Oct., 1903. Arapaho Traditions — Dorsey and Kroeber. 387 



crow's wife gave her dress to Spring-child's grandmother to wash. 

 "I give 3^ou this because I want you to have a dress,'" she said to the 

 old woman, her brother-in-law's grandmother. Thus he lived, this one 

 who became lost through the whirlwind.' — K. 



143. — Found-in-Grass." • 



A man who had two sons warned them not to go to a certain 

 place. He said, "There is a spring surrounded by trees ; and near it 

 is a cliff where is the nest of the thunders." Then the boys went there. 

 They found the young thunders in the nest and seizing them by the 

 bill twitched them about. "What kind of a looking cloud is your father 

 when he is angry? What kind of a looking cloud is your mother 

 when angry?" they said, teasing them. When the boys went back, a 

 black cloud came, and the wind overtook them, and one of them was 

 blown away. He came down again in a tree. There an old v.^oman 

 found him. Glad to have a child, she called him her son. He was 

 dirty and ugly. Then a beautiful girl was offered as prize to the man 

 who should bring the finest porcupine to her father. The boy who had 

 been blown away said : "Grandmother, let us try too." She said : 

 "You are not the kind of person they want. You are too dirty." "Let 

 us try anyway," said the boy. Then all the young men went out to 

 catch porcupines, but he caught the finest. It had long yellow quills. 

 Then the girl's father took him for his son-in-law. His young wife's 

 sister ridiculed his ugliness, but the girl said : "Never mind. At night 

 he is beautiful. He is ugly only in the morning. I was won by him 

 as a prize ; so I must be his wife." When the people were in want 

 the boy went out and found buffalo for them. He did this several times. 

 Then his wife's sister began to love him on account of his great deeds. 

 Once when the young man had found buffalo and the people had killed 

 them, she put on a new painted robe in order to attract his attention, 

 and going to him. said : "I want to do something for you because I 



' According to a version given by informant I, Northern Arapaho, the woman had but one child. 

 Tangled-hair threw her placenta into the spring, and it became a boy with a beaver tail. When their 

 father made arrows for the boys he painted two red and two black. 



This myth has a considerable distribution in the Plains, the East, and the Southwest, but does 

 not appear on the Pacific Coast. Though subject to much variation, a distinct common element 

 remains in all versions. Cf. Gros Ventre; Hidatsa (Matthews, Misc. Pub. No. 7, U. S. Geol. Surv., 

 Hayden in charge, 163); DhegihaO- O. Dorsey, Contr. N. .\. Ethn., VI, 215);. Iroquois (Smith, Ann. 

 Rep. Bur. Ethn., II, 84) ; Micmac (Rand, Legends of the Micmacs, 65); Cherokee (Mooney, .\nn. Rep. 

 Bur. Ethn., XIX, 242). Cf. also Jicarilla Apache (Mooney, Am. .Anthr., 1898,197. and Russell, Journ. 

 Am. Folk Lore, XI. 251;), and Sia (Stevenson, Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn., XI). For the last part of the 

 myth cf. Journ. .'Xm. Folk Lore, XIII, 170 (Cheyenne). The dialogue with the young Thunderbirds is 

 one of the most persistent of North .American mythological ideas. 



' From informants J. 



