Earl Willows tells the story of The Lost Children

Lost Children

One day the little children in the camp crossed the river to play on the other side. For some time they stayed near the bank, and then they went up over a little hill, and found a bed of sand and gravel; and there they played for a long time. There were eleven of these children. Two of them were daughters of the chief of the camp, and the smaller of these wanted the best of everything, she was a privileged child who was part of a Thunder Pipe Bundle (Nii nam skaa). If any child found a pretty stone, she would try to take it for herself. The other children did not like this, and they began to tease the little girl, and to take her things away from her. Then she got angry and began to cry, and the more she cried, the more the children teased her; so at last she and her sister left the others, and went back to the camp. When they got there, they told their father what the other children had done to them, and this made the chief very angry. He thought for a little while, and then got up and went out of the lodge, and called aloud, so that everybody might hear, saying: "Listen, listen! Your children have teased my child and made her cry. Now we will move away, and leave them behind. If they come back before we get started, they shall be killed. If they follow us and overtake the camp, they shall be killed. If the father and mother of any one of them take them into their lodge, I will kill that father and mother. Hurry now, hurry and pack up, so that we can go. Everybody tear down the lodges, as quickly as you can." When the people heard this, they felt very sorry, but they had to do as the chief said; so they tore down the lodges, and quickly packed the dog travois, and started off. They packed in such a hurry that they left many little things lying in camp, knives and awls, bone needles and moccasins.

The playing children got hungry and decided to make a game of returning home, all of them raced home as fast as they could but found the camp deserted when they got there. When they got there, they saw on the ground the things that had been left out in packing; and as each child saw and knew something that had belonged to its own parents, it cried and sang a little song, saying: "Mother, here is your bone needle; why did you leave your children?" "Father, here is your axe; why did you leave your children?" There was among them a little girl who had on her back her baby brother, whom she loved dearly. He was very young, a nursing child, and already he was hungry and beginning to fret. Then they heard an old woman calling out to them to join her, the group thought that this was where their parents might have moved too. The old lady was sitting outside her camp by a huge lake. A young girl was carrying her younger brother on her back, the old lady told the children to come in that it was getting dark and told the children to lay with their heads towards the middle of the lodge, she explained that there many mice in the lodge and that they might eat their hair, while they slept. The older girl was very observant and became suspicious, because of all the human hair that was littering the floor, and knew that she ate humans. She told a young boy not to sleep, that the old lady's intentions were not good, when she approaches me, pinch my ears and I will get up. In the early morning hours, the old lady got up and then she took a big knife, and, commencing at one end of the row, began to cut off the heads of the children. The little girl with the baby brother lay at the other end of the row, and while the old woman was doing this, she awoke and saw what was taking place.

When the old woman came near to her, she jumped up and began to beg that she would not kill her. "I am strong," she said. "I will work hard for you. I can bring your wood and water, and tan your skins. Do not kill my little brother and me. She then begged the old lady not to harm her by cutting her head off that she would be her servant. The old lady agreed and told her to go get water but to leave her younger brother .The young girl refused and explained that the younger brother was constantly having diarrhea and might soil himself and ruin her task of preparing her meal of human flesh and cause the old lady unnecessary work. The old lady agreed and sent her out, the water pails were made out of heavy rock, she made her way to the water and walked by a dried elk skull, she then instructed the skull to say that she was washing her soiled younger brother and then she continued running toward the rivers edge. At the river shore she met a large buffalo bull (It was a Su'ye stum ik, a water bull) lying by the rivers edge; she asked the buffalo bull to carry her across the water.

The buffalo ordered her to look for lice and nits on his head before he agreed to her request. The girl proceeded to clean the buffalo's head; she found huge bugs on his head, the girl secretly took some of her younger brother's beads from her necklace and placed them into her mouth and bit onto them, the cracking beads made a loud popping noise which the buffalo heard. The girl proclaimed that the buffalo had very tasty lice. This pleased the buffalo and ordered the girl to mount his back and proceeded into the water and carried her across till they reached the other side, the girls rested by a cliff. The buffalo went back across and lay at the same location, the children seen old lady come out of her lodge to look for her young slave, very irritated and carrying her knife. She found the elk skull, and angrily scolded the talking skull and asked where the children went then she proceeded to smash the skull into two. The old lady proceeded along the rivers edge and came to the resting buffalo and kicked the animals back and questioned why he took her across. The buffalo asked the old lady to clean his head of lice and nits, the old lady proceeded as instructed and put some of the lice into her mouth to crush the insect between her teeth and shrieked out loud that the buffalo had very bad tasting lice.

The buffalo ordered the old lady to mount her back and proceeded into the water, halfway across the river the buffalo rolled in the water and rolled on top of the old lady, fish and human intestines were popping out of the water and the old lady drowned. The young girl traveled further on and then they made a shelter. The young boy asked her older sister to stick him toward each teepee rail till he touches it, She did this but had to push him toward the last rail because she couldn't lift him anymore. He then told her to use her ears that she couldn't look out at him and that they were going to starve.

Early in the morning he went out and the younger sister heard him shouting. "Heyee, Hey. Heyee, Hey". The younger girl got very curious and peeked out at him. The older was sprawled out, he angrily, explained that the younger had placed him in danger, that she was not suppose to wake till he threw a buffalo kidney at her. The next morning the younger brother did the same thing, and her older sister heard a roar from a crowd. She didn't stir this time till she was thrown a piece of kidney.

She got up and seen an assortment of meat, they both feasted and lived very well after that. The girl's grandmother had a dog that was very shaggy, the older girl thought of the dog and told her younger brother that she was concerned about its health and that she was going to look for the pet and feed it some of the food they had. The girl left and eventually found their grandmothers camp she looked into the lodge and called too the dog, the animal seen the girl and tried to greet the girl but was too weak to make it to the entrance. The girl called the dog "Soh kiis iit" mon nootsti, the dog would try to move but was unable to get up, and the girl went in and told her grandmother too feed the dog. The grandmother confessed that she was unable to eat, because of worry of her lost grandchildren and that it was their father's fault. Why was this Thunder Pipe child so privileged? The girl told her grandmother that she was returning to their camp, your father is at his camp, the girl placed meat by all the lodges of the campers, except for her parents lodge. She hung some decayed shank by their lodge, and ordered her grandmother to go back home, till the privileged boy got back home. When all the campers returned home, they found the fresh meat by their camps. The boy found the decayed meat and told his mother to cook it for him, but the girl hit him on the throat with the tough meat and killed him and her parents.