapped!
The thunder giants were getting closer and closer, and the
only way he could escape was by leaping off the cliff. Either
way, he was dead and his people would have no fire. With a cry
of despair, he leaped out into the air.
"Hai! You can't fly," came the scream of an eagle. Strong
talons grabbed his arms, and instead of falling onto the rocks
below Manobaz sailed along beneath the wings of an eagle.
"You are very light," the eagle said. "I will bear you as far
as I can, and the thunder giants will have a hard time catching
up with you."
"Thank you, Eagle," Manobaz replied. "I owe you my life
and the lives of all my people."
"Pah! You are only being repaid. To save one life is to save
all."
Then Manobaz recalled the egg that he had laboriously
carried up a cliff. Never would he have dreamed that his life
depended on such a deed. But so it was.
The eagle soared well beyond the rugged mountain
country and set him down by a river where there were plenty of
good things to eat. He thanked the eagle as she took off again,
and then he stuffed himself with raspberries.
Manobaz hastened on his way, trying to go as straight as
he could toward the rising sun. By and by he came to a wide
river that he had had trouble crossing before. He knew that the
thunder giants were still following him so he had little time, he
couldn't go upstream looking for a ford. He would have to try to
swim across, but he was so thin and weary that he was not
sure he would make it halfway.

15
 Suddenly he heard a sound like thunder coming from
behind him! But it was not the thunder giants, it was a herd of
horses. The stallion of this herd was as white as a summer
cloud.
"Hai, Manobaz," the white horse called to him. "You look
troubled, what is wrong?"
"I need to cross this river, but I am afraid I haven't got the
strength to do it now. This will be the end of me--either I will
drown, or the thunder giants will strike me with their spears of
fire when they catch up."
"That will not happen," the stallion declared. "We are going
to cross this river now. We have done it many times, there is
good grazing on the other side. Hold onto my tail, Manobaz, and
I will tow you across." Raising his head high, he called out to
the mares, "Come, into the water with us."
So Manobaz crossed the river hanging onto the horse's
tail. He felt more refreshed than tired when they reached the
other side. "Thank you, Horse," he said. "I owe you my life."
"Nonsense," the horse whinnied. "You helped one of my
mares and saved her life and that of her child. It is the least I
could do to get you across a river safely. Go with all good, and
with the good will of all." With that, the white horse turned and
led his prancing herd off to a lush meadow to graze.
Manobaz went on his way, amazed at all his good fortune
that had sometimes seemed bad.
He was getting pretty close to home now. The land was
familiar. He climbed up to the top of a high hill for a look
around. Vahé! The thunder giants were approaching! Manobaz
cast about for a hiding-place. He saw an opening amidst the
rocky outcrops on the hill's top. Perhaps they would not find
him in a cave. It was all the hope he had, at any rate. He
dashed into the dark hole, covering his tracks the best he
could, and stumbled on down into the lightless depths. There
he cowered in fear while the giants combed the nearby hills and
valleys searching for him. He could hear their roaring and
rumbling even below the ground.

16
 The thunder giants searched everywhere. At last one of
them saw the cave entrance and called to his companions. They
would have gone in, but they saw that the cavern mouth was
covered with a big spiderweb. Certainly no one could have gone
in recently, they thought. They moved on. Eventually they gave
up, finding no trace of Manobaz on the face of the Earth.
When he was certain that he could hear not the slightest
sound of the thunder giants' booming voices, Manobaz crept
slowly toward the mouth of the cave. He was surprised to see
the veil of cobwebs that sealed it. Then he saw that not one
spider but hands of hands of them had created the web. The
spiders began to pull their web apart then, so that he could
pass through.
Manobaz wept with gratitude for what the spiders had
done for him. "What can I do to repay you," he asked them.
"You saved my life by making it look as though no one had gone
through that opening in a long time."
"You respected our mother," the spiders replied in a
chorus of tiny voices. "You spared her web, the labor of her
heart, built so that she could feed well and give birth to us. We
sailed on the wind on our fine strands to this place. When we
saw you hiding, we thought to do you this small favor. That is
all. Go with all good, Manobaz."
And so Manobaz returned safely to his people and showed
them how to make fire that they could control and warm
themselves with. From that fire came many other good things,
and the best is that we are alive now.

