EOTH] THE SPIRITS OF THE BUSH 219 



will kill him." So sajdng, he hung his poto [stone-club] ' over his arm, and went 

 out into the darkness. Being more or less drunk, he staggered along, and soon fell 

 dead asleep on the road just about the very spot where the Tiger, of which he had 

 been warned, used to cross. Tiger found him lying there motionless in the early 

 morning, felt and sniffpfl liim all over to see whether he was dead or alive, and finally 

 sat down on him. Tliis sobered the Indian, and Tiger, seeing that he was alive, 

 started pulling dowTi the bushes so as to clear a pathway along which he could drag 

 the body to his lair. Having thus cleared a few yards, the animal returned and slung 

 the man over his back so that the head and arms hung over one flank and the legs 

 over the other. This gave the man his opportunity, for as the animal carried him 

 along he caught hold of the bushes ^vith his teeth and hands and so impeded Tiger's 

 progress. Tlie Tiger thought that the pathway which he had cleared was still too 

 narrow, and according!}- replaced the burden on tlie ground and pulled down more 

 bushes. Th(? Indian thus fooled his captor some three or four times and, having 

 now collected his wits, watched for the tiger to sling him once more on his back. No 

 Booner had Tiger donB bo, than he struck the animal's head just above the ear with liis 

 Btone-tipped club, and thus killed him. Making sure that Tiger was quite dead, 

 he returned to the place where he had been drinking the night before, and told the 

 house-master what had happened. The latter would not believe that any drunken' 

 Indian coidd have killed so big a tiger, but when he went and saw with his own 

 eyes, he had to admit that his late guest had spoken truly. 



151. Ainoii";; the Ai-awaks tradition lias it that the old stone axes, 

 or wahUi-na-haro (Ht. ancienls-theii-ax), canio from a far distant 

 country, from a phice so far away that it took j^ears for those who 

 went in search of them to get back home again. Many a bizarre 

 exploit is toUl in connection with the search for these stone imple- 

 ments, in the same way that many a superstition is attached to the 

 weapon itself among several nations, both civilized and savage, else- 

 where. The very length of the sup[)osititioiis journey to be accom- 

 plished has given opportunity for fictions to be introduced with 

 regard to the rivers and seas that had to be crossed, and the animal 

 and plant life met with on the way. But beyond all the exaggera- 

 tion consequent on the well-known desire of the foreign-traveled 

 narrator to tell his stay-at-homo friends so much more than his real 

 experiences, and after making allowances for all the personal addi- 

 tions and embellishments that, in the absence of any written records, 

 must necessarily and pardonably have crept into the telling of the 

 story from one to another — there still flows through most of these 

 extraordinary adventures a sort of ethical undercurrent conveying 

 the lesson that disobedience to one's elders never remains unpunislu-d. 

 At the same time, I am not prepared to say whether the introduction 

 of this ethical element is purposeful or accidental on the part of the 

 old people, who usually relate these legends. The following exploits 

 and occurrences, as well as others which I can not detail here, are all 

 comprised in a story which I propose naming — 



1 Most of tlie clubs have attached to the handle a cotton ring through which the wrist is passed so as to 

 prevent the implement being dropped when lighting. 



