Traditions of the Thompson River Indians (cont.)
ABSTRACTS.
1. The Coyote and the Flood. - Men try to escape in canoes from the deluge. Turned into stone. The Coyote alone saved. Marries trees. -The food runs out, and leaves lakes and streams.
2. Nli'ksentem. - The Coyote makes a boy of gum, which melts in the sun. He makes a boy of clay, which dissolves in water. He makes a boy of quartz, which stands heat and water. Coyote's son marries Loon and Mallard Duck. Coyote covets his son's wives. He transforms dung into an eagle's nest on a tree. Induces his son to climb the tree in order to obtain eagle's feathers. He makes the tree grow up to the sky by lifting his eyelids. His son reaches the sky, where he finds a vast prairie; he reaches houses, in which dwell baskets, mats, awls, and other household utensils. When he attempts to take one away, the others beat him. Then he curses them to be the servants of man. He reaches two blind women, who eat rotten wood; steals it, and makes them quarrel. Transforming them into grouse. Reaches the house of the Spider, for whom he creates bark for his use in making ropes. The Spider lets him down in a basket; warns him not to open his eyes until four obstacles have been overcome. He reaches the earth on a large stone, near Lytton. He follows the people; makes a canoe of horsetails (equisetum) to cross the river; overtakes insects, to whom he gives their peculiar form. He overtakes his wife, whose child recognizes him, although it has never seen him before. He hunts for her; takes his venison home in his glove. He drives all the deer away, so that the people are starving. The Raven receives some fat from him, which he gives secretly to his children. They quarrel about it; thus the fat is discovered by the Coyote, who compels the Raven to tell where he obtained it. Coyote's son transforms the entrails of a deer into a packing-line, which he gives to his father. When he carries deer with this line over a creek, he falls into the water and drifts down. He lands in a fish dam owned by two old women, assumes the shape of a dish, in which form he swallows the food placed on it. Thrown into the fire, he assumes the shape of a child. When grown up, he breaks the fish-dam, goes up the river, and breaks four boxes containing smoke, wasps, salmon-flies, and beetles, which ascend the river with the salmon. He gives the salmon to some young women whom he meets on the river. Women on another river refuse it, but ask for mountain sheep; therefore no salmon in river, but sheep on the mountains. He transforms his daughter into a rock; transforms alkali grass into dentalia; cheats the grizzly bear, promising her a large supply of fish, inducing her to produce all her food. The fish promised by him were fish-skins which he had given the shape of fish.
3. The Coyote and the Fox. -Coyote boils bones, which the Fox steals before he is able to eat them.
4. TheCoyote's Dog. - The Coyote meets a cannibal with necklaces made of finger-nails. He transforms his dung into a dog covered with arrow-heads. Coyote and Cannibal vomit into two dishes in order to see what kind of food they eat. The Coyote exchanges the dishes before the Cannibal opens his eyes, thus, making him believe that the Coyote is a cannibal; then follows a combat between the dogs of the Cannibal and of Coyote. The former is killed. Coyote obtains the Cannibal's staff in exchange for his dog. Whenever the staff is struck on the ground, a dead deer is there. Coyote strikes with his staff until he is smothered by carcasses of deer; then the deer revive, and he loses his staff.
