10 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vion Ve

He then put him on his raft and set out in company with a muskrat
and a young beaver. The water was soon noticed to rise up at a pro-
digious rate. It rose and rose until it covered the highest mountains.
Rising still higher, it almost touched the sky, when the child, striking at
it with his dagger, the flood began gradually to subside.

He waited a long time, and then sent down in search of land both
the muskrat and the young beaver. Very long after, they both came up
to the surface, dead. The young beaver had his paw clutched, but
empty, while the muskrat’s contained a little mud. This the child took
out and kneaded with his hands so as to extend it into an island. After

additional handling, it became a large island on which he and his brother-
wolf landed. |

He then sent his brother-wolf to see how the land was. On taking
leave of his brother, the wolf said: “If I come back silent, you shall
know thereby that the land is not yet inhabitable. If I howl from a very
long distance, it shall be a sign that the land is well.” Then he added:
“ Know you also that you shall die before me.”

So he said, and went. Long thereafter he came back in silence, as
the land was not yet inhabitable. But the second time that he had set
out to explore the island, he was heard howling from a very great dis-
tance. Therefore, y{stas? settled definitely. As for the wolf; he is still
in existence, while s]stas is no more.

COMMENTS.

The above is the exact reproduction of what the Carriers give as one
continuous legend ; but its equivalent among their congeners east of the
Rocky Mountains is contained in two or more separate stories. Our
narrative is,as to form, of a genuinely Déné character; yet as the histori-
cal facts of which I believe it to be but a disfigurement belong to the
whole human race, that myth is far from local in origin or diffusion. To
the unprejudiced reader, at least two most important events of the
remotest antiquity will appear as hinted at by the Carrier tradition: I
mean the fall of the first woman and the destruction of mankind by the
Noachian deluge. These two points shall be separately treated of.

‘In the native mythology, while some animals are assigned a ridiculous or hurtful role,
others constantly play the part of a benefactor or of a wiseacre. Among the latter is the musk-
rat, to which is here due the re-creation of the earth, while in another legend (See Ave the
Carrier Soctology and Mythology Indigenous or Exotic? Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, Sect. 1I.,
1892, p. 125), it is made instrumental in procuring fire for men.

2? Another proof of the influence of western on eastern mythology.

astas should have
nothing to do with the present legend.