DORSEX-s WANTON] THE BILOXI AND OFO LANGUAGES 45 



NOTES 



1. tcidikd^^ etc. The people did not know how to kill the Old 

 Woman, 



2. The Ancient of Rabbits took the form of an old woman. 



3. isa-yanJc ustuTil hande^ ''he was standing it up in the thicket" 

 (sic). How a gourd could be stood up is a puzzle. Better saj^, He 

 was placing it upon a thicket; 7na'^x=m.ax<.mafiki {ma) before a ]c. 

 A7ie=hmie. 



5. kiyaxtu {yihi). 



6. Hike hande, as the friends of the bad old woman did not know 

 the disguised Ancient of Rabbits, they thought that she (he) was the 

 cause of the death of the bad old woman; do"^ o", the meaning of dd^ 

 here is uncertain, a case of hapax legomeuon (?). 



7. Teye xye na, "let us kill her;" analogous to hiitlki xye na^ " let 

 us tell it;" aku xye na., ''let us feed him;" ataiinni xye na^ "let 

 us work," etc.; hapsuktu {2)suk). 



9. no'^ dede^ probably intended for no'^ de'dl. • 



11. ko-k, in full, ko-ka'^, "gourd, object of an action;" psukiyank^ 

 contracted from psiiki yaJ^-ka^. 



13. yinkd^ nankd^ni^ " he sat married ;" (1, married; 2, sit; 3, past 

 sign). The act of sitting beside the woman in the presence of the 

 chief and others constituted the public marriage ceremony. 



13-15. Therefore as the Ancient of Rabbits was crying out when 

 he saw the people, so does an ordinary rabbit go off crying out and 

 making pattering sounds with his feet when he sees human beings. 

 This appears to be the sense. 



TRANSLATION 



There was an Old Woman who killed many human beings. But 

 how to kill her, the people did not know. At length the Ancient of 

 Rabbits took the form of an old woman, going to the bouse of the bad 

 Old Woman, whom he killed. He cut off her head and placed it in a 

 gourd which he had cut in two. Then he placed the gourd containing 

 the head on a thicket, allowing the dead body to lie undisturbed. When 

 the people of the bad Old Woman arrived, they found her headless 

 body lying there. The Ancient of Rabbits sat there, crying out 

 because he thought that by thus crying he would disarm suspicion 

 that he was the slayer of the Old Woman. But as the disguised 

 Ancient of Rabbits was a stranger to the friends of the bad Old 

 Woman, they began to suspect him. They said, one to another, 

 "This one must have done it. Let us kill her !" They surrounded 

 the house [to prevent the escape of the Ancient of Rabbits]. But the 



