Years ago, when life was too violent for any to live very old, the
Spirit invented a ruse to give great age to Man.
Late one fall, Ponchontas was keeping a slow fire to smoke his strips
of salmon. It occurred to him that by stoking the flames gently with
bits of chips, the fire would burn not only smoother, but more evenly.
Ponchontas held the block firmly and brought his axe to play on the
extended limb. Suddenly, his grip faltered and the blade struck flesh
drawing blood. Panicky, he thrashed about the sand scattering it into
the face of the fire. Quite by accident, you see, as his foot only
convulsed the pain his bleeding arm felt. One by one, the blood fell in
drops then trickles, rivulets until a veritable torrent seemed loosed.
Ponchontas screamed till the woods listened. The spirit that governs
the pulp of the wood and the sap to rise took pity on Ponchontas. It
curdled the sap to thick resins in the chopped wood and the gummy resin
fell to the forest floor. As it lay so glutenous, the Earth Mother was
also quickened to show sympathy. This she did by touching the marrow of
the hurting wood. By a thick chain of being, Ponchontas felt his skin
harden. The painful throb soon began to leave the wound and the scar
healed. Immediately, he was on his knees imploring the spirits. He
begged what small favour he might return. The reply was instantaneous.
"Liberate three husks in your crib."
Then, with much saying and thoughts multiplying forth within his head,
he gave word to the council of Voices. Once dispatched, the three ears
lost their kernels giving old women to this day their namesake of beady
eyes. The abandoned husks became their withered forms and sacks of corn
were found to be "old bags." The empty rinds became harridans'
cancelled lives. Tares in the fruit were seen as the trials and
vicissitudes of this life, wormholes as their tears. So, in an act of
mercy, old women and crones were born saving future generations the
misery of living too old.
To this day, an old woman often has a husky voice and an ear for
medicine.