The Powerful Boy

A man and his wife lived with their five-year-old son in an ugly-looking lodge in the woods. One day the woman died giving birth to another boy, who was bright and lively but no longer than a person's hand. Thinking that the infant would not live, the father wrapped it carefully and placed it in a hollow tree outside the lodge. After that he burned the body of the mother.

Then as he had done before, the man went hunting every day. The five-year-old played around the lodge by himself, feeling lonely. After a time he heard crying from the hollow tree, for the baby too was lonely, and hungry as well. When he discovered his little brother, the boy made him some soup from deer intestines, which the baby drank with relish. Much stronger, the newborn crawled out of tree, and the two played together. The older brother made a little coat out of fawn skin; when he put it on, the baby looked like a chipmunk scampering around.

When he came home, the father noticed that the deer intestines were gone and asked the boy what he had done with them. "Oh," said the child, "I was hungry."

Seeing a small track of very short steps around the fire, the father said, "Here are a boy's tracks. Who is it?" So his son confessed that he had found his little brother in a hollow tree, and that he had given him soup and made him a fawn-skin coat.

"Go and bring him," said the father.

"He's shy; he won't come for anything," the boy said.

"Well, we'll catch him. Ask him to hunt mice with you in the old stump behind the hollow tree, and I'll get him."

Gathering a great many mice, the man hid them in his clothes. Then he walked beyond the tree and crouched down so that he looked like an old stump.

The boy went to the tree and called, "Come on, let's catch some mice." The baby climbed out, and they rushed around the stump catching mice. Wild with excitement, the tiny thing laughed and shouted; he had never had so much fun.

Suddenly the stump turned into a man, who caught the little one in his arms and ran to the lodge. The infant screamed and struggled, but it was no use; he couldn't get away, and he would not be pacified until his father put a small club into his hand and said, "Now hit that tree." The baby struck a great hickory. The tree fell. Then he laid about him with the club, and everything he hit at was either crushed or killed. He was delighted and stopped crying.

"Oh, these people want to hurt my father!" the little boy cried. He fixed himself a pile of red-hot stones and, hurling them at the frogs, killed every one. When the boys came home, their father was very angry. "You must go again," he said. "And you must not go west; it's dangerous there too." But the next day when their father had left, the little boy said, "I want to see what's in the west; let's go there." So they travelled westward until they came to a tall pine tree, with a bed made of skins at the very top. "That's a strange place for a bed," the little boy said to his brother. "I'll climb up and look at it."

Up he went. In the bed at the top he found two naked, frightened children, a boy and a girl. He pinched the naked boy, who called out, "Father, Father! Some strange child has come and scared me nearly to death!" Suddenly the voice of Thunder was heard in the far west. It rumbled toward them faster and faster until it reached the bed in the treetop. Raising his club, the little boy, the powerful one, struck Thunder and crushed his head, so that he fell dead to the ground. Then the boy pinched the naked girl, which made her call, "Mother! Mother! Some strange boy is tormenting me!" Instantly the voice of Mother Thunder sounded in the west and grew louder until she stood by the tree. The powerful boy struck her on the head as he had done with her husband, and she fell dead.

The powerful one thought, "This Thunder boy would make a fine tobacco pouch for my father. I'll take him home." He struck the boy with his club and threw both children to the ground. The two brothers went home, and the tiny one said, "Oh, Father! I have brought you a splendid pouch!"

"What have you done?" the father said when he saw the dead Thunder baby. "These Thunders have never harmed us. They bring rain and do us good, but now they will destroy us to revenge their children."

"Oh, they won't hurt us -- I've killed the whole family," the powerful boy replied. So the father took the skin for a tobacco pouch, but he said, "You must never go north to the country where Stone Coat lives."

The next day the older brother would not disobey his father, so the powerful boy headed north by himself. About noon he heard the loud barking of Stone Coat's dog, which was as tall as a deer. Thinking that the master must be close by, the little boy jumped into the heart of a chestnut tree to hide. The dog kept barking, and Stone Coat came up to look around. "There's nothing here," he said, but the dog barked and stared at the tree. Finally Stone Coat struck the tree with his club and split it open.

