children in a large burden basket. He had a wife to whom he brought
them, saying to her, “Boil them.” When they were cooked he ate them.
There were some people who were living in a large house made of white
cactus. Owl poked a pole in after them. The people inside held on to the
pole. Owl pulled on it and the people held to it. They let go suddenly
and Owl fell over backwards. He took two children on his back and
carried them away toward the camp. He put the basket down with the
children in it and went some distance away to urinate. While he was
gone, the children put a large stone in the basket and defiled it. Owl
started away again with his load, but when he passed under the limb of a
tree the children caught hold of it. They turned into downy feathers and
were blown away by the wind. “Boys, downy feathers are being blown about
over there,” he said. They had been persons, but now they were downy
feathers. Owl brought his load to the house for his wife. She took a
knife and tried to cut across the stone with it. “It is a stone,” she
said. He took it to his son-in-law. “It is a stone with manure on it,”
he said. “That is its gall,” he replied. Owl went back to his wife. (The
story was interrupted at this point.)
-----
Footnote 68:
Told by the father of Frank Crockett, February, 1910.
THE DOINGS OF COYOTE.[69]
Long ago, Coyote was told that the people were dying. He tied together a
hairbrush, a wooden skin-dresser, and a stone pestle, and threw them in
the water. “If these float let them come back to life,” he said. They
sank and, therefore, the dead did not come back.[70]
Snow fell. It rained down in the form of flour. This same Coyote said,
“I chewed ice,” and it became ice.
Also the horns of deer were tallow. Coyote again said, “I chew bones.”
Coyote became ill. He had a handsome daughter. When he became ill, he
told his wife to throw him away. He said their daughter was to be given
to a man with a panther-skin quiver on his back who would come to play
_najonc_. This man, he said, would also have a prairie-dog in his hand.
When Coyote was dead his wife gave the daughter to the man described by
Coyote and he married her. It was Coyote himself, who married his own
daughter. He had her hunt his lice. On the back of his head was a large
wart. He told her that the lice always stay on this side, indicating a
portion of his head remote from the wart. While she was looking for his
lice, her husband fell asleep. Wondering why he always spoke as he did,
she looked on the back of his head. There was a wart there. She slipped
his head off her lap while he was asleep and going to her mother told
her that the man was her father; that he had a wart on the back of his
head. She picked up a large stone and was about to strike him on the
crown of his head when he saw her shadow. He jumped, ran out, and
trotted off toward the east. Whenever he came where there were camps
people reviled him as the man who had his own daughter for his wife.
They heard him saying “ci, ci, ci.” They referred to him as the scabby
one and hit him. He cried “wai” and turned from human form into a
coyote.
Coyote was driving some mules. He smothered five of the mules. He
wondered what smothered them. “Hurry,” he said, “skin their throats.
This place will be called Coyote Springs,” he said.
When coyotes were people they all drank whiskey and ran about everywhere
shouting. When they became coyotes, they barked.
-----
Footnote 69:
Told by the father of Frank Crockett.
Footnote 70:
This incident is generally known over western North America. Professor
Boas has discussed its distribution.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
FRANCISCAN FATHERS, THE. An
Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navaho
Language. St. Michaels, Arizona,
1910.
GODDARD, PLINY EARLE, (a)
Jicarilla Apache Texts
(Anthropological Papers, American
Museum of Natural History, vol.
VIII. New York, 1911.)
(b)
The Beaver Indians (Anthropological
Papers, American Museum of Natural
History, vol. X, part IV. New York,
1916.)
KROEBER, A. L. Gros
Ventre Myths and Tales
(Anthropological Papers, American
Museum of Natural History, vol. I,
part III. New York, 1907.)
MATTHEWS, WASHINGTON. Navaho
Legends (Memoirs, American Folk-Lore
Society, vol. V. New York, 1897.)
RUSSELL, FRANK. Myths
of the Jicarilla Apache (Journal of
American Folk-Lore, vol. XI, 1898.)
VOTH, H. R. The
Traditions of the Hopi (Publication
96, Anthropological Series, Field
Columbian Museum, vol. VIII.
Chicago, 1905.)
WISSLER, CLARK, AND DUVALL, D. C. Blackfoot
Mythology (Anthropological Papers,
American Museum of Natural History,
vol. II, part I. New York, 1908.)
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.