Reading Notes, Tejas Legends, Part B: The Maidens Who Broke a Drought
Common beebush
At one time, many Indians suffered a drought for weeks and the drought threatened ot never end. You could see the effects of the drought everywhere. Ther rivers dried up, killing the fish that lived in them. The trees shriveled and died, killing the birds that sat on their branches, as they did not have water either. All the plants turned brown or yellow form the burning sun. Finally, the Indians moved their camp in the search for a new source of water but they were not successful so the chief of the tribe called the medicine man to learn how to break the drought. The medicine man pointed to a high cliff and told the chief that a great serpent, the chief of all snakes, lived in a cave at the food of the cliff and it would send down rain if maidens of the tribe went to go feed it.
After hearing this, the young girls of the tribe begged to be the one that was thrown off of the cliff to the chief of the snakes to end the drought and the chief agreed to let them go because the drought was threatening to kill them all. The girls went to the top of the cliff where the medicine man lined them up where they grabbed each others' hands and jumped off the cliff. The goddess that was watching over these girls was so proud of their bravery that she saved the girls by turning them into beebushes at the bottom of the cliff. The snake chief was looking up with an open mouth, waiting to be fed, when he saw this happen. He knew that this was the doing of some higher power so he scurried back to his cave. As soon as he was gone, the clouds that were too scared to see him came back and poured down rain on the tribe.
Part of the Tejas Legends unit. Story source: When the Storm God Rides: Tejas and Other Indian Legends retold by Florence Stratton and illustrated by Berniece Burrough (1936).
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