Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/509

 THE JOURNAL OF

AMERICAN FOLK-LORE.

Vol. XIII.— JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1900. — No. L.

��CHEYENNE TALES. 1

��The following tales were collected at the Cheyenne Agency in Oklahoma in 1899, on a journey undertaken for the American Museum of Natural History, the means for which were provided by the generosity of Mrs. Morris K. Jesup. They were all secured in English. Some were recorded from dictation, and others written out by the Indians. The versions thus obtained have been altered as little as possible even though uncouthness of style resulted at times. This roughness may seem unnecessary, especially as the tales were not even told in the narrator's native tongue. But the less of the original character remains, the greater the need for its preservation. It is always possible to clothe the nudity of a primitive tale in the drapery of modern paraphrase, should our conventionality see fit to demand it ; but it is impossible ever to reconstruct the original frame, the living body, if at its first presentation we have only its encasings and swathings.

1.

When first created, the people gathered to see if they were to live or to die. If a stone floated in water, they were to live ; if it sank, they were to die ; but to a buffalo chip opposite conditions were attached. The stone was thrown in. For a moment it remained at the surface, and all the people rejoiced, thinking to live forever ; then it sank. So the chip was thrown in, and for a moment it sank out of sight, and again they rejoiced ; but then it rose and drifted away. The short time that the stone floated and the chip sank represents the shortness of man's life before lasting death. 2

11.

The buffalo formerly ate men. 3 The magpie and the hawk were

1 Published by permission of the Trustees of The American Museum of Natu- ral History.

2 Found also among the Arapaho. Cf. G. B. Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales, pp. 138, 272. See, also, W. Matthews, A T avaho Legends, p. 77.

8 Cf. Grinnell, op. cit. p. 140.

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