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"It was so in my time," said the Mound-Builder. "When a youth has come to the age where he is counted a man, he goes apart and neither eats nor drinks until, in the shape of some living thing, the Great Mystery has revealed itself to him. "It was so he explained it to me," agreed Arrumpa; "and for three days he ate and drank nothing, but walked by himself talking to his god.
"'And, said Taku-Wakin to me, 'whether Opata or I first sits in it, depends on which one of us can first produce a Sign." "It was the Talking Stick of his father that Taku-Wakin wanted," said Arrumpa. "He still thought Opata might have it, for every now and then Taku would catch him coming back with marsh mud on his moccasins.
Then I carried a pine, which I had torn up, on my tusks, until the butt struck a boulder which went down the hill with an avalanche of small stones that set all the echoes shouting. "In the midst of it I lifted up my voice and said that I was I, Arrumpa, walking by myself, and just then a dart struck me.
He had his own and Taku-Wakin's, for Taku had never dared to ask it back again, and the chief of the Turtle clan was Opata's man. "'He tells the people that my Stick will not talk to me any more. But how can it talk, Arrumpa, when you have nothing to tell it? "'Patience, I said. 'If we press the cows too hard they will break back the way they have come, and that will be worse than waiting.
When the Lenni-Lenape speaks of a Telling of his Fathers about the mastodon or the mammoth, he was probably thinking of the story that is pictured on the Lenape stone, which seems to me to be the one told by Arrumpa. Several Indian tribes had stories of a large extinct animal which they called the Big Moose, or the Big Elk, because moose and elk were the largest animals they knew.
They rootled in the tall grass or shouldered in long, snaky lines through the canes, their trunks waggling. "Mammoths they were called," said Arrumpa, "and they hid in the swamp because their tusks curved in and they were afraid of Saber-Tooth, the Tiger. There were a great many of them, though not so many as our people, and also there was Man.
"I must have traveled a quarter of the moon's course before I heard the patter of bare feet in the trail and a voice calling: "'Up! Take me up, Arrumpa! "So I took him up, quite spent with running, and yet not so worn out but that he could smack me soundly between the eyes, as no doubt I deserved.
"Oh," said Oliver, "I had a dog once " But he became very much embarrassed when he discovered that he had drawn the attention of the company. It had always been difficult for him to explain why it was he had felt so certain that his dog and he had always known what the other was thinking; but the Indians and the animals understood him. "All this Taku explained to me," went on Arrumpa.
"But I thought " began Oliver, he looked over to where Arrumpa stood drawing young boughs of maple through his mouth like a boy stripping currants. "Couldn't you just have told him?" "In the old days," said Moke-icha, "men spoke with beasts as brothers. The Queres had come too far on the Man Trail. I had no words, but I remembered the trick he had taught me, about what to do when I met a Dine.
When I was still strapped in my basket my father set me on a bear that he had killed and prayed that the bear's cunning and strength should pass into me. Taku-Wakin's people thought that the heart of Long-Hand might have gone into the Mastodon." "Why not?" agreed Arrumpa gravely. "I remember that Taku would call me Father at times, and if he was very fond of me Grandfather.
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