Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/152

 144 of the tribe, and was slain by her relatives; while, as a warning as to the necessity for love's fervour being kept within due bounds, his seven brothers were banished by the chief.

The exiles went forth into the depths of the forest, and in their wanderings after a new land they crossed a small clearing, in which a little girl, about a span in height, was seated peeling potatoes. "Little sister," they queried, "how come you here? where is your home?" "I am not of homes, nor parents," she replied. Her surprised questioners then asked if she could direct them to a pathway; and she answered after the following enigmatical manner: "If you find your swords girded on the right you are on the proper road; if you find them on the left you are going astray." The puzzled brothers shook their heads, and again entered the thick forest. After them came the voice of the pigmy singing—

They had not gone far when they saw a little man cutting canes and farther on to the right a curious-looking house, in front of which Bat two diminutive women combing their hair. Things looked so queer that the travellers hesitated about approaching nearer, but, eager to find a way out of the forest, they determined in their extremity to question the strange people. The two women, when interrogated, turned sharply round, showing eyes of a flashing red; then looking upward their eyes became dull and white, and they immediately ran into the house, the doors and windows of which at once vanished, the whole taking the form and appearance of an isolated boulder. The startled observers made all haste away, and next day coming to the edge of the forest they entered a fertile valley, inhabited by a gentle people, among whom they eventually settled.

Tales of mighty hunters are common, but these do not pourtray heroes in the true sense of the word. Their greatest chiefs were those whose powers of witchcraft surpassed that of all contemporaries. The supreme chief is the great medicine-man of the tribe,—the high-priest on whom, as a consequence, supernatural power descends: still