Baskets of Meat

Once upon a time, there was a man who loved baskets and had many in his shelter. One held his hunting tools and another held his small store of dried meat. Another held a stack of sleeping furs. One small basket held the animal bladders he used to store water. Quite a few were empty. He had enough baskets to last the rest of his life. But he still felt he did not have enough. In his village, baskets were often traded for food, clothing and other needed items. If he had just a few more baskets, he’d feel more secure.

The man was unable to weave his own baskets, but he was a very skilled hunter. One day, he went out hunting and after he’d killed an animal for his dinner, he did not stop there as he normally would. Instead, he killed a second animal, and then he traded the extra meat to a woman who made very good baskets. She gave him two new ones in return.

“What are you going to do with these new baskets?” she asked him.

“Nothing. I will keep them in my shelter just in case,” he said.

He still had plenty of fresh meat even after trading some of it for new baskets, so he cut it into strips and dried it over a smoky fire to preserve it. When the meat had dried, he neatly stacked the dried strips into one of his new baskets. He would not need to hunt again for several days. However, the hunting had been unusually good lately, so he decided not to lose the opportunity. He knapped some stones into extra spear heads and went hunting. Again he was successful, bringing back even more meat than he had the day before.

He ate his fill of the fresh meat, smoked a little of it, and traded away the rest for new baskets. This time he was able to get the last three baskets the woman had made.

“I am now all out of baskets, but my family will eat well for the next few days,” the woman said. “I will work hard to make more baskets to replace the ones I traded away.” And the man saw her go out and cut the slender reeds she used to make her baskets.

The next day, the man checked his stores. He was very pleased to see he had so much meat stored away, and it gave him great pleasure to stretch out under his sleeping furs and look at the many empty baskets he now had. They’d be even more pleasing to look at if he were able to fill them with more dried meat, he thought.

So he got up early the next day and knapped more stones into spear heads and went hunting. He had wonderful luck and brought back even more meat than before. As had become his custom, he ate as much as he wanted of the fresh meat, dried enough extra meat for a couple more meals and traded the rest for more baskets.

Things went on like this for some days. He was such a good hunter that soon his shelter barely had room to store his baskets of meat. He stacked and re-stacked his belongings, trying to make enough room for his sleeping area. But he felt crowded.

The next day, he took a day off from hunting and used the time to enlarge his shelter.

“You are looking for a wife?” one of the village men asked. “I have a fine daughter — strong, beautiful and a very good cook.”

“Is she good at making baskets?”

“She sometimes makes baskets,” the other man said. “But look at my clothing. All this, she made.”

“Thank you, but I’m not looking for a wife,” the man said. Then he went back to enlarging his shelter. It had enough room for twice the baskets, and after eating some of his dried meat, he slept well that night.

But the next day, he went back to hunting. He had noticed the hunting was getting harder. There seemed to be fewer animals around. He had to leave early and return late. But by hunting all day, he could usually bring back enough fresh meat to eat some and dry some, with enough left to trade for baskets. He now had a shelter full of baskets. Some held his belongings and dried meat, but others were completely empty. He had tiny ones made of dried grass, larger ones made of bent willow branches and others made of reeds, and it gave him great pleasure to stack and re-stack them.

Soon, the people of the village began to talk of looking for a better place.

“It becomes harder to find food here,” one said.

“We should follow the water to a new place where there may be more animals,” another said. “I fear my children will go hungry if we stay here.”

After a few days, the villagers packed up their belongings and prepared to find another place to live. Everyone carried a heavy pack on his or her back. The man realized very quickly he was going to have a problem; he had more baskets, dried meat and other belongings than he could possibly carry. He finally solved the problem by offering a boy some dried meat to help him carry his belongings. The boy’s parents were glad of the extra meat, and they agreed to each carry a bit more of their own belongings so the boy would be free to help carry the man’s things.

After walking for a few days, they settled upon a pleasant little valley near a stream with a wooded area where they believed the hunting would be better. To his joy, the man was able to gather and dry more meat than ever, with plenty left over to trade for extra baskets. All the women of his tribe spent their spare time weaving baskets, and he gladly traded fresh and dried meat for as many as they could make. His shelter was full of baskets, so full that once again he needed to enlarge it.

“Your shelter is the largest I have ever seen,” another man said to him. “It is larger than even the shelters of those who have many children, but you live alone. You have more baskets than you will ever be able to fill, and you have more dried meat than you need to eat. The land gives us all we need, but if you keep killing many animals every day, soon we will all need to move again.”

“I am not a lazy man,” the man said. “I will continue to hunt for meat and to trade for baskets. A man can never have too many baskets or too much meat.”

The other man looked at him darkly, and the man knew he was going to need to do something. He became afraid that someone might sneak into his shelter to take his baskets when he was gone. So he made an arrangement with the boy who had helped him carry his things during the move.


“I work hard and have many baskets,” the man said. “There are those who are too lazy to get their own baskets. Help watch over my belongings and sharpen my tools and do the other tasks I give you, and I will give you dried meat every day,” the man said.

