One day Elk boldly declared to Hare that he had tired of his constant diet of vegetables, and that it was time that he had some meat; and not just any meat would do, but only the flesh of humans. So Hare went out and gathered the most sour berries he could find and squeezed the juice out of them to make a blood-red drink. "Here, try this," Hare said. "It's the blood of humans. See how you like it!" Elk grabbed the cup and greedily poured the drink through his lips. Its sourness was so powerful that it knocked out Elk's front teeth, which is why the elk has no front teeth even to this day. After that, Elk decided that he wanted nothing to do with human flesh, as even the blood was too offensive to drink. [1]

From a Hočąk syllabic text of unknown provenance.

(137) At first Eel asked him, "What would I suck?" said Eel. "Could I eat humans?" he said. And so Hare said, "After you eat a piece with your teeth," he said. He showed him his teeth. The teeth were very long. He was also afraid. (138) And he asked this one to go and eat one of the people. "As you advised, I took some portion from him as he lay there, but quickly gave it back." By means of the great force of its sourness after he took it, his teeth fell out. At some places he had teeth remaining. Very tiny ones, small ones, remained. Eel cried there. Hare did not like it. He (Eel) said, "How could it not be? Your little uncles have this to work with. I will be meant for eating," he said. (139) And little Hare began thanking himself, "It is good, is it not?" [2]

Comparative Material. The Cherokee have a similar story about deer. Rabbit was jealous of Deer because Deer had won horns for his superior speed. So he gnawed on the middle of a vine and stretched it across a path. Then he rushed at it, biting it as he struck. Deer came along and saw this, and when he asked what was going on, Rabbit told him that his teeth were so sharp that he could bite through a vine. He then successfully demonstrated this. Then he challenged Deer to do the same, only this time the vine was not gnawed in the middle. Deer completely failed. So Rabbit offered to sharpen Deer's teeth. He went to work with a file, but instead of sharpening them, he filed them down nearly to the gum. Ever after deer have not been able to eat anything but leaves and grass because their teeth are so blunt. [4]

The neighboring Menominee have a story similar in some respects. Hare (Manabush) asked each animal what sort of food that it wanted to eat hereafter. Bear reserved acorns; Fish Hawk asked for fish; Wolf declared that he would eat deer. Then Hare asked Deer what he should eat, and Deer replied, "I shall eat men." As each of the other animals had demonstrated that they could eat what they had asked for, Deer set about hunting humans, which was quite easy, since they were so numerous. One day a man noticed that his tracks were being shadowed by those of a deer, so he stood in wait. The deer, to look more fearsome, took out two of his ribs and stuck them in his lower jaw so that they looked like tusks. When he encountered the man he was about to pounce on him when the man calmly shot him to death with a single arrow. When the spirit of Deer returned to the meeting with Hare, the latter said, "You see how it is, you can hardly have men for food." [5]

A Creek story relates how a cow wished to have more power than her teeth could supply. A cow once asked God that he give her a knife. So God said, if you can stay all night in this cabbage patch, then I will give it to you. She spend all night there, but having nothing to do, she ate all the cabbage. The next morning she asked God that he might also grant that she could bear more than one calf at a time. But God replied, "Since you ate all that cabbage, you don't need a bigger belly, and your mouth is quite sufficient without a knife." Therefore, she got neither of her wishes. [6]

Links: Hare, Elk (I).

Stories: mentioning elks: Elk Clan Origin Myth, The Elk's Skull, Hare Recruits Game Animals for Humans, Deer Clan Origin Myth, The Creation Council, Hočąk Clans Origin Myth, Spear Shaft and Lacrosse, Buffalo Clan Origin Myth, Origin of the Hočąk Chief, Little Fox and the Ghost (v. 2), The Great Fish; See The Girl who Refused a Blessing from the Wood Spirits; 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 Kills a Man with a Cane, Hare Burns His Buttocks, Hare Gets Swallowed, 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 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; mentioning teeth: The Animal who would Eat Men, Hare Recruits Game Animals for Humans, Hare and the Dangerous Frog, The Girl who Refused a Blessing from the Wood Spirits, The Two Boys, The Birth of the Twins, The Twins Disobey Their Father, Wears White Feathers on His Head, The Dipper, Wolves and Humans, The Commandments of Earthmaker, The Children of the Sun, The Green Man, Holy One and His Brother, Partridge's Older Brother, The Brown Squirrel, Hare Secures the Creation Lodge of the Medicine Rite, The Medicine Rite Foundation Myth, East Shakes the Messenger, Lifting Up the Bear Heads, White Wolf, Buffalo Clan Origin Myth.

Themes: animals that are not now carnivorous, in primordial times sought to eat human flesh: Hare and the Dangerous Frog, The War among the Animals, The Two Boys, Hare knocks out the teeth of an animal that threatened humans so that its kind ceases to pose a threat ever again: Hare and the Dangerous Frog.

Notes:

[1] Oliver LaMère and Harold B. Shinn, Winnebago Stories (New York, Chicago: Rand, McNally and Co., 1928) 87-89; Paul Radin, The Winnebago Tribe (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990 [1923]) 254-256. Oliver LaMère, Bear Clan, was Paul Radin's translator.

[2] The Hare Cycle, in Paul Radin, Winnebago Notebooks, Freeman #3897 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, n.d.) Winnebago V, #23: 137-139.

[3] Hartley Harrad Thompson Jackson, Mammals of Wisconsin (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1961) 407.

[4] "Why the Deer's Teeth are Blunt," in James Mooney, History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (Asheville, North Carolina: Bright Mountain Books, 1992 [1891/1900]) Story 27: 276-277.

[5] Katharine B. Judson, Myths and Legends of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes (Chicago: A. C. McClung, 1914), reprinted as Native American Legends of the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000) 123-124.

[6] Earnest Gouge, "Cow Wants a Knife," from Totkv Mocvse: New Fire, The Creek Folktales of Earnest Gouge, translated by Margaret McKane Mauldin and Juanita McGirt, edited by Jack B. Martin and Margaret McKane Mauldin (August, 2002), Story 22. Original texts taken from Earnest Gouge, Creek texts, with English titles and occasional English translations by John R. Swanton (Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution, National Anthropological Archives, 1906-1930) Manuscript 4930.