 | ||||||
| ||||||
Things went along fine for the man and his wife. They learned more about building a home and finding good food. All seemed to be going well until one morning for some reason, instead of him sitting working on his arrow points and her cleaning around the home, she became angry and walked out and slammed the door.
"What is the matter with her?" he thought. She must not feel well.
He didn't say anything, and he didn't give it another thought until he turned to ask her to bring him some-thing. He looked around and she was not there. He ran to the door just in time to see her climbing the mountain in the distance. "She must really be upset if she has gone this far." he said to himself. "I'd better go after her."
He started toward the mountain, but he was puzzled and upset and he could not go very fast. He walked as fast as he could, but he stumbled and then he fell on a rock and he could not keep up with her. Finally, he sat down with his head in his hands and said "Oh Great One, what can I do? She is gone and I can not keep up with her."
"What is the problem?" said the Great one. This made the man sort of mad because the Great One is supposed to know everything that happens. Besides, he was upset and he did not really understand what had happened. But he told the Great One what he knew.
The Great One said "Are you sure you did not do anything?"
The man said "I don't know."
The Great one said "Are you sure you did not fail to do some-thing?"
The man moaned, "Oh, now you are talking in riddles and I do not understand. She is getting away from me. Please do something."
"The first thing you need is getting some rest. You go over there and rest awhile," said the Great One. "I'll do some things to slow her down." The first thing he did was to put a beautiful saris (service) tree in her path. It was so fluffy and beautiful anyone would slow down to look. But she was so angry, she did not even slow down. So he
put berries that come on the tree in the summer, June berries.
They are pretty and red and he thought she would reach up and get a hand full and slow down to eat them. She waved her arms angrily and did not even stop.
Next he put along her path some huckleberry bushes full of wonderful huckleberries. No one can pass a huckleberry bush full of berries and not take at least a few, even if they are not yours. She just hit the bushes aside and did not even slow down. So he put some stickery blackberries.
There, he thought, they will catch her clothes so she will have to slow down. But as the blackberry stickers pulled at her dress and tore her arms, she just tore them away.
She did not even look down. Aha! that gave him an ideal. He must make her look down in humility before he could get her to stop.
He thought, what motivates a woman more than any thing else? "Yes," he decided, "curiosity". A woman will always want to see and know everything. She he put a little plant right down on the ground with leaves which hid a luscious, sweet-smelling fruit shaped like a heart.
When her feet first hit one of these little plants, the aroma was so wonderful that she stopped and bent her knees to see what in the world could smell that good. She had to bow her head, even if it was just curiosity, to pick one of the fruits. When she bowed her head and saw the beautiful little heart-shaped fruit, she forgot why she
had been angry in the first place.
The next thing she thought was to pick some of these delicious strawberries for her husband's supper. She picked fast and she picked the biggest and ripest so the. Great One made the big ones to grow back toward her home and her husband. She had no basket, so she picked some leaves of the poplar tree to carry the berries.
It was not long before she looked up and saw her husband coming toward her. She could not wait to show him what she found, so she just stuck one of the berries in his mouth. They said not a word; they just started to pick the berries together.
As they picked the berries, her husband decided that he would always have a little patch of these berries which brought his wife back. He took a few plants with him to start his own patch. She, thought, was thinking of what would they have for supper, like wives always do when they start for home. Oh, we will have plenty of berries for tonight, she thought.
When they got home he stopped to heel in the berry plants.
She walked in the door and stopped to think about what had
happened. "Why in the world would I give up the home I have worked so hard for?" She thought she would never let anger take her away again. Then she noticed that the little berries were very fragile and she thought, "How shall I save them so we will have strawberries more than on the day they are picked?" She saw a jar of honey and
thought, "I could put the berries in the honey and they will keep."
And even now every good Cherokee wife keeps a jar of strawberries preserved in her home to remind her of the fragile nature of her home and the power of her anger.
The End
Told by: CougarYona
The Legend of Strawberries
Cherokee Legend
Trees are your best antiques. ~Alexander Smith
The only fruit that has seeds on the outside is strawberries.
|
