Story: How the Wood Duck Got His Red Eyes with Vernon Ashley

And a lot of times, they forget it, you know. And my dad used to say, when there's election time, he knew when there's election time would come. Because the politician will come, hello my friend. And all he was doing was asking for his vote, you know. Stony, you know. And they used animals, even for weather. You know, if you watch your animals, your horses, and if the weather's going to change or the horses start to play all of a sudden, you said there's going to change, you know. And I think that's gone, too. And, well, there's a lot of little things like that which was carried on through the years. Is there a story, do you have a favorite story you could tell us? A favorite story that you could tell us. Yes, I got a favorite story. Let's see. I got a story about how the wood duck got his red eyes. The story goes that there was a hard winter. And so the Oak Stony, of course, he's hibernated. and things improved. So he came out and stretched. Golly, really, I'm hungry. So he walked along the creek and all of a sudden he heard something. He stopped. Oh, and heard ducks. Now he figured out, how am I going to fool them? And I got this written in Indian and English, both. And as he was getting nearer and nearer, as he walked on the creek, he could see those ducks, spring there, just playing in the water and everything else. So what he thought about is this red grass. He put them and tied them in a bundle and put that bundle. And when he got near them, then he angled off and started going up along towards the hill. Pretty soon the duck, Oak Stony, Oak Stony, where are you going? He made off. He didn't hear him the first time. And after a few calls about Oak Stony and why, he said, oh, he said, what? And they asked him, where are you going? I'm going over to a community they're having a doing and I'm going to sing some songs for them so they can dance. So they said, why don't you sing us some songs now? And so he said, well, you've got to make a peji square, a grass top and put water willows. And those ducks made that, but he wanted one opening, one opening. So the different ducks of different kinds were all on one drum. And so in the meantime, he found a club that he could swing. So, and he said, Ishtokomos wachipo, ishtakawadak, ishtani shakste. Dance with your eyes closed or your eyes will turn red. So, and he started to use that stick to beat the ground and sing that song. So the ducks started dancing. So when these fat ones came by, he'd hit one or two of them and knock them. And the wood duck opened his eyes and, open your eyes, you're going to kill us. And so they just beat him. So, and then they took, the ducks took off. So when he got done, he said, well, I got something to eat. So he picked up his ducks and went along the creek and built a little fire. And he thought, while those ducks are cooking in the scaffold, he took a swim. And when he looked up in the tree, he was a raccoon. That is, cooked ducks. And the story goes, he said, you know, that you can't fool everybody every day, you know. And he was Iktomi, and I got that written. And, you know, it's the kind of a thing, and there's a lot of those stories about Iktomi we use to simplify what life is like, you know.