BEAVER AND CANADIAN HISTORY 179 



men's faces. Some of the Indians themselves claim 

 descent from beaver, and there are many stories of 

 intermarriage between beavers and Indian women, 

 and of the women bearing beaver children. One of 

 the most famous of the Indian ritualistic medicine 

 bundles was known as the " beaver-bundle." The 

 owners of these curious assortments of objects were 

 considered to have special powers, and were the 

 weather men and almanac keepers. The origin of 

 the bundles varies greatly according to the different 

 tribes. One version only will be sufficient to give 

 an idea of the legend, and is taken from Wissler 

 and Duvall's Blackfoot Mythology,"^ 



Blood Version. 



" You say you have heard the story of Scabby- 

 Round-Robe ; but he did not first start the beaver- 

 medicine, because it is said in the story that there 

 was such a medicine before his time. The story 

 I now tell you is about the origin of beaver- 

 medicine. 



" Once there was a man and his wife camping 

 alone on the shore of a small lake. This man was 

 a great hunter, and had in his lodge skins of almost 

 every kind of bird and animal. Among them was 

 the skin of a white buffalo. As he was always 

 hunting, his wife was often left alone. One day a 

 beaver came out of the water and made love to her. 



* Published by the American Museum of Natural History in 

 the series of Anthropological Papers. 1908. 



n2 



