Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/634

 286 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

present Lytton chief would go out after a battle and purchase the prisoners taken captive in the fight, who were held as slaves by the captors, and set them free and send them back to their own people again." Their customs reveal the fact that "their whole lives were much simpler and more natural than those of their congeners elsewhere," — particularly is this true of their marriage customs. Birth and death customs have been " much modified by missionary influence. A very interesting fact is that when roots are to be baked, "women only must do it." Interesting also is the fact that the youths of the present day are very different from those of the past, the old-time " tests " having been given up. The section of Mr. Hill-Tout's paper which deals with folk-lore, contains : The Story of the Elk-Maiden (pp. 534-540) ; The Forgotten Wife Story (pp. 540-551) ; The Story of the Adventures of the Coyote and his Son (pp. 551-561); The Fire Myth (pp. 561-563); Painted Blanket Myth (pp. 563, 564) ; Husband Root Myth (pp. 564-566) ; Oftcut Story (she burns herself) (pp. 566-574) ; Beaver Story (pp. 574, 575) ; Story of Coyote, Magpie, Diver, and Black Bear (pp. 575-579) ; Story of Hanni's Wife and the Revenge of her Son (pp. 579-581). There are also added some "General Remarks" (pp. 582, 583), and a note on the " Marriage Customs of the Yale Tribe " (pp. 583, 584). These myths are largely " observation " myths. Says the author, estimat- ing highly the imaginative character of these Indians as seen in such stories (p. 582) : " There is not a single peculiar feature of the landscape which has not its own story attached to it. There is no conspicuous object of any kind within their borders but has some myth connected with it. The boulders on the hillside, the benches of the rivers, the falls, the canons and the turns of the Frazer, the mud slides, the bare precipitous cliffs, the sand-bars, the bubbling spring and the running brook, the very utensils they use, all have a history of their own in the lore of this tribe. Every single pecul- iarity in bird, or beast, or fish is fully, and, to them, satisfactorily accounted for in their stories. The flat head of the river cod, the topknot of the blue jay, the bent claws and dingy brown color of the coyote, the flippers of the seal, the red head of the woodpecker, and a host of other characteristics, all have their explanation in story." As a reflex of the former life of the people these tales are exceed- ingly valuable for the sociological data they contain. In conjunction with them ought to be read the tales recorded in Dr. Boas' " India- nische Sagen," published in 1895.

Siouan. Catawba. Dr. A. S. Gatschet's valuable " Grammatic Sketch of the Catawba Language " in the July-September number of the "American Anthropologist" (N. S. vol. ii. 1900, pp. 527-549) will interest the folk-lorist by reason of the etymologies cf compound

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