A Native American Folk Tale

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The Scent of the Skunk
A Native American Folk Tale Retold by Bernice
Insley
Jill Johnson
Sarah Brown
Scott Steinhoff
2
The skunk was once a larger animal than he is
now- he was as large as a hill. But he became
smaller and smaller and this caused him to worry.
"If I grow smaller and smaller," he said, "I
will lose my strength. Then how can I hunt, and
kill my game, and make my living?" And so
he thought and thought. "I know," he said. "I
will make a strong hunting medicine which will
give me skill even when I am not so large as
now."
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He hunted and hunted to find all the plants as he
could grasp in his hand, he took them home. He
ground them up very, very fine, like a powder.
Then, when this medicine was all prepared, he
placed it in a little pouch that he carried with
him wherever he went. Then he said, "I will test
my medicine against the biggest, strongest thing
I can find."
4
He looked around, and there he saw a large oak
tree nothing could be bigger or stronger than
this tree, and decided to test his medicine
against it. He took some powder out of his pouch
- only a pinch of the powder was needed - and put
it in some water, and drank it. Then, to make
still more powerful medicine, he sang, "Who is
going out hunting, for I go out to hunt?"
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Then the skunk shot at the oak tree - not with an
arrow, but with this medicine, a foul-smelling
liquid - and the tree shrank away and died, and
looked as if it were burned. Nothing was left but
a pile of ashes. The hunting medicine made by
that skunk was the same as that the skunk carries
today.
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The End
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Story
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