Storytelling is an important component of the Oneida’s oral tradition. Some stories are intended to teach a lesson, and they are passed from generation to generation to show others how behave, how to act, and how to properly care for each other. Elwood Webster (Wolf Clan) tells a tale about how the body tells the soul to mend its ways.

This is a story that is really, really clear in my mind and I'll never forget it. At the time, I was really heavy into alcohol and substance abuse. My grandma always told me, "Elwood, what you hear and what you see is a warning to you to mend your ways." I believe that's what it was because now with all these years of being alcohol and drug-free, nothing like this has happened since then. It was always when I was under the influence of alcohol or substance abuse. I used to work downtown in the city of Syracuse when I lived with my grandmother on the Onondaga Reservation. I used to take the last bus home at night which was at eleven o'clock. That was the last bus that used to go to Nedrow. After work and before I got the bus, I used to hit the local bars and be feeling pretty good. As I got up to Nedrow, at the turn-around there, I still had two miles to go. From the entrance to Onondaga down to Grandma's place it was two miles. This one time I was standing there and hitch-hiking. I was so afraid, growing up with the stories from other people of their experiences, that just the thought of me walking down in pitch black - there were no street lights - I couldn't do that. So I used to stand on the side of the road there and wait for a ride. I was standing there and I heard this team of horses. I heard a team of horses pulling a wagon. I heard that in the distance and I tried to think who had a team at that time. I believed that Jack Gibson used to have a team of horses so I thought that was him. It was pitch black but you could hear them, you could hear the horses coming up, coming up from a long distance, clump, clump, clump. They were coming. It got so close – there, it was right in front of me. But when the sound went over to the main road where there were lights, there was nothing to see. I heard it but I didn't see it. That was one of the things that I'll never forget. My grandma had said, "Elwood, if you ever hear or see anything, just swear at it." And that was exactly what I did. So I was swearing, swearing, swearing at it and it went away. Now I really couldn't walk down and there was no ride coming. All the ones that had come had gone straight by. Still I'm not going to walk. Near the corner where I was, there used to be a big tree growing. So I just curled up under the tree and took off my jacket and covered up and stayed there until daylight. Just as soon as the daylight came I got up, brushed myself off, and walked down the hill to my grandma's house.