The Legend of the Spiderwart

by David Williams

Purple Sage Elem. Round Rock, ISD, fourth grade

Many moons ago there was a Comanche warrior who had a spider, a very dangerous spider Then during one war, the warrior was shot by a white man's bullet. The villagers took his possessions to the Shaman. (the Comanche rule was to do this.) The Shaman kept the spider.

The next sun awakening the Shaman noticed the spider had a wart on it. He decided to just forget about it, and join the villagers who were rushing about looking for medicine and food, for it was turning to winter.

When the Shaman got back the spider was gone. It was nearing a deep freeze so the villagers looked day and night. One night the deep freeze came so they did not search.

Many people were dying and they could not save them.

The next sunrise they continued to look for the spider. But the spider, overnight, had looked for a nice place to sleep. His wart was frozen so that when he crawled into a nook the wart popped off and landed on the ground.

Finally they found the spider, but during the night the ground had swallowed up the wart and right where that had happened there was a new medicinal plant that they named the Spiderwart. It cured all the dying people.