The boy was happy to do this, for he sometimes went to sleep hungry. Now, the man gave him dried meat every night, but it was never quite enough. The boy often wondered whether he should instead go out hunting with his father. When his father brought back lots of meat, they all ate their fill, and every evening they were able to sit around the fire laughing and talking and telling stories. The man did not join the others around the fire. He used his time to make tools, dry meat and trade for baskets. The boy was kept busy doing the man’s bidding all day and late into the night. But he had meat every night, whereas when he had hunted with his father, there were some nights he went to sleep hungry. So the boy kept working for the man.

The day came when the hunting was poor, so poor that even the man sometimes had trouble bringing back fresh meat.

“We must move to another area where the hunting may be better,” the villagers agreed. The man knew his immense collection of baskets and his large store of dried meat was too great to be carried by the boy and himself, so he talked to the boy’s younger brother and with great difficulty, the three of them managed to transport all the man’s belongings to their new home. It was located much farther down the stream, far from the places they’d lived before.

But once again, the hunting was good, and for many months, the man was able to kill two or three animals each day. Sometimes, the younger boy he had taken on went with him hunting. And there was a young woman who was the best basket weaver in the village. He traded extra meat with her for baskets so often that he finally realized he could save meat and get more baskets by simply marrying her. So that was what he did. He enlarged his shelter yet again, and instructed his new wife to redouble her effort in making baskets.

His basket collection grew faster than ever. His wife made the loveliest baskets he’d ever seen, and he continued to trade extra meat to other basket weavers.

However, he now had the two boys to provide with dried meat, in addition to his wife, and he wasn’t able to save as much extra meat as before. But now that his wife sat outside his shelter making baskets all day, he decided it would be safe to take both the boys, who were growing older every day, out hunting with him. Although the animals were becoming less all the time, once all three of them began hunting together all day every day, they had more meat than ever before.

But the other men of the village came to see him one day.

“You have the largest shelter we have ever seen,” one of the other men said. “You have more baskets than one man could use in many lifetimes. You have so much dried meat that it will spoil before you can manage to eat it. We have others who are hungry, and still others who are in need of baskets. We do not wish to move our village again, yet already the animals here are becoming scarce. We know if you keep hunting as much as you have been, we will all have to move.”

“You are jealous of my baskets, my shelter and my meat,” the man said.

“You are turning the abundant game of the forest into useless baskets,” the other man said. “How is it good to kill animals one does not need to turn them into baskets one does not need?”

“You spend hours sitting around the fire, telling useless stories. There are times when you must go to sleep hungry because you have not stored up meat. I do not go hungry because I work hard.”

The other men left, but the next day he saw that the others were packing up all their items.

“What is happening now?” the man asked one of the boys who worked for him.

“The others have decided to move to another area now,” the boy said. “They say they will not wait for the hunting to become worse here. They will move further down the river and find an area with more game.”

“I can’t move,” the man said. “My shelter is very large, and I have more baskets and meat than my wife, you boys and I can carry.”

“It is decided that you can stay here in your large shelter with your many baskets,” the boy said. “My brother and I will go with our family.”

“There is more to life than baskets of meat,” his wife said. “Can a basket hold love, or friends, or happiness?”

“Hush, wife,” the man said. “As long as I have baskets of meat, I do not need love or friends or happiness.”

The man was angry, but the next day he went hunting alone. It took him all day to kill two animals, but when he got home, he found the rest of the village was gone. The two boys had gone with their family. His wife was not there, either.

He ate his fill of the fresh meat and cut the rest into strips and dried them over a smoky fire. Then he settled into his furs and looked with satisfaction at all his lovely baskets, many full of meat, before going to sleep. He had all he needed.

Many months later, the man’s wife and the two boys decided to visit the man. “He is not a bad man,” she said. “Perhaps by now, he will see that baskets of meat matter less than he thought.”

But after several days of travel, when they reached the place where their old village had been, they did not find him. His shelter had collapsed, and it looked as if wild animals had eaten all the dried meat and destroyed most of the baskets. Those baskets that had not been torn apart by animals had been exposed to rain. None of them were worth keeping. The boys found a few tools in the wreckage and put them in their traveling packs. But that was all that was left. They searched carefully, but there was no sign of the man at all.

“He would not have abandoned his baskets of meat,” the woman said. “He may have been injured while hunting and there was no one to bind up his wounds. Or he may have had a fever, and there was no one to bring him food and water.”

“No man can live alone for long,” the older boy said. “Even if he has many baskets of meat.”

The woman and the two boys turned around and began the journey back to their village.

“We will tell this story to the others,” the woman said. “Then everyone will remember there is more to life than baskets of meat. No basket can hold love, or friends, or happiness.”

“We will add it to the stories we tell around the fire,” the younger boy agreed. “It is good to remember you need your people as much as you need baskets of meat.”

The woman and the two boys told the story of The Man Who Had Many Baskets of Meat until they were old. Then their children told the story, and then their children’s children told the story. But eventually, it fell out of favor. Many doubted it was true. The story made no sense. People did not live that way.

Who would try to live alone in a large shelter filled with things they did not need?