218 THE CAYOTE OR ‘ITALIPUS.’ 
munication with whites, are either crosses with 
the native dog, or curs of various patterns 
brought by ships, emigrants, or fur traders. 
The true Indian dog, as I have seen it in the 
Kootanie country, among the Spokans, and other 
tribes that have had no opportunity to cross the 
breed with any imported dog, is beyond all 
question nothing more than a tamed cayote 
or prairie wolf (Canis latrans); a most apt and 
appropriate name, for a greater thief does not 
exist. Although partially domesticated—by that 
I mean taught to hunt, come when called, and 
forsake their wild brethren—still they retain 
every type and character of the untamed animal. 
This animal, called a cayote, a name of Mexican 
importation, the ‘italipus’ of the Indians living 
at the Columbia’s mouth, is not a true wolf. 
This the Indians clearly know, inasmuch as 
the ‘italipus’ figures in every legend as being 
the animal whose form the bad spirit always 
assumes when doing evil and acting adversely to 
the good spirit. It seems to have taken a con- 
spicuous place in the myths of the red man, 
utterly different from that of any other animal, 
and to be identified with his earliest history in a 
way that neither the true wolf or fox has ever 
been. ‘The ‘cayote’ is to my mind a connecting 
