Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/642

 294 Journal of American Folk-Lore.

one on top of the other. They are eaten instead of cake at supper, or are often served as lunch between meals or at picnics. As the very thin, round piece of dough cooks, the surface puffs up into little blisters. When we were children, we liked to watch the preparation of these wafers and to see the blisters puffing up over the surface of the dough. We used to call them toad-cakes, on account of this warty appearance."

��NOTES AND QUERIES.

Dakota Legend of the Head of Gold. — In a posthumous work, " Dakota Grammar, Texts, and Ethnography " (" Contributions to North American Ethnology," vol. ix.), J. Owen Dorsey has presented this legend, an Indian myth written in the Dakota language by Walking Elk, a Yank- ton Dakota. Mr. Dorsey's translation is as follows (pp. 105-109) : —

A man had four children. And they were all young men, but they were poor and seemed as if they would die of thriftlessness. And the old man said, " Behold, old woman, my youngest child I have the greatest pity for, and I dislike to have him die of poverty. See here ; let us seek the Great Spirit, and if we find him, lo, I will give him to train up well for me."

The old woman replied, " Yes, old man, you say well, we will do so." And so immediately they went to the westward, seeking the Great Spirit, and they came on to a very high hill ; and as they came to it, behold, another man came there also.

And this man said, " For what are you seeking ? " And the old man said, " Alas, my friend, my child whom I pity I want to give to the Great Spirit, and so I am seeking him." And he said, "Yes, friend, I am the Great Spirit. My friend, give him to me, and I will go home with him." (That is, " I will take him to my home.")

And so when he (the father) had given him, he (the Great Spirit) took him home with him to a house that seemed to stand up to the clouds. Then he said, " Examine all this house as much as you like, and take good care of these horses, but do not look into the little house that stands here." Having said this, he gave him all the keys, and he added, " Yes, have a watch of this. Lo, I am going on a journey." He said this, and went away.

It was evening, and he had come with a great many men, who sat down, filling the house. When they had been there a good while,, one of the men said : " The boy is good ; that is enough." And saying this, he went out. In like manner all the men went home.

Then again, the man said : " Behold, I go again on a journey. Do you stay and keep watch." So again he departed.

While he was watching, it happened that one of the horses said, " Friend, go into the small house into which you are commanded not to look, and within, in the middle of the floor, stands something yellow, dip your head into that, and make haste — we two are together. When he brings home a great many men, they will eat you, as they will eat me, but I am unwill- ing — we two shall share the same," he said.

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