A widow with one daughter was always warning the girl that she must be
sure to get a good hunter for a husband when she married. The young
woman listened and promised to do as her mother advised. At last a
suitor came to ask the mother for the girl, but the widow told him
that only a good hunter could have her daughter. "I'm just that kind,"
said the lover, and again asked her to speak for him to the young
woman. So the mother went to the girl and told her a young man had
come a-courting, and as he said he was a good hunter she advised her
daughter to take him. "Just as you say," said the girl. So when he came
again the matter was all arranged, and he went to live with the girl.
The next morning he got ready and said he would go out hunting, but
before starting he changed his mind and said he would go fishing. He
was gone all day and came home late at night, bringing only three small
fish, saying that he had had no luck, but would have better success
to-morrow. The next morning he started off again to fish and was gone
all day, but came home at night with only two worthless spring lizards
(duwe'ga) and the same excuse. Next day he said he would go hunting
this time. He was gone again until night, and returned at last with
only a handful of scraps that he had found where some hunters had
cut up a deer.
By this time the old woman was suspicious. So next morning when he
started off again, as he said, to fish, she told her daughter to follow
him secretly and see how he set to work. The girl followed through
the woods and kept him in sight until he came down to the river, where
she saw her husband change to a hooting owl (uguku') and fly over to a
pile of driftwood in the water and cry, "U-gu-ku! hu! hu! u! u!" She
was surprised and very angry and said to herself, "I thought I had
married a man, but my husband is only an owl." She watched and saw
the owl look into the water for a long time and at last swoop down
and bring up in his claws a handful of sand, from which he picked out
a crawfish. Then he flew across to the bank, took the form of a man
again, and started home with the crawfish. His wife hurried on ahead
through the woods and got there before him. When he came in with the
crawfish in his hand, she asked him where were all the fish he had
caught. He said he had none, because an owl had frightened them all
away. "I think you are the owl," said his wife, and drove him out of
the house. The owl went into the woods and there he pined away with
grief and love until there was no flesh left on any part of his body
except his head.