English Translation
31. Stories of the Foolish People1
Duncan Belacho
[These are] stories of the Foolish People.
Many of them were travelling.
Then a grasshopper flew onto the forehead of one of them.
Then
"Shoot this."he said.
And he pointed to his forehead.
Then another one shot at his forehead.
And the one who shot at his forehead thought thus.
He thought [that] he'd kill only the grasshopper.
But he had killed [the man] also.
Then, at another time, they were sitting about.
And a pack rolled away from them.
They looked for it in vain.
It had rolled down there.
There, where it could [plainly] be seen, it lay.
But they looked for it in vain.
Then they went back home.
And they spoke thus:
"When we return, all of us, when we have intercourse, will make a noise like a crow. Then it is known. It is known that all of us are having intercourse."
Then:
"The foot of a horse is a rock."they say.
"What does he eat? Cook something for him."
Then they cooked meat for him.
And they gave it to him repeatedly.
But the horse chewed grass.
So they learned for the first time that [a horse] eats grass.
Ethnological Notes
Morris Opler
31.1
These incidents were told by another informant and are therefore included here in spite of the fact that some of them occur in other texts. [See Chiricahua texts 24, 25, and 26.].