1894-95.] THREE CARRIER MYTHS. 5 



As soon as he got home, he ordered his two Httle children off, and 

 before they went, he gave to the eldest one, a child of five or six snows, 

 a stone arrow-head, a Mvdstco'' thorn, a red woodpecker's^ tail and a 

 stone dagger. At the same time, he loaded the eldest child with his 

 httle brother who was still in the moss^ He finally passed his hand 

 •over the little one's mouth, and thenceforth the babe could talk as a 

 :grown up child. 



The two children, the elder packing the younger, had no sooner 

 ■departed than their father killed his wife by hurling at her the two big 

 serpents' heads. But as often as a well-directed blow had cut her body 

 asunder, the disjointed parts immediately reunited themselves, so that 

 he could not tear her up to pieces as he wished. Therefore he had to 

 give it up. He simply cut her head off and threw it out of the lodge. 

 Her body he dropped in a rapid near by. 



While the two brothers were going on at random, the younger, who 

 was packed by the other^, saw of a sudden their mother's head coming 

 out after them. Then he said : " Elder brother, mother's head is 

 pursuing us". Whereupon his elder brother threw out behind himself, 

 without turning back, the stone arrow-head which his father had given 

 him. The arrow-head becam.e at once a mountain which, for the while, 

 cut them off from their mother's pursuit. 



But their mother's head was changed into wind and continued ■ to 

 pursue them. " Elder brother, mother's head is still after us," said the 

 little one in the swaddling clothes. Thereupon his brother threw 

 behind him, without looking back, the jivastco thorn handed him by 

 his father. The thorn transpierced the head and set it bleeding, after 

 which it was transformed into a thorny bush. The bush grew to a 

 prodigious height, and for a moment it barred the passage to their 

 mother's head. But the head finally jumped over it and continued to 

 pursue them. 



Therefore, the child in the moss said again: "Elder brother, mother's 

 head is still coming after us." Then the eldest child threw behind him 



' Cratc^iis ioi/ieii/osa. 



^ Sphyrapicus varitts. 



'The Carriers use moss as swaddling clothes. See "Notes on the Western Denes," 

 Trans. Can. Inst., Vol. IV. 



*The reader should also remember that our aborigines always carry their babes on 

 the back with their face turned in an opposite direction from that of the packer, aird that the 

 child is carried in an upright position. 



