There was a boy who used to go bird hunting every day, and all the
birds he brought home he gave to his grandmother, who was very fond
of him. This made the rest of the family jealous, and they treated
him in such fashion that at last one day he told his grandmother
he would leave them all, but that she must not grieve for him. Next
morning he refused to eat any breakfast, but went off hungry to the
woods and was gone all day. In the evening he returned, bringing with
him a pair of deer horns, and went directly to the hothouse (âsi),
where his grandmother was waiting for him. He told the old woman he
must be alone that night, so she got up and went into the house where
the others were.
At early daybreak she came again to the hothouse and looked in, and
there she saw an immense uktena that filled the âsi, with horns on its
head, but still with two human legs instead of a snake tail. It was all
that was left of her boy. He spoke to her and told her to leave him,
and she went away again from the door. When the sun was well up, the
uktena began slowly to crawl out, but it was full noon before it was
all out of the âsi. It made a terrible hissing noise as it came out,
and all the people ran from it. It crawled on through the settlement,
leaving a broad trail in the ground behind it, until it came to a
deep bend in the river, where it plunged in and went under the water.
The grandmother grieved much for her boy, until the others of the
family got angry and told her that as she thought -so much of him
she ought to go and stay with him. So she left them and went along
the trail made by the uktena to the river and walked directly into
the water and disappeared. Once after that a man fishing near the
place saw her sitting on a large rock in the river, looking just as
she had always looked, but as soon as she caught sight of him she
jumped into the water and was gone.