Week 9 Storytelling: The Stone of the Buffalo

I clasped my rumbling stomach. It was speaking to me. I was still hungry. The buffalo have been gone for almost one hundred moons. I got up from my bed, trying not to wake my husband. He came in very early this morning after being out all night. He brought back a rabbit. He woke me from a sleep and we ate the rabbit.

Today, I am going to the forest to try and gather more roots and berries for some kind of sustenance. I pack a small bag and reach for the last bit of rabbit left over. I stop. My husband was out all night, I will leave the rest for him.

As I make my way deeper into the forest, I begin to sing. Now, my stomach joins in. I stop and pick small berries off of a nearby branch. Then, I hear my song being echoed back to me. It sounds like it is coming from the cottonwood tree. I slowly walk towards the tree, careful not to step on any branches. I know this forest is magical and mysterious from the tales my grandmother and mother told me. As I make my way closer to the tree, I see there is a strange stone jammed into the tree. The tree is split into two. I begin to examine the stone more closely. I gasp and step back from shock of what I see. There are buffalo hairs on the stone. Hairs I have not seen for some time. I missed their soft brown color and feel the coarseness between my fingers.

A voice comes to me through the stone. The stone tells me to remember the song it echoed back to me and when it is dark bring the wise ones back to this tree. If we sing and pray the buffalo may come back to our lands. I take the stone from the tree and run as fast as I can back to my husband.

I tell him what I have seen and we quickly go to the elders. I teach them the beautiful song, realizing now I had never sung it before. The song came to me like a dream when I walked into the forest. The elders learned the song, and when it was dark we ventured back into the forest. As we came upon the tree, we began to sing and pray.

All of a sudden the ground beneath our feet began to tremble. We all knew what this meant, looked up and smiled at one another. It had worked! The magical stone had answered our prayers. We made our way back to the village, continuing to sing the song and give thanks.

Buffalo Stampede

For the rest of my days, the village prospered. The buffalo never wandered far from us. The song we sang in the forest became a tradition. We sung it when we worked, played and celebrated. The song to us meant hope, love and prosperity.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I chose to do my story based on the story The Buffalo Stone from the Blackfoot Stories Unit. I really liked this story because, for me, it embraced a lot of Native American folktale themes. Magic, mystery and buffalo. I really enjoyed writing this is in the present tense, from the perceptive of the woman. I wanted her to be strong and smart. She was not foolish, but had faith in the stone and listened to what it said. Essentially, she saved the village. I changed a few timeline things in the story, but the message stays the same.

Bibliography: Blackfeet Indian Stories by George Bird Grinnell, 1915