1) Version in English

The Covetous Brother
(The Origin of Deer)

Two brothers lived in the same house, one rich, the other poor, with their respective wives and children.

One day when the rich brother was celebrating the First Haircut of one of his children with many guests, the poor brother appeared.

One of the guests notices him and asks:

"Isn't that your brother? Why don't you let him in?"

"That, that's a servant."

The poor brother heard what he said; filled with affliction on account the contempt that his brother held him in, he decided to leave him and he went off as was his wont in search of "chicash", the only food he sustained his family with.

He stopped in the upland to rest on a crag, lamenting his bad luck, when he heard the crag speak to him, consoling him and telling him to follow a path which would lead him to a large cave, and to call out there. He followed the directions of the crag and reached the cave, where he came across a venerable old man; this man gave him a rock telling him to go back home with it, and never to let go.

He walked fast, but a very dark night prevented him from continuing his journey: he sought shelter in a cave, to spend the night, carrying the rock on his back in his bundle. He couldn't get to sleep for hunger and sorrow; yet again he lamented and complained of his ill-fated destiny, and when he was half-asleep he heard this conversation between the crag, the puna (upland) and the plain.

The puna asked the crag why that man was crying.

"The poor man is crying because his rich brother despises him."

The plain asked in turn:

"What is that unhappy man complaining about?"

"About his rich brother who is starving him to death." the crag answered.

"Then I'll give him white maize mush."

"And I purple maize mush." says the cave.

"And I yellow maize mush." says the crag.

He wakes with a jump and three little cooking-pots there, the contents of which he devoured, trying to keep a little in each for his family. And he fell fast asleep.

In the morning he was ready to continue his journey, but an enormous weight prevented him from lifting his bundle; he opens it and to his surprise sees that the yellow maize mush has turned into gold, the white maize mush into silver and the purple into copper.

He buried part of this treasure and went off happily home, where he told his family what had happened to him.

Discovering that his brother had got rich in a short time, the rich brother accused him of being a thief.

To prove his innocence, he told him everything that had happened to him; but his brother's story only roused his covetousness, and that very night he set off for the cave where the venerable old man was, received the rock, and went to sleep. The crag gave him horns, the plain animal hairs, and the puna a tail, and when he awoke he was completely transformed.

He arrives home, his wife doesn't recognize him and sets the dogs on him. From that time on, changed into a stag he traverses elusively the mountain plains and punas.

translated by Robert Beér