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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 



123 



down a great black pestilence. The mother 

 first died, and then the father also died. They 

 left behind them two sons. 



The older son first married a wife. The 

 second son was young. The older son had 

 already married his wife three years. Her 

 heart was not good. Daily she cheated and 

 beat the younger brother. 



That year when winter came the sky 

 dropped snow and moved the bones of the 

 water (ice). There was no wood left. The 

 coal gave out. The younger brother had no- 

 body to depend upon. 



The sister-in-law asked, "Are you willing 

 to be changed into a monkey? A monkey 

 does not warm by the fire but is comfortable." 

 The younger brother did not have under- 

 standing. His sister-in-law heated a big stone 

 and put it beside the river. The younger 

 brother sat on that stone and his buttocks 

 was scorched until there were scabs. Then 

 his dead parents came and led him upon a 

 mountain. As he was going with them, a 

 thorn scratched a stripe on him. Where the 

 thorn scratched the skin open, hair grew up. 



In less than a year his character changed 

 and hair grew all over his body, and his 

 fingernails grew long so that he was able to 

 climb the cliffs. His buttocks was injured 

 by the heat so there he had scabs. From this 

 he gave birth to four, and the four to one 

 hundred monkeys, and they were to be found 

 everywhere. 



Monl^eys That Changed into Human Beings 

 (105) 



In the beginning, when the sky and the 

 earth had just been separated, and there was 

 nothing alive on the earth, suddenly the earth 

 gave birth to animal horns, and the horns 

 bloomed, and the flowers bore fruit. One 

 morning the fruit split open and gave birth 

 to a man whose name was Go Je P'u (father 

 old man original). After a while the earth 

 also gave birth to a woman named Na Bo Da 

 (a woman mother out of the earth). Both of 

 them had tails and were very skillful in climb- 

 ing trees and cliffs. Daily they went about as 

 companions. They saw males and females 

 among the flowers and the grasses, and that 

 when a flower flew to another flower it could 

 propagate the species. They also saw that the 

 sky could send down air and that the earth 

 could give birth to things (trees, grass, etc.). 

 When they saw these things, then they knew 

 the nature of people. Then they two were 

 harmonious. 



Slowly they gave birth to children. Daily 

 the parents guided them, and they all knew 

 how to propagate the race. We do not know 

 how many years they lived or to how many 

 descendants they gave birth. The sunlight 

 shone on them and caused the hair on their 

 bodies to fall off. Occasionally they squatted 

 on the earth and broke off their tails. Day 

 by day they became more naked, and they 

 had already lost their tails, and they were 

 finally called men. 



A HAWK OR AN EAGLE CARRIES A MAN WHO GETS GOLD 



The Recompense of Two Brothers (75) 



There were two brothers in a certain family. 

 The older brother had a wife, but the younger 

 brother had none. The wife of the older 

 brother had a bad conscience, and she drove 

 the younger brother away from home. 



At first the older brother and his wife had 

 enough to eat and to wear. In spring, when 

 there was drought, the husband and his wife 

 went to look over the clearing.''^* The 

 younger brother also went to watch one field. 

 He cut off the grove on that hill, then came 

 and said to his sister-in-law, "Now we want 

 to plant seed." His older brother asked him. 

 "Should you first plant seed before setting fire 

 (to burn off a clearing), or should you first 

 burn a clearing and then plant seed?" The 

 sister-in-law's heart was evil so she said, "I 



"^^ Called fire land because when the wood had 

 been cut down it was burned away by fire. 



will now lend you some small seeds. You 

 plant them on the hill and afterward set fire 

 to clear the land. After this your harvest will 

 certainly be good." 



When the younger brother heard these 

 words, he took his belt and wrapped the little 

 seeds in it. The next day from daylight until 

 noon he planted these seeds on the wood he 

 had cut. Then he used a torch and set fire 

 so that he burnt off the whole hill. He 

 thought in his mind, "In this way even the 

 twigs are burnt up so it must be well with 

 my small seeds. Probably Ntzi will accept 

 me. 



The time flew by rapidly, and not long 

 afterward it rained. He waited day after day 

 and saw that the seeds of his brother and 

 sister-in-law had grown up like a forest, but 

 nothing could be seen of his own. Afterward 

 he saw only one stalk growing up in a crack 

 between stones. When he saw it he was very 



