Duck Sings For Her Children - Cochiti At Whirlpool Place (Koashka) there lived a duck with lots of little ducklings. She told her children to go to the river and have a bath. She said, "I will sit on the bank and sing for you." They got to the river. The mother sat on the bank, and she started to sing (unintelligible words). She said, "When this song ends, jump in all together." At the last word of her song, the ducklings jumped in and went under the water and came up again far off. They swam around and came back to their mother. She sang her song again and each time they ducked and swam and came back to her. Coyote heard Mother Duck singing. He said, "What a pretty song you sing to your children. I must go and get mine too. I have as many children as you have. I will get them. Why don't your children get drowned in all that water?" Mother Duck answered, "It is because they have a great power that they don't get drowned. If your children have a great power like mine they won't drown either." Coyote went off to get her children. She brought them all to the river bank and asked Mother Duck where they were to start. She said, "They must start from this bank when you sing the song for them." Old Coyote said, "How shall I sing the song? When you sing it, you call your children by name, but when I sing it must I call my children by name?" Duck said, "That is right." Coyote started to sing, but the little coyotes were afraid of the water and wouldn't go near the river. They all bunched together on the bank. Mother Duck started to sing for the little coyotes. She said, "When I get to the end, jump into the water." She got to the end but the coyotes all ran off home as fast as they could. Some of them Coyote caught and threw into the river. So she drowned half of them and all the ducks flew up away from Coyote. She started to cry for her children. She cried and cried until she died. Tales of the Cochiti Indians, by Ruth Benedict; U.S. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin no. 98; US Government Printing Office; [1931] and is now in the public domain Come visit us at. "Keeper of Stories". http://www.newkeeperofstories.com/ or Come visit us. "Native Village" [email protected]