Reading Notes, Sioux Tales, Part A: The Boy and the Turtles

Turtles basking in the sun in the lake.

(Source: Flickr)

There once was a boy that was hunting for turtles, looking in different streams in rivers, with no turtles in sight, but he knew that he would be able to find some turtles at the lake where his tribe usually hunted them. He followed a stream until he got to the lake, slowly crawling up to the lake on his hands and knees so that the turtles that he was trying to hunt would not be scared away. He looked over a rock to see that there were many turtles sitting on some rocks in the lake, basking in the sun. The boy took his clothes off so that he could swim up to them, but when he went to take off his shirt, he accidentally flung his hang up high, visible to the turtles in the lake. They got scared and they jumped into the lake. The boy ran to the shore and he saw bubbles coming from the water and out came a little man to the water's surface. Out of nowhere, hundreds of other little men swam up out of the water, splashing water high up into the air. The boy was so scared that he ran all the way to his grandmother's home without even grabbing his clothes. His grandmother asked him what was wrong and he could barely speak because he was out of breath for running so fast to her house. He told her what he had seen and his grandmother went and told the chief what her grandson had seen. He sent two warriors to the lake to see what was going on and they crawled up to the lake and sure enough, they saw the little men swimming in the lake, splashing water. The warriors also freaked out and they ran all the way home and told the tribe council what they had seen. The boy was taken to the council and he was given a seat of honor and renamed "Wankan Wanyanka" which means "sees holy". The lake used to be called Truth Lake, but now it is called "Wicase-bde" which means "man lake".

This story is part of the Sioux unit. Story source: Myths and Legends of the Sioux by Marie McLaughlin (1916).