Myths and Tales from the White Mountain Apache / Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. XXIV, Part II

Owl was a person. He lived by eating people, carrying off the small children in a large burden basket. He had a wife to whom he brought them, saying to her, “Boil them.” When they were cooked he ate them.

There were some people who were living in a large house made of white cactus. Owl poked a pole in after them. The people inside held on to the pole. Owl pulled on it and the people held to it. They let go suddenly and Owl fell over backwards. He took two children on his back and carried them away toward the camp. He put the basket down with the children in it and went some distance away to urinate. While he was gone, the children put a large stone in the basket and defiled it. Owl started away again with his load, but when he passed under the limb of a tree the children caught hold of it. They turned into downy feathers and were blown away by the wind. “Boys, downy feathers are being blown about over there,” he said. They had been persons, but now they were downy feathers. Owl brought his load to the house for his wife. She took a knife and tried to cut across the stone with it. “It is a stone,” she said. He took it to his son-in-law. “It is a stone with manure on it,” he said. “That is its gall,” he replied. Owl went back to his wife. (The story was interrupted at this point.)