"What a strange little fellow you are," Stone Coat said, looking at the boy as he came out. "You're not big enough to fill a hole in my tooth."

"All right, come on," Stone Coat said, and began walking with enormous steps. In his belt he carried two great bears, which seemed as small as squirrels. Once in a while he would look far down and say to the boy running by his side, "You're a funny little creature!"

His lodge was huge and very long; the boy had never seen anything like it. Stone Coat skinned the two bears, put one before his visitor, and took the other for himself. "You eat this bear," he said, "or I'll eat you and him together."

"If you don't eat yours before I eat mine, may I kill you?" asked the boy.

"Oh, yes," said Stone Coat.

The little boy cut off pieces of meat, cleaned them as fast as he could, and put them into his mouth. Then he ran out of the lodge to hide the meat. He kept running in and out, in and out, until all the flesh of his bear had disappeared. "You haven't finished yours yet," he said to Stone Coat. "I'm going to kill you!"

"Wait until I show you how to slide downhill," Stone Coat said, and took him to a long, slippery hillside which ended in a cave. Putting the boy in a wooden bowl, Stone Coat sent him down at great speed. But presently the powerful boy ran up the slope again.

"Where did you leave the bowl?" asked the surprised Stone Coat.

"Oh, I don't know -- down there, I suppose," the boy replied.

"Well, let's see who can kick this log highest," said Stone Coat.

"You try first," said the little one.

The log was two feet thick and six feet long. Putting his foot under it, Stone Coat kicked the log up twice his own height. Then the boy, slipping his foot under the log, sent it whistling through the air.

It was gone a long time. Then it came down on Stone Coat's head and crushed him to death. "Come here," said the boy to Stone Coat's dog. The dog came, and the little one climbed on his back and rode home. "Now my father will have a fine hunting dog," he said.

When the father saw the dog, he cried, "What have you done? Stone Coat will kill us all!"

"I have killed Stone Coat. He won't trouble us anymore," replied the boy, the powerful one. "Now, boys," said the father, "you must never go to the southwest, the gambling place." But the next day about noon, the younger brother started walking southwest. He came to a beautiful opening in the woods, with a lean-to at the farther end. Sitting under the lean-to a man with a large head, much larger than a buffalo's, played dice for the heads of all who came along. He used wild-plum pits with designs on them for dice.

Crowds of people were betting in groups of three. When they lost, as all did, the big-headed man put the three persons to one side. Then he played with three more, and when they lost he put them with the first three, and so on -- until h decided that the number was large enough. Then he got up and cut all their heads off.

As the boy approached, a number of people who had lost their bets were waiting to be killed. Hope came to them all, for they sensed that this child had great orenda -- power, or medicine.

The boy took his place, and the game began immediately. When the big-headed man threw the dice, the bat caused some to remain in the dish and others to go high, so that the dice came to rest with different designs showing. But when the boy threw, the dice turned into woodcocks, flew high, and came down as dice of the same design.

The two played until the boy won back all the people and the gambler lost his own head, for the boy instantly cut it off. The whole crowd shouted, "Now, you must be our chief!"

The boy said, "How could a little thing like me be a chief? Maybe my father would be willing to do it; I'll ask him." The boy went home with the story, but his father would not move to the land of gambling.

"Now," said the father, "you must never go to the east, where they play ball." But the next day the boy travelled east until he came to a great, level country of beautiful plains. There the Wolf and the Bear clans were playing against the Eagle, the Turtle, and the Beaver clans.

The boy took the side of the Wolf and the Bear. "If you win," they told him, "you will own all this country." They played, and the boy won. "Now," they said, "you are the owner."

The powerful boy went home and told his father, "I have won all the beautiful country of the east; come and be chief of it."

His father consented and moved with his two boys to the country of the east, and there they lived. That is the story.

* Based on a legend reported by Jeremiah Curtin and JNB. Hewitt around 1910

While archeological evidence confirms that the Iroquois have inhabited upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania continuously for literally thousands of years, their cultural myths still include tales of a great migration into the beautiful country of the East from a previous homeland. This may refer to the arrival of other related tribes from the south and west who joined the core population during different periods.