828 TSIMSHIAN MYTHOLOGY. [eth. ins. 31 



her husband. The man, groping about, finds a lake. A bird (Mno'z) tells him that 

 his wife has plenty of meat. The bird tells him to dive three times in the lake- 

 Thus he recovers his eyesight. He kills his wife, and feeds the body to the bird. 

 From here the story goes on differently. He returns with his child to his people, 

 marries again, and lives alone with his new wife. He is killed in a fight against another 

 tribe, and his wife and child are captured. She is recovered by a party of Assiniboin, 

 Assiniboin 204. 



The version recorded from the Osage has no reference to the blindness. A boy lives 

 with his grandmother. When hunting, they find a deer. The boy shoots it, but his 

 grandmother says that the deer has run off. Another day when the boy is out hunting, 

 the woman takes some of the deer meat and cooks it with beans. In the evening, 

 when the boy eats of it, he says the beans smell like meat. Thus the boy discovers 

 that his grandmother had hidden the deer, Osage 32. 



On the northernmost of three streams running east lives a couple with their son 

 and daughter. The man loses his eyesight. The woman sees a buffalo passing. He 

 asks his- wife to direct the arrow, and he kills the buffalo. His wife says that he has 

 missed it. She pretends to go with the children to pick berries. The woman and her 

 children live on the meat. The same is repeated. When the blind man cries, an 

 owl alights near him and tells him what has happened. The owl gives him its eyes. 

 He drags his wife and children home, pretends to be glad that they have meat, while 

 his wife pretends to be glad that he has recovered his eyesight, and says that she was 

 about to give him meat. He kills her. Here the story takes up the fate of the 

 children, who are deserted, and are helped in a magical way by the Wolves. 

 Eventually the tribe comes on a visit, and the animals who protected them kill the 

 father of the children, Arapaho 286. 



Quite a number of Eskimo versions are on record. These are very 

 much alike. Rink records the Greenland version (Rink 99). 



A boy catches a ground-seal, and wants its skin for his own use, while his mother 

 wants it too. When he refuses, his mother bewitches him; and when he cuts a line, it 

 snaps, hits his eyes, and makes him blind. Then follows the incident of the shooting 

 of a polar bear which appears at the window of the house, told in the same manner as 

 in our story. While the mother and the boy's sister eat of the bear meat, he is given 

 shellfish. One day the sister leads him out inland, and he lies down by a lake while 

 she is gathering fuel. Then wild Geese appear, which brush his face with their wings 

 and drop excrement on his eyes. They tell him not to open his eyes until they dis- 

 appear. He obeys and regains his eyesight. Going back, he sees the bear skin out- 

 side, a pile of bones and the bear's paws in the house. He says to his mother that he 

 dreams of a bear skin, the bones, and the paws, and finally she discovers that he has 

 regained his eyesight, and she tries to regain his good will. The boy goes catching 

 white whales. His sister holds the line. They agree to kill their mother. One day 

 he induces his mother to help him. He ties a harpoon line to her body, harpoons a 

 large white whale, which pulls her into the water. She cries, "My ulo (woman's 

 knife), I cleaned away thy urine ! " She wanted to cut the line with her knife. The 

 mother is transformed into a narwhal. Then they repent, go inland, he kills a swan 

 for his sister, and later on reappears once to tell the people of their fate. 



The East Greenland version recorded by Holm (169) differs, in that a grandmother, 

 her grandson, and her granddaughter live together. The Geese strike his face with 

 their wings and tell him not to open his eyes until he gets home. The tradition con- 

 tinues, telling how the brother and the sister fall in with people that have no anus. 

 The sister marries among them. This ending is the same as that found in Cumberland 

 Sound . 



In the Smith Sound version recorded by Kroeber, a mother, her son, and her daugh- 

 ter live together. After he has killed the bear, he smells it. A Loon asks him to sit 



