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��INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS

��VOL. I

��MYTHS OF THE ALSEA INDIANS OF NORTHWESTERN OREGON > By LEO J. FRACHTENBERG

INTRODUCTORY

��THE following four texts form part of a fair collection of Alsea traditions obtained by Dr. Livingston Farrand in 1900, and by myself in 1910 and 1913. The greater part of this collection is in process of publication as a Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnol- ogy. For several reasons it was deemed ad- visable to omit these four texts from the above-mentioned publication. It therefore became necessary to publish them separately.

The Alsea Indians, who, with the Yaqwina tribe, form the Yakonan linguistic family, occupied in former days a small strip of the northwestern coast of the State of Oregon. They are a small band practically on the very verge of extinction. At present they live on the Siletz Reservation, and at the time of my last visit (in 1913) they numbered only five individuals. The Yaqwina subdivision is totally extinct, the last member of this sub- tribe having died some three years ago.

Culturally the Alsea Indians are closely related to the several smaller coastal stocks that inhabit the northern part of California and the whole of the State of Oregon. Lin- guistically they show a close affiliation with the Kusan, Siuslauan, and Kalapuyan stocks. Their mythology is typical of this region, which embraces northern California, Oregon, and part of Washington, and shows many points of contact with the folk-lore of the Maidu, Yana, Shasta, Takelma, Molala, Kalapuya, Tillamook, and Chinook Indians. The main aspects of this mythology, and its relation to the folk-lore of the neighboring tribes, have been discussed in a separate

1 Published with the permission of the Smithsonian Institution.

��paper, which appeared in the "American Anthropologist," N. s., 3 1240-247.

ALPHABET

��a.

e.

i.

. u.

a.

1 . i.

s.

a.

a", ",

��B.

a i

II

of. Hi.

au au

ou Hi

af aV uf q. ql.

x. k. kl

��k-!

��. like a in shall.

. like e in helmet.

. like f in it.

. like o in sort.

. like in German Furcht.

. like a in car.

. like a in table, but with a strong i-tinge.

. like ee in teem.

. like o in rose, but with a strong w-tinge.

. like oo in too. f,o n ,u", short vowels of continental values,

slightly nasalized.

i", d*,u", long vowels of continental values, slightly nasalized.

. obscure vowel.
 * . . resonance and epenthetic vowels.

. like f in island.

. same as preceding, but with second ele- ment long; interchanges with i.

. like on in mouth.

. same as preceding, but with second ele- ment long; interchanges with u.

. diphthong ou.

. diphthong ui.

. diphthong ai slightly nasalized.

. diphthong at slightly nasalized.

. diphthong ui slightly nasalized.

. velar k.

. same as preceding, with great stress of explosion.

. like ch in German Bach.

. like c in come, but unaspirated.

. same as preceding, with great stress of explosion.

. palatal g, like g in give.

. palatal k, like c in cubic.

. same as preceding, with great stress of explosion.

. like ch in German ich.

. aspirated, like c in come.

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