Page:Kutenai Tales.djvu/304

Rh the monster hides in a cave under water. Flicker takes Woodpecker's war bonnet and spear and tries to chase the monster out of the water. When the monster appears, Flicker is afraid, and drops the spear. Nalmu^'qtse is asked to dam up the end of the lake and to prevent the escape of the monster. He breaks off a piece of the mountain and solidifies it with his knees, making the portage between Columbia River and Koo- tenai River. Woodpecker continues the pursuit; but when the monster looks at him, he becomes afraid and id unable to kill it. The Fox finally takes a tomahawk, kills the monster, and cuts it up. Flicker and Duck come out. They have become white in the stomach of the monster, ^^lile in its stomach, they made a fire with their canoe. The monster had asked them not to make too large a fire, because it might melt its fat. The Flicker had been tcom down to its present size.

They cut off the ribs of the monster and throw them down the river, w?iere they become a cliff. The body is cut up and scattered about. It becomes the food of the 83 people. They forget the Kutenai, and only a little blood is left, which they scatter over the country. For this reason the Kutenai are few}

Second Version. — Naimu^qtse is called the grandfather of the Kutenai. He is a man 85 of giant size, and never stands up. He knows that he is about to die, and travels over the country, giving names to places. Wherever he crawls, a river flows.^ He meets 87 the Woodpecker brothers and their sister sitting on a mountain. They have come down from the sky after the animals have made war on Muskrat (as told before). They are angry because they have not been given any feathers to fly down. Woodpecker tries to kill the people; and when he meets his uncle Nalmu^'qtse, he tries to kill him too. He throws a heart containing a red-hot stone at him, pretending that it is food.' NaJmu^qtse nods, and it falls down, and the place is called Little Heart. Nalmu^'qtse warns Woodpecker, telling him not to touch a charr and not to sleep in dense woods. The Woodpeckers disobey, and Flicker is swallowed by a water monster.* Naimu''qtse crawls along and decides to stand up. When he rises, his war bonnet touches the sky. It falls, and he also falls, saying that the place will be called Ear. ^

Third Version (VAEU 23).— The father of Muskrat * has two wives. After his death (165 Muskrat wants to marry his second wife, who refuses him. He shoots her with an arrow of unknown design. He lies down, pretending to be sick. The people find the dead woman, and inquire for the owner of the arrow. Muskrat smells of it, and says it came from the sky. They make war against the sky. Coyote shoots up an arrow without reaching it. Other animals try in vain. Finally two Hawks shoot. Their first arrow, strikes the sky after flying one day and one night. They make a chain of arrows,® which Raven completes by putting his beak in the nock of the last arrow. Wolverene asks the other animals to wait, because he wants to look after his traps. They leave before he returns; therefore he is angry and tears down the arrows^ which are transformed into a mountain (Mount Baker, near Cranbrook, B. C). Muskrat has climbed up into the sky, where he makes tents along the shore of a lake. The houses are dirty. lie shoots from the houses, passing under ground from one to the

1 Coeur d'Al^ne (Teit MAFLS 11:122).

Nez Perc6 (Mayer-Fammd MAFLS 11:149).

Shuswap (Teit JE 2:661, 662, 665-667).

Thompson (Teit MAFLS 6:80; JE 8:255). « Chippewayan (much distorted in Loft house, Transactions Canadian Institute 10:44).

Dog-Rib (Sir John Franklin, Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea [Lon- don, 1828], p. 293).

Etheneldeli (Caribou- Eaters), (Samuel Heame, A Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay, to the Northern Ocean [London, 1795], p. 3-13).

Kato (Goddard UCal 5:188).

Kaska (Teit J A F L 30 :444). » See discussion in Boas RB AE 31 :682. Also Hidatsa (Matthews 67). < See discussion in Boas RBAE 31:611, 659, 687, 718, 868. 6 LiUooet (Teit JAFL 25:326).

Shuswap (Teit JE 2:679).

Thompson (Teit JE 8:361, 362). ; ;


 * See discussion in Boas B.ld AE^l'M, V';