1894-95. | ; THREE CARRIER MYTHS. ll

And first as to the relations of the woman with the serpent. Here is,

after the original text of Petitot, the Chippewayan counterpart of the
tradition :

“A woman lived with her husband. While her husband was hunting,
she said : ‘I will go and fetch fire-wood!’; but she went instead to a big
tree full of snakes with which she was living criminally. Then her hus-
band being much displeased and seeing a big tree loaded with fruit and
growing among tall grass, he said?: ‘Husbands, I have come for you;
come down creeping!’ Then the big snakes came down and the husband
killed them all instantly. After he had made a soup of their blood for
his wife, his wife said when she came back: ‘ Husband?, wait awhile; I
will go for some wood and then I will eat. But her husband: ‘No,
there is plenty of fire, said he; ‘eat, and then you will chop wood.’

“Finally she went for wood, and, as soon as she got to the big tree, she
got very angry and was heard to say: ‘I loved dearly my husbands in-
deed, and behold now they are certainly dead!’ Whereupon she returned
to her husband ; but as soon as she drew near him, he cut her head off
with an axe.

“Then he went to the shore of a river, where he found an old woman
called the Locust. ‘Help me and ferry me across,’ he said to her.
Immediately the old woman stretched her legs across and let him pass.
Then his wife’s head having followed him, said to the Locust: ‘Ferry me
across the river.’ Then the old Locust let the head come rolling on her
legs ; but when the head was midstream, the old woman spread her legs

apart, causing the head to dropin the river. Ever since people have not
Seem ity ge

It will soon be seen that not only is the Carrier myth more detailed
and elaborate, but that it affords much better material for identification
with history.

With the exception of that relative to the deluge, few myths have been
more generally diffused than that of the woman and the serpent. It is
well nigh impossible that such a notion be not founded on fact, nay, on a

The text says ‘‘ fire,” but evidently means ‘‘ fire-wood.”

2 That is, in imitation of his wife’s actions. The eastern narrative could be much clearer,
and though the transcriber does not state his method of writing down Indian stories, I suspect
that the obscurity of some passages must be due to their having been written on dictation, a dis-
advantage which would have been avoided by letting the natives narrate uninterrupted the whole
legend.

3 Among the Western Dénés, no woman will call her spouse ‘‘ husband.”
> 5)

* Traditions tndiennes, etc., p. 389. Another version of the same myth has a somewhat
different ending.