1894-95. ] THREE CARRIER MYTHS. 5

As soon as he got home, he ordered his two little children off, and
before they went, he gave to the eldest one, a child of five or six snows,
a stone arrow-head, a «évastco! thorn, a red woodpecker’s? tail and a
stone dagger. At the same time, he loaded the eldest child with his
little brother who was still in the moss*. He finally passed his hand
over the little one’s mouth, and thenceforth the babe could talk as a
erown up child.

The two children, the elder packing the younger, had no sooner
departed than their father killed his wife by hurling at her the two big
serpents’ heads. But as often as a well-directed blow had cut her body
asunder, the disjointed parts immediately reunited themselves, so that
he could not tear her up to pieces as he wished. Therefore he had to
give it up. He simply cut her head off and threw it out of the lodge.
Her body he dropped in a rapid near by.

While the two brothers were going on at random, the younger, who
was packed by the other‘, saw of a sudden their mother’s head coming
out after them. Then he said: “Elder brother, mother’s head is
pursuing us”. Whereupon his elder brother threw out behind himself,
without turning back, the stone arrow-head which his father had given
him. The arrow-head became at once a mountain which, for the while,
cut them off from their mother’s pursuit.

But their mother’s head was changed into wind and continued to
pursue them. “Elder brother, mother’s head is still after us,” said the
little one in the swaddling clothes. Thereupon his brother threw
behind him, without looking back, the sivastco thorn handed him by
his father. The thorn transpierced the head and set it bleeding, after
which it was transformed into a thorny bush. ° The bush grew to a
prodigious height, and for a moment it barred the, passage to their
mother’s head. But the head finally jumped over it and continued to

pursue them.

Therefore, the child in the moss said again: “Elder brother, mother’s
head is still coming after us.” Then the eldest child threw behind him

1 Crategus tomentosa.
2 Sphyrapicus varius.

8The Carriers use moss as swaddling clothes. See ‘‘Notes on the Western Dénés,”
Trans. Can. Inst., Vol. IV.

4The reader should also remember that our aborigines always carry their babes on
the back with their face turned in an opposite direction from that of the packer, and that the

child is carried in an upright position.