20 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vou V.

Mosaical account. After several details practically identical with those of
the Carrier legend, such as the quest for arrow-shafts and arrow-feather-
ing, with the adventure with the thunder-bird and its children replaced
here by the eagle and the eaglets, the Hare story goes on to say :—

“Then the Wise One made a great raft at the horizon!. ‘What. do
you mean with this raft ?’? they said. Then he said: ‘If? plenty of
water comes, I will go aboard’ ‘Oh! as for us we will climb up the
trees,’ they said. ‘Then as for me, if2 there is a flood, I will stay on the
raft,’ he said.

“Tt being so, he made big ropes so and so, worked with many things:
and made a big raft.

“Therefore the water seemed suddenly to thunder forth, all men
climbed on the trees, there came plenty of water, all men perished.
Therefore the Wise One having tied his raft with ropes, was floating
along. He also placed on his raft pairs of animals, of carnivores and
of birds. ’

“©There will be no more land, he said to them. For a long time
there was no more land: it was being said that there was no one to go
in search of land. The muskrat dived and went in search of land. He
came up to the surface almost dead. ‘Nothing at all!’ he said... The
beaver having dived after him, was not seen any more for a long time ;
but afterwards he came up swimming, having a little mud in his hand
which he gave to the Wise One. The old man put it on the water. As
he wanted the earth to exist again, he blew on the mud, making it a
little big. He placed on it a beautiful little bird, whereby it became
still larger. Then he let out on the land a fox which ran around it and
made it grow still more. He slept once, twice, thrice, four, five, six times
running around it®; whereby it became whole*.

“The Wise One having put back the animals on the earth, he landed
himself with his children. ‘What a number of men there shall be again
on the earth!’ he said. Then there were again many men®.”

As hinted above, the Algonquin tribes have a myth wherein the musk-
rat plays exactly the same role as in the Carrier legend and the beaver
in its counterpart among the Hare Indians. The only difference in the

1 Literally, at the edge of the sky.

27f and when are rendered by the same word in Déné.
8 That is, the fox ran around it on six consecutive days.
4 7-e., came back to its normal state of existence.

5 Traditions indiennes du Canada Nord-Ouest, p. 129.