Atondido Stories
Rainbow and the Autumn Leaves
In olden days, long before the Indians came to Canada, all the
animals talked and worked like men. Every year after midsum-
mer they held a great council at which they were all present. But
it happened once in the summer before the council met, that
they all wanted to go to the sky to see what the country up there
was like. None of them could find a way to go. The oldest and
wisest creature on all the earth was Turtle. One day he prayed to
the Thunder God to take him to the sky, and his prayer was soon
answered. There was a great noise, as if the earth had been split
asunder, and when the people next looked for Turtle he was no-
where to be found. They searched everywhere without success.
But that evening, when they looked upwards, they saw him in
the sky, moving about like a black cloud.
Turtle liked the sky so well that he decided to live there al-
ways and to send his descendants, later, to the earth. And the
sky-people agreed to keep him. They asked him, "Where do you
want to dwell?" And he answered, "I should like to dwell in the
Black Cloud, in which are the ponds and streams and lakes and
springs of water, for I always dwelt near these places when I was
young." So he was allowed to have his wish. But when the Great
Council of the animals met on earth in the time of the harvest-
moon, he was always present. He came in the Black Cloud, but
he always went back to the sky after the Council was ended.
And the other animals envied him his good fortune, and they
wished that they could go with him.
After a time the animals were greatly distressed and angered
by the rumour that a new race of creatures was coming from far
over the ocean to inhabit their land. They talked it over very
carefully, and they all thought how fortunate it would be if they
could all go to the sky with old Turtle, and live like him, free
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