(funky music)
-: Hello, my name is Fern Naomi Renville.
I'm an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate,
and eastern Dakota band, I'm originally from South Dakota
but now I live in Seattle.
I'm going to share a scary story from the Dakota tradition.
This story is called "Iya, The Camp Eater".
A long time ago, a long time ago on the prairie,
a group of children were playing in the tall grass
when they heard a baby crying.
(imitating crying)
The children looked around, they looked everywhere
through the tall grass until they found a little baby
abandoned in the grass, a beautiful child
with quite a set of lungs,
crying it's heart out in the grass.
What is this little baby doing here all alone?
We better take this baby back to our village.
And so that is what the kids did.
They took that little baby back to their village.
They took that little baby to the Headman.
Now the Headman happened to have a daughter
who really wanted a child but could not have babies,
and so the Headman, when he was handed this little baby,
and heard the story of how it was found with no one around,
all alone, we can't leave this baby
out there in the prairie,
we must take this child and adopt this child
and raise him ourself.
I will adopt this child for my daughter,
as my first grandson, I will call him Chaske,
which means first born son.
And today we will celebrate, we will hold a feast
and a dance to celebrate this child being adopted
into our village.
And that is what happened.
Well, his daughter was thrilled.
She took that little baby into her arms,
you know how babies are.
They're got those little rolls of fat,
that incredible way they smell, mmm.
She held that little baby in her arms, oh he was beautiful.
She was so happy at the idea that a son had come to her.
Though he was very hungry, so that all day long,
while the village prepared the feast and then ate the feast
and then danced and enjoyed themselves,
the new mother was taking care of this baby and feeding him
and feeding him, this was a very hungry baby.
This babies big mouth was wide open
and it just cried and cried and cried.
(imitating crying)
And she fed the baby and fed the baby
all these different things they could think of
to feed the baby.
He was still hungry.
But finally, finally that night,
after the village had finished celebrating,
after the village had quieted down
and people had drifted off to bed,
and the village fell into quiet,
finally that little baby fell asleep.
Finally that hungry little baby, Chaske, the first born son,
was asleep in her arms, and she rocked him,
and she drew his head close to her ear and she rocked him,
and as she was rocking him she heard a little voice.
Help me, help me.
She looked around.
Where was that voice coming from?
She started rocking the baby again.
Help me, help me!
Help us!
(gasping)
Where are those voices coming from?
She put down the baby very carefully.
The young mother went out of her tepee.
She circled the tepee but there was nobody.
She went back in.
It was just her parents there, they were both sleeping.
Where did those voices come from?
Once again she picked up her baby,
once again she rocked him,
and this time she pulled him close,
cause she was feeling scared, she pulled that baby close,
his mouth was right by her ear,
and she heard the sounds coming out of his mouth.
Help us!
Help, help!
(gasps)
She put that baby down as quietly and carefully as she could
and she stepped away and she went over
to where her parents were and she shook her father.
(whispering) She shook her father
and when he woke up, father,
something is wrong with the baby!
She whispered.
Well, the father, her headman, he knew.
He knew what was going on.
And as quietly as they could,
he instructed the whole village
to pack up, right then and there in the middle of the night
and leave, and get as far away as they could
while the baby slept.
For that is no baby, said her father.
That is Iya, the Camp Eater, who comes in disguise
as the thing you most want.
Iya can eat all of us up in one sitting,
but Iya can only do this at night.
Iya is a shape shifter, and can become his own form
and can eat us at night.
We must get as far away as we can.
And that is what they did.
The whole village packed up, they packed up and moved
as quietly as could be,
so quietly the baby did not awake.
So that the morning, so the next morning
when that baby woke up, the little baby was expecting
that the village would still be there
and he would have his chance to eat them, but no,
they were all gone, everyone had left
and the baby was abandoned.
This baby transformed into Iya.
Now they say that Iya was very tall,
Iya had these boney, stick-like legs,
and Iya has a huge red mouth that's always open
and always hungry, and then kind of a naked, bulbous body
with no fur or feathers, and a huge belly
from eating villages.
Well, Iya's very dangerous at night, as I said.
Iya can eat a whole village at night.
But in the daytime, Iya has no shape shifting abilities.
Iya should've just stayed right there
and waited for dark.
He could've caught up with that village
and eaten them, but that's not what happened.
Iya was impatient and angry,
and his fury overpowered his better judgment.
He started after them, he went after the village.
He went after them and when they saw him
the headman said ah, he can't hurt us now,
he's terrifying to look at, I know,
but gather sticks, gather knives, and stab his belly,
he can't hurt us right now.
And that's true.
And when they took their knives and their sticks
and they stabbed his belly, his belly split open
and all of these people came out.
Thousands and thousands of people
from villages far and wide,
speaking different languages.
Everyone was very happy to be free from Iya.
Now that's the end of Iya.
Iya died that day, we don't have to worry about Iya.
There's some other monsters still around, but not Iya.
That is the story of Iya and the Camp Eater,
and thank you for letting me share it.
(funky music)