Long ago, when the Lenapé lived in the east, we were many then. There it is said was a girl who was very, very stubborn, and everyone in her village knew this.
One evening in autumn, as all the villagers were warming themselves by their fires, a dog suddenly appeared. He was wet and shaking from the cold. The stubborn girl saw him first and she went over to the dog and pushed him over. She said to him, "Tell a story! Tell a story! Probably you know many things."
The girl's mother said, "Leave that dog alone!" But the girl was so stubborn that she pretended not to hear her mother, and she went up to the dog and pushed him over. Again, she said to him, "Tell a story!"
Finally the dog sat down. He said, "Yes, I will tell you a story. In three days time you will be lying under red dirt."
At this the girl got very scared, and her mother went and told everyone in the village, and their Chief.
The dog spoke the truth, because three days later the girl disappeared. She was nowhere to be found.
The admonition, kept alive by tradition even to this day, comes from this incident: the old people say, "A person should not question or abuse dogs. Before a person comes to where Kishelamàkâng, the Creator, lives, when they leave this Earth, they will first have to cross a huge bridge. All the departed dogs guard this bridge. The bridge is at a fork in the road on the Milky Way in the sky. All of the Lenapé who live well walk the road beyond the bridge guarded by dogs. Those who live badly walk the other road, never stopping. That's why it is trodden down. No one who has ever done harm to a dog will be allowed to cross over to the other side."
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