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When he reached the people's camp, he said, "I have brought you some good meat;" and he gave the beaver to his mother-in-law. He had defecated inside the beaver. The old woman threw it away, saying, "We do not eat your dirt." Wolverene said, "How nice the moose-fat smells!" The people said, "We will feed you fat; sit down and close your eyes." He was not particular now about concealing his privates, but sat down before the fire and lifted up his apron (or shirt?), exposing himself to view. When he shut his eyes, the people poured hot grease on his privates. He began to scratch at the burnt place; and while he was doing this, they clubbed and killed him. They then went out and met the wife who had the children and was pregnant, killed her, and cut open her belly. They also killed all the children excepting the youngest, who managed to escape and climbed a tree. Here he became a wolverene, and said, "Henceforth I shall break into people's caches, and steal out of their marten-traps."

23. WOLVERENE AND HIS WIVES.1

Wolverene married the eldest of many sisters, and took her to his house. He hunted all the time, and always had plenty of meat and fat. He had a hole in the ground under his house, into which he put his wife. He kept her there, and fed her just fat meat and fat. He never gave her any water to drink. When she was very fat, he killed her and ate her (or cached her meat). He then went crying to his mother-in-law's house, saying that his wife was dead. He cried so much, that they took pity on him, and he got the next oldest sister for a wife. He did the same with her. Thus he married and killed all the sisters excepting the youngest two.

At last the youngest sister of age was given to him. She thought something was wrong, and was on her guard. He treated her the same way. When she had been some time in the hole, she asked him why he had never slept with her; and he answered, "I don't want to spoil my food." She then told him to give her something to kill mice with, for they were annoying her terribly. He gave her a long, sharp piece of antler. While he was absent hunting, she dug a tunnel with the tool, until she got out to the bank of the creek. She was too fat to walk, so she rolled to the creek and drank. She then rolled onto a log, and floated downstream to the place where her mother drew water. Her sister, a little girl, came for water, and saw her. She went back and told her mother, who said, "Don't say that you saw your sister! She is dead." However, she went and brought her daughter up to the camp. She fed her nothing but water, so that she might get thin.

Wolverene thought she had died, and shortly afterwards appeared, 1 See Eskimo (Boas, RBAE 6:633; Rink, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, 106; Holm, Meddelelser om Grönland 39: 235), Shuswap (Teit, JE 2: 702).

crying, and saying that his wife had died. The woman's mother hid her. Wolverene smelled her, and sniffed, saying, "Ah! What do I smell? It smells like an old cache." Then he thought his wife might have escaped somehow, and went back to see if she was still in the hole or cache. He was wont to leave his victims in the hole for a time after they were dead. His brothers-in-law followed close behind him. When he went into the hole to see if his wife was there, they hid close to the edge. When he stuck his head up to come out, they hit him and killed him.

24. WOLVERENE AND WOLF.

Wolverene and Wolf were brothers-in-law and lived together. Wolf had no wife, while Wolverene had a large family. They hunted in company, Wolf traversing the high mountains, and Wolverene following the timber-line below him. Game was very scarce. By and by the deep snow prohibited their hunting on the high grounds, and they had to hunt lower down in the woods, where game was still less abundant. One day they came on a cache of dried meat made by some people (Indians) in a bad precipitous place near a waterfall, and beyond their reach. Wolverene was very anxious to get at the cache, and thought by jumping against it he might knock it down. Wolf would not attempt it, and declared that if Wolverene jumped, he would not reach the cache, and would simply fall down on the steep, smooth ice below, and perhaps kill himself. Wolf declared he was going home, and, just as he was leaving, Wolverene made the jump. He fell short of the cache, landed on the steep ice, and was precipitated to the bottom, breaking his arms and legs. Wolf lifted him up; but he could not get him out of there, nor set his broken limbs. Soon afterwards some people came along to get meat from the cache, and found Wolverene lying there with his arms and legs broken. They knew he had been trying to steal, so they clubbed and killed him. As he was dying, he said to the people, "No matter if you kill me, I shall steal from your caches just the same. There are many of us." This is why the wolverene is now such a thief, and breaks into people's caches and steals their meat. Wolf returned to camp, and reared Wolverene's family.

25. STORY OF THE BABY STOLEN BY WOLVERENE.

A man and his wife were travelling towards where the people lived. The woman was taken in travail, and, as was the custom of the people, she had to go in retirement during and for some time after her confinement. When they camped for the night, the husband made a camp for himself, and another for his wife some distance away.

One night a giant came to the woman's camp, threw a noose around her neck as she was sitting at the fire, choked her, and dragged her body away in the snow. The baby, which remained alone, began to cry. The husband called out to his wife, "Why does the baby cry so much?" Receiving no response, he went over to see. When he arrived, the baby was quiet, and he found Marten suckling the baby with his tongue. He asked him what he was doing; and he said, "I am suckling the baby with my tongue, for his mother is dead." The husband took his bow and arrows and followed the giant's track in the dark, and after a time came to where the giant had lighted a big fire and was about to eat. He saw him sucking the milk out of the woman's breasts, and then he put them on sticks before the fire to cook. The man crawled up close to the giant, and fired an arrow into his body. The giant immediately put his hand up to the place, and said, "My! A spark has burned me!" He said to the fire, "Why did you do that?" Again the man shot him, and he did the same. Then he said, "It is strange, I feel sleepy." He lay down, saying, "I will sleep a little while before eating the breasts." He was dying, and did not know it.

