“Where are you going?” and when they answered her she said: “I am going
also; let us go together;” and they walked along one after the other.
They met a fourth woman, who asked: “Where are you going,
sister-in-law?” and she also joined them.
Walking in single file, the women came to a pile of bones where people
had died.
The first woman kicked them with her foot, and, turning to the second
woman, said:—
“These belong to you. Carry them.”
The second woman kicked the bones with her foot and said contemptuously
to the third woman:—
“These are the bones of your relatives. Carry them.”
The third woman kicked them with her foot, and, turning to the fourth
woman, said: “These bones belong to you. Carry them.”
And the fourth woman answered: “This is the skull of my sister-in-law.
You should not be disrespectful. I will carry it along so that you shall
respect it.”
The women wore a skin belted in at the waist, making a skirt of one
part, and leaving the other long enough to cover the back and to draw
over the head, and the last woman put it between her back and the
blanket, saying: “I shall carry it.”
But after a time she wearied of carrying it, and she put it down by the
roadside in a place where no one would molest it. But the skull followed
them, singing:—
“There were four women passing along here. One of them is my
sister-in-law.”
The women heard it singing, and ran. When they camped for the night the
skull came up and destroyed the first woman. It bit her and she died.
When the three women awoke and found one dead, they fled from the skull,
but it followed, singing:—
“There were four women passing along here. One of them is my
sister-in-law.”
They ran away from it and camped for the night, but when they awoke in
the morning they found another woman had been killed by the skull, so
again they fled, but again they heard it singing:—
“There were four women passing along here. One of them is my
sister-in-law.”
Next morning only one woman awoke, and the skull came up to her and
said:—
“Sister-in-law, carry me again.”
She dared not refuse, and after they had gone a short distance the skull
said:—
“Look among the trees until you find one where the raccoons have their
nest. Then if you are hungry you shall have something to eat. Look for a
certain tree, find the hollow place where the raccoon goes in to its
nest and drop me in after it.”
The woman did as she was told and she dropped the skull in. It somehow
killed the raccoon. After it had got to the bottom of the tree it
called:—
“Cut a hole in this tree and let me out.”
The woman cut the hole; first she took the raccoon out from the tree,
and then she took the skull out. She cooked the raccoon, then she took
the stomach of the raccoon for a bag, and melted down the raccoon fat,
put it in the stomach bag and sewed it up. She hid it from the skull;
she had a purpose in doing this, and the skull did not know that she had
done it, and she carried the bag with her. They stopped twice more
during their journey; each time the woman did as the skull directed, and
each time she made the bag and filled it and sewed it up, and the skull
did not see her.
The fourth time the woman hunted for a very large tree, and when she had
found it she dropped the skull into the hole and then ran off by
herself. The skull called: “I have killed the raccoon. Now let me out.”
No answer. Then the skull knew the woman had left, and said:—
“Wherever you go I shall find you and have my revenge.”
It commenced to gnaw a place in the tree to let itself out, and it took
it a day and a half to make a hole large enough to get through. When it
came out, it went along, saying:—
“Wherever you go I shall find you and have my revenge.”
By and by the woman heard the skull saying that, and she took the bag of
raccoon grease and threw it at the skull; it went all over it, and it
could not go on, and while it stopped to clean itself the woman ran on
ahead.