126 FATHER MORICE OK CARRIER SOCIOLOGY. 



head-dress was coustructed, but the old mau immediately extinguished it with his hands. 



After a little while, amidst the siug-ing of the whole assembly of men who 

 accompanied the dance, the caribou again managed to ignite its head-dress to siich an 

 extent that the old man had much trouble in extinguishing it. 



Meanwhile, the wily muskrat, who had beforehand made all necessary preparations 

 by burrowing through the earth, and who was watching his opportunity, furtively took 

 a piece of fire while the old man's attention was taken up with the fruitless attempts of 

 the caribou, and disappeared in the ground. A short time after somebody discerned a huge 

 column of smoke rising from a mountain towering at the horizon. Soon smoke was 

 followed by immense tongues of flames, and thus men knew that the muskrat had 

 succeeded in getting for them the long-coveted fire. 



Creation of Water. — However, men had as yet no water, and they were thirsty. As 

 they could not obtain any from the only old man who enjoyed its possession, gstas, who was 

 very cunning, resolved upon a trick to get it for them. This same old notable had a 

 daughter, a virgin. One day, as she was bending to drink from the water barrel,' which 

 was always kept in a corner of the lodge, she perceived a spruce frond floating therein. 

 In order to avoid swallowing which, she moved it aside ; but as often as she did so it 

 returned to the same place on the water Getting wearied of her unavailing attempts to 

 avoid it, she swallowed it, soon after which she became pregnant. In the course of time 

 she gave birth to a son, who was no other than the wily gstas, who had for the purpose 

 transformed himself into a spruce frond. 



He had no sooner been born than he began to grow up at a prodigious rate. Hie 

 great pastime was to amuse himself with the barrel coutaiiiing- the water, which he was 

 constantly rolling in the direction of the doorway. His mother would then carefully 

 take H back to its original place in the lodge. When the boy commenced to walk he 

 would even roll it out some little distance from the door ; but his mother as often put it 

 back in its place. At last, having grown up to be a young man, he one day dashed away 

 with it to distribute its contents to his fellow-men. With his index finger astas 

 sprinkled water where we now see rivers ; lakes and the sea resulted from his spilling 

 out with his hand larger quantities of the liquid ; and when he had well-nigh done with 

 his distribution, he threw away, by a rapid movement of his arm, what remained in the 

 barrel, thereby producing what we now call Neto paNrau,- which circumstance accounts 

 for the great length of that lake. Thus it is that gstas gave us water. 



Should it be necessary to point out the extraneousness especially of this latter part of 

 the myth and thereby of its hero, gstas, I would just add that : 1. The mention therein 

 of a wooden water box or jug (modernized into a baiTcl) can have originated only where 

 such vessels .were manufactured, and that was among the Coast Indians ; and, 2. The very 

 reference to Neto poNran, or French Lake, is to me unmistakable evidence that the story 

 came to the Carriers proper through the Hwotso'tin, theKitikson's immediate neighbours. 

 That lake is one of the Hwotso'tin's favourite hunting resorts, and, among the other 

 subdivisions of the tribe, there is not, I dare say, one out of fifty Indians who ever as 

 much as saw it, let alone obtained an exact idea of its dimensions. 



' This word will, no doubt, sound as somewhat modern, but I can find no fit substitute for it since the Indians 

 insist that gstas was in the habit of rolling the vessel thereby desiauated. It is called ihù-cli^Kgrei (etymology: 

 water-wood [or wooden]-pack), whereby are also denominated the .-square wooden boxes imported from amongst 

 the Coast tribes, but which obviously cannot be rolled, 



' Français, or French Lake. See the map. 



