09 February 2009
Mice Make Peace
Transcript of a traditional Iroquois story as told by American Indian storyteller Dovie Thomason, from Fireside Tales: More Lessons from the Animal People
This transcript and its associated audio file are reproduced with permission of the author. © 2001 Dovie Thomason.
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From Fireside Tales: More Lessons from the Animal People © Dovie Thomason
Permission to reproduce by Dovie Thomason
Mice have always lived in the homes of human beings. And so it was long ago in the longhouses of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Nations) the mice had their chiefs and their councils and they found their secret places in those warm bark houses. And so the mice watched. They paid close attention to the affairs of the human beings for they knew what happened to the human beings would affect the life of mice.
And so it was the mice who first noticed that the young men were gathering secretly and talking in soft voices, being careful not to be overheard. But they were overheard by the mice who crept closer and closer until one day they heard the young men’s speech. One of the young men was fiery and fierce, he was quick to anger. He was full of excitement. The mice listened to him speak. “I want war. We deserve a war. We deserve the honor and the recognition that comes to warriors when they return from battle. Our neighbors have more than we have. We must make war on them and bring back trophies to our people. People will sing songs as they see us return. We will have war dances, we will sing war songs. We will make names for ourselves as our relatives are known for their courage in their own time.”
The mice did not like what they were hearing. They gathered in council and they said, “War? They want war? War is not good. This is the time of the year of the green corn harvest. Soon the foods will be ripe in the fields. Now is the time for the people to be working together, hunting for food and gathering in supplies for the winter. War is not good for us. In war there is hunger, and we don’t like hunger.”
And so the mice watched carefully and they followed the young men when the young men went to talk to the older chiefs of their people. They told the chiefs of their plans for war. And the chiefs shook their heads sadly and said, “You do not know. You are too young. You have no knowledge of war, only stories of wars. Wars are not good for the people. Now is the time we must think ahead to the hungry times, now is the time to provide for our people by hunting, by harvesting what grows in our fields. Now we must care for the good of our whole village, not just the need for your glory. The young men, they did not listen to the old men. You see, there are times when the young will not listen to the old.
And so the clan mothers took their turn to speak, trying to touch the hearts and minds of the young men. “War is not good for us, sons. In war there is suffering, in war there are some who do not return. War brings grief and sadness to the hearts of your mothers, your grandmothers, your sisters and your wives. All will lose in war. There is nothing our neighbors have that we need. These are our kinsmen. We shall not have war with those so near to us. There is nothing we need that we cannot gather or make for ourselves.” Oh, but there are times when men will not listen to the voices of women.
And so that night the young men met again secretly. Again they did not know that the mice were listening. “They are old. They are weak. Do they not think we are entitled to have the honors of war? They have forgotten what it is to be young. We will sing these songs. We will dance our dances. We will make war and all will sing of us when we return. Stories will be told of our great courage. Ant this victory that we know is ahead of us. They laughed and talked as they worked to make their weapons ready. They tied strips of rawhide around the stone tips of their arrows holding them firmly in place on the shafts. They fletched feathers to the tips of their arrows so those arrows would fly straight and true. They took sinew and strung it on their bows pulling those hickory bows firm and tight. And then they stacked their great pile of weapons near to the fire to keep warm and dry while they slept, preparing to rise at dawn and make war on their neighbors.
As soon as they were asleep the mice turned to each other. “We cannot have war, we cannot have hunger. We cannot have sadness in these lodges where we live. But what can we do? Look how great their pile of weapons. What do we have? One of the mice turned to the others and said, “Heh! We have teeth!” And he ran to that pile of weapons and began to chew away at that bow strung taut. Another began to chew at the feathers that fletched the arrows while others began to chew at the rawhide that held the arrows to their tips. In short time, those weapons were a pile of worthless string and stick, and the mice went back to their hiding places.
Soon the young men woke up. And when they saw their weapons in tatters and shreds, they were angry. One amongst them was angriest still, because he was the one who had planned to have this great war. “Who destroys my weapons? Who takes this war from out of our hands? There will be war.” And though he was fierce and although all had been swayed by his fiery ways before, there was one young man among them who was perhaps wiser. He shook his head and said, “No, no. The one who made us watches us. The one who made us did not like our words and does not think this is a time for war. There will be no war. This is a time for peace, a time for harvest, a time for us to think what our families need instead of what would make us feel proud and good.”
And so the one that made the Haudenosaunee was perhaps smiling on them that year, for in that harvest there was great plenty. And in that long winter there was much for the people to eat. There was much comfort and warmth in the fires of those longhouses as there is in times of peace. There was so much food in that good season that the women perhaps became all that more careless about what they dropped to the earth, knowing it was being carried away by the mice, the mice who brought peace to the Haudenosaunee.
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