Bozho Jayek (Hello everyone),
Ni je na ginwa (How are you all)?
So far, we have more than 100 registered for our annual Winter Story Telling event, either online or on-site. This is when we tell traditional stories that can only be told in winter, preferably when there is snow on the ground. In Oklahoma, it’s hard to know when or if it will snow. I joke that since we base our years on how many snows old we are, we don’t have to count years without snow. Pongeze means he/she is so many snows old. Gongeze means he/she is so many days old. Our language is very descriptive.
The reason we only tell some stories in winter is because in the winter we traditionally believe that the spirits and the earth are asleep. Stories involving the trickster Wiske or Nanabozho we only share in the wintertime. Wiske sometimes helped our people and other times played tricks. Here is one story.
Wiske and the Buzzard
Long ago the buzzard was a pretty bird and thought it was superior to all other birds. Wiske was jealous. The buzzard would not even look at Wiske, much less talk to him. This made Wiske angry.
Wiske found a dead deer, dead moose and other animals and piled them for the buzzard to find and eat so much that he could not fly. So many other birds flocked to the place that Wiske couldn’t drive them away. The buzzard didn’t come.
Wiske grew angrier and found another moose to put out, but only ravens came.
He found another moose that was drowned. This time the buzzard came, but the ravens drove it away.
Then Wiske transformed himself into a dead elk and drove off the ravens with clubs, so the ravens warned everyone that the dead elk was really Wiske. The buzzard heard them, but the elk smelled so bad that he didn’t believe their story.
The buzzard approached the carcass and bit its rump, then saw delicious looking fat and thrust its head inside to reach it. Wiske closed the opening and sprang up, entrapping the buzzard.
He went everywhere and showed all the people the helpless buzzard caught by the head.
The birds told Wiske that it was not fair, and they offered to take Wiske above if he would free their brother. Wiske loosened the buzzard, who volunteered to carry him on his back.
The buzzard took him to the top of a mountain and made him dismount, telling him the birds would return for him. But they never did, and Wiske could not escape.
He besought an eagle to help him by bringing a stick. When the eagle did, Wiske slew him.
Stretching its wings over the stick, he jumped down, using the wings as a parachute. He landed inside a hollow tree and was caught again.
Some Indians who were hunting saw their dogs barking at the tree. They thought they’d found a bear, but when they chopped into the tree, Wiske stepped out and told them how he’d become entrapped. To reward them for saving him, Wiske offered feathers for their sacred bundle.
“But don’t call them buzzard feathers, from now on they are changed,” he said.
The hunters called them “Chief bird feathers,” and told the story of how Wiske rewarded them.
Wiske held the buzzard inside his body for so long that he smelled foul and the feathers wore off his head, giving Wiske revenge on the bird. Ever since, the buzzard must live in the south to protect his bald head.
Wiske claimed he had more power over birds than the Great Spirit. The downfall of the bird was his arrogance.