Raven Keeps the Buffalo (Campfire Story)

Long ago, the people were starving. They moved their camp from place to place across the plains, looking for buffalo. And there were none. Not a single one. Nobody knew where the buffalo had gone.

One day they were sitting around, too hungry to do anything but play the hoop and pole game, when RAVEN came flying in from nobody knew where. And he took off his quiver, his arrow bag, and set it down. And Magpie looked inside it. And it was full of meat. Fresh buffalo meat.

'Where did he get that?' the people whispered. 'Watch him. When he leaves, watch which way he goes.'

So when evening came, and Raven flew off, everybody watched. RAVEN! Caw! He flew up, and up, circling higher and higher, until he was so small that most of the people couldn't see him anymore. Only two could still see him: Rattlesnake, and Bat. And they watched him fly far to the east, to the Black Mountains, and come down where two canyons meet.

So the people packed up their camp and moved toward the Black Mountains. Four times they moved, until they came to where Raven lived. And sure enough, Raven had more meat than he could ever eat. And he gave them some. But when they asked him where the buffalo were, he wouldn't say a word.

So the people made a plan. They took one of their young men, and with their power, they changed him into a puppy. A little dog, with eyes of shiny black stone. And they hid him under a pile of brush. And then they packed up and moved their camp away, and left him there.

The next morning, Raven's children came wandering through the empty camp, looking for scraps. And the smallest one found the puppy. 'Oh! A puppy!' And he picked it up and hugged it, and carried it home.

But Raven looked at that puppy, and his eyes narrowed. 'That dog was left there on purpose,' he said. 'It's there to spy on us.' RAVEN!

'No! It's just a puppy!' cried his child.

So Raven put a stick in the fire until the end was red hot. And he brought it close to the puppy's eyes. Closer. Closer. To see if it was really a man inside, and would flinch. And the puppy held perfectly still. Until at last it just cried, 'Wau!' like any puppy would.

'Hmph,' said Raven. 'You can keep it. It's only a dog. It doesn't know anything.'

So the puppy stayed with Raven's family. And he watched. And he found out Raven's secret.

Raven had all the buffalo shut up. Every buffalo in the world, all together, shut up behind a big door in the rocks. And whenever Raven wanted meat, he opened the door just a crack, and shot one, and shut the door again. That's why there were no buffalo left on the plains.

And that night, when Raven and all his family were asleep, the puppy crept over to the door. And he pushed it open.

And out came the buffalo! BUFFALO! Hundreds of them, thousands of them, pouring out of the rocks and out onto the plains. BUFFALO! BUFFALO!

The noise woke Raven. He came running with his bow and his quiver, and stood by the door, shooting at the buffalo as they ran past. RAVEN! But there were too many. He shot, and shot, until he had only one arrow left. And then he stood there in the doorway with that one arrow on the string, looking for the puppy. Because now he knew it had been a man all along.

And the very last buffalo to come out was an old, old one, that could hardly walk. And the young man, back in his own shape now, grabbed hold of its thick fur and hung on to its far side, where Raven couldn't see him. And Raven watched that old buffalo limp right past him, out the door, and never saw the man hanging on the other side.

And the young man ran and caught up with his people, and said, 'I let the buffalo go. All of them.' And the people turned around and followed the buffalo. And they hunted, and they ate, and they were never hungry like that again.

And Raven sat at his empty door and said, 'All right. Then from now on, I'll live on what you leave. The scraps on the backbone, and the eyes.'

And that's why, to this day, after a hunt, the ravens always come, to eat what the hunters leave behind.