494 THE BELLA COOLA INDIANS

The woman sent another messenger, a child of about ten, who likewise
reported that it was indeed the missing girl; then the mother rushed out,
and was overjoyed to see her long-lost daughter. Equally great was the
latter’s delight at sight of her mother. A#guntdm’s wife told her relatives
to spread sand on the floor of the house, and when this was done she
entered through a hole in the roof, being careful not to use the door.

The mother and her child stayed for some time on earth. The little
boy used to play with the other children who often made fun of him
because his eyes were feeble. Sometimes they even said:

“Your father cannot be A‘juntdém, if he were, your eyes would be all
right.”

This so angered the child that at last he returned to his father’s house
above. No one knows whether or not his mother accompanied him.

STUMP AND HIS WIFE
(Second Version)

Stump once appeared in the guise of a handsome man to a woman
whom he invited tohishome. She agreed to go, ignorant of his true form,
and followed him to his house, where the two sat down together to a meal.
Afterwards, Stump asked her to remove and eat the lice which infested
his hair. They went outside and when he moved his head so that the sun
fell on it the woman saw, to her horror, that it was covered with toads.
Instead of eating them as her husband had directed, she merely bit them
and spat them from her mouth. On returning to Stump’s house she sat
down; presently when she tried to rise she found she could not—roots had
grown from her body fastening her to the ground. She had become a
Nusgidbutsdx, the term applied to a person thus fastened to one spot.

This version then describes how in course of time Stump caught
another girl, the heroine of the first tale, and how the Nusgidbutséx kept
warning her every day that when her husband asked her to remove his
lice she must stab them with a needle and throw them away. On warm
days the vermin worried Stump; it was on one of these that he asked his
girl wife to cleanse his head, which she did in the manner already de-
scribed. Nusgidbutséx told the girl how she would be able to escape with
the assistance of four presents, a whetstone, a comb, a goat bladder filled
with goat grease, and a cloud.

The girl fled away, but Stump, warned of her flight by his chamber-
vessel’s cry of “xwo-la! xwo-la! xwo-la! xwo-lo--!,” sped after her. He had
almost caught her when she threw behind her the cloud; instantly Stump
was enveloped in a dense fog which so delayed him that his wife was able
to get far ahead of him. When it melted away he continued the pursuit