Ojibwa: The Foolish Girls
This is an old Ojibwa legend, told by David Red Bird in 1974. I would like to retell it in this way:
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there were some people who were camping in birch-bark lodges. Among these people were two girls, who behaved very foolishly. When the night came, they insisted on sleeping outside the lodges instead of inside, as all self-respecting girls do. But these ones lay out in the open, giggling and looking up at the night sky.
"Look at those stars," one of them said. "Look at the red one and the white one!"
The other girl said: "Iīd like to sleep with a star. They must be good lovers, being so hot as they are!"
"Me too", siad the first girl. "Iīll take the red star under my blanket and you can have the white one."
"Yes, ok", said the girl and so they drifted off to sleep.
When they awoke, they found themselves to be in another world, high up above the earth. They were in the land of the stars. All the stars were men, and they now spoke to the girls:
"You wanted to sleep with us. Well here we are, now letīs do it!"
And so they did. The girl who had chosen the red star was very content. He was a young man, very vigorous and strong and he kept her busy all night long. But the girl who had gotten the white star, was not so happy, for he was an old man who couldnīt perform that well. She suggested to her friend that they change husbands for a while, but the friend didnīt want to.
They had to live for some time with their chosen star husbands. After a while the gilr who had chosen the red star began to complain:
"This is too much, my husband is wearing me out, i canīt go on doing it all the time."
Her friend said that her husband was so old and tired that he couldnīt do anything, so she wasnīt contented either.
When some time had passed, they both decided that being married to a star wasnīt so great as they had thought. All that happened was that the star men ate star food, slept with the girls and shone. They never went out hunting, they never played games or tell stories. The girls began to long for home and talked about how it now was winter in their own world far below and how their people would play snow-snake.
When the girls were out walking, the passed Old Woman, who was sitting on a hole in the sky. Now and then she moved a little when the girls came by, so they could see through the hole dow to earth. They watched the people in their village play snow-snake and sing and dance, and they felt very sad, longing for home. They asked Old woman how they could get doen that and she gave them different kinds of plants and said:
"Twist these into fibers, then make a long rope. Thatīs how you can get down to where you came from."
The girls busied themselves for days with twising fibres and making a long rope. It seemed to take forever as they needed a very very long rope, and they got tired. And as theyw ere lazy as well as foolish, they stopped and said:
"This must be long enough. No use to work any longer".
then they went to their star men and told them:
"We would like to go back home for a shhort visit. You can haul us up again by this rope".
Of course they had no intention of returning for they had discovered that sleeping with star men was no different from sleeping with ordinary men. Now they wanted young Ojibwa men instead. The star men let them down with the rope, but it was too short, as they had been too lazy to make it long enough. It reached almost all the way down but not quite. They reached the top of the highest tree in the world, where they became stuck in an abandonded eagleīs nest. There they sat, wondering how they would get down to the ground.
A bear passed by below them and they called to him:
Bear! Surely you are looking for some women to sleep with. Get us down from this tree and you can sleep with us!"
Despite the bear seeing that these were two good-looking girls, he also realized that they were foolish and too forward and he watned to have nothing to do with them. He told them he couldnīt climb, even though he could easily have reached them. Then he went away without throwing another glance at them.
The next passer-by was a buffalo. They girls uelled to him:
Hey, good-looking! If you get us down from this tree, you can sleep with us!"
The buffalo saw that the girls were pretty and didnīt mind if he did, so he tried to climb up the tree. He tried for a long time, only to fail. At last he said:
"My hoofes are not suited for this, get someone who has claws instead." With that he walked off.
Then Old Man Coyote came by:
"Hey good man! Donīt you want some nice women to sleep with? You can sleep with us if you get us down!" yelled the girls.
"Iīd have nothng agains that," shouted Old Man Coyote. "But I have a young and jealous wife and she will get mean if she finds sout I fool around with girls!" And off he went.
The next one to come by was Wolverine. He is so ugly no one wants to sleep with him. But the girls tried:
"Hey handsome! You who are so good-looking want some girls to sleep with, donīt you?"
Wolverine agreed and they said: "Get us down from this tree and you can sleep with us!"
Without further ado, Wolverine got up the tree with the help of his strong claws in no time at all. He got the first gilr down on the ground and immadieately made love to her. then he went up for the other one, and did the same with her. Wolverine enjoyed it, he had never had sucha good time before, but the girls did not. He was strong, rough and ugly and it was not at all pleasant. They said to each other:
"I think weīve done a foolish thing. When we get home again, Iīll never sleep outside the hut
again!"
But now they had a problem. After sleeping with them, Wolverine gave them food and then put them both back up in the tree top again, for he wanted to keep them, forever. He knew he had a good thing there.
But one day, when he was out hunting, the girls saw that Wolverine Woman was nearing the eagleīs nest where they were kept. Wolverine Woman hadnīt met up with Wolverine Man yet, and she was just as ugly as he was. No other man wanted her. Now the girls got an idea.
"Hey, lovely woman!" they shouted. "You are truly good-looking! If you get us down from here and take our place, we promise you a handsome young man who will want to sleep with you. You see, he comes up here to sleep with us, but weīre hunans and we need to get back to our home. But as he is such anice man, we donīt want to disappoint him. He should have a good woman like you!"
Why, that is very generous of you!" said Wolverine Woman. "And you are absolutely right! I would like to meet that young man."
Wolverine Woman got the two girls down and they ran away from there as fas as they had ever run before in their lifes.
When the night came, Wolverine Man climbed up the tree and got Wolverine Woman down. In his haste to make love, he didnīt notice that there was only one woman in the nest. When dawn came, Wolverine Woman said:
You are not at all as handsome as I was told."
Wolverine Man saw that he had been tricked and said:
"Well, you are not exactly a raving beauty either.
"Letīs not fight," said Wolverine Woman. "We are both very ugly. Letīs face it, no one wants us so we might as well stay together."
Wolverine Man agreed and so they became a couple. There is no one as ugly that he canīt get a mate.
The two girls had finally stopped being foolish. When they played that trick on Wolverine Man, they had begun being clever.
