16 



TRANSACTIONS OF THR CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



[Vol. V. 



Therefore the two adulterous serpents of our present legend can be 

 considered as one. 



A detail which the reader may have noticed in that legend is that the 

 injured husband sets ajar by means of splinters the mouth and eyes of 

 the decapitated snakes. As this circumstance occurs twice in the course 

 of the same story, it is evidently mentioned on purpose. What that pur- 

 pose may be is more than I can say. Is it revengeful irony at the now 

 helpless condition of the monster, or allegorical of its malice as the source 

 of all evil .'' An important analogy might be found between this point of 

 the myth and the style of drawing serpent heads common to the semi- 

 civilized nations of Mexico and Peru. On the codices, these heads are 

 generally remarkable for their mouth kept yawning by means of what 



Serpent Heads frotn the Codices. 



looks more like extraneous adjuncts than natural teeth. I herewith 

 figure two examples in confirmation of my remark. 



Another point of the native theogony perhaps worth noticing is the 

 supposed efficacy of the act of jumping across a subject. Thus the Child 

 of our tradition jumps across the corpse of his metempsychosed father-in- 

 law, who thereby recovers life. So he does later on, and with similar 

 results, with resrard to the bones of his brother. This act must have had 

 to the original Indian mind a hidden meaning ; for we find that the 

 Kutchin or Loucheux of the Mackenzie River, in common with the 

 Hare Indians, have a periodic festival, not unlike the Phaset of the 

 Hebrews, on the occasion of which the death chant is sung, thus : " O 

 mouse with the pointed nose^, hasten to jump twice across the face of 

 the earth'^ ! " One feels inclined to hazard as a possible explanation the 

 Egyptian cross, the key of life and health and its probable equivalent on 

 the ancient tau-shaped coppers of the North Pacific tribes, both of which 

 were perhaps nothing else than the symbol of the daily course of the life- 

 giving sun across the heavens. If this be the case, our Indians have long 

 lost all idea of the true signification of this mysterious act. 



Might not the flight and vicissitudes of the two Carrier heroes pursued 



*The French musarai^'rie. * Traditiotis indieiines, etc., pp. 62 et li 



