Warning of late-night animals. Beware of Animals in the NightOneida Elders Stories
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.
Iva Rodgers (Turtle Clan Mother) told this tale about life on the Onondaga Reservation.
My older sister and I went out one night. We went out to sit on the bridge, that bridge up at Onondaga. You could sit on it and you could watch the cars go by. It was about eight, nine o'clock at night. These two old ladies lived right across from the bridge there. First thing I know one of them comes up and that lady said to us, "You know what? You better go home." "Why?" we asked. "Every night about midnight there's a pig that comes up the road and it will spook you," she said. These two old ladies were the kind of nosy kind. They set out most of the night just watching what was going on on the road and out there. She said, "They come soon. If I were you, I'd go home. Don't let that pig catch you." So my sister and I jumped off and ran back home. It was just a little way, but it seemed far enough. We got back home and my dad was sitting out there and all of a sudden we heard this pig. We said, "There's the pig now!" It started coming around our house. Oh, my sister and I, we ran upstairs, we stayed as close to the wall as we could so the pig couldn't see us. We went with our hands on the wall, guiding ourselves. Dad was still sitting down there. "It's that pig that they told us about," we said. So we went to bed but we were still scared about this pig. In the morning when we woke up, our dad was outside, he was talking Indian to one of our neighbors down there. After a while this guy said, "Did you see a couple of pigs last night out here?" Dad said, "Yeah," because he was sitting there and he had heard it, too. "Yeah." The neighbor said, "Two of my pigs got out of the pig pen and came up the road." That's what it was, it wasn't anyone witching us. It was just two pigs who had gotten out from their pig pen and they were across the road. They went up the high field and up in the woods back there. That's where that guy found them, he found his pigs. Information, photos, video or graphics from www.OneidaIndianNation.com may not be republished, uploaded, posted or distributed in any way without the prior approval of Oneida Indian Nation Communications. Permission is for one time use only. Any use of this material must be credited to: Oneida Indian Nation.
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