1894-95.] THREE CARRIER MYTHS. 11 



And first as to the relations of the woman with the serpent. Here is, 

 after the original text of Petitot, the Chippewayan counterpart of the 

 tradition : 



"A woman lived with her husband. While her husband was hunting, 

 she said : ' I will go and fetch fire-wood^'; but she went instead to a big 

 tree full of snakes with which she was living criminally. Then her hus- 

 band being much displeased and seeing a big tree loaded with fruit and 

 growing among tall grass, he said-: 'Husbands, I have come for you ; 

 come down creeping!' Then the big snakes came down and the husband 

 killed them all instantly. After he had made a soup of their blood for 

 his wife, his wife said when she came back: ' Husband'^, wait awhile; I 

 will go for some wood and then I will eat.' But her husband : ' No, 

 there is plenty of fire,' said he ; 'eat, and then you will chop wood.' 



" Finally she went for wood, and, as soon as she got to the big tree, she 

 got very angry and was heard to say : ' I loved dearly my husbands in- 

 deed, and behold now they are certainly dead !' Whereupon she returned 

 to her husband ; but as soon as she drew near him, he cut her head off 

 with an axe. 



"Then he went to the shore of a river, where he found an old woman 

 called the Locust. ' Help me and ferry me across,' he said to her. 

 Immediately the old woman stretched her legs across and let him pass. 

 Then his wife's head having followed him, said to the Locust: ' Ferry me 

 across the river.' Then the old Locust let the head come rolling on her 

 legs ; but when the head was midstream, the old woman spread her legs 

 apart, causing the head to drop in the river. Ever since people have not 

 seen it."'* 



It will soon be seen that not only is the Carrier myth more detailed 

 and elaborate, but that it affords much better material for identification 

 with history. 



With the exception of that relative to the deluge, few myths have been 

 more generally diffused than that of the woman and the serpent. It is 

 well nigh impossible that such a notion be not founded on fact, nay, on a 



^The text says "fire," but evidently means " fire-wood." 



2 That is, in imitation of his wife's actions. The eastern narrative could be much clearer, 

 and though the transcriber does not state his method of writing down Indian stories, I suspect 

 that the obscurity of some passages must be due to their having been written on dictation, a dis- 

 advantage which would have been avoided by letting the natives narrate uninterrupted the whole 

 legend. 



'Among the Western Dt'nes, no woman will call her spouse "husband." 



* Traditions indiennes, etc., p. 389. Another version of the same myth has a somewhat 

 different ending. 



