Sometimes an old woman would approach along the trail where the children were picking strawberries or playing near the village, and would say to them cordially, “Come, my grandchildren, come to your granny and let granny dress your hair.” When some little girl ran up and laid her head in the old woman’s lap to […]
Category: Folklore
The Hunter and the Buzzard who switched forms
A hunter had been all day looking for deer in the mountains without success until he was completely tired out and sat down on a log to rest and wonder what he should do, when a buzzard, a bird which always has magic powers, came flying overhead and spoke to him. asking him what was […]
How the Turkey Vulture lost his head feathers
WHY THE BUZZARD’S HEAD IS BARE The buzzard used to have a line topknot, of which he was so proud that he refused to eat carrion, and while the other birds were pecking at the body of a deer or other animal which they had found he would strut around and say: “You may have […]
How the Crane beat the Hummingbird, but not found love
The Hummingbird and the Crane were both in love with a pretty woman. She preferred the Hummingbird, who was as handsome as the Crane was awkward, but the Crane was so persistent that in order to get rid of him she finally told him he must challenge the other to a race and she would […]
How the Summer Red-Bird got his color
A Raccoon passing a Wolf one day made several insulting remarks, until at last the Wolf became angry and turned and chased him. The Raccoon ran his best and managed to reach a tree by the river side before the Wolf came up. He climbed the tree and stretched out on a limb overhanging the […]
How the Kingfisher got his long bill
Some old men say that the Kingfisher was meant in the beginning to be a water bird, but as he had not been given either web feet or a good bill, so he could not make a living. The animals held a council over it and decided to make him a bill like a long […]
How Eskimo hunters catch a Ptarmigan
The Eskimo have various ingenious methods of taking ptarmigan and water fowl. During the winter small sinew snares are set among the bushes where the ptarmigan resort to feed or to rest. Sometimes little brush fences are built, with openings at intervals in which the snares are set so that the birds may be taken […]
How Guianan Indians change the color of the Macaw’s feathers
The cultivation of artificially colored feathers seems to have been an old practice in the western Guianas and beyond. The Indians of the upper Orinoco utilise a frog, allied to the Rana tinctoria, the blood of which, introduced into the skin of a parrot, in places where the feathers have been plucked out, occasions the […]
The White Passenger Pigeon and the Old Man Wild Cat
It is said that among travelling pigeons the white ones are the chiefs of their communities. According to tradition, a white pigeon once flew into the forest lodge of a noted old man, the Wild Cat. The visitor did not appear ill at ease but stood in the lodge wherever it seemed good to him, […]
Red-necked Grebe defeats the Winter Spirit
Every winter, the birds fly south. One winter, a hell-diver (also called a grebe) told all of the other birds that he would stay for the winter to take care of two of his friends who had been injured and couldn’t fly south. Both of his friends, a whooping crane and mallard duck, had broken […]