The Transformed Grandmother

An old woman lived with her two grandchildren in a lonely place near a high, steep mountain. One day she told the children that a plant which the Indians use for food grows on the mountains, and that she had made up her mind to gather some of it. She started toward the mountain nearby, and when she got to the foot of it, she could not see the top. Yet she was determined to climb it. She took her cane in one hand and, singing her song, began to clamber up. She grew weary, sat down, and looked up, but the top did not seem any nearer. She began climbing again.

She had to rest many times before she could even see the summit, and it was evening before she arrived there. She had suffered all the way, and her feet were bleeding from rocks and thorns. At last, however, she stood before the plant itself and began pulling it out of the ground. But she pulled it too hard, and away she rolled down the mountainside, the plant with her. Great stones and rocks rolled over her before her body reached the bottom. She was killed on the way, but it was said that the bones picked themselves up and started toward home, singing a song.

In the meantime the children had begun to feel anxious for her. As they sat around the little fire they had built, they heard someone singing or talking far away. Nearer and nearer the sound came, and the younger one asked what was making the noise. the older one recognized the voice of her grandmother, but knew from its strangeness that her grandmother was no longer living. She told the younger one that they must go into the house and close the doorway with a "mine," a kind of blanket that is made from a weed woven like a basket.

They went inside and held the mine over the door, so that the woman might not enter. At last she came and ran around the house many times, singing as she ran.

The children wondered what they would do if she should break through the door. The girl said she would turn into a blue stone, and her little brother said he would turn into a stick burning at one end. So they dropped the mine they held in their hands, and when the woman entered, there was nobody to be seen -- only the blue stone and the burning stick. She stood calling, but no answer came.