Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/514

 1 66 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

waved them, they rubbed together, and made a noise. White-man spoke to them, telling them not to fight, for he was very hungry. Finally he climbed up. " My brothers must not fight." He held them apart, putting his hand between them ; the wind stopped, and he was fast. The coyote smelled the meat and came. White-man told him he need not come around. He called him names and ridi- culed his shape : he had a sharp nose, he was too slim. He told him to go about his own business ; he said that he himself had climbed up in order to be cooler in the shade. The coyote came close ; then he knew that White-man was fast. Then the man said to the coy- ote : " Brother, eat half, and I will eat half." While the coyote ate his meat, White-man reviled him, but he spoke kindly to the tree. The coyote looked at the fire, and there he saw a fine sausage, of fat and heart. He ate it. Then he covered it up again, and ran off, but as he was full he was soon tired and went to sleep. The wind rose, and the man was once more free. Very angry, he climbed down. He saw only the sausage. " It is good that he did not eat all," he said. He bit in the centre of it, and got his mouth full of ashes. This made him still angrier. He followed the coyote's tracks, and found him. " If I hit him with a club, I might spoil his flesh by bruising it," he thought. So he made a tent of weeds around and over the coyote, intending to burn him alive. He lit the brush. When the fire became high, the coyote jumped out. Again he followed his tracks and found him. Three times this same thing happened. The fourth time he determined that he would catch the coyote by the hind legs. He seized him thus, and tried to scare the coyote to death by shouting. He nearly succeeded. But the coyote defecated over his clothes, into his mouth, and into his eyes. White-man could see the coyote no longer, let him go, and the coyote ran off. But White-man vomited to death. 1

IXb.

A man was travelling up along a river, carrying a bag. He met some ducks, who asked him what he had in the sack. He said, songs. Then they begged him to sing for them. At first he de- clared that he had no time to stop, but at last he consented, and the ducks all gathered about him. He pretended to be lame and leaned on a stick. Then he sang, and the ducks danced, and he told them

1 Arapaho. Cf. S. R. Riggs, " Dakota Grammar, Texts, and Ethnography," Contributions to North American Ethnology, ix. p. no ; S. T. Rand, Legends of the Micmac, p. 263 ; C. G. Leland, Algonquin Legends of New England, p. 186 ; W. J. Hoffman, "The Menomoni Indians," Fourteenth Annual Rep. Bur. Ethnol. pp. 163, 263; Schoolcraft, Hiawatha, pp. 30, 34 ; L.M.Turner, " Ethnology of the Ungava District," Eleventh Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnol. p. 327; J. O. Dorsey, op. cit. pp. 67, 579.

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