Hare Kills a Man with a Cane

While Hare was wandering about he chanced upon a very tall man with a slender waist who walked with a long cane.

Hare thought he looked so fragile that he could simply blow him over with a puff of air. He tried four times but failed. Finally the man noticed a small white thing by the path, so he stamped it into the ground with the tip of his cane. Grandmother came looking for Hare since he was overdue, and she inquired of her brother as to his whereabouts, and was directed to where he had smashed Hare with his cane. She found him and took him up by the arm and scolded him severely. The next day Hare started out for his grandfather's place, but he enlarged himself greatly and pulled a cedar tree [inset] out by the roots to use as his cane. Then, unexpectedly, the tall being came along singing:

Hare came towards him singing exactly the same song himself. The tall being was taken aback and said, "I've never met my equal until now." However, Hare took his cedar log cane and smashed the tall being into the earth, shattering him into a myriad of small pieces. "Since you have abused the humans," Hare decreed, "you shall henceforth live so close to the earth that people will trample upon you." The tall being was actually a giant ant. [1]

(49) The next morning he again started off. A man was there. "Well, I'm going to sit down and look around. Which one will it be? I am going back with a cane. They will kill him. Hare will not return there. Little nephew, why are you doing it? (51) He is not returning. I will go and look around." There the man arrived. "Little nephew, you will not do it." "Little uncle, I am coming back with a little something, a cane." Perhaps it was he who had looked at him. There he was dead. He took his man. He took him back away with him. He did something for him. He began scratching him with a stone. He came alive. "Grandmother, he will live." (53) "Yes, but now he is gone." He (Hare) made for himself a cane from two pine trees. He went and arrived there. "Okay, I will do it. I too usually go home with a cane." Now then, the man went home with a cane. He killed him. "Now then, it will be good. Grandmother, I killed him. He killed many of my uncles and little aunts. Therefore, I killed him. Grandmother, what do you wish to do?" (55) "My dear little grandson, it is good. You have done good for you little uncles and aunts. Humans will be left alone." "Grandmother, you have said it, I have done well." [2]

Prologue. The songs in the following stories are from the Hochunk (Winnebago) Indians, who now live in Nebraska. The Hochunk told many tales about Wash-ching-geka, "the Little Hare."

"The Little Hare had another adventure with a monster. This monster was shaped like a living ant, with a big body and legs but with a very, very small middle part. At his waist, he was scarcely thicker than a hair. He lived behind a hill. Whenever he left home, he carried a very big tree and pounded the ground with it while singing a song. If elk and other animals came near, he threw the tree down upon them and killed them.

The Little Hare thought that because the Ant-Man was very thin at the waist, he could blow him in two. So the Little Hare blew "Soo! Soo!" But instead of blowing Ant-Man in two, he himself got killed. The Ant-Man threw his tree and crushed the Little Hare. When the Ant-Man lifted his tree, he found only a very small, flattened thing, he picked it up by the ears, said, "No good to eat," and threw away the little dead body.

That evening, when the Little Hare did not return home, his grandmother knew that he had been killed. The next morning she rose and ate, gathered her dress above her knees so that she could run faster, took one of the Little Hare's elkhorn clubs, and started out to find him. The old grandmother, able to run fast like Little Hare, ran over the whole earth until she heard the Ant-Man pounding and singing.

When he lifted up his tree to throw at her, she said, "Brother, better not do that!" So he stayed his hand and talked with her.

In a very short time, he admitted, "I did kill something very small yesterday. It was no good for eating, and so I threw it away. You go down there and look at it."

Finding that the little creature was her Little Hare, she picked him up by the ears and said, "You sleep here too long! Wake up and go to work!"

He went home with her. Next morning he started forth to find a big tree that would protect him from Ant-Man and his big fir tree. The Little Hare went away to the very edge of the earth, where the biggest pine trees grow. There he spoke to Wa-zi-chunk, the tallest tree in the world.

"Big tree," said he, "I plan to use you. I will pull you out of the ground, but when I have finished with you, I will put you back again."

He laid hold of the tree, pulled it out, and carried it to the place where he had been killed. He climbed the hill at one end while Ant-Man climbed it at the other end, singing and pounding with his tree. The Little Hare also sang and pounded with his tree. Then the two danced toward the other, each one singing and pounding with his tree.

Soon big Ant-Man walked more and more slowly. He could hardly keep on his feet because the Little Hare made the ground shake by pounding it with the tallest tree in the world. Slowly the two came nearer and nearer to the other. When the Little Hare reached the tall Ant-Man, he took the tallest tree in the world and crushed the monster.

A swarm of flying ants came out of the monster's body, and the Little Hare said to the dead body, "You can never again kill anything. And you little ants will have to creep on the ground, but sometimes you may fly."

And then the Little Hare carried the tall tree back to the edge of the earth and set it in its place." [3]

Commentary. "Wa-zi-chunk" -- for Wazitcâk, "Great Pine". This would be one of the trees that Earthmaker originally planted from heaven.

Meanings. The ant episode begins exactly like Hare's first encounter with a human in Hare Acquires His Arrows. The tall being is powerful because he can use his cane to operate at a distance. The cane is an instrument of both mobility, since it aids in walking, and balance, since it helps keep the person upright. The sudden action at a distance is a form of extreme mobility which is reflected in the mobility that humans and the tall being possess in compensation for their fragility. This compensation creates a balance that is also reflected in Hare's inability to blow him over. The ant is tall to reflect his boastfulness, which is a form of ascribing stature to oneself. He declares his absolute superiority, but the relativity of stature is soon pressed upon him physically. The cane, a tool of balance, is used to make Hare smaller than he really is, which is a form of social and physical imbalance. The cane as an instrument of mobility is here used to bring Hare too promiscuously close to the earth, even though he is a great spirit whose power is independent of his size. Hare unites the moieties in himself, but they must be kept in balance: not too close to Earth (intimacy), not too close to Fire or Sun. Hare reverses the extremes, using a cane of cedar, a tree whose leaves are used in purification. The imbalance, which is a form of impurity [4], is retributively rectified by an instrument that is at once a purifier and a restorer of balance. The ant, although it has legs like canes, is drastically restricted in its mobility and now lacks the power to use them for denigration. For the symbolism of the cane in the Medicine Rite, see the commentary to "The Journey to Spiritland".

[1] Paul Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1948) 102-103.

[2] Jacob Russell, Stories from the Hare Cycle, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Winnebago III, #14, Freeman #3893 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) 49-55. Phonetic text only.

[4] Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Polllution and Taboo (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966) 29-40.