Ticks

by Richard L. Dieterle

NOAA		CC Sam Droege		Interactive ID Key for the Hard Ticks (Ixodidae)
The Deer Tick		The Woodtick		The Raccoon Tick

Ticks are small arachnids (a kind of spider) that infest mammals and drink their blood. They are vectors for a number of diseases, the deer tick being the primary sourcc of lime disease. The Hōcąk word for "tick" is cārásgápke.

Since ticks often infest ears, they prove a useful vehicle by which to speak to someone without being seen. An old man who lived in a land of perpetual summer had lost his scalp and could find no one with the ability to retrieve it for him. It occurred to him that Hare could achieve this difficult task. So he enlisted a tick to enter into Hare's ear and herd him towards the old man's lodge. The tick kept yelling, "There's a rabbit, let's get him!" This alarmed Hare and he fled, but the tick gave him no peace until finally he passed by the lodge of the old man, who invited him in and plucked the tick from Hare's ear. He confessed that the voice that had sent him here was that of the tick in his ear. The ruse worked, and Hare eventually retrieved his scalp.¹

In another version, Hare is living with Grandmother Earth in a land of constant winter. One day as he was roaming about, he heard a voice calling, "Hare! Hare!" This greatly alarmed him, and he attempted to run away from it, but it persisted until, finally, he entered a land of perpetual summer. There he enterred a long lodge where there lived a person called "Waterspirit Woman," and it was she who had caused him to come her way. She told him to reach in his ear, whereupon he pulled out "what looked like a bug." It had been this which had driven him into this land of summer. Waterspirit Woman had lost her redhaired scalp to the Giants, and enlisted Hare to restore it to her. In this he was successful.²

CC Cambridge University Press
Ticks in the Ear of a Raccoon

In another tale, a tick on his own initiative decides to harrass Little Raccoon while he was about on the prairie. The tick kept yelling, "However many prairies there are, I have not missed one!" "Surely," Little Raccoon thought, "someone must be hunting me," so he fled into the forest and hid under a hazel bush. Even though completely concealed there, he heard the voice say, "However many hazel bushes there are, I have not missed one!" Again Little Raccoon fled. This time he found a cave. Surely, here he would be safe; but again the voice said, "However many caves there are, I have not missed one!" This time Little Raccoon felt in his ear, and lo and behold, there was a little tick there. It was he who had been teasing him. This made him really angry, so he pulled it out and chewed it up.³

Links: Hare, Earth, Waterspirits.

