Love of this sort, of a sister for a brother, is found in European
lore occasionally, and is, of course, a survival from a very remote
past. In this myth it is the love of one of the first people, a
female, afterward turned into a loon, for her brother, who was
afterward turned into a wildcat.
Bringing to life is one of the most familiar performances in American
mythology as well as in Keltic. In Yana it is done by kicking or
turning over a corpse with the foot; by boiling in water, sometimes
one hair, sometimes the heart; or by striking the corpse with a twig
of the red rose-bush. In Keltic it is most frequently done by the
stroke of a Druidic or magic switch, which resembles the Yana method
with the rose twig. The red rose has significance, no doubt. In
Keltic we are not told the kind of wood from which the Druidic switch
was taken.
In Seneca myths raising from the dead was very impressive. Sometimes
the dry, fleshless bones of hundreds and hundreds of the first people
were found lying in a heap or close together. The hero, another of the
first people, pushes a hickory-tree as if to throw it on them, crying
at the same time, "Rise up! or the tree will fall on you." That moment
all the dry bones sprang up, took on flesh, and assumed their old
forms immediately. Indian humor creeps out sometimes by giving us two
lame people of the uprisen company. In the hurry and rush, while the
dry bones are arranging themselves, two legs get astray; two
personages have each one leg which is his own and one which belongs to
his neighbor.