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Famine descended, and the people were hungry. A man decided he would go frshing to get food for his family. He left the house at dawn. As the sun rose, it shone on the water. Suddenly the string attached to the fishnet quivered. The man hauled out the net and discovered a huge salmon, which he put down in back of the fishery. Then he thought, "I'm so hungry, I think I'II just cook it up right now." So he cleaned it and cut off the tail, putting it to one side. Then he cooked the salmon, and when he devoured it all, only realizing afterwards what he had done. Then he went home, carrying just the tail. When he was some distance from home, he began shouting, "Here children, this is the tail' There were a lot of beggars on the way who got the rest." Then the children ran out, shouting, "Hurray, we're going to eat! Hurray, we're going to eat!" The next day he went fishing again. Again he caught a big salmon, and he ate it on the spot. Again he went home and shouted, "Here, children, this is the tail! There were a lot of beggars" Now his wife began to suspect that he was holding out on them. When he went fishing again the next day, she told her children, "You stay here. I'm following him" When she arrived at the fishery, he had just pulled out a big salmon. He cut off the tail and put it down a little way off. Then he made a fire and cooked it. He was about to eat it. The woman ran back upriver, and she gathered her children together and told them they were leaving. They climbed uphill, and when the father returned, they heard him shouting below them, "Here, children, this is the tail! There were a lot of beggars." But he heard only silence. He shouted again. He ran indoors, and found only mice squeaking. Then he jumped out of the house, still shouting about the tail and the beggars. He looked uphill and finally raw where they had climbed. His wife shouted down to him, "Eat alone there, just like you have been all along! He followed them, getting closer and closer, and still shouting. When he caught up with them, his wife told him, "You'll be eating only mud in the creeks. But we will be sitting around in front of rich people." And he reached out to grab the littlest one, but the child turned into a bear lily. He grabbed another and it turned into a hazel bush. He grabbed the wife; she turned into a pine tree. Finally he fell down back to the banks of the water, and you'll see him like that now, eating mud on the edge of creeks. He became a water ouzel, a small gray bird which we call "moss eater." But his wife and his children lime up in front of rich people, baskets in the deerskin dance. From American Indian Myths and Legends. 1984. R. Erdoes and A. Ortiz, eds. Pp. 320-321. New York: Pantheon Press.
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