boas] ' COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 609 



the youngest boy does not want to arise, and the others leave him. Then he 

 makes a flood. The smoke of his fire is seen coming out of the water. The 

 flood retreats Mid Hill-Tout 1.205. 



69. Coyote's wife is a knot-hole Sts 5.23; Ntla Teit 2.44; NtlS Nicola 



Teit 3.316; Ntlc Hill-Tout 1.209; Ntla" 5.17; U 222; Lila 309: 

 Lilft 357; Sh 652. 



The Transformers meet Coyote, whose wife is a knot-hole. They make a 

 new wife for him out of cedar bark Sts. The Transformers throw Coyote's 

 wife into the fire. When he calls her, she answers from the fire, but he 

 refuses to pull her out Ntla. They meet Coyote at Teze'la. His wife is a 

 knot-hole, which they burn, Nicola, Ntl6; Lilo. The Transformer Cawa finds 

 that the Coyote people had knot-holes for their wives Sh 652. 



The Transformer brothers go to the house of a man who has for a wife a 

 block of wood with a bole in it. They throw the wood on the fire to keep 

 them warm. The man returns and finds his wife burned to ashes. In place 

 of the block wife the Transformers give him two beautiful women trans- 

 formed from cottonwood and alder logs. The former has white, the latter 

 red, hair, face, and body Ntlc. 



The Lillooet tell the same story independently. A man has a branch with 

 a knot-hole for his wife. A woman goes to the house, observes what is going 

 on, burns the branch, and becomes the wife of the man Lila 309. 



Instead of the knot-hole wives, they give to the Coyote two wives, — one 

 made of birch; the other, of alder Ntla; of cotton and alder: therefore the 

 one is white; the other red, Lytton, Ntla*; Nicola, Ntlfi; U. He makes women 

 of cottonwood and birch, Lytton, NtW; of cedar bark, Sts. The woman made 

 of alder wood is short; that of cottonwood, tall U; Lilo. The one had red 

 skin and dark hair; the other, white skin and light hair. Therefore the 

 Indians have some dark, some light complexions Lilo 357. 



This story may be related to that of the wooden wife (see p. 744). 



70. The Transformers teach men not to cut open their wives Ntla 



Hill-Tout 1.205; NtlJ Lytton, Teit 3.318; U 222; Sh 652; 

 Lil294; Cliil 11. 



Generally this story is told of Coyote. Whenever one of his wives is about 

 to give birth, he cuts her open. In one version (Ntla) it is told that he would 

 always marry his daughter when she was grown up, and kill her when her 

 child was to be born. The Transformers show Coyote how to attach bird- 

 cherry bark to the child. The bark breaks. Then they show him how to 

 take the neck sinew of the deer U; Ntlft. In Hill-Tout's version the man is 

 not identified with Coyote. In the Shuswap version the Transformer Ca'wa 

 teaches the Coyote people not to cut open their wives. The incident is 

 placed in the Thompson Indian country. The Lillooet and Chilcotin do 

 not identify the man with Coyote, but with the fisherman referred to in 

 No. 67. In the Lillooet version the reference to sinew is omitted, and the 

 man is transformed into stone. In the Chilcotin version the reference to 

 the bark and sinew is omitted, and the present procedure at childbirth is 

 instituted. With this story the incident in the StsEe'lis tale 5.23 (see No. 25 

 p. 601) should be compared (see also an Eskimo tale, p. 829). 



71. Xe'LxElEmas, the ancestor of the XEla'l, takes the form of a 



river monster. The Transformer faints, and is restored by 

 him Sts 5.28. 

 A few tales that do not belong to the Transformer cycle are em- 

 bodied in it in our versions from the Fraser Delta. 

 50633°— 31 eth— 16 39 