Stories: mentioning ticks: Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp, The Bugged Raccoon; mentioning raccoons: Bladder and His Brothers, Lake Wąkšikhomįgra (Mendota): the Origin of Its Name, The Spirit of Maple Bluff, A Raccoon Tricks Four Blind Men, The Raccoon Coat, Raccoon and the Blind Men, The Were-fish, The Abduction and Rescue of Trickster, Trickster and the Mothers, Grandfather's Two Families, The Green Man, The Bugged Raccoon; featuring Hare as a character: The Hare Cycle, Medicine Rite Foundation Myth, The Necessity for Death, The Mission of the Five Sons of Earthmaker, Hare Acquires His Arrows, Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp, Hare Recruits Game Animals for Humans, Hare Kills Wildcat, The Messengers of Hare, Hare Secures the Creation Lodge, Hare Kills Flint, Hare Kills Sharp Elbow, Hare Visits His Grandfather Bear, Grandmother Packs the Bear Meat, Hare Visits the Bodiless Heads, Hare Visits the Blind Men, Hare Kills a Man with a Cane, Hare Burns His Buttocks, Hare Gets Swallowed, The Hill that Devoured Men and Animals, Hare Establishes Bear Hunting, Grandmother's Gifts, Hare and the Grasshoppers, The Spirit of Gambling, The Red Man, Maize Origin Myth, Hare Steals the Fish, The Animal who would Eat Men, The Gift of Shooting, Hare and the Dangerous Frog, Thunder Cloud is Blessed, The Coughing Up of the Black Hawks, The Animal Spirit Aids of the Medicine Rite, The Petition to Earthmaker; featuring Grandmother Earth as a character: Medicine Rite Foundation Myth, Maize Origin Myth, Grandmother Packs the Bear Meat, Grandmother's Gifts, Owl Goes Hunting, Hare and the Grasshoppers, Hare Acquires His Arrows, The Plant Blessing of Earth, The Stench-Earth Medicine Origin Myth, Hare Visits the Blind Men, Hare Visits His Grandfather Bear, Hare Visits the Bodiless Heads, Hare Burns His Buttocks, Hare Gets Swallowed, Hare Kills Wildcat, Hare and the Dangerous Frog, Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp, Hare Recruits Game Animals for Humans, The Necessity for Death, Hare Secures the Creation Lodge, Hare Steals the Fish, Hare Kills Sharp Elbow, Hare Kills Flint, The Gift of Shooting, The Creation of the World, The Creation of Man (vv 4, 6), Hare Establishes Bear Hunting, Redhorn's Father (?); in which Waterspirits occur as characters: Waterspirit Clan Origin Myth, Traveler and the Thunderbird War, The Green Waterspirit of Wisconsin Dells, The Lost Child, River Child and the Waterspirit of Devil's Lake, A Waterspirit Blesses Mąnį́xete’ų́ga, Bluehorn's Nephews, Holy One and His Brother, The Seer, The Nannyberry Picker, The Creation of the World (vv. 1, 4), Šųgepaga, The Sioux Warparty and the Waterspirit of Green Lake, The Waterspirit of Lake Koshkonong, The Waterspirit of Rock River, The Boulders of Devil's Lake, Devil's Lake — How it Got its Name, Old Man and Wears White Feather, The Waterspirit of Sugar Loaf Mounds, Lakes of the Wazija Origin Myth, Waterspirits Keep the Corn Fields Wet, The Waterspirit Guardian of the Intaglio Mound, The Diving Contest, The Lost Blanket, Redhorn's Sons, The Phantom Woman, Įcorúšika and His Brothers, Great Walker's Warpath, White Thunder's Warpath, The Descent of the Drum, The Shell Anklets Origin Myth, The Daughter-in-Law's Jealousy, Snowshoe Strings, The Thunderbird, Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp (v. 2), The Two Children, The Twins Join Redhorn's Warparty, Earthmaker Sends Rušewe to the Twins, Paint Medicine Origin Myth, Waruǧábᵉra, Ocean Duck, The Twin Sisters, Trickster Concludes His Mission, The King Bird, The Medicine Rite Foundation Myth, Great Walker's Medicine (v. 2), Heną́ga and Star Girl, Peace of Mind Regained, The Story of the Medicine Rite, How the Thunders Met the Nights, The Spiritual Descent of John Rave's Grandmother, The Boy who was Captured by the Bad Thunderbirds, The Shaggy Man, The Woman who Married a Snake (?), Hare Secures the Creation Lodge, Ghost Dance Origin Myth I, The Sacred Lake, Lost Lake; about scalping: The Woman's Scalp Medicine Bundle, Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp, The Scalping Knife of Wakąšucka, The Blessings of the Buffalo Spirits, Moiety Origin Myth, Turtle's Warparty, White Fisher, Black Otter's Warpath, The Dog that became a Panther, Wazųka, Great Walker's Warpath, The Unlucky Horse, The Boy who was Blessed by a Mountain Lion, The Fox-Hocąk War.

Themes: someone hears a disembodied voice and only later discovers its source: Trickster Eats the Laxative Bulb, The Orphan who was Blessed with a Horse, Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp, Pete Dupeé and the Ghosts, The Bugged Raccoon; a small insect embedded in an animal's ear speaks to him in such a way as to create the illusion that someone nearby is hunting him: Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp, The Bugged Raccoon; in order to get him to take refuge in his lodge, a great spirit causes another spirit to think that someone dangerous is pursuing him: Hare Retrieves a Stolen Scalp, Earthmaker Sends Rušewe to the Twins, Bluehorn's Nephews.

Notes

¹ Paul Radin, Winnebago Hero Cycles: A Study in Aboriginal Literature (Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1948) 107-111. Paul Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (New York: Schocken Books, 1956) §§18-21, pp. 81-87. The original Hōcąk text is missing, but the English translation of Oliver LaMère is preserved in Paul Radin, "The Hare Cycle," Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3851 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago IV, #1: 96-134.

² Thomas Foster, Foster's Indian Record and Historical Data (Washington, D. C.: 1876-1877) vol. 1, #3: p. 2 col. 4 - p. 3 col. 1. Told by Peter Menaige, interpreter at the old Minnesota Winnebago Reservation.

³ Kenneth L. Miner, "Short Modern Winnebago Text with Song," Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, 7 (1982): 91-103.