the boy (Tale 14)

Also known as: Old-Woman’s-Grandson · Family: Arikara · Role: son · First appears: Tale 14 · The Girl Who Married a Star · Part 1

Many years after his mother married the Star, she gave birth to a boy with a picture of a star on his forehead. When she escaped toward earth with him, the Star killed her, but the boy survived the fall. At last he left her and went west. The next day, the old woman (Tale 14) caught him, took him home, and made him her grandson. He killed the blackbirds eating her corn, then found a black bow and four black arrows at the pond. Inside the old woman’s lodge, he shot the serpent; only afterward did it fall back into the pond, and the water spread into a lake. After the boy had gone, the old woman said without his hearing, “My grandson, you have killed your grandfather.”

The next day he led a mountain-lion to the old woman’s lodge, despite her warning, and later brought a cinnamon bear there. After four men trapped him in a tree with a calf, he promised his grandmother to them to secure his release. She consented to marry them, and he received a bow and arrows in return. The men later sealed themselves in their lodge against his flute and died of hunger. In Part 4, he killed the Snakes at their den, though one escaped into a hole and warned, “Old-Woman’s-Grandson, watch yourself, for hereafter I am your enemy.” When he told the old woman what he had done, she became afraid of him. The escaped Snake later crawled into his skull, and he dried up until he was a skeleton.

At his father’s request, the Sun moved nearer and heated the boy’s skull until the Snake crawled out; the boy revived, caught it, and released it after it promised not to bother people again. He told his grandmother he was leaving and that the country was free from wild animals. The old woman disappeared, and he went southeast to the village of the people, who recognized him as the son of the girl who had climbed the cottonwood tree. He died after clearing the country of wild animals.