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Legends

The Gnawing

There is a great pole somewhere, a mighty trunk similar to the sacred sun dance pole, only much, much bigger. This pole is what holds up the world. The Great White Grandfather Beaver of the North is gnawing at that pole. He has been gnawing at the bottom of it for ages and ages. More than half of the pole has already been gnawed through. When the Great White Beaver of the North gets angry, he gnaws faster and more furiously. Once he has gnawed all the way through, the pole will topple, and the earth will crash into a bottomless nothing. That will be the end of the people, of everything. The end of all ends. So we are careful not to make the Beaver angry. That's why the Cheyenne never eat his flesh, or even touch a beaver skin. We want the world to last a little longer.
 
 

* Told by Mrs. Medicine Bull in Birney, Montana, with the help of an interpreter