When the man returned, he found Marten caring for the baby, and suckling him, as before. The man gave his breasts to the baby, and milk came. After that, in the day-time Marten suckled the baby with his tongue, and at night the father gave him his breasts. At last they reached the people, and the man gave his baby to the women to rear. He hunted, and every five days returned to see his baby, and was glad to see that he was doing well.

One day, when he was away hunting, Wolverene came to the camp and told the people the father had sent him to get the baby and take it to him. The people thought this strange, but gave him the baby. After five days the father came back, and asked to see the baby. The people said, "Why, don't you know, Wolverene came here some days ago, saying that you had sent him for the baby, and we gave it to him." The man stated that he had not sent Wolverene, and at once started in pursuit of him. At Wolverene's first camp he found baby-moss, his son being still a baby; at the second camp, small snowshoes, showing that the baby was now a boy and walking; at the third camp he found larger snowshoes, and saw that the boy had been using small arrows; at the fourth camp the snowshoes and arrows were larger; and at the fifth camp the tracks showed that the boy was now a man. Next day he found where the boy and Wolverene had separated, and he followed the tracks of the former.

The Wolverene always counted the lad's arrows when he returned home at night. When the man came to his son, the latter thought him very strange, for he did not remember having seen people. His

father told him, "You are my son." He showed him his breasts, saying, "I suckled you. Wolverene stole you, and I have followed you a long way." The lad at last believed him. His father said, "Tell Wolverene, when you see him to-night, to follow the sun on the morrow, and camp where the sun goes down, and there you will join him tomorrow night. Also tell him that you shot an arrow up in a tree, and you are going back after it."

That night Wolverene counted the birds the lad had shot, and his arrows, and found one of the latter missing. Wolverene agreed to the boy's proposal. In the morning he travelled towards the setting son, while the lad returned. That night the lad did not come to camp, and next morning Wolverene started to look for him. He came to the lad up in the top of a tree, pretending to look for his arrow, and his father standing at the bottom. Wolverene asked the latter who he was, and what he was doing there; but when the man answered and talked with him, Wolverene told him to shut up or he would kill him. The father had already arranged with his son how they would act. Wolverene told the boy to come down out of the tree; but he answered, "Father, I can't descend, my moccasins are frozen to the tree." Wolverene said, "Very well, don't try to come down, you may fall. I will climb up and carry you down." When Wolverene got beside him, he turned around to get in position to carry him down, and the lad struck him on the head, knocking him off the tree. His father at the bottom of the tree then killed Wolverene, who was already stunned by the fall.

SPENCES BRIDGE, B.C.

SOME CHITIMACHA MYTHS AND BELIEFS.1

BY JOHN R. SWANTON.

WHEN Louisiana was settled by the French, the Chitimacha Indians were found living between the Mississippi River and Bayou Teche. There were several bands occupying different parts of this area, but the last to maintain a separate existence was that in the Indian Bend of Bayou Teche, where is now the village of Charenton. About a dozen families of mixed-bloods are still to be found there. One industry, the making of cane baskets, is kept up; and for this the tribe is justly famous, their work being vastly superior to that of any other Southern Indians. Unfortunately but four individuals have a speaking knowledge of the old tongue; and, still more unfortunately, only a very few texts may be obtained from these, the greater part of the features of the language being accessible only by a painful system of cross-questioning, which must be in large measure blind. During a recent visit to these Indians, and while securing additional linguistic information in this way, I obtained fragments of a few myths. These are of interest, owing to the very paucity of Chitimacha material, and also because most of them are different from the stories I have obtained from other Southern tribes. The European connection of some, if not all, of them, is apparent; but I shall not attempt any classification. The only other Chitimacha myths with which I am acquainted are those recorded by me and printed in Bulletin 43 of the publications of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and some fragments secured through Martin Duralde and published in the same place. My new fragments are as follows:

BUZZARD AND WOLF.

Buzzard once went to Wolf and persuaded him to kill a cow, so that both could have something to eat. Wolf did so, and he drank the animal's blood on the spot; but he does not like raw meat, so he left his share to soften. While he was gone, however, Buzzard, who eats flesh in any condition, devoured not only his own portion, but Wolf's as well; and when Wolf came back, there was nothing left.

MAN, BEAR, AND TIGER-CAT.2

An old Indian used to spend all of his time hunting, and there was a Bear that also spent all of his time rambling about in the woods. 1 Published by permission of the Smithsonian Institution.

2 It is claimed that the tiger-cat is bigger than the panther. See Bolte und Polívka, Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmärchen der Brüder Grimm, 2: 96.

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