42 THE FRIENDLY PUMA 



shore. One morning, being asked how he had slept, he 

 complained that the frogs had wakened him by croaking 

 near his hammock. Some Indians, who had been 

 taking down the hammock, laughed, and, being asked 

 the reason, still laughing, said, ' Oh, " tiger " sleep with 

 old man last night/ They had satisfied themselves that 

 a puma had been lying just under the hammock, which 

 was slung low down, and it was probably the satisfied 

 purring of the puma, which had enjoyed the pleasure 

 of sleeping in the ' next berth' below a man, that had 

 wakened the occupant of the hammock. 



The beliefs to the credit of the puma, recorded both by 

 ordinary observers and by naturalists the earliest being 

 Don Felix d'Azara, and the latest Mr. Hudson fall 

 under three divisions. It is believed to be the friend 

 of man : the Spanish Indians call it amigo del Christiano, 

 a nice distinction which cannot be conceded, because 

 the Indians of North California considered the puma a 

 friendly god before the missionaries arrived, and would 

 not molest it. It was also alleged to protect men from 

 other wild animals, particularly from the jaguar, to 

 attack this stronger and more ferocious animal and 

 drive it away, and under no provocation to attack man 

 himself. All three stories so much resemble the 

 medieval fictions about animals, especially the ' feud ' 

 between the puma and the jaguar, which is exactly 

 analogous to the myths of the feud between the 