17
Spiders In The Soup

here were three brothers who lived in a cave. They were

sorcerers, and they could put on bearskins and become
bears whenever they liked. One day River Woman was
out looking for herbs to make medicine, and she came too near
their home. The three men saw her and came out to talk to her.
They weren't too bad looking when they were men, and they
talked her into coming to their cave for a feast.
Soon enough, River Woman found that she would have to
cook the feast herself and the men wouldn't let her leave the
cave afterward.
When night came, the brothers put on their bearskins,
and River Woman saw that she had been tricked double. She
demanded once more that they let her go, but they refused.
They wanted to keep her there to cook for them because they
didn't have mates. Now you know that it isn't easy to keep River
Woman from doing whatever she wants to, ah? Even Beaver
can't handle her when she gets mad.
River Woman was strong, but she was alone against three.
The three sorcerers worked together, and that made them
stronger than anything or anybody. They blocked up the cave
entrance with big stones, too big for River Woman to move
without some help. The men would move one away to pass food
and firewood in or for her to hand the cooked food out, and put
it back. They left one little opening between the stones to let air
in. River Woman couldn't climb up to the crack that let the
smoke out, and there was no other way in or out of the cave.
She stayed there for many days, all by herself. The
sorcerers slept outside in a tent because it was summertime,
they only needed to sleep in the cave in winter. When it snowed,
they put on their bearskins and slept all winter.

18
 So, here River Woman was stuck in this dark little cave,
nothing to do but cook simple meals. The sorcerers were happy,
because their food was never burnt any more. River Woman
was not. She had enough to eat, but no one to talk to, and not
enough to do. They gave her only enough water to drink,
because they knew that water gave her strength. River Woman
could put her ear to the air-hole and listen to the birds singing;
and sometimes, when the men were away hunting or gathering
herbs for their magic, she called out to see if anyone would
answer. One day she heard a voice outside sing back to her.
"Ah-yei! Ayah! Stones can't talk! Cruk-crawk, can't talk. Ah-
yei!" It was an awful voice.
River Woman knew that voice. It was her old friend Raven.
"Hai, Raven, help me out, ah?" she cried.
Raven called back, "Nah, woman, I can't move those big
boulders. Why are you in there when you want to be out here? I
thought three bears lived in this cave. I came to see if there was
a good bone to pick."
"Bears, hah!" River Woman said. She told him all about
the three sorcerers and how they had trapped her and made
her cook for them.
It made Raven angry. He might play a lot of tricks on
people, but most of the time he meant well and was only trying
to help, and things got screwed up because somebody else
didn't know what was what. River Woman was a good friend,
she had helped him out when he fought the giant that ate trees.
"Let me think about it," he told her. "I'll come back when I have
a plan."
So Raven flew away, but he came back as he'd promised.
"Hai, River Woman, listen, ah?" he called into the little hole.
"I hear you, Raven," she answered.
Raven told her to tell the bear-men that she wanted to
make something special for them, a wonderful soup, to show
them that she wasn't really mad at them for keeping her here.

19
 "What?" she said. "I am mad. But I'll tell them it's for their
health. But I can't make soup in this little cave. I don't have a
soup-pot, or any water, and I can't make a fire big enough to
heat enough cooking-stones, even if I had the cooking-stones."
"That's part of the plan," Raven replied. River Woman saw
his eye wink at her through the little hole. Then he flew away.
Raven found the sorcerers out in the bush gathering
herbs. He sat nearby and sang "Soup, ayah. Soup is good, ayeh.
I wish I had some soup."
One of the sorcerers hollered at him, "Hai, bird, what are
you squawking about?"
"I am hungry, I am tired. If only I had some of River
Woman's good soup I would have all my strength back ten
times over. Only River Woman can make such good soup,"
Raven said, and then he flew away.
The three sorcerers were always eager to try anything that
would give them more power, and besides they were getting
hungry. Soup sounded good, a person gets tired of the same
thing every day. So they went back to the cave.
Right away River Woman told them that she wanted to
make a special meal for them. "Some of your good soup, ah?"
they said.
"How do you know about my soup?" she asked, playing
along like she didn't know what Raven had been up to. Of
course he'd flown back there ahead of them and told her.
River Woman told them what she needed to make a proper
soup, and they got to work. They gathered lots of wood and
smooth stones for cooking and lined a pit with a pig's skin to
make the soup in. They got all the roots and herbs that River
Woman asked for, and enough water, and tore down the barrier
to build a bigger cooking hearth. She brewed up a good batch of
soup in that pigskin with lots of the pig's meat. When it was
done, she ladled out a big bowlful for each of the sorcerers and
one little one for herself.

