In native North America, tales about an ancient time when game animals hunted humans are told especially in the Pacific Northwest. In these stories, deer, beaver, and other harmless creatures are said to have once been larger or fiercer than they are today. To protect the people, a mysterious Transformer changed the animals, taking away their harmful powers. And so, when the tables were turned, people ate animals just as animals had once eaten people. The Lenape are not known to have such tales—except for this one, in which the Creator plays the role of the Transformer.
Well, this is a story about a squirrel. At one time he was a very huge creature, and he went about the lands on the prairies—and the woods.
He killed everything he saw, and he would eat these different animals—the lynx, and the weasels, and wolves, everything he'd catch—he would eat these creatures.
And finally he saw a two-legged creature going along that he thought was another animal. So he caught this two-legged creature, and he killed him and he started to eat him.
And the Creator saw him. And he came down to earth and he told him—he was sure scared, this squirrel, because he felt the power of the Creator—and he said, "Now then, you've done a terrible thing. You have killed one of my children. And from this day on, my children will eat you and your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren and all your relatives, and you'll be small."
He'd consumed all of this human, except the hand. And when the Creator came he felt so scared and ashamed he tried to hide that hand under here [placing right hand under left upper arm]. But the Creator saw that.
And now up until this day, that hand is found on the squirrel's ribs, where he tried to hide this hand. And it's true, I guess, because I've dressed many squirrels, and there's a little hand right here, and we were told not to ever eat that. So I always cut it out.
[Listener interrupts] "You mean there is a little piece of meat that looks like a hand?"
Um hm, little piece of meat, looks like a human hand—with five fingers. And that's what I was told.
— Nora Thompson Dean, Oklahoma
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