Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, Wolf lived with her cousins and relations here on the great prairie. She lived in her den on the hillside, sang her songs in the moonlight, and she and her children hunted the weak and old, and brought the gift of death to them in their time. And although Wolf hunted the people of the land, they also turned to Wolf for protection, for she was part of the great balance of the land.
A time came when a new creature came to the prairie from the forest, the pigs. These creatures were not simply eaters of growing things, nor were they but eaters of carrion, nor only flesh they killed themselves. These creatures of the forest would eat any kind of food, and they ravished the countryside far and wide. Everyone noticed their arrival in the land, and feared that there would be famine. For when there was a kill, the pigs chased away all the carrion eaters. And when they ate the growing things, they ate all of the plant, and tore out the root, and plants would leave that earth and not grow back. And when they ate mushrooms, they tore up the soil, and it dried, and died forever. And when they killed they killed the very young, dug out of nests and dens and they killed for a perverse joy in killing, and left smashed eggs and torn babies behind them.
The first pigs who came, told everyone in loud voices that they had come to stay. They built their den, a "house" they called it, and they built it out of bundles of tough prairie grasses, tearing up great scars in the land to do so. They slept in their house of straw, and they foraged, and killed, and stole food which they ate, or wasted, or locked up in their house.
And all the animals and plants of the grassland were afraid for the balance of the land. And they cried out, "Who shall remove this menace from the Land?" And Wolf said, "I shall. I shall destroy their houses of straw, and I shall eat them whole.?
Wolf wept down like the wind on the little cluster of pig houses made of straw. Her song was like the howling of storms, and the roar of spirits. She raced so swiftly through the houses that her great body tore out sections of the walls, and the pigs squealed in fear.
Wolf chased the pigs back into the forest, and there she caught them, and devoured them, and left their bones as a warning to their people.
But more pigs came to the prairie. This time they brought with them the bones of the trees of their forest and built stronger houses. They built a new village of houses made of sticks on the wide prairie and they again began to ravage the countryside. They dug great furrows with their noses, searching after mushrooms; they fought over carrion with the birds and four-legged carrion eaters, and they found the nests of the birds, and the nests of the rabbits and the moles, and dug them out, and ate the young alive.
Again the people cried out, and again Wolf roared in to the pigs' village and destroyed their houses of sticks. And when the pigs ran out, the Wolf was ready, and tore open the pigs as the pigs had torn open the prairie grasses. And Wolf left their bodies in the village, and the carrion eaters ate the pigs at their very own doorsteps, and the ants ate the bones and the people of the land never when to that spot.
But still, more pigs came to the prairie from the forest. And this time they tore out great holes in the earth, and carried up the very bones of the earth, and with the stones they tore out of the earth they built a many, many houses of stone and they called it a Town. And when their ravaging of the grasslands began again, this time Wolf could not tear down the houses, for the bones of the Mother were still too strong, even in this unnatural manner of using her.
And so the Wolf spoke with her cousin, Coyote. The Coyote said, "what you cannot do with your might, you shall do with cunning. See how the pigs have a smoke hole for their fire? You shall enter their houses through that smoke hole, and kill them in their beds."
So Wolf climbed into the smoke hole early one morning, at the best time for wolves, and the worse for pigs. But the pigs had put a cooking basket under the smoke hole. And when Wolf fell down the hole, the pigs clapped the lid on the cook bowl and Wolf was boiled alive, in great agony and pain. More in pain that she had failed to protect her people, than in pain at the mortal heat.
When the people of the prairie saw that the pigs had killed their protector, they rose up against the pigs. And the next time they saw them out in the plain, rooting up the soils with their great noses, and breaking in to birds nests, they could not kill them, but they chased them beyond the forest, all the way to the land of the Women.
The Women caught the pigs, and kept them in a house of stone. And the pigs came to think that this grand house of stone was their own house of stone. And the Women fed the pigs carrion, and the odd ends of plants that the Women did not want to eat. The pigs thought this food was their food. And in the dark days of winter, when show covered the ground, and most of the people of the prairie were asleep, except for the Women and Wolves, the Women killed their pigs, and ate their flesh, and used their skins for pots, and their bones for tools.
And the pigs' blood they poured out on the snow, in memory of their friend Wolf, who died, and in her death, brought the people together against their enemy, and brought their enemy into slavery.