20
 They waited for her to taste the soup first; those fellows
didn't trust anybody but themselves. While they were waiting
for their soup to cool and watching her, Raven flew over and
dropped a big hairy spider into one of the sorcerer's bowls.
When that man went to take a spoonful of soup, he saw
the spider. "Achh," he hollered, "which one of you did this?" The
other two denied having anything to do with it, but they had
been watching River Woman so closely they all knew she
couldn't have done it.
While they were arguing, Raven flew over again and
dropped another spider into one of the other men's bowls. When
he found it, the argument started all over again. River Woman
kept her mouth shut and tended the fire, keeping her face
turned away so they wouldn't see her smile. They couldn't ask
her who did it either, if she wasn't watching.
They bitched and bellyached until the soup in their bowls
was getting cold. The men who had spiders asked for fresh
bowls then. As they were getting their soup, the third sorcerer
went to take a taste of his--and there was a big hairy spider in
it, still wiggling!
Well, those guys were really pissed off. None of 'em would
admit to doing it, they all accused each other. That got them
started arguing again, and they got so mad that they put on
their bearskins and started fighting with teeth and claws. They
roared and ripped and tore up trees--big trees, not the little
bushes that grow here nowadays--and threw them at each
other. Dust and fur flew. They fought so hard that they never
saw River Woman slip away. She went a long way from the
cave, back to her own lodge.
The bear-men slowed down a bit when they got tired, and
they heard Raven laughing at them. "Crruck-crrrawk," he said,
"I see three fools." They were so pissed off that they threw a
mighty curse at him. But Raven was too quick and clever. He
flew off, and instead of hitting him, the magic bounced back on
the three sorcerers and they turned to stone. You can see them
to this day, in a valley west of here.

21
Cold!

imes were pretty good. The People had fire by then, and
warm clothes, and good tents, and they knew where
they stood in the world. But this winter it just got
colder and colder. One day when the first man who woke up
went out to take a pee, everyone heard a cracking noise. The
man came back in crying, "Owoo, my penis froze and fell off!"
Another man and another had to go out to piss, and each
time there was this awful crack! and ker-plunk! and the man
came back in without his manhood.
The women had no problem, of course. After the men were
finished, they went out and squatted, and let out their water
under their skirts as they always do. Then they looked around
to see if they could find what their men had lost, but there
wasn’t a penis in sight. There were bird tracks in the snow,
though--Raven had been there. He’ll pick up anything.
The men were very unhappy. "What are we going to do
without our piss-rods? We'll have to squat like women from
now on."
"Tish-tish," the women said, "isn't that too bad," and they
laughed.
There was a lot of talk then that heated up the tents more
than the fires. Bye and bye it came down to this--the men
wanted their "little brothers" back, one way or another, but
Raven had flown off with them. Manobaz was Raven's friend, so
it was his job to get them back. "All right," Manobaz said, "I’ll go
ask him to give them back. Then we can thaw them out and the
women can sew them back on."

22
 He bundled up and went stomping through the snow to
Raven's home in Spirit Valley. Raven was asleep on his nest on
a rock ledge, so he hollered up, "Hai, Raven. Have you seen any
penises? We’ve lost some."
Raven popped his head out from under his wing. "Penises?
Crawkk! I thought those were sausages that you put out as a
nice treat for me."
"What, you didn't eat them, did you?"
"Rrawwkkk..." Raven shuffled his feet and feathers and
looked around sideways. He could see that Manobaz was not
too happy about this, and the man was his friend, after all.
"Well, we want them back." Manobaz stood firm, hands on
his hips.
"You don't want what they are now," Raven said, and he
turned around to shoot out a big plop that made another long
white streak down the rock.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"Ahm...let's go talk to Beaver, ah?"
Manobaz didn't know what good that would do, but he
knew that Raven always came up with pretty good ideas, even if
some of them got him in trouble. So he went with Raven to
Beaver's lodge. They were invited in and sat and talked a while.
Beaver agreed to help.
"I will carve new penises for you," he said, "because Raven
is my friend and you are Raven's friend. Just tell me how many
you want, and how big."
Manobaz was very happy. He returned home with a sack
full of very nicely carved wooden penises. The women managed
to get them all fastened onto their men. Everything was fine for
a while.

23
 But while the men liked having such fine, big willies, there
were a few problems. It was awkward to have their lone limb
always sticking out stiff. For one thing, they needed much
larger breechclouts, and their outer clothes didn’t fit well either.
They looked funny with their tunics and parkas held out like
tents. Then they kept bumping them into things too, knocking
down the drying racks, poking people in the butt. Sometimes
the women hung the wash out to dry on them when the men
took a nap.
"What are we going to do," they asked Manobaz. "Why me,"
he thought, and off he went to have another chat with Raven.
After thinking a bit, Raven said, "What you have to do is
soak them, then they'll get soft and they won't stick out."
"Nah, that won't work," Manobaz said. "We pee through
them six times a day and take baths and none of that has any
effect."
"No, pee and water won't do it, you need the right kind of
wetness and a little magic. You have to put them inside a
woman."
That was certainly an odd idea, but Manobaz thanked
Raven for his advice and went home. He told the other men and
they decided to try it. The women were willing, since if it worked
it would make the men easier to get along with. They spread
their legs and showed them where to put it. Sure enough, a
good soak in a woman's well did the trick. But it also shrunk
the "little brothers" down to half their original size!
However! Such is the magic part of it, that after a while
the "lower head" rises up hard again. The soft little worm turns
into a mighty tent pole at the very sight of a woman, it so longs
for another good soak.

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