32 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [ Vou. V.

told his brothers and they looked down. Then they also felt their hearts falling down at this. After a little time, they held consultation together as to the best means of returning to the earth. Then, on the advice of the eldest but one, they dropped down the little packages of dried salmon! which each of them had carried so far as provisions for the journey. They hung underneath a grey jay, and carefully cautioned the bird not to look up until they had all got back to their country. They expected to be taken down to the earth along with the flying bird. But the jay could not resist the temptation of taking a look at the salmon which he con- sidered as his prospective prey. Therefore the whole assemblage of the three brothers with their packages of salmon underneath was fixed for- ever in the sky, men and salmon being changed into stars.

These we now see every clear night. The three brothers we call Em tz or the Pursuers?. Their sister underwent a like transforma- tion, and we can also see her a short distance off under the shape of a solitary star. Ahead of the whole is Samijynu*® which is nothing else than the herd of caribou chased by the three brothers. Those stars are always scintillating as if constantly on the move. This is because the caribou are fleeing from the three brothers. In a straight line beneath the hunters are three smaller stars; they are the packages of salmon changed into stars by the curiosity of the jay. As for the bird, he flew away, and therefore he cannot now be seen.

When the mother of the three brothers and of the she-dog saw that the sun had disappeared below the horizon without their coming back, she became very anxious; for they used to return home by daylight* At last, having accidentally looked up to the heavens, she beheld them there stationary under the form of stars. Mad with sorrow and guessing that this was due to the witchcraft of the old woman, she ran out to her and loaded her with a coiled-root basket® full of burning coals which she placed on her back, constantly to pack thereafter. Then she thrust a roasting-spit through her and hurled her up to the East, saying, “Hence- forth you shall be she after whom daylight comes®.” The old woman

1The daily bread of the Carriers.

2 Orion. /

5 The Pleiades. Their Carrier name is an old word, the nearest equivalent of which would be ‘‘star island.”

‘In Carrier legends, hunters are very generally supposed to return before night, unless they meet with some accident.

5There are no such baskets among the Carriers, but they are very common among the Tsipyoh’tin, the southern neighbours of the sub-tribe to which my narrator belongs.

8 (’kwe-yayath ovilé, The morning star.