Page:Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress.djvu/57

 Rh the lodge, but saw not the children themselves. At length she hid herself, and discovered that her puppies threw off their skins as soon as they thought themselves alone, and played together in human shape. She surprised them and took away the skins, so that the children could no more return to canine form. This tale is also recorded in Vancouver Island, and all along the Pacific Coast from southern Alaska to southern Oregon; and similar tales are told among the Hare Indians of Great Bear Lake, and the Eskimo of Greenland and Hudson's Bay.

Now, let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that this story originated not in a remote age among the common ancestors of the various tribes who relate it to-day, but at some period since the dispersion and differentiation of the American race. Let us suppose that it was invented in some one place, by some one tribe, and carried from one to another within comparatively recent times. Let us, in fact, concede the whole hypothesis of the Disseminationists. The story still remains a witness of the state of civilisation of the tribes among which it is now found. Its foundation is probably totemistic; and the ideas it conveys—the brute-ancestor, the marriage of a woman with a dog or a hare, and the birth of her children disguised as puppies or leverets—are common to all the tribes who have given it shelter, We are not dependent upon this tale for evidence that each of them believes in the possibility of these things. The Deluge legends, the stories of the women taken up to heaven, the Magic Flight, and the other tales in Dr. Boas' list, in this respect stand upon the same footing.

There is an African tale in which the presumption of borrowing is at first sight strong. It tells us of a fisherman who caught a large fish. The fish gave him millet and some of its own flesh, and spoke to him, directing him to cause his wife to eat the flesh alone, while he ate the millet. Compliance with these directions was followed by the birth of two sons, who were called Rombao and Antonyo, with their two dogs, two spears, and two guns. The boys became hunters, and did not hesitate to kill whoever opposed them and take possession of his land and other property. There was a whale which owned a certain water, and the chief of the country gave his daughter to buy water from the whale. But Rombao slew the whale, thus saving the maiden, and cut