322 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



Tlieu the boy couoealcd himself near the trail and watched. He could see his 

 uncle's house in the distance and he could just see his little sister standinj; 

 near it. By and by she took a bucket and came running toward the place 

 where he was. When she came to the arrow which lie had left where it fell, she 

 stopped, took it up, and looked at it. She thought it was strange. Meanwhile 

 her brother watched her. Then the girl turned the arrow round in her hand 

 and said t<j herself, "This looks like my brother's arrow." Slie turned her head 

 around tnwai-d tlie bank and saw him. Then he called her to him. 



Now the boy asked his sister what she was doing at his uncle's, and she said, 

 " I am nursing my uncle's child." He asked her if her uncle was as bad as 

 before, and she said he was worse. He asked what she was doing in the house 

 at that very time, and she told him she was nursing the bal)y and cooking the 

 big hominy (Tunica, kKtijR'l:; French, (/nis <jrue). Then her brother told 

 her to go bade to the house and tease the child so that it would begin to cry. 

 After that she was to say to it, " Don't cry, for if you do I will put yon into the 

 big boiling pot." So the girl went back, took up the baby and began pinching it. 

 Then it cried out. Her uncle said, "What is the matter with the child to-day? 

 Is your brother coming home perhaps'/" He said this several times. Again, 

 while she was moving about near the pot she pinched tlie baby luitil it cried 

 out, and then said to it, " If you cry I will put you into this pot." " Well ! do it," 

 said her uncle. " Yon will not live until to-night." At that moment she threw 

 it into the boiling pot. 



Near the girl's uncle sat two men, and he said to them, " Come on quiclvly 

 with your clubs," for he wanted them to kill her. So one of the two seized a 

 paddle and the other a long, heavy wooden pestle used to beat rice L"'] jhkI they 

 ran after her. Her brother had told her to run toward tlie place where he was 

 stationed, so she was not afraid, but laughed as she went. After she had gone 

 a short distance she would stop, and saj', "Is this far enough?" and her uncle 

 would answer, " Go a little farther. It is too near. She will stink if you kill 

 her there." Slie did this several times, but each time he said, "No; go farther." 

 When she got close to the place where her brother was concealed she said, " Is 

 this far enough?" and now he said, "Yes." But just as the two pursuers wei'e 

 about to strike her there came a flash of lightning. Then the men tried to hide 

 their clubs behind them, but the paddle turned into the tail of a buzzard and 

 the wooden pestle into the tail of an opossum, into which the men themselves 

 were, resi)ectively, transfoi'med. 



After that the girl's brother called her and she went to him. He said to 

 her, " When I start to go above jump and seize me by the ankle and we will go 

 together." When he started, however, she missed his ankle and caught hold of 

 him too high up. Then he said, "Yon missed me. You will have to stay liere 

 on this earth, while I go above, but every winter you must come to me and 

 bring the leaf lard (network of fat over the ribs) of a deer. The little girl 

 turned into the woodcock (Tunica, no'kKrtawitcin; French, hdcossc de nuit). 

 Her brother became the thunder. Every New Year's morning just before day- 

 light this bird goes up into the air and you can hear her saying. "Tc'i tcl tcl tcl 

 trl tcl.'" The uncle remained where he was. 



The other version of this story supplements this in several impor- 

 tant particulars, but is essentially the same. According to it, the 

 dangerous beings in the canebrake were serpents, while the uncle 

 finally turned into the panther. Before the eagle gave his feathers 

 to the boy he fleAV over his uncle's town and by crushing pokeweed 

 induced the tnicle to believe his nephew was dead. 



