6o Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. V. 



a severe storm. It is. now coming from the north and there will be 

 much snow. Go in here where all this brush and grass is piled up, and 

 • I will cover you up ; else you might freeze to death." Then the bear 

 foolishly went in. After Nih'a"ga° had covered him up completely, he 

 said: 'Do not move about in there, but go to sleep; you will not be 

 cold.'' Then he set fire to the grass and brush that he had piled on top 

 of the bear, and before long there was a raging fire. Ni.i'a"<;a'^ had 

 already called together the wolves, saying to them : "If the Bear tries 

 to escape, attack him at once ; we will then divide the meat. I want 

 to do him an injury because he injured me, eating up all my meat." 

 But it was these wolves that had eaten up Nih'a"<;a'^'s meat without his 

 knowledge. The fire soon reached the bear and he was burned to death. 

 As soon as the fire burned down, the wolves jumped in, tore the bear, 

 to pieces, devoured him. and fled without giving their friend Ni'i'a"ga° 

 his share. They ran off and hid, saying to him : "What a fool you 

 are, ;Nih'a"9a'' : now we have twice stolen your meat from you." 

 :Nih'a''ga" said to himself: "They have got the better of me again, 

 fool that I am!"''— K. 



27. — Nih'a^can and the Dancing Ducks. 



Nih'a'^qa'^ went down to the river and met Coyote. Said he, "Say, 

 partner, call all the birds and animals ; I want to give them a dance near 

 this precipice." So Coyote started off a short distance and howled 

 toward four different directions. They all came to him. Then said he, 

 "I want you to stand in a line along this precipice. When I sing, you 

 people are to dance, closing your eyes. At the fourth time I sing I 

 want all to close their eyes and to leap forward," said Nih'a"(;a". 



* Another version runs thus: Nih'an^an having killed the ducks and geese he had made dance 

 about him, muri at ano suo praecepit ut aves custodirent diim ipse dormiret. Cum autem coyotes 

 appropinquassent avesque assent, anus eum e somno non axpergafecit, mus ultro eius capillos 

 abrosit. Nih'ancao, postquam e somno se excitavit, aves ereptas, cap[llos abscisos invenit. Primum 

 lacrimavit; deinde iratus quod anus se immotum tenuerat, facem ex igni detractam admovit. Fax 

 autem ita ussit ut ulularet et anum ad ventuni porrigeret si modo refrigeratur. 



Aliam eius modi fabulam, apud Cheyennes quoque auditam, tradunt. Nih'a°can in itinere 

 radicibus donatus est quae infiationem faciant. Quotienscrepuerat, ex humo etferebatur. Hoc saltu 

 paulisper magnopere delectatus, in altitudinem autem usque niaiorem elatus, tandem casu laesusest. 

 Tum denique se domum celeriter recepit uxorique suae imperavit ut par vim retinaret. Cum 

 denuo crepuit, una cum uxore et tabernaculo toto ex humo elatus est. Postremo duobus palis in 

 terra positis se adfixit; sed cum ita crepuit, paane interfectus est. 



'The killing of birds by making them dance with closed eyas occurs in the myths of very 

 many tribes, except on the Pacific Coast, where the incident is rarely found. Generally the trickster 

 loses the meat soon after, usually through having gone to sleep. In many cases he then burns the 

 part of the body he had told to watch. Cf. Rand, Legends of the Micmacs, 263; Leland, Algonquin 

 Legends of New England, 186; Turner, Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., XI, 327 (Nenenot); Schoolcraft, 

 Hiawatha, 30, 34; Hoffman, Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., XIV, 162, 203; Riggs, Contr. N. A. Ethn., IX, no 

 (Dakota); J. O. Dorsey, Contr. N. A. Ethn., VI, 67, 579; Journ. Am. Folk Lore, XIII, 165, 166 

 (Cheyenne); Russell, Journ. Am. Folk Lore, XI, 264 (Jicarilla Apache); Russell, Explor. Far North, 

 212 (Cree). The Gros Ventre have the myth. See also Grinnell, Blackfoot Lodge Tales, 158, 171. 



