How the Snake "Tsitsikgwes" Got His Beautiful Beaded Skin – Abenaki This is a story from long ago, when the Great Spirit was making the world. He had already been working on the Creation for some time, and He had made the rivers and the oceans. He had made the sky above, and created the Thunder Beings who live there. He had made the Sun to walk the sky by day, and the moon to travel the nighttime sky. Then the day came when He was making the people of the world, the winged-ones, the four-legged ones, two-leggeds, ALL the creatures of the Earth. While He was making "Tsitsikgwes", he had to go to another part of the Earth before He finished, so He said to him: "Tsitsikgwes, I have not finished with you yet. You don't have your legs, or your skin, so wait here until I return and I will give you the rest of your body." For some time, Tsitsikgwes remained where he was, waiting for the Great Spirit to return and give him legs and skin. While he waited, he noticed that the Sun was shining warm upon his body. He looked around, and all that was within his sight was beautiful to behold. Tsitsikgwes began to feel a desire to explore the world around him, but he remembered the words of the Great Spirit, and continued to wait. Finally his patience ran out, so he said to himself, "this world is so beautiful, I think I will wander around and look at all the wonders. Surely I will be back before the Creator comes again to this place." While he had been waiting, he had figured out that even though he did not yet have his legs, he could move from place to place by twisting his body. So, Tsitsikgwes began to roam, looking at the beauty all around him. Everywhere he turned, there was something new to see and hear and feel. Further and further he wandered, and he forgot that he was supposed to be waiting for Great Spirit's return. All of Creation was new and wonderful, and there was always something else to explore just ahead, so he traveled a long way from where he was supposed to be, and soon lost his way. By the time he remembered that he was told to wait for Great Spirit to finish his body, he had no idea how to get back to that place. While he was trying to find his way back, the sun got lower and lower in the sky, and it soon became night. Now the temperature began to drop, and Tsitsikgwes no longer felt the sun warm upon his back. The sands that had warmed his belly also began to get colder and colder, and still he could not find his way to where Great Spirit had told him to wait. He began to shiver with the cold, and he thought to himself, "Oh, why didn't I stay where I was supposed to stay? If I had waited until I had my skin, then maybe the cold wouldn't feel so bad on my body. If I had my legs, maybe I could see further over the ground and find my way back." Suddenly, Tsitsikgwes noticed a small light up ahead of him. "Ah", he thought, "there will be someone at the light who can help me." So, he made his way to where the light was shining, and when he got there he saw that the light was from a small fire, glowing softly through the walls of a tipi. By this time, Tsitsikgwes was so cold that he could barely move; but he knew that the fire would be warm, so he decided to go into the tipi and ask if he could stay beside the fire for the night. As he went into the tipi, he saw that there was a woman there. She had a deerskin in her hands, and was sewing a shirt for her mate. Tsitsikgwes asked the woman, "Would you mind if I shared your fire? I have been lost, and since I don't have my skin the cold is too much for me." At the sound of his voice, the woman looked up, but to his surprise, she screamed. "You ugly creature!! Get out of my tipi. You have no skin and no legs, and you are too ugly to look upon. Get out!! Get out!!" Upon hearing these words, Tsitsikgwes was very sad. All day long he had been wandering through a beautiful and wonderful world, but he never knew that he was still ugly. He turned back and left the tipi, but his heart was heavy. Tsitsikgwes knew that because he was so ugly, the woman had sent him to his death. The cold night had almost done him in before he found the tipi and the fire, and now he had no place to warm himself. Tsitsikgwes went a short distance from the tipi, then he curled his body up, trying to find some way to stay warm enough to stay alive. Tears flowed from his eyes as he realized that he would not be freezing to death in the night if he had only waited as he was told to do. Soon, the woman's mate came home and went into the tipi. Still the night grew colder and colder, so Tsitsikgwes was now very near his death. He decided to go to the tipi one more time, and ask if he could warm himself beside the fire. Perhaps the man would not be afraid of his ugliness as the woman had been. Slowly he made his way back to the tipi. As he went in, the woman saw him and began to yell even before he could ask the man's permission to warm himself. She told the man, "there's that horrible looking animal I was telling you about. He has come back again, even though I told him to go away. Make him leave, he is too ugly to stay here." So the man took up a stick, and he began to beat Tsitsikgwes with it, in order to make him leave the tipi. The man hit Tsitsikgwes so hard across the head, that the snake's head was flattened out, and to this day all of his grandchildren have the same flat head. So, for the second time, Tsitsikgwes left the people's tipi, and great was the hurt and the sorrow in his heart. The people had told him that he was too ugly, and beat him, and sent him out to face a lonely death from the cold. As he slowly moved away from the tipi, Tsitsikgwes noticed that the man had dropped a beaded belt on the ground. He went closer, and saw that it was just wide enough to wrap around his body. So, he wrapped himself in this belt, which was beaded in a beautiful diamond pattern. The belt was wide enough to go all the way around his body, but it was not as long as the body of Tsitsikgwes, so the end of his tail stuck out beyond it. Because Tsitsikgwes did not have his outer skin, the belt stuck to his inner skin. His inner skin was much like a glue, so that his outer skin would stick to it. When he wrapped himself in the belt before he was given his outer skin, the belt stuck to him just as his outer skin would. As the night went on, Tsitsikgwes found that the belt was keeping him warm enough to stay alive. Athough he still could feel the cold, he knew that he would not die. However, the the part of his tail that was sticking out beyond the belt froze, and when he tried to move it his tail broke into sections. So Tsitsikgwes spent the night in this way, wrapped in the belt and waiting for the Sun to rise and bring the warmth back to him. Early the next morning, while Tsitsikgwes was lying curled on a rock letting the warmth of the Sun soak into his body, Great Spirit came walking up. "Tsitsikgwes", he said, "I have been looking for you. Why did you not stay where I told you to stay?" So Tsitsikgwes told Great Spirit about feeling the desire to explore the Creation, and the troubles he had because he didn't have his legs or his skin. Great Spirit gazed down at the snake and said, "I'm sorry, Tsitsikgwes, but I can no longer give you skin or legs. You have wrapped yourself in this belt, and it has stuck to your inner skin. Also, there are no openings in the belt for legs to go into. However, there are other gifts that I can give to you, because you did not willfully disobey. You only got caught up in the beauty of the world, and lost you way. I give these gifts to you and to your grandchildren for all time to come. Take them now, and may you have a long and blessed life upon the Earth. So Tsitsikgwes took the gifts, and went on his way. The first gift was that the Grandchildren of Tsitsikgwes would wear a beautiful beaded belt as their skin for all time. Another gift was a rattle the Great Spirit placed in the broken section of the snake's tail, and the last gift was a set of two teeth that could poison the enemies of Tsitsikgwes. And so it remains until this very day. All of the Grandchildren of Tsitsikgwes have never forgotten how the people treated him on that long and cold night. So even to this very day, you can find Tsitsikgwes' grandchildren sunning themselves on a rock to chase away the cold of the night. And if a human being happens to comes too close to one of the Grandchildren of Tsitsikgwes, he will hear a warning rattle. This is the snake's way of saying, "Stay away from me. You drove me out and beat me when I was ugly and cold, so now I don't want anything to do with you." And if the human being ignores the warning rattle, then the snake will bite and poison him. And that is how it happened that the snake Tsitsikgwes got his beautiful beaded skin