The Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Son

The following data is extracted from Traditions of the Caddo.

    At the beginning of this world the people and animals could understand each other and visited each other. There lived in those times 9 man and wife and one child, a boy about seven years of age. The people called the man Hunter, because he was very fond of hunting and hunted from morning until evening. While he was out, his wife, who was a very cross woman, abused her own boy, as she always did, because she disliked him. She told the boy to stay at home while she went away for a short time. She went out and was gone for a long time. Finally she came back and told the boy to go along with her. While she was gone she had been working hard digging a deep hole in the ground, and when she went after the boy she took him to the hole and threw him in. The hole was so deep that it was impossible for the boy to get out. She put some brush over it to keep any one from finding him. When Hunter returned home he asked his wife where his son was, and she told him she did not know where he was; that she had been looking for him all day long. Then they both went out to look for the boy, but she would not take the man near the place where the hole was, and so they did not find him. They looked until night, and again the next day and the next.
    In the meantime the boy was growing very hungry, and so he began to cry. Finally he heard some one making a noise at the edge of the hole, but he could not see who it was, and so kept quiet, for he was afraid. Some one spoke to him, saying: "Boy, you are weary and hungry and I have come down to help you out of this hole. Now, do not be afraid of me, but catch hold of my tail and climb up." The boy obeyed, and when he came out of the hole he found that the person was Coyote. Coyote asked the boy if he would go along with him and the boy said that he would, and so they went on to Coyote's home. He was kept there for three or four years and was kindly treated and was happy. One day he asked Coyote to let him go home and see his father. He said: "I do not want to see my mother; I am very angry at her, and I am going to try to kill her, but I want to see my father, for he loved me and was kind to me. I am going to tell my father how my mother treated me, and then he will help me kill her. I will take my father and mother on a buffalo hunt when I get home, and toward evening we will kill a buffalo. I want you and your children to come near and howl, and then I will tell my mother to come with me to give you some meat. When we go among you I will push her over, and then I want you and your children to jump upon her and kill her."
    Coyote consented, and so the boy went to his home. He arrived one evening and his father was very glad to see him. He asked his father if they could go out buffalo hunting on the next day, and he told his father all about what he was going to do with his mother. The next day they went out buffalo hunting, and he and his father found a herd of buffalo and killed one that evening. They made a camp near by, and while the woman was cooking their supper they heard the Coyotes howling. After they had eaten their supper the boy told his mother to get some meat and come with him to feed the Coyotes. He told her to carry the meat on her back. She put the meat on her back, and then they started out toward the Coyotes, and the boy walked behind his mother. The woman was afraid, for it was almost dark, but the boy told her not to be frightened, for there was no danger ahead of them and that nothing would hurt her. They kept on going until they came to the Coyotes. The boy told his mother not to be afraid, but to go among them and give them the meat. As she took another step forward the boy pushed her down, and then the Coyotes jumped upon her. The boy came back to his father and told him all that had happened. The father and son lived together for many years.

Source: Traditions of the Caddo

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