The Story of the Teardrop

Walkingfox carries the
Sacred Fire from the Creator
Artwork
created for Sachem-Uncas.com copyrighted©
"This story was told to
me as a small child,
first by my Grandfather and
then again later by my father."
Long ago, when the
Mohegan people all lived in the same village,
the men spent most
of their time away,
either hunting or at
war with the Tribes of the North.
The women ran the
village.
They tended their gardens and cared for all of the Tribes clothing.
This would often leave the Elders
and the very young, whom they cared for,
alone
in the village for
long periods of time.
The Trickster or evil one, knowing this, would come into the village
at night
and frighten the children, so that they couldn't sleep.
The Mohegan people knew that neither the Elders nor the children,
could do anything about the Trickster on their own,
so they contacted the Little People on their behalf.
(The Mohegan people believed that the Little People were their protectors
who lived in a sub-world between the spirit world and the Mohegan world.
The Mohegan People would go to them with their prayer requests
and the Little People would then take these requests to the Creator.)
The men of the
village made offerings or gifts for the
Little People of
strong tobacco skin pouches,
while
the women made food baskets.
The children made their own special gifts.
On a chosen night,
the Mohegan People
would take their
gifts to the edge of the forest.
Just before sunset,
the Mohegan's would offer prayers
and songs
to
the Creator,
who would send the
Little People to them.
They would then
leave their gifts for Little People
and go back to their
village.
Every night for a
week,
the Mohegan People would return to the edge of the forest
to see if the Little People had taken their gifts.
One night, one of
the Little People was waiting for them
and all of the gifts were gone.
After the prayers
and songs were finished,
everyone sat down to
discuss why the gifts had been left.
Learning what the
Trickster had been doing,
the Little Person said that she would go back to her people
and return later with their answer.
A few days later,
the Little People asked for
a meeting with the
Mohegan Tribal council.
The Little People told the Tribal council that they
would need
help from the Spider Woman.
So, they talked to
the Spider Woman and
she agreed to meet
with the council.
After the Tribal
council explained what the Trickster was doing
to the Elders and
the young, the Spider Woman took some
grapevine and spun
it into a teardrop shaped web.
The teardrops
represented the children's tears.
She gave one
teardrop to the head of each Mohegan family
and told them to put
the teardrop over the child's bed,
as close to an opening as possible.
As
the child dreamed, the Trickster tried to send forth bad dreams.
Now, the bad dreams would get stuck on the spider web,
and the good dreams would pass on through
and down to the
child.
In the morning when
the sun would come up,
the heat from the sun would erase all of the bad dreams,
making the teardrop
clean again until the next night.
From that day on,
the Mohegan children dreamed good dreams
and the Mohegan village was again at peace.
Walkingfox

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Responding to Inquisitive minds since July 1999
Last edited May 7, 2022
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