The agent of impregnation here is a clot of blood-like the clay, a symbol of the source of life. The young hero quickly achieves adult status and recognition.
Long ago, down where Two Medicine and Badger Creeks come together, there lived an old man. He had but one wife and two daughters. One day there came to his camp a young man who was very brave and a great hunter. The old man said: “Ah! I will have this young man to help me. I will give him my daughters for wives.” So he gave him his daughters. He also gave this son-in-law all his wealth, keeping for himself only a little lodge, in which he lived with his old wife. The son-in-law lived in a lodge that was big and fine.
At first the son-in-law was very good to the old people. Whenever he killed anything, he gave them part of the meat, and furnished plenty of
Robes and skins for their bedding and clothing. But after a while he began to be very mean to them.
Now the son-in-law kept the buffalo hidden under a big log jam in the river. Whenever he wanted to kill anything, he would have the old man go to help him; and the old man would stamp on the log jam and frighten the s buffalo, and when they ran out, the young man would shoot one or two, never killing wastefully. But often he gave the old people nothing to eat, and they were hungry all the time, and began to grow thin and weak.
One morning, the young man called his father-in-law to go down to the log jam and hunt with him. They started, and the young man killed a fat lo buffalo cow. Then he said to the old mian, “Hurry back now, and tell your children to get the dogs and carry this meat home, then you can have something to eat.” And the old man did as he had been ordered, thinking to himself: “Now, at last, my son-in-law has taken pity on me. He will give me part of this meat.” When he returned with the dogs, they skinned the cow, 15 cut up the meat and packed it on the dog travois, and went home. Then the young man had his wives unload it, and told his: father-in-law to go home.
He did not give him even a piece of liver. Neither would the older daughter give her parents anything to eat, but the younger took pity on the old people and stole a piece of meat, and when she got a chance threw it into 20 the lodge to the old people. The son-in-law told his wives not to give the old people anything to eat. The only way they got food was when the younger woman would throw them a piece of meat unseen by her husband and sister.
Another morning, the son-in-law got up early, and went and kicked on 2,5 the old man’s lodge to wake him, and called him to get up and help him, to go and pound on the log jam to drive out the buffalo, so that he could kill some. When the old man pounded on the jam, a buffalo ran out, and the son-in-law shot it, but only wounded it. It ran away, but at last fell down and died. The old man followed it, and came to where it had lost a big clot 30 of blood from its wound. When he came to where this clot of blood was lying on the ground, he stumbled and fell, and spilled his arrows out of his quiver; and while he was picking them up, he picked up also the clot of blood, and hid it in his quiver. “What are you picking up?” called out the son-in-law. “Nothing,” said the old man; “I just fell down and spilled my 35 arrows, and am putting them back.” “Curse you, old man,” said the son-in-law, “you are lazy and useless. Go back and tell your children to come with the dogs and get this dead buffalo.” He also took away his bow and arrows from the old man.
The old man went home and told his daughters, and then went over to 40 his own lodge, and said to his wife: “Hurry now, and put the kettle on the fire. I have brought home something from the butchering.” “Ah!” said the old woman, “has our son-inlaw been generous, and given us something nice?” “No,” answered the old man; “hurry up and put the kettle on.” When the water began to boil, the old man tipped his quiver up over the 45 kettle, and immediately there came from the pot a noise as of a child crying, as if it were being hurt, burnt or scalded. They looked in the kettle, and
Saw there a little boy, and they quickly took it out of the water. They were very much surprised. The old woman made a lashing to put the child in, and then they talked about it. They decided that if the son-in-law knew that it was a boy, he would kill it, so they resolved to tell their daughters that the 5 baby was a girl. Then he would be glad, for he would think that after a while he would have it for a wife. They named the child Kutoyis (Clot of Blood).
The son-in-law and his wives came home, and after a while he heard the child crying. He told his youngest wife to go and find out whether that 10 baby was a boy or a girl; if it was a boy, to tell them to kill it. She came back and told them that it was a girl. He did not believe this, and sent his oldest wife to find out the truth of the matter. When she came back and told him the same thing, he believed that it was really a girl. Then he was glad, for he thought that when the child had grown up he would have another wife. 15 He said to his youngest wife, “Take some pemmican over to your mother; not much, just enough so that there will be plenty of milk for the child.” Now on the fourth day the child spoke, and said, “Lash me in turn to each one of these lodge poles, and when I get to the last one, I will fail out of my lashing and be grown up.” The old woman did so, and as she lashed 20 him to each lodge pole he could be seen to grow, and finally when they lashed him to the last pole, he was a man.
(George Bird Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales, pp. 29-32.)
Indonesian
The sacred maiden Hainuwele, whose myth was recorded by Adolf Jensen and is retold by Joseph Campbell, is born miraculously of a drop of blood. Her name means “Frond of the Coconut Palm, ” and it is clear that her myth is one of fertility.
Nine families of mankind came forth in the beginning from Mount Nunusaku, where the people had emerged from clusters of bananas. And these families stopped in West Ceram, at a place known as the “Nine Dance Grounds,” which is in the jungle between Ahiolo and Varoloin.
Now there was a man among them whose name was Ameta, meaning “Dark,” “Black,” or “Night”; and neither was he married nor had he children. He went off, one day, hunting with his dog. And after a little, the dog smelt a wild pig, which it traced to a pond into which the animal took flight; but the dog remained on the shore. And the pig, swimming, grew tired and drowned, but the man, who had arrived meanwhile, retrieved it. And he found a coconut on its tusk, though at that time there were no cocopalms in the world.
Returning to his hut, Ameta placed the nut on a stand and covered it with a cloth bearing a snake design, then lay down to sleep. And in the night there appeared to him the figure of a man, who said; “The coconut that you placed upon the stand and covered with a cloth you must plant in the earth; otherwise it won’t grow.” So Ameta planted the coconut the next morning, and in three days the palm was tall. Again three days and it was bearing blossoms. He climbed the tree to cut the blossoms, from which he wished to prepare himself a drink, but as he cut he slashed his finger and the blood fell on a leaf. He returned home to bandage his finger and in three days came back to the palm to find that where the blood on the leaf had mingled with the sap of the cut blossom the face of someone had appeared. Three days later, the trunk of the person was there, and when he returned again in three days he found that a little girl had developed from his drop of blood. That night the same figure of a man appeared to, him in dream. “Take your cloth with the snake design,” he said, “wrap the girl of the cocopalm in the cloth carefully, and carry her home.”
So the next morning Ameta went with his cloth to the cocopalm, climbed the tree, and carefully wrapped up the little girl. He descended cautiously, took her home, and named her Hainuwele. She grew quickly and in three days was a nubile maiden. But she was not like an ordinary person; for when she would answer the call of nature her excrement consisted of all sorts of valuable articles, such as Chinese dishes and gongs, so that her father became very rich.
(Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, pp. 173-174)
World History
