ITV Post from Gary Thomas
(From the Ani Tsalagi post)
Once, long ago, when
all the people were out in the mountains on a great hunt one man who had gone on ahead climbed to the
top of a high ridge and found a large river on the other side. While he was looking across he saw an
old man walking about on the opposite ridge, with a cane that seemed to be made of some bright, shining
rock. The hunter watched and saw that every little while the old man would point his cane in in a certain
direction, then draw it back and smell the end of it. At last he pointed it in the direction of the
hunting camp on the other side of the mountain, and this time when he drew back the staff he sniffed
it several times as if it smelled very good, and then started along the ridge straight for the camp.He
moved very slowly, with the help of the cane, until he reached the end of the ridge, when he threw the
cane out into the air and it became a bridge of shining rock stretching across the river. After he had
crossed over upon the bridge it became a cane again, and the old man picked it up and started over the
mountain toward the camp.
The hunter was frightened, and felt sure that it meant mischief,
so he hurried on down the mountain and took the shortest trail back to the camp to get there before the
old man. When he got there and told his story the Dida:hnvwi:sgi said the old man was a wicked cannibal
monster called Nvyvnuwi-Dressed In Stone, who lived in that part of the country, and was always going
about the mountains looking for some hunter to kill and eat. It was very hard to escape from him, because
his stick guided him like a dog, and it was nearly as hard to kill him, because his whole body was covered
with a skin of solid rock. If he came he would kill and eat them all, there was only one way to save
themselves. He could not bear to look upon a menstrual woman, and if
they could find seven menstrual
women to stand in the path as he came along the sight would kill him. So they asked among all the
women, and found seven who were in that way, and with one it had just begun. By the order of the Dida:hnvwi:sgi
they stripped themselves and stood along the path where the old man would come. Soon they heard Nvyvnuwi
coming through the woods, feeling his way with the stone cane. He came along the trail to where the
first woman was standing, and as he saw her he started and cried out: "Yu! My grandchild; you are in
a very bad state!" He hurried past her, but in a moment he met the next woman, and cried out again: "Yu!
My child; you are in a terrible way," and hurried past her, but now he was vomiting blood. He hurried
on and met the third and the fourth and the fifth woman, but with each one that he saw his step grew
weaker until when he came to the last one, with whom it had just begun, the blood poured from his mouth
and he fell down the trail.
The the Dida:hnvwi:sgi drove seven sourwood stakes through his
body and pinned him to the ground, and when night came they piled
great logs over him and set fire
to them, and all the people gathered around to see. Nvyvnuwi was a great Adawe:hi and knew many secrets,
and now as the fire came close to him he began to talk, and told them the medicine for all kinds of sickness.
At midnight he bagan to sing, and sang the hunting songs for calling up deer, bear and all the animals
of the woods and mountains. As the blaze grew hotter his voice sank lower and lower, until at last when
daylight came, the logs were a heap of white ashes and the voice was still.
The Dida:hnvwi:sgi
told them to rake off the ashes, and where the body had lain they found only a large lump of wa'di paint
and a magic
Ulvnsuti stone. He kept the stone for himself, and calling the people around him he
painted them, on face and breast, with the red wa'di, and whatever each person prayed for while the painting
was being done, whether for hunting success, for working skill,or for long life-that gift was his.
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