388 BUREAU OF AJVIERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 196 



The lightning flashed and the rain poured down. The Fire was 

 almost put out^ but when the rain stopped, there was still a little of 

 it left, and this he brought back to the people/ 



3— THE ORIGIN OF DEATH 



In the days when the red people were satisfied to use barks and 

 roots to cure whoever was ill, that is when the medicine was pm^e. 



If a person died, he had to go out West (Usv:hi:yi) ^; that was the 

 place for him. Every 3 or 4 years someone might die. Not many 

 persons died in those days, and there was not much serious illness. 



At that time it was the custom to have a Chief. The Thunders 

 and the Little People were living then, too. 



The dead people were living where the magicians lived. Whoever 

 died was dead for 7 days; then he came back to life. The Little 

 People had to go get his soul and bring it back. 



The first person who died was a girl. Two Little People took a 

 black box with them, and when they went out West, they found the 

 girl. When they found her, they asked her if she were willing to go 

 back with them. She said that she was willing. So they put her 

 into the coflfin which was sealed tightly. There was no air in it, 

 and there were no cracks in it. 



On the way back the Little People rested at the first gap. At 

 the second gap, as they were again resting, they heard the girl asking 

 them for a crack through which to breathe. (The Chief had told them 

 not to pay attention to anything that the girl said. She was a pretty 

 girl when she died, and old enough to marry.) 



While the two Little People were resting at the seventh gap, it 

 became necessary for one of them to go away for awhile. When he 

 had left, the other one made a hole in the coffin so that the girl might 

 breathe. As he did so, he felt a strong wind against his face. 



When the two Little People brought the coffin before the Chief, 

 it was empty. ^ 



This goes to show that if a taboo is broken, we cannot cure someone 

 who is ill. 



• This variant of the preceding myth to our knowledge is not found anywhere in the literature. It is 

 possible that the episode of the woman in the hollow tree is but the restoration of a detail that was lost in 

 other tellings of the obtaining-of-flre myth. 



« 'Night place,' the abode of the dead. 



' This is but a detail of "The Daughter of the Sun" myth found in Mooney (1900, pp. 252-254), but appar- 

 ently nowhere else. 



The going to the West by the Little People in order to bring back the soul of the dead girl is echoed In a 

 beautiful unpublished curing conjuration of the Oklahoma Cherokees which concludes thus: 



edhi:iyv nudadv:ne:lv nasgi:ya nidadv:ga nv:do 



ancient times then he did it to the same now let us (all) do it to (imp.) sun 



