i82 Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute [vol. x 



"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 

 the woodpecker's tail, which was instantaneously changed into fire.^ 

 Yet the head passed through the flames and was still after them".' 



With the above myth, which is as literal as possible a translation of 

 the original Indian narrative, I must now ask the reader to compare 

 the equivalent passages of a legend in vogue among the Samoyeds of 

 Siberia, such as I have accidentally found it in a book, "The Great 

 Frozen Land", the author of which himself takes and translates it from 

 a Germ.an work published in Saint-Petersburg. 



I had no knowledge of either book until about six months ago. 



The tale in question relates how a woman killed another woman 

 who had two children, and when these took to flight, she set in pursuit 

 of them. Owing, perhaps, to the inability of the original transcriber 

 to grasp them, the Siberian lacks the interesting little details of the 

 Carrier myth; but the two narratives are essentially the same in those 

 very facts which are characteristic. 



The flight of the two sisters is described in the following lines of the 

 German-English book. The murderess of their mother is after them. 



"She runs seven days, and then overtakes them, and will lay hold 

 of the younger m.aiden, who lags behind. The elder maiden, however, 

 throws a grindstone behind her. At once a river flows along, and steep 

 cliffs rise on both banks of the river. The old woman remains standing 

 on the other side of the river and the maidens escape. 



"The river flows seven days and then flows away. So the old woman 

 runs after the children again ; she runs for seven days, and then over- 

 takes the maidens. She is just going to lay hold of the younger when 

 the elder threw a firestone (flint) behind her, and at once a high moun- 

 tain rises up, and the old hag remains standing behind the mountain. 



"After seven days the mountain disappears and again the old woman 

 begins to run. She runs for seven days and then overtakes the maidens 

 and will lay hold of the younger. The elder throws a comb behind her, 

 and there rises a thick forest, so thick that the old woman cannot come 

 through. But after seven days the forest vanishes, and then the old 

 woman began again to run after them".* 



Let us now pause and com.pare. In both legends a woman is killed 

 who has two children, and, as a result of her death, the two little ones 

 are condemned to flee, being pursued in the one case by the head of 

 their own mother, in the other by her slayer. 



^ The Carriers use moss as swaddling clothes. 



' The tail of that bird is red. Hence this passage is allegorical. 



' Op. cit. (Trans. Can. Inst., Vol. V, pp. 5-6). 



*F, G. Jackson, "The Great Frozen Land", pp. 210-11. 



