Cuento comanche: Manitous Springs

Té Serpientes, al igual que todos los indios, poseen leyendas hereditarias para explicar todos los fenómenos naturales o cualquier suceso extraordinario que esté más allá de su comprensión.

Of course, they have their legendary version of the causes which created in the midst of their hunting grounds these two springs of sweet and bitter water; which are also intimately connected with the cause of separation between the tribes of "Comanche" and the "Snake."

Así corre la leyenda:

Many hundreds of winters ago, when the cottonwoods on the Big River were no higher than an arrow, and the red men, who hunted the buffalo on the plains all spoke the same language, and the pipe of peace breathed its social cloud of Kinnik-Kinnick whenever two parties of hunters met on the boundless plains–where, with hunting grounds and game of every kind in the greatest abundance, no nation dug up the hatchet with another because one of its hunters followed the game into their bounds, but, on the contrary, loaded for him his back with choice and fattest meat, and ever proffered the soothing pipe before the stranger, with well filled belly, left the village.

Sucedió que dos cazadores de diferentes naciones se encontraron un día en un pequeño río donde ambos habían reparado para saciar su sed. Un pequeño chorro de agua, que brotaba de un manantial en una roca a unos pocos pies de la orilla, se deslizó sobre ella y cayó chapoteando en el río. A esto repararon los cazadores; y mientras uno buscaba el manantial mismo, donde el agua, fría y clara, reflejaba en su superficie la imagen del paisaje circundante, el otro, cansado por los esfuerzos de la persecución, se arrojó de inmediato al suelo y hundió su rostro. en la corriente corriente.

The latter had been unsuccessful in the chase, and perhaps his bad fortune and the sight of the fat deer which the other hunter threw from his back before he drank at the crystal spring, caused a feeling of jealousy and ill humor to take possession of his mind. The other on the contrary, before he satisfied his thirst, raised in the hollow of his hand a portion of the water, and lifting it toward the sun, reversed his hand and allowed it to fall upon the ground–a libation to the Great Spirit Manitou who had vouchsafed him a successful hunt and the blessing of the refreshing water with which he was about to quench his thirst.

Al ver esto, y recordándose que había descuidado la ofrenda habitual, no hizo más que aumentar el sentimiento de envidia y fastidio que el cazador fracasado permitió que se apoderara de su corazón; y el Espíritu Maligno en ese momento entrando en su cuerpo, su temperamento se disipó y buscó algún pretexto para provocar una pelea con el indio extranjero en el manantial.

"Why does a stranger, " he asked, rising from the stream at the same time, "drink at the spring head, when one to whom the fountain belongs contents himself with the water that runs from it?"

"The Great Spirit Manitou places the cool water at the spring," answered the other hunter, "that his children may drink it pure and undefiled. The running water is for the beasts which scour the plains. Au-sa-qua is a chief of the Shoshone; he drinks at the headwater."

"The Shoshone is but a tribe of the Comanche," returned the other: "Waco- mish leads the grand nation. Why does a Shoshone dare to drink above him?"

"He has said it. The Shoshone drinks at the spring-head; other nations of the stream which runs into the fields. Au-sa-qua is the chief of his nation. The Comanches are brothers. Let them both drink of the same water."

"The Shoshone pays tribute to the Comanche. Waco-mish leads that nation to war. Waco-mish is chief of the Shoshone as he is of his own people."

Waco-mish lies; his tongue is forked like the rattlesnake’s; his heart is black as the Misho-tunga (bad spirit). When the Manitou made his children, whether Shoshone or Comanche, Arapahoe, Shian or Paine, he gave them buffalo to eat and the pure water of the fountain to quench their thirst. He said not to one, drink here, and to another drink there; but gave the crystal spring to all that all might drink."

"Waco-mish almost burst with rage as the other spoke; but his coward heart alone prevented him from provoking an encounter with the calm Shoshone. He made thirsty by the words he had spoken,–for the red man is ever sparing of his tongue,–again stooped down to the spring to quench his thirst, when the subtle warrior of the Comanche suddenly threw himself upon the kneeling hunter and, forcing his head into the bubbling water, held him down with all his strength until his victim no longer struggled, his stiffened limbs relaxed, and he fell forward over the spring, drowned and dead.

Sobre el cuerpo estaba el asesino, y tan pronto como se consumió el acto de sangre, un amargo remordimiento se apoderó de su mente donde antes había reinado la pasión más feroz y el odio vengativo. Con las manos juntas en la frente, se quedó paralizado por el horror, mirando fijamente a su víctima, cuya cabeza aún permanecía sumergida en la fuente. Mecánicamente arrastró el cuerpo unos pasos fuera del agua, que, en cuanto sacaron la cabeza del indio muerto, el comanche vio repentina y extrañamente turbado. Las burbujas brotaron del fondo y, al subir a la superficie, escaparon en forma de gas sibilante.

Una fina nube vaporosa se elevó y disolviéndose poco a poco, mostró a los ojos del tembloroso asesino la figura de un anciano indio cuya larga cabellera nívea y venerable barba, apartada por un suave aire de su pecho, descubrió el conocido tótem del el gran Wau-kau-aga, el padre de la nación comanche y shoshone a quien la tradición de la tribu, transmitida por hábiles jeroglíficos, casi deificaba por las buenas acciones y hazañas de valentía que este famoso guerrero había realizado cuando estuvo en la Tierra.

Stretching out a war club toward the murderer, the figure thus addressed him: "Accursed of my tribe ! this day thou has severed the link between the mightiest nations of the world, while the blood of the brave Shoshone cries to the Manitou for vengeance. May the water of thy tribe be rank and bitter in their throats."

Thus saying, and swinging his ponderous war club (made from the elk’s horn) round his head, he dashed out the brains of the Comanche, who fell headlong into the spring, which from that day to the present moment remains rank and nauseous, so that not even when half dead with thirst, can one drink of the foul water of that spring.

El buen Wau-kau-aga, sin embargo, para perpetuar la memoria del guerrero Shoshone, que era famoso en su tribu por su valor y nobleza de corazón, golpeó con el mismo garrote vengador una roca dura y plana que sobresalía del riachuelo, justo afuera. de vista de esta escena de sangre; e inmediatamente, la roca se abrió en una palangana redonda y clara que instantáneamente se llenó de agua burbujeante y chispeante, que ningún cazador sediento jamás bebió un sorbo más dulce o más fresco.

Así quedan los dos manantiales, recuerdo imperecedero del vil asesinato del valiente Shoshone y la severa justicia del buen Wau-kau-aga; y desde ese día, dos poderosas tribus de los shoshones y los comanches han permanecido separadas y separadas; aunque una larga y sangrienta guerra siguió al traicionero asesinato del jefe shoshone, y muchas cabelleras arrancadas de la cabeza de los comanches pagaron la pena de su muerte.

Los tramperos americanos y canadienses afirman que los numerosos manantiales que, bajo la denominación de cerveza, soda, barco de vapor, manantiales, etc., abundan en las Montañas Rocosas, son los lugares donde su satánica majestad sale de su cocina para respirar el dulce, aire fresco, que sin duda debe ser refrescante para su merced después de unas horas dedicadas a supervisar el proceso culinario que se desarrollaba abajo.