GATSCHET KAS. LEG. COMMENTARY, [S3] 51 



ticulars given here apply to one of the larger quadrupeds. 

 The legend gives this story merely for the purpose of explaining 

 the origin of that part of the war-ph3^sic which they kept in their 

 shot-bags, and which served as charms, amulets, or talismans: 

 the lion's bones and the snake-horns. As there is no lion in 

 America the man-eater should be more properly called a cougar. 

 The idea of using this feline's bones as charms is, that he is one 

 of the strongest and pluckiest beasts, and that therefore taking his 

 bones with them would inspire the warriors W'ith courage and 

 fortitude. For the same reason many primitive nations take with 

 them in their migrations the bones of their ancestors and cele- 

 brated men. The Hebrews took with them Joseph's bones when 

 leaving Egypt, and the Roman Catholic church preserves the 

 bones of its saints to prompt its followers to acts of piety and 

 devotion by the presence of body-fragments of their illustrious 

 characters. — Another instance of Indian man-eaters is furnished 

 by two women of the giant-race, or Eiip-tilikum, who ate up all 

 those that passed in the vicinity of their home, and were put to 

 death by a bird sent by the Great Spirit and changed into rocks, 

 which now stand on Middle Columbia river : cf. G. Gibbs (in Pa- 

 <ific Railroad Rep., i 411) who calls them lions. The Fiji or 

 Viti people, who never saw lions in their islands, call them ivola 

 ni tamata, "man-eaters." 



THE SNAKE. HORNS 



or tchito yabi made up the other pottion of the war-physic con- 

 tained in the Creek warriors' shot-pouches. These horns belong, 

 as alleged, to a species of water-snakes seldom found, and there- 

 fore exciting more curiosit\'. "This beast was the last thing which 

 our ancestors ever conquered" is the assertion of the modern 

 Creeks. When the snake was seen in a blue deep hole filled wdth 

 water, the old men of the tribe sang their incantations, and the 

 snake came to the surface. They sang again, and it emerged a 

 little from the waves. When they sang for the third time, it came 

 ashore and showed its horns, and they sawed one off; again they 

 sang, and it emerged for the fourth time, when they sawed oft' the 

 other horn. Small pieces of the horns and the man-eater's bones 

 were carried along when going to war.* One of the charm songs 



* Ct. Hawkins, Sketcli, pp. 79, 80 : Chief Chicote tells me that the snake-horn was a 



