It is late around the campfire, and time for an old Indian legend. This was told to me as a true story by a Dene, many years ago, as we sat around watching the aurora borealis crackle in the Northwest Territories of Canada.

In the olden time, before the white man took over the seas, there was a great deal of travel between the lands of the red people, the yellow people, and the brown people. There was trade in precious objects and magic medicines. In that time, a curse came over the peoples of our tribe, from some evil spirit, or because someone had done something wrong offending the gods. The women of the tribe became unable to bear children. They would swell up as if they were pregnant, and then nothing would happen. The wife of the chief, herself concerned that she had no children, went to her husband, and asked him to go to the shaman and get some powerful medicine. The chief went to the old shaman, who said that it was mysterious, but that there were two prophecies that he had once heard, of which the first was that only by giving birth on the skins of beasts from the yellow people, the red people, and the brown people, could the false pregnancies be turned into true births.

The chief called a meeting of the tribe, and said that he was going to the distant trading centre where he had heard of skins being available from the exotic lands of the yellow people and the brown people. He had himself prepared a skin of the finest elkhide for the birthings, to be the skin of the beast of the red people; and he asked for contributions to buy the other two skins from the traders. The tribe gave him all they could and he set off. After many trials and tribulations, the chief was able to reach the trading centre, where after much negotiation, he was able to buy a great furry brown skin of an animal called the yak from the yellow people, and a tough grey skin of an animal known as the river horse or hippopotamus from the brown people. He returned home. During his long absence, his wife and two other of the village women had showed more and more signs of pregnancy, and on the day of his return, it was clear that birthing was imminent. The chief now spread out the beautiful skins, the elkhide for one woman, the furry yak skin for another, and for his own wife, he laid out the great grey skin from the river horse. The shaman danced a ritual dance, and the birthing began. And lo and behold, each of the three women gave birth, one to a daughter, and one to a son, and the wife of the chief gave birth to twins, a daughter and a son. There was great rejoicing, and then at last the shaman spoke up: “Thus is the second dark prophecy fulfilled, that the squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.”

He told this story with great sincerity, and with high drama, looking heavenward for inspiration throughout until the end. His arms traced out the travels of the great chief, and the travails of the womenfolk. It went on about three times as long as I have rendered it.