boas] COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY 727 



A Shuswap version contains only a quarrel between Beaver and 

 Porcupine. 



Both animals live together, and Porcupine eats Beaver's food. Therefore the latter 

 takes him up the mountains and ordains that he shall be a porcupine and live on moun- 

 tains. He himself takes up his abode in lakes Sh. 



The StsEe'lis tell a story of Skunk and Coyote that recalls some 

 features of the present tale, but I doubt if it belongs here Sts 5.44. 



7. The Deluge (p. 113) 



(2 versions: Ta 1.243; Ts 5.278) 



The people of TlEinlax'a'm are bad. They maltreat a trout, and then the Deluge 

 sets in. For twenty days the waters rise. They cover their canoes with elk skin. 

 The anchor-lines of many canoes break, and they drift away. Some people climb 

 the mountains and are drowned. For twenty days the earth is submerged. Then 

 the waters sink again, and the people settle in the places where they happen to be. 

 In this manner the crests are scattered over the whole coast Ts 1. During the 

 Deluge, mountains originate Ts 5. After the Flood, there is only clay, no trees, and 

 the people live in tents Ts 1. 



8. Sun and Moon 



(a) Origin of the Sun 



(11 versions: Ts 113; U 226; Sha Dawson 35; Sb6 738; Sh 5.5; Okanagon Hill-Tout 

 145; Kutenai; 1 Wish 47; Wasco 308) 



The chief in heaven has two sons and one daughter. The younger one ponders 

 about the continued darkness that existed in the beginning of the world. He goes 

 with his sister to gather pitch wood. They make a ring of the size of a face, to which 

 they tie pitch wood. He goes to the place of sunrise and walks up. He runs quickly, 

 because he is afraid that the pitch wood will not last until the evening. The people 

 request him to walk more slowly, and the sister offers to hold him. She catches up 

 with him at the middle of the sky and holds him. For this reason the sun stops a 

 little while in the middle >\( the ski/. The people are grateful. The chief scolds his 

 elder son. who lies down crying. He blackens one side of his face with charcoal, 

 and rises in the east. Before going he tells his slave to announce that he has risen. 

 Meanwhile the sun shines out of the smoke hole, sparks fly out of the mouth, shoot 

 out of the smoke hole, and become stars. They agree that the Sun shall walk about 

 in the daytime and the Moon at night. The Sun paints his face with his sister's red 

 ocher, which indicates fair weather. The girl goes westward, wrings out her garments, 

 and strikes the water with them. After returning home, she shakes the water out of 

 her garments over her father's (ire, uhich produces foy. The fog refreshes the people 

 after the heat of the day Ts. 



The essential element of the story is the transformation of two 

 persons into Sun and Moon — an idea that seems to be foreign to 

 other parts of the North Pacific coast. It appears, however, as a 

 prominent part of the Coyote tales of southeastern British Columbia. 



The people want to make a new Sun, and try Coyote, who tells about everything 

 he sees, and comes so near the earth that he is almost burned. Then the Red-Shafted 

 Flicker is put in his place, who lays an egg, which is transformed into the present-day 

 sun Sh6. In Sh 5.5 Coyote's tail is so long that it is still below the horizon when 



1 Verhandlungen tier Gesellschaft fiir Anthropologic. Ethuologie nnd Urgeschk-hte, vol. xxin (Berlin, 

 lS91).p. 164: Franz Boas, Kutenai Tales (Bulletin 59, Bureau of American Ethnology), pp. 49, 67. 



