Flying Head - Legend Origins

Legend Origins

There was once a very severe winter, that killed off plants and drove the moose and deer to other areas. Local native hunters decided against following them. The fishing too failed, and, according to legend, the famine became so severe that whole families began to die. Young members of the community began to talk of migrating from the area, surrounded as they were by hostile tribes, merely to shift their hunting ground for a season was not possible. They proposed a secret march to the great lake off to the west. They believed that once safely beyond the lake it would be easy enough to find a new home.

According to legend, the old men of the tribe were opposed to leaving their homelands and said that the journey was madness. They said too that the famine was a scourge which the Master of Life inflicted upon his people for their crimes; that if the punishment were endured, it would pass; if ran from, the results would follow them forever. The legend also states that the old men added that they would rather perish by inches on their native hills, that they would rather die that moment, than leave their land forever, to live with plenty upon strange lands. The legend goes on to say that the young men were enraged and promptly killed the old men.

After killing the elders, the question of the disposal of their remains was a problem. According to the legend, they wished in some way to sanctify the deed by offering up the bodies to the Master of Life. They agreed to decapitate the bodies, burn them, and to sink the heads together to the bottom of the lake. One of the young chiefs who planned the crime died when he became entangled in the ropes that bound the heads together and drowned.

The legend goes on to say that bubbles and slime appeared on the lake, heralding a terrible monster: a giant head with wings, which the tribe could apparently never escape.