I'm looking for a short story from the 60s, pretty sure a female writer:
A missionary on a planet wants to stop a coming of age ritual where roly-poly energetic teenage aliens are hung from trees while a dry creek floods. After hanging all nite the teens become long, thin, low energy adults.
The missionary persuades one kid to hide out and not be hung up.
As the creek floods, the kid not hung up runs into the creek, grabs his ankles and transforms into a gnarled tree - just like the ones the other kids are hanging from.
That was the fate that the ritual avoided; just that nobody could remember the purpose of the ritual.
A missionary on a planet wants to stop a coming of age ritual where roly-poly energetic teenage aliens are hung from trees while a dry creek floods. After hanging all nite the teens become long, thin, low energy adults.
The missionary persuades one kid to hide out and not be hung up.
As the creek floods, the kid not hung up runs into the creek, grabs his ankles and transforms into a gnarled tree - just like the ones the other kids are hanging from.
That was the fate that the ritual avoided; just that nobody could remember the purpose of the ritual.