One fine spring day in a Seneca village
a girl was picking berries. Whitehorse was a eleven year old girl
with long black hair. She had bright blue eyes and wore a white
and black beaded necklace. Her dress was made of dear skin and
so were her macasins but her macasins had porcupine quill designs
on them.
She had two brothers and one sister. Her sister,Little Rabbit,
stayed home and helped her mother. Her brother's,Honorable One
and Fast River, helped her fathers hunt dear to be shared. Her
father was the chief of the village. His name was Red Hawk.
On this very day her father was in his canoe fishing. Little Rabbit
was tending the corn and beans. Mother was getting her farming
tools. Honorable One and Fast River were playing games with other
boys of the five nations. Whitehorse was picking berries for the
festival that night.
She walked into the longhouse and saw her grandmother standing
there. She ran over to her and said excitedly, "Grandma Eagle!
Tell me the story about how you came to this wonderful land."
"All right my child I will tell you," Grandma Eagle
said wearily and she began. "One day a time ago there was
a hill. In that hill there was a crack. That my child is were
my friends and I came came from." Once Whitehorse stated
her good-bye she went back to picking berries.
After she had picked enough berries she took some seeds and planted
them near by. Then she went back to her longhouse pulled back
the totem and saw her parents and brothers and sister waiting
for her. It was time for their family meeting.
After the meeting Whitehorse went over to the squash field to
pick the squash for the festival. While she picked the squash
she was thinking about what the meeting was about. During the
meeting her father that ever since he had moved into her mothers
longhouse he had been lonely and missed his friends in his own
longhouse. That night at the festival Red Hawk said that he was
going to build a longhouse that was 50 to 200 feet long and 18
to 25 feet wide.
That night after the festival Whitehorse asked her mother if she
could go and find the hill that her grandmother came from. Her
mother agreed and she was off. She took some bread with her and
she silently crept through the village.
It was very dark that night so instead of going to find the hill
were her grandmother came from she was going to make something
to light up the sky. She thought that maybe if she through a piece
of bread up into the sky it would hit a star and the bread would
make the star bigger and light up the sky.
She through it up once but nothing happened. So she tried it again
and still nothing happened. Then she tried it one more time and
this time nothing fell back down. Then she looked up and there
it was. She ran back to her village and told her mother to look
up into the sky. Her mother saw it to. So Whitehorse told everyone
in the village. Whitehorse decided to call her new creation the
moon.
After this story you should have learned the gift of giving.
The End